The little creature broke through the last bit of rope binding Arabel’s feet and with a cry of joy Arabel’s feet were free. Arabel graciously patted the furry helper in thanks. The creature immediately began to work on the rope around Arabel’s wrists and Arabel’s spirits rose as she began to believe again that freedom was a goal within reach, and that there were forces aligned with her that could assist her. She was not alone, in the dark, left to rot in an unmarked grave with the murderous Dorojenja overpowering her with terror and subjugation to their evil will.
And then, the door burst open.
A bright light shone into Arabel’s eyes, blinding her momentarily. The little rodent scurried off into the shadows, its work on her bonds forgotten in its hurry to escape from the figure in the doorway.
Arabel could see nothing, due to the bright light shining in her eyes, but she could feel the powerful energy field of the figure in front of her. It was dark and it was heavy and it immersed Arabel in its web of evil; it throbbed with the vibration of old power and obvious cruelty. The impressions came off of the person in undulating waves of black and amber and distorted, muddied yellow. Arabel felt bile rise up within her throat; she felt her body constricting, she was choking on bile and she could neither swallow nor spit.
The figure laughed and Arabel could see its form now. It was a man, a rather stylish looking man with jet-black hair and coal-black eyes. He had a heavy and serious brow and wore a good suit of charcoal with tiny stripes of black. Well buffed shoes of charcoal and socks of black adorned his feet.
Dark eyes of hatred peered unrelentingly at Arabel, staring vast holes into her soul.
“Saul Porchetto,” Arabel whispered and the figure smiled in the dark, white teeth glinting.
“Arabel Spade,” Saul replied, his voice a soft and subtle hiss of menace.
Arabel shivered, though it was no longer the chill of the room which urged her skin to shrink back into her bones.
Saul Porchetto was tall and fit and he filled the room with his particular brand of evil. Arabel noticed now that he had not come alone to see her. Behind him, Saul was flanked by an army of at least fifty foot soldiers and one of them approached Arabel now and roughly grabbed her arm, lifting her onto her feet.
Saul Porchetto leaned in close to Arabel. He leaned in so far it appeared he was about to kiss her, their faces and lips were mere fractions apart. Arabel held her breath in horror. She could not move; a soldier now held her bound arms on either side and she was pinned in place.
Saul’s breath tickled Arabel’s lips. His cold, good looking mouth moved toward hers decisively.
Arabel shrank back as far as she could, but there was no way to evade him.
Saul smeared his lips against Arabel’s with a hot violence that brought instant tears to her eyes. The contact was brief and Saul pulled back with a derisive sneer as he surveyed Arabel appraisingly.
“It will be a pleasure to take care of you, Arabel Spade,” he announced with a harsh laugh, before turning away and gesturing to his soldiers to bring her along. Arabel realized dully that Saul’s laugh was the laugh which had been plaguing her; here was the laugh behind the hostile grey energy. Saul had finally come to claim Arabel for whatever dark purpose he had in mind.
Arabel was pulled forcibly into line as the soldiers assembled quickly into formation. Arabel saw she’d been in some sort of tool shed with open rafters in the ceiling, hence the drafts, and that she was now outside in the elements. Arabel was dismayed to see that hail had begun to fall.
In a great sheet, the hard white balls fell onto the ground and against all objects and humans who braved the outdoors with a mad, frenetic force. The wind whipped the tiny shards sideways and against Arabel’s unprotected cheeks. Her eyes smarted from the wind and the cold and the sensation in her hands was fading fast. She was being pulled along with the soldiers at a furious pace and Arabel feared her legs would stumble and she would be crushed if she fell by the sheer volume of soldiers rushing at her back.
Ahead of the foot soldiers, Arabel could see Saul Porchetto astride a magnificently dappled black and grey war-horse. Saul turned back to survey his men and his clear black eyes found Arabel’s.
She shivered. She could hear his voice within her mind.
“You are with me now,” he said.
Arabel knew now what real terror felt like.
Terror was cold and it gripped your belly and your body so hard that you could barely move, barely breathe, and your thoughts were as frozen as your faculties and your ability to problem solve might just never return to assist you. But you can’t even form this thought when terror has you in its grip. You become a dumb pit of horror and this leaves evil unconcerned because it knows what plans it has for you. Your agreement is not required, but your participation is.
The hail and the wind whipped at Arabel mercilessly and her bonnet flew off of her head so her hair became frenzied in the overwhelming gusts, slapping at Arabel and blinding her and generally making her way harder and colder than it had just been. One of the soldiers, seeing Arabel’s hair flying wildly around her face, took a bandanna and wrapped it around her eyes, so that now her hair could not whip into her eyes, but neither could she see anything.
Arabel was blindfolded, bound, and running headlong into further, imminent disaster. Her thoughts were blank as she ran blindly forward with Saul’s army of evil.
Arabel was now well and truly in the dark.
A Guitar & A Fiddle
Arabel could not be located anywhere within the Copse.
Eli and Ira had looked everywhere they could think of and both were becoming more worried and dismal by the second, as it had been hours since Ira had relayed Arabel’s last frantic message. Eli had dissected the cryptic images as many ways as he could but all he knew was that Arabel had fallen into the hands of a great evil. Eli tried to link with Arabel’s mind, again and again, but there was nothing to link to. Eli could not find Arabel anywhere.
Hail was falling with a violent force and Eli took shelter with Ira momentarily in an abandoned cabin deep within the Copse. The bird flapped about inside of the cold room, agitated, unable to settle. Eli was no better. He cleared his mind as best as he could. He sent messages to his parents, asking for their assistance, and he sent a message to Francesca de Lorimar. Eli struggled not to panic; the worry was eating him whole, but he knew this would not help him to find his beloved.
I must remain clear, Eli admonished himself sternly, if I am to help Arabel return safely.
Ira re-sent Eli the last pictures he had of Arabel, those taken at the hidden side of the Governs’ caravan, in the hopes that something they’d missed earlier would now come to light. Eli wondered about the tunnels. They continued to puzzle him, as he’d never seen them before, and when he and Ira had looked for Arabel where she had last been seen, the bird had been stymied by the disappearance of the underground network. But Eli knew there were many ways to magically hide entrances and exits and he vowed to seek out Xavier immediately, as the Gypsy leader would know all of the ways to re-manifest such hidden locales.
They’d travelled to the far side of the Copse in their search for Arabel but Eli realized now that her interests would best be served by their returning to camp as soon as possible to seek out the assistance of the other Gypsies. The hail continued to pummel the ground with its wintry fury and Eli hoped Arabel was not out-of-doors, unprotected, prey to the elements.
Fear clutched at Eli, a sharp uncontrollable pain that cut him inside his very heart, wounding where the hurt could not be seen. The wind blew and howled and it sounded like a tormented beast. Eli felt a chill run down his spine. He sent a wave of protection to Arabel, not knowing if it could reach her or not, but needing to send it, all the same.
“Come on, Ira,” Eli said briskly, attempting to buoy their spirits with action. “Let’s have at this storm, shall we?” He pulled the door open and he and the bird once again began to tramp through the cold and hostile woods.
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br /> Ira flew upward, searching, looking for any clue, sign, or sense of Arabel. The bird cawed furiously, sending his own messages to his fellow corvids. Eli had never seen the bird in such a state. He marvelled at Ira’s endurance and the unrelenting strength of his cries as he called for assistance from the feathered realm.
Eli’s mind was numb and his fingers were starting to follow. He’d been a fool to come out searching without even a horse, he readily admitted to himself. But he had panicked and taken off on foot immediately with Ira as soon as the word had come to him that Arabel had been taken. Eli hadn’t wanted to waste even a moment securing a mount, although in hindsight he realized he could have covered so much more ground, looking for her, had he a horse.
It was almost as if he’d been unable to make his own decisions, Eli realized now, as if his mind had been purposely scrambled, thrusting him into confused incompetence. Now it was night-time and Arabel was still missing and all Eli knew was that she was being held against her will, somewhere unknown, an innocent captive to the darkness.
Heavy steps brought Eli back to the brightly lit camp. The torches withstood the biting wind and the pummelling of the hail stones to cast their yellow glow reassuringly over the Gypsy lands and ease Eli’s way in the storm. Eli moved quickly to the Lodge, where he knew many would be assembled this evening. Xavier would be there, he was certain, and Eli assured himself that the Gypsy leader would be able to locate Arabel, even if he, Eli, could not.
Or at least he hoped so.
The sound of music permeated Eli’s despair. A guitar and a fiddle duelled within the Lodge, their bright fervour seeking to dispel the grey landscape of his brain. Dimly, Eli registered that the Lodge was full to capacity. Dully, Eli noticed that the guitar and the fiddle were playing themselves, magically rendered able to produce music without musicians. Normally, this sort of magic would have pleased Eli and brought an enthusiastic smile to his handsome face, but now, all Eli wanted was the assistance of the most skilful of magical Gypsy practitioners to uncover the hidden underground tunnels and he couldn’t care less about musical instruments who could play themselves.
A hush fell as Eli stumbled up to the front of the room with Ira cawing loudly over his head. The music stopped abruptly. Eli spied Xavier moving toward him, a concerned expression upon his face. Eli felt Xavier within his mind, gathering information, and as he did, a deep frown appeared on the Gypsy Council leader’s forehead.
Xavier laid his hand briefly upon Eli’s shoulder, grounding him, and then he turned to the assembled Gypsies.
“There has been a kidnapping,” Xavier intoned gravely.
Everything You Said Was A Lie
She could see the man in front of her, he was walking briskly. She struggled to keep up. She was carrying a large bag and it was heavy, so heavy that she wanted to put it down and forget about it. Leave it behind and continue on, faster, faster, and catch up with the man. She was losing him! He was running, his legs so much longer than hers. And then someone else, coming up from behind to drag her down. On the ground, the russet leaves a faint cushion, the earth cold and unyielding. The second person, choking her. Hands on her neck, tighter and tighter.
She was screaming with no sound. Her throat was constricted. The contents of the heavy bag lie all over the forest floor. Apples and peaches and carrots and potatoes. She struggled in horror, staring wildly at the shiny red apples as they rolled away. Her legs kicked out uselessly and her hands and nails clawed at the person behind her. She tried to turn, she tried to breathe. Grey and black overcoming her. Laughter. There were two of them and they were laughing, jeering at her.
“Thought you were so clever, didn’t you?” one of them said, his voice guttural, deep, and fully without conscience. “Teach you for meddling!”
More laughter, more tight fingers on her throat, someone grasping her dress, the sound of ripping material. Horror and unspeakable pain. Under her nails, skin and blood. And then the screaming. Was it her? Was that really her voice raised in unholy fear? Were those her nails raking the face of her unknown attacker as she fought to save herself?
“You should have left it alone! You’ll regret it now!” the man with the guttural voice laughed ominously and it chilled Arabel’s blood. She knew she was now helpless in the matter of her own demise.
There was no one to save her. She had failed.
Arabel could not tell where she was.
She awakened, fuzzy headed from the recurring nightmare, and for a moment just lay there, catching her breath, waiting until her heart slowed its frantic pace. The reality of her imprisonment came flooding back to her and Arabel stifled an involuntary cry. She remembered all that had happened now with crystal-clear intensity.
After what had seemed to be an interminable amount of time running through the woods in the hail storm, Arabel’s captors had brought her to her current location. They’d retied her bonds and then left her blindfolded so she could not view where she was being kept. How long she’d been sitting here, Arabel had no idea, but it seemed as if a great many hours had passed.
Strangely, Arabel had slept and was glad of it, even if it had been the old recurring nightmare. She was indoors, that much Arabel could ascertain, and it was warm enough that she’d been moderately comfortable, and she was sitting on a hard wooden floor. But that was all she could surmise. There were few sounds to identify anything by and Arabel felt she was quite secluded.
Her feet had been retied so she was fully bound once more and this time, Arabel ruefully acknowledged, there did not appear to be any friendly rodents to help chew through her bonds. Without being able to see, Arabel felt quite incapacitated. She was certain they’d either administered further drugs to her body or had renewed their vicious spells of incoherence upon her as she was again unable to seek magical protection for herself and having serious difficulty in keeping her thoughts intelligible.
Arabel wondered that the protective ring from Mireille and the red stones from Baltis could be rendered ineffectual by the spell she’d been placed under. What powerful magic was this that it could demolish her protective defences as if they’d not been put into place at all?
Arabel wondered if there was an energy void around her, such as when she’d tried to contact her grandmother previously and had been unable to read her location. Being held within an energy void was the only thing Arabel could fathom which would render her so defenceless. Unfortunately, Arabel was not well versed in the nature of energy voids and was limited by her lack of knowledge as to how to dismantle or escape from the confines of one.
The brief sleep had rejuvenated Arabel, however, and she felt less panicked than she had earlier. She decided to practice leaving her body astrally, to see if she could manage it and perhaps survey her location. Unfortunately, all of Arabel’s prior astral travelling had been done spontaneously; she’d never had any real control over where, when or how she left her body. Nevertheless, it was the only option Arabel felt she had, so she relaxed her mind as best as she could and laid down flat upon the floor to still her body as well.
Arabel lay motionless and absorbed herself in the task of breathing. She paid attention solely to the rise and fall of her chest, engrossing herself fully in the sensation of the air moving into and out of her lungs. Arabel felt a slight tingling in her legs. She could sense the intensity of her inner energy field as she concentrated upon it. But she did not leave her body.
There was no roaring in her ears, no rapid, twisting-turning within her solar plexus. Disappointed, Arabel continued to attempt the astral travel but her astral body refused to cooperate. Arabel eventually stopped trying and she simply lay on the floor, quietly breathing, listening for any recognizable sounds outside of her confinement. Arabel refused to give in to the enticing remnants of the drug as it continued to whisper sorrow and futile resignation to her mind in waves of seductive darkness.
There was shouting now, and movement outside of her door.
Arabel tensed and sat up immedia
tely, tucking her legs under herself as she braced for whatever was to come. She had not forgotten the fateful promise Saul Porchetto had made to her, and she knew he would come to claim her for his evil deeds as soon as he had the available opportunity. Arabel shivered.
Anyone but him, she thought to herself.
A loud groaning sound was emitted by the door as it was pulled open. Arabel could see light appear through her blindfold but could not discern the shape or distinction of anything. There was a shuffling noise and it appeared that someone else was thrown into the room alongside Arabel as there was a loud clatter of chains against the floor and heavy breathing. Arabel stiffened.
The door slammed shut and the light dissipated. Arabel waited. The footsteps receded outside of the door.
A soft, low sigh had Arabel straining her ears to listen. Finally she could stand it no more and she spoke to the unknown entity imprisoned with her.
“Who’s there?” Arabel asked.
“Why, ‘tis me, missy,” the voice replied, faintly.
“Who are you?”
“Missy, ‘tis Jonty Governs,” the thief replied.
“Jonty! However did they capture you?” Arabel was incredulous. The thief had been caught as well!
“They hit me over the head a good one, lemme tell you, knocked me right out flat.”
“Do you know where we are? Or who is responsible for taking us?”
The thief let out a long sigh. “No, miss, I reckon they must be the Dorojenja, but where we’re at, that I dunno.”
“Are you in chains?”
“Yes. But I ain’t blindfolded as you be, missy, that’s hows I knew t’was you.”
“And you still didn’t recognize your captors?” Arabel questioned.
“They put a hood over me head and brought me here. I can see now, missy, but I’m all wrapped up in chains. You’ve just got bindings but I’m trussed up like a thief!”
Autumn Page 29