The Fourth Book Of Lost Swords : Farslayer's Story (Saberhagen's Lost Swords 4) by Fred Saberhagen (ereader iphone .TXT) 📕

      Not until after he had climbed three quarters of the way back to his house, trudging slowly, did it occur to the hermit that he might have escorted Black Pearl back down to the river. Well, too late now to think of that. She had managed the uphill struggle somehow, and doubtless she could manage going down.

      Since he was no magician, it appeared to Gelimer that there was not much he could do for the mermaid’s benefit, except to offer her some probably foolish hope, and let her know at least that she had a friend in the world.

      As he was approaching his door, the hermit felt the demon’s presence somewhere in the air, and thought that this time it was passing closer than before.

* * *

      Gelimer had not been back in his house for more than a quarter of an hour when something occurred that drew him out of doors again.

      The hermit had left both the inner and outer doors of his entrance standing open to the mild day, and it was a peculiar wisp of sound that entered through the doorway to draw him out. The sound was almost too faint to be heard at all, but there was a strangeness about it that caught at his attention.

      Listening, waiting for the sound to come again, Gelimer stood in the doorway of his small house. He tasted the air, rubbed a hand over his bald head, and scanned the sky. A few times in his life, a very few times and long ago, he had been able to see moving across the firmament some of the powers that served the great magicians. But today he was able to see nothing magical in the sky, nothing at all but a few clouds. He called for Geelong, thinking that if there were strange sounds to be tracked down, the watchbeast would be very useful. But there was no response to the hermit’s call.

      He was still loitering in his doorway when the strange sound came again, a high-pitched, briefly sustained squealing. Something mechanical, the hermit thought now, a cartwheel needing grease perhaps. Of course that couldn’t be right, there were never any carts on these rough trails. But—

      His concern, persistent and automatic, for the Sword drew him in the general direction of that weapon’s hiding place when he left the house. Gelimer called again for Geelong as he walked, and he continued to listen for the strange noise to come again.

      He had not walked forty meters from his door when a shift in the direction of the wind brought the mysterious squealing sound to him more distinctly. It was a high-pitched whining, only superficially mechanical. At bottom it was much more like the cry of some great animal in agony. And at the same time he heard it, the hermit detected a new whiff of the demon’s presence, which reached him through none of the usual channels of the senses.

      Ignoring the deep command of instinct that urged him to run away from that presence, Gelimer began instead to run toward it. Toward the place from which the sound came also.

      A hundred meters of running, moving horizontally along the great slope of the mountain, were enough to bring him to a small patch or grove of stunted thorntrees. Trotting around to the far side of this tall thicket, Gelimer came suddenly in sight of Geelong. The watchbeast had somehow been nightmarishly elevated to twice or three times Gelimer’s height above the ground, and all four of his limbs were spread out and pinned on tough thorny branches. Geelong’s head was twisted to one side, whether voluntarily or not, so that he looked in the direction from which his master now approached. From the animal’s open mouth drooled whitish foam all mixed with blood. The creature’s lolling tongue was bitten halfway through. Geelong’s eyes were open, and watched Gelimer. His lower belly had been opened also, as if with a dull blade in the beginning of a disembowelment. More blood, much more, dripped from his belly, and a slender rope of gut was hanging halfway to the ground.

      Gelimer struggled to find disbelief, but was unable to achieve it. He swayed on his feet, staring helplessly at the horror above him. The noise coming from Geelong’s throat swelled up again into a ghastly howl.

      At last able to break free of his paralysis, the hermit ran forward. As Gelimer ran he pulled from his belt the hatchet he had lately taken to carrying with him everywhere. If he could only chop free some of those small branches, the ones whose thorns were…

      A nearby presence, which until now had managed to conceal itself, now swelled up palpably around him. It was a smothering sickness, and a physical force as well. Gelimer’s hatchet fell from his hand. He fell staggering back from his first foothold on a tree, to stand choking and almost blinded.

      “What do you seek here among the thorntrees, little man?” The voice, sounding like nothing so much as a deafening chorus of insects, came blasting into the hermit’s ears. It surrounded him and forced its way into his mind. “You must be careful with that weapon! Otherwise you might do harm to your faithful pet.”

      And now Gelimer was seized by a presence that seemed to have become as material as his own body, and vastly stronger. Forces grabbed him by an arm, whirled him about effortlessly, and sent him tumbling over rocks and down a slope. Oblivious to minor damage, he stumbled to his feet, and faced uphill again.

      Some force like a great wind was shaking the thorntrees now, swaying them out of phase, so that the bloody living body pinned aloft in them was wracked anew. The wound in the belly stretched and oozed and gaped. Once more the horrible noise went up from Geelong’s throat, louder than before.

      Dazed and blinking, Gelimer looked carefully around him, trying