by Layton Green
Searching for signs of a demon.
“We’ll tell the Dwyn yer here,” the guard called out, as the party went through. “He’ll want to talk to ye.”
“Dwyn?” Val whispered to Adaira.
“Another name for a Druid, though not in a dialect common to this part of Albion. At least not anymore. I’m not sure why . . .”
She trailed off, perplexed by the mounting questions.
Taking in the village, Val saw timber-framed houses squeezed together on muddy cobblestone streets, carts and wheelbarrows and buckets full of bricks, the smell of fresh bread and compost heaps, barking dogs, smoke pouring from the chimneys. Despite the signs of everyday life, the village had an ominous feel, encased in the eerie blue mist, devoid of street vendors and laughing children.
They followed the main thoroughfare to the center of town, where they discovered a crowd of people congregating in a courtyard marked by a clock tower with a peaked red roof. Candlelight gleamed from the second and third story windows of the angular townhomes overlooking the square.
The gathering appeared to be some kind of worship service, led by a bearded man in a hooded white robe on a podium, waving his hands as he called out for succor from a deity named Arawn. He prayed for good crops, warm hearths, and protection from the demons.
“The local Dwyn,” Adaira said quietly.
The man on the podium shook a fist to the sky, resulting in a flash of lightning that awed the crowd.
Val moved closer to Adaira. “Electromancy?”
“A trick of the light. He’s a low-level wizard passing himself off as a priest. Historians have long suspected that was the modus operandi of the druids.”
A middle-aged man and a woman pushed through the crowd, right to the edge of the podium. The man was cradling a little boy wrapped in a blanket and writhing in pain. The Dwyn leaned down and took the child in his arms, then laid him on the podium. Val caught a glimpse of a horrible, blistering burn covering the boy’s chest.
The Dwyn performed a series of hand gestures above the child, then bent his head in prayer. The crowd stilled while the boy whimpered and tried bravely not to cry out. When the Dwyn raised up, a look of infinite sadness lengthened his face. “It is not the will of Arawn for me to heal this child. He suffers for the good of all.”
“Charlatan,” Adaira seethed, and took a step forward. Val grabbed her arm.
The mother wailed as the Dwyn returned the boy to his father. Trying to comfort the distraught child, the parents left during the service. Before anyone could object, Adaira skirted the edge of the crowd and chased them down an alley.
“It’s not our problem, girl,” Rucker called out, but Adaira ignored him and caught up to the family. The little boy was wailing in pain, squirming back and forth in his father’s arms.
“I can help,” Adaira said. “I’m a healer.”
The father wheeled to face her, mistrust darkening his brow.
The mother took Adaira’s hand. “Please. ’Elp ’im if ye can. ’E’s suffered so much.”
“What happened?” she asked gently.
“An accident in the smithy,” the mother said, glaring at the father. “Put ’im down, Warwick.”
The father, a burly man with red-veined jowls, shot a worried glance towards the crowd in the square. Finally he swallowed and said, “Okay. But not ’ere.”
They followed the alley to a tight cul-de-sac packed with two-story cottages with thatched roofs. In whispered voices, the party debated using one of the two healing salves, but everyone agreed using one of the precious ointments so soon was a bad idea. Unable to change Adaira’s mind, Rucker finally stopped protesting and turned his attention to watching their backs. He, Synne, and Dida remained outside while Val entered the dwelling with Adaira and the family.
The father laid the boy on a coarse rug by the hearth, cradling his face as Adaira peeled off the blanket. The boy’s upper chest was a morass of raw and blistered flesh.
“Water,” Adaira commanded. “Lots of it.”
The mother ran off, and Adaira put her hands on the boy’s temples. “Sleep,” she said softly. Nothing happened at first, but eventually the boy’s eyelids began to flutter. After a few long minutes, his head lolled to the side, and the father’s eyes widened. “You’re not a Dwyn.”
“No,” Adaira said evenly. “I’m not.”
“I won’t ’ave a wizard touching me boy!”
The mother returned and put a finger in his face. “She wants to ’elp. And yer going to let her, do ye hear me? I don’t care who or what she is. Yer going to let her.”
The father looked away from his angry wife, down at the sleeping boy, and then cast a suspicious glance at Adaira. The mother pushed him aside and set two buckets of water on the rug. Adaira traced her fingernails across the boy’s thighs. Blood seeped through the pores where her fingers grazed. The mother gasped. After Adaira had outlined two sections roughly equal in size to the boy’s chest burn, she slowly raised her hands off the boy’s thighs, bringing a thin layer of skin with her.
The father made a choking sound. The mother shushed him with a furious glance.
The boy stirred, eyelids fluttering. Adaira paused to stare into his eyes until he resumed sleeping. Val then watched in amazement as she floated the two rectangular sheets of detached skin onto the boy’s burn and fitted them into place.
She’s performing a skin graft. Without any instruments.
After the skin settled, Adaira sprinkled water over the new layer of flesh, placed her hands lightly atop the boy’s chest, and closed her eyes while the skin absorbed the water and attached. She repeated those steps time and again. It took two hours to finish the task, and Val could only imagine the complexities involved, but after a final application of water Adaira pushed to her feet and declared the job finished. The boy was still snoring peacefully.
“The pain will be mostly gone by week’s end,” Adaira said. “He’ll have minor scarring.”
The mother hugged Adaira and began to sob. The father looked ill but took the boy’s hand and squeezed it, a tear falling onto his son’s cheek.
“We should go,” Val said.
Adaira gave a weary nod.
A few hours later, after they had rented rooms at an inn and washed up, the party gathered in the wood-beamed common room. Even Synne joined them by the wide stone hearth for a pint of golden ale and a platter of roasted quail and vegetables.
Rucker devoured his meal and pushed his plate aside, twisting his colored ring as he stared into the fire. Val ordered a bottle of port and five glasses, but only Adaira and Dida joined in. The aroma of wood smoke, spice-scented candles, and Adaira’s damp hair was an aphrodisiac after the hard days of travel.
The atmosphere in the inn was somber. A table of four men took the table next to them, and Val recognized the bearded guard who had accosted the party at the entrance gate. The guard sent wary, curious glances in the party’s direction. Halfway into a pitcher of ale, he decided to speak. “Londyn, eh? All of ye?”
Rucker turned and scowled, causing the entire table of men to flinch. “Aye.”
Next to the guard, a swarthy man with an axe strapped to his side leaned forward. “When was yer last nightfall or sunrise?”
“Same as ye. Too many moons to count.”
The men seemed to deflate at the answer. “We was ’oping it was different outside the moor. That if we could just get through . . .”
Rucker growled. “Sorry to disappoint ye.”
“ ’Tis the same in Londyn? Demons outside the city walls? Everyone afraid to leave?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“We need supplies,” the guard said. “Medicine. Since ye got through . . . do ye think ye can send word? When ye return?”
“Aye. If we return. We’re traveling the countryside, taking stock of what’s left.”
The men nodded sagely. Val was glad Rucker had taken the lead; the crafty old warrior seemed to be saying the right things.
“Where ye ’eaded next?” the swarthy man asked.
Rucker downed his last swallow of ale. “The next town over.”
Mugs stopped in midair. The faces of the four villagers drained of color, and they wouldn’t look Rucker in the eye. The guard’s voice lowered almost to a whisper. “But there’s nothing between . . . the next town over is Badŏn. Ye can’t go there. No one goes there. That’s where he is.”
Rucker wiped his mouth and set his mug down. “He who?”
The guard’s face twisted in confusion. “The mad king Tobar. The vile wizard who brought the demons.”
The door to the outside flung open, banging against the wall. The Dwyn strode in, fully robed, carrying a staff topped with an iron oak leaf. The tips of the leaves looked dagger-sharp.
Massed in the street behind the druid, Val saw scores of angry villagers carrying torches and a variety of weapons, some of them hoes and pitchforks. Warwick, the father of the boy Adaira had healed, stepped forward beside the Dwyn. Warwick cast his gaze around the stunned common room and pointed at Adaira. “That’s her! She’s a wizardess, I swear it.”
The men at the table next to Val’s leaped out of their seats and backed away.
The mother of the healed boy stumbled forward as if someone had pushed her. “Is this true?” the Dwyn asked. “Two witnesses are required to condemn a wizardess.”
The mother looked down at her hands and shuffled her feet. Val gripped his staff and saw Rucker’s hand slipping to the hilt of his weapon.
“May I remind you,” the Dwyn said in a stern voice, “of our pact with Arawn. Why do you think this village still stands? Speak, woman. Is she what your husband claims?”
The mother slowly raised her head, looking in Adaira’s direction but not meeting her gaze. “She is,” the mother said, in a pained voice just above a whisper.
Adaira leaped to her feet. “I healed your son!”
“Silence!” The Dwyn thundered. He pointed his staff at her. “Take the wizardess to the execution tree. Leave the others outside the gate, and may Arawn have mercy on their souls.”
A burly, red-haired man holding an axe rushed Adaira, his face twisted in hate. Before Val or Dida could react, she held a ridged hand out like the side of a knife, holding the man in place. Seeing the effects of her magic first-hand enraged the crowd, who surged forward as the Dwyn raised his arms and began to chant.
Villagers poured into the common room, bursting through the door and climbing into windows. Val pushed the first wave back with a strong wind. That whipped the villagers into a frenzy, and the room erupted with cries of “kill the wizards!” and “their kind brought the demons!”
As more people poured inside, the nearest villagers advanced on the party with swords and knives, some even raising beer mugs and chairs.
“Push them back!” Rucker roared. He overturned the table in front of the guard and the swarthy man, who had not joined the collective madness that had overtaken the crowd. “Secure the inside, if ye can!”
“Protect me, and I can ward the entrances!” Dida said, his hands already waving through the air.
Villagers rushed them from all sides. The meal had restored some of Val’s strength, and he tried to think of a spell that would work on a large group of people. Synne bought them some time by tearing through the crowd like a tornado in a mobile home park, felling large men with one blow, caving in chests and punching through wooden tables raised in defense, dancing through the room in a ballet of violence. The vicious display seemed to cow the crowd, until the Dwyn advanced on Synne with his staff, whipping it back and forth with inhuman speed. She tried to hit him, but her blows stopped an inch from his body.
Wizard Shield, Val knew.
Synne lost ground against the stronger wizard, who hit her with blow after blow from his magically-enhanced staff, taking her knees out and driving her to the ground. He stood above her, poised to impale her with the tips of the iron oak leaf, when Val called out. “Dwyn!” he screamed, enraged at the sight of his protector lying in a pool of blood. “You want to duel with magic?”
The druid turned, his eyes popping in fear when he saw black lightning dancing at the ends of Val’s fingertips.
“Then try a spirit mage,” Val whispered to himself.
Knowing they had to make a statement or all risk being killed, he thrust his hands forward and sent twin lances of Spirit Fire arcing into the Dwyn. The magic consumed his body in moments, silencing his terrified screams, leaving a heap of ash on the floor as Val extinguished the magic.
The death of the Dwyn broke the will of the villagers. Most stumbled over themselves to flee the inn. Rucker and Synne, who had managed to struggle to her feet, chased away any that remained.
“The room is warded!” Dida called out.
Though relieved beyond words, it seemed to Val the victory had come a shade too easily. There had been hundreds of people gathered; had word of the Dwyn’s death spread that quickly? Why had they all dispersed?
Val whipped his head back and forth, realizing what was wrong. “Adaira? Where’s Adaira?”
The members of the party looked at each other as if someone, surely someone, knew where she was. Once it was obvious she wasn’t in the room, Val raced through the door in a panic, knowing Dida had shielded the room from the outside in.
Val flew above the street and spotted her at once, a hundred feet away, being hustled towards a scaffold in the town plaza by a group of villagers. That was why they had hurried off, he realized. They wanted a sacrifice for their god. They wanted it so badly they would risk the wrath of wizards.
He took flight and headed straight at the crowd, noticing Adaira’s hands were tied behind her back, a black hood pulled over her head and secured with rope. At times a blast of Wind Push or a blind Invisible Knife stroke would buy her a moment, but the villagers shoved or hit her to keep her moving and off-balance.
She’s drained, and can’t see to use her magic. They knew how to take her.
Blinded by rage, he landed behind the group and raised his staff. Someone grabbed him from behind and Val jabbed the azantite tip backwards like a sword, without looking. It connected with flesh and he jerked it out. After swinging the staff in a wide arc, clearing space, he brought forth Spirit Fire again, letting it arc high into the sky, scattering those who bore witness to his fury. Adaira’s kidnappers dropped her on the ground, and not until every villager in sight had fled did Val quench the awful flames, his body vibrating with adrenaline, humming with the power of his magic. He wanted to burn the entire loathsome village to the ground.
“Val? Dida?” Adaira said, her voice muffled and unsteady. “What’s happening?”
When Val took a step towards her, his knees buckled. He was completely drained. With a deep, shuddering breath, grateful beyond words Adaira was unharmed, he shuffled forward and sliced through her bonds. She ripped the hood off as Rucker, Synne, and Dida raced down the street, slowing as they approached.
Dida was staring at the ground behind Val, his eyes wide and uneasy. Val turned to find a red-headed girl of no more than sixteen huddled on the ground, her hands holding her stomach to keep her insides from spilling out of a long gash.
It took Val a moment to realize what had happened, but then he rushed to the girl’s side, his stomach bottoming at the knowledge of what he had done. “Adaira!” he roared. “I need you!”
As Val dropped to his knees and cradled the girl’s head in his hands, he saw the dark tint to the blood pooling around her body, the glassy stare and limp arms. “Help her!” he screamed, collecting the girl in his arms as he stood. “Do something!”
Adaira felt the side of the girl’s neck. “She is beyond my power,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
There was no weapon on the ground. In the heat of battle, Val thought an angry villager had grabbed him, but it had just been the girl, probably someone who had seen him burn the Dwyn, trying to plead with Val not to kill her parents. He rocked with
the girl, who felt as weightless as a baby bird, as shouting arose in the distance and booted feet pounded on cobblestones.
Rucker jerked Val around. “Let it go! There are hundreds more in the square!”
“What was she doing?” he asked, in a daze. “Why did she have to grab me?”
Adaira gripped his arm. “Please, Val. We have to go. Can you fly?”
He closed his eyes and tried to force away the image of the girl. He reached deep for the magic and felt nothing. He shook his head, uncaring of his fate.
“Everyone link arms!” Adaira said. “Dida and I can get everyone over the wall and away from the village.”
Torches and weapons in hand, a horde of enraged men and women rushed around the corner, shouting in frustration as Adaira and Dida lifted the five members of the party above the town. They rose quickly out of arrow range.
Encased in the eerie blue haze, they sped off into the countryside, in desperate need of a safe haven. Yet not even the presence of the huge winged creatures wheeling through the mist above them could tear Val’s thoughts away from the memory of the girl lying in a pool of blood on the cobblestones, killed by his own hand.
-21-
As Will and the others bent to observe the iron pull ring, he noticed two things marking the surface of the limestone block. The first was a roughly carved dagger-and-crown, the symbol of the Alazashin. The second, chiseled by a much steadier hand, was a two-line runic inscription in a language unfamiliar to Will.
Coba murmured ancient Mayan and then translated the inscription, reciting the same ominous words that had stuck in Will’s mind since Mala had first uttered them.
Herein lies the living tomb of the sorcerer king Yiknoom Uk’ab K’ahk. All those who seek may enter, but none shall ever leave.
For a moment, no one spoke, staring in awed silence at the entrance to the ancient tomb. What wonders and terrors would they find inside? Would the inscription prove prophetic?