Land of Unreason (10 page)

            Besides, it was not very
likely that he would find any more natives abroad from whom he could obtain
directions. Better rest up. He trotted over to the nearest hedge, rolled under
its spread on the cushiony grass, and fixed the wand, point up, among the
branches, to keep him dry. Just as he drifted off to sleep, he heard the
pattering raindrops cease.

            When he woke it was to find
the sun already low, the moon up and challenging it. A few minutes brought him
to a fork which must be the one Cyril had mentioned. Go left, he had said,
since the day was Monday; a piece of reasoning which struck Barber as so characteristic
of the place that he stood for a moment wondering, whether it was still Monday
and, if not, which was the right direction. Finally deciding Cyril would have
made allowance for the lapse in time, he took the left fork. The way led down
and round a long curve; climbed a steepish rise, and brought him out on the
crest of a low hill, with a broad meadow between him and a dark wall of
midnight green—
the
forest, so denominated. The sun was down behind it.

            Fred Barber took a long
breath and marched resolutely across the meadow into the encroaching gloom
under the branches. He could feel the gentle strain at the back of his jacket
where the little bulges that must really be wings pulled against it, and there
seemed to be a new set of muscles developing at his chest.

            The forest was one of large
trees, old as time, with neither grass nor underbrush around their trunks. It
would be like the tame parked forests of Germany, Barber thought, but for the
bulging of knots and scars, which in the tricky moonlight gave almost every
tree some semblance of a human face. A scowling eye greeted him from the gloom
ahead, a mournfully drooping mouth followed him there.

            Overhead spots of sky were
scattered beyond the leaves, but walking was not too difficult on the even leaf
mold. Barber peered here and there for denizens of the place to guide him.
There were none, no more sound nor motion about than there had been in the park
beyond Oberon's palace. The place was in a kind of silent green golden age as
though the trees themselves had absorbed all the personality of the landscape.
He struggled with the thought that they might similarly absorb him, turning his
body into one of those rugose pillars, his members into branches ... It was as
credible as anything else in this land of unreason.

            He was trying to follow a
straight line by sighting on trees before and behind him, but could not be sure
against following a wide circle.

            Something moved.

            In his familiar old world it
would be an animal and perhaps dangerous. Still, Titania's wand ought to defend
him against wug-wugs, whether predacious or fawning. He was acquiring respect
for that ivory stick since the incident of the cloudless rain. He took a long,
leaping step forward. The figure moved again, and now he was sure of its
humanity.

            "Hey!" he called.

            The figure stopped; an old
woman, leaning on a stick gripped in skinny hands, her long nose and chin
curving toward each other like those of a caricature. Only these were visible
under a floppy hat, and her head was bent to stare at the ground.

            Barber bowed. "Beg
pardon, ma'am, but could you tell me the way to the Kobold Hills?"

            The head did not lift.
" 'Tis bad loock to sleep near a apple tree. And beware o' t' ploom,"
said a voice that was so like Mrs. Gurton's as to make him start.

            "Thank you," he
said, "but can you tell me how to get to—"

            " 'Tis bad loock to
sleep near t' apple. And watch aht foor t' ploom." She showed him a
shoulder and toddled off among the dark trunks.

            Barber hesitated. If she
didn't want to tell him, he had no means of compulsion, unless the wand ... But
at least she was going somewhere, not round and round as he feared he himself
was. He whirled and started after, but she had moved with surprising speed and
was now no more than a flicker of motion far down the glades, held for a moment
in a moonbeam, then gone completely.

            No use. He groped his way
back to the space where he had met the hag—or thought perhaps he had found it.
Surely that oak whose boles had twisted themselves into a face that might
belong to a villainous bishop was one he had seen before. Damn! Why couldn't
Oberon have been more precise in his instructions? Doubtless imprecision as
such was an element of this form of existence—if this were a form of existence and
not the product of his own brain—an element as definite as vitamins in the
world he knew. But if that were the case, Oberon certainly should not expect
him to go to a precise place, the Kobold Hills, and perform a delineated
action. The thought occurred to Barber that, if he acted on Fairyland
precedent, he would probably be performing his mission by helping Jib write a
commentary. It caused him to smile till a twig snapped somewhere in the
moon-blue gloom and fear ran up and down his spine on little cold feet.

            Something there, moving with
him, parallel. No, it was not just the twig, he told himself, realizing that
the small sound had been closer than the presence he suspected. The snap had
called his attention to that presence, roused him from his own unaware-ness. It
was there. Perhaps imagination? No, an almost imperceptible rustling, moving
when he moved, stopping with him. No—imagination; nothing could synchronize its
movements so exquisitely to his own. No, not imagination; that co-ordination could
be achieved in this mad Fairyland where the physical laws in which he had been
brought up didn't hold water.

            "—didn't hold
water," he caught himself saying the words aloud. This would never do, he
was letting it get him. Ahead there was a little cleared space, with moonbeams
slanting down across it. He raced for it, reached the edge, and stood gasping
for his equilibrium; then jumped a foot, as a figure moved at the far side. It
was clad in flowing garments and took a step toward him. He clutched the wand
in both hands, like a bat.

            "Why, you're
frightened!" trilled a soprano voice that ended in two notes of a laugh.
"Don't fear me, mortal. I heard you in
the
forest, far away, and
came to help you. Are you lost?"

            Barber's muscles relaxed and
he let the stick down as she came toward him, her face shadowed by a chaplet of
leaves. "Yes, I am," he confessed. "I'm trying to get to the
Kobold Hills. Perhaps you can help me find the way?"

            Again the lilt of laughter.
"But surely! Ah, none without the pure fairy blood can find their way
without help through
the
forest. Come."

            She had reached his side and
taken his hand in her own, small and cool. The fear-feet were dancing on his
spine still, but light as thistledown; there was something thrilling and pleasant
in the frank contact of her hand, she led the way under the dark trees so
straight and sure. He had stumbled across a root and came against her with
shoulder and hip.

            "Sorry," said
Barber.

            Her head turned and in the
dark he thought she was smiling at him. "It's all right—how could you know
the footways as I do? ... You're very strong."

            "I never thought
so," said Barber practically, and then as this seemed an ungracious
response to a conversational lead, added: "It's awfully good of you to—
take charge of me like this."

            "Not so. We of
the
forest
are often lonely. To feel the pressure of a friendly hand is—sweet." Her
fingers gripped his tighter for an infinitesimal part of a second.

            She must have a cat's eyes
for dark places, she was hurrying him along so fast. He wanted to go on talking
to her, explore further this mysterious and rather attractive personage, about
whom hung a faint sweet perfume of—what was it? ... At least, he assured
himself with a sudden return to the caution acquired by several years of social
duties in the service, he wanted to get her into a light bright enough to make
sure she didn't have buckteeth or piano legs. Even sausage makers' daughters
from Milwaukee with halitosis and letters of introduction seemed to feel it a
duty to turn the glamour on a diplomatic employee when they could get him alone
under the fine moon of Europe. He remembered—

            His guide suddenly swung him
round a big tree with a crack-the-whip effect and stood facing him.

            "Oh," she said,
"here is the very door of my place. Will you not stay and rest for a few
moments?" And as Barber groped for a formula of reluctance that would
allow him to change his mind and accept with the least urging, she added: "If
not for your own sake, at least for mine. I'm suddenly so tired."

            An alarm bell rang in his
head. That was a lie. She was not in the least tired. But Fred Barber was
utterly lost now in this immense wood, and if she was lying to him, it was also
likely that she had taken him far from his direction. He could only string
along and find out.

            "Why, I don't
know—" he said, "I really must be making progress."

            "Ah, I
understand." Her head lowered and she let his hand fall. "I'm but a
poor woods thing, and you used to great courts ..." The fluting voice
trailed off with an accent of the edge of tears.

            "Oh, no; I was just
going to say that I must be making progress, but I've already made about enough
for tonight, so I can stop for a few minutes."

            She took his hand again and
led for half a dozen steps. A deeper black that would be a bank loomed out of
the dimness ahead; his guide stooped and pulled aside a curtain of leaves. Warm
fingers of yellow light reached from a short tunnel at whose far end Barber
could see a room. He ducked through the door and followed her. At the far end
she turned, laughing, and took both his hands in hers.

            Neither buckteeth nor piano
legs, but a good if somewhat well-developed figure, clad in a sheer dress
splotched batik-wise in red, yellow, green, with a massive jeweled belt clasped
round the waist. A blond head, cheeks cosmetic-red, though he could swear not
from cosmetics, and eyes of a pronounced and startling green. Nice features,
full lips; Barber smiled approval.

            Her eyes widened in response,
a little smile played across her lips as she drew his hands round till they met
at her back. Her fingers slid up his biceps till they reached his shoulders,
where they clung with a tingling pressure and her head tipped back ... "We
in the wood are so lonely—so lonely," she sighed into his lips after the
first contact. "Oh ... you're strong. I didn't know a mortal could be so
strong." Her eyelids fluttered against his throat; the perfume of her hair
was intoxicating.

            Was there something a trifle
too rapid in this approach? The girl sighed and pulled his head down to meet
her lips again. "Loose my girdle," she whispered.

            His fingers fumbled with the
clasp, and he undid it with pounding pulses. She slid from his arms a moment
and tossed the belt clanking into the corner.

            Fred Barber said: "I
really ought to know your name."

            She put up her arms again:
"I have no name, my love."