Enchanted Pilgrimage by Clifford D. Simak Page B

unholy horde which dwells within the Wasteland.”
    â€œYour grace,” said Sniveley, far too gently, “your history, despite the centuries, is too recent. There was a day when the humans and the Brotherhood lived as neighbors and in fellowship. It was not until the humans began chopping down the forest, failing to spare the sacred trees and the enchanted glens, not until they began building roads and cities, that there was animosity. You cannot, with clear conscience, talk of encroachments and depredations, for it was the humans—”
    â€œMan had the right to do what he wished with the land,” the bishop said. “He had the holy right to put it to best use Ungodly creatures such as—”
    â€œNot ungodly,” said Sniveley. “We had our sacred groves until you cut them down, the fairies had their dancing greens until you turned them into fields. Even such simple little things as fairies …”
    â€œYour grace,” said Cornwall, “I fear we are outnumbered. There are but two of us who can make a pretense of being Christian, although I count the rest as true and noble friends. I am glad they have elected to go into the Wasteland, with me, although I am somewhat concerned …”
    â€œI suppose that you are right,” said the bishop, more good-naturedly than might have been expected. “It ill behooves any one at this jovial board to contend with one another. There are other matters that we should discuss. I understand, Sir Scholar, that you seek the Old Ones out of the curiosity of the intellect. I suppose this comes from the reading you have done.”
    â€œReading most painfully come by,” said Oliver. “I watched him many nights, hunched above a table in the library, reading ancient scripts, taking down the books that had not been touched for centuries and blowing off the dust that had accumulated, reading by the feeble light of a too-short candle, since poverty dictated he must use them to their bitter end. Shivering in the winter, since you must know that all the buildings of the university, and perhaps the library most of all, are ill-constructed old stone piles through which the wind has little trouble blowing.”
    â€œAnd, pray,” the bishop said to Cornwall, “tell us what you found.”
    â€œNot a great deal,” said Cornwall. “A sentence here, another sentence there. Enough to convince me that the Old Ones are not, as many think, entirely myth. There is a book, a very thin book, and most unsatisfactory, which purports to instruct one in the language of the Old Ones. I can speak that language, the little that there is of it. I do not know if it is truth or not. I do not know if there is a language or not. No niceties at all, no nuances to the thought that it conveys. I cannot be convinced, however, that such a work could be entirely without basis. Surely the man who wrote it thought the Old Ones had a language.”
    â€œThere is no clue as to why he might have thought so? He does not explain how he learned the language?”
    â€œHe does not,” said Cornwall. “I go on faith alone.”
    â€œIt is not,” the bishop said, “when you give it thought, an entirely bad reason for the going.”
    â€œGood enough for me,” said Cornwall. “Perhaps not good enough for others.”
    â€œAnd it is good enough for me,” said Oliver. “It is an excuse for me, if nothing else. I could not spend my life as a rafter goblin. Now that I look back on it. I was getting nowhere.”
    â€œPerhaps,” said Cornwall, “I can understand you, Oliver. There’s something about a university that gets into the blood. It is a place not of the world; it partakes of a certain fantasy. It is, in many ways, not entirely sane. The reaching after knowledge becomes a purpose that bears no relationship to reality. But Gib and Hal I worry over. I could take along the ax.”
    â€œYou