Here be Monsters

by Christopher Stasheff

  “We have lost our way,” Quicksilver ground out. “We have turned back toward him unwittingly! Pull right rein, ladies, right uphill again!”

  “I do,” Allouette said, her voice shaking, “but my mare will not answer! She tries to turn her head back toward him, and it is all I can do to hold her course straight ahead!”

  “She, too, hears calls of love,” Quicksilver groaned, “the mating calls of a most desirable stallion!”

  “But none of our mares are in heat!” Cordelia protested.

  “They are now, and Heaven help me, but I know how they feel! If we cannot turn them away, at least hold them on course!”

  So across the slope of the little valley they rode, around and around its bowl in a circle with Geoffrey/Alain/Gregory/ the stallion at its center, turning to hold them with his gaze, calling out in a tone that turned them to jelly, “The grass dies when you cease to tread upon it, the leaves fall in sorrow, the very rivers cease to flow and lie stagnant and fetid through absence of the life that you lend them! Oh, come back, come back, for all of nature shall grow dry and sere without you!”

  “Come back, and when he is done with us, something in us will die,” Quicksilver groaned, “and that something is that which enables us to love our mates! Hold fast, ladies! Keep riding!”

  “Aye, do,” cried a shrill voice.

  Her mare tugged at the reins, trying to turn downhill to the magical stallion, but a bird fell from the sky, fluttering madly right in front of the horse’s eyes, and the mare shied away, whinnying its shock. Quicksilver fought to turn its head back uphill and succeeded in keeping the poor beast going straight ahead, across the slope. “Many thanks to that bird! But where did it come from?”

  “Krawk! To advise you and your companions, chief of warriors!” The bird landed between the mare’s ears. The horse tossed her head; the bird fluttered up briefly, then settled back. “Even a birdbrain could see that you need wise counsel to avoid that fellow below.”

  Blinking, Quicksilver saw that the winged one was the magpie who had been watching them from the tree. “We have seen for ourselves that we need to avoid him!”

  “Aye, but not how or why,” said the magpie.

  “Tell us, I prithee!” Allouette begged. “What manner of creature is this, who can be all three of our fiancés at once?”

  “A creature of faerie,” the magpie answered, “for he is in truth a ganconer!”

  Allouette and Cordelia gasped, but Quicksilver frowned. “What is a ganconer?”

  “A cozener—a seducer.” The magpie turned its head to the side, letting its beak loll open so that it seemed to smile. “Country maids call him the love-talker and full many of them has he persuaded to his bed, to their lifelong sorrow!”

  “By lies and deceptions?” Quicksilver felt the anger begin to grow.

  “By that, and some strange attraction he has over females who are so foolish as to bear their chicks inside them instead of laying eggs like decent folk,” the bird answered.

  “A ganconer—a love-talker!” Cordelia said with heart-rending dismay. She spun toward the young man in anger. “How many dairymaids and shepherdesses have you come upon alone and seduced, heartbreaker? How many will never know joy again or be able to truly love a living man because of your honeyed words and burning caresses?”

  “Those caresses bring joy unbounded,” Alain said to her, “and if no lass could delight in a mortal man after knowing me, it is because I have shown her such heights of ecstasy as no village swain could approach. Nay, come with me, lie with me, and you will know that your whole life has been worth this one brief hour with me!”

  “And my whole life would have been mortgaged for those brief minutes!” Anger came to Cordelia’s rescue. “How many women have you despoiled, how many lives ruined? But you have come upon bad luck today, love-talker, for you have encountered not one woman alone, but three allied in purpose!”

  “And that purpose is now to avenge our sisters!” Memory curved Allouette’s hands into claws, memory of careless love; it brought those talons up to pounce upon the imposter in rage.

  “Nay, would you turn upon me?” Gregory began to climb the hill toward her, arms still open and raised to embrace. To caress, some traitorous inner voice said, and she forced herself to look away as her anger melted in the heat of desire his voice kindled by its very intimacy as it came nearer and nearer.

  Quicksilver trembled as Geoffrey came toward her, reaching up for her, pleading, “Put up thy sword, I beseech thee, sweeting, for naught should come between us.”

  “Geoffrey would meet steel with steel.” Quicksilver tried to back her horse away, but the mare would not budge. “At the very least he would meet my blade with a stout staff and would knock the sword from my hand if he could.” But some irresistible force dragged at her head, trying to turn her face toward him, for every fiber of her being cried out for her love. She fought the compulsion but it made her head turn nonetheless, slowly toward him, though her inner voice fairly shouted in alarm, clamoring, Danger! Get away from him! Do not let him come near, or you will never be able to love a true man again!

  CHAPTER

  8

  As Quicksilver’s head turned, though, the magpie came once again within her sight—but this time, its beak wasn’t open in laughter; it was holding two large pellets. It hopped onto her wrist and dropped them in her palm. “Wool, damsel! Knots of wool pecked from the backs of the finest sheep! Stop your ears with it, for when you can no longer hear the love-talker, he will lose power over you and you will be free to escape him!”

  With dragging hands, Quicksilver pushed the earplugs in—and the ganconer’s voice dropped to a wobbling drone, scarcely audible at all through the pounding of her pulse.

  The magpie grinned again, then was off in a burst of wings. In seconds it was back, hovering before Cordelia. Quicksilver turned to call, “Take the pellets and use them, for they will free us!”

  The ganconer turned to Cordelia, beseeching, pleading, but she pushed the plugs into her ears and relief flooded her face. By that time the magpie was fluttering in front of Allouette, who took the plugs, applied them, and almost sagged as the pull on her lessened to a fraction of what it had been. She still burned for Gregory’s touch, but the buzzing beneath the thudding of her pulse was certainly not his voice, and she was able to lean forward to cover her horse’s ears so that it could follow Cordelia’s uphill, plodding after Quicksilver and her mount, ears similarly muffled.

  Behind them, a voice rose in an inhuman wail of loss and regret—and anger. The women and their mares ignored it, though, and rode on up the side of the bowl. They didn’t even stop when they came to the valley’s rim but rode on, out of the little valley so pretty and so sterile, and on into a high forest of pines and hemlocks.

  Finally Quicksilver reined in and took the plugs from her ears. She looked about her but saw no wings. Nonetheless, she called out, “Many thanks, O Magpie! We shall owe you dearly for this!”

  Cordelia was staring at the two little lumps in her hand and saying in desolate tones, “I feel as though I shall never see Alain again.”

  “Nor I Gregory.” Tears ran down Allouette’s cheeks.

  “And I feel as though Geoffrey is lost to me forever,” Quicksilver said, “but I know it is only the aftermath of the boiling emotions that monster stirred in us. Let us ride on, ladies, for our true loves still await us, and now more than ever must we catch them up!”

  “Oh, for Alain to catch me up in his arms,” Cordelia groaned.

  “Then you must find those arms first! Ladies, let us ride!”

  “Wait! Before we do. . .” Allouette rode up, her horse nose to nose with Quicksilver’s. Her face was stiff, but she forced the words out. “I owe you a great apology. No matter the provocation, it was most despicable of me to steal your sword.”

  Quicksilver’s face softened. “And most wrong of me to insult you for your past deeds, when you have proved so very loyal to your love—and to
us.” She reached out to catch Allouette’s hand briefly. “Ride with me, damsel, for I daresay we shall learn to trust one another yet!”

  “We had best do so,” Cordelia said with a smile, “for we shall all be sisters-in-law, shall we not?”

  “We shall most certainly,” Quicksilver agreed, “so we had best learn to be also sisters in arms. Come, ladies, away, for our grooms await—though they know it not.”

  “We ride!” Allouette gave her a smile that, for a few brief moments, had nothing of suspicion or guilt in it.

  So, side by side, they rode on through the woods, no longer in the broad walled lane but following a deer trail that they trusted much more.

  Geoffrey, Alain, and Gregory rode through level ground that seemed flat as a board all the way to the horizon, where a few twisted trees stretched skeleton branches. On every side, dried bracken spread over the earth as far as they could see.

  “What manner of place is this, dead as late autumn?” Alain asked, shivering. “ ’Tis nearly summer!”

  “Ask, rather, what power could have blasted it so,” Geoffrey answered somberly. He turned to his younger brother. “What say you, O Scholar?”

  “It reeks of sorcery,” Gregory said, wrinkling his nose, “or of psi power misused, if you prefer to call it that.”

  “How would a warlock dry out a whole plain?” Alain asked. “How could he drain the water from it?”

  “Or withhold it from coming in,” Geoffrey offered. “Stop up the fountains with rockfalls and dam the streams.”

  They were all quiet for a few minutes, thinking of the afanc. The horses plodded on and crested a rise that was so gradual it hadn’t shown—but Gregory looked up in surprise and said, “Houses!”

  “Cottages, at least.” Geoffrey frowned. “How could such level ground hide them so?”

  They found out as they came to the crest. Below them, the land fell away into a small depression. Down its center ran a dry creek bed. A dozen yards from its banks stood a circle of thatch-roofed cottages.

  Alain frowned. “This is wrong. I see not a cat nor a dog, certainly none of the sheep who should be grazing on this common—and not a living soul!”

  “Can this land have been dry long enough to drive the people away?” Geoffrey asked, frowning.

  “Surely not,” said Gregory, “when the land beyond this plain is green with spring.”

  “Spring . . .” Geoffrey lifted his head with a faraway gaze. “Could it have lain thus throughout the winter?”

  “Perhaps, brother,” said Gregory, “but the people would have melted snow for drink. They have not trooped away because of drought, not yet!”

  “What else could have chased them?” Alain asked, perplexed.

  A warbling howl answered him, predators hooting with bloodlust and delight.

  The three companions spun about and saw dozens of pale-skinned, barelegged little monsters in hooded tunics spilling over the roofs of the cottages toward them, brandishing stone-bladed knives and spears. Under the cowls of their tunics their faces looked more like those of lizards than of humans. They were surely no more than two feet high, but their eyes glittered with the pleasure of the chase when the hunter knows that he is far stronger than the quarry.

  “Hobyahs!” Gregory cried, paling.

  “Alain, look behind us!” Geoffrey lugged out his sword.

  Alain drew, too, wheeling his horse about. “More of them!”

  “And to left and to right!” Gregory whisked his own blade out of the scabbard. “We are surrounded!”

  With a gloating massed shriek, the hobyahs shot toward the companions on short little legs that moved so fast they were a blur.

  “Back to back!” Geoffrey cried, and the three men swung their horses to form a triangle, heads facing outward. The howling horde descended upon them, and the men began slashing with their swords.

  “Cold Iron!” the front row of hobyahs shrieked, and leaped back. Those behind them slammed into them, and in moments, they mounded up into a squirming ring surrounding the three warriors.

  Alain took advantage of the lull to cry, “We have done you no harm! Why do you attack us?”

  “Why, because you are meat!” cried half a dozen voices, and the others took it up in a chant: “Meat! Meat! Meat! Meat!” One or two plucked up their courage enough to leap forward.

  Geoffrey sent them shying away with a slash of his blade. “We are meat with Cold Iron in our hands! Do you wish to warm it with your blood?”

  “No, with yours!” a hobyah called back, and his comrades hooted approval.

  “Take them apart!” Alain hissed at the warlock and the wizard, then raised his voice to call out again: “Surely you are not so vicious! Would you slay innocent people only from your hunger?”

  “Why not?” called a dozen voices, and a single one answered their own question: “We ate all the villagers, didn’t we?”

  “Dissolve them!” Alain hissed.

  “We do our best.” Geoffrey’s face was as strain-taut as Gregory’s. “Some other mind holds them in form!”

  Alain went back to distractions. “Assuredly you did not eat so many good and innocent folk!”

  “Good indeed!’ cried a hobyah. “Delicious, too!”

  “Meat! Meat! Meat! Meat!” the whole horde chanted again, and began to move in on the companions.

  Alain sliced at the nearest; it squealed and pulled back. Gregory and Geoffrey did the same on their own sides. The prince called, “There is no need to spill your blood on our swords!”

  “No, but there is need to spill yours for our drink!” yet another hobyah cried, and to its fellows, “Seize them! Carry them off! They are meaty fellows and should last us two days!”

  “Fasting is good for the soul,” Geoffrey told them, whirling his sword for punctuation. “Hunger is better than death.”

  “Why do we linger?” one more hobyah called to its mates. “We can bury them beneath our mass! No matter how they slice and slash, some of us will tear their flesh!”

  “But many of you will die, too!” Alain called. “Who will it be?” With lightning speed, he snatched up a hobyah and held it squirming and squealing before its mates. “Do you wish to be the first to die, little one?”

  “You could not be so cruel!” the minimonster protested.

  “Would you be any less so?” Alain tossed it back into the mob. “Which shall be next? Who shall be first to spit himself on my sword?”

  “I have never seen your like in this land before!” cried Geoffrey. “From where did you come?”

  “Where did your kind?” a hobyah retorted. “We know only that we awoke to life in hunger, and awaken so each morning!”

  “Know you no word of magic that brought you to be?” Gregory asked.

  “No, and if we did, we would certainly not tell our quarry!” yet one more hobyah answered. “But we do know a word to make you freeze with fear. Scream it, fellows!”

  The whole mob answered with a massed shout: “Zonploka! Zonploka! Zonploka!”

  “Somehow that wakes no terror in my breast,” Alain called back.

  But the shouting drowned out his voice as the knee-high horde began to tumble off roofs and advance on them again, much more slowly but also inexorably, chanting louder and louder, “Zonploka! Zonploka! Zonploka!” as though the word itself gave them power.

  “What is a zonploka?” Gregory asked.

  “What matter?” Geoffrey braced himself for the onslaught.

  “It matters greatly,” Gregory answered, “for if they can gain power through it, they can lose it, too.” He raised his voice and, in the pauses between the hobyahs’ shouts, gave a bellow of his own: “Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz!”

  The throng of miniatures fell silent, frowning in puzzlement. “What is an akolpnoz?” one demanded.

  “It is the opposite of a zonploka,” Gregory called back, “and will cancel its power! With me, companions! Akolpnoz!”

  “Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz!” Alain a
nd Geoffrey chanted with him.

  “Now, stop that!” one hobyah said peevishly, and the others stopped chanting to listen. “It won’t work anyway!”

  “If not, then why have you stopped your song?” Gregory countered. “Akolpnoz!”

  “Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz!” his companions chanted with him.

  “Don’t listen!” A hobyah clapped his hands over his ears. “It might work as they say!”

  All its mates covered their ears too—and the chanting fell into disarray, becoming a jumble of noise. The three companions raised their unified voice against it: “Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz!”

  The hobyahs could no longer hear one another to decide what they should do. They began to mill about uncertainly, still shouting out their nonsense word.

  “Now!” Alain cried, and advanced slashing about him, still chanting, “Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz! Akolpnoz!”

  The hobyahs joined together again—in a massed shriek. Several of them leaped to scramble up over a rooftop and away. Several more saw them and turned to run—and in a minute, the whole horde had turned to flee, scrambling and howling away.

  Alain let his sword fall to his side, beginning to shake. “By my troth, that was a near thing!”

  “And you a most excellent commander!” Geoffrey said, eyes wide. “Whatever possessed you, Alain? I have never known you to act so decisively!”

  The prince managed a smile. “No one else knew what to do, Geoffrey, so I did what came to me—any action was better than none. As it developed, the situation required only good judgment, for both strong arms and keen intelligence did little good.”

  Geoffrey nodded. “And that is what makes for a king, though intelligence and strength of arms help greatly—and your justice must be tempered by mercy.”

  “But I shall have Cordelia for compassion, insight, and intelligence, and my brother Diarmid for genius with Gregory to aid him—and yourself and Quicksilver for generals.” Alain gave him a shaky grin. “If I can evoke your support, that is.”