All night and half the next day Goodgulf and the two boggies rode, ever watchful for Sorhed’s spies. Once overhead Moxie saw a black shape flapping eastward between the clouds and thought he heard a low, vile croaking. But he had been on pipeweed for several hours beforehand and wasn’t sure.
Finally they rested. Goodgulf and Moxie conked off immediately after a quick game of craps (Moxie lost), and Pepsi, too, lay down as if in a deep snooze. But when his companions’ snores became regular, he slowly slithered from his pup tent and rifled the Wizard’s saddle bags. There he found the round, black ball Goodgulf had so carefully hidden.
It was smaller than a muskmelon, though larger than a pool ball. Its surface was featureless save for a small, circular window into the black interior.
“A magic wishing-ball!” he exclaimed. “That’s what it is.”
The boggie closed his eyes and wished for a keg of ale and a barrel of breaded veal cutlets. There was a small foof and a puff of fiery smoke, and Pepsi found himself staring into the face of a monstrous, unspeakably vile visage, its jowls quivering with malevolence and rage.
“I told you to keep your paws off of it!” shrieked the Wizard, his bell-bottoms flapping angrily.
“Aw, I was only looking at it,” Pepsi whined.
Goodgulf snatched the ball away from Pepsi and glowered. “This,” he said harshly, “is no plaything. This ball is the wondrous mallomar, the magic watchamacallit of the elves, long thought lost in the Sheet-Metal Age.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” said Pepsi pointlessly.
“With mallomar the Old Ones probed the secrets of the future and looked deep into the hearts of men.”
“Sort of like a Ouija board?” said Moxie sleepily.
“Watch closely!” Goodgulf commanded.
The two boggies watched with interest as the wizard made mysterious passes over the sphere and muttered a weird incantation.
Before their frightened eyes the boggies saw the sphere glow. Goodgulf continued to mutter over it.
Suddenly the globe seemed to burst from within with a sparkling radiance, and a quavering sound hummed through the air. Pepsi heard Goodgulf’s voice through the shimmering glow.
“Tell me, O magic mallomar, shall Sorhed be defeated or shall he conquer? Shall the black cloud of Doom fall on all of Lower Middle Earth, or shall there be sunshine and happiness with his fall?”
Pepsi and Moxie were astonished to see fiery letters begin to form in the air, fiery letters that would foretell the fate of the coming struggle with Dark Lord. It was with wonder that they read the answer: Reply Hazy, Ask Again Later.
VIII
Schlob’s Lair and Other Mountain Resorts
Frito and Spam clambered out of breath to the top of a small rise and gazed out at the landscape that stretched before them, unbroken save for sudden depressions and swiftly rising gorges, to the slag mines, dress factories, and lint mills of Fordor. Frito sat down heavily on a cow’s skull, and Spam produced a box lunch of cheese and crackers from their bags.
At that moment there came the sound of falling pebbles, stepped-on twigs, and a nose being violently blown. The two boggies leaped to their feet, and a gray, scaly creature crept slowly up to them on all fours, sniffing the ground noisily.
“Mother of pearl,” cried Frito, recoiling from the sinister figure. Spam drew his elvish pinking knife and stepped back, his heart in his mouth with the gooey glob of crackers.
The creature looked at them with ominously crossed eyes, and with a little smile, rose tiredly to its feet, and clasping its hands behind his back, began to whistle mournfully.
Suddenly Frito remembered Dildo’s tale of the finding of the Ring.
“You must be Goddam!” he squeaked. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, well,” said the creature, speaking very slowly. “Not much. I was just looking for a few old pop bottles to help pay for my sister-in-law’s iron lung. Of course, ever since my operation I don’t get around like I used to. Guess I’m just unlucky. Funny how life is, up and down, never can tell. Gosh, it sure is cold. I had to pawn my coat to buy plasma for my pet geese.”
Spam tried desperately to keep his leaden eyelids open, but with a great yawn, he slumped heavily to the ground. “You fiend,” he muttered, and fell asleep.
“There I go again,” said Goddam, shaking his head. “Well, I know when I’m not wanted,” he said, and sat down and helped himself to the boggies’ elvish melba toast.
Frito slapped himself in the face several times and did a few deep breathing exercises.
“Look here, Goddam,” he said.
“Oh, you don’t have to say it. Not wanted. I know. I never was. My mother left me in a twenty-four-hour locker in an enchanted forest when I was two. I was raised by kindly rats. But I guess every cloud has its silver lining. Why, I knew a troll once, name of Wyzinski...”
Frito swayed, drooped, and was snoring before he hit the ground. When Frito and Spam awoke, it was already night, and there was no sign of Goddam anywhere. Both boggies felt to make sure that they still had their original complement of fingers, legs, and the like, and that no cutlery had been inadvertently left in their ribs. To their considerable surprise, nothing was missing, not so much as a hangnail or a cufflink. Frito felt the Ring still securely fastened to its chain, and slipping it quickly on his finger, he blew through the magic whistle and was relieved to hear the familiar flat E.
“I don’t get it, Mr. Frito,” said Spam finally, feeling with his tongue for missing fillings, “that one’s a pigeon-fancier or worse.”
“Well, hello there,” said a large rock suddenly, becoming Goddam by degrees.
“Hello,” said Frito weakly.
“We were just leaving,” said Spam quickly. “We have to close an arms deal in Tanzania or pick up some copra on Guam or something.”
“That’s too bad,” said Goddam. “I guess its goodbye for old Goddam. But he’s used to it.”
“Goodbye,” said Spam firmly.
“Goodbye, goodbye, parting is such a brief candle,” said Goddam. He waved a great stained handkerchief listlessly back and forth, and grasping Frito by the hand, began to sob softly.
Spam took hold of Frito’s other arm and bodily dragged him away, but Goddam remained tightly attached, and after a minute or two, he gave up and sank exhausted on a rock.
“I hate to see an old friend go,” said Goddam, applying the handkerchief liberally over the cup custard he had by way of face. “I’ll just see you on your way.”
“Let’s go,” said Frito dejectedly, and the three small figures set off at a quick pace across the hot-blooded moors.
Before long, they came to a place where the ground, wellwatered by a vivid green stream, became damp and squishy, and Goddam slogged ahead of them. In a few hundred feet the way was completely blocked by a thick, fetid bog choked with well-smoked briars and lily cups.
“It is the Ngaio Marsh,” said Goddam solemnly, and Frito and Spam saw mysteriously reflected in the mucky pools eerie visions of bodies with ornate daggers in their backs, bullet holes in their heads, and poison bottles in their hands.
The little group plodded forward through the foul fen, averting their eyes from the grisly corpses, and after an hour of heavy going, they came, wet and filthy, to drier land. There they found a narrow path which led arrow-straight across an empty plain to a huge arrowhead. The moon had set, and dawn was coloring the sky a faint brown when they reached the curiously shaped rock.