by Graham, Jo
The net tightened around her foot and dragged her under again. She kicked again, hard, clutched the tablet tighter to her chest, close to the amulet. This wasn’t the creature, it was something else, something slow and stupid and inexorable. She bent double, trying to find the strands of the net to cut them, but her knife passed through only water. Her chest was tightening again, and she reached for the strength of the earth, but she was cut loose, floating — drowning — and there was nothing there.
And then a light flashed, the vivid reflection of a word, and she shot to the surface, the tablet still clutched to her chest. She hung there for a moment, treading water, then swam slowly toward the side of the boat. Lewis was kneeling in the bow and reached out to gather her in, but she handed him the tablet instead.
Behind him, Mitch stood frozen, the gesture of unbinding just completed. He saw her hands on the side of the boat, and collapsed soundlessly onto a thwart. “God, Alma —”
“It wasn’t the creature,” she said. “Something else….”
Lewis handed the tablet carefully to Jerry, who stuck it in his pocket, and reached to help her over the side. She came over awkwardly, thrashing like a fish, sat up dripping in the bottom of the boat.
“There was a net,” she began, and broke off, realizing that there was still a length of it around her ankle. Jerry flicked on the flashlight again, keeping it below the edge of the boat.
“Thrax,” he said. “The Thracian.”
He hadn’t sounded so shaken since Gil’s death. Alma reached out to pat his good knee, and Mitch said, “What are you talking about?”
“The thing’s first host,” Jerry said. “The gladiator, the Thracian retiarius — that’s a net-thrower, Al, a gladiator’s nightmare of a fisherman. That’s the man who killed the Rex Nemorensis, that’s what freed the creature. Harris showed me a tablet today, a funeral tablet for the man. That’s why it was there, to bind his soul to the lake. Part of the profanation….”
“Are you all right?” Lewis said. He had brought a towel, wrapped it around her shoulders and held her through it. Alma leaned back, grateful for his touch.
“I’m Ok,” she said. She leaned down and unwound the last piece of net from her foot. It looked ordinary, unremarkable, and she dropped it overboard with a shudder.
“He’s gone now,” Mitch said, grimly. “You sure you’re Ok, Al?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. The main thing is, we have the tablet.”
Jerry looked up, flicking off the flashlight. “And it’s the only one.” His voice was steady again. “This completes the binding.”
“Good,” Alma said, and reached for her trousers. “Then we can go on from here.”
Chapter Twenty Five
It watched them from the grove. It felt when the woman touched the other tablet. It knew they were coming, certain as a hunted man hears the baying of hounds.
This one gave it no trouble. He was a strong young man with a whole body, but he was afraid. He believed in demons and their power to destroy. It could rule him.
Once it had waited thus, in the dark places beneath the Nemeton. Long years it had lain silent, held by a goddess’s silver power, held by rites as old as men. It had waited. It knew patience. Sooner or later, one would come.
The Thracian had walked into the woods without fear. He was a big man, and strong, but that was not why he sought the grove’s king. He did an emperor’s bidding. He did not come as a fugitive but as an assassin. He came to the dividing paths with sword and knife, walking the forest pathways with his mind filled with an emperor’s treasure, riches promised in return for death, and there he slew the king of the woods, spilled out his blood like a stag’s on the thirsty ground.
It came.
And it tasted.
The Thracian came out of the woods in triumph, priest and king and something more besides. It held him. It ruled him. It savored power and blood.
But why settle for the sham of kingship when true dominion might be had? What could be better than to be ruler of the world?
It was easy, so easy, to take the young emperor. It was so easy to slake every thirst.
But now they came, her hounds. It saw them stop beside the lake, speaking together. The cripple and the woman bent their heads one to the other, the big one beside them. But the other….
His eyes sought it, raked the tree line, tension in every fiber of his frame. His eyes saw more than mere light illuminated, an oracle’s eyes, the eyes of a priest. He knew it waited. And he watched.
The young man dodged back, a reflex born of its alarm, and it let him go, let him fade back behind the trees. It was going to have to get rid of them, now, or all its plans would come to naught. It paused in the deeper dark, the young man panting his fear. One man against three, and even if one was crippled there was still the woman. It had learned already not to underestimate her. Perhaps more mundane methods? There were men in plenty sleeping at the site, ready to defend what they had found. There was a pleasing irony in turning them against the hunters. It rose, enjoying the lithe play of the young man’s muscles, and slipped further back into the trees.
“It’s here,” Lewis said.
Alma broke off. “What?”
“The thing. It’s there in the edge of the wood, watching.” Lewis scanned the trees, frowning.
“Is it the same host?” Jerry asked.
“I don’t know,” Lewis said, and Alma shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter. It won’t have picked on anyone weaker, that’s for sure.”
“Unless it’s gotten to one of the archeologists,” Jerry began, and Lewis thought he looked sick at the idea.
“It’s young,” he said, knowing that was only ambiguous reassurance. “And — it’s moving away.”
Mitch let out a long breath. “Ok,” he said. “So what do we do now?”
“We have to get further into the woods,” Jerry said. “We have to be far enough in that fresh digging won’t be noticed. Then we do the binding. That’s what we have to do.”
“Wait,” Alma said. “Lewis, where’s it going?”
Lewis paused. He couldn’t really see into the dark between the trees, but he could feel its movements, feel it fumbling through the brush — heading along the shore, back toward the ships, toward the dig site. “Damn. It’s going back to the dig.”
“To raise the alarm,” Mitch said.
Lewis looked at Alma, who lifted her face to the sky as though she was trying to guess the time from the occluded stars. “Jerry, how long will it take —”
“Too long,” Jerry answered, grimly. He reached into his pocket, brought out the first tablet in its wrappings.
“Jerry,” Mitch said, warily, and Jerry peeled back the layers of burlap and silk, exposing the bronze.
“Creature of darkness!” Jerry’s voice wasn’t loud, but it had a peculiar resonance that sent a shiver down Lewis’s spine. He heard Alma take a breath and hold it, her eyes wide. “By the virtue of the holy names that bound you, I defy you, you who are abhorred of mankind. You were bound, you are bound, you will be bound. As you were before, so shall you be.”
The air was very still, echoless, but the words seemed to reverberate. Alma let out her breath with a sudden sigh. “Oh, Jerry.”
“That — was not a good idea,” Mitch said, tightly.
“Do you have a better one?” Jerry asked, winding the tablet back into its wrappings.
Lewis looked back at the woods. He could feel the creature hesitate, turn back, and then it was lost again, vanished into the trees where not even his Sight could follow it. “What was that all about?”
“Jerry challenged it,” Mitch said. “Threatened it.” He paused. “Lewis, do you think it has a gun?”
Lewis frowned. “No. If it had a gun it would already have shot us.”
“Do you have a better plan?” Jerry asked again. “Look, we can’t let it raise the alarm. Putting aside what could easily happen to us if it does, we’d lose our only chance
to stop it. And then — then it takes Il Duce, and who knows what will happen?”
“But now it really knows we’re coming,” Mitch said. “And it knows what we’re going to do.”
“It knew that anyway,” Alma said. She wrapped her arms around herself as a sudden breeze stirred the lake behind them. Lewis lifted his head at a sudden hint of sweetness, a breath of green herbs rising above the smell of the mud. “We go on.”
“All right,” Mitch said, and hefted the shovel. “Jerry, are you up to climbing around in the woods?”
The words were meant as a peace offering, Lewis thought, but Jerry glared. “I have to be, don’t I?” he snapped. “There isn’t anything else to do. Except split up, and you know that’s a colossally bad idea.”
“We’ll stick together,” Alma said, “and pick as level a path as possible.”
“We can handle it,” Lewis said, his eyes still on the woods. “It’s afraid of us because it knows that.”
Together they passed into the shadow of the trees.
The ground was worse on this side of the lake. Jerry knew he should have expected it, should have planned for it somehow — a better cane, more light, not standing exposed on the edge of the battery platform to make one last observation…. His leg slipped again, throwing him forward onto the slope. He caught himself on hands and knee, the mud and loam cold between his fingers, knew he made no more sound than the thud and the exhalation of his breath, but Lewis looked back at once, met his gaze, and looked away again. There was a calm there that frightened Jerry, the calm of a king, of a priest, and he wanted unreasonably to shatter it, to demand that Lewis keep the promise he’d made or half-made or anyway implied by sharing Alma’s bed. But that wasn’t how the story ran, wasn’t the way the temple was built. He’d made his own promises, too.
He planted his cane again, digging into the soft ground, and hauled himself up by main force. Take me, he said silently, to the moon not yet risen. Take me instead.
The ground gave way again beneath the wooden peg, and he fell sideways, wrenching his knee. The pain shot up to his hip, down the missing ankle, so bright and hard that he almost expected to see a flash of light. His breath caught in his throat, and this time it was Mitch who looked back.
“Are you all right?”
“Give me a hand,” Jerry said, softly. With Mitch’s arm under his and the cane to brace him, he got himself upright, and carefully put his weight on the artificial leg. Pain flared, but not as strong, and he knew the knee would carry him at least a little further. “Ok. I’m Ok.”
The ground eased a bit as they reached what must have once been the top of a terrace, and Jerry paused to catch his breath, looking back toward the lake. They hadn’t come far, despite all his efforts; the mist still curled from the water like smoke, and the broken clouds hid the rising moon. In the distance, the pumps beat, the only reminder of the present.
A few yards ahead, Alma and Lewis conferred in low voices, Lewis with the hooded look that meant he was seeing more than was merely visible, and then they moved off again. Jerry followed, wincing as each step jarred the tendons beneath his knee. Mitch was making heavy going of it, too, his fist to his gut when he thought no one was looking. We’re a fine lodge, Jerry thought. Gil would have made us plan — would have made us wait until we could get guns, made sure we had the advantage, not gone off into the woods armed with knives and a shovel, a cripple and a wounded man and a woman — and Lewis. That was how the dice fell every time. The ace of spades, the ten of swords, every time they cut the deck. Lewis.
I am willing, he said, to the night, to the grove. Take me.
Mitch hefted the borrowed knife, judging weight and length. His stomach throbbed with his heartbeat: clearly carrying the boat hadn’t been a good idea after all. Not that there was anyone else who could have done it, that was the problem. And, that being the case, there was nothing to be done. Put it aside and move on.
He didn’t like the way this was shaping up. The creature was ahead of them, Lewis said, up the slope and retreating into the thicker woods. Bad ground all the way, and plenty of chances to get them separated, pick them off one by one. He wished his charm had extended far enough to get them a gun — there had to be relics left over from the war — but the Ruggiero cousin had been worried enough when he’d asked for knives. A gun would have made him back out altogether.
He should have tried. Gil would have tried. Hell, Gil would have succeeded, told some crazy story that somehow sounded plausible, left them all laughing and with the gun and ammunition resting in their pockets. Gil was dead. Move on.
His gut spasmed again, and he dug his fist into the torn muscles, chasing pain with pain. He’d thought there’d been less blood this morning, had hoped it was healing again, but carrying the boat had nearly done him in. Thank God he hadn’t had to row.
Something rustled in the thick creeper that grew beside what passed for a path. He turned, lifting the knife, and saw the leaves trembling at ankle height. Some ordinary animal, frightened by their presence: nothing to worry about. He took a breath, felt it hitch in his groin, and made himself move on.
They would find the spot, he told himself. They’d find the spot, and Jerry would set the circle, and they’d call the thing and bind it. If they could drive it out of its host, it would be trapped, would have no place to go but the tablets, and the tablets would call it, compel it. Then they would complete the binding, bury the tablets, and put an end to the creature. Or at least put it where it could harm no one else.
The path they’d been following took a sharp turn and came into a scrap of more open ground. To the left, the hillside dropped away toward the lake, a slope of earth and rock like the scar of an avalanche. The moon was up now, the third quarter lifting over the hills to the east, the clouds fading. A good night for flying, he thought, irrelevantly; good weather tomorrow, too.
“Well?” Alma said softly, and Lewis hunched his shoulders for a moment.
“Further up,” he said. “Deeper in the woods. That way.”
“Damn,” Jerry said, under his breath.
Mitch glanced back, saw him take a step and stumble, the artificial leg catching somehow so that he fell forward and sideways, the cane clattering away from him down the slope. It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen, but this time he was slow to get up, rolled to his knees and then sat back on the ground, reaching for the leg of his pants.
“No,” he said. “Oh, not now.”
The clouds cleared the moon, throwing sudden shadows, and Mitch caught his breath. The wooden peg was cracked through, bent at a thirty-degree angle a little above where the ankle would have been. There was no walking on that, not on this ground, and Mitch dug his fist into his stomach again.
“Are you all right?” Alma asked. “I mean, otherwise.”
Jerry bit back something unpleasant, and nodded instead. “Yes. But I can’t walk.”
“I see that,” Alma said, steadily. “All right. You’ll — you and Mitch will stay here. It’s as safe as any place we’ve passed, you’ll be able to see anybody coming from the woods or from the lake.”
“Al,” Mitch began, and she fixed him with a stare.
“I told you before, I know you’re hurt. And we can’t leave anyone alone.”
Lewis came back up the slope, carrying Jerry’s cane. Jerry took it from him silently and handed him the wrapped tablets in exchange. “Al’s right.”
“I know she’s right,” Mitch said. He made himself smile, though he felt more like cursing. “She always is.”
Lewis smiled back. “She’s good like that.” He looked at Alma, and she nodded. “That way.”
Mitch watched them go, vanishing almost at once into the dark between the trees. The moon was behind a cloud again, and the air felt suddenly cold.
“Damn it,” Jerry said again.
Right. Mitch took his fist away, and began looking around the slope for pieces of wood. He came back with a handful of sticks, the biggest as thick
as three fingers, and sat down beside Jerry, who gave him a look.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Trying to fix your leg,” Mitch answered.
Jerry stared at him. “What’s the point?”
“We’re going to have to walk out of here sometime,” Mitch said, and hoped it was true.
The trees arched overhead. Between their branches the stars shone, close and distant at once. Beneath his feet last years’ leaves crackled unbearably loud on the forest floor. He held up his hand, and Alma stopped, silent in his shadow. Sight was useless, physical or otherwise; the creature had pulled the dark around itself like a cloak. Lewis listened.
There was no sound except for the wind in the branches, the distant hooting of an owl. The woods were still.
And yet the wind told him something. A rank small, faint and real, a young man unwashed from a day of hard labor, his scent sharp with fear. He was there, just northwards, upwind. He was waiting.
Behind him Alma stood frozen, the shovel in her hands.
There was no sound.
And here was the problem. If they stopped where they were and started digging, it would be upon them. It had a knife. And it would have the jump on them. It could kill Alma before he could close, particularly if he were using the shovel, or it could attack him while she was digging. Certainly they’d never get a hole dug and some kind of ritual performed before it was on them, especially once it realized what they were doing. If Jerry and Mitch had been there — but they weren’t. It was him and Alma, and they weren’t enough. The creature had every reason to attack, and nothing to lose.