Witch hunter, p.26
Witch Hunter, page 26
Sitting on a boulder, Samina looked around. She had noticed there had been no sign of the children of the Ghost Streets this time. Perhaps, after the storyteller’s death, they had retreated into their holes and caves at last, never to come out again. The thought depressed her. She bowed her head and looked at her feet. Feet that had touched the Sanctissima and were now only a few paces away from the jagged spike of volcanic glass that was the entrance to the Abyss. Feet that had almost burned to a crisp that night.
In front of her, her light hovered, piercing through the fog and illuminating the entrance to the Abyss in a soft, pale glow that caressed the grotesque engravings of Heaven, Earth, Abyss and Hell with unfitting gentleness.
She knew that Sigurd’s hand on her shoulder was supposed to feel reassuring, but she sensed his impatience.
“He’ll come,” she said, without turning to face him.
“I know you have much faith in the witch hunter, Samina.”
Was that an underhanded reproach? She shook off the thought. What was she thinking? He was her brother. Of course he would be distrustful of a witch hunter.
“I know it’s difficult to understand,” she said, still inspecting her feet, “but he has become my friend.”
“Just a friend?” Sigurd answered.
Now she turned around, annoyed.
He stood there, leaning on that gnarled staff he had used to summon the ravens. The look in his eyes was inscrutable. Sigurd never used to be inscrutable. She used to be able to read his face like an open book.
“What do you think, brother?”
That I would love this man?
He shook off the thought.
“I’m sorry, Samina. I know you would never –“
“I wouldn’t.”
He nodded.
Samina did love the witch hunter, of course. Just as she loved Sigurd. Maybe differently. She didn’t know. Ludlov had become dear to her.
Looking up at her brother, she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t think of anything.
There was silence between them, and silence around them. Suddenly, Samina noticed how she had curled her toes inward. She knew her own body language well enough to realise she was suppressing feelings of discomfort. She scoffed at her own emotions. It had been such a long time, of course it would feel weird to speak to him now. Still, the silence was too long and she wanted to say something – anything – to break this awful, awkward quiet.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you, this past year,” she said.
Sigurd’s face softened. Samina’s light reflected in his eyes, making them vibrant.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you and mother,” he replied.
Mother.
“I’m sorry I missed her passing,” he added.
“If you had been there, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”
She immediately regretted her words.
Sigurd looked at her, horrified.
“I’m sorry,” Samina said. “I didn’t mean that it was your fault because you left… I just meant that I failed to save her on my own.”
“No… You’re right,” Sigurd said, staring off into nothingness. “If I had stayed home… We’d still have had the wagon.
Maybe we could have evaded the fire. Mother paid the price for my leaving.”
“I know it was important to you,” Samina said, pulling her legs close to herself and hugging her knees. “At least… Now I do.”
“What do you mean?” Sigurd asked, looking at her somewhat hurt again.
“Well… I never knew why you left,” she explained, and caught herself sounding somewhat defensive about it. He still looked puzzled.
“I mean… You were never that interested in the Black Sickle. I don’t know why you suddenly felt it was so important to infiltrate them.”
He smiled somewhat sheepishly.
“I suppose I never did explain that to you very well, did I?”
He sighed.
“Do you remember what life was like back in East-Ivennendale, Samina?”
“It was wonderful,” she said.
Sigurd shook his head.
“You were too young to understand, I suppose.”
“Oh no,” Samina countered. “I understood. I knew the villagers mistrusted us. I knew father was the only reason why they even allowed us to settle there.”
They both knew gypsies hadn’t always enjoyed a very good reputation, particularly the Ungra tribe, and for most ordinary folk it was hard to tell the difference between Sintra and Ungra.
Sigurd stared at her.
“After he died,” he said, “mother had a terribly difficult time there. Did she ever tell you?”
“Yes, she did, Sigurd,” she shrugged. “I know that’s why we left for the city.”
Where was he going with this?
“Did you never stop to think why that was?”
She thought about it for a moment.
“Because of the Woronitzian editions,” she said. Thinking of Ludlov, she experienced the rise of a sudden warmth inside of her, like a small fire lit in the midst of a snowy wood at night.
Sigurd ignored her response.
“Because people like the cultists of the Black Sickle make people like us look very bad, Samina,” he said.
“That’s all?”
Sigurd scowled again.
“It’s not good enough for you,” he said.
“We needed you, Siggy. I don’t mean to judge you, but I do wonder what the real reason is why you felt it necessary to infiltrate.”
“I told you. I know how dangerous they are. How they make the world hate all of us. I wanted to bring them down.”
Samina sighed and played with her hair, her fingers moving swiftly and nervously. It used to be the easiest thing in the world to talk to her brother.
“You did tell me that,” she said, leaving her hair alone. “And I believe you. But that’s not the whole story. I know it isn’t, Sigurd. You can tell me. I’ll understand.”
He looked away from her. The movement of his chest exposed his rapid breathing and the tightness of his lips betrayed his frustration.
“You won’t understand, Samina,” he said. The fragility of his voice startled her. It was the first hint of a truly honest answer to her question.
“You can’t understand and you never will. You don’t know how it feels. It was always… easy for you.”
Were there tears in his eyes?
“Easy?” she asked softly. “What do you mean?”
Her brother shrugged.
“That light,” he said, pointing to the hovering star.
“It’s nothing to you, is it? Healing the ill, summoning good dreams, communicating with animals and making plants grow even without sunshine or rain… You’re a miracle. It was always so hard for me. Even the smallest conjuration.”
Samina frowned. She had never felt any hint of this jealousy in him. Sigurd had always been supportive of her abilities.
“You joined the Black Sickle because you wanted to be better than me?”
He didn’t respond, looking away to hide his tears.
“But you have grown better, Sigurd. It worries me that you learned these things in an evil cult, but the way you channeled your power animal tonight… I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
He scoffed and shook his head. Turning to her, his eyes were reddened.
“So you think I joined the Black Sickle because they happened to know how to control my power animal in their magic?”
He sounded offended at the very notion and Samina didn’t understand why.
“Didn’t you?” she asked.
His eyes widened, and with that, a grin appeared on his face. A large, unsettling grin. He shook his head again, still grinning.
“It’s the other way around, silly.”
Something tugged at Samina’s heart. The look in Sigurd’s eye scared her. He approached and she recoiled.
“Look here,” he said, handing her his knapsack. “You will find something inside.”
She gave him a wary look, then drew her light close to her shoulder and opened the bag to rummage through it. The light reflected on something shiny inside. She grabbed the object to take a look at it.
Her heart sank as she took it out of the knapsack. It was a gleaming black mask with a long raven beak for a nose.
“What does this mean?” she asked in a small voice.
“It’s who I really am, Sam,” Sigurd said, adding another smile.
He never used to smile like that.
“Who you are?”
She looked at the empty eyes of the mask, thinking back on the robed figure she had seen in the tunnels. The murderer of the storyteller. Squeezing the mask in a tight grip, she took a deep breath, preparing her question. She shouldn’t have to ask.
It wasn’t necessary.
But why did she feel the need to ask?
“Did you kill the storyteller?”
It had escaped her lips far more easily than she had expected, rushing out like an escapee from a burning building.
“Did you steal the Stones?”
She didn’t want to look up and face him, but she had to.
When she did, his eyes had already betrayed him. Sigurd held out his hand to her.
“Give me the mask, Samina, and I will show you.”
Samina slowly shook her head; she had barely heard what he had said.
“Why?” she whispered.
“I will show you.”
“Show me what, Sigurd? Show me how wearing a mask gives you reason to murder an innocent creature?”
Sigurd scoffed. “That thing wasn’t even human. I put it out of its misery.”
Samina pulled the mask close to her chest. He wouldn’t have it. Whoever this man was, he was surely not the brother who had played with her in the Wildwood, who had protected her from all the perils of the city and worked hard to provide for their family.
“This isn’t you, Sigurd.”
Suddenly his eyes grew fierce.
“You are holding who I am in your hand, Samina,” he said, advancing on her.
Samina receded, crawling off the boulder.
“Give it to me and you will know,” he said more forcefully.
“This is not you, Sigurd,” she repeated. “You don’t need this! You are my brother, you’re a good man, you don’t need…”
She felt her back suddenly bumping into cold stone. Inadvertently, she had backed away from him, and now she was cornered between Sigurd and the gate to the Abyss. She felt numb, like either she had no more tears to shed or she simply couldn’t accept the reality of it all.
“The world is not as simple as you would like it to be, Samina.”
She clutched the mask in both hands. A desperate grip.
“I know the Voice of Temptation is powerful,” Samina said. “I know they did something to you, but you can fight back, you can still return!”
Sigurd narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips.
“You don’t know the first thing about the world, Samina,” he chided. “You’re innocent and ignorant. You have seen nothing. But I… I have seen the darkness ahead…”
His eyes were wide with terror.
“Seen it firsthand…”
This wasn’t Sigurd who was speaking. This raving madman had nothing in common with the brother she had loved. He had to still be in there, somewhere.
“Why do you need this mask, Sigurd?” she said again.
“What good will you do with it? What will it serve? Isn’t it just a symbol of the evil that…”
“Shut up!” he cried.
Samina breathed in deeply. She would not give in to the tangled mass of feelings rushing at her from some darkness below. She would not.
“What have they done to you?”
He came closer, towering over her and grinning maliciously. His teeth and eyes gleamed in Samina’s floating light.
“What they’ve done to me? You want to know that, sis?
Then give me the mask and you will know what they’ve done to me!”
Samina shook her head frantically.
“No,” she said. “We need to wait until Ludlov is here.”
She had to buy time somehow.
“We won’t wait. Give me the mask. Now.”
His pose and his face told Samina he was a mere moment away from simply tearing the mask from her hands. It suddenly reminded her of the time when they were children and Sigurd used to tease her by taking her toys and playing with them.
She used to plead with him. Give it back, she would say. And then he would answer…
“If you can catch me!”
With those words, Samina planted her right knee in Sigurd’s groin and slipped away. She dashed between the rocks, away from Sigurd. She had no idea where to go in this forsaken chasm, but it would be away from him. The sharp rocks hurt even through her callused foot soles, but she would keep on running, running, running, her heartbeat racing, the muscles in her legs burning with exertion. In front of her, she could only see fog and darkness, but it didn’t matter: it was away from him. Then a wall of black feathers materialised right in front of her. She stopped dead in her tracks, stumbling back. The feathers disappeared, revealing Sigurd. He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her close to him.
“Bad decision, sis,” he said. “Ravens fly faster than little girls can run. Give me the mask.”
Goddess, what had her brother become? Samina felt herself weaken in his grip. He let go of one arm and easily slipped the mask from her powerless fingers.
As he brought the mask to his face, Samina heard a terrible sound of squeezed flesh and stretching sinews. She witnessed how the mask sucked itself to Sigurd’s face. The skin around his eyes tightened, the veins in his temples swelled to the surface, looking like the twisting branches of a winter tree. Behind the mask’s sockets, his eyes lit up with an orange light. The light of the Seven Stones. His voice sounded distorted and yet clear and loud, and more strangely, it sounded like it came from all around Samina.
“This is what I have become, Samina. And now it is time to open the gate…”
He pulled at her arm, dragging her along with him as he called out to the gate.
“Open, Gates of Oblivion! The Raven brings the Pureblood!”
Every muscle in Samina’s body felt like it was on fire.
She had no idea where the pain came from, but it shocked her out of all other thoughts, reducing her to a limp and helpless thing. She wanted to cry out, but no cry came. As her vision blurred and the world began to fade into gloom, she thought she saw someone approaching. A long coat and a tall hat with a wide brim. Darkness.
***
Ludlov ran as fast as he could, knowing it would never be fast enough. The gate hadn’t opened in any traditional sense. It had simply faded and turned into a glimmering vertical pool of black, stagnant water. The Masked One had already stepped through it and simply disappeared. Samina, halfway into the gate herself, reached for him with one free arm, her eyes huge with shock and terror. Her face disappeared behind the black water, then her outstretched hand. Then she was gone, and the light with her.
At once, the world lost all colour, turning into a shadow realm of black and grey shapes.
This gate would not remain open for much longer, Ludlov knew. The cold, rippling gateway stared him in the face, daring him to ignore his natural instincts and run headfirst into it.
He knew it was possible. He has seen the Masked One do it. Ludlov took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and dashed forward.
Coldness washed over him, like he had actually fallen into a black pool in the heart of winter. The cold pressed on him from all sides, like some ice titan from the legends of the northern barbarians was crushing him in his fist. He couldn’t think and didn’t dare to breathe. It lasted long, too long. A piercing pain entered through his forehead and spread through his brain, into his neck and down to his shoulders. More pain arrived, different pain, like little bird claws scratching at his eyeballs. It was horrendous and it only became worse. He instinctively gasped for breath, but all that entered was pure coldness that hurt in his throat and lungs. His whole body hurt now, and he was aware of nothing but the pain. Then it ended. The last ghost of the pain fled from his body. Warm relief flowed through him. He shuddered and breathed in wonderful, soft, ordinary air. Beyond his still-closed eyelids, he became aware of the flickering light of fire.
He smelled incense and burned flesh. His eyes felt glued shut but he managed to open them. He was on his knees, looking at his gloved hands. He was still in one piece. He even had his hat, which was lying beside him. There were rocks all around him. Trembling, Ludlov got up and carefully peered over the rubble in front of him. He was just tall enough to be able to do so without having to climb.
It was a cave so massive it could easily have hosted a small farming village. There were thousands upon thousands of torches lit all around, like little flickering stars in a rocky firmament.
Most of the cave consisted of natural rock formations, but there were also elegantly carved balconies, stairways, columns and platforms there, as well as hundreds of little doorways leading to unseen places. It reminded Ludlov of an underground version of the ruins of Urba Classica he had once seen, but some of the shapes were also similar to elements from the Grand Cathedral. Here in this cave, the delicacy of the artwork felt strangely out of place. In front of him, he saw Samina and the Masked One, hardly more than a dozen yards away. She was standing beside that man now, head bowed, looking at her feet. Beyond them, the ground sloped down and suddenly ended: most of the cave looked down on a huge, gaping hole, black as night. The darkness of that place was alive, Ludlov thought. He could feel it breathe somehow, even though it didn’t move or make a sound. He just felt it. It was undoubtedly the Abyss. The open wound in the Earth that gave way to Hell, where Lucchus lived. Looking into that blackness, Ludlov suddenly felt deeply afraid when he realised he was looking straight into the Evil’s den. On the far side, there was a great half-circle balcony, at least fifty feet wide. The balcony had no railings. It simply hung precariously over the Abyss, almost like a challenge.
