Here be Monsters

by Christopher Stasheff

  “I am not sure our people would be the tougher meal,” Geoffrey said judiciously, “but they would cost the monsters many lives, I agree.”

  “Many lives!” Quicksilver protested. “They will run in panic at first sight of the creatures!”

  “Only the first time they see them,” Geoffrey reminded her, “and perhaps not even then, if we warn them well enough ahead of time.”

  “And of course,” Allouette said, “any who are made of witch-moss shall melt even as they advance.” She caught Gregory’s hand again. “There are some among us who can see to that.”

  “What of those who are flesh and blood?” Cordelia asked. “Shall we run in fright when we see them?”

  “There is not a one of us is not well braced for horrors now,” Quicksilver opined. “Terrified we may be, but we shall attack all the harder for that.”

  “Are we agreed, then?” Alain looked around at the little group.

  They all nodded their heads, saying, “Aye.”

  “Take the fight to the enemy.” Quicksilver said.

  “Enough, then.” Geoffrey stood up. “We ride!”

  They had to camp for the night—in separate tents, and what each of the three couples did or did not do was nobody else’s business, especially if, as Alain had so far insisted, he and Cordelia had agreed to wait for the more intense delights until they were properly wedded—and royal weddings take a long time to plan and execute. But they were up before the first gray light began to filter into the darkness and reached the riverbank when the sky was bright and the sun still only a rosy forethought in the east. Sure enough, mist hovered above the water, filling the banks of the river and spilling over.

  “I had not thought there would be so much!” Cordelia looked to left and to right, seeing the fog stretch out to the limit of sight on either hand. “Where within this nebulous kingdom is their portal?”

  “Yonder.” Allouette pointed, though her eyes had the faraway look of one who listened more with her mind than with her ears. They had left the cart behind, and she was riding the little mare.

  “Yonder it is,” said Alain, and turned his horse upstream. Cordelia hurried to catch up with him and the others fell in behind. She, too, began to look abstracted, as did her brothers, concentrating on the thoughts that seemed to stem from someplace upstream. Quicksilver glanced at them, nettled, for her own telepathy had not yet developed to be able to detect what they did.

  Then their faces began to twist with disgust and horror, and she no longer envied them.

  Soon after, the thoughts hit her with an impact that made her shudder; she recoiled from the intensity of the malevolence. She tried to assure herself that the bloodlust and longing to drink emotions of fear and agony were only her interpretation of alien concepts, but she didn’t believe it for a minute.

  “Yonder.” Allouette halted the mare in the midst of a river meadow and pointed toward a knot of mist that was floating closer and closer to shore.

  Geoffrey’s lips stretched back from his teeth in a wolfish grin as he drew his sword and said, “Set on, and let them drink no emotions of ours but anger and ferocity!”

  “Not even that!” Gregory cried, alarmed. “Give them any emotion, brother, and they have a hold on you already!”

  Geoffrey turned, frowning. “Why, how is that?”

  “Fear begets anger,” Gregory counseled. “So does hurt—and ferocity is first cousin to bloodlust. Nay, brother, if we would defeat this crew, we must march against them with tranquil minds and hearts.”

  Geoffrey glowered at him, unable to refute the idea.

  “There is truth in what he says,” Alain said quietly. “Our master of arms taught us that anger slows the arm of a swordsman.” He looked around at his companions. “Take a few minutes, friends, to let your emotions ebb and peace of heart and calmness of soul replace them.”

  With varying degrees of unwillingness, they complied; they all knew the basic techniques of meditation. Slowly, though, even Geoffrey and Quicksilver felt their excitement fade into calm self-assurance, and something more—all six began to be aware of a bond between them, a tie of kinship, for Cordelia, Geoffrey, and Gregory were siblings, and through them Allouette and Quicksilver were quickly becoming sisters, more thoroughly than the mere title of in-law which they would soon gain, and Alain, too, was becoming their brother-in-law in more than name.

  Finally Alain looked up with a sunny smile, glanced from one to another and said, “Sisters and brothers, let us go forth to meet our enemy.”

  They smiled their agreement and turned to follow Geoffrey into the knot of mist.

  They felt terror clawing its way up inside as their horses balked at the riverbank; they urged the beasts forward nonetheless. Geoffrey’s horse slipped down on one forehoof and neighed in protest, then stopped in surprise. He spoke softly, urging the stallion forward, and the warhorse stepped into the mist, nostrils flaring.

  Seeing that nothing had misfallen the first horse, the others followed, and their riders with them, trying to ignore the fear that chilled them. They drew their swords—except for Cordelia and Allouette, who held only daggers but readied their most powerful thought-blasts, even as they resolved to always bear longer blades in the future.

  The mist closed about them, swirling and opaque—but carrying sound all the more quickly for its thickness: a chittering, a grumbling, a growling, a sucking, and a rumbling. The riders pushed forward, swords raised, suspense stretching razor-thin—then found the mist clearing as their horses stepped onto a gravelly beach. They stopped a minute, staring in wonder at the blasted landscape before them—gravel stretching away to become hard-packed earth, sere and dry, to left and right—but before them stood a cliff face with a cavemouth yawning lightless.

  Flanking it on either side were the afanc, the Boneless, the barguest, and Big Ears and, behind them, the huge shambling figures of two ogres, male and female.

  “I see it now!” Gregory cried. “Those we melted were of witch-moss, but they were copies of real creatures who dwell within this land!”

  “Say ‘monsters’ as you intended,” the Big Ears purred, “for we are every bit as perilous as you thought—and you shall not melt us here, for we are flesh and blood!”

  “Where is ‘here’?” Alain asked.

  Quicksilver, Cordelia, and Geoffrey stared at him, appalled that he would parley—but Gregory and Allouette fought smiles, recognizing the wisdom of delay while they pondered their course of action.

  “You are in the land of Trahison,” the giant cat told them, “before the stronghold of the sorcerer Zonploka. Lay down your weapons and give up all thoughts of struggle, for Zonploka cannot be beaten.”

  “His minions could be,” Alain said, looking grave but fearless. “We know, for we bested copies of some of you, and”—looking directly into Big Ears’ slitted pupils—“in some cases, it seems, the originals.”

  “Only on your ground,” the creature spat. “Now, though, you are on ours!”

  “I doubt that you are any stronger for it,” said Allouette, “since the life has been leached from this land. It has no more strength to lend you.”

  “Strength enough, foolish morsel, as you shall soon discover!”

  “ ‘Morsel’?” Cordelia frowned. “Do you not mean ‘mortal’?”

  “I mean what I say!” The cat arched its back and spat, “Death to the weaklings!”

  Geoffrey and Gregory each exchanged a glance with their fiancées, then disappeared with a double bang, echoed off the cliff face a second later by another double bang.

  “See how your brave young men desert you!” Big Ears sneered.

  But the women and the prince only glared defiance, for they saw Geoffrey and Gregory clinging to the cliff face one-handed just behind the ogres’ heads, their swords swinging high.

  “Lie down,” Big Ears advised, “so that your deaths may be quick!” Then it sprang.

  Both women leaped aside. Big Ears twisted in midair trying to fol
low first one, then the other, and landed in an ungraceful sprawl with a yowl of outrage. It spun toward Quicksilver—but the warrior had leaped back in and thrust her sword deep into the creature’s maw. Big Ears screamed with pain and Quicksilver yanked her hand back out; her blade cleared the creature’s fangs by an inch as its jaws clashed shut, leaking blood.

  The afanc chittered with maddened passion and charged toward Quicksilver—but Cordelia glared at it, and its teeth crumbled to powder even as it opened its jaws to bite the warrior. It spun with a shriek of rage, swinging its huge flat tail like a club. It hit Quicksilver with a smack, sending her flying.

  Big Ears yowled and leaped—but only a yard; weakened, it could only plod toward the fallen woman as the afanc reared, walking forward on its haunches, thick sharp claws reaching out for Cordelia. The barguest barked furiously and charged, racing Big Ears for Quicksilver. The giant cat spun, spitting, and raked the dog’s side with razor-sharp claws. The barguest yelped with pain but buried its fangs in Big Ears’s throat. The cat brought up its rear legs to rip at the dog’s stomach.

  Quicksilver pushed herself upright, shaking her head to clear it.

  The Boneless suddenly shot toward Allouette on a chute of slime, pseudopods growing out of its mass to reach for her. Allouette darted toward Quicksilver and her sword, but the Boneless swerved to follow her.

  Alain darted in to stab the giant beaver in the belly.

  “Alain, no!” Cordelia cried and raced forward just as Alain leaped back; the two collided and fell in a graceless heap. Doubled over with pain and only able to hiss its rage, the afanc nevertheless slashed at them with its claws before it toppled and fell dead upon them.

  The ogres, seeing three of their number fallen, roared and shambled forward—but heavy weights hit their necks and shoulders; they stumbled and fell, and Geoffrey and Gregory leaped clear just in time to keep from being pinned beneath them.

  Alain heaved with all his might, managing to push himself to his hands and knees, levering the bulk of the dead afanc a foot off the ground. “Quickly, my love,” he groaned, “roll clear!”

  Cordelia did, then scrambled upright, shook her head to clear it, and stared at the dead afanc. The carcass lifted itself six more inches of its own accord, on a cushion of her thoughts. “Now you,” she said, teeth gritted with strain. “Out.”

  Bellowing with fury, the ogres pushed themselves up—just enough for the two young men to lunge, swords piercing hearts. They leaped back, but not quickly enough; huge fists swung, slamming into them and knocking them together. They fell but shoved against each other even as they did, pushing themselves tottering to their feet—and saw the ogres’ hands falling, their eyes glazing, then their bodies slamming onto the rocky ground like fallen trees. Red stains spread out from each.

  Gregory stared, awed by what he had done.

  “Forget that female and see to your own!” Geoffrey cried.

  Gregory’s head snapped up; he saw Geoffrey running toward Quicksilver who, with Allouette beside her, stood facing a huge, white, gelatinous mound. With a cry of horror, he dashed toward the Boneless.

  Then he skidded to a stop, staring at the creature’s bottom edge as it inched forward over the still-kicking corpses of barguest and giant cat.

  “Walk warily,” Allouette advised him. “The thing absorbs anything it touches.”

  Gregory gave it a wide berth indeed as he went to embrace his fiancée.

  “Are you well?” Geoffrey demanded of Alain and Cordelia, who were holding each other up. They blinked, dazed, and nodded. Geoffrey grunted with satisfaction and dashed past them to Quicksilver.

  “I am well, doughty warrior,” she assured him. He skidded to a stop and hugged her to him left-handed, his right hand still holding his sword on guard—as was hers.

  Gregory had his arm around Allouette’s waist as they backed away from the Boneless. “Think you there is any reason to interrupt its meal?”

  “Not really,” she answered, “though it will bear watching. Still, I see no reason to stop it from finishing what we have begun.”

  “Someone must clear away the dead,” Gregory agreed, but he shuddered at the manner in which it was being done. Then he realized that Allouette was trembling, too, and turned to embrace her. She let herself go limp in his arms, let the trembling take hold of her, then gradually slacken and cease. Finally she looked up, to see him beaming down at her with pride. She blinked, nonplussed, then straightened a little, bringing her face closer to his; their lips touched in a kiss, touched and stayed.

  Finally the shaking stopped and the three couples withdrew from kissing and turned to blink at one anther in amazement. Alain put words to it. “We are alive,” he said in tones of wonder.

  “And not much the worse for wear,” Quicksilver agreed.

  “Cold Iron seems to weaken these creatures as badly as it did their witch-moss doubles,” Gregory concluded.

  “It must indeed,” Cordelia said, “for how else could six quite human people prevail against such ferocious monsters?”

  “There is, then, some reason to feel we may match wits with their master.” Alain turned somberly to the cavemouth. “Let us see what lies within.”

  “Aye, let us,” Cordelia agreed.

  Hands linked and gaining strength from one another, they detoured carefully around the Boneless, still intent on its hideous meal, and stepped into the gloom of the rocky portal. The others followed with similar caution.

  The rocky walls narrowed as they went farther in until they found themselves in a twisting downward passage. The first twist cut off the light.

  “Hold, I pray you.” Cordelia pulled Alain to a stop, held her palm out flat, and thought hard of racing molecules. A dot glowed to life above her palm, glowed and grew till it was a large rotating globe, casting light all about them.

  Alain sucked in his breath. “Lady, you shall never cease to amaze me!”

  “I hope that shall prove true, sir,” she said with a heavy-lidded smile, then turned to start walking downward again. “Let us see what lies below.”

  Step by step they traced the downward spiral, wary of booby traps and enemies, but nothing stayed them. Tension mounted as they crept farther and farther below, tighter and tighter until Allouette thought she would scream.

  Suddenly, though, the tunnel opened out into a cavern, pillared with stalagmites and stalactites joined, lit by lamps hammered into the walls—jets, rather, tapping into fissures of natural gas. They gave a yellow glow to the huge chamber, focusing on the center—a dais holding a giant chair, almost a throne. Within it sat a tall, skinny, horse-faced man clad in blood-red robes with a high pointed hat, bright vindictive eyes under lowering brows, an aquiline nose, and a smile of smug satisfaction.

  “Welcome to my parlor,” the sorcerer purred. “Call me Zonploka.”

  CHAPTER

  16

  “You would have us call you Zonploka?” Cordelia asked. “Then it is not your real name. Are you afraid we will use it to work magic against you?”

  Zonploka only answered, “Be sure you shall not leave this cave alive.”

  “I am not sure of it at all.” Geoffrey fondled the hilt of his sword. “Your creatures seem to be quite as allergic to Cold Iron as the spirits of our world. Wherefore, though, have you sent them among us?”

  “Why, to weaken you for the assault of my armies,” Zonploka answered, still grinning. “These you have met are only a few of my host. There are hundreds of monsters, and after them shall come thousands of soldiers, each eager for loot, for the joys of conquest, and for land that he may rule to his own liking—which, I assure you, shall not be yours.”

  “They shall not come,” Alain said, frowning, “for there was more to the assault of your vanguard than terrorizing the people, was there not? You may not enter unless we invite you.”

  “True,” said Zonploka, “but some fool of a peasant is bound to finish the Taghairm as the dreams I’ve sent have shown him—and he will do
that soon, for you few who have realized my stratagem have come here into my stronghold and shall not go out again!” He threw back his head and laughed.

  The companions exchanged a glance, saw the anger and grim resolution in one another’s eyes, and knew that the sorcerer was wrong—that they would go back into their own world no matter how many men and monsters Zonploka sent to stop them. Still, it was folly to let an enemy know their strength, so Alain turned back to the sorcerer and asked, “What will you do once the portal is open to you?”

  “Why, send my vanguard of monsters and my army of cavalry and footmen, of course,” Zonploka said, grinning. “They shall despoil the land even as you have said—and rule it all according to my dictates. I shall be king of your land even as I am king of my own!”

  “King of stony desert and waterless wasteland,” Geoffrey said, flint-faced, “king of a land with no life. How came your domain to be so sterile, sorcerer?”

  Zonploka only grinned the wider, toying with his wand. “It is mute testimony to my power, foolish child.”

  “Mute indeed.” Allouette’s voice shook with anger. “No wonder you want our world, for you have blasted your own! What sustains this army of which you speak? What do they eat and drink?”

  “The last of the cattle who used to live here, of course.” Zonploka’s grin turned feral. “Flesh for food and blood for drink—but they are few who are left, and growing fewer.”

  “When you say ‘cattle,’ do you speak of cows or of people?” Cordelia demanded, trying to throttle her rage.

  “Yes,” Zonploka answered her, “for once they are conquered, there is no difference. All are our beasts of burden and our meat.”

  “And thus shall Gramarye be within months of their coming,” Gregory said grimly.

  “Why?” Alain demanded. “Why would you wreak such devastation, allowing your monsters to come out into Gramarye and destroy everything they find? By what right would you slay a whole land?”