“There must be evil magic behind his restless night!” an old woman shrieked.
“Let’s tie him up every evening, just as we tether the goats,” somebody shouted from the back.
“Yes, he’s crazy like a goat, anyway,” another one added, and everyone laughed.
“Let’s expel him!” roared one of the patriarchs, and the crowd cheered.
“You can’t just expel him, you pack of ghouls,” Lesana screeched. “Chieftain? Where’s the chieftain? We must wait till he comes back from hunting.”
“No need to wait for the chieftain!” Hrot shouted. “I’m leaving. I should have left this hole years ago!”
Forgetting the fact that he wouldn’t last more than a few days alone in the woods, he turned toward the gate. Tears of anger blurred his vision, and he bumped into a little girl and sent her sprawling. The girl bawled. A strange hysteria flushed over the crowd. The children tugged at the skirts of his tunic as he tried to elbow his way through, and the adults shoved him around, shouting wildly.
When someone pulled at the string of the pouch that hung from his belt, the string broke and the pouch fell to the ground. Hrot crouched to pick it up. He lifted it so clumsily, however, that the flint and iron rod he always carried inside fell out. And with them, six golden nuggets rolled into the grass.
In the light of the rising sun, the gold shone like hot embers. The throng was suddenly frozen in silence, gawking at the treasure. Only the chieftain had gold, a thin bracelet he’d traded for his finest dagger. Nobody could even imagine how many daggers these nuggets would be worth.
Hrot was even more dumbstruck than the others: he’d never seen this gold before. This had to be the present the stranger had been talking about. But how had it gotten into his pouch?
Up until then, Hrot had been half hoping that meeting the Emissary had been nothing but a sleepwalking dream. However, these nuggets proved that the eerie encounter had really taken place. So who was this Emissary? How did he know Hrot’s name? And why would he give him the gold?
Hrot’s first notion was to leave the unclean nuggets in the grass. But when he saw that Jelen was about to leap at them, he scooped them up and pressed them against his chest like a protective father. If he let his own uncle steal from him in front of everyone, his life in the tribe would become even more unbearable. And he’d finally remembered he had no chance to survive on his own outside the palisade.
“Where did you get the gold from?” Jelen asked, but Hrot did not reply.
He smirked when he saw the greed in everyone’s eyes as they gawked at the treasure. Some people even licked their lips, like starving dogs tickled by a whiff of blood. Hrot recalled the diabolical shadow, and he knew he had to get rid of the nuggets fast. If he let Jelen have the largest one, would it be Jelen’s turn to sleepwalk and see monsters?
Hrot looked Jelen deep into his mean, avaricious eyes. “Would one nugget be enough for your damned stupid mules, Uncle?”
Jelen did not even blush. “Yes.” He pointed at the biggest piece. “One nugget would do.”
Hrot handed it over with a roguish grin.
A FEW WEEKS LATER, Hrot left for the woods to inspect his traps. It was the only manly thing he was allowed to do. Masters had chased him out of the forge after he’d accidentally branded another apprentice with sizzling tongs. Much as he tried, clay turned into crumbling and unusable heap whenever he sat at the pottery wheel. He had nearly cut his brother’s finger off while sawing, and he had chipped his own shin with an ax, which he always wielded so wildly and clumsily that everyone ran away as soon as he picked it up.
His lurching limp prevented him from walking quietly while hunting. In any case, his aim with a spear or a sling was so dreadful he wouldn’t hit a herd of deer at point-blank range. As he was forbidden to even touch a bow after he’d somehow managed to impale his finger with an arrow, trapping was his only means of providing meat for his clan.
Until his encounter with the Emissary, he’d always inspected his traps on foot, wearing his old, scrubby linen tunic. Now he did his rounds on the back of a splendid black mare, which went perfectly with his blue silk outfit.
Hrot had bought the horse and the clothes from the chieftain for two nuggets. When the merchants arrived, he exchanged another nugget for salt for the whole village. The second last nugget had rolled to his eldest sister as a wedding gift, which gave his middle sister the idea to look for a husband. No more gold weighed down his pouch once she had found one, and Hrot secretly sighed in relief.
Hrot was rich and respected—and he’d managed to get rid of the accursed gift. He hadn’t sleepwalked once, nor had he seen the Emissary.
He smiled happily as he trotted into the valley where he’d laid his traps. His horse was restless, though, because Hrot was a terrible rider. He always hunched his back and leaned on one side or another like a bundle of firewood, which made the mare snort and toss her head.
“Don’t worry, my beauty,” Hrot murmured as he patted the mare’s neck. “We’ll learn to get along.”
He checked all the traps, but they were as clumsy as he was, and all he found was a skinny old badger. Disappointed, Hrot set for home.
The vast forest teemed with life. Four eagles glided on warm currents above their heads. Farther to the east, a few blackbirds pursued a buzzard deep into the realm of sandstone rocks, which spread out toward the river and constituted the northeastern border of the tribe’s territory.
Not even the chieftain knew what lay behind the rocks. No other tribes lived within walking distance. Only imps, ghouls, and evil spirits were said to inhabit the river’s other bank.
Hrot reached the fields, where hares darted back and forth, making the horse snort. A pack of deer emerged from the golden wheat and ran across the path, so close by that the mare reared and nearly threw Hrot off. As he approached the village, Hrot saw a group of children playing tag by the southern gate. They halted and turned toward him. Their eyes followed him with admiration.
A deep ditch ran along the southern palisade. Hrot was about to dismount and lead the mare through the ditch, but then he recalled that the other tribesmen usually jumped over, even though their horses weren’t half as good as his. That made him decide to jump as well.
“Trot!” he said, but the mare halted and snorted. She obviously admired him much less than the gawking children did. “Trot, my beauty!” She sidestepped and tossed her head as if she were attacked by a swarm of bees. “Don’t be afraid.”
Unnerved by the kid’s open stares, he rammed his heels into the mare’s belly. The pain made her yield. Her massive hooves pounded the earth. A swine bellowed a dreadful squeal somewhere in the woods.
When they were just a few paces from the edge of the ditch, Hrot realized it might be too wide. He pulled at the reins just as the mare was about to jump. The mare reared, her hind hooves slipped over the edge, and they went crashing into the ditch.
The impact nearly knocked the soul out of him. He groaned as he struggled to his feet. The children screamed and ran to the village.
Hrot’s body was covered with cuts and bruises. Strips of dirty skin hung from his bleeding hands like tattered gloves. His beautiful outfit was a mess of bloodied rags. But that wasn’t the worst.
The mare was still sprawling in the ditch, screaming in agony that was dreadful to hear. The humanlike pain and terror that poured out of her eyes made Hrot wince. He bent over her and pulled at the halter. “Get up, my beauty. I’m sorry! Get up.”
When he finally managed to make her stand, he realized she couldn’t put down her hind right foot. Her three good legs trembled as if she were freezing. The fourth one dangled at a weird angle.
The children were back, followed by a smith who ran in wide strides, wiping his sweaty hands into his apron. Two women rushed out right after him, their hair smelling of the fires they’d been cooking at. The rest of the tribe poured out of the gate a moment later. They lined the ditch, murmuring excitedly as they stared do
wn at Hrot’s tattered skin and clothes. A collective gasp ran through the crowd as the mare collapsed.
“What have you done to my horse?” the chieftain roared through his toothless mouth, his bald scalp glowing with fury. Hrot parted his lips to say it was his horse, but then he only hung his head. “And look at my clothes,” the chieftain continued, his hands desperately pulling at the patches of graying hair that still sprouted above his ears. “They’re all in rags! Damn you, Hrot! You’re such a disgrace! Oh, my poor beautiful mare. Quick, quick! Bring me a knife so that I can put her out of her misery!”
Shouts and insults hailed down on Hrot’s head from all sides. A few boys leaped back and forth over the ditch as if to show him it wasn’t that wide after all. His mother slid down to him, crying and gibbering. He sat down beside the agonizing animal and hung his head.
Only this morning, Hrot had been a silk-clad idol who looked down on the tribespeople from the back of a splendid horse. And one bad jump had made him lose it all. People would soon forget where the salt that glistened on their meat had come from. They were already scowling at him in contempt, and even his two gilded sisters shook their heads at him.
Someone brought a knife. The chieftain jumped into the ditch and cut the mare’s throat. Blood gushed out of the artery and drowned every remnant of Hrot’s pride and dignity. The spectacle was over, and everyone left. Only Lesana remained, but Hrot sent her away.
Alone with his shame and misery, and with nothing but the ruined clothes and the cooling carcass to remind him of the good, golden days, Hrot realized he needed more nuggets. The Emissary and his shadow no longer filled him with fear. He didn’t care where the Emissary and his strange present had come from. With six more nuggets, Hrot could become the village god again. Or better yet, he could pay the traveling merchants to take him far away from here.
Hrot lifted his head and shouted, “I swear I would sell my soul for more gold!”
As in response, an insane squeal came from the woods.
CHAPTER TWO
As he tossed on his old mattress that same night, a vast and desolate landscape of brownish marshes unrolled in Hrot’s slumbering mind. An antlered monster plodded through the morass, mounted on a beast that resembled a giant wild sow, almost twice as big as the black mare that was now stiffening at the bottom of the ditch.
The rider’s broad antlers stuck out of his giant skull like the hands of death. A waist-long beard grew under his cruel mouth. A pair of sharp tusks projected upwards from the lower jaw. His glowing eyes slanted toward a flat nose. The rider was naked, but thick black fur covered his body from head to toe. Instead of hands, a pair of talons that could have belonged to a giant eagle grasped the reins. Six tentacles grew out of his back. Whenever they lashed the sow’s flanks, she squealed and galloped even more furiously through the wasteland.
Neither a tree nor even a shrub or a blade of grass grew in the marshes. All Hrot could see in the fog were grayish bones sticking out of their reeking tombs. A strong wind rushed forth, howling like a tortured soul and bringing the stench of decaying flesh. The wind chased the fog away. The marshes transformed into a realm of giant sand dunes.
The sun came out, orange and giant and strong enough to suffocate all that was alive with its murderous rays. Dozens of tentacled bats and featherless vultures, and a flock of something that looked like winged, fanged lizards, circled around the traveler’s head, screeching madly. The sow blinked furiously as the wind shoved handfuls of sand into her eyes.
The sun suddenly collapsed behind the dunes, and ten frozen moons circled the darkening sky. The temperature plunged; black clouds floated in. A blizzard was coming. Seared by the sun, the rider’s fur steamed under the touch of the first snowflakes. Falling like an avalanche, the snow soon reached up to the sow’s knees.
The outline of a forested mountain rose from the white pandemonium. Squealing under the touch of the rider’s venomous tentacles, the sow plodded through the snow up toward the vast mouth of a cavern that snarled at them halfway toward the summit. She stumbled through the entrance and down a large tunnel.
A cacophony of wailing and pleading voices, dreadful yet distinctly human, slithered along the cavity as if thousands of souls were being tormented behind its slimy walls. A brook of lava painted the walls red, its fiery bubbles bursting at the sow’s hooves. A flock of black wasps pursued them with a furious buzz as they reached the end of the tunnel and barreled out of the mountain.
The rider led the sow across a ridge that rose from a bubbling, fetid red lake. The shores were out of sight: neither the moon nor the sun could penetrate the filthy clouds that crept over the decaying skies.
Having crossed the ridge, they entered a realm of dead trees whose trunks were covered with blood instead of sap and whose arid crowns groaned eerily in the wind. Every gnarl was a malicious, leering eye; every needle a poisonous weapon. Their fallen bark and branches decayed on the ground in a putrid, steaming mass, like a giant carcass.
The sow gave out a pierced cry, and the lifeless woods began to echo with grunting and squealing. The gory ground trembled under the beat of hundreds of hooves. A wild horde of leprous swine gathered around the travelers to usher them through their dreadful domain.
As they reached a river, the antlered monster turned into the pale-faced Emissary, and the giant sow into a splendid mare. The clouds dispersed; the wild boars disappeared.
The Emissary led the mare across a ford marked by ten black stepping stones. It was the same river that flew through Hrot’s tribe’s territory. Hrot would not know this place, though, as it was far from the village, beyond the realm of sandstone rocks. This was the only spot to cross the river, the place where two worlds met.
Having reached the other bank, they plunged into lush and healthy woods and trotted in the shadows of the sandstone rocks. The woods they entered afterward were familiar to the sleeping Hrot. The dream ended as they reached the fisherman’s path—but it came again and again.
THE NIGHTMARE GALLOPED into Hrot’s head as soon as he closed his eyes at night. So vivid it was he feared that the realm behind the river was more than just the fruit of his over-imaginative mind. After all, the elders had always said the woods on the other bank were cursed and haunted.
As if that wasn’t enough, he began to sleepwalk again. He sleepwalked every night, as soon as the nightmare ended.
Lying near the open doorway, he occasionally stumbled out of the hovel unnoticed. But as they all slept side by side on the dirt floor, somebody usually woke up as soon as he stirred from his straw mattress. The subsequent bedlam never failed to awake him—and everyone else in the hut—in a moment.
On the night of the autumn equinox, the eldest of his three brothers snapped as soon as Hrot stood up. “Ouch! You’ve stepped on my hand, you crazy ass!”
Moans and groans swiftly replaced the snoring.
“Not again, my little boy,” Mother lamented in her sleepy voice.
The breeze blew cold through the doorway, and Mother sat up to add another log to the dying hearth. “Not again, not again,” she murmured as she fanned the fire with a pine sprig.
A few sparks flew up. The shadows of the irritated fire danced wildly on the porous wattle and daub walls.
“I’m afraid of him: he’s an evil spirit!” the youngest sister shrieked. Then she coughed as the smoke entered her nose and mouth on its way toward the ventilation hole in the roof.
“Shut up, everybody!” Father’s wheezy, gurgling voice came from a black corner. “And you, Hrot, go back to sleep or I’ll thrash the evil spirit right out of you. I wonder why you always have to act like a madman.”
“But it’s not my fault,” Hrot protested as he lay down on the hard, prickly mattress. “I’m not doing this on purpose. I have no control over the things I do in my sleep, do I? It’s as if you wanted to beat someone up for snoring or tossing around.”
“I tell you he’s possessed,” the youngest sister screeched.
“I said, shut up and go to sleep,” Father snarled. “All of you!”
At last, they did. They slept soundly to the crackling of the fire, and none of them woke up when Hrot rose again. This time, he left the hut unobserved and headed straight for the northern gate. Some of the guard dogs woke up and lifted their heads. But they didn’t even bark or growl, for they knew him and his nocturnal habits well. He unbarred the gate and passed through. An unknown force pulled him across the pastures and toward the fisherman’s path.
Under the strong, frigid moonlight, Hrot shuffled down the path to the river. He murmured something under his breath, and his eyes were half open, so that you would swear he was awake. But he was deep asleep. When he did wake up, he found himself standing barefooted in the cold mud on the riverbank, at about the same place where he’d met the Emissary.
Hrot gaped at the moonlit world. Groaning, he pressed his fingers against his temples, which always throbbed after his somnambulistic ramblings. A few deep breaths helped him to keep down the creeping nausea.
The woods were quiet. The birds were either sleeping or listening to the lullaby of a lonely owl. The chilly breeze whispered in the tree crowns, and the river hummed gently, the way his mother had hummed to him when he was little and couldn’t fall asleep. The beasts preferred to hunt in the sandstone rock labyrinth, and the howling the wind occasionally brought was too weak and distant to disturb him. The porcine grunting and squealing surely came from the other bank. Then why did his entrails twist in terror?
A figure appeared in front of him. Hrot could have sworn it had materialized out of the dark air. Mercifully, the Emissary had once again banished his furry and antlered form to slither into this world. And yet, the gentle, pale face swept Hrot’s soul with fear and hatred. As far as he could see in the silvery gloom, the Emissary was smiling under his trimmed mustache, and his eyes sparkled with kindness. But his every pore belched such a repulsive aura that Hrot felt sick to his stomach.
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