Goblin Moon (29 page)

With these ceremonies and the sacrifices completed,
Granny Hügel reached up under her ragged skirts and drew out a
long, slender object like a spindle. It gleamed faintly yellow in
the firelight, like a piece of well-polished bone or ivory.

“A carrier,” hissed Dr. Crow. “This explains, at
least in part, the depredations on your graveyard.” He already knew
something of these spindles: how they were usually carved from an
arm or a leg bone, and nourished (for the carrier had a kind of
unnatural life of its own) on the witch’s own blood, sucked out
through a raised bump, not unlike a nipple, inside the witch’s
thigh. “If any of your more honest neighbors are storing bags of
wool in their barns . . .”

As Ezekiel and Dr. Crow looked on, the old woman put
the piece of bone point down in a spot where the earth was
particularly hard and smooth. She gave it a spin, as though it were
a top, then withdrew her hand, squatting back on her heels to watch
the carrier work.

It continued to spin, much faster than a top . . .
faster and faster still . . . with a loud, unpleasant hum very
awful to hear. The area around the carrier began to glow and
shimmer, as if by some disturbance in the fabric of existence. And
then, quite suddenly, the spindle began to fill with a thick,
creamy thread, drawing it out of the very air, until the carrier
grew so full that it over-balanced and fell to the ground of its
own weight.

Very calmly, the hag picked up the spindle and began
to unwind the wool. Another woman produced a large cloth sack, into
which she began to stuff the stolen yarn, as fast as Granny Hügel
could pull it from the spindle.

When all the yarn was in the sack, the process began
again. The carrier spun around and around, magically transporting
the wool. It fell to the floor, the hag stripped off the yarn, and
then set it spinning once more. Someone in another part of the
parish was being methodically stripped of his livelihood at the
same time.
And another family starved out, I
make no doubt, for the sake of some petty grudge.

Meanwhile, some of the other witches were busy
elsewhere. One of them, a man with brown skin and a sour face—whom
Dr. Crow had no difficulty recognizing as one of the two farmers he
had overheard talking at the inn—took a long knife out of his belt
and thrust it into the north wall of the barn. He spoke a few
guttural words and made some magical passes over the knife. Then he
picked up a bucket and held it below the knife. A thin stream of
milk came out of the hole in the wall and poured into the pail.
When the bucket was full, the farmer took it down, and a woman
brought him another pail.

“In the morning, one of your neighbor’s cows,
normally a good milker, will be unaccountably dry,” said Dr. Crow.
“Possibly, her udder will be inflamed, for the process is not a
gentle one.”

Milk continued to stream into the second bucket,
until it, too, was overflowing. But this time, when the farmer
withdrew the pail, nobody brought him another. The flow of milk
went on for several minutes, soaking into the ground. Then it
turned scarlet, like fresh-flowing blood.

“They mean to kill the cow,” said Dr. Crow. “Do not
fear, Ezekiel, we shall act very soon.”

Chapter
23

Being most Regrettably Violent in its Character.

I believe,” said Dr. Crow, “that we have seen all
that is necessary.” Standing up, he removed his cloak and his hat.
He was just shrugging out of his coat when the double doors of the
barn flew dramatically open, and a draught of cooler air blew in.
Dr. Crow stooped low again, so as not to be seen.

“Hark!” cried Granny Hügel. “Our Lord and Master is
come to join our revels.” The other witches immediately left off
what they had been doing and formed a nervous semicircle around the
fire, facing the doors.

A tall figure, very elegantly clad in a full-skirted
coat of crimson velvet with a vast quantity of gold braid on the
wide cuffs, strolled into the barn. He wore his plumed tricorn
pulled low to shadow his face, so that it was impossible from the
vantage point of the loft to make out his features.

Ezekiel drew in his breath. “It’s the Dark One—Old
Mezztopholeez hisself,” he hissed in Dr. Crow’s ear.

“I think not,” came the whispered reply. “Neither the
Prince of Darkness nor any other demon of the earth. Else why
should he need to enter by way of the door?”

With a languid grace, the newcomer moved across the
floor, raising black-gloved hands as if in benediction. Granny
Hügel threw herself, groveling, at his feet. “Give us a sign,
Master, reveal a wonder.”

For answer, the figure in red stripped off a glove,
flourishing—
not
the expected hand, but a
scaly yellow claw with hooked talons.

Now it was Dr. Crow’s turn to draw in a sharp breath.
“
Troll!
That explains why fresh corpses
disappear from your churchyard. But I had never expected to meet
one so far south.”

“Troll?” echoed Ezekiel. “But I always heard tell
they was ugly and misshapen.”

“Some are more obviously misshapen than others.” Dr.
Crow spoke directly in Ezekiel’s ear. “Many have only a single
deformity, which they may conceal or disguise. That he has chosen
to reveal his argues that he has some exceptional hold over those
deluded fools down below.”

The old woman, after wallowing in the dirt for some
time—and receiving whatever curse or blessing the troll had to
bestow—rose to her feet and waddled over to join the others.
Someone produced a silver goblet, and somebody else provided a long
sharp pin.

As the cup and the bodkin passed slowly from hand to
hand, each member of the Circle used the bodkin to pierce a vein in
his or her wrist and the goblet to catch the sudden, unnatural gush
of blood. When the cup was full, Granny Hügel presented it to the
waiting troll. “Payment offered for favors given,” rasped the
hag.

The troll did not answer, but he took the stem of the
cup between his talons, lifted it, and drank all the blood in a
single draught. Then he extended the goblet to Granny Hügel. “It is
not enough. I require more.”

At his words, several of the women began to tremble.
The troll raised his talon and pointed at one of the more comely
females. “That one,” he said.

With a faltering step, with eyes rolling back in her
head as if she were about to swoon, the chosen victim advanced.

But now Dr. Crow was ready to take action. He removed
his waistcoat, stood up in his full-sleeved white shirt and
breeches. A large metallic medallion, suspended from a silver
chain, glittered on his breast. He slipped a hand up his left
sleeve and pulled a dagger out of some hidden sheath. “Come with me
to the edge of the loft, Ezekiel, but stand a little back. It is
not likely they will notice you, considering the distraction I am
going to provide.”

With the dagger in one hand and the medallion
clutched in the other, he advanced to the edge of the loft. After a
moment of hesitation, Ezekiel followed, bringing the grenado with
him.

Down on the floor, they were all entranced by the
drama of the woman and the troll. Up in the loft, Ezekiel was
equally entranced by his companion’s startling transformation.

Before the young farmer’s astonished eyes, Dr. Crow’s
slender figure seemed to change and grow—taller—wider—brighter—so
bright, indeed, that the light dazzled Ezekiel’s eyes. Dr. Crow was
gone: in his place stood a shining figure wrapped in garments of
light, spanning the distance from the floor of the barn all the way
up to the roof. Where Dr. Crow had carried a dagger, his gigantic
counterpart wielded a tremendous jeweled sword.

The sudden blaze of light and heat finally drew the
attention of the witches—that, and the thunderous beating of mighty
rainbow wings. Granny Hügel gasped and staggered toward the fire.
All of the women (and most of the men) shrieked in terror. Then
people began falling to their knees, in abject submission. Only the
troll remained standing.

Radiant Martos, the avenging Fate, brandished his
gleaming sword.
“Repent,”
he roared, in a
deep, stormy voice, like lightning and thunder, like the fury of
the wind on a wild night.
“Vengeance is coming,
and those who have not clean hands shall surely suffer.”

It was then that Ezekiel—sensing that the proper
moment had indeed come—flung the grenado into the fire.

There was a brilliant flash and a loud explosion,
followed an instant later by a second, more violent blast as the
firepot in the earth ignited. This second blast caught many of the
witches and flung them into the air. They came back to earth again
with so many sickening thuds. Some of them did not move again.

With shrieks and cries, all those who
could
scrambled to their feet and ran out of the
barn. The troll led the exodus, his elegant crimson velvet
blackened by the blast.

The barn caught fire in two places, but mighty Martos
pointed his sword and spoke the words, and the fires were instantly
extinguished.

Dr. Crow sat on the edge of the loft, dangling his
legs. By the light of Ezekiel’s uncovered lanthorn, he looked ill
as well as weary.

“Do not stare at me in that fashion, my good Ezekiel,
I do implore you,” he said. “I am not Great Martos incarnate. It
was an illusion, nothing more.”

Ezekiel grinned sheepishly. “It were a mighty
impressive illusion, that’s certain. Said you’d put the fear of the
Divine into the lot of ‘em and that’s just what you did.”

He brought the satchel and the rope ladder over to
the edge. He was about to attach the hooks and toss the ladder
down, but then he stopped. “We use the ladder, we can’t take it
with us; we leave it behind—“

“If we leave it behind, the whole elaborate illusion
will come to naught,” said Dr. Crow. “If demons of the earth do not
enter by way of the door, neither do winged Fates require the use
of a rope ladder. Well, after all, it is not too great a distance.
If we lower ourselves from the edge by our hands, we ought to be
able to drop the rest of the way without any harm.”

Ezekiel eyed his companion doubtfully. “Begging your
pardon, sir, but you look done in. Do you really reckon you could
manage that? Why don’t
you
use the ladder?
I can throw it down after you and then drop down myself.”

“Yes, if you please,” said Dr. Crow. “Undoubtedly
that would be best.”

Following this plan, they both reached the floor of
the barn without sustaining any injury. “I suppose,” said Dr. Crow,
“that we are obligated to look at the bodies; one of them may yet
live.”

He bent down to examine the first corpse. “Granny
Hügel. I am pleased to count her among the dead.” Her unholy glee
throughout the proceedings had deeply offended his sensibilities.
Now the hag lay in an awkward tangle of arms and legs, in a pool of
her own blood.

“Isabel Winkleriss . . . that I believe I may
regret,” he said over the next. “And her swain, Martin Bergen . . .
that I shall have to consider.”

As the need for action was past, he was rapidly
undergoing a change in identity, from vigilante-saboteur to a man
of compassion and compunction. It was one of the less comfortable
features of his chameleon-like nature, this tendency on the part of
his more ruthless personas to beat a hasty retreat once they had
done their dirty work, and leave one of the gentler spirits to deal
with the consequences.

He turned over the body of an old man. All the hair
had been singed off the head, and the face was as black as
soot.

“Rudolf Bormann,” offered Ezekiel. “He were a bad
one, beat his wife and starved his children. Tell you what, though:
I’m mortal sorry we didn’t get the troll.”

“As am I,” said Dr. Crow. “I feel certain he was
responsible for much that we saw here. More often than not, these
Circles never rise above the level of petty mischief—some of them,
indeed, mean to do good—but with a gentleman troll of some learning
to instruct them in the darker, more potent magics—“

“But why?” asked Ezekiel. “Why did he want to stir
them up for? Why did he set them to robbing and tormenting their
friends and neighbors?”

“To gain power over them,” said Dr. Crow. “To gain
power, by apparently bestowing power.

“They are a strange race,” he continued reflectively.
“Their origins are a mystery, for none of the ancient texts credit
any of the Nine Powers with their creation. Some believe them a
mongrel race . . . others, a breed of Men altered by evil magic.”
He walked over and picked up the silver goblet. “They relish no
meat so much as the flesh of Men, but as for drink, the males
prefer, above all else, to drink the blood of living maidens.
Moreover, when the blood a he-troll drinks has been obtained from a
girl who has been sealed to him in their version of matrimony, the
troll is said to derive some special benefit.”

He shrugged. “A troll superstition, perhaps, yet one
they firmly believe. The male will often go to great lengths to
find a girl and persuade her to marry him, usually a dairymaid or
shepherdess: a big, healthy country girl, in whom the life force
runs strong. But an unattached troll, as we have seen, can live
equally well on blood obtained by other means . . . and of course
on the flesh of the recently deceased.”

Ezekiel shook his head. “Don’t seem likely he’d find
enough meat on the bones of a beggar. Don’t seem like what there
was would be very sweet.”

“But paupers are buried without silver or gold to
hallow the grave,” said Dr. Crow.

Bending down, he scooped up Granny Hügel’s Black
Book. The cover was scorched around the edges, but it was otherwise
undamaged. He opened the book and leafed through the pages, and
Ezekiel came up behind him and peered over his shoulder. Though
most of the book consisted of blank pages, it still contained many
more names than either of them had expected. The first
names—written in ink so old that it had faded to brown—were
Matthias Woodruff, Rebeckah Hügel, and Rudolf Bormann.