Jack Vance - Suldrun's Garden

Aillas surveyed the other guests where they sat at their tables.

There were seven: an elderly peasant and his wife, a pair of peddlers and three young men who might have been woodsmen. Into the room now came a bent old woman, cloaked heavily in gray, with a cowl gathered over her head so that her face was concealed in shadow.

She paused to look about the room. Aillas felt her gaze hesitate as it reached him. Then, crouching and hobbling, she crossed the room to sit at a far table among the shadows.

The portly woman brought their supper: quail, pigeons and partridge on slabs of bread soaked in the grease of the frying; cuts of roasted lamb which exhaled a fragrance of garlic and rosemary, in the Galician style, with a salad of cress and young greens: a meal far better than any they had expected.

As Aillas supped he watched the cloaked woman at the far table, where she took her own supper. Her manners were unsettling; leaning forward, she gobbled up her food at a snap. Aillas watched in covert fascination, and noticed that the woman seemed also to peer toward him from time to time behind the shadow cast by her cowl. She bent her head low to snap up a morsel of meat and her cloak slipped away from her foot.

Aillas spoke to his comrades. "The old woman yonder: notice her and tell me what you see."

Garstang muttered in amazement: "She has a chicken's foot!"

Aillas said, "She is a witch, with a fox mask and the legs of a great fowl. Twice she has attacked me; twice I cut her into two sections; each time she repaired herself."

The witch, turning to stare, noticed their gazes and hastily drew back her foot and darted another look to see if anyone had noticed the lapse. Aillas and his companions pretended indifference. She turned once more to her food, snapping and gulping.

"She forgets nothing," said Aillas, "and certainly she will try to kill me, if not here, then from ambush along the trail."

"In that case," said Bode, "let us kill her first, at this very moment."

Aillas grimaced. "So it must be, even though all will blame us for killing a helpless old woman."

"Not when they see her feet," said Cargus.

"Let us be to it, and have done," said Bode. "I am ready."

"A moment," said Aillas. "I will do the deed. Make your swords ready. One scratch of her claws means death; allow her no scope to spring."

The witch seemed to divine the quality of their conversation.

Before they could move she arose and hobbled quickly away into the shadows, and disappeared through a low archway.

Aillas drew his sword and went to the landlord. "You have been entertaining an evil witch; she must be killed."

While the landlord looked on in bewilderment Aillas ran back to the archway and looked through but could see nothing in the dark and dared not proceed. He turned back to the landlord. "Where leads the archway?"

"To the old wing, and the chambers overhead: all ruins."

"Give me a candle."

At a slight sound Bode looked up, to discover the fox-masked woman on the first balcony. With a scream she leapt down at Aillas; Bode thrust out with a stool and struck her aside. She hissed and screamed again, then leapt at Bode with legs outstretched and clawed the length of his face, before Aillas once more hacked her head from her body, which, as before started a mad canter back and forth, buffeting itself against the walls. Cargus forced it down with a bench and Yane hacked away the legs.

Bode lay on his back, clawing at the stone with clenched fingers.

His tongue protruded; his face turned black and he died.

Aillas cried in a guttural voice: "This time the fire! Cut this vile thing to bits! Landlord, bring logs and faggots! The fire must burn hot and long!"

The fox-faced head set up a horrid wailing. "No fire! Give me not to the fire!"

The grisly task was complete. Under roaring flames the witch's flesh burned to ashes and the bones crumbled to dust. The guests, pale and dispirited, had gone to their beds in the hay; the landlord and his spouse worked with mops and buckets to clean their soiled floor.

With morning only hours away Aillas, Garstang, Cargus and Yane sat wearily at a table and watched the fire become embers.

The landlord brought them ale. "This is a terrible event! I assure you it is not the policy of the house."

"Sir, do not in any way blame yourself. Be happy that we have made an end to the creature. You and your wife have given noble assistance and you shall not suffer for it."

With the first glimmer of dawn the four buried Bode in a quiet shaded area, at one time a rose garden. They left Bode's horse with the landlord as well as five gold crowns from Bode's pouch, and rode sadly down the hill to the Trompada.

The four toiled up a steep stony valley by a road which twisted and sidled back and forth, up and'around bluffs and boulders, and eventually gained to wind-haunted Glayrider Gap. A side road led off across the moors toward Oaldes; the Trompada swung south and slanted down a long declivity, past a series of ancient tin mines to the town Market Flading. At the Tin Man Inn the four travelers, weary after the work of the night before and the toilsome ride of the day, gratefully supped on mutton and barley, and slept on straw pallets in an upper chamber.

In the morning they set out once more along the Trompada, which now followed the North Evander along a wide shallow valley toward the far purple bulk of Tac Tor.

At noon, with Tintzin Fyral only five miles to the south, the land began to rise and close in beside the gorge of the North Evander.

Three miles farther along, with the nearness of Tintzin Fyral impressing a sense of menace upon the air, Aillas discovered a dim trail leading away and up a gulley, which he thought might be that trail by which, so long ago, he had hoped to descend from Tac Tor.

The track climbed a long spur which trailed down from Tac Tor like the splayed root of a tree, then followed the rounded ridge by a relatively easy route. Aillas led the way up the trail to the hollow where he had camped, only yards below the flat summit of Tac Tor.

. He found the Never-fail where he had left it. As before the tooth pointed something north of east. "In that direction," said Aillas, "is my son, and this is where I must go."

"You can choose from two routes," said Garstang. "Back the way we came, then east; or through Lyonesse by Old Street, then north into Dahaut. The first may be shorter, but the second avoids the forest, and in the end is probably faster."

The second, by all means," said Aillas.

The four passed by Kaul Bocach and entered Lyonesse without incident. At Nolsby Sevan they swung to the east along Old Street, and after four days of hard riding arrived at the town Audelart.

Here Garstang took leave of his comrades. "Twanbow Hall is only twenty miles south. I shall be home for supper and my adventures will be the marvel of all." He embraced his three comrades.

"Needless to say, you will always be welcome guests at Twanbow! We have come a long way together; we have known much hardship. Never shall I forget!"

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

Aillas, Cargus and Yane watched Garstang ride south until he disappeared. Aillas heaved a sigh. "Now we are three."

"One by one we dwindle," said Cargus.

"Come," said Yane. "Let us be off. I lack patience for sentiment."

The three departed Audelart by Old Street and three days later they arrived at Tatwillow, where Old Street crossed Icnield Way.

The Never-fail pointed north, in the direction of Avallon: a good sign, or so it would seem, since the direction avoided the forest.

They set off up Icnield Way toward Avallon in Dahaut.

GLYN'ETH AND DHRUN had joined Dr. Fidelius at the Glassblowers Fair in Hazelwood. For the first few days the association was tentative and wary. Glyneth and Dhrun conducted themselves as if walking on eggs, meanwhile watching Dr. Fidelius sidelong that they might anticipate any sudden irrationalities or quick fits of fury. But Dr. Fidelius, after assuring their comfort, showed such even and impersonal politeness that Glyneth began to worry that Dr. Fidelius did not like them.