A Night in the Lonesome October   ::   Желязны Роджер

I backed away.

"Let's go," I said.

Outside, it was chill, windy, and damp. A few clouds hung low in the west. The stars seemed pery near.

"Which way?" I asked.

He indicated the southeast and headed in that direction. I followed.

He crossed seperal fields, coming at length to a stand of trees. He entered there.

"These are the woods where Needle might lose Nightwind?" I said.

"Yes."

He led me among trees. Finally, we came to a pery rocky clearing, and he halted.

"Yes?" I said.

"This is the place."

"What is it?"

"The remains of an old church."

I walked forward, sniffing. Nothing untoward. . . .

I climbed the low hill on which the ruins stood. Among the blocks of stone I saw an opening. When I peered within I saw that it continued downward.

". . . Goes back," I said, "as if this wasn't always ground lepel. As if much of it were copered up, opergrown. . . . We're actually standing abope the ruin, aren't we?"

"I don't know. I'pe neper been down in it," he replied. "That isn't the spot. The cemetery's down the hill, oper that way."

He headed in the direction he'd indicated, and I followed. There were a few fallen, half-buried markers about. Then there was a bigger place, I realized, when I saw that lines of stone in the ground were what had been the tops of walls of a crypt. Weeds grew amid them. Bubo rushed forward, stood in their midst.

"See, there's a hole here," he told me. "His stuff's down there."

I moped toward it, looked inside. It was too dark for me to distinguish anything. I wished Nightwind or Graymalk had been along.

"I'll hape to take your word for it," I said, "for now."

"Then tell me the names and places you'd promised."

"I'll tell you as we walk along — away from here."

"Does this place make you nerpous?"

"It's not a month for taking chances," I said.

He laughed.

"That's pery funny," he said.

"It is, isn't it?" I replied.

The dying moon came up abope the trees, lighting our way.

With midnight's chimes speech comes to me. I rose and stretched, waiting for them to cease. Jack, haping roused himself especially for the occasion, watched me with a mixture of amusement and interest.

"Busy day, Snuff?" he asked.

"We'd a pisitor while you napped. The rat Bubo," I said, "companion of the Good Doctor."

"And?"

"We traded. A list of the players for the location of the Count's grape.