Gretchen tightened her brittle fingers around her staff. “But… How? No mahr can survive alone. Surely the villagers didn’t let a Host escape.”
Mina squinted blindly at her sisters. “That I don’t know,” she replied. “I can only see that no mahr was vanquished on these grounds.”
Giddy speculation filled the air, with each sister fighting to be heard. It was Mina’s quiet voice that silenced them. “I sense a trail, but it grows weak. The creature is feeble, little more than a puff of smoke.”
“The mahr is near?” a triplet asked.
“Hurry,” said Gretchen. “Lead the way, Mina.”
As the hags fell back into line, all but Mina saw the villagers’ eyes upon them. Several women leaned out their windows; the more discreet hung laundry or attended to their shriveled little plants. A small girl holding a ball watched from the street, and two boys stood next to her with their hands at their sides. No one watching the hags moved.
Under her breath a triplet said, “We are discovered.”
“No,” Gretchen replied evenly. “They fear we are spies from Newick, nothing more. Perhaps a little distraction?”
One triplet nodded, understanding Gretchen’s cue. Suddenly the sky darkened, the temperature dropped, and a flash of lightning streamed across the village. Thunder echoed down the cliffs, followed almost immediately by a deluge. The children scattered and the women pulled away from their windows, closing their shutters behind them.
“I hate the rain,” grumbled a triplet to no one in particular. Her sisters ignored her.
“Good work,” Gretchen said to the other triplet. The color had drained from the triplet’s haggard old face, leaving it as gray as the rain. To Mina, Gretchen added, “Continue on, sister.”
The sisters left the village square, one after the other. The rain was clearing away the smell of dirt and manure from the roads, as well as from the sisters’ own clothes and feet. The roads were small and narrow, but Mina led them with aged confidence. The hags hadn’t walked far when they stopped in front of a dreary little building.
“The trail ends here,” said Mina.
The hags took a moment to take in their surroundings. Like all other roads in Chardwick, the homes here were several stories tall and piled side by side. Above them hung a tattered old sign with flaking red paint: THE BITTER HART, it read.
“Shall we?” Gretchen asked.
Never ones to turn down the opportunity for a drink, the five hags shuffled inside. Though the sun had not yet set, half a dozen men crowded the dank pub, soaking in the smoke and alcohol.
A fat barkeep stood behind the bar cleaning a mug. An old stag’s head was mounted on the wall above him, its antlers little more than nubs. The lines on the barkeep’s face would suggest that he was a jovial sort, but there was no hint of it as he appraised the hags. Uneasily, he said, “Good afternoon, ladies. What can I do ya for?”
The hags walked in and took their time taking off their cloaks and arranging themselves at a small square table, indifferent to the fourteen eyes watching their every move. From a plain pigskin purse, Gretchen pulled out a silver coin and slammed it down on the table with a surprising amount of strength.
“Five bitter malts,” she said. She and her sisters sat stiffly in their chairs, water dripping from their clothes and hair, while they waited for the fat barkeep to bring their drinks. Steam began to rise from the dress of the triplet in the red, but a look from Gretchen warned her not to draw more attention to them. When the barkeep came and laid the frothy mugs in front of them, he grabbed the foreign coin and eyed it suspiciously.
“What’s this?” he mumbled. But he was closer to the hags now; he could see their blackened nails and smell their decaying skin, and thought it best not to linger.
As soon as the five hags had their mugs in their hands and warmth in their bellies, they leaned forward to whisper to each other conspiratorially. The men at the bar began muttering to each other uncomfortably, which helped drown out the hags’ own voices.
“What do we do now?” asked one triplet.
“We need to find the mahr, obviously,” said another.
“But how do we do that?” asked the first.
Color was only just returning to the last triplet’s blue face. “A real live mahr,” she said, still shaken.
“Until the mahr acts I have no further way of tracking it,” Mina stated.
“Obviously,” snorted a triplet.
Gretchen said, “But where could it be? Who took the Host’s place?” The sisters looked at each other uncomfortably while they tried to drink away their concerns.
With a burp, a triplet said, “Magic is scarce these days. A mahr is a cause for celebration, even if it is only the chance of finding it. We could be young another thousand years.”
“Yes,” Gretchen said. “But we must proceed carefully.”
“Indeed,” said a triplet. “The Host must be powerful to go unnoticed in a village like Chardwick.”
“No,” said Gretchen, shaking her head. “I dare say you’re wrong. Mina sensed the mahr to be feeble, little more than a puff of smoke. And it is unlikely a Host could survive above ground these long years.”
“I would have sensed a Host,” Mina agreed. Her voice shook.
Gretchen grabbed her hand reassuringly. “No doubt you would have, Mina. No sisters, I suspect the Host is so weak that it goes unnoticed.” Gretchen smiled a small, mischievous smile.
“Why so smug, sister? What good does a weak Host do us?” asked a triplet.
“A mahr broken by the death of its old Host, its new Host weak—have the years left you so senile that you don’t see what this means?”
The triplet’s cheeks flushed red with anger. “Have you grown so senile that you don’t remember the last mahr? Its weak, pitiful spirit hasn’t sustained us long.”
Another triplet’s eyes grew big with understanding. “You think of the key,” she said.
Gretchen nodded. “Of course I do. At last we may have the chance to claim what’s ours.”
One of the triplets gasped and another clapped her hands. Gretchen’s fiendish smile returned. But the last triplet only snorted. “The key again? Look at us, we’re old women. We have wasted lifetimes seeking the key to the Host’s Tomb.”
“No,” Gretchen said. “We have wasted lifetimes seeking another key. We have always known the mahr to be the true key.”
The triplet shook her head, her long gray hair a tangled mess against her red dress. “But no mahr would ever serve us, no matter how weak.”
“But its new Host might, given the right incentives,” Gretchen said.
The triplet’s eyes narrowed. “You suggest we let the mahr live free? And what if the villagers were to find it?”
“We must proceed carefully,” Gretchen acknowledged. “Never fear, the mahr will be ours. But first we must find this new Host. And if the opportunity is there…”
“The Host’s Tomb—ours,” a triplet mused in the quietest of whispers.
“Not yet, sisters,” Gretchen said. She took the last gulp from her mug, slapped another silver coin on the table, and ordered another round.
A drunk bearded man sat at the bar talking into his glass. “Look at ’em old hags drinkin’,” he said loudly. “Don’ they know they should be buying us drinks? Drinkin’ ’emselves sure innit gonna make ’em look no better.”
There was a modest chuckle from another man at the bar. The triplets simmered, but Gretchen turned to the barkeep and smiled her snaggletoothed smile.
“Would you also be so kind as to bring me that candle with our drinks?” she asked, gesturing at one of the small candles at the end of the bar. Smiles spread across the hags’ haggard faces.
An excited triplet said, “Are you planning what I think you’re planning? After so long?”
“Yes, sisters,” Gretchen said to the table. “I agree that today is a cause for celebration. And look at us; it’s time.”
She reached under
her cloak and into her deepest pocket. From its depths she pulled out a small black candle—all that remained of the last mahr to be taken alive—and placed it on the table.
“Besides, I think these are just the men to help us. Wouldn’t you all agree?”
“Oh yes,” her sisters chimed.
Moments later, the barkeep waddled over with a tray stacked with five more sticky mugs and the small candle. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed the coin and left their table, disturbed by the sight of five giddy hags.
Gretchen took a draft from her mug and watched her sisters do the same. Only after the barkeep’s interest had returned to the other patrons did Gretchen slowly lift the barkeep’s candle to the wick of her own stubby black one.
“Do it, do it!” said a triplet, bouncing slightly in her seat.
The black candle crackled and the long unused wick sizzled and sparked a moment. Whispering to it, their words harmonious and encouraging, the hags leaned forward and breathed in the black smoke. The bar was dark and already covered in a thick haze, but still, to the sisters’ trained and expectant eyes, the black smoke left the candle in long, tentacle-like wisps, traveling from man to man before returning.
The men, no longer taking an interest in the workings of five tattered old hags, remained unawares. But afterwards it was said that seven men of Chardwick appeared to have aged twenty years that day.
* * *
In a cold and distant land, Mina addressed her four sisters. Her hands were bloody and clutching the entrails of a fellow wanderer. “The mahr stirs,” she said. Fifteen years had passed since they had stolen youth from the men at the pub, but they were still beautiful, as though time were loath to take back their ill-gotten gains.
“Be careful, sister,” a triplet told Mina, her silky blue hair soaking in the sun. “The candle’s magic was strong, but foretell too much and you will drain your youth.”
“Hush, leave Mina be,” Gretchen said.
The four sisters crowded closer around Mina and the young man’s body. Mina’s patchwork of gold and black hair stood on end, crackling slightly whenever gold touched black. But her cloudy eyes saw only the death before her.
Adeptly, she moved her hands through the youth’s body, divining further clues. Her fingernails cut flesh, and she moved up through the stomach and on to the lungs. Wiggling her fingers around the spongy tissue, she said, “Much has happened over these last few months. The mahr is still smoke lost in the wind, but it is gaining its voice.”
Her four sisters waited expectantly.
A minute later, Mina’s fingers found the young man’s heart. “But at once the mahr is both contented and lost and confused. It is ready for us.”
Then, without hesitation, her hands left the young man’s body and moved on to his face to pluck out his eyes. Fingering the trailing nerve, she stared forward and considered the story it told.
“Go on sister, what do you see?” a triplet urged, but her question was pointless. Mina would not speak again until she had learned all she must.
Finally, after many breathless moments, Mina said, “Very shortly, the mahr and its Host will find themselves more lost than ever, without home in Chardwick.”
Gretchen rose, which stirred a cloud of dust around the body. “We have prepared for this day, sisters. The child is old enough to fulfill his destiny.”
“After all this time…” said a triplet.
“…these years of sacrifice…” said another.
“…the Host’s Tomb…” said the first.
“Yes, but first we must send news to Chardwick,” said Gretchen. “Our spies must be ready.”
“Of course, I will prepare the hearth,” said a triplet.
Gretchen nodded, and then to another triplet said, “Sister, dispose of this.” She turned and began leading the way down the path.
The triplet in red, falling into line behind her sisters, snapped her fingers. Behind her the young man’s body burst into flames.
CHAPTER 3: THE DIRTY SACRIFICE
Deep, guttural moans came from Edwin Medgard’s pillowcase. He knew it was Eigil, but he was surprised a cat could make such noise. He tried not to shake the pillowcase too much, but it was hard to keep steady in the snow, especially since Edwin was short for fifteen and the pillowcase was almost the length of his body.
“It’s all right,” he lied. Of course the cat couldn’t understand him, but trying to soothe her almost made him feel better. Almost.
“Be sstrong,” the spirit whispered in his ear.
“Get away from me,” Edwin said, swatting the spirit away. The creature hovered in front of his face, just out of reach. It was nothing, only a little ball of smoke, insignificant really; but for nothing it sure managed to get him into a lot of trouble.
Edwin would have been the first to admit that he didn’t know what it was, were he prone to discussing such things. When he was little he had thought the creature was a ghost, but unlike the ghosts from his foster dad’s stories, it had no shape and wasn’t white. He called it a phantom for a while, but the name didn’t stick, and he finally settled on calling it his spirit. And then it began to teach him about magic….
“You musst do this,” the creature hissed with its ethereal voice.
“Haven’t you done enough? Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“Remember Dana,” the creature said.
Edwin wanted to cry with frustration. Dana Medgard was his foster parents’ newborn son. The spirit had promised to hurt Dana if Edwin didn’t do as it said, and he knew it would. The spirit didn’t make idle threats.
Edwin kept walking. The ledge was wide here; to his right was a wall of steep cliffs, but to his left, several feet away, the ledge dropped off into the crater and the village of Chardwick below.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that he had already lost sight of the lantern he’d left flickering outside his foster parents’ inn. The wind picked up, biting the exposed skin around his eyes. It would be a while yet before daybreak; with a bit of luck his foster parents would still be sleeping when he returned home. You have to keep going, he told himself. Yesterday he had conjured and done more than ever, but not without cost. Every spell has a cost. That had been one of his first lessons. His arm ached just thinking about it.
He glanced back again nervously. Dana’s crying kept the Medgards up all hours, and Edwin could only hope they didn’t notice him missing.
The snow grew slightly deeper and his legs began to ache, but he was glad for it. The effort kept his mind from wandering, and he didn’t much like where it went these days. He hated magic.
The ledge narrowed as he got farther from the inn, forcing him to walk ever closer to the cliff’s edge. Around him, the air was heavy with the smell of soot, which rose from nearly every chimney below in Chardwick. Over the ledge, smoke blanketed the village with a hazy film, and lanterns dotted their way across the maze of roads and alleys darting out from the village square, giving the smoke a warm, soft glow.
“You musst walk fasster,” the spirit said.
Edwin gritted his teeth. “That’s easy for you to say. You just float,” he retorted, but he quickened his step. Nothing would make him happier than never seeing the creature again.
But it wasn’t long before his pace again began to slow. Sweat clung to his skin beneath layers of clothes. Yesterday had left him beyond tired, and he would need all his wits about him to perform the spell. Finally, after walking as far as he could, he had to stop and catch his breath.
The creature nudged Edwin’s back with its essence, trying to push him forward. “You mussn’t sstop. Keep going,” it said.
Edwin again tried to swat it away, but his heart wasn’t in it. He had learned long ago that the spirit always got its way. He couldn’t fight smoke. It could fit through any hole, no matter how small, and it was too smart for him to trap. He had never wanted to cast that first spell, but the spirit was persuasive. First it had threatened him, but even worse was when it
began to threaten the Medgards, and more than once it had almost exposed itself. Edwin took the blame the time it pushed a few jars off a shelf, one after the other. He took the blame again when it tipped over a lantern and burned down the shed. Next time it could be the inn, maybe with Dana inside. The spirit would never stop.
“Hurry,” the spirit repeated.
Over the southeastern ridge the sky was turning purple, but it would be a while yet before the light found its way over the cliffs and down to Edwin, and longer still before it reached Chardwick. But even at night Edwin’s path forward was clear. Moonlight cascaded down between the trees, forming bright patches near the barren elms. His footprints left a clear trail behind him, but that couldn’t be helped.
A small flickering light over the ledge at the base of the pass caught Edwin’s eye. Someone must have begun the steep climb up the cliffs. It was doubtful that a merchant would be climbing the pass from Chardwick up to the village of Newick so early. It must be a new guard heading up to the crumbling Black Keep, the only other structure on the ledge besides the Medgards’ inn.
“Hurry,” said the creature yet again.
Edwin looked at the pillowcase. Every spell has a cost.
Though he didn’t feel rested, he urged himself on. He recognized the tree ahead and knew where he was. The tree ahead was unique in that most of its trunk hung over the ledge, clinging to the cliff by its massive roots. Its branches were wide enough that in the summer he could climb far out from the cliff and spend the whole day staring down at the village. But that was before magic had turned his arm gray, shriveled, and useless.
“Here iss far enough,” the creature hissed, its essence fighting against the cold wind.
Standing by the tree, Edwin looked down at its heavy snow-covered branches, at its thick roots anchored to the ledge, and wondered if he was making the right decision. But then he reminded himself that the spirit would hurt Dana. If only he could tell the Medgards, but there was nothing they could do. The spirit would only hurt them too.
The Dark Passenger (Book 1) Page 2
