"And after a time," said Toad Face, "there was no place for us to go. We were so changed there was no place would take us."
"I'm not inclined," said Sniveley, "to believe a word of this. They have told us the story of the forming of a priesthood—a group of selfish, scheming leeches who fastened on the people. They used the Beast to gain an easy living and now, perhaps, the living is not so easy, since the people left, but it was at one time, and that was their purpose in saying they could converse with this Beast. Even now they would have us believe they have a noble purpose, standing, they say, between the Beast and the Wasteland. But they are no more than a gang of slickers, especially that one with the foxy face."
"Perhaps they are," said Cornwall. "Perhaps what you say is right, but let us hear the rest of it."
"That's all of it," said Big Belly. "And every word is truth."
"But the Beast is dead," said Hal. "You have no worries anymore. Sure, he told you to do something when he died, but you don't have to do it You're now beyond his reach."
"Perhaps he can't reach you," said Foxy. "Perhaps not the others of your party. But he can reach us. We have been with him for so long, perhaps becoming so much a part of him, that in many ways he can still live in us, and even in death he can reach out—yes, even in death he can reach out…»
"God, yes," said Cornwall, "it could happen that way."
"We know he's dead," said Big Belly. "His body lies rotting in the vault. He was a long time dying, and we seemed to die a little with him. We could feel the dying and the death. But in the reaches of the night, in the time of silences, he is still there. Perhaps not to others; probably only to ourselves."
"Okay, then," said Hal. "Say we accept your word for all of this. You've taken a lot of time and trouble to build up your story, and you have some purpose in your mind. I submit it is now time to tell us of that purpose. You said there was a chore that you wanted done and that we could do it because we were not as fearful of the Chaos Beast as you are."
"The task requires entering the vault," said Foxy.
"You mean into the vault with that dead monstrosity!" cried Mary.
"But why?" asked Cornwall, horrified. "Why into the vault?"
"Because," said Foxy, "there is something there that must be taken out. Something the Beast said should be taken out."
"You know what this thing is?"
"No, we don't know what it is. We asked and the Beast would not tell us. But we know that it is there. We took the cover from the vault and looked down into it. It took all the courage we had, but we managed it. Not for very long. We just had a glimpse, but we saw the object that must be taken out. We took one look and fled…»
"And you want us to get it out?"
"If you would, please," said Foxy.
"Could you tell us what it is?" asked Mary.
"We saw only a part of it, or I suppose we saw only a part of it. We cannot imagine what it is. It appears to be a cage, a round cage. There are strips of metal formed into a cage. It is about so big." Foxy held his hands about a foot apart.
"Embedded in the body of the beast?"
"That is right," said Foxy.
"It will be a nasty job," said Gib.
"I do not like it," said Sniveley. "There is something here that's evil. There is more than they have told us."
"Perhaps," said Cornwall, "but they have a problem, and I suppose there is a price. Not," he said to Foxy, "a few chickens and a pig."
"The goodness of the deed," suggested Foxy. "For the sake of chivalry."
"Don't talk to us of chivalry," snapped Oliver. "Chivalry is dead. It didn't last too long. It was a rotten idea while it did. So come up with something solid. If you don't, come morning we will leave."
"You dare not leave," said Foxy smugly. "The Hellhounds are lurking out there on the plain. They'll snap you up before you've gone a league. The Hellhounds never loved you, and now they love you less since you killed the giant."
"You suggest we're trapped in here," said Hal.
"Perhaps not," said Big Belly. "It's possible we could help you."
"They're working together," Sniveley charged. "These jokers and the Hellhounds. They're putting the squeeze on us."
"If you mean," said Toad Face, "that we are friendly with the Hell- hounds and with their aid have devised a devious scheme to get you to do this small service for us, you couldn't be more wrong."
"Come to think of it," said Gib, "we never saw a Hellhound until we saw the castle. We watched and waited for them and they never did show up until we reached the castle. They waited for us here. They could have jumped us anyplace along the way, but they waited for us here."
"For years," said Foxy, "the Hounds have nosed around this castle, thinking they might catch us unaware. It has been war between us almost from the start. In recent years they have grown more cautious, for we have made them smart, and they have sorely learned what we can do to them. Time after time we've whomped them with various kinds of magic, but they still hang around. They've never given up. Now, however, at the very sight of us, they tuck in their tails and scamper. We have them hexed."
"It's the castle they want?" asked Gib. "Not really you they're after, but the castle?"
"That is right," said Foxy. "It's a thing of pride with them, to be possessors of the Castle of the Chaos Beast. They never, you understand, have really amounted to anything at all. They have been the rowdies and the brawlers of the Wasteland. They've been feared, of course, but they've never been respected. But to hold the castle— that might give them status and respect."
"And you say you have them hexed?"
"They dare not lay a hand on us. They won't even come too close. But they hope that through some trick someday they will overcome us…»
"Is it your thought," asked Cornwall, "that you can give us safe escort when we leave the castle?"
"That is our thought," said Foxy.
"We enter the vault and bring out the object, and once that is done, you furnish us escort until there is no longer any danger from the Hellhounds."
"They're lying to us," Oliver said. "They're scared striped of the Hounds. Just like they are scared of the Chaos Beast."
"What difference does it make?" asked Mary. "You all have made up your minds to pull this thing from the vault. You wonder what it is, and you won't rest easy until you find out what it is…»
"Still," said Cornwall to Foxy, "you do promise us escort?"
"That we do," said Foxy.
"And it better be good," said Hal, "or we'll come back and clean out this nest of you."
28
The stench was green. It struck the pit of the stomach, it clogged the nostrils, burned the throat, watered the eyes; it made the mind reel. It was an alien foulness that seemed to come from somewhere other than the Earth, a violent corruption deep from the guts of Hell.
They had labored in it for hours, setting up the poles to form the tripod above the opening of the vault (although Cornwall realized he could no longer think of it as a vault, but rather as a pit), rigging the pulley, threading the rope to run in the pulley.
And, now that all was ready, Cornwall leaned over the edge of the opening to glance down into the mass of putrescence that filled the area, a gelatinous matter not quite liquid, not quite solid—a sight he had avoided until now. For the mass itself seemed to have some of the same obscene, stomach-wrenching quality that characterized the stench that came boiling out of it. The stench was bad enough; the stench combined with the sight of the vault's contents was almost unbearable. He doubled over, wracked by the dry retching that brought up nothing, for the contents of his stomach had been emptied long ago.