“The Great Monster has thee in its grasp!” Shepherd Howling cried. “Beware!”
“For pity’s sake, man, it’s no great monster, just some sort of vine!” Matthew screeched. “Help!”
A young man sitting atop a rock that was a virtual island in the sea of stinging brambles called out, “Can I help you, sir?”
“Get us out of here!” Matthew demanded.
“Ah. Your aircraft will be the safest place for that, sir. I suggest you get back in it before the vines overgrow it.”
“What? No plant can grow that fast!” Braddock replied, doubting his own words as he unsuccessfully tried to disentangle the vines from his legs.
‘The Great Monster is devious and wily and tireless in clutching for the souls and bodies of virtuous men!” Shepherd Howling declaimed.
“Indeed!” Matthew snapped at him. He turned to the boy. “If I wished to return to the helicopter I would never have landed here, young man. Please assist us out of these weeds and take us to your shanachie and Captain Fiske at once.”
“Never heard of no Captain Fiske,” the boy called back lazily, obviously enjoying their situation, “and we run the shanachie off.”
“Did you?” Matthew stood among the stinging brambles and digested that.
“You heard him, sir. Let’s get out of here,” Braddock whined.
But any inclination Matthew might have had to do just that had vanished with the boy’s words. “Now why did you do that, son?”
“He was a wicked man, sir. Tryin’ to make us think the planet wanted one thing when it wanted the other.”
“I’d very much like to talk to you about that, son. Please get us out of here.” Matthew, despite the stings, turned on the force of his not inconsiderable charisma.
The boy shrugged and disappeared. Matthew and Braddock shoved Shepherd Howling back and sat in the copter while a crew of villagers arrived with various stones and pieces of board to make a path for them. Matthew was somewhat surprised that they hadn’t brought machetes or sickles to hack the weeds down. Before he could ask about that, the boy ran across the stones and grabbed him by the arm.
“You’d best hurry, sir, or the coo-brambles will be a-growin’ over these, too, like.”
“You will be rewarded by the company, my son,” Shepherd Howling said, pushing Matthew aside to sprint over the stones with the agility of a mountain goat. The speed with which he took advantage of the temporary path and his nimbleness in avoiding questing bramble tendrils caused Matthew to re-evaluate the man’s degree of insanity.
Matthew followed quickly, Braddock somewhat more reluctantly. The pilot opted to remain with his ship.
With the boy leading them, Shepherd Howling on his heels, and Matthew followed more slowly by Braddock, they reached the nearest of the hovels. There they were joined by a man and woman and a pack of whooping children. The rest of the village crowded in after them.
Shepherd Howling slowed to hover noisomely by Matthew. “This is possibly a wholesome place, Brother Luzon. None of the orange minions of the underworld one sees in many of the heathen towns are visible. And nowhere did I see the monster’s yawning maw waiting to be fed by the ignorance of the unenlightened.”
“That is good news,” Matthew said tersely, and turned to their adolescent guide. He was far more interested in what the villagers had to say.
“Now, my boy, you must explain something to me, for I am a bit confused. I was supposed to meet Captain Fiske and the shanachie of this village here. Now you tell me you’ve banished the shanachie. Being a stranger to this planet, but one very interested in your customs, have I indeed been brought to McGee’s Pass?”
“That’s where you are, sir,” said the woman of the house, undoubtedly the boy’s mother, pushing herself to the front. “And the best way to explain, sir, is by singing you the song we made.”
Groaning inwardly at the prospect of another of the Petaybean songs, Matthew arranged his features in an engaging and interested smile.
“We sing it together,” explained the man who seemed to be the woman’s husband and the boy’s father. “Because it happened to us all.”