Deception of the Damned

by P C Darkcliff

  The crowd slowly dispersed. Jasmin looked at Lesana, who gave her a happy wink. Jasmin replied with an uncertain smile. She’d just become the village drudge. But it was a start.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Cold, pain, and sorrow squirmed like worms into Jasmin’s mind and body to keep her company during the first weeks of her new life. The biting wind that always howled through the village seemed to have oxidized her bones, as did the freezing dampness of Lesana’s hut. Mucus ran from her nostrils like water from an ever-open tap. Jasmin only stopped shivering when she chopped wood or crouched by a fire. The hovel was always full of smoke, and her shoulders and back cramped from constant coughing.

  The nights brought the worst suffering. The scurrying mice and rats made her afraid to lie down. A frozen straw mattress felt more like a torture device than a place to rest. The cold that crept from the dirt floor seemed to gnaw at her muscles and turn her blood into sleet. The snoring of Lesana and her son, the rattling moans of his tuberculous wife, and the sighing of the restless children kept Jasmin awake most nights. So did the memory of Hrot, who was closer to death with every passing day.

  Game was scarce that winter, and fruit and vegetables were just a memory. The tasteless gruel she had every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner gave her terrible diarrhea that reduced her to a skeleton. On top of that, Jelen and most of the other villagers saw her as an intruder, the lowest link of the chain, someone who could be ordered around and pushed out of the way.

  Luckily, the admiration of Hrot’s nieces and nephews helped offset the pain and sorrow. Although they still loved the woman dying in the corner, they adopted Jasmin, if not as their new mother, then at least as their favorite aunt. They fought like puppies to sit the closest to her while they were playing or telling stories.

  Jasmin eventually got used to the discomfort of the straw mattress, and she learned to ignore the rats and mice. She even got used to the omnipresent stench, mostly because she stank as bad as the others. She had tried to wash up with melted snow, but the unbearable cold made her give up.

  The winter was long and cruel. April brought dreary weeks of gray skies and frigid rain that turned the village into a quagmire.

  The real spring didn’t come until the end of May, but its advent was wonderful. The clouds left, the mud dried, and the whole world exploded in incredibly rich shades of green. Birds went mad with joy in the blossoming trees, and so did the children down in the gentle grass.

  Lesana took over the housework and left the children completely in Jasmin’s charge. Although she was inexperienced at tending to livestock and using the primitive tools, Jasmin was a natural caregiver. Noticing how well Jasmin looked after Lesana’s grandchildren, the other women of the clan gradually entrusted her with their offspring as well.

  Summer was the happiest time for Jasmin, as she had long hours to spend in the pastures and the woods with a cheerful horde of children. The active outdoor life infused her with renewed vigor. Game was plentiful, and so was produce, and she regained some weight.

  Nevertheless, as autumnal winds came to rob the trees of their leaves, Jasmin recalled the horrors of the past winter and began to count the days that separated her from the solstice.

  The bad weather forced the children to stay in their hovels. Jasmin spent whole days salting meat and tanning leather, and she only went to the woods to scrounge for sticks and fallen logs. The village grew quiet and gloomy. The prospect of the long, dark evenings in the ill-insulated huts plunged everyone into depression. The first snowfall found Jasmin dying to be gone.

  Up until the eve of the winter solstice, she wasn’t sure whether to say farewell to her clan or whether to leave without a word. In the end, to avoid merciful lies—or truthful explanations that would only hurt and bewilder them—she thought it better to simply disappear.

  On the last day of autumn, she rose when it was still dark and turned to the open doorway, just as Hrot had used to do during his sleepwalking spells. The hovel was full of smoke. Lesana coughed and turned on her other side. Her son sighed in his sleep, and his wife moaned and wheezed. One of the children stirred. “Is that you, Aunt?”

  Jasmin immediately knew it was Kolpik. Nine years old, Kolpik was Hrot’s oldest nephew. He was her personal favorite because his wild hair and gentle, inquisitive eyes reminded her of his uncle. He was the hardest person to leave.

  “Where are you going, Aunt?” Kolpik mumbled as he sat up. In the flames of the slumbering hearth, she could see that his eyes were only half open: he was more asleep than awake.

  “I’m just going behind the hut to pee,” she lied. “Go back to sleep, my treasure.”

  Kolpik nodded and murmured something in his childish voice. He fell asleep as soon as he laid his head back on the straw.

  A tear sparkled in Jasmin’s eye as she looked at the boy and at the other sleeping savages who had become her friends and family. Hrot’s brother smiled beside his dying wife, perhaps dreaming about the times when she’d been healthy. Lesana was also smiling, probably dreaming about Hrot, unaware that he was to die today. Kolpik and his little siblings huddled under a moldy deer hide. Their unkempt hair wandered over their faces as they hugged each other for warmth.

  Jasmin bit her lower lip so hard a drop of blood ran down her chin. She knew their mother would not survive this winter. Lesana might not have much time left either, and yet Jasmin was going to steal away like a thief, abandoning them to their bleary fate without even saying goodbye.

  “I wish I could take you with me, my little pets,” she whispered. “But the Emissary would never allow that. The Emissary . . .”

  The sudden notion that the Emissary might be already on his way to the portal filled her with panic. Even though she knew the eerie rock never opened before midday, she decided to leave right away, in case she got lost and arrived late. She felt low and deceitful as she crept like a marauding lynx across the sleeping village. Thick logs were piled up around the ceremonial hearth for that night’s solstice feast. Jasmin had helped to bring the wood. But she wouldn’t be at the celebration.

  It was snowing heavily, and her footprints would soon disappear under the volley of snowflakes. Heading toward the river, she wondered whether she would as easily disappear from her clan’s memory.

  The snow had stopped, and the sun rose lazily on the clearing sky when Jasmin found the ford and reached the haunted woods. The dead, gory trees swayed in the grumbling wind. They cast eerie shadows on the portal, making it look as if the dreadful face that was chiseled into the rock was moving and twisting. The grunting, squealing, and whispering of invisible entities filled her with horror. The snowdrifts belched plumes of putrid vapor. She shuddered at the thought of what could be lying underneath.

  Jasmin almost wished the Emissary had already come. Even the presence of that monster was preferable to the solitude in these diabolical woods. A chill ran through her body when she realized that the next sunrise would wake her up in the modern world. Her soul howled at the notion that Hrot would die today, that he would die alone while she stumbled through the portal.

  She collected some of the rotten sticks to start a fire and to keep the cold at bay. She squatted by the fire for hours. Her eyes often wandered toward the sun. It hovered low above the horizon as if trying to decide whether to climb any higher. A little later, it finally gave up and started its descent. Jasmin grew anxious when the sun had gone and the Emissary hadn’t come.

  “Perhaps the winter solstice isn’t today after all?” she murmured into the gloomy twilight. “But that’s impossible!” Solstice was a grand occasion in the tribe, and people were now surely singing and telling stories around the ceremonial hearth. It was unthinkable they would miscalculate an event they have been observing for eons and anticipating for weeks.

  So where was he?

  The darkness deepened, and wild beasts began their haunted concert to welcome the year’s longest night. And the Emissary still hadn’t come.

 
Jasmin called him until her voice grew hoarse. She ran her hands madly over the fungous rock, trying to find a point of entry. And time flew and flew, its talons ripping all hope from her heart and carrying it far away. Jasmin screamed in despair when she realized it had to be past midnight. Winter had already come. But the Emissary hadn’t.

  THE FIRE WAS DYING, and the pale sun of the new day had risen to combat the darkness. Her cheeks were raw from tears, her heart from anguish. Paralyzed by chill and despair, Jasmin didn’t notice the dreadful squeal rolling along the woods and the antlered shadow passing over the rock.

  The fire grew and sputtered, like a moribund man propping himself on his elbows to shout a last curse at his tormentors. The angered flames belched a volley of sparks, some of which landed on Jasmin’s snowy head. A large horde of swine grunted behind the thickets. Hatred and repulsion surged through her veins. Her head snapped up, and her eyes darted around. The Emissary was there. He had finally come.

  Swathed in a black cloak, he was leaning against the rock through which he was supposed to usher her last night. He grinned and smirked. Blue veins pulsed lazily under the thin white skin that stretched tightly over his gentle face.

  “Where have you been?” Jasmin asked as she stood up. Her voice bristled with anger, despair, and cautious relief. “The winter solstice was yesterday!”

  “Was it now?” the Emissary taunted. “So?”

  “So? You were supposed to let me through the portal back to my times. That was the deal!”

  “The deal, Jasmin?” the Emissary asked, raising his eyebrows in mocked wonder. “Oh, you must be talking about the old deal!”

  “The old deal? What do you mean?”

  The monster grinned. “Didn’t your Hrot tell you anything before the farewell last year? And they call me a deceiver!”

  A dizzy spell made her stagger. Hrot had deceived her? Impossible! “Stop playing your games with me. Where’s Hrot? What have you done to him?”

  “Hrot is just fine, don’t you worry about him. Oh, you silly bitch! He duped you good, all right!”

  “Duped?”

  The Emissary smirked and ran his hand over the rough surface of the rock. Something rustled in a pine tree above Jasmin’s head. Two rabid squirrels fell off the branches and fought viciously in the filthy snow. When their bloodshot eyes alighted on the two figures, they froze for a moment, hissed, and dashed away.

  “You really thought the portal would open last night, didn’t you?” the Emissary asked, his fingers still caressing the rock. “It was funny to watch you trying to find a way in, like a blinded fox searching for her lair.”

  Jasmin’s head throbbed from the punches of confusing thoughts. The Emissary saw her but never came? Something must have gone terribly wrong. She began to suspect Hrot had done something horrid.

  “I saw a great deal of you over the past days, weeks, and months, Jasmin. I heard you, too. I heard you sob at night. I heard you murmur Hrot’s name from your sleep. Oh, how stupid an enamored bitch can be!”

  Hatred and frustration brought fresh tears to Jasmin’s eyes. “Tell me what’s going on. Where’s Hrot?”

  “Let me tell you something about your Hrot, dear Jasmin,” the Emissary said languidly, his fingers smoothing his frosted mustache. “As much as he wanted to end his ordeal, Hrot was pathologically scared of dying. He wanted to live freely outside the protective circle and age like a normal human being—and die of natural causes.”

  “So?”

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” the Emissary snarled, his eyes flaring up with rage. “Of course you don’t. You’ve spent a year of illusions in that reeking hell of Hrot’s village, so it’s hard to face the truth now, isn’t it? You thought you’d be now snoring in a soft bed under a thick duvet. If your brain was bigger than your nipple, you’d realize by now that you’re not leaving this hell—at least not for the next nine years.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Your dear Hrot has double-crossed you. We made a new pact, just a few hours after you’d agreed to spend a year here. The new pact allows him to end his days in your times. But for that, we had to extend your stay in this hellhole from one year to a decade.”

  Jasmin felt sick as the truth finally dawned. She recalled the shadow of shame that passed over Hrot’s face whenever they talked about the pact. When they had said farewell, Hrot had known she would be stuck in his filthy village for ten long years.

  But he was alive, alive!

  That roaring thought deafened everything else and brought a few tears of happiness into her eyes. Hrot was alive! He hadn’t died yesterday, as she’d feared, and he could easily live for half a century more until he died of old age. Besides, she was to see his nieces and nephews again.

  Jasmin nearly smiled, but new emotions began to simmer inside her, and new tears, cold and bitter, flowed out of her eyes. Hrot was alive and free. But what about her? All she could envision was another cruel winter under that thinly thatched roof. And then another. And then another. How could Hrot have condemned her to such a fate? Had he ever really loved her? Or had it all been a base ploy from the very beginning?

  “I suppose you finally understand now,” the Emissary smirked. “You might as well kill yourself. If you don’t, someone or something else will, sooner or later. Another bout of diarrhea, perhaps, or a hungry bear or a horny clansman. And even if you survive, you’ll be in your late thirties when I let you back. And that’s a very, very old age in these times. That scoundrel, Hrot, won’t even recognize you for you’ll be bent and withered like an old hag.”

  Seeing the pleasure the monster took in her distress, Jasmin forced herself to be strong. She exhaled and wiped her face with the sleeve of her coat. The Emissary turned to leave, but then he spun back to her.

  “There’s no need for you to rot here so long, my beauty,” he said and winked. “There’s a way out of this. It’s up to you to figure out, though. In case you survive the year, meet me here at the next winter solstice. If you give me a good reason to let you back to your time, I will. If not, the portal stays shut for eight more years.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Winter sat obstinately on its white throne until the end of April, and spring limped only slowly and reluctantly into the tribe’s territory. Summer awakened with cold showers. By mid-July, however, it ruled with a scorching hand.

  Jasmin was almost happy now about living in a semi-open hut in the middle of the breathtaking wilderness. The barefooted summer would soon come to an end, however, and another dreary autumn would take its place. Then the winter solstice would come—and she still hadn’t figured out what it was that the Emissary wanted her to do.

  Jasmin sweated under her short tunic as she walked through the sunlit woods. Having brought Lesana’s son his lunch, she headed from his logging site back to the village. When she spotted an oak stick lying on the ground, she picked it up to examine it. Stout, straight, and about five feet long, it was perfect for the spear she wanted to make for Hrot’s eldest nephew, Kolpik, who—at the age of ten—had started his training to become a hunter.

  She walked to the spot where the forest gave way to the hilly pastures. There she sat on the stump of a spruce tree and sharpened the stick’s thinner end with a knife. Now she had to harden the point in fire. She could have done it in one of the forges, but Kolpik might be around, and the surprise would be spoiled. She decided to do it right there.

  Under that clear sky, the smoke from her fire could be seen from miles away. The nomads had noticed it coiling above the treetops as soon as they’d ventured into the sandstone maze. The grayish plume drew them like a beckoning finger. The smoke meant a village to plunder and women to ravish. Although there were only five of them, the nomads had destroyed many lives since they’d been dispelled from their tribe for gang rape.

  It never occurred to Jasmin she could be in danger. There had been no raids for nearly four years, and the tribe felt safe within their territory again.
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br />   She added a few more sticks to the fire. As moisture evaporated from the spear’s tip, the wood whistled, sighed, and groaned as if its very soul was departing through the fibers. Jasmin ran her thumb over the blackened point and nodded. The fire had drawn all the water out of the tip and hardened it like steel. She was sure that Kolpik—who had until a week ago loved to snuggle with her and listen to her fairy tales, but who now saw himself as a grown man—would be thrilled.

  As she put the spear on the ground beside her and looked into the flames, she remembered how well she could always see Hrot in the firelight. The recollection made her miserable. She cradled her chin with her hand and sighed, just like the drying wood had.

  Hrot was now a man of flesh and bones, and everyone could see him. Everyone but Jasmin. She wondered whether he’d gotten rid of the bushy beard. He might have trimmed his hair and gained some weight as well, and he was surely very handsome. Perhaps he was with another woman now.

  “I don’t care,” she murmured, but without conviction.

  She recalled how his eyes sparkled whenever he’d looked at her, and how his voice had softened whenever he’d said her name. Could it all have been just an act?

  “How could you do this to me if you really loved me?” she asked as if Hrot were sitting across from her. “How could you betray me like this?”

  Jasmin picked up a stone and threw it forcibly into the flames. At times, she hated him for condemning her to a decade among those brutish people, for incarcerating her in that filthy village, which he’d wanted to leave so badly that he’d made a deal with a fiend.

  Jasmin noticed the sun had rolled toward the west, and she realized she should rush back to the village. Kolpik’s mother had died in January, and old Lesana was alone in the hut with the children. Jasmin bent over and scooped some dirt to put out the fire.