Clifford Simak: The Fellowship of the Talisman

"If you listen to him," Duncan said, "he will wring your heart. I'm glad to be shut of him. He was nothing but a pest."

"How about Scratch?" Diane asked. "What will happen to him?"

"He is coming along with us. Conrad invited him."

"I'm glad of that," said Diane. "He and Conrad have gotten to be pals. And that is good. Scratch, despite being a demon, is not too bad a being."

"He saved Conrad's life back there in the clearing," Duncan said. "Conrad is not about to forget such an act as that."

"And Conrad was nice to him back there at the castle," said Diane. "So were you. Everyone else, up to that time, had treated him absolutely rotten."

Meg brought them fish on birch bark platters and squatted down in front of them.

"Don't eat too soon," she warned them. "Let it cool a bit."

"And you?" asked Diane. "What are you going to do now that the adventure's over? Scratch is coming with us."

"Standish House," said Duncan, "could use a resident witch. We've not had one for years."

Meg shook her head. "I've been thinking. I've wanted to talk with you about it. I have no hut, you see; no place at all to live. I have not a thing at all. But Andrew had a cell. Do you suppose he'd mind? I think I know where it is. If not, Snoopy said he'd show me."

"If that is what you want," said Duncan, "I think Andrew might be happy to know that you were there."

"I think," said Meg, "that he might have liked me just a little bit. Back, that first time we met, he took this piece of cheese out of his pocket. It had lint upon it from the pocket and there were teeth marks on it, for he'd been nibbling on it and he gave it to me and he…"

Her voice broke and she could speak no more. She put her hands to her eyes and, swiftly rising, hobbled off into the darkness.

"She was in love with Andrew," Diane said. "Strange, that a witch and hermit…"

"We all were in love with him," said Duncan, "cross-grained as he might have been."

Cross-grained and a soldier of the Lord. A soldier of the Lord to the very last, insisting that he was a soldier of the Lord when he still was a hermit. Rushing to his death as a soldier of the Lord. Andrew and Beauty, Duncan thought-a soldier of the Lord and a little patient burro.

I'll miss them both, he thought.

From far off, faint in a vagrant wind, came the keening of the wailing for the world. Now, Duncan told himself, as the years went on, there'd be less wailing for the world. Still some misery in the world, but with the Horde no longer on the Earth, less and less of it. Less for the she-vultures on the island to wallow in, less for them to smear upon themselves.

Diane set the plate of fish down upon the ground, plucked at Duncan's sleeve.

"Come with me," she said. "I can't do this all alone. I must have you standing by."

He followed her around the fire to where Snoopy sat eating fish. Diane walked to a place in front of him. She held out the naked sword, cradled in her hands.

"This is too precious a blade," she said, "to belong to any human. Would you take it back into the custody of the Little People? Keeping it until there's need of it again."

Snoopy carefully wiped his hands, held them out to take the sword. Tears stood in his eyes.

"You know, then, milady, who it once belonged to?"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"Willingly, then," said Snoopy, "we will take it back. We will guard it well and reverence it. Someday it may be there'll be another hand that is worthy to hold it. But no one ever more than yours, milady."

"You will tell the Little People," said Diane, "how much they honored me."

"It was because we trusted you," said Snoopy. "You were not unknown to us. You'll be found at Standish House?"

"Yes," said Diane. "We're leaving in the morning."

"Someday we'll come and visit you," said Snoopy.

"We'll be waiting for you," said Diane. "There'll be cakes and ale. There'll be dancing on the green."

She turned away and went back to Duncan. She took him by the arm. "And now," she said, "I'm ready for tomorrow."