by Unknown
"What is that?" she asked, as a tiny screen glowed to life.
"It's a device that searches for life-forms. If there is anything alive on this worldor under itit should register."
They spent hours criss-crossing the ugly, barren world, but the screen showed nothing. Obviously frustrated, he wondered aloud if the Coven could interfere with the device.
"I doubt it," she replied. "I don't think they're capable of such a thing. Their powers are intended to work against people, not machines."
"People and demons," he corrected.
She said nothing. He seemed to be focusing on demons even as she tried to forget about them. And it occurred to her that she had spoken of the Coven as "they"and it wasn't just a figure of speech. She had truly separated herself from them.
"We must refuel before we go on to Noros," he told her as they returned to the spacecraft. "I've arranged a rendezvous with a tanker so we don't have to travel all the way back to the base at Gavon."
Noros. Jalissa tested the name in her mind, turning it over and over, hoping that the name alone would tell her whether or not it was the world of the Coven. But the name meant nothing. It was just one more vaguely remembered name from her galactic geography classes.
Jalissa was jolted awake and turned immediately to Miklos, assuming he must have spoken to her. But he was staring intently at the spacecraft's many monitors. Blinking away the remnants of her dreamless sleep, she saw the tense set of his jaw, and was about to speak when she became aware of a very strange sensation.
That earlier coldness she'd felt after her dreams of the demons was backand it was far worse this time: a deep, aching chill that made her feel as though her insides had frozen into one solid block. And coexisting with that strange sensation was one even stranger: a burning rage.
She pressed the button that brought her seat into an upright position, and the movement caught Miklos's attention. When he turned to her, she saw that she had not been wrong. He was clearly disturbed by somethingand now fear was added to the volatile mixture of emotions churning inside her.
"What is it?" she asked, her voice still husky from sleep.
But by the time she got her question out, his expression had undergone a rapid transformation to blandness. "Nothing. Just a minor problem with the controls."
However, even as he spoke, his gaze had gone back to the glowing panels. Jalissa drew in a sharp breath. "Don't lie to me, Miklos."
He turned to her again. "The readings are off, that's all. They don't conform to the course I set after we re-fueled."
"I don't understand. Are you saying that we're not going where we're supposed to be going, to Noros?"
He nodded with obvious reluctance, then bent over the keyboard, punching rapidly at the keys, then staring at the monitors. Jalissa stared at them as well, but of course they meant nothing to her.
The chill and the accompanying anger within her continued to build. She shifted about in the seat, aware of an irrational urge to do something, even though there was obviously nothing to do. Anger made her voice sharp as she spoke again.
"If we're not headed toward Noros, then where are we going?"
His head swiveled quickly to her and he reached out to take her hand. "I don't knowbut don't worry. I'm sure it'll correct itself."
Jalissa knew that he believed what he was saying. He trusted his science. She recalled all the information she'd heard and read about spacecraft, all of which were designed and built by Vantrans, of course. Fail-safe mechanisms. Backups to backups. No expense had been spared in the design and construction of the craft, or in the maintenance either. The few crashes that had occurred had been during the course of experimental flightsand even then, not one life had been lost. Even to someone like her, with no knowledge of such things, it was an impressive and reassuring record.
And yet something had gone wrong.
Moments passed, as Miklos continued to scan the monitors and punch out orders. The lines of tension deepened along his jawline. Jalissa remained silent, fighting her growing sense of dread and trying to ward off a certainty that was growing just as fast.
She stared out the viewscreen into the eternal darkness of space. There was no sense of motion. They could have been standing still. But all spacecraft were like that. With some of the older craft, one had a sense of motion from the low hum of the engines, but on a newer one like this, the ship moved through space in total silence.
Then suddenly, the small craft shuddered. And before she could even turn to Miklos, she saw through the viewscreen tiny sparks of light. Miklos raised his head and saw it as well, and she heard his sharply indrawn breath.
The whole episode probably lasted less than a minute, and then the shuddering ceased and the tiny lights were gone. "What was that?" she asked.
"I don't know," came his impatient response in a taut voice. She knew that he wasn't angry with her, but rather was frustrated that, for once, he had no answer.
By now, Jalissa was finding it nearly impossible to fight the chill and the rage within her. She pressed the button to lower the seat again, and saw in her peripheral vision that he had turned briefly toward her again.
Desperately, she began to work her way through the exercises that should calm her and send her into a trance. This time, even with his presence to distract her, it worked. Impatiently, she sent her mind out, seeking contact with the Coven.
For one brief moment, she thought she felt that familiar touch of another mindand then it was gone. She reached more deeply into herself and cast her mind out yet againthen recoiled in horror!
Dazed, she came out of her trance to find Miklos leaning over to her, gripping her shoulders firmly as he stared at her. The echo of a scream hung in the air, and she belatedly realized that it must have come from her.
"Demons!" she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "It must be, but . . ." Her voice trailed off into uncertainty as she stared at him and at the monitors that represented the modern world of science.
Miklos released her, but continued to stare at her intently. "Did you fall asleep? Was it a nightmare?"
She wanted to tell him that was what had happened, but instead, she shook her head and stared out into the void. "There are demons out there." It amazed her that her voice could sound so calm. She shivered at the memory of that brief, terrible touch.
The expression on his face was one of denial, but she saw the uncertainty lingering beneath it. She asked if they were back on course, and he shook his head. Then, just as he was about to speak, an insistent beep sounded from one of the monitors and he turned to it quickly.
She held her breath and waited. In the short time she'd been on this craft, she'd heard that signal before. It meant that they were approach- ing a planet. Hoping against hope that they had somehow gotten to Noros, she peered intently through the viewscreen.
It grew slowly from a mere pinpoint of light to a well-defined orb, floating in the darkness and glowing with a bluish-white light. She continued to hope that it was Noros, but a nagging sense of wrongness kept away the relief she should be feeling.
There was no rational explanation for that sense of wrongness because she had no way of recognizing the world they sought. And yet, as it loomed ever larger, Jalissa knew with a cold certainty that it was not Noros.
Miklos was busy with the monitors, his gaze flitting back and forth between the screens and the eerie world that grew in size by the moment.
"It isn't Noros," he announced in confusion. "I don't know what it is. If the coordinates are right, there shouldn't be anything at all there."
"We're not in the galaxy anymore," she announced with cold certainty. "This is their world."
"The Coven's?"
She shook her head. "No, the world of the demons. They've captured us and brought us here."
"We couldn't have left the galaxy," he stated firmly.
"But we have. They exist in a different sphere, a world that is an overlay of our galaxy. Somehow, they've drawn us through to
them." His expression was definitely skeptical, but not entirely disbelieving. He reached out to silence the monitor, then began to work the keyboard again. A few moments later, he announced that they were in orbit around the world that now filled the viewscreen. Both of them stared at it intently.
"I'm going to land," he announced. "The monitors show an atmosphere and gravity that are within acceptable limits."
"No!" she cried. "Don't land! Try to get us out of here."
"I already have. We can't break free of the gravitational pull."
He picked up the mike and spoke rapidly into it, then waited for a response. Nothing but the hiss of static filled the cabin. After several tries, he gave up.
"I haven't been able to raise anyone since we went through that . . . whatever it was. I'm going to land and put the system through a thorough check."
They drifted down slowly through the thick clouds as the features of the unknown world began to take shape. Thick, dark forests covered gently rolling hills, stretching down to the edges of a restless sea. The closer they came, the darker the world seemed, until they were encased in twilight.
Miklos began to maneuver the small craft, seeking a place to land. Jalissa continued to stare through the viewscreen with dread. For a moment, she thought she saw something in the distance: dark tower-like structures. Then they were lost to view as Miklos put the craft into a wide arc and they glided down onto a barren plain that bordered the dark sea.
When they'd entered the orbit of the unknown world, Miklos had switched on the auxiliary engine that allowed him to maneuver the craft. Now he shut it down and within seconds, the total silence became menacing.
They were encompassed by an eerie twilightnot the soft natural twilight of a dying day but something very different, even though neither of them could name that difference. They stared out at the broad, featureless plain. To their left, a small portion of the dark sea was visible.
"Is it possible that this could simply be an undiscovered world?" Jalissa asked, even though she already knew the answer.
"No," he replied, his faith in Vantran science still seemingly intact.
"Then they have brought us here," she replied, her voice a near whisper.
"What do you know about them?" he asked, his gaze sweeping the landscape. She noticed that his one hand lay on the laser weapon that was fitted into a special groove in the space between their seats.
"Very little. None of us has ever seen them. According to our legends, they withdrew when the gods did. But we're supposed to be able to ward them off,'' she added doubtfully, then realized that she had used "we" again, once more identifying herself with the Coven. Under different circumstances, that change might have amused her.
"How do you fight them?"
"With the fire, I suppose." She wondered if she might have learned something if she'd stayed with the Coven. It seemed unlikely, though. Even the chants were merely ritual. No one truly believed they would return after all this timenearly a thousand years, according to the Coven's records.
"Why would they do thisbring us here?" He turned to her, confusion and annoyance evident in his tone.
She hadn't thought about that, and her expression must have told him that because he went on.
"It seems to me that they would want us to find the Covenor at least they'd want me to find them. The Coven is their enemy."
"Yes." She shrugged. "I don't have any answers to give you, Miklos."
She reached for the mechanism that unlocked the door beside her. He grabbed at her hand and frowned at her.
"I want to get out," she said. "If they're here anywhere, I'll know it."
"Stay inside," he ordered. "You're safer here."
"Neither of us is safe anywhere if they're here," she stated as she pushed his hand away.
She pushed open the door and stepped out into a chill wind that carried with it a faint, foul smell she couldn't identify. A moment later, he joined her, carrying the laser weapon. They both turned in a circle, scanning the area.
"Just before we landed," she said, "I thought I saw something that looked like tall, dark towers of some sort. They were on a hill in that direction." She pointed through the gloom.
"I don't want to go exploring," he said. "I want to do a thorough check to see what's wrong with the craft."
"Miklos," she said, reaching out to take his free hand in hers, "nothing is wrong with the craft. We were brought hereand we need to find out why. I think the answer may be in those towers."
He stared at her for a moment, then abruptly turned toward the cargo bay of the craft. "All right, I'll get out the hovercraft, but I don't like to leave the spacecraft unattended."
"I'll protect it," she said, ignoring his puzzled look as she turned toward it.
She raised her hands, then hesitated. Even now, when her secret was no longer a secret, she didn't want to use her powersat least not in his presence. Knowing just how foolish she was, she turned her back on him and began to circle around the front of the spacecraft, tracing the ancient runes of protection in lines of blue fire.
When she came back around to the cargo bay entrance, he had removed the hovercraft and was standing beside it, as still as a statue. She forced herself to complete the circle, then closed her fists and banished the fire. He continued to stare at her hands.
"I'm a Witch, Miklos. You must accept that."
He nodded, but it seemed nothing more than a reflexive action. She climbed into the tiny hovercraft, and a moment later he followed, then started the engine and sent it skimming above the plain, toward the barely visible hills.
"It isn't getting any darker," Miklos observed after a long silence.
"Demons like darkness, so this may be the constant state here."
"There!" he said suddenly. "Is that what you saw?"
Jalissa squinted through the viewscreen into the gloom. Some distance ahead of them, a hill rose steeply from the forest floor. Perched atop it were three tall, dark structures with rounded roofs.
As she stared at them, the chill inside her deepenedand so too did her anger. "Yes," she said, unconsciously flexing her fingers in her lap.
Then she stared down at her hands as she saw Miklos's gaze fall on them. Each finger was faintly outlined in blue fire, even though she had not summoned it. She closed her fists, but the glow remained. Her hands felt slightly warm, and they tingled with the forces that were now just barely controlled within her.
"What . . . ?" Miklos began the question, then stopped abruptly as he turned away from her, his sudden movement betraying his feelings about her talents.
Jalissa was angry. Some of the rage she felt toward the demons threatened now to spill over onto Miklos. Did he think she wanted these supernatural powers?
Then, before she could say anything, dark shapes were coming at them out of the eerie halflight. Huge wings flapped slowly, but it was immediately clear to them both that these were not birds. The bodies that hung suspended between the wings were human in form.
"Demons!" she whispered, straining to get a better look at them as they approached the hovercraft.
There were perhaps a dozen of them, and as they neared the craft, they veered off to both sides. Staring now out the side viewscreen, Jalissa gasped as she saw the grotesquely smiling, inhuman faces. They were the creatures of every child's nightmareindeed, the living origins of those nightmares.
"I can't fire at them from in here," Miklos said.
"I'm not sure that the stunners or the laser weapon will work on them."
"Your fire?" he asked begrudgingly. "Will it work?"
She knew what it cost him to ask that question, thereby admitting that his science was useless here. "It will, but I can't risk it from in here." She wasn't at all sure that the magic fire could penetrate the walls of the hovercraft.
"We should be safe if"
Miklos' words were cut off abruptly as they felt something buffet the craft. They both stared up at the roof of the vehicle as they heard scrabbl
ing sounds. Jalissa thought about the long, wicked talons she'd seen on the creatures' feet.
Suddenly, two of the demons were pressing against the viewscreen, staring through the heavy glass at them. Both Jalissa and Miklos recoiled, and he drew her clumsily into his arms as he struggled to control the craft.
"They're forcing us down," he said tightly. "The others must be piled on top."
They had been flying above the treetops, and now they were sinking slowly. With the demons covering the viewscreen, Miklos couldn't see to steer the hovercraft.
"Try your fire!" he ordered. "We're going to crash!"
Jalissa hesitated. If the fire didn't penetrate the glass, it could rebound and strike Miklos. But if she didn't try, they would crash. She stared directly into the eyes of the demon that had pressed its hideous face to the glass in front of herand lifted her hands.
The blue fire never left her fingertips. As soon as it saw her lift her hands, the demon and its companion slipped away into the darkness. But there was no time to savor that small victory, because they were still being forced down.
Now that he could see again, Miklos gave the craft more power and began to search the barely visible land beneath them. "There's a small clearing up ahead," he announced. "I'm going to set it down."
They had barely bumped against the forest floor when the ceiling above them began to crack. "Get out!" he ordered. "They're trying to crush us. Come out with me."
He grabbed the laser weapon and at the same time pulled her across the seat to him, then opened the door. They both tumbled out. Miklos rolled and came quickly to his feet, the laser weapon already up and firing.
Jalissa's legs were entangled in his seat belt, and as she struggled to free herself, the roof of the hovercraft caved in, trapping her still more. Terrified now, she made a grave mistake. Instead of loosing the fire on the demons, she struggled to free herself from the wreckage of the hovercraft.
The darkness was lit by the periodic flash of the laser weapon, but twisted around as she was, she couldn't see if it was having any effect. Then the flashes ceased and she heard Miklos shout!
Finally, she was free from the wreckageand it was then she realized her mistake. She cried out in pain and anger as she saw Miklos being carried away in the talons of a demon, while the others trailed after him. Within seconds, they were lost in the darkness.
