Clifford Simak - All Flesh Is Grass and Other Stories

"Run for it!" yelled Conrad, and Duncan ran, with Conrad close behind him. Ahead of them Andrew loped along with surprising speed, still hauling along an outraged demon, who screamed to be let loose, that he could make it by himself. As they burst out the entrance and started down the stairway, the reception hail caved in upon itself with a thunderous roar. Small fragments of broken stone went whizzing past them, and a cloud of dust belched out of the entrance.

By this time Andrew had let go of Scratch, and the demon, despite his clubfoot, was scrambling frantically down the stairs. On the lawn at the foot of the stairs, Meg was kneeling with her arms locked around Diane's knees to keep her from struggling free. Behind Duncan and Conrad the castle continued crashing in upon itself. The central tower had already fallen and the walls were buckling.

Reaching the foot of the stairs, Duncan ran to reach Diane. He grasped her arm.

"You can't go back in," he said.

"Cuthbert," she said. "Cuthbert."

"She tried to break away and go back," said Meg. "I had to hold her. I had to seize violently upon her. She almost got away."

"It's all right now," said Duncan. "All of us are out."

He grasped Diane by both shoulders, shook her.

"It's all over now," he told her. "We can't help him. We never could have helped him. He died when he hit the floor."

Daniel and Beauty were at the foot of the park, standing beside one another, staring up toward them, watching the crumbling of the castle. Tiny was loping up the park toward them, his ears laid back, his tail standing out behind him. Hubert, the griffin, did not seem to be about.

Scratch hobbled over to confront Andrew. He stood before him, his head tilted up to look at him.

"I thank you, reverend father," he said, "for freeing me. That is a truly miraculous staff you have."

Andrew made a choking sound, as if he had swallowed something that tasted very bad. His face twisted in disgust and he had the look of a man who, any minute now, might fall down dead.

"It was not death I feared," said Scratch. "I doubt I would have died. It was something worse than death. Death is something that holds no fear for me, for I doubt I'll ever die. In a truly horrible way, I suppose I am immortal. But if the castle had crashed down upon me, I'd have been imprisoned there until the very stones should rot away with time and…"

Andrew made a croaking sound and swung his arm, as if to banish the demon forever from his sight.

"Leave me alone," he moaned. "Begone, foul demon, from me. I want no sight of you again."

"You do not even want my thanks?"

"Least of all I want your thanks. I want nothing of you. Forgetfulness is all I ask from you."

"But Andrew," said Conrad, walking up to him, "all this poor creature tries to do is express his gratitude. It is not meet you take such an attitude toward him. Demon he may be, but surely you must agree it is to his credit to feel gratitude. And he says right—you have a miracle of a staff. Why had you not told us before it held such puissant power?"

"Begone!" howled Andrew. "All of you begone. I want not to have you gaze upon me. I do not wish you to be the witnesses to my shame."

He turned about and started walking down the park. Conrad made as if to follow him, but Duncan signed him to desist.

"But there's something wrong with him," protested Conrad.

"In time he'll let us know," said Duncan. "Now all he wishes is to be left alone. Give the man some time."

Diane pulled herself away from Duncan and looked at him with level eyes.

"I'm all right now," she said. "It now is at an end. I know what happened. With the death of the final wizard, the enchantment now is ending."

The sun had been shining brightly, only halfway down the western sky, but now it seemed to be getting dark and the sun was gone.

The crashes from the castle were fewer, and in the deepening dark it no longer was a castle, but a heap of rubble, with only two towers still standing. A faint haze of white stone dust still could be seen hanging over the shattered masonry.

Conrad plucked at Duncan's sleeve. "Look, the standing stones," he said. Duncan looked toward the foot of the park and saw that the standing stones were no longer standing as they had been. Many of them were canted at an angle and the lintels had fallen off them.

He turned back to stare at the castle and in the moonlight (the moonlight!) he saw it as a mound—saw it as he first had seen it when they'd come out of the chasm with the windy voice in the upper reaches of its walls chanting, "Holy! Holy! Holy!"

"So it ends," said Diane, her voice small and soft. "The last wizard is dead and the enchantment gone. The castle a mound, as it has been for centuries."

"There are fires," said Conrad, and, indeed, there were, many little campfires gleaming in the dark on the hillside between the mounded castle and the hills.

"The Horde?" the demon asked. "Waiting there for us?"

"I think it unlikely," said Duncan. "The Horde would have no need of fires."

"More than likely," Conrad said, "it is Snoopy and his gang."

Duncan said to Scratch, "There's no need for you to stay. We placed no price upon the freeing of you. We have no claim upon you. If there's somewhere you want to go…"

"You mean you do not want me?"

"It's not that," said Duncan. "Should you want to stay with us, you're welcome."

"I thought, perhaps, the hermit. He is not happy with me. Although I cannot understand…"

"He's only dramatizing," said Conrad. "Showing off a little. He'll get over it."

"I have nowhere else to go," said Scratch. "I have no other friends. I can, mayhaps, be of some small service to you. I can fetch and carry."

"Stay, then," said Duncan. "Our company becomes more diverse as we proceed upon the journey. We can make room for a demon."

The ground beneath his feet, Duncan realized, no longer had the even smoothness of a lawn. It was rough and humpy, covered by wild grasses and low-growing ground cover that rasped, as he moved, against his boots. Somewhere, off in the distance, an owl was hooting, and in the hills above the castle mound a wolf howled mournfully.

The moonlight was bright, the moon a night or two from fullness, and to the south he caught a glimpse of the river, shining like a mirror.

Saved again, he thought, jerked out of the jaws of disaster by the most unlikely of events, the castle's enchantment broken by the death of the last of those who had held it together. Cuthbert had committed suicide, whether intentionally or in a fit of insanity, there was no way of knowing. But it had been suicide. He had hurled himself from the balcony to the floor below.

Diane moved close to him and he put an arm about her, held her tightly. She leaned her head upon his shoulder.

"I am sorry," he said. "Sorry that it happened this way."

"I should have known," she said. "I should have realized that one day Cuthbert would be gone and the castle gone with him. I guess I did know, way back in my mind, but I didn't allow myself to even think of it."

He stood, holding her closely, trying to give her the little comfort that he could, looking out beyond the canted standing stones to the fires that blazed along the slope.

"There must be a lot of them out there," he said. "Snoopy told us he'd collect an army."

"Duncan," asked Diane, "have you seen Hubert anywhere?"

"No, I haven't. He must be around. He was out there just a while ago with Daniel and Beauty."

She shook her head against his shoulder. "I don't think so. I think I've lost him, too. He was one with the castle. He'd been here so long."

"As soon as it is light," said Duncan, "we'll look for him. He may wander in before the night is over."

"There's someone coming," Conrad said.