Song of the Gargoyle Read online

  The noble knight, Sir Hildar. Tymmon’s thoughts were tinged with bitterness as his mind drifted back to Lonfar, his onetime friend. And to the days when he and Lonfar had first studied together under Komus’s tutelage. When they had daily helped each other to learn, not only reading and writing, but also all the ancient lore that Lonfar, as a future knight, was expected to master.

  Actually, it had been Tymmon who had done most of the helping since it was he, the son of a lowly court jester, who had been much quicker to memorize every fess and bar and dexter, every lion guardant and dragon rampant, on the armorial bearings of scores of noble families. Lonfar had often said that it was a shame that, because of his lowly birth, Tymmon could not hope to someday be a noble knight. Sometimes it had been said in a kindly and regretful way. But at other times, when Tymmon had been slow to do his bidding, it was said sharply, as a means of reminding Tymmon of his duty to be humble and obedient when in noble company.

  Tymmon sighed, and shivered, and brought his thoughts back to the problems at hand. To the cold, damp cave, and to the question of the armed men. That their armor was not familiar was most strange. And stranger still, he could not remember seeing any heraldic markings on their breastplates. Of course the light had been dim and flickering, and he had been looking down from high above, but still he would surely have noted such bearings had they been visible. It was possible, of course, for men-at-arms to cover their breastplates with unmarked tunics in order to keep their identity secret.

  For a while Tymmon toyed with the idea that the intruders might have been brigands, one of the bands of cutthroat highwaymen who lived in forests and other deserted places and came out to rob and murder highborn travelers and lowly country folk alike.

  The kingdom of Austerneve had good reason to fear such outlaws, since it was such a band that, three years before, had kidnapped and killed Prince Mindor, King Austern’s only son and heir. That terrible day would never fade from Tymmon’s memory. He and Lonfar had been playing in the central courtyard near the great gate when a messenger arrived with the news that plunged the whole kingdom into mourning.

  The people had mourned not only for the sorrow of their beloved old king, but for themselves as well. For a people ruled by an aging king whose only heir was a little granddaughter, who was then a child scarcely out of infancy.

  Tymmon had grieved in particular for poor little Princess Arnica, a slight, pale child whom he had often seen at play in the inner courtyard. She seemed to him a lonely child, and knowing that she, like Tymmon himself, had been motherless since infancy, he had always felt for her a special sympathy. And with her father’s death she had become a royal orphan. It had seemed strange and terrible to Tymmon that God could have allowed such sorrow to come to a child of such noble birth. And it seemed even more tragic that her father had died at the hands of a scurvy band of brigands, instead of in glorious battle as would seem right and proper for a royal personage such as Prince Mindor of Austerneve.

  Brigands had indeed been a terrible scourge in all of the North Countries. But on further thought it seemed unlikely to Tymmon that the five intruders had been brigands, since their arms and armor had been that of noblemen and the brigand bands were said to be made up of commoners—renegade peasants and deserters from the ranks of ordinary foot soldiers.

  The five knights could, of course, have been recent arrivals or even simply visitors to Austerneve. Noble visitors to the castle came and went constantly, and many of them were unfamiliar to Tymmon. But that possibility made the taking of Komus even more senseless. Why would some outsider, someone who knew little of Austerneve and its people, capture and carry away a court jester—a person of no rank or importance although a great favorite of the old king? That was a question that returned again and again. Why would anyone abduct a simple court jester? Why Komus? And then—why my father?

  “My father,” Tymmon whispered, and the words caught in his throat, and ached there with a raw, throbbing pain. He swallowed hard and shook his head angrily, but the ache remained. And when he probed the pain, saying “my father” again and then again, it only grew stronger.

  “My father,” he said aloud, and somehow the saying was not in his present, almost manly voice, but in the high-pitched tones of a child. High-pitched, and trembling with emotions that were also not of the present, but filled instead with old, almost forgotten feelings of unquestioning love, and admiration—and pride.

  He had been proud of Komus then—back then as a child of six or seven years. Proud of the way Komus the jester was known and greeted by everyone in the castle and village as well. Proud that Komus could read and write, as few in Austerneve could, and that he could make music on lyre and rebec and flute that set people dancing or brought tears to their eyes. But that had been years ago, and since that time Tymmon’s thoughts and feelings concerning the court jester of Austerneve had undergone many changes.

  But other, sharper, pains finally demanded his attention, bringing him back to the tiny cramped hollow in which he lay. He was, he began to realize, not only cold and stiff but very hungry as well. Loosening the knots that held his pack, he brought out the cheese and bread and broke off small pieces, reminding himself to eat sparingly as it might be long before he was able to find other food. But the bread was dry and rough, and without water or wine to wash it down he found it hard to swallow even that small allowance.

  The hours passed at a slow, painful crawl. The wind remained strong and cold, and all that day there was no sunlight to turn Austerneve Tor into a gigantic sundial, as it did in better weather when the castle’s shadow reached out across the village of Qweasle as the afternoon wore on.

  Now and then Tymmon slept briefly, only to awake in horror from threatening dreams. Cold and thirst and the ache of cramped muscles became more and more unbearable and at last turned into a kind of rage that made him twist and turn and flail about inside his narrow prison, kicking the confining walls or pounding them with his fists.

  Toward sundown he slept again and dreamt once more, but this time not of helpless horror but of brave deeds and enemies vanquished. In this dream he was once more on the high ledge in the tower room and Black Helmet and his men were again breaking down the door. But this time when Komus stepped out from behind the bed curtains he, too, was wearing the armor of a knight and wielding a huge shining sword. And Tymmon, leaping down from the ledge with fierce delight, was also in armor. And together they attacked the intruders, beating them back through the doorway and down the stairs.

  To awake cold and stiff, alone and frightened, after so glorious a dream was torture and treachery and torment, and Tymmon’s anger grew stronger than ever. He raged at Black Helmet and his men, who had driven him out of his home into the cold and dangerous world, and even at King Austern, who must have allowed such evil men to come as guests to Austerneve.

  But deep down, and bitterer for being shameful and unnatural, Tymmon’s anger turned toward Komus himself. Toward Komus, who had been weak and helpless before the invaders of his home, and who had tried, pitiably, to use wit and humor as weapons against five armed knights.

  “You could have had real weapons,” he found himself whispering. “You could have defended yourself in honorable combat if only you had not... He paused and then, pounding his fist against the damp earth in frustration, he asked again, as he had asked so many times without answer or explanation, “Why? Why? Why?”

  So Tymmon, tormented by cold and thirst and hunger, tortured himself further by harsh and bitter thoughts until at last a procession of castle laborers returning to their homes in the village foretold the end of the day. The sun sank behind the far hills, and darkness crept across the valley. In Qweasle the old men left the square, and even the fountain courtyard was deserted. And stiff and sore, Tymmon climbed up the network of roots, worked his way up the sloping tree trunk, and scrambled onto the pathway below the postern gate.

  It was good to stand erect again and to move freely, even though he moved thro
ugh near darkness and into the unknown. For a while he strode bravely, telling himself that he was off and away on a grand adventure, a quest for some great and glorious destiny. But on the last length of the pathway his step slowed, and when he reached the edge of the dark village, it became little more than a crawl.

  He would have to make his way through Qweasle silently and with extreme caution. Although the villagers usually retired early, there was still the possibility of a chance meeting with some ale drinker returning to his cottage after a visit to the barroom of the inn. Or some lovesick young man might yet be afoot after calling at the home of his beloved. And there was always the danger of a wakeful watchdog that might arouse the village with his barking.

  Moving silently through the deepest shadows, he passed the blacksmith’s shop and the inn safely, but he was just entering the central square when there was a sound of pattering feet and the squeak of a bucket handle. Hastily, Tymmon drew back into the shadows and watched as someone approached the fountain. Out in the center of the courtyard the darkness was less complete and it was soon possible to make out the figure of a small villager. A boy of no more than nine or ten years, who was whistling bravely but not too confidently through his teeth and glancing anxiously in all directions as he drew up water to fill his pail.

  Tymmon grinned. Then without stopping to think of possible consequences, he pulled the hood of his cape down over his face, and uttering a hair-raising moan he glided out into the square. The results were exactly what he expected, or should have if he had stopped to think. The little boy threw his pail in the air, screeched in terror, and took off running like a frightened hare. And belatedly realizing the stupidity of what he had done, Tymmon ran too, across the square and toward the alley that led to the storage yard behind the marketplace.

  In a moment every dog in Qweasle was barking and the village was full of half-dressed men, waving stairs or pitchforks and shouting questions as they ran wildly in all directions.

  Tymmon had not yet reached the alley when he was suddenly confronted by two men armed with heavy clubs. Snatching up a length of firewood from a doorway, he waved it over his head and ran to meet them.

  “What happened?” he shouted. “Which way did they go?” And when the men ran on he pretended to follow until the next corner, when he doubled back toward the marketplace. He passed several other searchers in the same fashion and at last gained the alley, dashed through the storage yard and out into the empty meadow.

  He went on running until the sounds of shouting and barking were far away in the distance, and even then he staggered on, across rock-strewn, uneven ground, his heavy pack pounding against his back, its rough rope bindings digging into his shoulders. He crossed a hayfield, an open meadow, and went on until, reeling from exhaustion, he reached the shelter of a thick stand of trees and sank to the ground.

  Sprawled face downward in the deep grass he gasped for breath, his throat burning and his lungs on fire. The pain brought anger. Anger at himself for doing such a foolish, dangerous thing, and then, as so often happened, at Komus.

  That was a Komus trick, he told himself. If he had been caught and delivered up to Black Helmet, it would have been Komus’s fault. Komus’s fault because—well, because one could not live all one’s life with a joker and clown without becoming, to some extent, a joker oneself. So it was obviously his father’s example that had made him do what he did. Had made him risk everything to play the role of a phantom of the night, in order to frighten a poor little village boy within an inch of his life.

  Tymmon found himself grinning again. It had been—amusing. And the way his other ruse had worked, the way he had saved himself by pretending to be one of the would-be rescuers. He actually found himself chuckling for a brief moment before he slowly became aware of his surroundings. Became aware of a dank woodsy chill and of the rustling darkness all around him. And it came to him suddenly in a great wave of terror that he was alone at nightfall—in the Sombrous Forest.

  Inching backward until he encountered the trunk of a large tree, Tymmon curled himself up against it like a frightened hedgehog and buried his head in his arms.

  FOUR

  NIGHT SETTLED OVER THE Sombrous, the deepest, darkest, and most feared forest in all of the North Countries. The stories of the forest’s terrors had been a part of Tymmon’s childhood, growing up as he had in Castle Austern, where it could be seen from the highest battlements—a dark green ocean stretching away to the farthest horizons.

  According to Mistress Mim no man in his right mind entered the forest at night. And many of his other friends and acquaintances had said the same. Some said that not even the fierce and fearless brigand bands, who often roamed the forest during the day, would allow themselves to be caught within its endless green maze after nightfall.

  “Shun the Sombrous when the sun has set,” was a saying that Tymmon had known and heeded for years. He would not, in fact, have entered its shadowed pathways, either by day or night, if he had been given a choice. But one has little choice when pursued by an angry mob.

  Actually he had been in the forest once before—but not alone and in broad daylight. That had been some years earlier, when he and Lonfar had gone to Qweasle to play with the village boys. Although both Tymmon and Lonfar had often given their word never to venture into the forest, on this particular day they had allowed their village friends to persuade them to forget their promises.

  “We’ll go only as far as the river,” the boys had said. “ ‘Tis not dangerous now at midday, and the Sombrous River is a thing to see. Unless you are afraid.”

  So of course they had no choice but to go, and the forest and river had indeed been things to see and remember. The forest was beautiful, Tymmon remembered—and awful. He could still recall how the tall trees marched away in every direction, like colonnades of noble pillars in some immense cathedral. A cathedral roofed by endlessly overlapping green canopies, through which rays of spangled sunlight slanted downward like shining pathways to heaven. He could remember how the rough bark of the surrounding trunks wore, on one side, a green velvet mantle of mosses, and how beds of small, soft-hued flowers made bright carpets on the damp forest floor.

  But there were other memories—of dense clumps of underbrush that rustled threateningly as they passed, and of strange haunting cries, like those of a lost soul that now and then echoed faintly through the still air. But most frightening of all were the endless twistings and turnings, crossings and recrossings of the forest trails. He could still picture quite clearly in his mind’s eye how the pathways, like long green tunnels each looking exactly like the last, led off in every direction—tempting the intruder to follow—into an endless forest maze from which there would be no rescue or return.

  Many times that day Tymmon’s heart had swollen with a terrible anxiety, the deep instinctive fear of being hopelessly and endlessly lost. But the village boys had known which trails to follow, and after a time they had come out upon the banks of a wide river and eventually returned safely to the open farmland. But that daring forest visit had been in the company of others and in daylight. And now it was night, a night as deep as death and seemingly as endless.

  Curled up in a ball against the tree trunk, Tymmon slept but little, tortured by cold and thirst and fear. As the hours crept by, thirst became the greatest torment. He had not drunk since the night before and now his throat was parched and dry and his tongue felt swollen. When he slept he dreamt of water, and when he awakened his mind returned again and again to the river he had visited on that long-ago expedition.

  But to try to find the river at night and alone would surely be hopeless, and terribly dangerous as well. Even so, at one point the torment of his thirst became so unbearable that he made up his mind to go in search of water.

  He would get to his feet, he decided, and feel his way through the night until he found the river. But he had gone no more than a few steps before the solid unbroken darkness and the faint mysterious sounds, like that of st
ealthy motion, overcame his resolve, and he found himself again crouched against the tree trunk, trembling with fear.

  He would wait until the first light of dawn, he told himself, and then he would go to the river. But when morning came the need for water was no longer his greatest problem. Sometime in the small hours of the morning it had begun to rain, and there was water all around him. Now his greatest need was for warmth and shelter.

  Having drunk from one of the small pools that had sprung up in the deeper hollows of the forest floor, and eaten a few mouthfuls of his rapidly dwindling supply of food, Tymmon retied his bundle, got to his feet, and started down the nearest green tunnel—but to where?

  He could go on, and if he were fortunate he might eventually find the river. He would then have plenty of water—but what of food, and shelter from the rain and cold? And what if he could not find his way out? And what if, in his lost and lonely wanderings, he came upon a huge black bear or a pack of gray wolves? Or—he could hardly bear to think of it—what if he found himself in a grove of dead trees and looking up, saw drifting down upon him an evil black shadow and heard the shrill screech of a harpy?

  Harpies had been occasional haunters of Tymmon’s most terrible nightmares for many years. He had always believed completely in their existence, although Komus said he doubted their reality since he had never seen one, nor met anyone who had. But that proved nothing, since Komus seemed to believe in very little, not even in such obvious realities as evil spirits, guardian angels, and the ability of witches to curse herds of milk cows into barren uselessness. And if Komus had not met anyone who had seen a harpy it only meant, perhaps, that those who actually saw one did not live to tell of it. And while it might be true that people who had actually seen a harpy were not numerous, Tymmon knew a great many people, including Mistress Mim, who knew all about them and believed in them completely.