Pilgrimage

by Andrew Dobell

  ‘That’s was intense,’ Teodor commented.

  ‘We’re here; we’re actually here,’ Katelyn said, ignoring the boy banter and looking around in wonder.

  ‘So, this is the Wailing Tunnels?’ Chris asked.

  As if in answer, a gust of wind whipped past the entrance, creating a howling sound as it passed the cave entrance that sounded incredibly eerie.

  ‘It is, yes, and that noise is apparently why it’s named so,’ Katelyn said.

  ‘Some others say the name came from the sounds of the witch’s victims wailing in the tunnels as she tortured and killed them,’ Teodor said.

  ‘So, a cheery place, then?’ Chris said sarcastically.

  Katelyn smiled but didn’t answer.’

  ‘Not really,’ Teodor said.

  Chris shook his head for a moment, bemused that Teodor didn’t get the sarcasm. ‘So, what’s the plan? Shall we have a look around?’ he asked.

  Teodor had already removed his backpack and was hunting around inside it. He pulled out some flares and started to light his lamp.

  ‘Most certainly. Once I’m ready,’ Teodor said, finally shouldering his pack once again and pulling out a notebook and camera.

  Katelyn also pulled out a lantern, a more modern one than Teodor’s gas one. Katelyn’s was a bright LED affair: battery powered that could be charged up during the day with its solar panels. She also pulled out a torch and started to sweep it around the tunnel. Chris’ own equipment mimicked Katelyn’s, so he followed her lead in turning on his own lamp and torch. The tunnel was rough-hewn, but well-worn on the ground to an almost smooth path. There wasn’t much decoration in here apart from the walls seemed to have been dyed a deep red in a patchy fashion. Chris didn’t like to think what had caused that to happen.

  Chris stayed at the rear and let the other two lead the way, but kept close to them and watched for obstacles and dangers along the way. Apart from a few animal bones, some bits of rag, and a few sticks here and there, the tunnel was bare as it wound into the mountain, twisting left and right as it went.

  After a couple of minutes of gingerly walking through the tunnel, they turned into another straight section and saw that it looked like the tunnel opened into a room up ahead. They moved forward and peered into the darkness. Chris could make out something in the room. Some kind of furniture, maybe, or decoration. He wasn’t sure.

  They moved slowly forward and reached the end of the tunnel, where, sure enough, it opened up into a wide circular room with maybe six or seven corridors leading off from it. In the centre, the stone from the ground rose up into a six foot long oblong, creating a table or altar. This stone edifice had also been stained red, and it was quite clear to Chris what had caused that. Un-lit candles with melted runnels of wax running down them and onto the altar sat on the edges of the stone block, along with knives, a skull, small glass bottles, plant cuttings, effigies, a goblet, and other less identifiable bits of organic matter.

  Rags hung from the walls, old wooden tables sat around the edges of the room with piles of thick leather tomes on them, ink bottles and dip pens, more bottles and vials, bulbous glass bottles, more candles, and lots more bits that cluttered the table tops. If he’d ever sat and tried to think what a witch’s hovel might look like inside, this seemed to fit pretty closely.

  Seeing this in this modern digital age was even freakier, to be honest. Rational thought and science had banished thoughts of magic to the shadows, and, yet, here in the mountains, it seemed to be alive and well.

  Moving into the room, Chris started to move around it, fascinated as he scanned over the tables with his torch, pausing to flick through the pages of an open book filled with a strange text he couldn’t read and curious little drawings of blasphemous imagery.

  ‘Teodor?’ he heard Katelyn say, and he turned around. Katelyn was at a nearby table, doing the same thing he had been, but Teodor had disappeared and seemed to be no longer in the room. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea. Teodor?’ Chris called, but heard nothing. Chris walked around the room, checking we wasn’t behind anything or otherwise hidden, before he called again, louder this time, ‘Teodor!’

  ‘Chris?’ It was Teodor’s voice, and it echoed through the room, but it wasn’t loud. He sounded far away, lost in the tunnels somewhere. Chris kept calling, getting Teodor to call back as he walked around the room listening at each tunnel.

  ‘Where are you?’ Chris shouted.

  ‘I don’t know. In the tunnels somewhere. I… I didn’t go far…’

  ‘We’re still in the room, you know. Can you follow our voices?’ Chris asked. He turned to Katelyn. ‘He sounds like he’s down this one,’ he said. She was standing by another cave entrance.

  ‘He sounds like he’s down here, to me,’ she replied.

  Chris frowned and looked at a nearby tunnel. ‘Hang on,’ he said, and walked to another tunnel. ‘Teodor?’ he called.

  ‘Yes?’ Teodor answered. The voice sounded like it came from this tunnel, too.

  ‘Crap,’ he muttered. ‘He could be down any of them. It must be like some kind of maze in there,’ he said to Katelyn. ‘Teodor, keep talking, I’ll try to find you,’ he called out.

  ‘Okay, erm…’ Teodor started to sing some kind of local Romanian song that sounded quite out of tune coming from him, but he didn’t care, it was noise that he could follow.

  ‘Okay, great, keep singing,’ he called to Teodor. ‘I’m checking the tunnels,’ he said to Katelyn as he moved around the room, focusing on the noise and listening at each tunnel in turn around the room, trying to find the one Teodor seemed closest to. He circled the entire room. ‘Did you have any luck?’ he said to Katelyn as he considered the tunnels. He felt he knew which ones Teodor sounded loudest in, but there wasn’t much in it.

  ‘Katelyn?’ he said again, realising she’d not answered. He looked around the room, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  Chris suddenly realised he was alone in the room.

  ‘Katelyn?’ Katelyn!’ he called, but heard nothing.

  Teodor’s singing stopped.

  ‘Teodor? Are you still there?’ Chris called out, but, again, he heard nothing but silence. ‘Teodor? Katelyn? Can you hear me? Shout if you can hear me. I can’t hear you. Where did you go?’ His voice echoed around the room and down the tunnels, but he couldn’t hear anything in return. Looking around him again, he suddenly realised he had no idea which tunnel led out of here. They all looked the same and he hadn’t thought to mark the tunnel they had entered through.

  Chris’ heart was pounding in his chest as the adrenalin coursed through his body. He felt dizzy and confused. He had no idea what to do or how to escape this place. He didn’t want to leave alone, though, leaving these two to their fate if he could even get out of there tunnels at all. He put his hands on the alter and leant against it. The silence of the caves was almost deafening.

  Did he just hear something faint in the distance? Far off in the tunnels? He moved over to the side of the room and towards one of the entrances to the cave system and felt sure he could hear… something. A voice, maybe? It was far off or faint; one of the two. He looked back at the room, a niggling doubt in the back of his mind picked at his brain, but he discounted it and turned to face down the tunnel and the darkness within.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Katelyn? Teodor? Was that you?’

  He followed the tunnel around a corner and the tunnel split in two. He listened down each, chose the right-hand branch, and moved along it. A short distance ahead, he found a cross roads as two tunnels intersected. Which way, he thought. A thought occurred to him, suddenly: he should mark the way he’d come so he could follow it back, like breadcrumbs… But why had that only just occurred to him now? He reached into his backpack and pulled out a stale granola bar and tore part of it off and placed it on the floor, just inside the tunnel he’d reached the cross roads from and turned left. He didn’t go far before the sound he’d been following faded away.
Must be the other way, he thought, and made his way back to the crossroad.

  He looked down to where he’d put his marker, but it wasn’t there. But then he noticed it in the opposite tunnel.

  ‘What? What the hell?’ he said. Which way was back? He ignored the marker and went back the way he’d come, and instead of the corridor being joined by another, he found himself at another crossroads.

  This wasn’t right. Had he gotten turned around somehow? He turned back, heading back to the crossroads, only to find it was a T-Junction.

  ‘Huh?’ he grunted. The tunnels were changing, moving about around him, getting him lost. His heart rate rose again as the fear and panic grew. He needed to get out of here.

  A deep, guttural scream crashed over him, echoing through the tunnels. It sounded male and desperate. Was it Teodor?

  ‘Teodor! Run! Whatever it is, get out of there,’ he shouted, but the screaming continued, oblivious, becoming high-pitched and bloodcurdling, followed by ragged panting and the sounds of someone facing a very painful death.

  Chris couldn’t handle it anymore; this was too much, so he picked a direction, giving it no thought at all, and ran, sprinting down the tunnel, taking the corners at speed not knowing if he was getting anywhere nearer to the noise.

  The screaming stopped and the tunnels fell silent.

  Chris reached a crossroads again and looked down each tunnel, seeing only darkness. He spun around, listening, trying to hear anything or spot any clue, only to look down the tunnel to his left for the third time, and see the room at the end of it, glowing with a flickering golden yellow, suggesting candle light.

  Chris stared down the tunnel, and without really thinking about it, started to walk down there, slowly. The room grew closer, but the tunnel was at an angle to the room, not giving him a good view at all.

  Funny thing was, he couldn’t remember any of the tunnels leading off from the room in this way.

  Closing in on the entrance to the room, he could hear movement, the sound of tearing, rending, and something wet and soft against the stone.

  What was that, he thought as he reached the entrance to the room and got a good look inside.

  It was the same room, except all the candles were lit, and upon the altar, a blood splattered body was laid out on its back with someone, a woman with long hair, drenched in sticky glistening blood crouched over the top of it. She was turned away from Chris, with a huge knife in one hand, slicing the body open and pulling at its insides with the other.

  He looked at the body’s shoes and realised he knew them. They were Teodor’s shoes. His breath caught in his throat and he gasped, realising that his friend was dead and the screams he’d heard where his.

  The killer stopped moving on hearing the gasp and slowly turned. Looking out at him through hair that had been caked in blood was Katelyn. She smiled.

  ‘Katelyn?’ Chris said, his voice filled with fear, causing it to shake. ‘What… I don’t understand, what have you done?’

  ‘What’s so difficult to understand?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve killed…’

  ‘Yes, I’ve killed the nosey little shit. What of it?’

  ‘But I thought? What the hell’s going on here?’ he asked as Katelyn lifted the dagger and licked the blood off the blade in a long languid movement. The blade was huge and curved. He’d seen them before. Were they what the Gurka’s used? He wasn’t sure; his mind wasn’t thinking straight

  Chris recoiled in fear and revulsion as she pulled her blood covered tongue back into her mouth, and swallowed.

  Movement to the sides caught his attention and he saw two wolves sitting there, watching him from the shadows, their yellow eyes gleaming.

  ‘What the hell is this? Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious,’ she said, standing up on the altar and turning to face him. Her clothes started to disintegrate and flow off her body, turning into mist that encircled her and turned slowly black before coating her body in a skin tight, slightly shiny covering, similar to a catsuit, while some of the dark mist continued to encircle her.

  ‘You… You’re the w…. You’re Jasamen? The witch?’ he stammered, struggling to get it out, still feeling slightly ridiculous saying it.

  ‘Well, it’s just Yasmin now,’ she smiled, and floated slowly down off the altar to the floor.

  That was enough for Chris, and he turned to run as terror flooded his system. He’d run into the tunnels, lose her in there and try to find his way out somehow, he thought.

  But he was brought up short as he turned, and found himself facing the cloaked figure that had gutted Augustin in the village. This close up in the candle light, he could see the pale angular face beneath the ragged hood with its alien almond shaped eyes, strange symmetrical scars, and wicked smile.

  ‘Shit,’ he yelped, and stumbled to the floor in shock.

  ‘And that’s Kez,’ the woman in black said from behind him.

  He looked back and saw Katelyn, or Yasmin, whoever it was, casually walk over to him, flipping the blade for a better grip. ‘Why do this? What was all this for? I don’t understand!’ he said as Yasmin crouched down next to him, balancing on the balls of her feet.

  ‘Ultimately, it was a bit of fun. Teodor has been hunting for me for decades. We’d met before, not that he ever realised, and I followed his work, feeding him bits of information, leading him on, teasing him. You know. He was getting older, and, well, I thought it might be fun to lead him up here. Unfortunately for you, he invited you up here as well,’ she said.

  ‘This… That,’ he said, pointing to Teodor’s dead body. ‘Was for fun?’

  ‘When you’ve lived as long as I have, you need to find ways to fill your time, young man. You, for instance, provided me with some entertainment,’ she said. ‘Your face when you found me in the woods was a picture,’ she smiled.

  ‘You, did that?’ he asked, knowing the answer.

  ‘Don’t be dim,’ she chastised him.

  ‘So, you’re a… what? A witch?’ he asked.

  ‘A Magi, technically, but yes, one of many in this world,’ she said, sighing and standing up.

  ‘What, what’s going on?’ Chris asked, sensing that Yasmin seemed to be getting bored of their talk, and feeling terrified by what she might do next.

  ‘Well, it’s been fun, but I have stuff to do, so, if it’s all the same,’ she said and swung her blade up and down onto the top of his head.

  There was a brief intense pain on the crown of his head before… nothing.

  ***

  Kez watched as her master slammed the point of her Kukri dagger down onto the top of this mortal’s head. The whole foot long blade went straight into his brain pan, causing him to spasm before falling limp, held sitting up only by Yasmin’s grip on her dagger.

  She jerked it out, spraying blood that just missed Kez, and let the body fall.

  ‘Well, that was fun,’ Kez said.

  Yasmin looked at her and raised one eyebrow.

  Kez bowed her head in deference to her master and mentor, knowing the comment was a little too sarcastic for Yasmin’s liking.

  With this little distraction out of the way, it would be back to the main business at hand of hunting for the Libre Nox Noctis, the Book of Night, and finding it before the Arcadians did.

  Magic flared around Yasmin and enveloped them both, teleporting them from the Wailing Tunnels. They had work to do.

  By Andrew Dobell

  Book list

  The Magi Saga – Urban Fantasy

  When Amanda discovers she’s a Magi after being attacked by a werewolf on the streets of NYC, she’s introduced to a magical society and drawn into a hidden war for the fate of mankind.

  Epic Calling: The Magi Saga Book 1

  Shadows of Darkness: The Magi Saga Book 2

  Black Dawn: The Magi Saga Book 3

  Infinities’ Edge: The Magi Saga Book 4

  Wasteland Road Knights

  Liberation


  Tales of the Magi Saga

  Uprising

  A Thoroughly Modern Witch

  Pilgrimage

  The New Prometheus - Cyberpunk

  When Frankie’s brain is transplanted into a Cybernetic body after being shot, she must go on the run from the mega corporations who want her and her cyber-body’s designer dead.

  The New Prometheus

  The Prometheus Gambit

  The Prometheus Trap

  Prometheus Vengeance

  The Magi Saga Short Stories

  Only available through my mailing list;

  www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

  The Angel of Tarut: The Magi Saga Prologue

  His Love: A Magi Saga Short Story

  Casino Red: A Magi Saga Short Story

  Anthologies I am part of:

  The Expanding Universe – Sci-Fi

  Summer of Magic – No longer available.

  Alchemy & Arcana

  For more of Andrews work, visit:

  www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

  The New

  Prometheus

  Get all four Books NOW!

  In a world ruled by faceless, uncaring mega corporations, Frankie, a young woman, becomes the victim of a lethal Jacker gang attack. Bleeding to death in the slums of Neo London, she is found by a genius cybernetic doctor on the run from a powerful Corporation. Seeing an opportunity to finish his latest cybernetic masterpiece, he transplants Frankie’s brain into a powerful prosthetic body.

  Frankie has barely woken up before the Corporate forces attack and kidnap the doctor, forcing Frankie to go on the run in her new body. Pursued by Corporation Special Forces, cybernetic agents, and hulking mechs, Frankie has to choose what to do with her new body and its incredible abilities.

  Frankie must overcome the shock of her new body and survive ruthless attacks and figure out who to trust if she is to save the doctor's life and strike her first real blow against the tyrannical Corporations.