Hero tossed his stake aside, put away his knife, cradled the sharp-featured, strong-backed quarrier in his arms. The man sobbed like a child. Eldin, less certainly, sheathed his sword.
“Dead?” said the Wanderer. “Your son? I don’t know about that, but you certainly came close!”
“Careful, old lad,” Hero’s voice was low. “Show some compassion. He’s about at wit’s end.”
“My son! My poor boy—taken by Augeren!” the man sobbed. Blindly he pushed Hero aside, crawled wearily to the fire’s embers, let his unashamed tears fall into them. Behind those tears, his eyes were shrouded in horror.
Hero and Eldin stared at each other, followed their visitor to the fire. Hero blew on the embers, got some fresh sticks of dry timber going. As the shadows fled the cave, he said: “You’ll be hungry, perhaps?”
“Starved,” the stranger answered. “I’ve spent the whole dreary day searching for my boy.” His eyes focused. He looked at Hero and Eldin and slowly his gaze turned bitter. “You’ll be the two outsiders, questers come to kill the beast. Hah!”
Hero gave him dried meat, filled the kettle from a skin and put it on the fire. “We have to find him, before we can kill him,” he said.
“Anyway,” said Eldin, “don’t go blaming us for your son’s disappearance, or death, or whatever. We weren’t with him. You were!”
The man hung his head, sobbed between his knees.
Hero gave Eldin a dig in the ribs with his elbow, asked: “Did you actually see this Augeren? Maybe you’d better tell us all of it …”
The stranger got himself under control, ate meat and a little dry bread. Then, while Eldin brewed tea and Hero built the fire a little higher, he told his tale.
“I’m not actually a quarrier,” he began, “but I do have an eye for onyx. My name’s Geeler Maas, and I work for a handful of sculptors in Inquanok who carve figurines and other small, intricate ornaments. They’ll accept only the finest onyx, which I supply. I find it in the old diggings, fragments too small to have any real commercial value—to your average quarrier’s or merchant’s standards, anyway. Sometimes I’ll see a piece just lying there; at others there’ll be a vein almost worked out, but showing a special luster only an expert can recognize. It’s slim pickings, but I’m my own boss. My family eats well enough, anyway. My … my family …” And his mouth and chin quivered a little.
Hero passed him a small stone mug of hot tea. “Go on,” he said, after a moment.
“I was training my son in the business,” Geeler at last continued. “My son, Ilfer. One day, Ilfer Maas was going to be a dealer in fine marbles, rare onyxes and agates …
“Anyway, this was his fourth or fifth trip out with me, and he was getting good at it. But pickings were especially poor this time, and we’d stayed out longer than normal. Last night, what with the miserable weather and all, I was in a bit of a mood. I’d got this bottle of muth-dew to warm my bones, which I’d drawn from—just a drop, you understand—each night. Alas, last night I … may my ancestral gods forgive me!”
“You swigged the lot, eh?” Eldin guessed. “Well, and you’ll not be the first who fell foul of muth!”
“When I woke up this morning,” Geeler continued, “first light—Ilfer was gone. No sign of a struggle, just his blankets, empty, clay cold. He’d been gone for hours. I thought: ‘Maybe he couldn’t sleep! Or perhaps he’s gone to fetch wood for a fire, or else just stretching his legs.’ I called and called for him, wandering here and there, until I was forced to one final conclusion. Augeren had got him! After that … I chased about until I was near exhausted, yelled myself hoarse, maybe went a little mad. Then I saw your fire. And for a moment I thought, hoped, prayed …
“Did I see him, you ask? No one ever saw him, not and lived to tell, not sanely, anyway. You don’t see him, don’t hear him, never even know he’s there. I know that now. Maybe if I hadn’t drained that muth …”
“That’s the hell of all tragedies,” said Hero quietly. “They can never happen to you—until they do. We all think the same, act the same, like so many sheep. And we never know for sure which lamb’s next for the slaughter.”
“Well,” Geeler stood up, “I thank you for your fire, your food, your comfort. But now I must get on. It’s a long night ahead, and somewhere in one of these holes I’ll find my boy. I may even find Augeren, and if I do—your job will be done for you there and then.” He took out a long knife from under his ragged coat, its blade honed to a shimmer. “Whatever that damned thing is, if I find him, he’s a goner!”
Hero came to his feet, laid a hand on Geeler’s arm. “Easy, friend. Best by daylight. You don’t know what you’re going against.”
“And do you know any better?”
Now Eldin spoke up: “We know that well-armed posses have lost strong men,” he said. “And we know that the three of us together—in daylight—must surely do better than you alone by night.”
Geeler Maas was fierce now, his teeth a bar of white in the shadow of his face where they ground the words out: “But Ilfer may still be alive! I can’t wait till morning. I’ve wasted enough time as it is. Listen, I thank you both, and I know you mean well—but …”
“But you’re going on anyway,” said Hero.
“Your tea and this bite of food I’ve taken have given me strength. Aye, and I’m back in my right mind now. Oh, I was crazed for a while, granted, but now—all I want is to find my boy. Dead or alive. And if I find him dead—then I’ll not rest until I’ve found Augeren!”
“Take this, then,” said Hero. He handed Geeler a sharpened stake, of hard wood and with a point like a needle. “We think he’s maybe a vampire, so this should be surer than your knife.”
Geeler tucked the stake in his belt, nodded gratefully and began to turn away.
“Where’ll you start?” growled Eldin. “And how will you light your way? Best take this.” He gave Geeler a prepared torch of oil-soaked twigs tied tight about a green stick. “I suppose you’ve got flints?”
Again Geeler nodded. “You’re good men,” he said. “The best. As for where I’ll start: right here. This is as good a place as any. This quarry is vast, with many hundred cavelets. I’ll go in a circle. Might get back here by first light. Or might not …”
“Don’t light the torch until you have to,” Hero advised. “We think Augeren fears the light. If he’s got your boy, and if he sees the torch, he could just up and run.”
“A fly-the-light, aye,” Geeler grunted. “I’ve heard that said before. Well then, I’ll only light the torch if I find Ilfer. And if I find him dead, then I’ll sit till the torch goes out and taunt Ilfer’s murderer all through the night—or until he comes for me. And then it’ll be him or me.” He finished speaking, stood frowning wonderingly at what the questers were about.
Eldin had stuffed a pair of stakes in his own belt, armed himself with an unlighted torch. Hero had done the same, except he’d also applied a little oil to the curve of his Kledan sword, sliding it in and out of its scabbard with scarce a whisper.
“Well, that’s us all fixed up then,” said the younger quester. “Right, Geeler, which way will you take?”
“Eh? But I—”
“Listen,” said Eldin, “this is how we make our living, remember? A daft way, sure enough, but we’re good at it. And this is one job we’ve already been paid, or promised, for. What?—we should let you do it for us? And when it gets out how some onyx fancier has beaten us at our own game … We’d never live it down!”
“Damn right!” said Hero. But Geeler knew that wasn’t the motive at all. There weren’t any motives. They just wouldn’t let him try it on his own, that was all.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said, “except—”
“That’s thanks enough,” Hero gruffly cut him short. “Now tell us: is this quarry circular or what? How many exits has it got? We got here in the dark.”
“So did I,” said Geeler, “but I know the place like the back of my hand. Now lo
ok, this defile we’re in is the entrance; it goes down a gentle ramp to the quarry proper, then widens out. The ground’s uneven down there, and the entire dig is shaped like a kidney three hundred yards long overall. The distance between sides is maybe one hundred and twenty yards average. If you can climb you could get out almost anywhere, but it’s dangerous by night. There are caves—forsaken exploratory digs—everywhere in the face, some of them extensive. And there are pitfalls, too, so go careful!”
“Away from the fire,” said Eldin, “our eyes will soon grow accustomed to the dark.”
“And raw onyx has a certain sheen in the night,” Geeler added. “It can take on a sort of foxfire. On the other hand, shadows can seem bottomless. But now we have to get on. I’ll go this way.” Hugging the wall of rock at the side of the descending ramp, he moved off, was soon swallowed up by the darkness …
Hero and Eldin wasted no time.
As Geeler took his departure, they crossed to the far side of the ramp, began their descent along that wall. “Mad as hatters!” Eldin grumbled low in his throat as they went. “We have to be.”
“Madder than that,” Hero agreed. “What? Hatters are completely sane by comparison! But be quiet now. Quiet and quick turns the trick.”
They reached the quarry’s floor, began carefully exploring the caves and niches opening on every hand.
At first the work was slow, laboriously careful, even timid. “Like looking for a wasp’s nest,” Eldin whisperingly observed. “And sometimes when you find it you wish you hadn’t.”
They went together into caves, waited moments until their eyes were somewhat accustomed, explored and finally left together. But apart from the slow drip of seeping water or the sudden scurry of a rat, they found nothing. “Augeren could be five miles from here.” Hero quietly stated an irrefutable fact. “Or fifty.”
“Why, after all,” asked Eldin, “should the monster be right here? Why not any one of a million other places?”
They began to work faster, allowing a little distance to creep between them, choosing their own caves for individual exploration as they went. Then, halfway into the quarry, Hero just emerging from a shallow cave while Eldin was deep in a more complex one—
“Here!” came Geeler’s hoarse shout from across the quarry. “Questers, here! I’ve found the boy’s jacket!”
“Geeler, wait!” Hero at once called back. “Don’t go on alone!”
“What? Eh? What?” came Eldin’s startled inquiry, echoing loudly from the bowels of his cave.
“He’s found Ilfer’s jacket,” Hero called back over his shoulder, as he loped silently across the quarry’s rock-and boulder-strewn floor. Panting, he reached the opposite wall, called: “Geeler? Geeler? Where the hell—?”
“Hero?” came Eldin’s cry, from what seemed a long way away. “Where are you?”
“Over here!” Hero called back. He skirted a massive boulder, saw a movement in the shadows. And: “Geeler?” he called softly. He stepped forward and something turned to face him.
“Geeler?” Hero tried to say again, even knowing it wasn’t Geeler. But the word lodged in his throat, came out as the merest squeak. Faint light gleamed on features utterly alien. A monstrous fly’s eye glittered; a wet wedge of quivering flesh and bone churned between distended, slavering jaws.
The unexpected, which should not have been unexpected, froze Hero’s muscles into instant paralysis. For a moment only—but a moment was all it took.
“Hero? Geeler?” came Eldin’s shout, and the sounds of his charging close by. “Damn me, a man could break his neck! Where in the name of all—?”
“Here,” Augeren grunted around the monstrous organ in his mouth. “Here, behind this boulder. Come quick …”
“What? This boulder? Man, it’s like pitch just here; can’t see a thing!”
“Are you blind? Five paces straight ahead.”
“Eh?” Eldin took three rapid paces. With the fourth he wondered what was wrong with Hero’s voice. And with the fifth … But there was no fifth. His foot came down heavily on thin air. “Pitfall!” thought Eldin, twirling. And landing on his shoulder, neck and the back of his head, he thought no more … not for some little time.
Hero regained consciousness to a monstrous sight, one so grim that at first he thought he was still asleep, nightmaring within dreams. It was this: propped opposite Hero where he lay, as if sitting there with his back to the wall of the cave, Geeler Maas stared vacantly ahead, sightlessly, slack-jawed. His arms hung by his sides, their hands loosely a-dangle on the stony floor. And he was quite dead. His glassy eyes told that much; he neither twitched nor stirred, not a fraction. But the wound in his forehead, a neat hole, one inch across, and the brain-tissue which had seeped from it and congealed there—these things were even greater authority on his passing. Dead, aye: his robes torn open, the places in his flesh where his bones would be thickest all pierced through by those same holes, their rims caked with dry blood.
And suddenly Hero recalled everything; every detail of what had gone before returned to him in a flash of memory so vivid it hurt almost as much as the egg-sized lump on the back of his head. Galvanized by those memories—especially by what he had seen in the moment before he was clouted—he thrust himself up from the cold floor.
Or at least he tried to. But he was bound hand and foot, hands behind his back, knees bent, and a length of rope tied between wrists and ankles—hobbled, trussed like a chicken!
As realization dawned—the fact that he had been effectively immobilized, and that this, effectively, was Augeren’s larder—Hero forced himself to go limp, simply lay there trying to put all in perspective.
Time, of course, was of the essence, for he didn’t know when Augeren would be back. Time …
And what time would it be right now? How much time had elapsed between clout on head and rude awakening? Last night, or presumably the night before last Augeren had taken Ilfer. And drained his marrow. Last night—Hero glanced again across the cave, and grimaced—he’d sucked on Geeler’s bones. Since he hunted at night he must feed then, too, when “food” was available. So … this gray twilight filtering into the cave from outside: was it morning’s light or evening’s? It must be morning’s, Hero decided, for he’d never known a clout on the head to keep him out of things for more than a night. Which meant that he’d been here, trussed like this, all through the hours of darkness.
Most of that time, of course, he’d been utterly insensible, his muscles relaxed and not wanting to fight their cramped positions. But for quite some time now he’d been waking up; his arms and legs had been wanting to straighten themselves, flex a bit here and there. This was when cramp had commenced, and his current consciousness was exacerbating the condition. He forced himself to relax more yet, began to study his surroundings.
His eyes were more or less accustomed to the considerable gloom, or were at least reacting to what little light crept in from the imminent dawn. But the fact that it found its way in at all seemed to show that this lair or larder was fairly close to the entrance. Augeren (according to earlier calculations, anyway) did not much care for light, including daylight, presumably, and so must be retreating from the dawn to this lair even now. Or else he was already here …
For as Hero’s eyes swept the cave yet again, noting to one side a low-ceilinged tunnel mouth or exit whose arch and walls seemed softly phosphorescent, so they came to rest on an apparently motionless shape huddled in one corner—which in the same moment commenced to move!
The monster, too, was coming awake, probably disturbed by Hero’s own stirrings. Foetal, its slumbering position, becoming more nearly manlike as it roused itself and uncoiled. Then it sat up—Augeren sat up—and Hero saw that it, he, was indeed manlike. Man-like …
And how Hero fought against his bonds then, straining against them until his muscles bunched, standing out like rocks trapped under his skin—until he thought his teeth must break where they ground together with his effort—until, shockingl
y, the monster spoke to him!
“No use, quester. None at all.” The thing’s voice was a slide of oily gravel, wet earth falling from a spade. Augeren stood up, naked and white as some deadly toadstool, half-crouching with a queer forward tilt. Then he dragged a black, ragged robe from a niche, draped himself, came loping to where Hero lay.
Hero looked at him, and sweat seemed to form, as by some hypnotic magic, under his arms, on his face, the palms of his tied hands, his back. Cold, slimy sweat. He looked at Augeren and felt as much as a cricket must feel face to face with a praying mantis. And indeed, there was also something mantis-like about the monster’s stance: his hunched forward appearance under the cave’s low ceiling, the faceted glitter of his great, bright, all-seeing eye.
“Augeren,” Hero found strength to say, and was somehow satisfied to note that his voice didn’t squeak. “You’re the murdering thing called Augeren.”
“Murderer?” The thing stared down at him. “I kill to live, quester. What excuse do you have?”
Hero wouldn’t be suckered by that one. “To rid the lands of Earth’s dreams of such as you!” he spat the words out. “But I never killed a young boy, or girl, or any thinking being who didn’t first try to kill me. I never destroyed one of my own kind.”
The monster nodded. He seated himself on a boulder close by—too close, by Hero’s standards—and blinked his faceted eye. The glitter went out of it in a moment, returned with the next blink. And, “There you have me,” Augeren replied. “For I have killed my own kind. Hybrids like myself, anyway.” And the dreamer was startled to hear a sob burst from behind the fleshy probe which was the thing’s tongue.
Hero knew he was doomed. It seemed that his only chance—not to gain his freedom, no, but to prolong his life, for a little while, anyway—was to engage Augeren in conversation. At least until the creature decided he’d talked enough. Or until he was hungry …
“You’re a Leng-thing, then?” the quester hazarded. “From across the gray peaks of the barrier range?” But before Augeren could answer, Hero was stricken with cramp. The pain in his joints and muscles was intense as hot pokers, forcing a groan from his dry lips as he rocked his trussed body to and fro.