Enchanted Pilgrimage by Clifford D. Simak Read Free Book Online Page B

Cornwall.
    â€œWhat do you mean, you’re not so sure?”
    â€œLook,” said Cornwall, “you saved my life. I owe you something. All I can give you is the truth. Drood was asking questions, but I told him nothing.”
    â€œYou can trust Drood,” said Gib. “He’s all right. You can trust any marsh-man. And you don’t need to tell me. I don’t need to know.”
    â€œI somehow feel I should,” said Cornwall. “I am not a trader. I am, or rather I was, a student at the University of Wyalusing. I stole a document from the university library, and I was warned by a friendly goblin to flee because others might want the document. So I hunted up a trader and paid him to let me travel with him.”
    â€œYou think someone attacked the trader’s party to get rid of you? Or to get the document? They killed everyone to get rid of you? Did they get the document?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” said Cornwall. “Pull off my boot, will you? The right boot. With only one hand I can’t manage it.”
    Gib stooped and tugged off the boot.
    â€œReach into it,” said Cornwall.
    Gib reached in. “There’s something here,” he said. He pulled it out.
    â€œThat’s it,” said Cornwall. He awkwardly unfolded the single page and showed it to Gib.
    â€œI can’t read,” said Gib. “There is no marsh-man who can.”
    â€œIt’s Latin, anyway,” said Cornwall.
    â€œWhat I can’t understand,” said Gib, “is why it should be there. They would have searched you for it.”
    â€œNo,” said Cornwall. “No, they wouldn’t have searched me. They think they have the document. I left a copy, hidden, where it was easy for them to find.”
    â€œBut if you left a copy …”
    â€œI changed the copy. Not much. Just a few rather vital points. If I’d changed too much, they might have been suspicious. Someone might have known, or guessed, something of what it is about. I don’t think so, but it is possible. It wasn’t the document they were after; it was me. Someone wanted me dead.”
    â€œYou’re trusting me,” said Gib. “You shouldn’t be trusting me. There was no call to tell me.”
    â€œBut there is,” said Cornwall. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d now be dead. There might be danger to you keeping me. If you want to, help me get ashore and I will disappear. If someone asks, say you never saw me. It’s only fair to you that you know there might be danger.”
    â€œNo,” said Gib.
    â€œNo what?”
    â€œNo, we won’t put you ashore. No one knows that you are here. No one saw and I have told no one. Anyway, they’ll think that you are dead.”
    â€œI suppose they will.”
    â€œSo you stay here until you are well. Then you can go wherever you wish, do what you wish.”
    â€œI can’t wait for long. I have a long journey I must make.”
    â€œSo have I,” said Gib.
    â€œYou as well? I thought you people never left the marsh. Drood was telling me …”
    â€œOrdinarily that is so. But there was an old hermit up in the hills. Before he died, he gave me a book and what he called a hand ax. He asked me to deliver them to someone called the Bishop of the Tower …”
    â€œNorth and west from here?”
    â€œThat’s what the hermit said. Up the river, north and west. You know of this Bishop of the Tower?”
    â€œI have heard of him. On the border of the Wasteland.”
    â€œThe Wasteland? I did not know. The enchantment world?”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Cornwall. “That’s where I am going.”
    â€œWe could travel together, then?”
    Cornwall nodded. “As far as the Tower. I go beyond the Tower.”
    â€œYou know the way?” asked Gib.
    â€œTo the Tower? No, just the general direction. There are maps, but not too