The survivors began to drag themselves away. I saw mountains behind them, but they were not the high peaks of the Mittelmarch. These were gra.s.sy and low.

Limping, leading their mounts, swearing at us, nursing wounds, the bewildered rogues retreated. We watched. When they were a good distance from us we saw that their breath began to steam and they showed signs of cold, shivering and stamping their feet, looking about them in some surprise. They had gone into the Mittelmarch. Then they vanished.

148.

"Duke Arioch's warriors could not follow us," I suggested. "And you had those men waiting if we succeeded in returning to this world. The d.a.m.ned can no more enter the Earth than the innocent can enter the Mittelmarch."

Klosterheim was shaking. "Are you going to kill me, Von Bek?"

"I would be wise to kill you," I said. "And all my better judgement tells me to do so. But I am aware of what killing you means, and unless I am fighting you I cannot easily bring myself to kill you, Klosterheim."

He found my charity disgusting, it was plain, but he accepted it. He feared death more than anyone I had ever seen.

"Where are we now?" I asked him.

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because I could still summon enough anger, perhaps, to do what I know should really be done to cleanse the world of an obscenity."

"You are in Italy," he said. "On the road to Venice."

"So those mountains behind us would be the Venetian Alps?"

"What else?"

"We must go west," I said to Sedenko. "Towards Milan. Groot said that our goal ties in the west."

Klosterheim's pale features became tense as Sedenko wrenched the sword from his fingers and threw it away.

"Dismount," I said. "Your horses are fresher than ours."

We tied Klosterheim to a tree by the side of the road and transferred our saddles to his beast and another which had belonged to a dead ruffian. We kept our own horses and packed the remainder of our gear on them.

"We should not leave him alive," said Sedenko. "Shall I cut his throat, captain?"

I shook my head. "I have told you that I cannot easily consign any soul to the fate which inevitably awaits Klosterheim."

"You are a fool not to kill me," said the solder-priest. "I am your greatest enemy. And I can conquer yet, von Bek. I have powerful allies in h.e.l.l."

"Not as powerful, surely, as mine," I said. Again I spoke in High German, which Sedenko could not understand.

Klosterheim replied in the same tongue. "Indeed they 149.

could now be more powerful. Lucifer has lost Himself. Most of His Dukes do not want Reconciliation with Heaven."

"There is no certainty that it will come about, Johannes Klosterheim. Lucifer's plans are mysterious. G.o.d's Will is equally mysterious. How can any of us judge what is actually taking place?"

"Lucifer plans to betray His own," said Klosterheim. "That is all I know. It is all that is necessary to know."

"You have simplified yourself," I said. "But perhaps that is how one must be if one follows your vocation."

"We are betrayed by G.o.d and Lucifer both," said Klosterheim. "You should understand that, von Bek. We are abandoned. We have nothing we can trusteven d.a.m.nation! We can only play a game and hope to win."

"But we do not know the rules."

"We must invent them. Join me, von Bek. Let Lucifer find His own Grail!"

We got up onto our horses.

"I have given my word," I said. "It is all I have. I hardly understand this talk of games, of loyalties, of betrayals. I have promised to find the Cure for the World's Pain if I can. And that is what I hope to achieve. It is your world, Klosterheim, which is a world of moves and countermoves. But such gamesmanship robs life of its savour and destroys the intellect. I'll have as little part of it as I can."

As we rode away Klosterheim shouted fiercely at me: "Be warned, war hound! All that is fantastic leagues against you!"

It was a chilling threat. Even Sedenko, who did not understand the words, shuddered.

Chapter XII.

WE RODE NOW across comparatively flat country which was broken by the low white buildings of farms and vineyards, yellow and light green under the heavy sun.

At the first good-sized town we came to I sought a doctor for our wounds. I had Satan's elixir, but preferred to keep it for more urgent purposes. By dint, however, of a little of Satan's silver we were able to get the doctor to tend to our horses as well. The man made a fuss but I argued that he had probably killed more men than horses in his career and that here was his opportunity to try to even up his score. He saw no humour in my jest, but he did his work skillfully enough.

We took the road to Milan, falling in with a mixed group of pilgrims, most of whom were returning to France and some to England. These men and women had visited the Holy City, bought all sorts of benefices, observed all the wonders, both ancient and modem, and seemed thoroughly satisfied that they had gained much from the hardships of travel. They had stories of maguses, of miracle-working priests, of visions and revelations. Many displayed the usual sorts of gimcrackery still sold as the bones of this or that saint, the feather of an angel, pieces of the True Cross and so on. At least three separate people I met had the real Holy Grail but considered The War Hound and the Vferid's Pain 151.

themselves too sinful, still, either to perceive its actual beauty (these things were pewter got up to look like silver, mostly) or to be allowed to witness its magical properties. Naturally, I neither informed them of my Quest nor attempted to persuade them that the artefacts they had purchased were false.

When we got to that lovely city of Verona, we found the place in a bustle. Some Catholic knight, doubtless tired of the War in Germany and believing the Cause without much worth anyway, had aroused a group of zealous young men to join him in a Crusade. The object of the Crusade, it seemed, was to attack Constantinople and free it from the Turks. This idea appealed greatly to Sedenko, whose people lived to take the city they called "Tsargrad" out of Islam's chains. When he saw the leader of the Crusaders, however, a near-senile baron evidently eaten with syphilis, and the tiny force he had gathered, Sedenko decided to wait "until all the Kazak hosts can ride at once to Saint Sophia and destroy the crescent which profanes her altar."

Near Brescia we witnessed the trial and burning of a self-professed Anti-Christ: a gigantic man with wild black hair and a black beard, wearing a red robe and a crown of roses. He called upon the people to give up their false pride, their presumption that they were the children of Christ, and admit that as sinners they were followers of his. The Final War must come, he preached, and those who were with him would be triumphant. The Bible, he said, lied. It was plain that he believed every word he spoke and that his concern for others was sincere. He died at the stake, pleading with them to save themselves by following him. During his burning a thunderstorm began some miles away. The priests chose to see this as a sign of G.o.d's pleasure. The people, however, plainly expected the beginning of Armageddon and knelt to pray. In the main they prayed to Christ, though I believe I heard several praying to the charred bones of the Anti-Christ. And in Crema I was taken to meet another mad creature, some hermaphroditic monster, who claimed that it was an angel, fallen to Earth and, having lost its wings, unable to return to Heaven. The angel lived on what it could beg from the people of Crema. They were kind to it. Some of them half-believed it. However, I had met an Angel, albeit a Dark One, and I knew what they were like. But when this angel of Crema begged me, as a holy traveller and a Goodly Knight, to confirm that he had truly plummeted from Heaven, I told all 152.

those who would listen that, to the best of my limited knowledge, this was what an angel looked like and that it was quite possible that this one had lost its wings. I suggested it be given all possible comfort during its stay on Earth.

Five miles past Crema we saw an entire village destroyed by brigands clad in the hoods of the Holy Inquisition of Spain. They went off with the contents of the church, with all goods of value, with women and with children whom they plainly intended to sell as staves. And those who survived believed, many of them, that they had been visited by Christ's servants and that what had been given up by them had been given up in support of Christ's Cause.

I met few good men on that road. I met many whose honour had turned to pride yet who were contemptuous of me for what they saw as my cynical pragmatism. Bit by bit I had told Sedenko most of my story, for 1 thought it fair to let him know whom he served. He had shrugged. After what he had witnessed of late, he said, he did not think it mattered a great deal. At least the Quest was holy, even if the men upon it were not.

Beyond Crema we pa.s.sed again into the Mittelmarch. Save that the seasons were, of course, reversed, the landscape was not greatly different. We were in a kingdom, we discovered, which was the vestige of a Carthaginian Empire which had beaten Rome during Hannibal's famous campaign, conquered all of Europe and parts of Asia and had converted to the Jewish religion, so that the whole world had been ruled by Rabbinical Knights. It was a land so horrifying to Sedenko that he believed he was being punished for his sins and was already in h.e.l.l. We were treated hospitably and my engineering experience was called into play when the Chief Judge of this Carthaginian land p.r.o.nounced a sentence of death upon a t.i.tan. A gallows had to be built for him. In return for aid and some extra gold, I was able to design a suitable scaffold. The t.i.tan was hanged and I received the grat.i.tude of those people forever.

Shortly after this we entered a great, complicated city maintained by an infinite series of balances and relationships whose acute harmony was such that I could not then tolerate it. It was a place of divine abstractions and the citizens were scarcely aware of us at all. Sedenko was not as badly affected as was I, but we were both glad to leave and find ourselves soon in a familiar France near Saint-Etienne where, for some 153.

weeks, we were imprisoned as suspected murderers and heretics, released only through the intercession of a priest who had discovered several eyewitnesses. The priest was paid with the Carthaginian gold and we went on our way gladly. Both our own world and the world of the Mittelmarch seemed to have increased in peril, but we moved steadily westward through both, crossing the sea, at last, to England, where we did not fare particularly well.

In England we were regarded by almost everyone with deep suspicion. The nation was full of discontent and any stranger was considered either a Puritan traitor or a Catholic agitator, so we were pleased to leave that country and set sail for Ireland, where there were various small wars afoot. We found ourselves drawn into two such campaigns, once on the side of the Irish and once on the side of the English; Sedenko fell in love and killed the woman's husband when discovered. Thus we left Ireland in some haste and from there set foot, once more, in the Mittelmarch.

We had been on the Quest for almost a year and seemed no closer to the blue-green Forest at the Edge of Heaven, while I had seen much of the world but learned little, I thought, that I had not known already. I longed for my Lady Sabrina, whom I had in no way forgotten. My love for her was as strong as it had ever been.

Sometimes I believed I had caught sight of Klosterheim or that he had revealed his hand in several attacks on our persons, but I could not be sure. It did seem that his warning had been accurate. Fewer and fewer of the lands we visited would welcome us. We began to feel like criminals. The hospitality of even common folk declined. The struggle between Heaven and h.e.l.l, the struggle which was taking place in h.e.l.l alone, the wars which shook the lands of the Mittelmarch, were all reflected in the strife which tore Europe. There was no end to it. Death and Plague continued to spread. We wondered, should we continue our way west and come at last to the New World, if we should discover any better there. Young Sedenko had taken on a haggard look and seemed ten years older than when we had met. I, apparently, had not much changed in my appearance. 1 had become familiar with many of the spells in the grimoires and had on occasions used them. Of late, their use had become more frequent. And of late, also, they seemed to have become less effective. I wondered if h.e.l.l's Dukes were 154.

The Vfor Hound aad the Wtrid's Pain ma.s.sing and gaining strength over their Master. In which case, I thought, my Quest and all my efforts were absolutely without meaning.

It was raining in the Mittelmarch, one spring day, at noon. Sedenko and I were drenched and our horses were beginning to steam. We were crossing a wide plain of cracked earth. At intervals on the plain we saw tall pyres burning, sending black smoke low into the sky. The rain pattered on our cloaks and made puddles in the mud. We had encountered and defeated four or five misshapen men who I suspected were Klosterheim's, and I was following my compa.s.s which directed us to the way out of Mittelmarch. I was beginning to know a deeper despair than any I had known before, for I suspected my journey had no ending, that a terrible trick had been played upon me.

The pyres were closer together. No mourners stood near them, but upon each one was a heavily wrapped corpse. I wondered if the occupants of those pyres had died of disease. Then I saw a moving figure which was obscured by the smoke and I pointed it out to Sedenko, but the Muscovite could see nothing.

So long had it been since our last encounter with Klosterheim that we had begun to think him gone directly from our sphere, but now I was almost certain that the shadow hi the smoke was the witch-seeker himself. I drew up, raising a cautionary hand to Sedenko, who followed my example. The rain and the smoke continued to make it all but impossible to see any distance.

Eventually we decided to ride on as the rain began to lift and the sun emerged, dark red and huge in the eastern sky.

The smoke gave way to mist rising from the broken earth and we left the pyres behind us, though the plain continued to stretch for miles in all directions.

Sedenko saw the village first. He gestured. Distant metal glittered in the heavy evening light. The houses seemed to be rounded, topped by t.i.ttle spires. Coming closer, I saw that they were in actuality leather tents mounted on wheels and decorated with all manner of symbols. The glitter came from their roof-spikes, of gold, bronze and silver inlay.

Sedenko drew in his breath. "Those yurts are a familiar sight!" His hand went to the httt of his sabre.

"What?" said I. "Are they Tatars?"

"By all the signs, aye."

The Wu- Hound and the World's Pain 155.

"Then perhaps we should skirt that camp?" I suggested.

"And lose the chance of killing some of them!" he said, as if I were insane.

"There are likely to be rather more of them, friend Sedenko, than there are of us. I do not think my Master would be pleased if I diverted my time to the cause of genocide . . ."

Sedenko scowled and muttered. He was like a hound restrained from hunting its natural game.

"Besides," I added, "they are showing a keen interest in ourselves."

A score of hors.e.m.e.n were riding towards us. I spurred my steed into a trot, but Sedenko did not follow me. "I cannot run from a Tatar," he wailed.

I went about and got hold of his reins, dragging him and his horse after me. But the Tatars were moving with astonishing speed and within minutes we were surrounded, staring at their mounts, which were not creatures of flesh at all, but were fashioned from bra.s.s. They had dead, staring eyes and creaked a little as they moved. The Tatars, however, were evidently flesh and blood.

"Those horses are mechanical," I said. "I have never heard of such a wonder!"

One of the Asiatics pulled at his long moustache and stared at me for several moments before speaking. "Yours is the tongue of Philander Groot."

"It is German," I said. "What do you know of Groot?"

"Our friend." The Tatar chief looked suspiciously at the glaring Sedenko. "Why is your companion so angry?"

"Because you chased us, I suppose," 1 told him. "He is also a friend of Philander Groot. We saw him less than a year hence, in the Valley of the Golden Cloud."

"It was said that he would go there." The Tatar made a sign to his men. Pressing on either side of us, they began to steer us towards their village. "It was Groot who made our horses for us, when the Plague came, which destroyed all mares and lost us our herds."

"Is that what burns yonder?" I asked him, pointing back at the pyres.

He shook his head. "Those are not ours." He would say no more on the subject.

My opinion of Groot was even higher now that I had seen an example of his skill. I found it difficult to understand 156.

UK War Hound and the World's Pain why the dandy had chosen to live the life of a hermit when he was capable of so much.

The mechanical horses clattered as we moved. Sedenko said to me: "They are not true Tatars, of course, but are creatures of the Mittelmarch, and so I suppose are not necessarily my natural blood-enemies."

"I think it would be politic, if nothing else, Sedenko,'* said I, "if you held to that line of reasoning. At least for the next little while."

He looked suspiciously at me, but then nodded, as if to say he would bide his time for my sake.

The village was full of dogs, goats, women and children and it stank. The Tatars brought their mechanical mounts to a halt and the creatures stopped, still as statues, where they stood. Fires and cooking pots, half-cured skins, wizened elders: all at odds with the sophistication of Groot's inventions.

We were led into one of the larger yurts and here the stench was more intense than anything we had experienced outside. I was almost driven out by it, but Sedenko took it for granted. I gathered that his own people had borrowed many Tatar customs and that, to a stranger, Kazaks would not be easily distinguishable from their ancient enemies.

"We are the Guardians of the Genie," said the Tatar chief as he bade us sit upon piles of exotic but unclean cushions. "You must eat with us, if you are Groot's friends. We shall kill a dog and a goat."

"Please," said I, "your hospitality is too much. A simple bowl of rice is all we need to eat."

"You must eat meat." The chief was firm. "We have few guests and would hear your news."

I was amused, wondering what he would make of our real story. I had teamed in such circ.u.mstances to be a little vague, since oftentimes we had not even journeyed from any neighbouring kingdom, and thus could be unfamiliar with geography, customs and politics which might be the only experience of our hosts. We had become used to saying that we were upon a pilgrimage, hi quest of a holy thing; that we were vowed not to mention it, nor the name of the Deity we worshipped. This way I, at least, was able to identify this fict.i.tious G.o.d of mine with the G.o.ds of those we met. Sedenko, being still somewhat more pious than myself, preferred to say nothing.

157.

As best J could, I described some of my adventures in the Mittelmarch and some of our experiences in our journey across Europe. There was quite enough for the Tatar chief to hear, and by the time we were setting to about the dog and the goat (both of which were stewed in the same pot, with a few vegetables) I think we had paid more than amply for our food and it was time for me to ask the chief: "And what is this Genie which you guard?"

"A powerful creature," he said soberly, "which resides in a jar. It has been imprisoned there for eons. Philander Groot gave it to us. In return for the gift of horses, we guard the Genie."

"And what did you do before you became Guardians of the Genie?" I asked.

"We made war on other tribes. We conquered them and took away their horses, their livestock, their women."

"You no longer make war on them?"

The Tatar shook his head. "We cannot. Even by the time Philander Groot came to us we had destroyed everyone but ourselves."

"You wiped out every other tribe?"

"The Plague weakened them. We considered attacking Bakinax, but we are too few. Philander Groot said that with the power of the Genie we should not have to fear the Plague. And this seems to be so."

"And what is Bakinax?" asked Sedenko.

"The City of the Plague," said the Tatar chief, "It is where the Plague came from in the first place. It is created by a demon the citizens have with them. I have heard that they try to destroy the demon but that it feeds on the souls of men and beasts and that is why it sends the Plague to them. It sits in a sphere at the centre of Bakinax, eating its fill."