Land of Unreason by L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt Page A

character.
     
                He made his way toward the
larger and more elaborate stone at the gate. Like the rest it had been nearly
effaced; unlike them it still bore a few traces of lettering beneath a coat of
arms now nearly wiped out. Peering close Barber was able to make out in the
crumbling stone:
     
    -
     
    "When
the redbeard comes again
    Then
shall ... urn ...
    When
he ... lac ...
    He
sh ... faces."
     
    -
     
                The illegibility
of it was made still greater by the fact that it had originally been carved in
old letter like the type face of a German book. Barber puzzled over it for
awhile, but could make nothing of it, nor did there seem to be any other sign
of life but a couple of lizards sunning themselves on the enclosure wall, so he
left the graveyard and continued his way.
     
                Beyond, the trees really
were thinning out along the left bank of the stream. "Go straight
on," Malacea had said, which he took to mean on along the river. It
divided and flung one brooklike branch back among the trees, so he kept to the
other. Along this fork the country was flat and soon became dismally bare, with
the trees petering out into gray-green shrubs that had a greasy look under the
now-high sun. Once or twice Barber caught a glimpse of something moving on the
horizon, but too far and indistinctly for any details to be made out. The
stream dropped away from him, down to the bottom of a stony arroyo, where it
finally disappeared altogedier.
     
                It was hot. Barber called
upon his foodbag for flasks of water, not without some trepidation, for in this
region of no shade it had been impossible to keep the sun away from it. His
respect for the frenetic little King's ability rose as the bag unfailingly
answered his desires, but when he tried the container for cold bottied beer he
got only a bitter liquid that made him quickly return to water.
     
                But he was making progress.
Looking back, he could make out a dark line of green rimming the horizon— the forest. In spite of his hard night, he felt strong and full of energy.
     
                He plodded resolutely on.
The dust-green shrubs had now mostly gone, the ground was all sand and pebbles
with bunches of coarse grass here and there, across which he steered by the
sun. The loneliness and silence of the landscape were beginning to weigh on
him. Even the presence of the too-affectionate apple sprite would have been a
relief, he decided, and began to wonder unhappily about what happened to people
lost in deserts. They went cuckoo, didn't they? He couldn't remember, but to
keep his mind off the empty landscape, he composed an imaginary report to the
Foreign Relations Committee on conditions in England. It was not much help; he
had written that report too many times before.
     
                He tried composing
scurrilous limericks on the Lords of Britain and imagined himself reciting them
in Parliament. But this device also broke down on the failure to find a rhyme
for "Norfolk," for it would never do to forget the premier Duke of
the British Empire.
     
                Miles of nothing.
     
                Suppose he had been
misdirected or had lost his way? Suppose he were isolated for keeps in this
ironing board of a landscape? Oberon's bag would keep him in food and water,
perhaps indefinitely, perhaps only to the next shaping, while he walked,
walked, walked. Forever was a long time.
     
                His beard would grow long
and ... whoa, there was a possibility of escape. His wings, those absurd
shoulder-blade bunches, would grow too. He craned his neck around to look over
his shoulder. There was certainly some kind of projection present, swelling his
jacket to hunchback proportions. He tried using the new muscles at his chest,
and could just see the projections wiggle. Interesting. He wondered if, when
the wings came out, the ability