The Fellowship of the Talisman by Clifford D. Simak Read Free Book Online Page B

yourself. These gentlemen are not frightened of you, and it is only courteous that you come out to greet them.”
    The hermit said to Duncan, out of the corner of his mouth, “I have a lot of trouble with him. He thinks it’s disgraceful to be a ghost.”
    Slowly Ghost took shape above the cabinet, then floated to floor level. He was a classical ghost, white sheeted. The only distinguishing mark was a short loop of rope knotted about his neck, with a couple of feet or so hanging down in front.
    â€œI’m a ghost,” he said in a hollow, booming voice, “with no place to haunt. Usually a ghost haunts his place of death, but how is one to haunt an oak tree? The Harriers dug my poor body out of the thicket in which I hid and forthwith strung me up. They might have paid me the courtesy, it seems to me, to have hung me from a mighty oak, one of those forest patriarchs that are so common in these woods of ours, tall trees standing well above the others and of mighty girth. But this they did not do. They hung me from a scrawny, stunted oak. Even in my death I was made sport of. In my life I begged alms at the church door and a poor living I made of it, for there were those who spread the rumor that I had no reason for the begging, that I could have done a day’s work as well as any man. They said I only pretended to be crippled.”
    â€œHe was a fraud,” the hermit said. “He could have labored as well as any other.”
    â€œYou hear?” the ghost asked. “You hear? Even in death I am branded as a cheat and fraud. I am made a fool of.”
    â€œI’ll say this for him,” the hermit said. “He’s a pleasure to have around. He’s not up on all the ghostly tricks that other ghosts employ to make nuisances of themselves.”
    â€œI try,” said Ghost, “to be but little trouble. I’m an outcast, otherwise I would not be here. I have no proper place to haunt.”
    â€œWell, now you have met with these gentlemen and have conversed with them in a seemly matter,” said the hermit, “we can turn to other matters.” He turned to Conrad. “You said you had some cheese.”
    â€œAlso bacon and ham, bread and honey,” said Duncan.
    â€œAnd you’ll share all this with me?”
    â€œWe could not eat it ourselves and not share it with you.”
    â€œThen I’ll build up the fire,” said Andrew, “and we shall make a feast. I shall throw out the greens I gathered. Unless you should like a taste of greens. Perhaps with a bit of bacon.”
    â€œI do not like greens,” said Conrad.

4
    Duncan woke in the night and for a moment of panic wondered where he was. There were no points of reference, just a musty darkness with some flicker in it—as if he might be in some limbo, a waiting room for death.
    Then he saw the door, or if not a door, an opening, with the soft wash of moonlight just beyond it, and in the fire-lit flicker, the bulk of Tiny, lying stretched out before the opening. Tiny had his legs pushed out in front of him, with his head resting on his paws.
    Duncan twisted his head around and saw that the flicker came from a low-burned fire upon the hearth. A few feet away lay Conrad, flat upon his back, his toes pointing upward and his arms flung out on each side. His great barrel chest went up and down. He was breathing through his mouth, and the sucked-in then expelled air made a fluttering sound.
    There was no sign of the hermit. Probably he was on his pallet, over in the corner. The air smelled faintly of wood smoke, and over his head, Duncan could make out the indistinct shapes of bunches of herbs the hermit had hung up to dry. From outside came a soft stamping sound. That would be Daniel not far away.
    Duncan pulled the blanket up beneath his chin and shut his eyes. More than likely it was several hours till dawn, and he could get more sleep.
    But sleep was reluctant to come. Much as he tried