The Tangle Box

“The Gorse?” Biggar sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous. How could it be here? It never leaves the cave. You’re imagining things.”


Horris hugged his lanky frame as if cold. His plow-blade nose thrust forward. “I keep thinking about Holiday and the witch and the dragon and what it did to them. I keep worrying that you were right, that it might do the same to us.”

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Biggar felt an immense satisfaction at the admission. “On the other hand, we’ve gone a bit far with this crystal business to be worried about that now.”

Horris rose and walked about the room uneasily, checking into corners and behind furniture. Biggar cocked his white-crested head. A waste of time, he was thinking. If the Gorse doesn’t want to be seen, it won’t be. Not a creature like that.

“Will you sit down and relax?” he said irritably. Horris was making him nervous.

Horris moved back to the bed and seated himself once more. “Do you know what the Gorse said when I asked what would become of Holiday and the others in the Tangle Box?”

Biggar couldn’t remember and didn’t care. But he said, “What, Horris, tell me.”

“It said they would become entangled in the fairy mists. It said that the spell of forgetfulness would start them down a road that had no end. They would not know who they were. They would not remember from where they had come. They would be sealed away in the mists, and the mists would play with them and eventually drive them mad.” Horris shuddered. “The Gorse said it would take a very long time to happen.”

“None of this is our concern,” Biggar sniffed. “We have enough to worry about as it is.”

“I know, I know.” Horris fidgeted and looked off into the shadows as if he had heard something. “I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

Biggar was disgusted. “Well, you better find a way to stop thinking about it. We have a lot to lose if this crystal-giving program doesn’t work out the way the Gorse expects. On the other hand, we have a lot to gain if it does. For the Gorse, Landover is a stepping-stone to other things, but for us it’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If we stick to business, we can do a lot better than we did with Skat Mandu.”

“I know, I know.”

“Stop saying that—I hate it when you’re condescending!”

Horris came to his feet, shaking with anger. “Shut up, Biggar! I’ll be condescending if I choose!” He wrung his hands and swept the room with his eyes. “I know what to do, and I’ll do it! I’ve been doing it right along, haven’t I? But I don’t like being watched! I don’t like the idea of someone being there when I can’t see them!”

Biggar spit. “Horris, for the last time, the Gorse isn’t here!”

Horris clenched his fists in frustration. “But what if it is?”

“Yes, what if I am,” the Gorse said from the shadowy depths of the clothes cabinet, and Horris fainted dead away.

When it was done with them, when it had frightened them both so thoroughly that it was satisfied they would do exactly as it wanted them to and not step one inch outside the lines it had directed them to follow, the Gorse went down the outside wall of the castle like a spider. Once on the ground, it changed to a man and went out through the gates to the town beyond. It was getting easier to move about, its magic growing stronger the longer it was free of the fairy mists and the Tangle Box. It was now able to assume different forms. It could be anything or anyone it wished.

It smiled inside to think of the possibilities.

Horris and the bird were idiots, but useful idiots, and the Gorse intended to keep them just long enough to complete its plan for Landover’s destruction. After that, it would dispense with them.

They had not expected it to come with them on their journey. They could not fathom how it had managed to do so. Well, a few more surprises awaited them on this trip. It was best to keep them just a little off balance, a little uncertain. They could say what they wished about it as long as they worried when they did. A little fear was a useful thing.

Once outside the castle and the town, the Gorse shape-changed once more and moved off toward a darkened stretch of woods in the countryside beyond, becoming barely more than a shadow skimming over the land. Worried for Holiday, the witch, and the dragon, were they? Well, they should worry. It could happen to them just as easily. It could be as terrible as they imagined. Surely his three captives in the Tangle Box must be wishing they could escape their nightmare existence just about now. They must wonder what it would take. Too bad they would never know.

It reached the woods and gathered its magic to summon up the demons of Abaddon. Time for another conference. Their entry into Landover was not far off. The Gorse wanted them ready and waiting. Lines of fire speared downward from its hands into the earth.

The answering rumble of discontent came almost immediately.





Gristlies