The old woman snorted. “Well, that’s not true. Young man, I have no intention of turning anyone into anything. I simply intend to tell two headstrong and not overly wise children about the dangers of the forest. Sit.”
Both twins sat. The bed was made for Yulia’s diminutive height and was therefore low enough that their knees stuck up awkwardly. That fact was not improved when she handed them earthenware cups of tea. Taigan balanced hers on one of her knees and wrapped her fingers around it.
“So you’ve seen Gwyna’s beasts, then?” she said when she sat in her rocking chair.
“Yes…ma’am.” The girl hunched her shoulders. “Twice.”
“Tell me about the encounters,” she said and listened while Taigan and Jamie told the story together, often prompting one another with details.
When they finished, the woman tipped her head back and gazed into the fireplace. She suddenly looked surprisingly old and was troubled by what she had heard. That much had been clear from her wary looks as the two spoke.
“The elf man,” she said finally. “You said he spoke a single word and the ring crumbled to dust?”
The young people both nodded.
“What was that spell?” Taigan asked.
“It wasn’t…hmm.” Yulia frowned in thought. “Do you remember how in old, old legends, you’re never to tell a fae creature your name? There’s a power in names, and some things hate hearing their own. Dark magic is one of those—a dark magic spell twists something away from its nature. Being reminded of what it is while it is so perverted causes its destruction.” She tapped her mouth. “I’d pay good money to know which word he said—if he named it gold or a ring…but no matter.”
“So if you know something’s name while it’s transformed, you can destroy it?” Jamie asked. “Would that work with the animals?”
“An excellent question, young man, and the answer is that yes, it very well might—if you knew the best name to call it. For a living being, that’s tricky. It’s safer by far to train with the sword.” She looked sternly at them. “Either way, it seems Gwyna is up to something dark and I’ll not have that in my home. While your friend goes to cut things off at the source, you two can help me protect the village.”
Jamie looked at Taigan. Do we trust her?
She replied with a tiny nod.
“How do we help you?” the girl asked.
“There are two places of power in the forest nearby,” Yulia said, “a wellspring and a maze. Go to both and find out if anyone has conducted rituals there. What you’re looking for are candles or lanterns—or candle wax, lamp oil, any of that—the remains of diagrams in charcoal or chalk, the remains of a sacrifice, or anything in gold or silver. Both of those conduct magic, while iron stops it.”
Taigan bit her lip. “Um…where in the forest?”
“That’s your first test, isn’t it?” the woman asked lightly. “Prove to me you can find those places and find your way back safely, then I can entrust you with larger tasks.”
The twins nodded to one another and stood. She drained her tea hastily and her brother inspected his, sniffed, and drank it with a look of relief.
“Now, there’s the look of someone who’s had Korilla’s tea lately,” Yulia said with a chuckle. “Were you injured, boy?”
“Yes. Korilla is the innkeeper’s wife?”
“Yes. Raised in the steppes. I don’t think she speaks a word of common to this day, but I don’t need to know her words to know she’s a good soul. She heals anyone who comes to her—there’s an old magic in those potions, I think.”
“You think?” he asked. “I had a three-inch puncture wound from that monster and it was gone in a few hours. Of course, she did look surprised…”
A strange look settled on Yulia’s face. “How strange,” she mused. “The odds are, she’s not gotten better at magic without realizing it, at least not so late in her life. So that would suggest it’s the herbs…or in the air. The water, mayhap?” She shook her head and stood. “You two go and find the wellspring and the maze. I have plenty to search for here while you’re gone.”
With surprising speed, they were hustled outside and stood in the sunlight, gaping at one another and their surroundings.
“Prima,” Jamie said finally, “do you think you can help us?”
“You can at least determine where the forest is, right?”
“That part we got, thank you,” he said, his tone prickly. Indeed, the forest took up half the horizon, green and sunlit from there, and perhaps a quarter of a mile behind Yulia’s house.
Taigan snorted. “He’s right, though,” she told Prima. “It’s a very big forest.”
“Yes, but remember what she said. Showing that you can navigate the forest and keep yourselves safe shows that you have the skill to be given more challenging assignments.”
“Okay, but you remember that if we—”
Taigan touched Jamie’s arm as they set off for their destination. “She’s made her decision,” she said. “And what’s the worst that happens?”
“We die.”
“Don’t be dramatic. We wander around lost for a little while and the team pulls us out of the simulation. In all likelihood? We wander around for a little while, get lost, find a way out, and don’t find anything useful.” She shrugged. “And I think the best way to do this is to not get lost in the first place.”
The twins bickered good-naturedly about markings and counting measures as they walked to the forest, and by the time they reached it, they had come up with a series of symbols to mark their route. They had decided to mark trees with the choice they made—turning in one direction, going straight, or doubling back. They would mark both their angle of approach and the way they had left.
Soon enough, they passed from the sunlight into the dappled shade of the forest’s edge. Younger trees stood with more space between them, leaves rustled under their feet, and birds called from somewhere beyond. Taigan was glad to see that even in the deepest parts of the forest, there was still a good deal of light.
“I hope the trees in here aren’t alive,” she said as she carved some symbols into one of them.
“You know how trees work, right?”
She rolled her eyes at the sky while Jamie snickered. “Yes, thank you. I only meant if they were sentient or something. I don’t want to piss them off.”
The twins ventured through dips that contained ice-cold streams and over hillocks that left their palms dirty and their lungs burning. On more than one occasion, one of them tumbled and stifled a yelp. They kept their noise to a minimum, however, not wanting to draw the attention of whatever might be lurking there.
Thankfully, Taigan tripped over the first marker or they would have missed it. She hissed in through her teeth and hopped on her other foot, clutching her wounded toes. When Jamie looked back, she pointed and let him inspect while she eased her foot out of her boot to inspect it.
“It’s old,” he said finally in a low tone. “And covered in lichen and all that. Come look at it.”
She muttered as she stooped to see. The marker was covered with runes, although they were difficult to read under the lichen. No two sides of the four-sided stone seemed to be the same.
Finally, she shrugged. They had no idea how to read it. All they could do was look for more of them.
“Ah-hem.”
“What?” they whispered in unison.
“I can translate things.”
“I thought you weren’t helping,” Taigan replied waspishly.
“I can translate things.”
“Okay, what does it say?” Jamie asked.
“On the side Taigan stubbed her toe on, it says ‘Ahead, lies protection.’ Moving clockwise, the other sides read first, “Seek the haven,” next, “For that alone is yours,” and finally, “Greed will doom you.”
“Huh.” The girl folded her arms. “So it wants us to continue this way for protection…”
“But not look for anything else,” Jamie f
inished. “Do you think it’s the maze?”
They set off again.
“How would you seek shelter in a maze?” His sister asked reasonably. “It must be something else ahead because—ow! Son of a bitch!”
“Hey, another one,” he said brightly. “You have a talent for this.”
“It was the same toe.” She moaned and whimpered slightly. “Okay, Prima, what does this godforsaken hunk of rock say?”
“The same things,” the AI said promptly.
“Right.” Taigan set off again once she’d snatched a stick up to thrust ahead of her in the undergrowth. This tactic caught the next stone before she tripped over it. “Ha!”
“So, we’ve thrown caution to the winds, I see.” Jamie looked up. “Prima, is this one the same?”
“This one has no markings.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” he said. He pushed through the undergrowth nearby and caught his breath. “Taigan, be careful.”
She moved cautiously to his side and saw immediately what he had meant. They stood at the top of the wall that surrounded the maze. Four feet down, the maze itself was lined with stone walls that used no mortar and yet seemed entirely untouched by time. There were no weeds or uneven ground.
The entire location seemed to exist in a bubble.
“Protection,” Taigan said softly. “Do we dare go in, do you think? What if we can’t get out?”
“I think it’ll be fine as long as we don’t look for more,” Jamie said. “They must mean searching for artifacts or something, right?”
“But we’re looking for information,” she said. “What if we lift something up or move it and a trap comes down?”
They looked at each other, then at the sky.
“I have no idea,” Prima said, absolutely unconvincing in her innocence.
“Of course, you don’t,” the girl muttered. “Well, we were sent to find the maze and we’re here. I’d say that Yulia would have warned us if we couldn’t get out, but maybe that was part of the test. Let’s walk along the edge and see what we can see inside, then go in if we don’t see anything worrying.”
“Good call.” He nodded.
They walked carefully around the edge, careful to never let their arms swing into the air above the maze. It was a strange kind of protection, Taigan thought, without any roof or high walls, and yet, it seemed frozen in time without even leaves on the ground.
Which made the sacrifice all the more apparent once they saw it. She clapped a hand over her mouth and stopped dead.
From where she stood to the center of the maze was one long line. If you didn’t follow the pattern of steps, you could have stepped easily over the tiny stone wall as the layer around the center was only a couple of inches tall.
Taigan didn’t think they should do that. Although she couldn’t say why, she was utterly sure that she should follow the path.
She was also sure that several dead animals lay inside separate diagrams at the center of the maze.
“This is what we were looking for, wasn’t it?” She looked at Jamie. “Come on. Stick to the path and don’t pick anything up.”
Chapter Eleven
Taigan had feared the smell of the bodies, but whatever kept things from being touched by time or lichen or rain in this area had also stopped the sacrifices from decaying. The three bodies lay still and the tiny amounts of blood they saw had not dried. There were no flies or maggots.
Somehow, that was more unsettling.
Worse—as they saw each time the path brought them close—was the fact that the three bodies were of young animals. She had her suspicions of what they would see, but when at last they came into the heart of the maze and she could be certain, she wanted to cry.
“A wolf cub,” she said quietly.
“And a kitten—a bobcat, maybe?” Jamie asked. “And…”
She stared at the pile of fur, her expression almost a mask that showed no emotion. “I think it’s a bear,” she said finally. Her voice was thin and high. “The things we saw—the monsters—we couldn’t tell if they were cats, wolves, or bears. I think they’re all three.”
“This was where she made the spell,” he whispered in reply. “And it won’t decay…”
The twins looked at one another.
“We shouldn’t touch anything,” Taigan said, but there was no certainty in her.
“This is wrong,” he said fiercely. “They deserve a burial.”
“What if we make it worse? What if we don’t undo the spell?” She stared at them and fumbled to clutch his hand. “I want to destroy all of this, but what if I simply make it worse?”
Her brother looked around. “We have to assume this was all deliberate,” he said finally. “Whoever did this—probably Gwyna—chose a place where the diagrams would be untouched and the bodies wouldn’t be disturbed. The diagrams are here, which means they’re important, so we should destroy those. Look here.”
He took her hand and led her to one side of a diagram. The symbol there had been dug a little deeper than the rest of it and something seemed to glitter beneath it—energy, disturbed and raw like an open wound.
“Okay,” Taigan said. She nodded. “We need to bring the bodies out and dig them graves, and also destroy the diagrams.”
“Diagrams first,” Jamie said. He drew his sword and looked up. “Uh…if anything is watching, we’re not trying to take anything that belongs to the maze. We’re trying to heal it.”
He placed the tip of the sword at the outer edge of one diagram and drew a line through it to the center. At first, it seemed remarkably anticlimactic.
A second later, a blast of energy hurled him off his feet.
“Jamie!”
“Ow,” he protested and followed it with a startled yelp. The little wolf cub had scrambled to its feet and now snapped and growled at him.
Taigan hauled him up and out of the way. She knelt and stretched her hands out. “We’re not going to hurt you,” she said.
The little wolf stared at them. Blood trickled down its fur now. It backed away warily, and when they did not follow, it turned and raced into the maze.
“They’re alive,” she whispered. “Quick, give me the sword.”
“Maybe only one of us should have concussions,” her brother suggested. He stood and put out the sword again. “Although maybe give me something to wrap around my head.”
She wound her cloak around his head like a turban, giggled, and stood nearby with her arms out as he drew a line across the second diagram. Again, energy released itself in a blast and he slammed back into her arms, but the two of them together managed to stay standing.
“Only one more,” she said encouragingly.
“Yep.” Jamie shook his head to clear it. “Are your ears ringing? Mine are. Okay, get behind me again. Three, two…ow, fuck.”
Taigan snickered into his turban. She levered him to the ground and looked at the little animals that hauled themselves up. The tiny bobcat chirped piteously, then hissed, and the bear growled low in its throat. Like the wolf, they both ran from the humans.
That was probably a fair instinct, she had to admit.
When they were gone, she knelt and hesitated. She didn’t want to put her bare skin on the spell but somehow, the thought seemed right. Cautiously, she started with the edges and brushed the dirt smooth and back into place. She took care to erase only one line at a time, and it wasn’t long before the first diagram was completely gone.
To her shock, the ground looked as if it had never been touched at all.
Heartened, she repeated the process. The area seemed healed and a spark of energy against her palm startled her but wasn’t unpleasant.
“Hey,” Jamie said, surprised, “my head feels better.”
Taigan stood and brushed her pants off. She nodded and looked around worriedly. “I think we should go. She might come back to see why the spell was lost.”
“Right.” He moved to step over the little wall.
“The right w
ay, you heathen.”
They hurried out of the maze and glanced around at every opportunity to see if anyone was watching. No one seemed to be. There were a couple of drops of blood where the animals must have run, but the fact that there was only one way through the maze seemed to have led all three of the sacrifices out.
“Imagine how evil you’d have to be to use animals that way,” Taigan said fiercely. “Little animals—babies—and she kept them alive and in pain this whole time, suspended between life and death.”
Jamie looked soberly at her. “And Ben is walking into that. I’m worried about him. Prima, can you warn him?”
“That is kind of you,” Prima said after a pause. “I attempt to not give players information they have not seen with their own eyes, but…I will consider it.”
“I think that’s the best we’ll get out of her,” he told his sister. “Do think about it, Prima. He needs to understand that this is…a little different than we thought. It’s not merely hurting people. It’s worse.”
“Do humans honestly think of hurting animals as worse than hurting humans?”
“It’s complicated,” Taigan said. “But torturing baby animals? Yeah, that’s bad.”
“I see.”
Privately, the girl wondered if Prima had accidentally created a villain who was much more villainous than she had intended, but she didn’t ask. The AI tended to be very self-conscious about instances of messing up.
They had barely stepped into the forest when they heard a crashing noise and the whimpering sounds of someone in great pain. Both twins froze, and when she wanted to dash forward, her brother clamped a hand around her wrist. He held a finger up to his lips and the two of them found hiding places behind trees.
It wasn’t long before the source of the noise became clear—a human, gaunt and delirious, stumbled through the woods in ragged clothing.
“No, no, no…” He moaned. There was blood on his teeth.
And a gold ring on his finger.
Jamie and Taigan looked at one another and he gestured emphatically for her to stay in hiding. The man stumbled on, oblivious and paranoid by turns. He seemed confused and yet to have some awareness of where he was.
Grasping The Future Page 7
