Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

“Naw,” he growled, and knocked a tomato can into the ditch with a rifled stream of tobacco juice. “Never heered of it.” A nasal, cackling laugh clattered on the still air. “Don’t ye believe him, mister! He’s lyin’, Jim is! He's heered of the place ali right!” Torn between repulsion and a horrible fascination, I slowly turned and gazed on the dreadful face of the ancient mountain cyclops who sat by the gasoline pump. His bulging eye rolled, glistening in the bright sunlight. His toothless mouth writhed with crazy mirth. “Don't pay him no mind,” the attendant muttered sullenly. “He's crazy.” The old man slapped his thigh with a renewed spasm of hissing laughter. “Tf that don't beat all! ‘Don’t pay him no mind,’ he says! Pm outen my head, I am! What you want to lie to the feller for, Jim? Tell him!” He paused, subsiding reflectively, “But you can't go thataway, mister. You gotta leave your autymobile behind. It'll take more’n gasoline to git shat thing over Black Knicht Pass!” Black Knicht ... Black Knicht . .. I stared at the old fellow curiously. Shockingly repulsive as he still was, most of the horror P'd experienced upen first laying eyes on him was fast evaporating. He was simply a freak... . But what had he just said? “Black Knicht Pass,” he repeated, pronouncing the “Knicht” with the old Teutonic “ch” guttural—a sound that was dropped from modern Fnglish many centuries ago. “It's the on'y way ye kin git over the ridge into the Devil’s Millhop.” “Black Knight, you mean, don't you?” | said curiously. The bulging blue eye blinked. “Knicht,” the old man repeated, “Black Knicht.... It'll take ye over into the Millhop, and there—there yell find the thrivin’ town of Kobold’s Keep!” His eldritch laughter whistled and sucked between his toothless gums. “Iffen you listen to that loon,” the attendant spat, “you're fixin’ to git your- self in a peck o’ trouble. You want to stay outen Kobold’s Keep, brother!” Then there was such a place! “Yeah,” he growled sourly. “It’s there, all right. And so is hell!” At the moment I was puzzled and irritated because of the fellow’s manifest reluctance to have me go to Kobold’s Keep. After all, what business was it _of his? I tried to discover some reason for his attitude. “Don’t be askin’ no questions and you won't be gittin no Jies,” he responded discourteously. “You can’t git to Kobold’s Keep onless you walk or git a mule. And when you git there the main thing you'll be wantin’ to do ts to git out. So just drive on your way, brother, and forgit that you ever heered about the .damned place!” “But I've got to get there,” I insisted. “I have business there.” One bushy black eyebrow lifted, “Business?” the mountaineer drawled incredulously. “Business in Kobold’s Keep?” “And why shouldn’t he be havin’ business there?” the old man cackled. “Kobold’s Keep is a right smart town. Better’n this hole! Ye needn't be 97 comiliclooks. conn