“…I bury this journal in the event I do not return, so that others may follow. But I have no doubt I am close to my quarry’s lair, and if I strike soon I may surprise the creature. Then I will see what he, or it, or perhaps she, may be…”
No-Hands, also known as the Demon Without A Right Hand, or to the learned Archididelphis invicta, snapped the journal shut with a hiss. “He looked in the wrong place,” he said. His lips peeled back in something like a sneer or a silent snarl as he examined the jumble of charts and hand-drawn maps laid before him on the tailgate of a large and archaic truck with tracks in place of rear wheels. He rose to his feet and stared out at what the maps represented, a desolate and treacherous wasteland that led to the foot of a great plateau. He glanced once more at particularly inscrutable note whose most legible content was a single boldly scrawled word, “MARU”, meaningless except as the name of a land hundreds of miles distant, albeit on the far side of the mountains that bordered the same wastes.
Finally, he turned back to the largest chart, an official topographical map that already bore a dozen hand-drawn corrections. His expression softened as he traced the path of the journal’s vanished author backward. “He was on the right path, but he took a wrong turning, early enough to end up further off,” he murmured. “He would have figured it out, and perhaps he did before the end, but by then he would have become the quarry.” He traced a channel between the two divergent fissures with a red crayon on the point of a hook that replaced his right hand.
His preparations were finished in moments. He holstered or slung his weapons, chiefly a broomhandle pistol, a long-barreled carbine of the same design, and two shotguns, one pump action and one double. Then he pulled back a cover from a large object in the bed of the halftrack, revealing the Bug, a second Beetle with an top and wheels and shocks so large the original wheel wells had been carved away. Within half an hour, the vehicle was cruising the rocky wastes, kicking up more gravel and rocks than dust behind him.
The offroad Bug’s tires and shocks allowed the vehicle to run right over many obstacles, but there were many times he had to turn aside, particularly for the many strange rock columns that dotted the landscape, often five or even ten meters high, colossal next to No-Hands’ 45 cm height. He might have favored the halftrack for its sheer mass, except that he repeatedly had to wind through narrow gaps and passages, some so narrow that even the Bug’s stripped-down body scraped the walls. It took two hours and the better part of a third before he reached the foot of the plateau. He slowed as he approached the opening of the passage the ill-fated hunter had marked. He rolled back the top and stood up. He surveyed the terrain carefully. After a few moments, he called out.
“If you are a creature of reason, you know who I am and you know why I am here,” he said. “I was summoned by those who fear you, but I have accepted no payment. Leave this place, and I will not follow. If need be, I will say you fled by the time I reached your dwelling place.”
For a moment, his words continued to echo, but no answer came. Nor had he expected one. With a settlement in a day’s reach even here, there could be no other place for a dangerous and solitary creature to go. He gave a low growl and started the Bug’s engine. As he began to roll forward, he glanced behind, just as a tremendous roar resounded. What he beheld was one of the largest of the great columns toppling straight for the mouth of the fissure. He braked and swerved, and almost simultaneously threw open the door. As he poised to leap, he looked back and snatched for the great chart and a few scraps of paper bundled with it.
This time, there was ample dust, which took some time to clear. Even through the murk, it was plain that the passage was choked with rock. As the dust settled, a gleam became visible, which resolved itself into the shape of the Bug, its front and cab crushed by a boulder as big as the car. Beside it was No-Hands, seemingly intact and perhaps even unharmed, with the chart still in his single hand. But as the cloud fully dissipated, it was plain that something was wrong, and anyone looking from the right angle would have immediately seen the reason: The lower part of his right leg was still inside the car, hopelessly pinned among the twisted metal.
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