The Last Days Of The Edge Of The World by Brian Stableford Page A

did, the wall grew still higher and thicker, until it was at the level of his shoulder—and yet further, until it merged with low branches and the silvered foliage.
    He had no idea whether the course he was keeping was straight or not, and he harboured dire suspicions as to where the corridor might be leading him.
    He patted the patient mare yet again, though it was he that needed the reassurance. “If we ever come back here,” he murmured, “I want you to remind me of the old saying. A fool rushes in, but an angel carries a compass. Will you do that?”
    The mare made no answer.
    Ewan held the lantern a little lower to pick out the ground on which the grey mare trod. Scattered in his path was a carpet of toadstools, with caps that were grey and peeling, or blue and lustrous, or sometimes dark red and warty. All manner of similar fungi grew in the crevices of the gnarled trunks and at the junctures where branch-elements spiralled off into the tangled skeins. They were often coloured, but never brightly—instead they were faded and dull and darkened and dim.
    Ewan had never felt quite so lonely.
    “You see,” he began to explain to the mare, “why people think this place is haunted. It does give that impression, although it’s all really perfectly natural. One can understand how these susperstitions start. At least, I can. I suppose that being a horse you don’t worry too much over these intellectual niceties, do you?”
    The old grey mare sniffed and grated her teeth a little.
    “I couldn’t agree more,” muttered the boy. “If an owl hooted right now I’d jump out of my skin.”
    He paused, as if expecting an owl to hoot on cue, but no owl did. He listened carefully, but all he could hear was the sound of slithering.
    He gulped.
    “If I were of a nervous disposition,” said Ewan, “I’d begin to worry right now about that old tale people tell about the way that roads in enchanted forests just go round and round, so that once in you can never get out. I suppose this is a road, of a sort… or a tunnel… or something.”
    While he spoke, the grey mare plodded on.
    And the soft walls seemed, now that they had stopped growing upwards, to be drawing ever closer.
    “It’s a curious illusion,” commented Ewan, “that parallel lines seem to meet at infinity. If you stand in the middle of a straight road, it seems to get ever narrower as it extends to the horizon. I’ve often wondered why.”
    The mare ducked her head and shook it slightly.
    “You always wondered why as well, eh?” said Ewan.
    In all probability, the old mare had meant nothing of the kind. But either way, the fact remained that the route was getting narrower, and it wasn’t an illusion.
    Somewhere off to the right, and then, again, to the left, there was a slow, stretching sound of sinuous slithering.
    “I don’t know about you,” muttered Ewan, patting the mare’s neck furiously, “but I’m terrified.”
    The way became so constricted that the tangled branches formed a matted roof just above Ewan’s head. The longest and limpest reached out to trail clammy tips along his arms and shoulders, and tap, tap, tap at the glass casket holding the valiant candle. This was a tunnel indeed—a horrid, soft-walled tunnel. And he came, eventually, to a place where there was no longer room for a boy on horseback to proceed.
    There were only two options open to him. He could try to go back. Or he could go on foot.
    He backed up three paces until there was room for him to dismount in the confined space between the mare’s flank and the glutinous wall. He went on alone, and the pale yellow light of the candle seemed to him to be the most precious thing in the world. In point of fact, as he walked alone in the enchanted forest, there was only one other thing that he could call his own, and that was a set of panpipes he carried in his pocket—a small present from his father, the maker of musical instruments.
    He looked back once, but the mare was