by David Wise
The burgomeister's face registered disgust. "I should say not!"
"Very well," the piper continued, drawing his flute from his belt," then I shall proceed with my task. "He took a couple of steps toward the river, but stopped and turned his head back to the town leaders. "And I shall expect the other thousand gold coins when I am finished."
"Indeed," Klaus Nellak snapped nastily. "Be careful where you step. There are some dangerous bogs along the river banks."
The piper laughed and made his way to the river. He gazed up at the moon and thought how perfect the bright moonlight would be for allowing his employers to see all that happened. He looked about him; all was still; all was quiet.
He began to play. The melody this time was mellifluous and quite catchy; the men from the town found themselves tapping their toes to it — until they saw the first few rats scurry by. The piper's tune continued with little deviation, only slight variations. Within minutes, thousands of rats lined up near him, completely still and completely silent, staring straight ahead.
The piper's lips curled into as much of a smile as he could allow without hindering his performance.
Suddenly, the piper seemed engulfed in a mist that blew around him and slowly passed him. It smelled horrible, and he coughed several times. His tune was momentarily halted, but when the mist passed him, and he noticed the rats twitching and beginning to scatter, he resumed his tune. Again, the rats stood silent and faced the river.
Then a crisp but husky, alluring voice called out to him: "Your music is magical."
The piper turned his head to the left and saw a woman standing a few feet from the river's edge. She was radiant. She wore a white gown that hung low over her shoulders, nearly touched her feet, and gave her the appearance of hovering over the ground, not merely standing upon it.
"Are you a stranger in these parts?" she asked softly.
The piper nodded, his eyes taking in all her beauty, his song continuing all the while.
"Then I must make you feel welcome. "Jacqueline slipped one of the straps of her gown down over her shoulder, revealing a generous sight of her cleavage. "Has it been a very long while since you had a woman?"
Again the piper nodded, blowing on his pipe while thanking the stars above for his good fortune. He smiled at her; Jacqueline recognized the lewdness in the grin and responded to it by extending her arms out to him.
Yes, she thought, come to me, you torturer! Come to me! Feel the delightful sensations I have in store for you!
The burgomeister grew nervous as he watched the piper, continuing to play his music, step toward the woman, but he dared not follow. He nudged his accomplices with his elbows and whispered," What is the fool doing? Who is that accursed woman? I cannot see her features. Is she a witch?"
The piper was within twenty feet of her, close enough that he felt hypnotized by her beauty, felt himself sinking into her seductive, twinkling eyes. Sinking into them. Into her eyes. Sinking.
Sinking!
The cold wetness that surrounded his legs halfway up his thighs awoke him. He tried to step forward, but his motion only resulted in him sinking deeper into the bog. He struggled again, and sank deeper, before he realized that struggle was useless.
Jacqueline laughed evilly, loud enough to frighten the men from the town, who tried in vain to see — through an ever-thickening fog that now obscured their vision — what was happening. She stepped toward the musician, raised her hands to her chest, and her form quickly and smoothly changed into that of a rat. She squealed, the sound every bit as loud as her human laughter. Her rat form ran lightly over the scummy top of the bog; then she bit the outstretched arm of the piper until the instrument fell from his hand. She picked it up in her teeth and scurried back to the dry land surrounding the bog.
The piper screamed, but even that much exertion caused him to sink lower. He watched as the murky wetness climbed to his chest. Then he turned, expecting to see the rat, but looking at the beautiful woman again.
"I know a magical air myself," she said mirthfully," though I am certain I lack your skill. Care to hear it?"
She expected no answer and received none. She began to play, fingering the pipe as if she were a little girl with a new toy. There was no logic to the progression of the notes, no recognizable melody. Yet the notes provided the desired effect: the rats assembled at her feet.
The piper's eyes grew wide in terror, and his muscles contracted, causing him to sink to his shoulders in the clammy bog.
Jacqueline's improvisation changed slightly; higher notes emanated from the pipe now. The rats turned toward the piper. Then several hundred of them dashed into the bog. They swam, crawled, even fought each other in their overwhelming desire to find an unprotected part of the piper's hands, neck, head, and face to rip into with their razor-sharp incisors.
He screamed until his lungs could scream no more as the flesh was torn from him in tiny pieces. In his last moments of consciousness, he prayed he would mercifully sink, quickly and completely, into the bog.
Jacqueline turned to revel in the reactions of the men from the town, but in this she was cheated. They were already gone, having fled when the piper's screams ripped through the fog, and were in all likelihood already shivering in fear in their beds.
The next morning, in the relative safety of bright daylight, surrounded by guards, Burgomeister Nellak made his way to the bog to search f o r. . something. He did not really expect to find the mysterious woman — a wererat — but perhaps he would find. . something.
What he found was a sight that sickened him every bit as much as the occurrence the night before. There in the bog, the pipe pointed straight up out of the murky liquid. One of the guards reached over and attempted to pull it out, but it seemed stuck. The guard positioned himself better and pulled again with all his strength.
The burgomeister nearly retched when he realized the instrument was wedged between the clenched teeth of what was left of the piper's face.
He backed away from the grisly sight, and the guard let go. Suddenly, the air was fouled by an offensive, loathsome odor, and the vision of all those present was blurred for a few seconds by a flowing white mist. The odor passed quickly; yet the mist hovered over the river within a few yards of them.
Then a swarm of large rats charged up the riverbank toward the men. Horrified, they ran back toward town, the sound of loud, formidable, evil, female laughter echoing through their very souls.
The Wailing
The baby's shrieking stabbed into George's heart like a hot poker. He let himself burn with a murderous rage, knowing it was the only emotion that could stave off numbing cold fear.
Since he had begun tracking the old Vistana woman who had abducted the infant, the ranger had listened to the baby's distant wails, trying to gauge his plight. The first day the child seemed to be sobbing for the comfort of loving arms. The next day the sobs became howls of hunger, thirst, and discomfort, which continued through the night and into the following day. The third night, the fourth day, and last night, George hadn't heard a sound from the baby, although he knew he was still hot on the Vistana woman's heels. He hoped fervently that the old crone had finally given the child some nourishment, but he knew it was more likely that the baby had just grown exhausted and given up its futile crying.
This shrieking was a different sound, a terrifying sound. George didn't want to think about what the Vistana could be doing to the child; instead he wondered what kind of person would make a baby suffer so.
Less than a mile's travel after the baby had begun to shriek, the landscape started to change. The ground rose sharply and the lush forest thinned out suddenly, revealing the rubble-strewn slopes of a great mountain. The trees growing at the base of the mountain were stunted and twisted and leafless as if the wind ravaged them constantly, yet the air was still all about him, except of course for the cries of the baby. His horse Perseus began to whinny nervously and tried to shy back down the slope, a sign, George realized, that
there was something unnatural about the mountain.
A strand of long black hair caught on a branch indicated to the ranger that the Vistana was climbing the slope. He looked upward at just the right moment and spied a flash of red and yellow through the gnarled tree branches — colors of the scarf the old Vistana woman wore on her head. She wasn't more than a mile ahead of him now. He had taxed all his skill and endurance in tracking her, fearful of speeding up, lest she use some wily Vistana trick to cover her trail, and fearful of slowing, lest she outrun him completely. Now, he felt, the time for careful tracking was passed. If he didn't hurry, the child could be dead by the time he reached his prey.
"Speed, Perseus," George whispered, nudging his mount into a trot, but Perseus reared up with a terrifying neigh and pawed at the air until George allowed it to turn about. The horse stood facing the wrong direction, shuddering, and the ranger knew that only the beast's training and love for its rider kept it from fleeing in full retreat. The horse was too sensible to face whatever lay up ahead and would have to be left behind. He dismounted and stroked the horse's neck.
Once the beast had calmed sufficiently, George rummaged through his saddlebags, shoving important gear into a backpack. With the baby's shrieking ringing in his ears, he began climbing the slope on foot as the sun touched the western horizon.
In the last rays cast by the setting sun, George spied the Vistana again. She halted before a great flat rock where she laid down the baby. Then she turned and headed back down the mountain slope.
George rushed forward, anxious to reach the rock before something or someone else discovered the baby. He lost sight of the Vistana and the baby as his path led through a denser patch of dead trees and the twilight descended around him. He hurried on, following the sound of the infant's frantic cries, forgetting caution completely, and not checking for signs of other crea- tures or humans who might lie in ambush.
He never saw the cudgel that swung down from an overhead tree branch and smacked him in the head.
When George regained consciousness, he was lying on his back, staked out on the ground like a sacrificial offering. The sky was gray with predawn light. He could hear the baby howling not far off, but the Vistana woman sat cross-legged beside him. Her raven-black hair framed a face lined with wrinkles, but George could see that once she had been a very striking woman. At the moment she was preoccupied laying out cards from a tarokka deck. George couldn't raise his head far enough to see the cards as they were flipped over, but it was obvious from her scowls and muttering that the old woman was not pleased with what she saw.
"Having trouble deciding the best way to kill me, ma'am?" George taunted. "I'm only a giorgio, an outsider. How hard could it be?"
The Vistana hissed and raised her head suddenly to glare at her captive. Her neck was disfigured from old scars left by some beast that had once clawed and chewed her throat.
"You are a good man, giorgio, yet you work for Soldest of Darkon," the Vistana said. Her tone was matter-of-fact, yet George could hear the slightest hesitation in her voice; she was guessing.
"No," he replied. "I don't work for Soldest. "Off in the distance, the baby gave an especially ear-piercing shriek. He couldn't think of a lie that would convince the woman to release him, and he didn't think there was time to reason with her. He could only hope she would respond to the truth with her woman's heart. "I don't like Soldest at all," George insisted. "He's arrogant, vulgar, and nasty, but his wife is a nice girl. You've stolen her son. She's frantic for the child. She begged me to find him and return him to her. Whatever vendetta you have against Soldest, there must be some better way to settle it. I know you think stealing his son will hurt Soldest, but he's a callous brute. You're only hurting the innocent. You can't hold the baby responsible. It's just a little baby. Think of the baby's mother, think of her grief. Please, ma'am, let me go, before it's too late."
"Think of the baby's mother," the woman repeated hollowly. "I can do nothing but think of the baby's mother," she snapped. "Soldest's wife told you the baby was hers, did she? She lied. The baby is Asha's. Soldest seduced Asha and then abandoned her. Still, like a fool, she cherished his brat. Cherished it so that when Soldest sent his men to take the baby from her, she died on their swords rather than give it up."
"Asha was one of your people?" he asked.
"Asha, daughter of Tilda, daughter of Aliza. I am Aliza. Asha was my granddaughter," the woman replied, and half a sob escaped with her answer.
George was silent for a moment, judging what the woman had said. She had no reason to lie. "I'm sorry," George said. "Sorry for her treatment, and sorry for her death. But that's your great grandson crying out there. I know your people don't accept half-blooded children, but he still has Asha's blood in him. You can't want to harm him. Soldest's wife wants him for her own. She loves him."
Aliza snorted derisively. "You think, giorgio, a woman could love the baby of her husband's mistress. You are a ranger; you live in the wild, and you know nothing of women."
George shifted, uncomfortable in both his body and mind. It was true he didn't understand women well, but he couldn't give up. "And you are Vistana," he retorted," you live among Vistani, and you know nothing of the giorgio. We cherish children no matter where they come from. Soldest's wife only wants a child."
"Soldest's wife wants only her husband's heir," Aliza declared.
"That's not true," George growled.
"If she should have an heir of her own, she'd find some way to rid herself of her husband's half-blood. And even if she loves this baby, soon this baby will be a boy, and a boy will follow his father. Better Tristessa should take the baby for her own. "Aliza looked up, beyond her prisoner, and smiled sadly.
"Who is this Tristessa?" George asked.
"Tristessa: it means the Sad One," Aliza explained.
"She was once a priestess of the dark elves."
"The dark elves? You mean the drow? Like the drow from the kingdom of Arak?" George grew agitated and worried. The drow of Arak were rumored to be exceedingly cruel, but since no human captured by them was ever seen again, the rumors were impossible to confirm. "A drow. Good gods, woman! How could you leave your grandchild with a drow?" he growled.
"How quick you are to judge, ranger," the Vistana growled back. "Listen to the Sad One's tale, and understand. Long ago, in Arak, she bore a child. The child was born deformed; it had no legs of its own, only the legs of a spider, so the drow insisted it be put to death. The Sad One loved her child, though, and would not give up her baby. The drow dragged her and her baby to the surface and left them staked out for the sunlight to burn their flesh away. Her baby perished, but she escaped death and came to this land. She wanders throughout the night, half mad, grieving for her lost child. In the day she hides in a cavern high up in the mountain — "Aliza froze suddenly. "There she is now," she whispered, and pointed up the slope.
George twisted his head to look where Aliza indicated. The sky was growing light all about them, and any moment the sun would rise. He could see now that he lay not far from the rock where he'd seen Aliza lay the baby. George could just make out the Sad One's figure moving up the mountain. Her long white hair and dark gown blew all about her slender body. A cold shiver ran down George's spine.
At the rock where the baby lay in its bundle, still shrieking, the figure stopped suddenly and looked down. George gasped. As the figure bent over and picked up the baby, the baby's crying ceased. George breathed a sigh of relief. Another shiver crawled down the ranger's spine. The air was perfectly still, now — maybe too still. The figure seemed to drift like a cloud up the slope and to the west until it disappeared behind the mountain with the baby.
Aliza sighed once sadly and looked back down at her tarokka cards. She gathered them together, wrapped them up in a scarf, and slipped them into a pocket of her skirt. "Heed me now, giorgio. There are powers in this world, powers great and dark, powers beyond your ken. Such powers preserved the Sad One in Arak and brought her h
ere. The tarokka says you are destined to travel much farther, and I dare not interfere with your destiny." The Vistana drew out a dagger. "But if you interfere with the Sad One, if you challenge the powers behind her, your destiny might be greatly shortened. "The dagger cut through the leather strip holding George's left wrist to the ground.
The Vistana rose suddenly and dashed down the slope, disappearing like a wild creature into the trees.
George reached over to pick at the binding holding his other wrist. It took him more than a few minutes to work free the knots. He sat up and used his dagger to cut the bindings about his boots.
It took him a few more minutes to stand up and loosen his stiff muscles. Then he tried to straighten out his thoughts. He had promised Soldest's wife he would return with the baby, but his faith in the woman had been shaken by Aliza's evil insinuations. Still, could he trust a drow with the baby, even a drow who had loved her own deformed child enough to risk her life for it? He had to check on the baby's safety first. He would learn more of this drow, too, then decide what to do.
George continued up the slope of the mountain. Above the tree line patches of dead brambles competed for space with fields of browning thistles. There seemed to be no natural trails, and it took George hours to follow the route taken so quickly by the Sad One.
Once his foot crunched down on a long white bone. He discovered most of a human skeleton just downslope, covered by brambles. He tossed a ritual handful of dirt on the skull and continued on uneasily, wishing he could afford the time to bury the remains. Had the bones belonged to a victim of the drow, he wondered, or had their owner fallen prey to some other wilderness tragedy, and the drow blameless? Later, when he spotted a second skeleton, George did not even bother with the ritual handful of dirt, and his uneasiness grew.
