Worthless complained most of the time it took to reach the borders of the proud young nation’s first national park. He continued complaining as they entered and proceeded to progress beyond the limits of the first tentative, hesitantly marked trails, pushing into mountainous backcountry that was unknown and unsurveyed. It was possible that beneath the camouflaging leather patch on his forehead, the unicorn’s trimmed-down horn was irritating him again. The next time they stopped, Malone would put some of that special ointment on it, the golden goo he had bought in a bazaar in Jaisalmer some considerable time ago, when crossing the Thar Desert.
It certainly was an outlandish place, this new park. In parts down low between the mountains, the ground steamed and hissed and suppurated, so that in the chill of autumn, clouds rose upward to air-wrestle with those descending. The result was a climatological confusion that often left him squinting to see through the resultant heavy fog. The surveyors and soldiers who had forced fitful penetration into this isolated pocket of the country feared stepping into concealed pools of water hot enough to fry man and mount alike, or being swallowed by steaming mud that would boil off a man’s boots before he could reach stable ground. Such concerns didn’t worry Malone. Even with one eye locked in a permanent squint, Worthless could sense and avoid dangerous earth long before he put his hoof in it, so to speak.
Days had passed since Malone had seen another human being. Bears and elk, yes. Fox and beaver, in plenty. Even wolves, who came close, perhaps drawn by the prospect of prey, perhaps by the wolf’s-skull cap that adorned Malone’s head. When that cap winked back at them, the paralleling pack hesitated. When it threw back its half head and howled, they took off running so fast they left more than one unintentional longitudinal marker behind them in the shallow snow.
It wasn’t yet deep. Too early in the season for that. But if the party Malone had been deputed to find didn’t get out quick, they’d be trapped by some of the coldest, snowiest weather on the continent. That was what Malone had been hired to do: find ’em, and bring them out. Difficult work, given the first snow and the absence of much in the way of trail spoor. If anyone could do it, he and Worthless could. The unicorn was not pleased with the undertaking. This time of year, he much preferred the company of a warm stable and compliant mares. Or, not being particularly particular, t’ other way around.
The faint tracks of those who had preceded them eventually led man and mount down into a valley furiously alive with the Earth’s breath. Intermittent geysers spewed hissing whale spouts of water into the crystal-clear air of morning. Noxious gases vented from fumaroles while mud pits bubbled and stewed like the paint pots of the maddest of damned artists. Lush evergreens blanketed the surrounding mountainsides. High overhead, an eagle screamed. Searching diligently for prey, it saw only a lone rider on horseback: too big to carry off, too big to ignore.
Sympathetic to the plight of any creature whose daily foraging amounted to endless searching for moving needles in a geologic haystack, Malone threw back his head and screamed a reply. This so startled the eagle that it banked in midair sharply enough to shed a feather. In the way of eagles and hawks, their consequent conversation was shorter than Hawthorne or Melville would have countenanced.
Eagle: Seen any vermin?
Malone: Nope.
Eagle: Bye.
Malone continued on, moving ever deeper into the valley of mist and ground-hugging fog. The trail of the party he was tracking grew fainter and fainter, until even he had trouble telling the difference between particles of soil that had been disturbed by man and horse and those that had simply been roiled by the unsettled Earth. It was when he was turning back, with an eye toward retracing part of the trail already traversed, that a noise most peculiar made him pause and look to his right.
Worthless was plodding gingerly around the fringe of a vast bubbling and popping mud pit. Nothing out of the locally ordinary there. It was only when a portion of the pit studdenly rose up and assumed human shape to confront Malone that he took serious notice.
The mountain man thought he was more than middling familiar with the general panoply of demonic manifestations, but this was the first time he had ever seen a mudunculus. Point of fact, he’d never even heard of a mudunculus. But that surely was one looming there before him, its feet sunk deep in the bubbling gunk and its distorted, lopsided, coffee-hued head flashing fangs at him from the midst of a mouth of muck. It had heavy, muscular mud arms that reached all the way to the ground, a tapering, wickedly whiplike tail, a bald, slick skull, long ears that drooped like those of a bloodhound from the sides of its head, penetrating eyes of blazing brown, and a nose that was as pointed as its glare. It grinned down at Malone from a very great height indeed. Strong men would have panicked at the sight, and women fainted.
Not Mad Amos Malone. He’d done seen quite a bit.
The mudunculus was certainly impressive. Steam rose and curled from its huge body, which, though quite naked, was covered in thick searing sludge that contributed a thankful modesty.
“Oho!” it burbled delightedly. “Another surveyor. And just in time for breakfast.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Sliding down out of the saddle, Malone commenced to rummaging in one of the hefty saddlebacks that was slung across Worthless’s back. As the creature of the depths stared, the mountain man unlimbered skillet, spoon, and fixin’s.
Instant insanity the demon expected. Insouciance was not a reaction to which it was accustomed.
“You pathetic human, I was not issuing an invitation. You are to be breakfast! You, and that toothsome-looking nag you rode in on.”
Busy setting up his skillet and accoutrements, Malone glanced idly in his mount’s direction, then back at the mudunculus. “I’ve heard Worthless called a sight many things. I’ve called him more names than most, myself. But I reckon ‘toothsome’ is a new one.” Using kit from his saddlebags, he carefully began to build a fire under the skillet, making a cooking pit of stones to contain it. “I believe I rightly heard you call me ‘another’ surveyor. By that I’m supposin’ you have some knowledge o’ them that come here afore me?”
The mountain man’s curiosity restored the demon’s grin. “Truthfully, I do. They were not welcome.” Dripping mud of different colors and extreme temperature, enormous arms spread wide, as if to encompass all that man and demon alike could see. “This is my home. None may come here without my permission. All who trespass are doomed to meet the same end.” One long, thick finger pointed meaningfully toward a nearby geyser mound. “Behold the fate that is to be yours, master of some small courage.”
Leaning slightly forward as he crouched by his skillet, Malone was just able to see around the edge of the built-up mound of sulfates and silicates and such. It shaded a pile of bones. Human bones, roughly disarticulated and bleached white as chalk. At least three skulls stared back at him. There might have been more. He nodded slowly to himself.
He had found the missing party of surveyors.
Showing foot-long fangs, the mudunculus leaned forward. “Do you not tremble at the sight? Are you not melting with fear? You have but a moment longer to live before your flesh is boiled from your living bones, as was theirs!”
Having stood, Malone returned to hunting through a saddlebag. “Y’know,” he declared absently, “there’s a real trick t’ transportin’ eggs on horseback.” One hand full of henfruit, he headed back to the skillet. “Takes jest the right kind o’ packin’, and the right kind o’ horse.”
“Unworthy one! You have no respect. I think perhaps you are already mad.” A great sucking sound ensued as the demon took a giant step forward. Not toward Malone, but past him, to his left. “Watch then, as I consume first your beloved animal, so that you may see what is in store for your own body!”