The Emissary chuckled. “Is this what worries you, fluffy chin? What you have seen were the bones of traitors, and what you have heard were the howls of cheaters. You have my word that, unless you try to betray me, I’ll never force you to set foot in my dominion. You’ll end your days on the good side of the river—in my service, that is. And if you manage to transmute metal into gold, you’ll be spared even that. If you’re successful, I’ll let you live in the Renaissance, and I’ll never haunt you again.”
The rays of the descending sun turned the woods even gorier. If he wanted to return to the village before dark, Hrot had to find the ford fast. If he wanted to return to the village . . .
The Emissary sneered. “Let’s don’t delay the inevitable. The portal only opens at the winter solstice, during the shortest day and longest night. Look how long the shadows have grown! My offer will soon expire.”
As he spoke, the Emissary stepped closer. Hrot’s head began to spin from the repulsive stench that poured not only from the monster’s mouth but also from every pore of his white skin. The Emissary kept speaking. His words slammed against Hrot’s ears like waves against a cliff, but all Hrot could hear was a strange buzzing. The Emissary’s face blurred. The woods rolled and spun, and so did Hrot’s stomach.
A dreadful squeal made Hrot gasp. He heard the cracking of fire and smelled smoke. A blistering heat slapped his face. Realizing that his eyes were closed, he opened them in a panic to see monstrous flames twisting in front of him. The fire seemed to be billowing right from the filthy snow. The thick smoke rendered the rock nearly invisible.
Had he fallen asleep on his feet? Had the Emissary hypnotized him? But that would never do. Hrot could never let the monster take over his mind again.
A breeze blew the smoke into Hrot’s face and made him choke. It smelled as if it were coming straight from the rotting bowels of the earth. Hrot staggered and nearly fell over. The Emissary produced a curved dagger and held the blade to the flames.
“This dagger is the key to the portal,” the Emissary said. “Take off your mitten, fluffy chin, and outstretch your hand so that I can cut your thumb.”
Hrot wanted to turn around and run, but he was afraid he would fall if he tried to lift his foot. Eerie, foreign words slithered among the dead trees and made the fire sputter and belch furious smoke. Was it the Emissary chanting? Another dizzy spell blackened the world around Hrot. The earth trembled. The rock roared as if it brimmed with magma.
CHAPTER FOUR
The first thing he heard over the buzzing in his ears was a moan. It must have come from far away, for it was weak, almost inaudible. Hrot tried to open his eyes, but it was as if someone had glued them shut with sap. He moved his head to hear where the sound had come from, and the moaning grew stronger and more agonized. The sufferer had to be closer than Hrot had thought. He tried to take a breath, and the moaning suddenly stopped. That was when he finally realized it had been coming from his own mouth.
Slowly, slowly, Hrot became aware of his body. All his muscles hurt as if they were on fire, yet he felt damp coldness oxidizing his bones. Something touched his face. When he finally managed to open his eyes, he saw vertical pupils staring like two black gashes out of a pair of yellow eyes. It could have been a wildcat, fox, or lynx—or a fiend, imp, or spirit. Hrot would never know, for as soon as he screamed, the creature disappeared.
A flock of crows was sitting above him in the branches of a dead tree, waiting for him to freeze to death and become their dinner. As he sat up, they lazily flew away.
Filthy snowflakes fluttered around his head like ashes from a funeral pyre, and the world around him was a vast sea of sickly gray dunes. Hard frost clung obstinately to the bark of the dead trees. Reddish icicles dangled above him like daggers. He scrambled to his feet and pulled the collar of his coat firmly around his neck. It was so cold that even the eerie rock seemed to be huddling and crouching in the frigid air.
The stench of decay was unbearable. The omnipresent grunting and whispering filled him with fear. His first thought was to find the ford to the good side of the river. He stumbled southward, his boots snapping dead branches, crushing rotten trunks, and disturbing the endless hoof prints and blood stains on the snow until he finally heard the burbling of the river.
To his relief, the ford from his dreams was really there. Hrot felt safer when he’d crossed the ten black stones and left the haunted woods behind.
What had happened on the other bank? He could not recall entering the portal. He might have fainted by the strange rock, and the Emissary might’ve decided to leave him alone. Perhaps his refusing the magic pouch of gold had broken the spell and set him free?
As far as he could see, everything looked the same as before. Rocks would not change over time, of course, but there were no signs of an advanced civilization anywhere. Nothing indicated he was in the Renaissance. It was nearly inconceivable that he’d emerged in a different epoch.
“Perhaps it was all just a nightmare!” he said out loud, almost as if he wanted to convince not only himself but also the white world around him. “I was only dreaming!”
The sun was plunging behind the trees, painting the snow pink. He rushed downstream toward the fisherman’s path, eager to be home before it got completely dark. As strange as he found it, he looked forward to being back in the village. Mother had to be worried sick for him by now. She had surely put his bowl on a hot hearthstone to keep it warm, and she would’ve slapped every hand that dared to reach for it.
A grand solstice feast would take place tonight. The whole tribe would huddle around the blazing ceremonial hearth, and the square would tremble with drumming and dancing. Some women would sing while the elders would tell stories from their youth. Hrot was sure Uncle Jelen would boast again about that bear he had presumably killed with his bare hands.
“Oh, that Jelen!” Hrot chuckled as if he were thinking of his favorite relative. Soon he would see them all.
He plowed through the deep snow for what seemed an eternity when he heard the furious bubbling of cascading water. His heart missed a beat at the sound. The small waterfall, and the deep valley that yawned beyond it in the thickening twilight, constituted the tribe’s western boundary: he had crossed the whole hunting territory without seeing the fisherman’s path.
Hrot felt bile burning his throat as he turned around and rushed back. “I can’t believe I have missed it,” he murmured. “That’s so strange.”
The darkness grew, and the wolves howled. A strong wind blew from the river to spread their horrid tune around the woods like a net of terror. The moon came out to turn the ice and snow into silver—and to paint them with dreadful shadows. But the path was nowhere in sight.
Dizzy with hunger and fear, Hrot kept tottering upstream. When he saw the first boulders that fringed the sandstone rock labyrinth, a disquieting memory burst in his mind and made him halt. He had a flashback of blood trickling over the blade of the Emissary’s dagger, and of his stumbling through the fire and into the open fissure. He seemed to recall a grinding pressure that had threatened to crush his temples and fiery flashes that had blinded him even when he had closed his eyes—and an invisible yet mighty force dragging him along as if he were in the middle of a flooded river.
The notion that these memories were real squeezed his bladder. He gasped as he reached for his belt to undo the buckle. The pouch! The pouch he’d been offered by the Emissary, the magic pouch stuffed with unclean gold . . . It was hanging from his belt.
Trembling with a horrid premonition, Hrot took off his mitten. In the sickly light of the rising moon, a small cut sneered on his thumb.
AT DAWN, HROT CAME across a trail of horse’s hoof prints. The depth of the prints made him realize the horse had been mounted. He followed the tracks through the realm of tall trees and scattered rocks, hoping the rider would be greedy enough to accept some of the Emissary’s gold to take him to civilization . . . but not greedy enough to kill him for it.
; Hrot had left his tribe’s hunting territory far behind. The woods looked strange and alien. The tracks led him up a steep cliff massif, whose top was crowned by a stone dwelling that loomed over an incredibly tall wall.
Wondering whether this was the castle the Emissary had told him about, Hrot climbed toward it. The fortress stood all alone in the middle of the white wilderness. Strangely, the trail among the trees got no wider. The only tracks he saw were the ones he was following. When he got closer, he realized the place had been long abandoned.
He could see the rider had dismounted and led the horse up a staircase that had been chiseled into the rock. The small, narrow footprints had to belong to a woman or a young boy. They led up to a massive pile of stone blocks that had once formed the gatehouse.
Hrot breathed hard with excitement when he crossed a narrow stone bridge that arched like a cat’s back over a moat. While his village was constructed entirely of wood, rattan, or wattle and daub, stone had really been used for everything in these times.
The Emissary hadn’t lied. At least not about this.
The tracks went on toward the curtain wall. As he crossed the gateless entrance, Hrot realized that a tremendous fire had ravished the castle. Charred logs stuck from high piles of debris in the bailey. The crumbling, blackened walls of the keep stood a silent witness to the terrible power of flames. Black and cracked, the enormous timbers that must have once supported the roof contrasted sharply with the virginal whiteness of the snow they were lying in. And yet, the keep was so tall that Hrot rushed past it in fear that it would collapse and crush his skull.
The tracks led him to something that looked like a long snowbank. When he got closer, he saw a descending staircase and realized the snowbank was the arched roof of an underground room. A beautiful chestnut stallion was tied to a stump of a tree near the staircase. Smoke trailed out of a tear-shaped hole in the roof.
Irritated, the horse snorted and pawed, then stomped the snow at the sight of Hrot. White vapor billowed from its mouth and nostrils in the cold air.
As he approached the stairs to peer inside, Hrot hoped the rider would welcome him more warmly. Having stepped on the first stair, he slid on a patch of ice and descended the six feet of the staircase on his back. He sat up and rubbed his bruised elbow, squinting into the flames of a fire that was blazing in the middle of the vault.
The sound of footsteps echoed through the shadows of the vault’s recess. The steps got louder, and the rider came into view. The ceiling shadowed her head, but the fire showed him a silhouette of a shapely woman. Her hands were clasping a strange weapon that reminded him of a bow. Even though her eyes swam in the darkness, he could tell they were boring straight into him. The power of those unseen pupils made him feel more uneasy than the weapon.
“What do you want in here?” the woman demanded, leveling the crossbow at his chest. She had a strange, soft accent but, to his relief, he could understand her. “Get up! But slowly.”
Hrot got to his feet.
“Now turn around and walk outside. And no foolishness, or your mud-hole gets a twin!”
Hrot scrambled up the stairs into the bailey, where the horse greeted him with a mistrustful snort. She was at his heels. When he turned around and saw her in the sunlight, he realized she was like no other woman he’d ever seen before. Her eyes radiated as much strength and energy as the sun that sparkled inside them. They were incredibly large—and had the color of spring ferns.
She had smooth olive skin and dark brown curly hair that reached below her shoulder blades. Her cheekbones loomed high above a pair of fleshy lips. Somehow, the small wrinkles around her eyes and mouth made her look all the more intriguing.
Hrot had never been too interested in the girls in his village. Even though they walked around half naked whenever it got warm enough, their tunics were too coarse and ugly, and the girls themselves were too dirty, rough, hunched, and calloused to inflame him. However, this woman’s velvet black gown, concealing as it was, filled him with curiosity.
Her mind, though, was probably even more fascinating than her body. The glow of her eyes was so intense he had to lower his. “What’s that?” He pointed to the crossbow to mask his uneasiness. “It looks like a bow, but you’re holding it all wrong.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she asked, gripping the crossbow more firmly. “Do you think just because I’m a woman I can’t pierce you like a trout?”
“I’m not making fun. I’m just curious because I’ve never seen such a weapon before.”
Probably thinking the stranger was just a harmless fool, the woman began to relax. When she lowered the crossbow, a small medallion sparkled between her breasts. It depicted an old crone in an embroidered headdress. Hrot looked at the medallion; then he stole a glance at its heaving surroundings.
“What have you come for?” the woman asked. “What do you want in here?”
Good question, thought Hrot. What could a damned, destitute, and desolate man like him want? “Warmth,” he said. “Just warmth of the fire—and food, if you’ve got any. I can pay you if you let me stay. Does this place belong to your clan?”
She gave him a strange look and shook her head.
“So why did you chase me out down there?” he asked. No annoyance tinted his voice, only curiosity.
“I don’t really know,” she said, lowering the crossbow some more. “I guess it was because I was afraid you would harm me.”
“Well, you’re the one holding a weapon. Are you still afraid?”
“I suppose I’m not. You seem to be harmless enough.”
“Would you let me in, then, so that I can at least warm up?”
The woman thought for a while, and then she shrugged her shoulders. “I’m about to leave anyway,” she said as she made a way for him.
Hrot smiled and carefully shuffled down the slippery stairs. When he took off his frosty mittens and stretched his hands over the flames, he winced at the sight of the small cut on his thumb. He looked at the rugged sandstone walls, which were at places reinforced by large bricks, and at the ceiling that arched just above his head. He wondered if he had a chance to survive if the roof fell in.
“Is this part of a castle?” he asked when she approached the fire.
“Of course it is a part of the castle. But the castle burnt down and it has been long abandoned. As far as I remember, this place has always been known as the Ruins. Listen, you are a pretty strange man, I must say. What is your name?”
“I’m Hrot. And you?”
“Anath.”
Hrot smiled and nodded. Then he noticed the skirt of his coat had caught on fire. Cursing, he beat the small flame out with his mitten.
“One of the castle’s former inhabitants must have been as accident-prone as you are,” Anath said. Although she wrinkled her nose at the stench coming from the burnt fur, an amused smile played around her lips, and her fern-green eyes sparkled with merriment. Her crossbow was lying by the stairs; her apprehension was gone.
“I guess so,” he chuckled. Then he grew serious. “But . . . what happened to the king?”
For some reason, a shadow of gloom passed over Anath’s face. “What questions you ask, my friend. Rudolph has never lived here in the Ruins. He lives in Prague Castle.”
“Oh, yes . . . Prague. Would you please take me there? I need to see the king.”
She gave him a sad smile. “You can’t just go there and bang on his door, Hrot.”
“What can I do then? I want to become his alchemist.”
“Is that so?” she asked with a frown. Then she turned her face away from him.
He lowered his eyes to the flames, wondering what could have vexed her. The dying fire crackled at their feet, and the wind whistled outside. Although Anath didn’t seem to be looking his way, he felt she kept scrutinizing him. It seemed that her senses were probing deep throughout his life, all the way down to his birth. He realized why her eyes had unsettled him so much: they were nearly as mesmerizing as the
eyes of the Emissary.
To his surprise, she shuddered as soon as the fiend crossed his mind. It was almost as if she could read his thoughts. As far as he could tell, Anath seemed perfectly human, without a drop of supernatural blood in her mortal veins. But she had to possess tremendous magic powers. Had she been given them by the Emissary?
“Who are you, Anath?” he asked. “Why are you alone in such a desolate place?”
“I come here every winter solstice to spend a few days in complete solitude,” she said. “Obviously, I had no luck this year.”
She went to the shadowed recess of the vault, where she squatted to pick things off the rocky floor and put them into a shoulder bag. Hrot glimpsed a knife or a dagger, several sheets of vellum, and something that looked like a three-headed statuette. When he peered closely at a shadowed bulk behind her, he realized it was a decapitated goose.
“What are all those things for?” he asked, fearing she’d come here to invoke the fiend.
She lifted her head and gave him a long—and a little sad—look. “You ask a lot of questions for a lost soul, my friend.”
Hrot staggered. “How—how do you know who I am? What’s happening? Has the Emissary sent you here to meet me?”
“The Emissary—whoever he is—has no sway over me, and never will. If there was any higher power that made us meet, it was not him.”
“So how do you know all these things about me?”
Anath sighed. “I was simply born with . . . with a special gift to see beyond the third dimension. And I have been diligently sharpening it my whole life.” She picked up a large wooden bowl and wiped it with a cloth. Having put the bowl in the shoulder bag, she turned back to him. “I have no more need for the goose. If you want, you can roast it.”
Hrot licked his lips and scurried toward the carcass like a starving fox. The vision of the goose rotating on a spit, its skin turning golden and dripping with fat and filling the vault with a delicious smell made him momentarily forget everything else. The problem was he would have to pluck the goose first, taking each feather between his thumb and the blade of a knife and yank it out of the skin. He recalled he’d tried it once, and that he ended up losing more blood than the bird. Besides, he had no idea how to make a spit.
Deception of the Damned Page 4
