by Eric Flint
But I did make the attempt to present myself in a different perspective. And so, as our campfire burned a spot of light in the darkness, I spoke quietly of my lifelong fascination with Grotum. Begun, to be sure, from a child's fairy tales. But, as I grew older, I came to understand the centrality of Grotum to all the world's art and literature. This reality was known to all students of the arts, and often commented on by the scholars—some with admiration, most with rueful asperity, some even with despair. But directly or indirectly, Grotum acted like a great dark planet, which drew into its orbit all the brighter but smaller orbs.
She said nothing, but she listened to me. Rather intently, I think. When I was done, she did not break her silence. But I thought—or so I hoped—that there was less tension in the set of her shoulders.
"We'd best get some sleep," she said. Then, as she was rolling up in her blanket, a little chuckle, and she added: "You'll need to be well rested tomorrow, Benvenuti, so your whip hand doesn't waver. But I owe you for the draymasters, so I'll give you one scratch if you cut it too fine. One only, mind! Or it's the gutting blade."
* * *
It took us two days to get through the Goimric countryside to the edge of the forest. The trip was uneventful, save for one occasion late in the afternoon of the second day, when we were overtaken by a platoon of cavalry. They came galloping up the road behind us, waving their sabers and hallooing war cries. But it became obvious that they were not interested in us. The platoon charged right by without so much as a glance in our direction. One of the cavalrymen, however, fell off his horse as he tried to ride around the cart. He landed in the road with a great thump.
I hopped off and went over to him. He was sitting up, shaking his head. I leaned over and helped him to his feet.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"Guess so," he muttered. He looked around for his horse. The nag was off in a field some thirty yards distant. The soldier pursed his lips and whistled. The nag looked at him, defecated, and trotted away.
"Damn the beast!" snarled the soldier. "Now I'll have to finish the charge on foot."
"Is there a battle ahead?" I asked.
The soldier looked at me like I was retarded.
"Would I be charging into a battle?" he demanded. "Haven't you heard? The palace burned down! The heirs to the throne are all dead. The word is we'll have a new government." He swelled his scrawny chest. "A military government!"
He dusted off his clothes. "So, anyway, the captain ordered us to charge the tavern up the road. Free drinks, there'll be." He puffed out his chest again. "After that, we'll maybe burn one or two villages."
He retrieved his sword from the road and waved it above his head.
"For junta and country!" he cried, and began a shambling run up the road.
After I resumed my seat, Gwendolyn started the cart in motion.
"That sounds bad," I commented.
"What do you care about the Royal Palace?" demanded Gwendolyn.
"Not that. Favor to the world, burning down that pile of refuse. No, I meant the part about the military government. You heard him. It's obvious the soldiery'll take it as an excuse to commit atrocities on the population."
Gwendolyn laughed. Behind me, Wolfgang giggled.
"What's so funny?" I asked, in a resigned voice. I was getting tired of being the butt of their humor.
"This is Goimr, my boy," cackled Wolfgang. "Now, if this was Sfinctria, or even Pryggia, your fears would have substance. Quite the proper committers of atrocities, your Sfinctrian army. And the Pryggs are no slouches, either. But Goimric soldiers? Commit atrocities? I fear you overestimate their capabilities."
"The last time the Goimric army tried to plunder a village," commented Gwendolyn, "the inhabitants sent them packing." She looked back at me, grinning like a wolf. "And they were lucky the men were still in the fields. They suffered thirty percent casualties at the hands of the women and children."
"They're really that bad?"
"As you have earlier surmised yourself," remarked Wolfgang, "Grotum does not tremble at the rattling of Goimric sabers."
I shook my head. "They'll get better, I'm afraid. I don't know much about politics, but I spent enough time around my uncles to know that Ozar will be sending in military advisers, soon enough."
"With your uncles along, no doubt," came Gwendolyn's sneering voice, "like proper soldiers of fortune."
I controlled my temper. "Actually," I replied in a calm voice, "they'll not be involved. They refuse to participate in such affairs. It's one of the reasons they always turn down the offers of the Ozarine government to give them regular commissions. They say occupation work corrodes the soul."
Wolfgang cackled. "Such a crazy world! Mercenaries with honor! Of course, they are Sfondrati-Piccolominis."
I remembered the last emissary of the Senate, sent packing from our house with a boot mark on his behind. Ludovigo's boot, that'd been—he was always the most ill-tempered of my condottiere uncles.
"Have you got a war somewhere?" he'd demanded of the emissary. "A real war, I'm talking about?"
The emissary had hemmed and hawed, rambling on about the geostrategic significance of the pacification of some far distant land I'd never heard of. But he didn't get very far along. Ludovigo is not a patient man. The boot had followed, with my other uncles contributing verbal mayhem.
When the emissary was gone, scuttling down the street, Ludovigo had turned to me, scowling and chewing his mustachios.
"Remember this, boy," he'd growled. "Seventeen, you are now. You'll be a grown man soon, responsible for your actions." His glare was joined by that of my other uncles. "The family will forgive a wolf, but we've no mercy for jackals."
"Certainly not!" I'd exclaimed, not really understanding the ins and outs of the matter. But I understood my uncle's boot.
"What a world we've produced," sighed Ludovigo. He'd resumed his seat, planted his boot on the table, drained his mug. "There was a time when it was a proud thing, to be an Ozarine. Go back in the family line, you'll find that plenty of Sfondrati-Piccolominis served in the army of Ozarae. With pride and distinction. Pride and distinction." He sneered. "Now, I'd as soon join a pack of hyenas."
"I'd rather join a pack of hyenas," my uncle Rodrigo had contributed. "Never claim to be more than scavengers, your honest hyenas."
"Won't hear a hyena prate on and on about the grandeur of the pack and the glory of the carrion," added Larue.
"Unless it's a scholar hyena," chuckled Filoberto. "I hear our distant cousin, Rhodes Sfondrati-Piccolomini, has just come out with a new book—The Ozarine Century, it's called."
"I've read it," said Larue. "Drones on and on about the Burden of Ozar, as he calls it. That's scholar-speak for 'let's loot everything, for the lootee's best interest.' Would you believe, the fool even calls for a new attempt at conquering the Sssuj?"
Great gales of laughter had greeted that last statement. When their glee subsided, however, my uncles' gloom had returned. The long silence had finally been broken by my uncle Ludovigo, his voice hard as stone.
"That fool belongs to another branch of the clan. In our branch, in our family—we've had eagles and falcons, and owls, and more than a few peacocks and dodos. But there's never been a vulture." He'd fixed me with his glare. "You hear me, boy?"
I was recalled back to the present by Wolfgang's voice.
"There it is. The Grimwald."
I looked up. On the horizon, ahead and to my right, I could see a ragged, dark green line. Even from the distance, it looked somehow foreboding.
I said as much, and Wolfgang giggled. "Nonsense! It's a marvelous place, the Grimwald. Full of wonder and enchantment! Unicorns, even! The world's greatest mystery, you know?"
"What's that?" I asked.
"Why, it's obvious! How do unicorns propagate, when they've got this fetish about virginity?" He cackled. "I've spent years trying to figure it out. Even asked the head psychiatrist at the asylum. The man's a genius, you know?
But he was no help, at all. Said that unicorns were just a figment of my imagination."
"They are," said Gwendolyn forcefully.
"Well, of course, I know that!" Wolfgang's voice was full of aggrievement. "I'm not stupid, you know, just insane. But that's the whole point! How do unicorns propagate in my imagination, when they've got this fetish about virginity? My imagination certainly doesn't. Have a fetish about virginity, I mean." He howled like a lunatic. "Quite the contrary! A cornucopia of sexual perversion, it is, my imagination. I've scolded it many times, but it keeps coming up with the wildest ideas! For instance—"
"Wolfgang, shut up!" roared Gwendolyn.
"Such a prude! Oh, very well. But, anyway, for some reason my imagination comes up short whenever it tries to picture unicorns propagating. Years, I've spent, trying to figure out why. It's very important, you know, for a lunatic to understand his imagination. Sane people never have to worry about it, of course. You can just pass things off by saying 'it's just my imagination.' But a dement can't do that, because we live in the world of our imagination. So—"
"Wolfgang, shut up!" roared Gwendolyn.
"But, my dear Gwendolyn, you're missing the whole point! Sane people are such cripples! Hamstrung, you are, by the real world. Whereas a madman can just dismiss the problem by saying 'it's just the real world,' and go on about the important business, which is imagining—"
Gwendolyn heaved herself out of the yoke and stalked back to the cart. She glared up at the towering figure of the madman, still sitting in the pose of an icon.
"If you don't shut up," she hissed between her teeth, "the real world will intrude upon your imagination this very minute."
I was afraid a row might break out, with me caught between a giant and an Amazon. But Wolfgang only smirked and said: "I shall become quite the proper icon, then. Full of grace."
And, indeed, he fell silent for the rest of the journey into the Grimwald, except for a whisper meant only for my ears.
"Such a solemn woman, she is. You really must try and brighten up her spirits, young man."
Such was, in fact, my very hope. But I wasn't about to acknowledge the same to a lunatic. Still, my stiff back must have transmitted some of my feelings, for I could hear Wolfgang chuckling behind me.
A short distance further, Gwendolyn turned the cart down a narrow, rutted dirt path. We were now headed directly for the forest, and she began to pick up the pace. A half hour later, the path entered beneath the loom of the Grimwald. Gwendolyn shrugged out of the yoke.
"We can leave the cart here," she said. "No one will find it for days. By then we'll be long gone, deep into the forest."
I hopped off the cart. Wolfgang arose, as limber as if he hadn't spent the last three days posing as a statue. For him, stepping off the cart was not much more than for a boy to step off a stool. It took but a moment for the three of us to push the cart into some bushes, out of sight of any casual passer-by.
Gwendolyn led the way into the forest. The dirt path quickly became a faint trail winding through the immense trees of the forest. Those trees! Never had I seen anything like them, so huge they were, and so densely packed. Every variety of tree, to boot, evergreen and hardwoods mixed together with no rhyme or reason that I could see.
Crazy he might have been, but Wolfgang had an uncanny ability to discern a person's thoughts.
"Don't try to figure out the ecology of the Grimwald, Benvenuti. Can't be done, you know? The scholars gave it up long ago, after my great-grandfather Kirkpatrick went mad in the attempt. Locked him up, poor man, after he started babbling at the annual meeting of the Philosophical Society that the Grimwald was the last surviving remnant of the primeval Eozoon. Such a brilliant naturalist! I'm quite partial to his theory of the nummulosphere, myself. You're familiar with it, of course?"
I shook my head.
"What? Never heard of Kirkpatrick's theory?" He grimaced. "Such a horrible state modern education's fallen to! Not surprising, of course, in Ozar. You Ozarines are such incorrigible rationalists. But even here in Grotum the children are not instructed in the theory of the nummulosphere. And such a marvelous theory! Kirkpatrick claims the whole world was built up, bit by bit, by the action of single-celled forams—amoebas, sort of. Claims you can see their fossils everywhere, if you just look closely enough. Unfortunately, he's been the only one able to look closely enough, so they say he's a crackpot. Too bad, really. His theory's so much more imaginative than all this dry stuff about tectonic plates. Can there be anything more boring than igneous rock? Forams, now—there's a lively basis for world-building!" And on he droned, making absolutely no sense at all. But I had gotten accustomed to shutting out his prattle.
By nightfall, we had penetrated a fair distance into the forest. Gwendolyn apparently knew where we were going—I myself was hopelessly lost—for when we entered a small clearing, she said: "This is it. We'll camp here for the night."
The next morning, Wolfgang announced that we would have to part company.
"I'll be going that way," he said, gesturing vaguely to the northeast. "Got to catch up with the wizard, you know, and you two are off to quite different parts."
Gwendolyn looked at him, hesitated, then spoke.
"I will ask you again. Why are you—and everyone else in the world, it seems—so interested in this wizard?"
A look of pure innocence came upon Wolfgang's face. "Me? Interested in Zulkeh?"
Gwendolyn exploded. "Don't lie to me, Wolfgang! It must have taken you years to build those secret rooms and tunnels under the death house. And all so you could spy on this Zulkeh! Why? And why is everyone else so concerned with him? Why did Hildegard send me off on this wild goose chase? Why?"
"I've been interested in Zulkeh and his doings for years," responded Wolfgang, a rare tone of seriousness in his voice. "Impossible to explain why, in any terms that would make sense to you. But it's my main project in life, actually. It's because of Joe, of course."
Seeing the fierce frown on Gwendolyn's face, Wolfgang sighed.
"You are so unreasonable about this, Gwendolyn! Don't you think you should take the Joe question a bit more seriously, seeing as how everyone else does—friends and foes alike? Or do you really think the Fangs of Piety—not to mention Hildegard—are all as crazy as me?"
"They're crazier," snapped Gwendolyn. "At least you admit you're a lunatic. Hildegard lives in the clouds. Oh, I love her dearly. And she's a friend to the underground, I'd be the last to deny it. That's why I agreed to carry out this mission for her. I owe her plenty of favors—the whole movement does, for that matter. But she's still nuts! She claims to correspond with God!"
"Oh, but she does!" exclaimed Wolfgang. "Has a whole room in the Abbey just to store the Old Geister's stone tablets. Absolutely compulsive, that woman. Won't throw away anything. I'd certainly throw away God's stone tablets, if He sent me the kind of nasty notes He sends her!" He shook his head. "But she keeps right on with her correspondence. Says it's her bounden duty as a pious Abbess to tell God the plain and simple truth about Himself, even if He doesn't want to hear it. Which He certainly doesn't! The Deity doesn't take well to criticism, you know, and my aunt has quite the sharp tongue."
Gwendolyn threw up her hands. "I give up! The Fangs I can understand. Those reactionary maniacs are just as crazy as you are, but at least they deal with the real world."
"Well, of course they do!" exclaimed Wolfgang. "What's the point of being a vicious reactionary, if you're not going to deal with the real world? Might as well be a liberal!" He shuddered. "Such sane people, liberals. Really ought to be locked up, the bunch of them. For their own sake, if nothing else. Not that I'd wish a pack of whining liberals on a lunatic asylum! The rest of the inmates would all commit suicide, just to escape the platitudes."
He paused, beaming down on Gwendolyn.
"I can see you're about to get angry with me, again. Can't be helped, I suppose. Not too many sweet-tempered revolutionaries around. Executions, torture, imprison
ment—doesn't make for placid, jolly types. Still, I think you should—"
Gwendolyn silenced him with a sharp gesture. "Never mind what you think I should do." Suddenly she laughed. "After all these years, you'd think I'd know better than to try to get any sense out of you."
She stared off into the forest for a moment, then turned back to the giant.
"All right," she said, "I suppose I can trust you. And it means nothing to me, anyway. The message which I was to deliver to Zulkeh from Hildegard was this. I was to tell him that Hildegard had a vision—"
"I knew it! She's had another vision!" cried Wolfgang, clapping his huge hands like a child filled with glee.
"—and in this vision she saw Zulkeh, with a long beard—long, all the way down to his feet. And then, out from under his wizard's hat, crawled a monster. The monster made its way down to the ground, using the wizard's beard like a rope. It took the monster a long time to get down, she said, but once—"
"Of course it took the monster a long time!" cried Wolfgang. "That's such a long and perilous journey, climbing down a sorcerer's beard!"
Gwendolyn scowled at the interruption, then continued.
"But once the monster reached the ground, it began to swell, and grow, like a storm cloud. And it was very angry. And then the world ended."
She took a breath. "And that's it. That's the message. Makes no sense to me, at all."
She stopped, gaping with astonishment. For the giant lunatic started capering around the meadow, leaping and doing cartwheels, and howling like a banshee.
"He's finally flipped," I said.
Gwendolyn shook her head. "No—at least, no more than usual. He's just very happy and excited."
Sure enough, after a couple of minutes of these bizarre acrobatics, Wolfgang calmed down and shambled back over to where we were standing. Tears of joy were streaming down his cheeks.
"Best news I've heard in years!" he boomed. "Marvelous! Absolutely marvelous! I'd be ecstatic even if I'd had the vision in one of my hallucinations—but coming from Hildegard!" He grinned, drooling. "Her visions are infallible, you know."