by Layton Green
He was half-joking, but she responded with solemn eyes. “They are wary here. There are always predators in the wild, but these woods . . . I sense alien things here, Will. Things I cannot describe.”
“Do you mean E.T. aliens, or alien as in strange and unusual?”
A ladybug landed on Yasmina’s staff, and she eased it away as the corners of her mouth upturned. “I’m no wizard, Will. And no, I don’t believe most of the creatures here mean us harm. They’re just curious and . . . ashamed. Yes, that is the best word.” Her eyes grew sad. “Ashamed of what they are.”
“But some mean us harm.”
She gave a careful nod as her gaze returned to the forest. “Some, yes.”
Each time the trail branched, Yasmina and Tamás conferred on the direction to take. Tamás was clearly at home in the outdoors and seemed to have an innate sense of direction, and Will had no idea how Yasmina was helping. Maybe the squirrels were feeding her information.
Around mid-morning, Yasmina and Tamás stopped walking and cocked their heads to listen. The party crowded forward, though at first Will didn’t notice anything. Then he saw a rustling in a bed of waist-high wildflowers, just off the trail and violent enough to signify a creature of some size, or a group of creatures.
The party backed away slowly, weapons raised, as three animals crawled out of the wildflowers and raised the hair on Will’s arms. Long and low-slung, about the size of crocodiles, the creatures were covered in foot-long bristles as sharp as daggers, had curved beaks like a parrot, and each sported eight feet that looked quite capable of running down two-footed prey. They were gnawing on wildflowers as they waddled, and when they opened their mouths to chew, Will saw four interlocking incisors, reminding him of vampire fangs.
“Let’s hope they’re vegetarian,” Caleb whispered.
“I don’t think those six-inch long pointed teeth are for the wildflowers,” Will whispered back.
Following Yasmina’s lead, everyone stilled as the things meandered across the path and into the forest on the opposite side. Not until the bizarre creatures disappeared from sight did the party breathe a collective sigh of relief and move forward.
They lunched on the bank of a small brook, huddled together, trying to eat as quietly as possible. After devouring cold provisions provided by the gypsies, they washed the meal down with water from the stream, then resumed the journey.
The next incident was even more disturbing. Tamás had dropped back to confer with Marek, leaving Yasmina alone up front. Caleb tried to engage her, but she rebuffed him. As Dalen regaled Will with stories he had heard about the Barrier Coast, an eight foot tall praying mantis dropped out of the sky, as silent as a pin falling on a cushion, and landed right in front of Yasmina.
Will froze in horror as the thing raised up on two sinewy rear legs, antennae poking skyward, its serrated forelimbs crossed against its chest. Instead of compound insect eyes, it stared down at Yasmina with twin yellow orbs, and its thin mouth twisted as it tried to communicate with a series of garbled sounds.
No one knew what to do. The creature looked as if it could tear Yasmina limb from limb, so Will didn’t want to spook it. He cringed as Yasmina took a hesitant step forward, then reached up and placed her hand on a back that looked like body armor in the shape of a leaf.
The mantis tipped its head downward. More incomprehensible sounds issued from its mouth. Its face balled in frustration when Yasmina didn’t respond, though her touch seemed to calm it. After a few moments of mute companionship, it vaulted without warning thirty feet into the air, landing on the branch of a spruce. It jumped again, disappearing high into the canopy.
Will and Caleb rushed to Yasmina, whose hands were shaking. At first Will thought it was from fear, but then he saw the flash of pain and anger in her eyes.
It was empathy that had rattled her.
As the day wore on, Will’s sense that someone or something was watching grew stronger, and he didn’t think it was the praying mantis. Sadly, he got the feeling that the insect-man had tried to communicate and, when he failed to make a connection, moved on.
He decided to broach his worries to the group. “Anyone else feel like we’re being watched? Yaz, have you seen anything?”
“No,” she said, “but I feel the same.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t agree,” Will said.
“Lucka, what if something’s waiting for nightfall to attack?”
Tamás grimaced. “We need to find shelter, someplace to defend ourselves.”
They decided to press forward as fast as they could, hoping to find a cave, a hill, or a body of water to put their backs to.
What they found was even better—or so Will thought. “Am I seeing things, or is that a house up ahead?”
They drew closer. In the center of a large, overgrown clearing, a storybook house of stacked stone came into view, complete with gingerbread trim, a chimney, arched windows, and an unkempt front yard surrounded by a wooden fence.
“It’s full of weeds,” Caleb said. “No lights, no smoke in the chimney, and that fence is falling apart.”
“Aye,” Tamás said. “It appears abandoned.”
They circled to the rear and saw three smaller structures attached to the house via enclosed stone tunnels. Above-ground tunnels? Will thought. Weird. He also noticed a stack of rotting firewood beside the house.
To be safe, they knocked on the door.
No answer.
A heavy dusk had settled over the valley, and the sense of being watched increased with each passing minute. Will peered nervously into the woods.
“It appears we have no choice,” Tamás said.
Dalen crossed his arms against his chest. “I don’t know what this place is, but it’s better than sleeping in these woods.”
“You clearly haven’t read the Brothers Grimm,” Caleb muttered.
Tamás tried the door. It creaked open. The party filed inside with weapons drawn, not relaxing until they had explored the main structure. It was empty, though to Will’s trained contractor eye, he could tell it had once been furnished, due to the dents and scuff marks on the wooden floor. Whether the inhabitants had packed up and moved on, or looters had stripped the place bare, he had no idea.
Heavy doors in the rear of the house, secured by iron bars and clasps with the padlocks missing, guarded the entrances to the three stone tunnels. After removing the iron bars, Dalen created a ball of floating silver from the weak moonlight, helping the party navigate the twenty-foot long tunnel on the left. They needed to ensure they were alone in the compound. Will felt claustrophobic in the odd passageway, and again wondered at its purpose.
The corridor led to a square stone room with five sets of manacles, each of varying size, mounted on the walls. In the middle of the room, a thick, four-foot iron chain was bolted into the floor.
After staring at the ominous chamber, they returned to the main house and followed the stone tunnel on the right, which led to a similar room. More manacles, another floor chain. A feeling of oppression infused the room, as if the ghosts of whatever had been imprisoned there still lingered.
Yasmina looked increasingly distressed. When the party traversed the middle tunnel and saw what it contained, she gasped and covered her mouth.
Spaced about the room were five cast-iron pods, standing upright and bolted to the floor. Each pod had clasps and hinges on the side, and the doors had swung outward, reminding Will of suits of armor sheared in half. Dark stains covered the insides of the pods.
A bronze operating table was attached to the far wall. Above it, an assortment of hooks and chains hung from the ceiling at various heights. Empty shelves stood on either side of the table. Will could imagine the knives and other tools of vivisection that must have once filled the room.
Yasmina looked faint. “What is this place?”
Dalen’s face had paled, and Marek was standing by the door, arms crossed and bearded face grim. Tamás surveyed the room with hooded eyes. “Th
e workshop of a menagerist. A rather primitive one, but effective, I’m quite sure.”
“What—” Yasmina swallowed—“is a menagerist?”
“A wizard who fuses different species together,” Will said. “A Doctor Moreau—a mad scientist.”
“The discipline began with good intentions,” Tamás continued, “seen as a way to improve the quality of domesticated animals. But it has always attracted the wrong sort of wizard, and was banned for good reason.”
No one liked the idea of spending the night in the house of a menagerist, even if abandoned, but camping in the forest was too risky. They barred all the doors and returned to the common room, huddling on the cold stone floor as they finished the last of their provisions. The next day they would have to hunt or forage.
The nighttime sounds of the forest penetrated the stone walls: the monotonous buzzing of insects, the hoot of an owl, the mournful howl of a canine. Just as Will was about to find a corner of the room to sleep, Yasmina rushed to the window.
“There’s something out there,” she said. “Moving through the woods.”
Will hurried to the window and saw a figure with leathery skin and a long, misshapen face creep out of the woods and into the clearing surrounding the house. Clad in animal skins and wielding a club, the creature looked like a smaller version of the hill trolls, except it had two heads and two extra arms sticking out of its chest. Each head swiveled in a different direction to observe the meadow, and the muscular arms took turns holding the club, tossing it back and forth.
Will clenched the windowsill, palms sweating, as the others gathered around. The monster stopped to sniff the air. It cocked its head as if listening, then waved one of its arms forward.
Five more of them stepped into the clearing.
And then five more.
Twenty came in total, spread out around the house, creeping towards the door and windows. Any one of them looked like more than a match for Tamás or Will.
“Lucka,” Dalen said, his voice tight.
“My God,” Caleb whispered, “look at those things.”
Will whipped his head towards Yasmina. “Is there anything you can do? Call for help from your friends?”
Yasmina shook her head without looking away from the window. “I don’t know how. Not here.”
“Away from the windows,” Tamás said. “They might have projectiles.”
Caleb backed towards the center of the room. “What about one of the dungeon rooms? Hole up there and take them one by one?”
“We’ll be trapped with no exit,” Will said. “They could come inside or just bar the doors and starve us to death.” Tamás nodded in agreement.
One of the creatures beat against the door with his club. The boom reverberated throughout the room.
“Dalen,” Tamás said, impressing Will with his calm, “perform as usual. We make our stand here, as they come through the door.”
They didn’t even have that luxury. The door toppled inward at the same time the windows shattered, and the monsters poured into the room with clubs raised and murderous gleams in their eyes. Will, Marek, and Tamás formed a rough triangle around the others, though Will had no illusions of victory.
Just before they engaged, a man dressed in ragged pants and a purple, shopworn, hooded velvet cloak appeared in the middle of the room, between Tamás and the first two-headed creature. He popped into existence as if by magic, and Will assumed that was exactly the origin. The hood shielded the man’s face, and his fingers were swathed in white bandages, like a mummy. From the side, Will saw him shuffling a pack of playing cards.
As soon as the man appeared, he took a calm look around the room. “What’ll it be, I see?” he said, and thrust a card into one of the hands of the nearest four-armed monster. The creature, as surprised as Will by the sudden appearance, took the card out of reflex—and then turned to dust. The next monster in line reared back, and the man flicked another card at it. The card morphed into a frog, which proceeded to land on the head of the creature and bound onto the fireplace.
After a moment of confusion, the monsters resumed their attack, and Will didn’t have time to ponder the absurdity of what he had just witnessed. He parried the blow of the first club, but the monster followed it up with a backhand from one of his other arms, which caught Will on the shoulder and spun him halfway around. The creature grabbed him with yet another arm, holding him in place as he swung the club again. Will moved into the swing, as Mala had taught him, and head butted the nearest of the two heads. The monster stumbled back, and Will planted a side kick to his stomach.
Before he could follow up, another monster stepped forward, and Will had to fend off another club swing. Two more creatures pressed him, but Yasmina ran forward swinging her staff. Even Caleb entered the fray, sneaking behind one of the monsters and knocking him on the back of a head with his bracers.
The two-headed monster fighting Yasmina knocked her staff away, then picked her up with two of its arms. She screamed and tried to wriggle free as the monster raised its club with a third arm. Will bellowed but couldn’t free himself to help her, and no one else was close enough. He watched in horror as the club swung downward, but just before it struck Yasmina, a long green appendage snatched the club away, then jerked the two-headed creature straight into the air. Yasmina fell to the floor, and Will saw an eight foot tall praying mantis—he had no idea if it was the same one—behead Yasmina’s attacker with a vicious swipe from a serrated forearm. It tossed the body aside and picked up the next one, who met the same fate.
The two-headed creature fighting Will broke away to take a swing at the praying mantis, but the weapon bounced off the leaf-shaped carapace. The mantis reared, its head brushing the ceiling, then held its forelegs high and wide. It released a blood-curdling battle cry, causing Will to cringe, and the two-headed monster nearest the enraged insect man fled the house. The mantis followed, bounding across the clearing with huge steps and cutting his opponent down from behind.
Will whipped around to see who needed help. Tamás and Marek were squared off against opponents, and the man in the moth-eaten velvet jacket was running around trying to hand playing cards to the remaining two-headed creatures. One of the cards disintegrated a monster, another turned into a bouquet of flowers which the man stopped to smell. A third card produced a gray ooze that clung to both faces of one of the creatures, causing it to roar and run away, raking its eyes with its hands.
One of the monsters almost caught the card-wielding man in the chest with a club swing, but right before Will’s astonished eyes, the man disappeared and then re-appeared five feet away, behind his opponent. He stuffed a playing card into the animal skin tunic, just above the shoulder blades, and the monster winked out of existence.
The man grabbed his own chin, face cocked in a quizzical smile. “I’ll say. What a jolly new thing, that. A tat for a tit, a tit for a tat.”
Between the rampaging mantis man and the card-wielding lunatic, the remaining invaders must have decided there was easier prey to be found, because they broke off the attack and fled into the woods.
Humming to himself, the man in the purple cloak turned to face the party. His hood was so voluminous Will couldn’t see his face. The bandage on one of his hands had started to unravel, and Will looked down. It looked like the hand of a normal white male, until he saw one of the fingers disappear and then reappear a moment later, and then half of his palm do the same. As if parts of the man’s hands were blinking in and out of existence.
The hooded figure took a step in one direction, and then the other, muttering to himself. Finally he plopped down on the stone floor, crossed his legs lotus-style, and started humming another tune.
“I believe the creatures have fled,” Tamás said, running to each of the windows to peer outside.
“Not all of them,” Yasmina murmured.
Will saw her gaze focused on a space between the trees. He stepped closer to the window and noticed the camouflaged form of the pra
ying mantis staring back at them. “I’ll be back,” she said, moving for the door. Will and Caleb moved to stop her, but she held them back. “It’s okay.”
Caleb kept an eye on her as Tamás squatted to face the new arrival, though the gypsy leader kept a healthy distance.
“Thank you,” Tamás said.
The man in the purple cloak looked up, startled. “What? Oh, that? Just a blit of blat. A good morning to skin the cat.”
Dalen looked hesitant, then decided to sit next to Tamás. “But it’s not morning.”
The man peered outside as if surprised. “It was for me,” he muttered. “Disturbed I be.”
“What’s your name?” Dalen asked.
The man cackled and held a card out. “I call myself The Dealer, if I may. I’ve no idea what others say.”
Dalen shrank from the card, and the man flipped it over, revealing the Jack of Spades. Then he shuffled the deck and tucked it inside his cloak, as adept as any street magician.
Will found it disconcerting not being able to see the man’s face. Did he keep it hidden because of what Will had seen of his hands? What was he? Besides completely insane?
“Are you a mage?” Dalen asked quietly. “Is this your house?”
“No no no,” the Dealer said, laughing. “Oh no no no. No no no. No no. No.”
“But your powers . . . .”
“Don’t know what I am. Do you know what you be? A heart, a mind, a spirit, all three?”
Fair question, Will thought. He took a seat next to Dalen, and the Dealer’s eyes latched onto Will’s sword as he slid it back into its scabbard. “Where did you get that? Did you make it? Pull it out of a hat?”
“It was my father’s.”
The dealer reached out with a bandaged hand. “I would like very much to—no, I wouldn’t.” He retracted his hand. “Yes, I would. No, I wouldn’t. Oh, but I could. No, no no no.”
Will put his hand on the scabbard. “Would you like to see it? Do you know anything about it?”