Magus

by R H Frye

  Something about this crow caught John's attention, however. To begin with, the bird seemed to be staring straight at him. He knew the idea was absurd, but that was how it felt. The bird seemed to stare at him expectantly, although John had no idea why he felt that way. The stare lasted for perhaps a half-minute, and then the crow jumped from the limb to glide silently to the grass between the house and the woods.

  From its new location in the scruffy grass of his grandfather's small back yard, the crow peered at him for a few more seconds, then gave a loud, seemingly frustrated "CAWW!" that John heard easily over the noisy humming of the air conditioner. The bird then turned and hopped a couple of feet towards the forest before turning to stare back at John expectantly. It was almost like…but no, that was crazy. There was no way that damned bird wanted him to follow it. And even if it did, impossible as that seemed, he was not about to go chasing into the woods on the whim of a crow, no matter how strange its behavior.

  John was about to turn away from the window (and the crazy thoughts he was having) ready to forget the whole strange experience, when the odd suddenly became the surreal. As he watched, to his utter disbelief, the wolf he had spotted earlier loped quietly from the woods and dropped to its haunches beside the crow. The crow never stirred but continued to stare expectantly up at John through the window. The wolf's jaw dropped open and its tongue hung from the side of its mouth in an expression that bore an uncanny resemblance to an amused grin.

  John stood staring at the unlikely pair crouched in his grandfather's backyard. He was too stunned by the completely abnormal behavior of the pair of animals to do anything else. Finally, he squeezed his eyes tightly closed, kept them closed for several seconds, and then opened them with every expectation of seeing an empty backyard before him. Instead, both of his visitors still sat regarding him silently. If possible, the crow looked even more frustrated and the wolf's grin seemed wider than ever.

  "What the hell is going on here?" John wondered aloud. On a whim, more from frustration with the impossibility of the situation than anything else, John asked, "You two don't happen to know my grandfather, do you?" He asked the question sarcastically, not expecting or wanting a response. But a response was given. The wolf closed its mouth, erasing that amused grin before bobbing its head once as if answering John's question with a yes. Apparently satisfied with establishing a dialogue, the odd pair of animals then looked at one another and moved. The wolf turned to its left and darted out of sight around the corner of the house. John flinched as the crow took to the air, initially flying directly towards the window. At the last possible second, it veered upwards and flapped out of sight over the cabin.

  John turned from the window and dashed through the house and the open front door onto the porch. He arrived on the porch just in time to see the wolf leap from the dirt driveway to jump over his tailgate into the bed of his truck, as the crow sailed in for a landing on his expensive, metal Ram's head hood ornament. Clearly, the unlikely pair thought a trip was in order.

  Yielding to the insanity of the moment, John locked the door to his grandfather's cabin. He sighed, shook his head, and walked around the front of the truck to the driver's door, pausing briefly to stroke the soft black feathers on the crow's neck. He turned to ask the wolf, "Comfortable?" and received a bark in reply, then climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. As he shifted the transmission to Drive, the crow flew to the nearby highway to lead John into the afternoon of what had already been a very long, strange day.

  Chapter 3

  Panting for breath, John stopped and cursed quietly to himself.

  He had been hiking for most of an hour, since the crow had flapped tiredly into the turnoff below one of the entry points to the Appalachian Trail. The combination of the late afternoon heat and the humidity of a North Carolina summer had turned his relatively short hike into the woods into something closely resembling work. John considered himself to be in good physical condition, but he had not been hiking much at all since leaving Cherokee as a teenager, and he had forgotten how much effort could be involved.

  “Hey, wait up a minute,” John called to the wolf that was loping easily through the forest in front of him. The wolf turned to sit looking at John, panting through its teasing grin, and then bounded down the hill they were descending just as John drew within a few feet of the animal’s rest stop. A moment after the wolf disappeared into the trees John heard water splashing and the familiar sound of that a canine makes when lapping water.

  At the sound of the water, John broke into a jog. He was thirsty from his exertions and had not thought to bring drinking water along for this expedition, so the sound of water was music to his ears. He bulled his way through the undergrowth the wolf had entered and emerged on the bank of a small stream to see the wolf standing in the current drinking the fresh water from upstream. John sank gratefully to his knees on the bank and leaned forward to plunge his head into the shallow pool where the wolf was standing.

  Barely a second later, John pulled his head from the water and gasped from the coolness of the stream. He had forgotten how cold the water in these streams that flowed through the mountains could be, even in summer. Still, the cold water was wonderfully refreshing as it dripped from his head onto his chest and back. After a few seconds to recover from the shivers caused by the cool water, John leaned forward again to drink from his cupped hands.

  After drinking his fill of the chilly water, John sat back just in time to see the crow land softly on a large flat rock a short distance up the next hill. John was a bit surprised to see the bird. After leading him to the turnoff where he left his truck, the bird had perched wearily in a tree as the wolf led John into the woods. Apparently, the crow was rested now, since it was staring at him impatiently and pacing on the rock with the odd, strutting walk common to most birds.

  Just as the crow began to caw impatiently at John, he finally recognized his location in the forest. The stream he had used to satisfy his thirst was the one he had crossed during the dream of his grandfather. He climbed to his feet and started up the hill to be certain, but he was almost sure that the rock the crow was perched on was the site of their conversation in the dream. The wolf splashed noisily out of the stream to pad along quietly behind John.

  Approaching the big squared-off slab of rock, John realized that his suspicions were correct. This was the spot from his dream of the previous night, and these animals had led him to it. John decided that it was time to consider all that was happening and decide what to do about it. He sat on a corner of the big slab to think. Apparently, the crow did not care for his dawdling, since it winged its way to a limb in a nearby tree and turned to caw loudly at him once more. “Oh, shut up a minute, would you?” John snapped irritably at the bird. To his surprise, it immediately fell silent, although it continued to stare at him.

  John hunched forward on the rock and rested his chin on his fist. Apparently, it was time to adjust his thinking on a few things. The dreams of the previous night, coupled with the events of the day, demanded a drastic alteration of his stubborn opinions on certain subjects that he had been ignoring since the death of his father. There were only a few explanations that fit the facts and no explanation that he particularly liked. John carefully considered each explanation and attempted to dispassionately weigh each one.

  First the day could simply be one long series of coincidences. The dream could have been just some random response to the stress of his work. And maybe he had somehow stumbled onto a couple of wild animals that his grandfather had somehow tamed.

  Or he could be losing his mind. Maybe his guilt and grief over his grandfather’s passing had caused him to imagine the dream after receiving the phone call from Matt this morning. Maybe there was no wolf and no crow, and he was just out stumbling through the woods to avoid dealing with the arrangements for his grandfather’s funeral.

  John did not really believe either of those explanations. He had always dealt with life on his own terms
and in his own honest and straightforward fashion. He like himself and his work and was honest with himself about his faults. He had never been prone to daydreams or evasions of reality, and he could not bring himself to believe, as much as he wanted to, that the day was just one long coincidence. That decision left only one frightening conclusion.

  Reluctantly, John finally surrendered to the reality of his situation. The dreams were real. The crow and the wolf really were guiding him to a destination from one of those dreams. Sent by his grandfather or some other unknown benefactor, the animals were pulling him along a path to…what? And that question worried him more than anything else. If he admitted to himself that the dreams were real and there was more to this world than could be seen at a glance, what else may he find on the road ahead? What was he supposed to find at the top of this hill? And what could the discoveries ahead mean for his life? John was not at all certain that he wanted to find out.

  Still, a promise was a promise and John was a man of his word. He had promised his grandfather to climb this hill and see what was there to see. The fact that the promise had been made in a dream no longer mattered at all. His decision made, John stood to resume his climb up the hill.

  As he climbed the hill, John noticed that the sun was now behind the crest of the hill he was climbing, and the hillside was in the shadow of an early twilight as a result. He quickened his pace a bit since he had no desire to try to find his way back through the forest after dark.

  As he walked up the hill, the rustling of dead leaves on the ground partially masked an unnatural stillness that seemed to grow deeper as he neared the top of the hill. John noticed the stillness in a distracted way as it contributed to a strong sense of unease that he had never felt in the forest before. His animal guides seemed to have been affected by this disquiet as well. The wolf no longer raced ahead. Instead, the playful canine seemed to slink uneasily through the trees just in front of him, and the crow was now flitting from tree to tree overhead instead of flying to the limits of his vision. The bird was now eerily silent, no longer cawing at him to demand speed.

  As John came to the last few trees before the clearing, the crow stopped in the last tree and stared at him in silence. John had the impression that his feathered companion would go no farther. The wolf more openly voiced its displeasure by sinking to crouch on its belly and making a noise that failed to be either a growl or a whine but fell somewhere between the two. John reached down to pat the wolf and mumbled, “Easy boy. You can stay here.” He was already starting to regard the cheerful wolf and irritable crow as friends, so their reluctance to enter the clearing was unnerving to say the least.

  John took a deep breath to prepare for whatever lay ahead. He had no idea of what he may see when he entered the clearing, but he was forced to admit that he was more frightened than he could ever remember. The hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck were standing on end, he felt like he had a large rock in the pit of his stomach, and he could feel his testicles drawn up tight against his body. His mouth was dry and his throat clicked as he tried to swallow past the lump that had suddenly formed there. He felt like there was some malignant energy at work in the clearing ahead, something ancient, dark, and twisted.

  As the fear washed through John in waves of icy darkness, he gave serious thought to running back to his truck, and never mind some silly promise made in a dream. Just as his will began to crumble and blind panic was on the verge of sending him fleeing to his truck, a tingling sensation spread from his sternum to rapidly reach every part of his body. The tingling soon passed and left in its wake the most blissful feelings of relief, warmth, and love. Abruptly the fear was gone, banished as if it had never existed.

  "What the hell was that all about?" John wondered aloud. What was the source of his unreasoning fear? And perhaps a more important question was what had happened to break the panic that had nearly forced him to flee like a coward? Maybe he would find the answers to some of his questions in the clearing ahead. With one last breath for courage John pushed through the underbrush and stepped resolutely into the clearing.

  John was not sure what he had expected to see in the clearing, but a rough excavation surrounded by the scattered remains of a campsite did not measure up to the horrific visions that had danced at the edges of his awareness.

  By some unconscious decision he chose to investigate the scattered camping gear first. A fairly nice dome tent was lying where it had been carelessly tossed at the base of a young poplar tree. A propane stove manufactured by Coleman, a fairly expensive piece of camping equipment, was set up spanning across the tops of four small rocks that had been placed on the dried leaves of the forest floor to provide a makeshift range for cooking.

  John noticed two backpacks upended near the camp stove with a jumble of male and female undergarments mixed in with the other assorted jeans, shirts, blouses, and socks. A closer look at the packs revealed names and addresses for the missing owners of the assorted camping equipment, a Ms. Carol Connelly and a Mr. Daniel Greene of Taylorsville, North Carolina. John vaguely remembered the name of the town, recalling only that it was somewhere near Hickory, to the north of Charlotte. John slipped the white address cards from their clear plastic sleeves and slid them in a back pocket of his jeans with a vague thought of possibly presenting them to the police.

  As John worked his way towards the excavation in the center of the clearing, he began to hear the unmistakable buzzing of flies. Raised on the reservation and having spent a considerable amount of time rambling through the woods as a boy, he knew that a large collection of flies was usually a sign of death in the forest. His steps slowed in dread of what he may find in the open wound in the earth. As he drew almost near enough to see into the hole, one of his dragging boots struck an object nearly buried by the dead leaves outside the dig. With a quiet metallic clank, a small pot rolled free of the leaves. John picked up the pot and was surprised to see that a closer inspection revealed that it was hardly fit for use in its original capacity. The pot was filthy, scratched, and dented and about one third of its rim had been worn down by something until its shape was more of a scoop than a cylinder.

  John tossed the pot aside, at a loss for an explanation, before stepping forward the last few feet to peer down finally at the scene inside the pit. His jaw dropped open as he stared in astonishment at the sight before him.

  "My God, it's real!" he whispered as chills of shock and revulsion raced up and down his spine. He recognized the bloodstained object in the center of the pit. Although his mind still recoiled from what his eyes were recording, he knew without a doubt that the altar before him and the one from his dreams were one and the same. He could not explain that fact, could hardly accept it, and yet could not deny that this was the same horrid altar that had been the centerpiece of so many dreams throughout his life. The color and texture of the stone was the same. The arcane inscriptions were all there. The question was what was the damned thing doing here? Who unearthed it, and why?

  Overcoming his shock and revulsion, John forced his feet to carry him into the pit so he could examine the altar.

  The most obvious detail that John noticed was the blood that was drying in the arcane inscriptions. A cloud of flies was dancing above the altar while several more crawled across the inscriptions looking for tacky pools of blood that had yet to dry to the same dark maroon shade as the rest. Prying his eyes from the sight of the flies going about their grisly business, John saw scraps of bloodstained ropes lying beneath the altar. The positions of the ropes under the altar suggested that they had been used to restrain the source of the fresh blood. Circling to his left towards what appeared to be the foot of the altar John saw yet more blood drying inside a cup that was lying on the ground past the end of the altar. Splashes of blood had soaked into the dead leaves and soft earth beside the metal cup.

  Reluctantly, John began to draw some conclusions from the horrid scene. Something, or more likely someone, had been sacrificed here for some unknown pur
pose. At least two people had left behind a large quantity of clothes and camping equipment. John did not know who was responsible for the mess he had found, but the mystery in the clearing seemed to be connected with his dreams of the ancient battle and his grandfather. But what was he supposed to do about it? He thought it best to sort things out on the way back to his truck since the light was fading fast, and he probably only had about an hour of daylight, at most, to find his way back.

  John turned to climb out of the pit. As he reached the top of the dirt bank that sloped in towards the altar, he heard a voice behind him. "You should never have come here little man. We were almost gone from this area when I felt you, oozing your hateful power, coming to this place that your kind damned me to so many years ago."

  John wheeled to face the voice but could only see the silhouette of a man against the sinking evening sun. The figure was tall and lean and appeared to be tossing something from hand to hand, although the glare from the setting sun made it difficult to be certain. John crouched, sensing a danger for which he was completely unprepared. "Who are you?" he asked warily.

  "Do you pretend not to know? Or can it be? Have your kind truly forgotten me? Hmm, I can sense from your mind that you have. How lovely." John could feel the evil glee in the figure's voice. "Even better. My revenge shall be swift and painful in the extreme. This world will tremble before me, as it did ages ago.

  "My name, so you may scream it with your dying breath, is Maraydel. And here is a small gift to speed you on your journey. Catch." With this last word Maraydel drew back his arm to throw the object he had been juggling at John. Before the arm could whip forward however, a black cloud of feathers, wings, beak, and claws was suddenly attacking his face. Maraydel recoiled in surprise and brought the arm up to protect his face, the object still gripped tightly in his fist.