Fellowship of the Talisman

31

The swarm rested on top of a small ridge, back from the edge of the fen. It was a terrifying sight — black and yet not entirely black, for through it ran strange flickerings, like the distant flaring of heat lightning such as one would see far off, coloring the horizon, on a summer night. At times the swarm seemed to be substantial, a solid ball of black; at other times it appeared curiously flimsy, like a loose ball of yarn, like a soap bubble very close to bursting. It seemed, even when it appeared to be most solid, to be in continual motion, as if the creatures or the things or whatever it might be that made it up, were continually striving to place themselves in more advantageous positions, rearranging themselves, shuffling about to attain a more ideal configuration. Watching it, one at times could see, or imagine he saw, a shape, an individual member of the swarm, although never for long enough to be entirely sure what it might be.

And that, thought Duncan, was perhaps as well, for the glimpses that he got were of shapes and structures so horrifying, so far beyond anyone’s most outrageous imaginings, that they made the blood run cold.

He spoke to those who clustered about him. “All of you know what we are to do,” he said. “I will carry the talisman, holding it high, presenting it. I will walk in front, going slowly. Thus,” he said, holding it high so that all could see. In the last rays of the setting sun, the jewels in the talisman caught fire, blazing like a mystic flame with all the colors of a rainbow, but brighter, far brighter than a rainbow.

“And if it doesn’t work?” growled Conrad.

“It must work,” Diane told him coldly.

“It must work,” Duncan agreed calmly. “But, on the off-chance that it doesn’t, everyone run like hell. Back into the fen, back toward the island.”

“If we can run,” said Conrad. “I won’t run. The hell with running…”

A hand reached up and snatched the talisman out of Duncan’s grip.

“Andrew!” Duncan roared, but the hermit was rushing forward, running toward the swarm, the blazing talisman held high in one hand, his staff flailing in the other, his mouth open and screaming words that were not words at all.

Conrad was raging. “The stupid, show-off son-of-a-bitch!” he howled.

Duncan leaped forward, racing to catch Andrew.

Ahead of him a lightning stroke flared. In its afterglow Duncan saw Andrew stand for a moment, burning in bright flames. Then, as the flames snuffed out, the hermit was a smoking torch of man, a torch a vagrant gust of wind had blown out, with tendrils of greasy smoke streaming from his upraised arms. The talisman was gone and Andrew slowly crumpled, fell in upon himself into a mound of charred and smoking flesh.

Duncan threw himself flat on the ground and the wild, terrible thought ran through him: It had not been Wulfert’s talisman, it had not been the talisman that the Horde had feared; it had not been the talisman that had protected them in their long journeying through the Desolated Land. He should have known, he told himself. On the strand the Horde — it must have been the Horde — had used Harold the Reaver to obtain the thing they feared, the one thing they had not dared to try to seize themselves. And they had gotten the talisman, but had left it there upon the strand, as a thing of little value.

The one thing they had not gotten was the manuscript!

The manuscript, he thought. The manuscript, for the love of God! It had been the manuscript that the Horde had attempted to destroy, to negate, to obliterate. That had been the purpose of this latest desolation — desolate the northern part of Britain and then, having isolated it, move on Standish Abbey, where the manuscript was housed. But by the time they were ready to move on Standish Abbey, the manuscript, the original manuscript written by the little furtive figure who had scurried about to watch and listen, was no longer there. The Horde seemed much confused, Cuthbert had said, uncertain of itself. And that was it, of course. The manuscript, they had learned or somehow sensed, was no longer where it had been, but was being carried through the very desolation the Horde had brought about.

Little furtive man, little skulking, skittering man — Duncan said to that one who so long ago had lurked, jackal-like, about the company of Jesus, who had never been one of that company nor had tried to be one of them, who had only watched and listened and then had sat huddled, in some hidden corner, to write what he had seen and heard — you did better than you knew. Writing down the words of Jesus exactly as He spoke them, with no variation whatsoever, with no paraphrasing, reporting every gesture, every movement, even the expression on His face. For that, Duncan realized, was the way it had to be. It had to be the truth, it had to be a report of events exactly as they were if it were still, centuries later, to retain the magic, recapture the glory and the power, present the full force of the Man who had spoken.

Why, he asked that little skulking man, why did you never let me see your face? Why did you keep turning from me, why did you keep your face in shadow so that I could not know you? And that, he thought, that was a part of it as well, that was the way it had to be. For this little furtive man sought no glory for himself; all would have been for naught if he had sought the glory. He must remain, forever, the truly faceless man.

Duncan thrust his hand into the pouch, his fingers closing on the manuscript, bringing it out, the crinkling, crackling mass of it. Rising to his feet, he held it high above his head and with a bellow of triumph, charged the looming swarm.

Ahead of him the great, dark, shifting ball of the swarm flared with its many lightning strokes and with each stride he took, the flares grew ever brighter, but staying within the swarm itself, never reaching out. The same flaring strokes that had run the length of the rolling fog on the slope above the castle mound, flares such as the one that had reached out to turn Andrew into a smoking torch, but now they did not reach out.

Suddenly the flaring all came together and when that happened the swarm was turned into a ball of exploding fire.

It burst apart and there were many smoldering fragments flying in the air, falling all about him, smoking and shriveling as they struck the ground, to lie there for a moment, writhing as if in agony, then going quiet and dead.

The Horde was gone and in the twilight that came creeping in with the going of the sun there came a putrid stench that rolled like a fog over everything.

Duncan let his arm fall to his side, still clutching the wrinkled manuscript, wrinkled from being clutched too tightly.

A wailing scream rose in the twilight, not the wailing for the world, but another wailing, a wailing very close.

Duncan turned and saw Meg crouched above the stinking mound that had been Andrew and knew that the wailing came from her.

“But why?” asked Diane, coming up beside him. “A hermit and a witch?”

“He gave her a bite of cheese that first day we found her,” Duncan said. “He offered her his arm to help her along the forest trail. He stood side by side with her to witch a path out of the forest clearing. Is that not enough?”