The Shadowed Path (25 page)

Fear welled up in him, deep in his gut. Jonmarc hurled himself across the threshold, bursting into the cold darkness of the spring night. Kegan stumbled out behind him, and Dugan nearly plunged face first into the dirt.

“Where’s Pol?” Jonmarc said, wheeling to look behind them.

The tent and everything in it vanished.

Jonmarc and the others stood staring, dumbfounded, at the empty space where the huge tent had been. Trent, Corbin, Karl, and Zane galloped up.

“Where’s Pol?” Corbin demanded.

“He was a step behind us,” Jonmarc said, staring aghast at the open field. “There was a crowd, and we had to push our way through. We got separated, but I saw him just behind Dugan, right before I made it through the door.”

“I got the feeling that something didn’t want us to leave,” Kegan said. “Like it was pulling us back. Maybe Pol couldn’t get loose.”

Jonmarc and the others tramped across the field, assuring themselves that the traveling show was actually gone, and not just somehow hidden from view. Nothing remained, not even footpaths trodden over the dry grasses. Trent swore loudly, while Corbin looked near panic. Zane looked like he wanted to kill someone. Karl’s mouth was a tight, angry line.

“We’ve got to find him. By the Crone! I’m responsible for that boy!” Corbin groaned.

“Let’s get back to the caravan, and sort things out there. Nothing to be done here tonight,” Trent said. He held up a hand to forestall Corbin’s protest. “I’m not giving up on Pol. But standing in an empty field won’t help him. I don’t think they’re going to reappear—at least, not here.”

“I’ll stay, to make sure,” Corbin said, crossing his arms over his massive chest. “Until daylight. Just in case.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Zane said. “The rest of you, go back.” Jonmarc suspected that Zane did not expect the caravan to show up, but he would not allow Corbin to keep his vigil alone.

Jonmarc and the others rode in silence back to the caravan. Trent and Karl followed them, their cloaks thrown back and their swords visible. They saw no one on the return journey, but Jonmarc could not shake the feeling of being watched. Linton was waiting for them when they arrived.

“Well?” He asked expectantly, and then his face fell. “Wait—where are the others?”

“Pol disappeared, along with the entire tent and everything in it,” Trent snapped. “Corbin and Zane are keeping watch where things were.”

“Disappeared?” Linton repeated incredulously. “Come in and tell me all about it.” They followed the caravan master to his tent, and he waved them to be seated. “Start from the beginning,” he said.

Linton listened in silence as Jonmarc told the story, then peppered Dugan and Kegan with questions. Finally, he sat back and let out a long breath. “Well,” he said, “I didn’t expect that.”

“The real question is: what do we do now? Corbin’s beside himself.” Trent said. “He won’t leave without Pol.”

“And there’s no reason to think the monstrosities show will come back,” Jonmarc replied. He looked from Trent to Linton. “I don’t think the creatures we saw in there were accidents of birth. Magic did that—bad magic. And I think it took Pol.”

Trent frowned. “Why do you think it wanted Pol and not any of the rest of you?”

Jonmarc searched for the words to express himself. “It seemed to speak to Pol,” he said finally. “Kegan and Dugan and I didn’t like what we saw. Most of the people around us were laughing, not taking it very seriously. But Pol seemed to be drawn to what was going on. And I think whatever it was called to him.”

“Listen to the boy.” They startled at the sound of the hoarse voice. Alyzza stood in the doorway, wrapped in a stained and torn gray cloak.

“What do you know of this?” Linton demanded.

“I know blood magic when I feel it,” Alyzza rasped. “I heard the tale the boy told,” she said with a nod toward Jonmarc. “That’s not a mage you face; it’s a
dimonn
.”

“I don’t care if it’s the Formless One herself, how to we get Pol back?” Linton replied.

Alyzza made the sign of the Lady in warding. “Don’t speak of such things, even in jest,” she said, shaking her head. “Words have power.”

“Those creatures you described, the ones in the tent,” Karl said. “They sound like
ashtenerath
.”

“That’s foul magic you speak of,” Linton said, fingering an amulet on a strap around his throat. “I pray you’re mistaken.”

“What are
ashtenerath
?” Dugan asked.

Karl met his gaze. “Men, twisted by blood magic and potions—and pain—until they’re broken and mad, used to do the bidding of their maker. I’ve fought them on the battlefield.”

“Can they be saved?” Kegan had gone pale at Karl’s description.

“Not that I ever heard,” Karl replied. “Just put out of their misery.”

“I will not believe that of Pol, not until I see it myself,” Trent’s anger was clear.

“If it’s magic that strong, what can we do?” Linton asked. “And what can a hedge witch do against a
dimonn
?”

Alyzza chuckled, a wheezing sound. “You might be surprised. Yes, you might,” she replied, wagging a finger at Linton. “First, we call the
dimonn
, and then we trap him. Then, we get Corbin’s boy back.”

Trent sighed in exasperation. “She’s mad,” he said, beginning to pace. “Call a
dimonn
?”

Alyzza stood up to him and drew herself up to her full height. She was tiny compared to Trent’s huge form, her head barely reaching his ribs, but her eyes sparked fire. “How else do you think you’ll find him, huh? Ride every crossroads in the kingdom at midnight?” She shook her head. “You won’t find him unless you call him.”

“No one sane calls a
dimonn
!” Trent argued.

Alyzza laughed. “No,” she agreed. “They don’t. Do you want the boy back, or not?”

“D
O YOU THINK
the
dimonn
will come?” Dugan asked nervously as they crouched in the darkness. Only one night had passed since the ill-fated journey to the monstrosities show, but preparations for the evening’s foray had taken nearly every candlemark.

“Alyzza thinks it will,” Jonmarc replied.

“Maybe she’s crazy,” Kegan whispered.

Jonmarc watched the old woman as she unpacked her things from a satchel. “Maybe she is. Doesn’t mean she’s not right about this.”

After picking up Corbin and Zane, they traveled half a candlemark from where the monstrosities show had appeared, to a crossroads Alyzza judged just right for the type of magic to be worked. Alyzza had insisted that each of them fill their pockets with iron nails, and she had made them all necklaces of iron nails to wear against their skin. She also prevailed upon Linton to give each of them a gold coin to hold for the night.

“This type of
dimonn
hates iron and gold,” she told them. “That’s why he didn’t take a smithy like you,” she said, thrusting a gnarled finger at Jonmarc. “It wouldn’t want a healer,” she said with a look at Kegan, “and you weren’t going to feed it the way Pol would have,” she added, glancing at Dugan.

“What do you mean by that?” Dugan challenged.

Alyzza chuckled. “Challenge the witch who’s going to tangle with a
dimonn
, will you?” she said slyly. “
That’s
what I mean. You’re a fighter.
Dimonns
like the weak.”

Jonmarc remembered Pol’s hesitant stance, and the way he hung back from the conversation. Perhaps it was his nature, or the effect of the scars the pox left him with, but of the four of them, Pol had been the weakest. “It’s my fault he came along,” Jonmarc said. “I suggested it.”

Alyzza gave him a glance that seemed to see down to his bones. “You meant no harm,” she grated.

I never do
, Jonmarc thought bitterly.
But in the end, someone dies.

“There are different types of
dimonns
?” Trent asked.

Alyzza nodded. “Aye. And each with its own weaknesses and hungers. I’ve heard tell of this kind, the ones they call
gwyndullhan
, the ‘form twister’.” She made a sign of warding. “Not as many about as there used to be, thank the Lady. They served the Old Ones, like Konost and Shanthadura.”

Jonmarc repressed a shiver. He knew the names of those beings from the bogey stories told to keep children close to the fires at night. As legends, they had frightened him as a child. Finding out they were true was terrifying.

“You have the other things I told you to bring?” she asked the others. One by one, they nodded. “Good,” she said. “We’ll need them—and the luck of the Lady.”

This crossroads suited, Alyzza said, because there was a burying ground in sight, further down the valley. One of the roads led into the forest, and the other crossed a stream. Both augured well for the magic to be worked. Alyzza gathered her things, and turned to look at the small group that had come with her. Linton rode up to join them.

Alyzza led them to the center of the crossroads. She instructed them to step back, giving her room to pace off the circumference of a huge circle, which she drew with a line of salt. Then she walked widdershins around the circle, burning a bundle of sage as she muttered to herself.

“Stand just outside the circle,” Alyzza ordered. “Leave an equal distance between each of you. The circle will contain the
dimonn
, if we’re lucky. When it comes, do as I told you, but don’t cross the circle. If the circle is broken, the
dimonn
is loosed.”

And we all die
, Jonmarc silently finished her sentence. Tonight he wore both swords, the last his father had forged. They remained sheathed. In each hand he held a length of iron rod, as did all the others. Trent and Corbin set up torches on iron poles to ring the circle and lit them.

Jonmarc looked to each side. Dugan and Kegan stood with him, and each looked terrified. He guessed that they saw the same fear in his face.

Alyzza carried a burlap sack with her into the center of the circle. She drew a knife and cut the burlap, seizing the frantic chicken inside. Alyzza held the bird aloft by its legs, paying no attention as its beak opened bloody tears on her arm.

Alyzza was muttering, but Jonmarc could not hear her words. She lifted the screeching bird once to each of the four quarters, and Jonmarc knew she called on the light Aspects of the Lady: Mother and Childe, Warrior and Lover. Walking widdershins once more, Alyzza offered the bird again, this time for the dark Aspects: Crone, Whore, Formless One, and the Dark Lady.

Abruptly, Alyzza raised her knife and plunged it into the squawking bird, then swung its carcass back and forth to sprinkle the dry ground with warm, fresh blood. Her chanting grew faster and louder, and Alyzza’s footsteps grew quicker, until she was dancing within the warded circle, spattered with blood, her stained hands raised to the moon.

The night sky was clear, but a crack like thunder broke the stillness. Darkness obliterated the stars like a rift in the heavens. Out of the darkness a shadow descended, and became the form of a man dressed in black, holding a spine like a whip.

“We’ve come for what is ours,” Alyzza demanded. “You are bound here, without power. Return Pol to us, unharmed, and be gone.”

In the torchlight, the man’s face was the color of a drowned corpse. His black eyes darted from side to side like flies on carrion, and his mouth was a bloody slash that ran from ear to ear. When he spoke, his voice was a low growl that raised the hair on the back of Jonmarc’s neck, a voice from nightmares.

“You have no power over me, witch.”

“Give us back Pol, and our business is finished,” Alyzza said, raising her face defiantly to the
dimonn
.

“Take him from me,” the
dimonn
challenged, throwing his right arm open and spreading his fingers wide. Pol appeared in the circle with him, but the night had worked a horrible change. Pol’s pox scars were swollen into oozing pustules, covering his body in sores, twisting his features and nearly closing both eyes. His hands were crabbed into claws, and patches of his hair had fallen out.

Alyzza raised one hand, and a flash of light burst from her palm, driving the
dimonn
back.

The
dimonn
dissolved into dark mist and swept out of the way of the light, solidifying a few steps away. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

From the folds of her skirts, Alyzza withdrew a length of iron in one hand, and a gold piece in the other. “Fie,” she muttered. “You are bound by iron and gold, sage and salt, blood and fire. Give me Pol—as he was.”

At Alyzza’s cue, each of the watchers held up their iron rods and gold coins. The
dimonn
turned to look at them, and the slash of a smile widened. “But what of those bound to me?” the voice grated.

Jonmarc heard footfalls behind him and spun around. Shadowy shapes approached from all sides. Even before he could make out their features, he knew them by their movement. The spider girl skittered with unnerving speed across the dry grass. The
stawar
-man prowled toward them with all the power of the legendary big cat. A dark, hulking shape lumbered toward them like a bull, and a thick shadow, low to the ground, undulated like a massive snake.

“They’re all
ashtenerath
,” Karl said. “Even the boy. He’s past helping.”

“Don’t you dare say that!” Corbin challenged.

Karl dropped the gold piece into his pocket, then grabbed one of the torches from its sconce, holding the iron bar in his other hand. “Doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. It’s the truth.”

Jonmarc had barely gotten a torch in hand when the
stawar
-creature lunged for him. Powerful jaws with long fangs snapped just short of his arm as Jonmarc dodged aside. He thrust the torch at his attacker, then brought the iron bar down hard on its thick skull. The
stawar
-man let out a howl of rage and attacked again, barely missing him with its claws.

“Fire!” Karl shouted. “You’ve got to burn them!”

Jonmarc swung the bar again, slamming the creature on the side of the head. He heard bones break, and ichor oozed from the wide gash. Jonmarc jabbed again with the torch, going for the tattered clothing that hung from the creature’s frame. The cloth caught fire, spreading to the fur, and the monster screamed as the flames engulfed it, a howl both animal and human.