He asked in a weak voice, "Is everything all right?"
"Everything's all right," said Scratch. "I stood the watch while my companions slept."
"But you were tired as well."
Scratch shook his head. "Not tired. A demon does not know fatigue. But there are people waiting, sire. Otherwise I'd not have wakened you."
"Who's waiting?"
"Some old women. Rather nice old women."
Duncan groaned and rose to his feet.
"Thank you, Scratch," he said.
Where the slab on which he had been lying ended, a path began, and he stepped out onto it. As soon as he left the protection of the overhanging ledge of stone the pressure and the weight of the wailing struck him, although there was no wailing now. And if there were no wailing, he asked himself rather numbly, how could there be weight and pressure? Almost instantly he had the answer-not the pressure of the wailing, but the pressure and the weight of the world's misery flowing in upon this place, flowing in to be exorcised, to be canceled by the wailing. The pressure seemed so great that momentarily he staggered under it and became, as well, aware of the sadness of it, an all-encompassing sadness that damped every other feeling, that set the joy of life at naught, that made one numb with the enormity of the hate and terror in the world.
The women that Scratch had mentioned were standing, the three of them, just up the path that led from the fen's edge into the island's height. They were dressed in flowing gowns that came down to their ankles, very simple gowns, with no frills or ruffles on them, that once had been white but now were rather grimy.
They carried baskets on their arms, standing there together, awaiting him. He squared his shoulders against the pressure of the misery and marched up the path to face them.
When they were face-to-face they stood silent for a moment, he and the three of them, looking one another over.
They were no longer young, he saw; it had been a long time since they had been young, if ever. They had the look of women who never had been young. Yet they were not hags, despite the wrinkles on their faces. The wrinkles, rather, gave them dignity, and there was about them a calmness that was at odds with the concentrated misery pouring in upon this place.
Then one of them spoke, the one who stood slightly in the forefront of the three.
"Young man," she asked, "can you be the one who did violence on our dragons?"
The question was so unexpected and the implication so incongruous that Duncan laughed involuntarily. The laugh was short and harsh, little better than a bark.
"You should not have," the woman said. "You have badly frightened them. They have not as yet returned and we are very worried of them. I believe you killed one of them, as well."
"Not until it had done its best to kill us," said Duncan sharply. "Not until it had killed little Beauty."
"Beauty?" asked the woman.
"A burro, ma'am."
"Only a burro?"
"One of my company," said Duncan. "There is a horse and dog as well, and they also are of our company. Not pets, not animals, but truly part of us."
"Also a demon," said the woman, "an ugly clubfooted demon that challenged us and threatened us with his weapon when we came down the path."
"The demon also," said Duncan. "He, likewise, is one of us. And, if you will, with us also is a witch, a goblin and a hermit who thinks he is a soldier of the Lord."
The woman shook her head. "I have never heard the like," she said. "And who, may I ask, are you?"
"Ma'am, I am Duncan of the House of Standish."
"Of Standish House? Then why are you not at Standish House rather than out here in the fen harassing inoffensive dragons?"
"Madam," he said evenly, "I can't imagine how you fail to know, but since you don't, I'll tell you. Your inoffensive dragons are the most bloodthirsty raveners I have ever happened on. Further I will tell you that while we had the right good will to harass them handsomely, it was not we who really did the job. We were too worn out from the crossing of the fen to do it creditably. It was the Wild Huntsman who put the run on them."
They looked at one another, questions in their faces.
"I told you," said one of the others who stood behind the one who had been speaking. "I told you I heard the Huntsman and the baying of his hounds. But you said that I was wrong. You said the Huntsman had not the hardihood to approach this island, to interfere with us and the work that we are doing."
"Your work," said Duncan, "is something in which I have some interest. You are the wailers for the world?"
"Young Standish," said the spokeswoman, "this is something with which you should not concern yourself. The mysteries in which we are engaged is not a subject to be pondered by mortals. It is bad enough that your earthly feet have violated the sacred soil on which you stand."
"And yet," said one of the others, "we are able to forgive you your sacrilege. We extend, symbolically, our hospitality. We have brought you food."
She stepped forward and placed the basket that she carried on the path. The other two set their baskets down beside it.
"You can eat it with no fear," said the one who had first set down the basket. "There is no poison in it. It is wholesome, solid food. There is enough natural misery in this world. We do not need, of ourselves, to compound it further."
"You should be the ones who know," said Duncan, not realizing until he'd said it how ungracious it must sound.
They did not answer him and seemed about to go, but he made a motion asking them to stay.
"One thing," he said. "Have you by any chance, seen from your vantage point upon the island, any evidence of the Horde of Harriers?"
They stared at him in wonder, then one of them said, "This is silly, sisters. Certainly he must know about the Horde. This deep in the Desolated Land, he must be well aware of them. So why don't we answer him?"
"It can do no harm," said the spokeswoman. "There is nothing he, nor anyone, can do. The Horde, Sir Duncan, lies just across the fen, on the western shore, a short distance from this place. They must know that you are coming, for they've formed into a swarm, although why they should swarm for the likes of you is more than I can understand."
"A defensive swarm?" asked Duncan.
The spokeswoman asked sharply, "How do you know about defensive swarms?"
Duncan laughed at her.
"Save your laughter, young man," she told him. "If you cross that stretch of water to face them your laughter will be out of the other corner of your mouth."
"And if we go back," said Duncan, "your precious dragons will be the death of us."
"You're obnoxious and ill-mannered," said one of the three, "to speak thus of friends of ours."
"Friends of yours?"
"Why, most certainly," said one of them. "The dragons are our puppydogs, and without the Horde, through all the centuries, there'd be less misery in the world."
"Less misery…" And then he understood. Not a confessional to ease the pain and supply the comfort, not an exorcism of fear and terror, but a reveling in the misery of the world, rolling happily in the distress and sadness as a dog would roll in carrion.
"Vultures," he said. "She-vultures." And was sick of heart.
Christ, was there anything that was decent left?
Nan, the banshee, keened for the widow in her humble cottage, for the mother who had lost her child, for the old and weary, for the sick, for the abandoned of the world, and whether the keening was of help or not, it was meant to help. Nan and her sister banshees were the mourners for those who had no others who would mourn for them.
But these-the wailers for the world, who walled either by themselves or by a more extensive sisterhood or by means of some infernal machine that made modulated wailing sounds-he caught the vision of some great complicated piece of machinery with someone turning a long and heavy crank to produce the wailing-these used the misery of the world; they sucked it in and funneled it to this place where they wanted it to be, and there they luxuriated in it, there they rolled in it and smeared themselves with it, as a hog would bury itself in repulsive filth.