by Mark Lucek
‘If we could only get gromwell.’
Yaroslav groaned, the air escaping thinly through his lips. Suddenly Iwa felt useless. If only she’d kept her pouch about her. Now she had nothing, no herbs or tools or sacred carved bones.
She should never have been caught out without her bag, none of the clan should be so careless. It was no use blaming the woyaks either. Despite his wound Jarel had kept his pouch filled with tinder and flints and tools. All she’d managed was a couple of empty reed sacks and a bit of fish. She hadn’t even taken up the bones from the carp; they could have been used to make needles. Nothing should be wasted. Katchka’s words came back to her and gave her little comfort. Matka Ziemia will never forgive those who fail to show proper reverence for her bounty.
‘We have to ease his pain.’ Jarel grabbed her by the shoulder. ‘That’s all we can do for him, there’s no herb lore to save him now. Do you know any potions that might help his passing into the ancestor world, one of Katchka’s recipes, perhaps?’
‘Hemp oil mixed with lovage and a touch of henbane, more if she wanted to quicken death.’
‘Do you think you could do that?’
‘I know the plants and I’ve seen Katchka mix them.’
‘Then I’ll do some hunting. We’ll make his final meal a good one. Something for him to remember this world by.’
Iwa pressed her lips to her father’s forehead and felt the skin cold and clammy as winter slurry. She stayed there for a moment, as if trying to breathe warm life into him. But it was no use. How long has he been like this? she wondered as she peered round at the rocks.
His blood must have gone bad almost straight away. She felt her throat choke at the thought of it. At least there would be little in the way of suffering once the fever took hold. A sharp pain as the arrow entered and then little more as death closed all about. Still she couldn’t leave, kneeling over his body and hugging it to her in an effort to quell her own tears.
By rights he should have slipped into the ancestor world long ago. Nobody lived long once their blood turned bad, but then he was always a fighter. She smiled as she brushed the hair from his forehead. Not strong, not like Godek or the other hunters who often made fun of him, but he was tough like winter bark, still able to cling to life when other, stronger, younger men would have given up.
Still looking at his face she knelt back on her haunches and hoped for a sign of life, the merest flicker to say that he knew that she was there. But grim death was upon him, there was no mistake of that, no matter how much she tried to rid herself of the thought. Nobody else could have lasted this long. She tried not to look at the wound and the mass of blood and bandages wrapped around it. Once or twice she thought she saw his eyelids flicker.
Jarel knew he was so close to death, she realised. That’s why he hesitated to bring me here. And she hated him for it. That brief flicker of hope and then soon she would be alone. Even the clan was about to die. Will the world end soon? Is Zaltys about to wake and swallow Matka Ziemia?
She knelt there for a while, trying to find the courage to leave as the sun glinted from the crack in the rocks. ‘The end of all things,’ she murmured. Only then did she get up and make her way to the cave mouth. She ought to bathe the wound and clean his bandages, but he was beyond that. ‘Are you sure you don’t need me to guide you?’ Jarel said.
‘I should find all I need if I follow the brook, where there’s water, there’s herbs, as old Katchka would say.’
‘Be sure to hurry back,’ Jarel said. ‘Oh, and bring plenty of henbane.’
Iwa paused at the mouth of the cave and then she was gone. The sun made her eyes water as she ran beside the brook. Maybe it would have been easier for Jarel to use his knife and send Yaroslav off to the spirit world. She doubted that Yaroslav would even notice the blade, but the gods would never accept such a death. No, the herbs would be quick and spare him any pain. Depending on Jarel’s catch she could make a broth and mix the herbs into his bowl and her father would know nothing more.
If only I had found him sooner, before his blood went bad. I should have paid more attention to Katchka and then maybe I’d have a better idea about what to do. She was close to tears now, stumbling aimlessly through the forest with hardly a care to cover her tracks. The old woman had often sent Iwa out to find herbs, shown her how to cut lovage under a full moon so that it would keep its power, but Iwa had always treated it as a game, something that was better than berry-picking. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever think that she would actually have to heal anybody herself. And now it was too late, Yaroslav would die and it would all be her fault. Katchka should have found someone better, rather than waste her time with me.
Chapter Seven
Cautiously, Iwa peeled back a clump of ferns to reveal a tiny knot of henbane. The stalks shivered under her touch as, with practised ease, her fingers curled past the yellow flowers to the dark grey seeds below. Then, with one fluid movement, she twisted the stalk away from the stem and placed it carefully in the tiny reed bag, her lips murmuring a silent prayer to Jezi Baba the night mistress, who held sway over such things.
Most herbs were easy to gather. They all had their own songs, of course, simple spells passed from mother to daughter. Even Iwa, who had never been one for berry-picking, knew them all. There was the sweet song of the blueberries, or the soft prayer that the women would sing as they scooped sage or cranberry into their baskets; but these were light, gentle tunes, songs of thanks to the earth and the winds. Henbane was different; henbane was a witches’ plant, the plant of sleep and spirits, with roots that oozed deep into the cold body of Matka Ziemia. The song of henbane was slow and filled with sorrow, and only the foolish would dare to gather such a plant without the proper respect.
Finishing her prayer, Iwa knelt back on her haunches and peered around her. She was far from the river and the well-trod paths. This was a dark place, a tiny clearing with only an outcrop of crouch grass and monkshood to mark it. She’d stumbled over it by accident a few summers ago, as she’d tried to follow the hunters deep into the forest.
At least that had been easy. All she had to do was follow the brook until she stumbled on a familiar path but, still, she was far from the beaten tracks of the women. She doubted even old Katchka knew about this place.
Surely no woyak would stray this far into the forest? Yet she moved slowly, her tread cautious and her steps guarded as she made her way across the path, the dead heads of the henbane quivering in the tiny reed basket.
Behind her, the track twisted into the forest, leading down to the river and the hollows where the henbane grew in larger clumps. She looked down at the basket and the tiny bunch of sprigs at the bottom, hardly enough to hurry a man into the spirit world, even one as badly wounded as Yaroslav. I should never have left him. She tried to gulp down the tears as she began along the path.
Now she was scared, her movements slow as her feet slipped across hard earth. Almost subconsciously she glanced at the trees and a narrow half-beaten track that spiralled away into the deeper parts of the forest.
Here the ground petered out into a wet boggy morass, scattered with the prints of lynx and boar. Shivering, Iwa drew back and made the sign of protection. All was quiet, nothing prowled the undergrowth. The boars and lynxes must be far away, which was lucky because, in these narrow confines, they’d make short work of her.
She should have run, made for the safety of the cave and Jarel’s spear, but her legs wouldn’t let her. She’d come this way once before. Not that there had been any sign of the prints then. This must have been an ill-used path. Not even the animals want to come here that often. With a final backwards glance, she stepped of the track and onto the muddied path, her breath shivering in her throat.
All at once she had the sense of something evil. An eerie malevolent scent caught the breeze and rustled disquietingly through the bracken as her feet trembled in the mud. At least the tracks meant that there were no pools of deep mud ready to suck her do
wn. With the bracken so close she doubted that she’d ever manage to get out. If only it hadn’t rained for the last few days on the way to the river camp. The tracks didn’t look particularly fresh and already she walked with her ankles deep in the mire.
Then she came to a small clearing and stopped dead, her feet weary and sticky with the scents of earth and damp grass. Even now, after all this time, she could make out the rough cut of the path as it coiled around the rotting stump of some long-felled oak.
No. The thought came to her unbidden and unwanted. I can’t just let Yaroslav die, you can’t ask that of me, nobody can. She stopped and watched the sun glint from a line of snow that ran along the branches of a hawthorn. And, as the fading light glinted, a plan began to form at the back of her mind. Without another thought she began down the track, but she didn’t go to the river. The ground was sodden against her toes as she pressed past the rotting stump of the oak and on, deep into the forest.
Finally she paused, her hand shivering over a rock. Behind her the sun was ready to set, the shadows drawn deep into the undergrowth. Keeping to the track had been far harder than she’d first envisaged, and more than once she had to double back on herself, picking up the trail more by instinct than by memory.
A gust of wind stirred the leaves and she made a sign to ward off evil. If she started back now she could still make the river by nightfall. But she’d marked this place well. Even now, as her finger moved uncertainly across the rock, she could still make out her sign scraped thin upon the stone and, in the hollows, there were the bones of the toad she’d sacrificed to the Leszy of this place.
Yet, as she moved past the rock a shiver ran over her. She hadn’t been able to find the berries a second time, though she’d carved the bison grass rune into a tree that marked the track. The path which now greeted her was as it always had been. Even now she could trace her steps along its course. She’d come across the glade and the tiny stream that led down to the bush where the berries grew in thick purple clumps, but when she’d tried to find them a second time she found that she couldn’t, as if one of the Leszy had guided her steps and, no matter how much she tried, it wouldn’t let her find the place again.
If only I could find the berries somewhere else. They’d cured Godek’s old hound, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of evil that lurked about these trees, a sense of dread which cut deep into her marrow. Even now she found it difficult to go forward, her stomach trembling as if she were about to be sick. Run away, a voice inside her head told her, this is no place for you; there is nothing for you here. With a deep breath, she took a step forward, her toes curling as she closed her eyes and muttered a garbled prayer for protection.
There was nothing to mark her passing into the world of the Leszy, just a slight tingling in her throat and a warm glow at the back of her head. Yet, for all that, she had the sense that she’d wandered into somewhere best left forgotten. Even the ground seemed different, the texture hard and unfamiliar as if her tread didn’t belong here.
Everything seemed strange – even the stars were different somehow, the constellations which had guided her from childhood melted away into a thick dark swirl. Since when had night fallen? Surely it should still be daylight? She looked at the sky for familiar patterns but there was nothing. The stars stretched over the ebony sky without rhyme or reason, like shiny pebbles scattered on the shore.
Slowly she began to make her way along the track, furtive glances cast about her as she prayed to the Leszy of this place, or else to Jezi Baba, the night mistress. If anybody would help her in this place, surely it must be her.
At least this should be the right track. She remembered the first time she’d stumbled across this place, walking almost in a daze as if blinded by the sun. She’d felt that tingling across her skin that awoke within her the feeling that she’d crossed into some unknown and unnatural place.
Not that she’d felt anything like that after, when she’d tried to find the track again. No, this had to be the right spot. Perhaps her desperation had forced her to cross whatever barrier had been drawn over this place. Strange shapes pressed in on her, the visage of trees hardly seen in the world outside, as if she was far from the keeping of Matka Ziemia.
Yet there was no sign of the berries. With a cry she ran over to a small clump of bushes, her hands ripping through them as her fingers dug into the bracken. Finally, she sank back on her heels, her eyes filling with tears. The berries had to be there, they should have been there hanging under the leaves.
She glanced over her shoulder, but there was no trace of a familiar path. The forest track curved across the ground before twisting away to follow some unfamiliar course. Perhaps this was the wrong place, but how could she have mistaken the path? No, the berries have to be here, they just have to. They can’t have disappeared. Surely she’d only taken a few steps along the trail, yet there was no sign of the boulder or any other landmark.
Just let me find the berries, she pleaded to whatever god or Leszy might listen. A single handful and I shall never set foot in this place again. Old stories welled up in her head, the evil of the Leszy who guarded their sacred places well and were unlikely to forgive any trespass; the heads of their victims left to rot amid the branches. Or else they’d gather up a harvest of souls and imprison them deep within the bark of some ancient oak. I only came here for my father’s sake. But there was nothing, only a chill in the breeze and the rustle of leaves.
She stumbled on blindly. Maybe Yaroslav was already dead, forgotten and alone in that painted cave. Forgive me for not being there to wish you well in the ancestor world. I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you the rites you deserved. And, if she didn’t find her way out of the forest soon, then she would follow him. But it was no use. Fearfully she peered about her, the dark clinging to the forest like dew, blotting out any semblance of a path.
Now she began to panic, a hot tide of bile rising in her stomach as her feet slipped across the damp ground. The warning of Katchka and the old ones rang in her ears. Never let yourself get caught off the forest paths at night or else the trees will gobble you up and suck out your marrow. Breathless, she glanced around, hardly daring to look where she was going. Strange shapes slithered around the branches and coiled in the gloom. There was a sudden chill and then there came a sound.
She tensed ready to run and then, in her haste and uncertainty, she tripped over a root, her feet sliding across the moss as she fell to the ground, her mouth filled with mud and grit. Cautiously she picked herself up. There it was again, off in the distance, the beat of air like the thin flap of wings. Getting up, Iwa brushed the dirt from her knees and laughed. It had been nothing more than an owl, or a bat.
Telling herself not to be so foolish, she pushed through the bracken. Her hands stung with a mass of tiny scratches as she pressed on, slower now, her ears tensed ready to catch the faintest sound.
Then she stopped dead. She was not the only person in the wood: something else moved amid the bracken. Then she realised what had scared her before. It wasn’t the flutter of wings that had only served to cover another sound, something far more unnatural. It was closer now, the pitch rising as the noise swelled. Instinctively she pressed her hands to her ears and dropped to her knees: it was the sound of Jezi Baba.
She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound dried in her throat. Her feet were rooted. Please, great mistress of the night, spare me, she tried to say, but her prayers deserted her. There was nothing but sound and fear. Behind her a twig snapped. She started at the noise and began to run, her limbs flooded with the hot scent of dread as she crashed through the undergrowth.
Finally she stood alone. Cautiously she pulled her hands from her ears but there was no trace of Jezi Baba. All was still around her, there was no sound, not even the scrape of the wind through the bracken. She was on the edge of a great lake, the waters calm and green. In the centre stood an island, the outline of its trees black as dead men’s fingers. A torch flared on the bank and inked
shadows deep into the bracken as Iwa ducked behind an uprooted oak. There was something wrong about this place. A strange scent lingered in the air and, above her, a strange moon shimmered. It looked full; but how could that be? The old moon had waned barely a night ago.
From the island came the sound of a drumbeat, like footsteps. Despite her fear, she peered over the side of the trunk. A second torch blazed and between the two stood a stone altar behind which a figure danced. Iwa gasped as she recognised the long black robes: it was the pig-faced woman. A small iron cauldron stood on the altar and, as the woman danced, she threw a sprig into the pot, causing the cauldron to burn with an acrid hiss, tendrils of steam twisting into the dark.
Across the lake a figure stalked, a formless shadow that slithered towards the island, the water boiling beneath its tread. The drumbeat intensified as the pig-faced woman reached out, her hands open in supplication, as the figure of Jezi Baba floated above her. Now the body was more distinct, the semblance of a torso and the hint of a face swirled in the mist. At the heart of the figure a molten fire blazed, the light so intense that it hurt Iwa’s eyes.
As the drumbeat reached a crescendo, the pig-faced woman began to sing, her voice floating thin across the water. Iwa couldn’t make out the words: it was an ancient tongue, the vowels hard and guttural, wholly unlike anything the clans had ever heard. The song melted into the beat of the drum and gathered pace as the tone swelled. And, as if to answer the song, the figure of Jezi Baba burned, the fire blazing with the beat.
Above the drum came the sound of Jezi Baba, like fast-flowing water over loose pebbles. Iwa felt the noise course through her. She raised her hands to her ears but the sound seemed to be coming from inside her head as, towering above the altar, Jezi Baba swayed. She was more than an outline now. Her body appeared more substantial, with a hint of skin wizened across her face.
