“ ‘Ow did this wonder get ‘ere?” Neena wanted to know. “In a shower o’ stars, or via some sorceral sublimation?”
The moa shrugged. Feathers went everywhere. “I have no idea. I’m not into necromancy. Some say it arrived on a pillar of blue flame, others that is was delivered in the beak of the Maker herself. The story I personally give the most credence to says that it just fell out of a stormy sky one day and bounced a couple of times before coming to rest in a puddle of muddy water. When some Wise-Ones-Who-Shall-Go-Unnamed found out what it could do, they stuck it in the cave and assigned a Guardian to it. Successive Guardians have kept watch over it ever since.” A huge wing rose and fell.
“Like I said, it doesn’t much interest me. When you’re on the verge of extinction, little things like Guardians don’t bother you. Obviously you feel otherwise. I wish you luck.”
Buncan smiled sympathetically. “We wish you luck as well.”
“And I,” Snaugenhutt rumbled. “I know what it is to be alone and abandoned.”
“Not by Nature, you don’t.” The moa turned and strode OS downstream, singing softly to itself. They watched until it had disappeared.
“Shame,” Neena murmured. “A handsome creature, if a bit oddly proportioned. Did you note the blue o’ its eyes, an’ ‘ow the sun reddened its plumage?”
“Maybe he’ll find another moa,” Buncan suggested, “and they’ll have lots of little moas.”
“ ‘Ow many moa does it take . . . ?” Squill began. In a somber mood, Buncan cut him off sharply.
They followed the cheerful little tributary up into a dense thicket of low scrub, Snaugenhutt plowing easily through the tightly interwoven branches and trunks. Much of the vegetation they were now encountering was of a type unfamiliar even to the widely traveled Gragelouth.
Truly this was a place of the Forgotten, Buncan reflected. He pondered what the Guardian would be like even as he wondered if he ought to be afraid, then decided he was too tired. Whatever it was they would deal with it, as they had dealt with every other obstacle which had crossed their path. The duar bounced lightly against his back.
Topping yet another in a seemingly endless series of natural granite steps, they found themselves standing on a small flat plateau. Cliffs rose steeply to left and right. Ahead additional steps led onward and upward, but the stream did not tumble down them. Instead it curved leftward against a raised shoulder of rock and terminated at the base of a narrow waterfall. A small clear pool shimmered at the rocky intersection of stream and cascade. To the right lay a dark, yawning void in the cliff face, a black blot on the otherwise unmarred granite.
Dismounting from Snaugenhutt to give him maximum room to maneuver, they approached the cave with caution. A thick, musky smell emanated from within.
“Let ‘im come.” The rhino pawed at the gravel. ‘Tin ready for anything.”
“Sure you are.” Viz bobbed atop his iron perch. Like the rest of Snaugenhutt’s armor, it was slightly the worse for wear from the fall the rhino had taken inside the monastery of the Dark Ones. “Just don’t get carried away. We may be up against something more powerful here than the minions of the Baron, or even the crazed horrors of the monastery.”
“You watch your butt and I’ll watch mine,” the rhino rumbled,
Buncan peered hard but saw nothing. The depths of the cave were veiled in blackness. He took courage from the fact that the opening wasn’t very large, and that it was unlikely any inhabitant would be larger than its egress.
After a querulous glance at Gragelouth, who could only shrug helplessly, he turned back to the black and called tentatively. “Hello in there? We’re travelers from a far land. We’ve come a long way to see if there really is such a thing as the Grand Veritable, and we were told you had charge of it.”
Silence most profound greeted this declamation. After a pause, Buncan tried again.
“Listen, all we want at this point is a look, to see if the damn thing’s real.” This time, an echo of silence.
Emboldened, Squill sauntered right up to the entrance. “Me, I always said there never were any such contrivance. Tis all piffle, an’ so’s any bleedin’ Guardian.”
“I am not piffle,” declared a voice from within. A very deep voice. A voice most carnivorous, of a timbre and resonance that inspired in the otter an urge to precipitous retreat.
“Nice goin’,” muttered his sister as they huddled together against Snaugenhutt’s bulk.
Buncan too had retreated, but not as far. He started to draw his sword, instead swung the duar around in front of him. “We must have a look. We’ve come too far and endured too much to just walk away now. At least grant us proof of the Veritable’s existence.” And maybe an explanation of what it is, he added silently.
“Go away!” The Guardian’s speech was half snarl, half cough, all menace. “I’m in a truly foul mood today. Provoke me, and I’ll come out.”
“ ‘Tis bluff.” Buncan looked sharply back at Neena. “I’ve ‘eard about these ‘orrible ‘guardian’ things all me life. Monsters that are supposed to watch over secrets an’ treasures an’ the like, wot? If they ain’t just gossip they’re always overstated. Why d’you think this one ain’t showed ‘isself? Because there ain’t much to ‘im, that’s bloomin’ why. They all rely on their reputations, they do.”
“I dunno.” Buncan turned back to the cave. “Just a look, that’s all we want!”
“Blood of my liver, you want to steal it!” came the sonorous reply. “Frankly, that’d be all right with me. I’m sick of this job. But my job it is, and I’m bound like all who preceded me to perform it to the best of my ability. So don’t make my day any more difficult, okay? Just leave.”
For one entrusted to watch over the Source of All Knowledge and the Fount of Limitless Power, this Guardian sounded quite reasonable, Buncan thought. While he had not acceded to their request, he had already deigned to converse with them.
“I’m sorry, but for the reasons I’ve already mentioned we can’t do that.”
“Can you describe the Veritable ID us without coming out?” Gragelouth inquired.
“Yeah, give us a ‘int,” barked Squill. “ “Us it animal, vegetable, or mineral?” He winked at his sister.
A thunderous roar amplified by the natural bellows of the cave rattled the ground like a seismic tremor. Small rocks tumbled from the cliff side.“SO BE IT UPON YOU! DON’T SAY YOU WEREN’T WARNED!”
As Buncan stumbled frantically backward, blazing green eyes centered on something huge and tawny exploded toward him.
CHAPTER 25
It wasn’t as bad as the pit-bull, he thought as he threw himself to his left, nor as horrifying as some gramarye wraith, but it looked quite capable of butchering each and every one of mem without pausing to take a breath, including the massive Snaugenhutt.
Its headlong charge carried it well past the diving Buncan. Gravel and dust flew from beneath its clawed feet as it landed and spun, gathering itself for a second, better-timed attack.
Because of its color and general shape, Buncan at first thought it a lion. But there was no mane, the skull was longer and decidedly flattened, the ears were positioned differently, and the forelegs were more muscular at the shoulder. More startling still, it walked on four legs instead of two and wore no clothing or decoration of any kind, both hallmarks of the civilized. Certainly a throwback, yet one capable of speech and rational thought.
It was hard to contemplate what all this might mean, because he found himself mesmerized by the pair of incredible, backward-curved canines which protruded downward from the roof of the Guardian’s mouth. Each was fully half the length of the otters’ short swords and looked just as sharp. When the Guardian yawned, its gaping upper and lower jaws formed a nearly straight line. Among all the other creatures Buncan knew of or had ever encountered, only the thylacine Bedarra could duplicate the feat, and his admittedly impressive teeth were no match for the ivory scimitars of this brute.