The Curse of Deadman's Forest

by Victoria Laurie

  Ian wasted no time lowering himself over the ledge, holding tightly to the part of the belt wrapped round his wrist while finding handholds in the soft limestone with his other hand. As he worked his way closer to Theo, his grip slipped from the rock before his feet found purchase, and he knew he would have fallen straight off the cliff onto the shore below if the wind hadn’t pushed him back toward the rock and if Carl hadn’t pulled tightly on the other end of the belt.

  Somehow, Ian managed to hug the rock and carry on until he felt hands grip his legs. He looked down to see Theo’s pale face near his knees. “Climb up!” he shouted to her. “I’ve got a firm hold here! Climb up and get into the cave!”

  Theo’s light blond hair whipped around her. She hesitated only a moment, then, with Jaaved’s help, crawled up the rock, gripping Ian tightly, and managed to make the ledge. Once she was secure, Jaaved hurried up as well, and Ian would have breathed a sigh of relief if the cyclone hadn’t started to pull him away from the rock.

  Struggling to cling to the limestone with one hand while he held the belt in his other, he could hear Theo, Jaaved, and Carl all urging him to climb back up to the ledge, but every time he moved, the whirling wind that had pinned him to the rock before attempted to pull him away from the cliff’s face. “Come on, mate!” Carl demanded. “Just climb!”

  Ian knew he had little choice but to take the chance, and he tried reaching up with one hand to pull himself along, but the moment he let go of the rock, the wind lifted him away and he lost his grip altogether.

  For a frightful moment he dangled in midair, perpendicular to the shore, and all he could see was the enormous black wall of the cyclone. Convinced he was about to breathe his last, Ian closed his eyes, but suddenly, Carl, Theo, and Jaaved gave a tremendous heave to the belt and it was just enough to pull him back into the rock face.

  The cyclone, however, continued to try to pull him away, and to make matters worse, the wind threw rocks, sand, and other debris so forcefully at him that he looked down to see that his exposed skin had started to bleed from dozens of small cuts.

  “Hurry!” Carl shouted, and Ian felt like he was the rope in a terrible game of tug-of-war, one half of him being pulled toward the encroaching cyclone, the other being pulled back toward the cave.

  And throughout those awful seconds, Ian felt he could do little to help. Worse still, he could feel his wrist begin to slip in the loop of belt around it. Try as he might to hold on, his grip was loosening.

  It was with tremendous effort that he reached with his other hand and gripped the belt tightly, just as his friends all gave one final tug, and like a cork from a bottle, he was released from the vortex of wind and went tumbling back into the cavern.

  He barely had time to collect his wits before Carl gripped him by the shoulder and pushed him across the chalky floor. “We’ve got to make it back into the tunnel before the cyclone sucks us out of the cave!”

  His friend had shouted directly into his ear, but the noise from the cyclone nearly drowned the words out. Ian took one quick frantic look about him, saw Theo nearby, and grabbed her hand tightly while shouting at Carl to hold on to Jaaved. Making for the tunnel at the back of the cave, the foursome had to dodge large rocks, driftwood, and other debris as it rained down all around them and rammed the walls and ceiling.

  The ground began to shake and Ian realized that the cyclone was just about to collide with the 350-foot face of the cliff. With supreme effort he half dragged, half threw Theo into the mouth of the tunnel before reaching behind him to grip Carl and Jaaved and tug them through the narrow entrance as well, everyone tumbling forward in a tangle of arms, torsos, and legs.

  The moment they were in the confined space of the tunnel, Ian felt a fraction of relief from the suction of the wind, and he wasted no time pulling himself and Theo to their feet. “Run for it!” he shouted to Carl and Jaaved, and the four dashed deeper into the tunnel. Gripping Theo’s hand tightly, Ian had gone no farther than twenty meters when he felt the full impact of the cyclone hitting the cliff’s face. It slammed into the rock with such force that it knocked all four of them to the ground again.

  The noise of the impact was tremendous, like the sound of ten locomotives all colliding at once. It was certainly the loudest sound Ian had ever heard, and he threw himself over Theo, trying desperately to protect her. He could feel her screaming beneath him, but her terror was completely drowned out by the collision of the cyclone and the rock.

  For long terrifying seconds the walls and floor of the tunnel shook, fragments of rock rained down on them from the ceiling, and dust filled the air with suffocating swiftness.

  Ian held tightly to Theo, praying desperately for a miracle—quite certain that the tunnel would not withstand the forces being exerted upon it.

  And then, in an instant, everything stopped.

  BLACK, COLD, AND TERRIBLE

  Magus the Black stood with two of his three siblings on the shore of Calais, staring out at the distant British coastline as the last threads of the cyclone evaporated. He looked first at his sister, Caphiera the Cold, whose eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, while she peered through the lens of a long silver spyglass. Magus was unsure how she could see anything through the sunglasses, they were so dark, but he dared not question her, lest the recent fragile peace between them be ruined. He couldn’t help noticing when Caphiera’s gruesome smile spread wide, exposing her sharply pointed teeth, just before she lowered the instrument. “She’s done it,” she announced triumphantly.

  The edge of Magus’s long cloak rippled with small flames as he turned to stare at his other sibling, Atroposa the Terrible.

  He’d spent much of the past year wasting his time and energy fighting with Caphiera, until their sire had stepped in and brokered a truce. The underworld god had then ordered them to work together to find Atroposa, suggesting they would need the sorceress of air to complete their mission.

  While Caphiera had searched west, Magus had looked east, and he’d finally located the sorceress in the wind-ravaged steppes of Tibet. Even though his discovery of and renewed alliance with Atroposa would surely bring them one step closer to fulfilling their plans, Magus regretted having to bring her into the fold.

  He had no love for any of his three sisters, but Atroposa he disliked most of all. She could fan the flames of his temper like no one else. He could never quite pinpoint what specifically about her drove him to distraction, especially since it seemed everything about her set him on edge.

  Even now as he regarded her, perched on the edge of a rock overlooking the sea—her attention still focused on the spot where the cyclone had struck—she irritated him immensely.

  She was an eerie creature for certain: from her ashen skin, which lent her a ghostly countenance, to the lidless slate-colored eyes, set deep within a bony skull, that stared out hauntingly. Her nose was slight but crooked, and wafer-thin gray lips pulled pensively over a double row of pointy teeth. The rest of her was a flurry of constant movement. Her tattered clothing, which barely covered her reed-thin limbs, rippled and swirled about her while white, nearly translucent tendrils whipped and danced wildly about her frightening visage.

  But her voice was perhaps her most disquieting feature. When she spoke, it was exactly like the moan of a haunting wind at the peak of a terrible storm. The sound was sure to beckon one’s worst nightmare, and few were those who could tolerate it for long without being driven completely mad.

  And although Magus was not likely to be rendered insane, he still detested every word she spoke, even when it was to tell him some good news for a change.

  “It is done,” Atroposa announced. “The One is dead.”

  Magus eyed the distant shore and frowned skeptically. Nearly a year earlier, the sorcerer had attempted several times to kill the young Oracle Laodamia had named the most important of them all—and every attempt had failed. Somehow, each time Magus was sure the child would not live to take another breath, she and her companions esc
aped him.

  So he stood there, eyeing the distant coastline, unconvinced, and called to his she-beast. “Medea!”

  The great hellhound approached him cautiously, careful to avoid getting too close to Caphiera the Cold.

  Magus studied his hellhound with a small measure of sympathy, but they would need Caphiera’s help to get across the channel and verify that the girl was in fact dead. “Sister,” said Magus as politely as he could. “Might you assist us?”

  Caphiera’s blue lips smiled devilishly. “Of course, Brother,” she said, waving her hand across the water. Instantly, a thick bridge of solid ice formed in front of Magus, extending as far as the eye could see. Magus presumed it went all the way to Dover.

  His hellhound took a tentative step onto the bridge when Magus gripped the beast’s furry neck, halting it. “Wait!” he commanded, sneering in irritation at Caphiera. “Remove the trap you’ve set in the middle,” he spat, knowing her dislike of his pets all too well. It would be just like her to create an open section midway across the channel so that his favorite beast would fall through and drown.

  Caphiera chuckled wickedly and snapped her fingers.

  “And the spikes.”

  Caphiera stopped laughing, her face registering irritation, but snapped her fingers again.

  “And the—”

  “It’s perfectly safe!” she insisted with two final snaps. “Now send your mutt across, Magus, or settle for Atroposa’s word.”

  “Go,” Magus said quietly, pointing to the distant shoreline. “Bring me back evidence that the child either lives or has perished, but tread carefully, Medea.”

  The hellhound raised her nose, sniffed the wind, and, with a swiftness that defied her size, raced forward onto the icy bridge.

  Some time later, and much to Magus’s relief, his beast returned unharmed, carrying one small shoe, which she dropped at her master’s feet.

  Magus bent to pick it up and his black eyes smoldered. “The girl is dead?” he asked the beast, still doubting it could have been that easy.

  The hellhound gave a rough shake of her head, adding a growl as her hackles rose. Magus turned angrily to Atroposa. “You have failed!” he snapped. “Medea has confirmed the girl lives.”

  “Impossible!” the sorceress howled. “Your pet is wrong! No mortal could have escaped my wrath!”

  Beside them Caphiera the Cold began to cackle, her laugh like giant icebergs grating against each another. “It seems that all your plans for slaying this child end in failure, my brother.”

  Even though Atroposa had sent the cyclone, the idea had been Magus’s, so Caphiera’s words made him bristle. Thin streams of smoke trailed out of his nostrils, curling about the sides of his head like ram’s horns. “Careful, Sister,” he cautioned.

  But Caphiera was hardly put off by his warning. “You know the prophecy you stole from that dim-witted archeologist in Greece as well as I do, Magus,” she sneered. “You waste time here when Laodamia has already given you the answer to your dilemma. The great Oracle herself has described exactly how to go about destroying the One.”

  Magus’s eyes simmered with anger while his frosty sister recited, “‘A time of grave danger shall come when the sorceress of earth shall arise from her stony tomb to take the life of the Guardian. And with the Guardian’s demise, the One shall quickly fall, for none alive can stall this fate. If the Guardian perishes and the One falls before the time of gathering is complete, no hope can be given to the way of man.’ Do you not remember?”

  “I remember,” Magus growled, irritated.

  “We must leave the task of slaying this child to our other sister, I’m afraid,” said Caphiera with a tsk.

  “But that would require finding Lachestia,” whined Atroposa with a shudder. “No one has seen her in over three millennia.”

  Caphiera nodded, folding her long bony arms across her chest. “Yes, but find her we must, dear Sister. The prophecy requires it.”

  “Do we have to?” Atroposa moaned. “Caphiera, you know what she’s like.”

  Magus fully understood his sister’s dread. Lachestia was unquestionably the most temperamental and unpredictable of all Demogorgon’s children. In times past, Lachestia had sought to kill each of her siblings at least once, but she’d shown a particular malice toward Atroposa, who’d barely escaped their last few encounters with her life. Lachestia could be relentless in her malevolent pursuits, not to mention that Magus was certain she was quite mad. Lachestia was lethal, not just to her enemies, but to everyone she came in contact with—her siblings included. That made this pesky business of obtaining her cooperation to fulfill the prophecy all the more problematic.

  “We’ve little choice, Atroposa. We must locate Lachestia, convince her to join us, and employ her to find and kill this Guardian,” Caphiera insisted.

  Atroposa’s bony face looked miserable. “I don’t think it wise for me to attend the search for her.”

  Embers flared at the edge of Magus’s cloak. Leave it to his simpering sister to try to wiggle her way out of an unpleasant duty. He looked at Caphiera, who stared coolly at the sorceress of air. Magus nearly smiled. He’d let Caphiera put Atroposa in her place.

  But what Caphiera said was, “Of course you cannot search for her, dear Sister. Lachestia would surely kill you the moment she spotted you.”

  At first Magus was angry that Caphiera was allowing Atroposa to bow out, but the more he thought about it, the better he felt about leaving her behind. She would annoy him no end along the journey, anyway. He was resigned to traveling only with Caphiera when she turned her wicked face to him and announced, “Magus should go alone.”

  “What?” he roared.

  Caphiera toyed with her spyglass, a knowing smile tugging at the corner of her blue lips. “You’re the only one Lachestia likes,” she said simply.

  “Lachestia likes no one!” Magus spat back.

  Caphiera tapped her finger against her chin thoughtfully. “Yes,” she conceded. “You might be right on that, Magus, but she clearly dislikes you the least of all of us. I’m certain that if you find her and act quickly enough, you might convince her to help us before she does you great bodily harm.”

  “Oh, yes!” Atroposa said quickly. “Magus should go alone!”

  Magus’s temper began to flare again when he realized his sisters were joining forces against him. “You cannot expect me to locate Lachestia on my own!” he shouted. “No one has seen or heard from the sorceress in over three thousand years!”

  Caphiera appeared unfazed by her brother’s outburst; she calmly placed the spyglass within the folds of her fur-trimmed cloak and said, “Now there, I might offer some assistance. I have heard of a seer who has told of our sister’s return. Word has reached me that the Witch of Versailles has been having visions, Brother. She might know where our dear Lachestia resides. I believe you should be the one to go to the witch and see if she will aid you in discovering our long-lost Lachestia.”

  Magus scowled and shook his head angrily. Leave it to Caphiera to send him on such a dangerous quest alone. He searched for an argument to get him out of the errand. “The prophecy is incomplete, Caphiera. We cannot be certain that if Lachestia kills the Guardian, it will be enough to destroy the One. Do you not remember that several lines of the prophecy are missing? What good would it do to awaken Lachestia if all she will do is kill the Guardian and not the One?”

  Caphiera’s blue lips pursed into a pronounced pout. “Oh, I remember that several lines are lost to us, Magus,” she snarled. “And I ask you: whose fault is that?”

  “Our brother’s,” replied Atroposa promptly. Magus smoldered where he stood, quickly realizing he would not win this argument. Granted, he had set the fire that had killed the archeologist who’d discovered the original prophecy, and that fire had resulted in the loss of the last few lines of the scroll, but he hardly thought it fair that that should be held against him. After all, they’d have nothing if not for his efforts. He was about to say
as much when Atroposa added, “You should have been more careful, Brother. Who knows how important those lost lines are? It’s your fault we must guess at how to dispose of the One.”

  “Exactly,” said Caphiera, smiling gruesomely at her sister. “Which is why he should be the one to find Lachestia and entice her to join our quest. Once our wayward sister has been so directed, I’m certain she will handle the killing of two mortal children with ease, and then we can carry on with our plans unhindered by Laodamia’s pesky prophecies.”

  Magus’s cloak rippled with flames again and his eyes narrowed dangerously while he glared at his sister and fought to control his temper.

  “Yes, Magus should be the one to find Lachestia,” Atroposa eagerly agreed again. “It is only fair, since he ruined the prophecy in the first place.”

  Caphiera crossed her arms and stared at her brother contemptuously. “Shall we put it to a vote?” she asked.

  Magus spat into the water near his feet, and his spittle hissed when it hit the sea. Caphiera had tricked him into this, and he knew that if she and Atroposa went before Demogorgon and told him of their suggestion, his sire would certainly order him to find and free his sister on his own. And Magus had also heard the rumors about the Witch of Versailles’s visions, but he’d ignored them, because Lachestia’s unpredictability made her a danger to him as much as anyone else.

  Still, if those few lines from the scroll he’d stolen from the burning tent of that archeologist were correct, and the Guardian’s death was the key to bringing down the One, then what choice did he have but to engage Lachestia in his plans? The dilemma was how to control the sorceress of earth once he rediscovered her. Past experience had proved that it would require a delicate touch, and Magus doubted that either of his other two sisters was up to the task.

  There was the possibility that after three thousand years, Lachestia had gained some lucidity. Perhaps once the One and her Guardian were dealt with, he could convince Lachestia to join him in a secret alliance against Caphiera and Atroposa. When their sire escaped and the world was theirs, it would be less bounty to split between siblings, after all.