Land of Unreason (11 page)

            The alarm bell rang again,
loud and clear this time. She was lying. But why? And what did it matter, with
this fascinating vision pirouetting slowly between him and the light? Barber
remembered that there had been occasions when he threw a shoe at the alarm
clock. Unfortunately, he also remembered there were usually consequences when
he did it, and briefly cursed a temperament that could not take the moment
without question as she slid into his arms again.

            "No, really, what do
people call you?"

            "You may call me
Malacea. Ah, love—"

            Another bell jangled with a
different timbre, far back in memory. The name ought to mean something, he
could not think what. He talked desperately between long kisses. "How do
you live? I mean, do you stay here always?"

            "You will see. You'll
stay with me ... We can be so happy, we two alone."

           
She's lying.

           
"Are you
all by yourself?"

            "Until you came."
That's
a lie.
"But now we'll be together—forever."
That's another.
She
tilted her head back. Again it came between him and the light, a curious light
that flowed without visible source from a little bowl of bark, and Barber noted
with a nervous shock that his hostess was ever so slightly transparent. There
was something wrong—very wrong. He pulled away suddenly and sat down on the
bed, which was of moss and let him sink into it. Think fast, Barber!

            "Listen
sweetheart," he said, reaching for her hand and holding it tight,
"let's do this right. They warned me that all sorts of terrible things
would happen to me if I didn't hurry up this mission I'm on, and I believe
them. Can't you come with me as far as the Kobold Hills? It won't take long,
and then we can both come back here ... I like your woods."

            Her eyes twitched and around
her mouth little lines sprang into being that left her expression not half so
attractive. "Oh, stay," she said, with a throaty sob in her voice.
But Barber noted that the fingers of her other hand, resting against the wooden
door pillar, were tap-tapping an irregular telegraphic beat, and her head
cocked as though to hear an expected sound. ^

            "How can I? You
wouldn't want me to—turn into a frog in your arms?"

            Tap-tap ... and then, a
duller sound, something approaching the cave with slow, heavy tread.

            Malacea wrenched her hand
free, snatched up Barber's wand, and raced down the tunnel.

            He sprang to his feet and
after, plunging through the leaf curtain with a rustle. For a moment he hung
there, utterly blinded by a change from lighted room to tree shadow where only
a few drops of moonlight filtered through, and out of that dark came the girl's
voice:

            "No—no. Please! You
have the wand—that's all you need—ooh!"

            The girl, just visible ahead
of him, stumbled and fell as though strongly pushed. Between them moved a
shadow, whose opposite side was outlined by a shaft of moon to the likeness of
a leafless branch, shaped like a huge, gnarled hand. It was coming toward him.

            Barber ducked, dodged behind
a tree and looked up. Above him towered a figure, human in form, barklike in
texture, twice his own size, semi transparent where it got between him and the
moon. Its eyes held a dead fire of hate and cruelty, and the scraggy arms were
reaching for him.

            He turned and ran as he had
never run in his life, dodging like a deer among the moon-splotched trunks. A
root tripped him; he took three sprawling steps, recovered and went on; almost
lost his footing over a small depression. Behind him, getting no nearer but
certainly not receding, he heard the swish and crackle of the ogre's pursuit.

            He slipped round one tree
and was caught across the head by a low-hung branch, hard enough to bring a
blinding flash across his vision. He kept on, feeling rather than seeing his
way till sight cleared.

            Another staggering trip must
have cost him yards of the small lead he held over the monster, and a trick of
position threw the shadow of that clutching hand across a broad slash of
moonlight before him. He could feel the wing-stumps quiver with instinct on his
back; useless—and his second wind was going.

            Racing on, he risked a
sidelong glance. One of the huge hands was almost abreast, its fingers spread.
Before him the forest suddenly opened into brilliant light and there was a
stream, with flashing rapids right and left. A dark pool loomed before. Fred
Barber put his last ounce of strength into a soaring broad jump.

            He lost a shoe at the
water's edge, and fell forward. In a last burst of vitality, he heaved himself
to a knee and groped for something with which to defend himself.

            The ogre towered from the
other bank, looking down with those lidless eyes, its mouth working. It was
partly transparent; the flooding moonlight on the thing cast only the thinnest
of shadows through its shapeless carcass. For a few ticks of the watch, man and
spook stared at each other across the rippling water. One of Barber's hands
found the stone he sought.

            The ogre turned and moved
off among the trees, thump-thump on the leaf mold. If His Transparency wanted
to call the matter quits, Fred Barber was certainly in no mood to pursue the
matter further. It was not till the monster had disappeared from sight and
sound that he remembered Oberon's words—"brooks ... plagued ungainly
obstacles to us of the pure blood, who must seek round by their sources or fly
high above." That was why the pursuit had been given up. Or perhaps it had
not; perhaps the ogre was on his way now to circle the stream at its headwaters.

            Barber staggered dizzily
forward. His forehead was growing an imposing bump and ached dreadfully. He had
not taken more than a dozen steps when the pinwheels before his eyes ran
together and he collapsed into a faint. The last thing he remembered before
going out was Malacca's perfume. It was apple blossoms.

-

            Exhausted nerves and muscles
must have turned his faint into normal sleep. He came to himself on his back,
staring straight up. The incredible moon was already losing some of its light
to a paling sky. He felt hungry, sore and abused. The ground, oozy-damp
beneath, had left a trail of discomfort along his spine, and his head ached
vilely, but he felt better.

            The fact was, Barber told
himself, lying there staring at the intaglioed surface of the earth's
sister-star, and not caring to move lest it make the headache twinges worse—the
fact was that being hunted through the woods by a translucent ogre out of a
nightmare was a useful experience. It restored one's confidence in the reality
of objective existence. Also in the ability of the corporeal senses to bear
true witness of that existence, however their testimony might disaccord with
preconceived notions of what it ought to be. His experience held no precedent
for that wild chase through the forest, but lack of precedent was no reason for
rejecting the memory—or his thoroughly physical bruises—as spurious. There had
been no precedent for his first seasickness, either, but he had escaped from
that when the ship reached dock. There didn't seem to be any docks on the
shores of the sea of incertitude on which he was now launched.

            No, it was real enough, and
he did not doubt that if the ogre's woody fingers had closed about him they
would have been real enough, too. So was the pressure of Malacca's breasts,
round against him as he kissed her, though she was semitransparent. Well, the
forest hag warned him against the apple—though how could he have known? The
little bitch! ... The thing to do was to learn the rationale of this system of
existence into which he had somehow been projected, as one learned the new
diplomatic code or the proper form of address for a first First Equerry. He—

            At this point his
meditations were interrupted by the unmistakable voice of the little bitch, her
accent low and urgent:

            "Let him wake. Oh, let
him wake before the dawn."

            Barber sat up and reached
for the ache spot on his head. Malacea was facing him across the stream. She
leaped to her feet: "Oh, my mortal lover!" she cried. "Come
back; I know a spell to cure your pain."

            "Yeah?" said
Barber with hostility. "I know how you'd do it, too—turn me over to that
Dracula boy friend of yours and have him fix me up so I wouldn't have to worry
about any pains any more."

            The light, whether of moon
or coming day, was bright enough to show two big tears coming out on her cheek.
"Ah, never, I swear it. My heart rose when you escaped the clutches of
that demon Plum."

            "That demon
what?"

           
"Plum. I
dare not but do as he asks. All the plums are hard and evil, but this one
worst. His heart has dried and he wants a mortal blood transfusion."

            "And you help him get
it. Is that the idea?" Barber's voice was implacable.

            "Oh ..." Her
fingers twisted against each other. "How can I make myself clean before
you? How could I know that among the mortals that come to this wood would be my
own dear love? Oh, come back, and help me repent; I'll make it good to
you."

            Barber, hunting among the
long grasses for his dropped shoe, cocked an inward ear toward the alarm bell
of his instinct for lies. Not a tinkle. She really meant it; or perhaps that
new sixth sense merely did not work on emotional matters. "Thanks,"
he said, "but I'll stay over here out of reach of your friend. What
happened to my wand?"

            "You need not fear him.
Listen, I'll prove my faith by giving you his secret. Wait for the sun; when
daylight's abroad he cannot stir from his tree. You have only to eat of his
fruit, then he can never harm you after. A hundred and fifty paces upstream will
bring you to where the tree can be seen; it has a broken top."

            "Unh." Barber
found the shoe and put it on. It was wet. "Good. I'll wait till daylight
and then try it."

            "But come to me now. Oh
hurry 1" She looked up at the sky, now fully rose-colored along the
horizon. "It's growing daybreak and I must go back to my own tree."

            "What became of my
wand?" repeated Barber.

            "I don't know."

            "You're lying."

            She was weeping openly now.
Barber, who had seen enough of both night-club life and diplomacy to develop
some cynicism about feminine tears, flicked dried mud off his clothes without
looking at her. Malacea stamped her foot: "The plum took it; where, I do
not know. So you have my full confession; won't you—"

            "No, I won't,"
said Barber. It seemed to him that his new sense of truth or no-truth was
confused. Possibly Malacea suspected but did not definitely know where the wand
was. He found a fallen trunk, tested it for solidity, and sitting down, opened
the provision bag. Everything all right there, so far. Between bites, he said:
"If you really want to impress me, you might tell me how to get to the
Kobold Hills."