Avon Fantasy Reader No. 9 — page 116: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

had become as absorbed by it as the rest. Then, however, the greed that was the cornerstone of his whole character, had begun to come to the fore. The marvelously intricate details of the whole country—the peasants’ huts, the dif- ferent uniforms of the fighting men in the service of each ruler; their number and character—even their names; the strange flowers in the garden of the palace at Draco; the unpleasant call of a certain bird found only in the unex- plored woods of Ghuria; and the revolting characteristics of the pale fawn- colored mink-like animal that the Friyans had tried, unsuccessfully, to exter- minate; Edric, with a surprising quickness, had learned them all, and even added to his fellow-lords’ knowledge. What puzzled Edric, sometimes (or, rather, it puzzled Charley Anderson) was the fact that it did not seem to him that he invented the things. It seemed rather as if they had always been there, in the back of his mind, and had just ‘come casually to the fore. Even more strange—and when Charley thought of it, he was uneasy; although to Edric it was more a sullen annoyance than a surprise—was that Kirwan knew still more than Edric and, once or twice, had corroborated Edric’s descriptions with certain emendations—which Edric somehow realized were correct. There was the night when Horvath had entertained them in his palace at Balcur. The Dog-Men had been quiescent for some weeks, and conversation was idly turning on the swamp-lands in the southeastern corner of Thorvia, unfamiliar territory, except for such features as Edric’s palace, the barracks, and the peasants’ huts, to most of the group. Edric was saying, “There must be mineral springs underground in the swamp. It—it sort of churns around, sometimes; but not always in the same place.” : Kirwan had a small, secret smile on his face. “Not always the same place, no, he agreed. “But I think you will find always the same sort of place.” “Whatta you-mean, the same sort of place?” Edric demanded, puzzled; “The whole swamp is the same sort of place. And I don’t know why I should have to have a swamp in Thorvia—nobody else has. And this one has a nasty smell, somehow.” He stopped short, realizing with an unexplained thrill of fear that it did have a nasty smell. But how could it have? And—how did he know it, and know that he wasn’t “making it up”? His mind was so ab- sorbed by this rather frightening problem that he almost missed Kirwan’s answer. : “It only—er—churns around near those dark-purple waterlilies, doesn’t it?” said Kirwan, mildly; yet with a gleam of almost uncontrollable excitement in his eyes. “What?” said Edric, and thought. “Yes,” he said, and then with more conviction. “Yes. Only by the purple flowers.” Then, jumping up, and with his voice shrill, “Why? What is it? You know what it is. How do you know?” Kirwan cast down his eyes to the map, which he always took with him to the meetings. “Why, mineral springs, as you suggested,” he answered. “That’s what makes the swamp smell, probably, too. As for its only being near the H+ = Connicloooks (©