Enchanted Pilgrimage

11

They had traveled for five days through sunny autumn weather, with the leaves of the forest slowly turning to burnished gold, to deep blood-red, to lustrous brown, to a pinkness of the sort that made one's breath catch in his throat at the beauty of it.

Tramping along, Mark Cornwall kept reminding himself time and time again that in the past six years he had lost something of his life. Immured in the cold, stone walls of the university, he had lost the color and the smell and the headiness of an autumn forest and, worst of all, had not known he had lost it.

Hal led them, for the most part, along the ridgetops, but there were times when they must cross from one ridge to another or had to leave the high ground to keep out of sight of a ridgetop clearing where a woodcutter or a farmer scratched out a bare existence. While there was no danger in such places; where, indeed, a welcome and a rough sort of hospitality might be accorded them, it was considered best to avoid detection as much as possible. Word would travel fast concerning the movements of such a motley band as theirs and there might be danger in having the fact of their journey noised about.

Plunging down from the ridges into the deep-cut valleys that ran between the hills, they entered a different world—a deep, hushed, and buried world. Here the trees grew closer and larger, rock ledges jutted out of steep hillsides, and massive boulders lay in the beds of brawling creeks. Far overhead one could hear the rushing of the wind that brushed the hilltops, but down below the brows of the rearing bluffs there was no hint of wind. In the quietness of this deeper forest, the startled rush of a frightened squirrel, his foraging disturbed, through the deep layer of autumn leaves, was startling in itself. That, or the sudden explosion of wings as a ruffed grouse went rocketing like a twilight ghost through the tangle of the tree trunks.

At the end of a day's journey they went down into one of the deep hollows between the hills to find a camping place. Hal, scouting ahead, would seek a rock shelter where a fissure in the limestone of a bluff face was overhung either by a ledge of rock or by the bluff itself, offering some protection. The fire was small, but it gave out warmth against the chill of night, holding back the dark, making a small puddle of security and comfort in a woods that seemed to turn hostile with the coming of the night.

Always there was meat, for Hal, wise to the woods and an expert with his bow, brought down squirrels and rabbits, and on the second day, a deer, and on other occasions, grouse. So that, as a result of this, they made lesser inroads on the provisions they carried—wild rice, smoked fish, cornmeal, sparse fare, but sustaining and easy to carry.

Sitting around the fire at night, Cornwall remembered the disappointment of Mrs. Drood when she had been persuaded that she should not have a farewell party for them, inviting in the marsh people, the gnomes and the hill people to speed them on their way. It would have been a good party, but it would have emphasized their going, which all concerned agreed should be kept as quiet as possible.

Five days of sunny weather, but in the middle of the afternoon of the sixth day rain had begun to fall, at first little more than a gentle mist, but increasing as the hours went on, with a wind developing from the west, until, with night about to fall, the rain poured down steadily, driven by the wind that turned it into needles that stung one's face.

Throughout the afternoon Hal hunted for shelter but had found nothing that would afford more than minimal protection against the driving storm.

Cornwall brought up the rear, following Coon, who humped along disconsolately, his coat of fur plastered down with wetness, his bedraggled tail sweeping the forest floor.

Ahead of Coon, Gib and the rafter goblin walked together, with the marsh-man's wet fur gleaming in the soft light that still remained, the goblin weary and hobbling, walking with an effort. The march, Cornwall realized, had been tougher on the goblin than on any of the others. His days of walking, from Wyalusing to Hal's hollow tree, and now the six days of the march, had played him out. Life in the rafters at the university had not fitted him for this.

Cornwall hurried ahead, passing Coon. He reached down and touched the goblin's shoulder.

"Up, on my back," he said. "You deserve a rest."

The goblin looked up at him. "Kind sir," he said, "there is no need."

"I insist," said Cornwall. He crouched down and the goblin clambered on his shoulder, balancing himself with an arm around the human's neck.

"I am tired," he admitted.

"You have traveled far," said Cornwall, "since that day you came to see me."

The goblin chuckled thinly. "We started a long progression of events," he said, "and not finished yet. You know, of course, that I go into the Wasteland with you."

Cornwall grunted. "I had expected as much. You will be welcome, little one."

"The tenor slowly leaves me," said Oliver, the goblin. "The sky no longer frightens me as much as it did when I started out. I am afraid now I might even grow to like the open. That would be a horrible thing to happen to a rafter goblin."

"Yes, wouldn't it?" said Cornwall.

They plodded along, and there was no sign of Hal. Darkness began to sift down into the forest. Would they keep walking all the night, Cornwall wondered. Was there any end to it? There was no letup in the storm. The slanting rain, coming from the northwest, slashed at his face. The wind seemed to be growing colder and sharper.

Hal materialized in the darkness ahead, moving like a dark ghost out of the darkness of the tree trunks. They stopped, standing in a knot, waiting for him to come up to them.

"I smelled smoke," he said, "and tracked it down. It could have been Beckett and his men, camping for the night; it could have been a charcoal pit or a farmer's homestead. When you smell smoke, you find out what it is."

"Now," said Gib, "that you have sufficiently impressed us, tell us what it was."

"It is an inn," said Hal.

"That does us no good," said Gib. "They'd never let us in, not a marsh-man and a hill-man, a goblin, and a coon."

"They would let Mark in," said Hal. "If he gets too wet and cold, his arm will stiffen up and he'll have no end of trouble."

Cornwall shook his head. "They wouldn't let me in, either. They'd ask to see the color of my coin and I have no coin. In any case, we stick together. I wouldn't enter where they'd not welcome all of you."

"There is a stable," said Hal. "Once it is dark, we can shelter there, be out before the dawn. No one would ever know."

"You found no other shelter?" asked Cornwall. "No cave?"

"Nothing," said Hal. "I think it has to be the stable."