Part 4 (1/2)

Morlock nodded and sc.r.a.ped his right foot on the path; the right shoe mimicked it, brus.h.i.+ng away a paper-thin surface of earth suspended in the air, revealing the nothingness beneath.

”Well made,” Morlock the Maker conceded. No doubt the pit beneath the path concealed some deadly thing-that was rather crude. But Morlock liked the sheet of earth hanging in the air, and would have liked to know how it was done.

Carefully approaching the verge of the pit, he peered through the empty footprint. The pit was about twice as deep as Morlock was tall. At its bottom was a fire-breathing serpent with vestigial wings, perhaps as long as the pit was deep. The serpent wore a metal collar, apparently bolted to its spine; the collar was fastened to a chain anch.o.r.ed to the sheer stone wall of the pit. The serpent, seeing Morlock, roared its rage and disappointment.

”Who set you here, serpent?” Morlock asked.

”I set myself,” the worm sneered. ”This chain is a clever ruse to deceive the unwary.”

”I have gold,” Morlock observed.

The serpent fell quiet. Its red-slotted eyes took on a greenish tint.

Morlock reached into his pocket and brought forth a single coin. He swept away the dirt hanging in the air and held the coin out for the serpent to see.

It saw. Its tongue flickered desperately in and out. Finally it said, ”Very well. Throw me the coin.”

Morlock dropped the gold disc into the pit. ”Tell me now.”

The serpent roared in triumph, ”I tell you nothing! Only a fool gives gold for nothing. Go away, fool.”

Morlock (he knew the breed) patiently reached back into his pack and brought forth a handful of gold coins.

Silence fell like a thunderbolt. Morlock held the gold coins out and let the serpent stare at them through his fingers.

”Tell me now,” Morlock said at last.

”It was a magician from beyond the Sea of Worlds,” the serpent replied, too readily. ”He said I could eat your flesh, but must leave the bones. I said I would break the bones and eat the marrow, and no power in the world could stop me. He called me a bold worm, strong and logical. He agreed about the bones. Then he rode away on a horse as tall as a tree.”

Morlock allowed a single coin to fall into the pit.

”More!” The word rose on a tongue of flame through the mist of venom blanketing the serpent.

”I will give you two more. For the truth.”

”All!” shouted the worm. ”All! All! All!”

”The truth.”

”It was a Master Dragon of the Blackthorn Range. He-”

Morlock snapped the fingers of his left hand twice. The two coins that had fallen into the pit rose glittering out of the cloud of venom and landed on his outstretched palm.

”Thiefl” the serpent screamed.

”Liar,” Morlock replied. In the language they were speaking it was the same word.

There was a long silence, broken by the serpent's roar of defeat. ”I don't know who he was! He came on me while I was asleep. I didn't wake up until he drove this bolt into my neck. Take your gold and go!”

”What did he look like?” Morlock demanded. ”Describe him.”

”Describe him! Describe him!” the serpent hissed despairingly. ”He was no different from you.”

Morlock shrugged. He'd met serpents better able to distinguish between human beings. But he had never supposed his interlocutor a genius among worms. He opened both his hands and scattered gold into the pit.

As he rose to go the serpent called, ”Wait!”

Morlock waited.

”I'm hungry,” the serpent said insinuatingly.

”Then?”

”Must I be more explicit? I was promised a meal, yourself, if I permitted myself to be staked in this pit. I am staked in this pit, and have been denied the meal by the most offensive sort of trickery. You are the responsible party, and your double obligation is clear. I ask only that you remove any buckles or metal objects you may have about your person, for I have a bad tooth-”

”No.”

”But this tooth-”

”You may not eat me.”

”Be reasonable. I won't eat you all at once,” the serpent offered hopefully.

Morlock shook his head, declining this reasonable offer. ”Nevertheless,” he added slowly (for it occurred to him this creature would certainly die if it remained staked in the pit), ”I will set you free for some slight charge. Perhaps a single gold coin.”

There was a pause as the worm struggled between the prospect of certain death or the loss of any part of its new wealth. ”Never!” it snarled at last.

Morlock walked away. The worm's voice followed him, carrying threats and abuse but never an offer to change. Morlock ignored it and presently it ceased.

The path came to an end just beyond the pit. This left him at something of a loss as to where to go next, but there was one good thing about it: he could put his shoes back on.

He sat down and tugged the leather strips from his dusty feet, breaking the spell. He heard footsteps and looked up to see his shoes running away into the dense bluish woods.

Morlock was aghast. Some spirit or invisible creature had clearly stepped into his shoes as they preceded him down the path. When the spell was broken they had stolen the shoes.

He had to recover those shoes. He had made them with his own hands; he had worn them for months; he had written his own name and other magical words on them. He would never be safe if he did not recover them.

Leaping to his feet, he heard footsteps crackling eastward through the blue-green underbrush. Heedlessly he followed them.

It was not long before the poisonous blue leaves began to sting his bare feet. These had already been scratched and bruised by his barefoot walk down the stony path. The slight pain from the poison naggingly reminded him that if he walked for long in these woods without protection for his feet the poison would acc.u.mulate in his lower limbs and they would die. Then he would face the unpleasant alternatives of self-amputation or death.

The shoes seemed to be aware of his danger. At every turn they plunged into the thickest underbrush, treading down hard to leave a path sharp with broken sticks and poison leaves.

But their strategy was not an unqualified success. Whatever their guiding intelligence was, it did not provide Morlock's sheer physical ma.s.s: an undoubted advantage in storming through wild shrubbery. The shoes became entangled for long moments in places where Morlock simply brushed through or leapt over, and he closed steadily.

In a gap without trees he drew to a halt and listened, knee-deep in leafy poison. Silence fell in the winterwood. The cras.h.i.+ng through blue bracken and greenish underbrush had ceased. His shoes had taken cover somewhere.

His heart fell. He was bound to lose a waiting game. He seized the first heavy branch that came to hand, tore it loose from its tree, and began to beat savagely about the dense covert of bushes.

It was sheer luck he glanced up to see his fugitive shoes weaving and dodging among the close-set trees on the opposite side of the narrow clearing. Morlock gave a crowlike caw of dismay and dashed off in pursuit. But almost as soon as he spotted them they disappeared in the woods beyond.