Hugh Cook - The Werewolf and the Wormlord

The subject of marriage was also painful inasmuch as Alfric’s occasional outbursts of anger had left him with much to be ashamed of. He remembered the last time he had hit her. It was so easy! And it happened so quickly. The wrathrage making his fists manic. The terrible, inexplicable, unreasonable anger seizing his flesh. In such a mood, he could quite happily punch glass, splinter wood, or gouge, squeeze, tear and strangle.

In such a mood, he might one day kill someone without thought, giving himself over to his murderous rage for the sheer bloody pleasure of slaughter.

And And what if such an anger came upon him when he was king?

It happened that he often hated the rest of the world for simply existing. It happened that the mere presence of other people was often enough to exacerbate the temper-fits which sometimes came upon him.

So But enough of the future.

Let the future look after itself, for what mattered was the present. The journey, and then the matter of surviving the great dare at journey’s end.

A long journey Alfric had of it; and, before the end, thought deteriorated to mere imagespasm as exhaustion set in. His flesh was equal to the tasks which faced it, but his much-burdened mind was still suffering from the events of the last few days. Suffering from murdershock guilt, from deathfear assault, from the sudden and unexpected complexities which had entered his life. The Bank had long been his refuge against reality and the world; but now the Bank had forced him to enter the arena of active politics, thus exposing him to all manner of danger and uncertainty.

Consequently, towards the end of his journey Alfric was mazed with fatigue, fullblinded by moments of dream in which eldritch figures clumped from the hulkbulk trees, the dark-dwindle ditches. Though the dark yielded to his vision, it was ever an effort to find his way; and, even when the skycurrents stirred the cloud-seas sideways, the moon remained hidden, and all he saw was a scattering of stars, stars bright-burning, orange and green, poisonous confectionary, the heaven-tree’s lethal nightfruit.

The forest thickened and the path narrowed, until at last Alfric had to dismount and lead his horses on foot through an overgrowth wilderness of gnarled and buckling vegetation, of broken limbs and staggering crutches.

At last he stopped, for the way was almost impassable, and he was more than half-minded to turn back. Then he smelt something. The low, slow, muddy smell of sedgeswamp, of mouldrot and vegetative decay, of duckweed and frogweed. It was near, it was near.

Thus guided, Alfric pressed forward. The undergrowth thinned, and he found himself by the shores of the much-dreaded Swamp of Slud. He made out the causeway which stretched from the shore to the distant night-humped mound which could only be the Spiderweb Castle.

Now Alfric was all business, his braindeath fatigue conquered entirely by the quick excitement of action. He unloaded his pack horses. As he hefted the heavy barrels of his baggage into a heap, he did his best to ignore the gnawing cries of anguish coming from a nearby clump of swampgrass. With the horses unloaded, Alfric led the beasts a safe distance into the forest and tethered them carefully. He clothed each with a blanket so it would not get too cold while it waited.

Then he went back to the swamp and waited himself.

But for the crying grass, all was silent.

As Alfric waited, the skyrug clouds drifted apart and the moon appeared, a moon not very far from the full. Alfric was startled by that white-blazing circle of light. How could the moon be so full so soon? He had calculated things otherwise: but one look at the sky told him his calculations were out by a matter of days.

The moonlight gauzed the light mist which lay across the swamps and the far-stretching causeway. Alfric durst not start out along that causeway until he had dealt with the swamp giant Kralch, Eater of Babies; the monster who, by tradition, was welcome to any unwanted flesh which was brought to the swampside.

As Alfric waited, the bawling baby began to get on his nerves. He did his best to ignore it. Maybe it wasn’t a baby at all. It could be some trick of magic, perhaps — the grass itself crying out in anguish. Or a mutant frog. Or — well, a monkey. Or something. As long as he didn’t look, he didn’t know. As long as he didn’t know, he wasn’t guilty of anything.

Still, it did make for a long wait.

At last, the head and shoulders of a huge and slovenly beast came slurching out of the swamp.

‘I am Kralch, Eater of Babies,’ said the giant, clearvoiced across a distance of a hundred paces.

‘Hi,’ said Alfric. ‘I’m Alfric Danbrog.’

He pitched his voice as if for battle, and loud and clear it carried through the night air.

‘Have you brought me a baby?’

‘Yes,’ said Alfric. ‘Can’t you hear it crying?’

‘Faintly,’ said the giant. ‘I’m somewhat deaf.’

‘Oh,’ said Alfric. ‘Sorry to hear that.’

So saying, Alfric took the bung from the first of his barrels and kicked it over. A light and combustible oil (distilled at great expense from the flesh of riverworms) spilt outward and spread across the swamp.

‘What are you doing?’ said the giant.

‘Pouring out a libation to the gods,’ said Alfric. ‘It’s a form of sacrifice.’

With that, he unbunged and overturned a second barrel.

‘Libation or no libation,’ said the giant, ‘I’m coming for the baby. If you’re still there when I get there, I’ll have you too.’

‘Thanks for the warning,’ said Alfric, and unbunged and kicked over a third barrel.

Kralch waded forward. Then the swamp shallowed, and the giant started to crawl. As it did so, it began to pant in a most hideous way. The truth was, the huge and hideous creature was in danger of expiring as soon as it dragged itself from the supporting watermuck of the swamp; and it put its very life in danger every time it came to claim a baby. One thing was certain: though the giant could crawl, it was totally incapable of standing up and supporting its weight on its legs once it was out of the swamp.

As the giant drew near, Alfric kicked over the last of his barrels. Then waited.

‘I did warn you,’ said the Eater of Babies. ‘If you’re going to run, you’d better start now.’

‘Oh,’ said Alfric coolly, ‘I think it’s you who’s going to do the running.’

So saying, Alfric produced a small jar and a pair of tongs. Alfric reached into the jar with the tongs and pulled out a small piece of metal. The metal looked grey by moonlight; and, had a stronger light been available, its hue would have remained unchanged.

As Alfric shook away the last drops of water, the metal burst into flames.

Alfric touched the flaming metal to his oil slick, which ignited. The swamp erupted. The giant screamed, engulfed by fire. It convulsed in agony. Kicked, clawed, howled and thrashed, and fought its way back into the depths of the swamp.

‘So much for that,’ said Alfric briskly.

Then he shivered, and set forth along the causeway.

Endless seemed that causeway, but at last the steps of the Spiderweb Castle were before him. Alfric climbed those steps and entered that place of death, the Castle of the Curse. As legend alleged, this was a place of the dead. Cold they were, their corpses ageless, frozen for centuries in the same positions.

The guards who held the castle gate never blinked as Alfric walked between them. He walked within, passing elders gathered in twos and threes in private conference; young lovers exchanging kisses and blisses in shadowed places; servants locked for ever in the hurry-scurry attitudes of hard-driven servitors.

At last, he entered the Grand Hall.

Again, legend was confirmed, for here candles shone with a ghostly phosphorescence, and the candles were not consumed by their own burning. It was silent, utterly silent. Alfric heard his own breathing, the creak of his own leather boots, the dry friction as a frisson of nervousness agitated his fingers to a spiderkick shuffle. His footsteps stirred the dust which rose, half-swirled then settled.