Part One: Through a Dark Wood

1. THE DEMON-SET PATH

In the twilight gloom of an autumn-touched forest, the young wizard paused to listen to the wind.

It whispered through the dying leaves, giving up the last of their life in a shout of color, and set the skeletal branches they clung to creaking. It rustled through undergrowth choked with black thornbush, lifting ghostly fragments of foliage into swirling eddies around his dusty, travel-worn boots. The wizard shivered as it passed him by, tugging at the edge of his black-furred cloak, drawing his faded red scarf tighter against the gathering chill.

It was not so much the wind that concerned him. He did not have the skill to listen to it, as some could, to predict storms and droughts. It was the fact that he could hear nothing but the wind - no birdsong nor chirp of cricket interrupted it. No sound of anything living at all could be heard in this part of the forest, in fact, except for his own unsteady breath. This, more than anything, made him think he may have found what he was looking for.

He stood in a clearing, in the shadow of a large gray boulder covered in lichen and creeping vines. Tall as he was, it towered above him, nearly twice his height, and just as wide besides. He reached out to touch it with one gloved hand, breaking away some of the dried bramble, thoughtful, the strange stillness of the forest momentarily forgotten. Olive-skinned, his face was dirtied by travel, and his long dark hair was unkempt, knotted. He wore dark, weathered leathers, a sword buckled at his hip, and a hunting crossbow slung over one broad shoulder.

Though his face remained calm, a light seemed to spark in his dark green eyes, and the shadow of a smile flickered across his face, as he pondered the stone with hungry curiosity. It was clear that whatever it was, it had at one point been carved by man. Whoever had taken the chisel to it was long gone now, though; vines had grown over it and pried apart its seams, and time had worn away at it, leaving only the ghost of what had once been. This, it seemed, had once been the head of some enormous statue. Too far gone, now, to tell who it had been meant to honor, or if it had been man, woman, or even human. Little more than the suggestion of eyes and a nose, all the rest buried in earth and lost to time.

The wizard lingered for a moment, frowning, narrowing his eyes, as if by simply staring harder he might get the stone to give up its secrets. Then he sighed, stepping back. He was not here for whatever faded glory this forgotten statue represented. Glancing about, he slowed, and noted uneasily how the trees seemed unwilling to even enter the clearing, their crooked black limbs seemed to bend away, twisting unnaturally, painfully, just to not grow within it.

“Well,” he whispered to himself, “‘it is time to get on with it.”

Reaching beneath his scarf, he drew out a corded thong that hung about his neck, from the end of which dangled a curious cage of dull, rusted iron, no larger than the circle his thumb and forefinger would make if held together. All of a solid piece, unhinged, it had jagged slots carved into one side of it to reveal its contents: a jagged shard so dark that it seemed as if it had been broken off from the night sky itself.

The wizard held this odd little charm balanced flat in the palm of his glove, holding his arm outward. He stared at the cage, at the shard in the cage, for a long, quiet moment, remaining as still as possible, holding his breath.

Nothing happened.

Finally, he gave a sigh, part disappointment, part relief. But just as he was about to pull his arm back, the little shard of darkness jerked sharply, of its own accord.

The man froze, his breath catching in his throat, and extended his arm outward once more. The shard rocked back and forth within its cage, ever so slightly at first, so slight that it might have seemed to be mere accident - but then faster, and harder, rattling within the cage, angrily, violently, seized by some invisible force. And then it spun, in fits and starts, until it came to rest, the narrow end pointing firmly in one direction, and was still.

The young wizard stared at the cage in his palm for a long, silent moment, but it did not move again. He felt a chill grip his heart, and his hand shook as he tucked the little cage back beneath his scarf. "Well, fool," he muttered to himself, "This is what you wanted."

The only response to his voice was the low sigh of the wind, reminding him of how utterly alone he was, here. Only I’m not really alone, am I. Swallowing his nerves, the wizard moved forward, following the direction the little black shard had pointed him toward. Past the time-faded statue, stepping carefully over dry black brambles that had grown around it. The underbrush gave way to clear ground, as if even thorns did not want to grow here, and when his boots swept aside the leaves, they revealed dark loam studded with small pieces of gravel, and the occasional fragment of flat rock.

The wizard found himself speculating, as he often did when he was nervous. The oddly flat rocks were signs of the remains of a floor, perhaps, or a plaza. If one knew to look, the clearing was a bit too regular in shape to be natural, and the ground too level. Other stones, too, once he walked past the statue, lay scattered about - smaller, almost entirely buried in leaves, but placed too neatly for nature’s hand. What was left of columns, maybe. A building, then? It must have been terribly ancient, and he without the knowledge of history to know who might have built it. Though it might have been the case that even a scholar would not have known. Too much of history was rumor and stories, and contradicting ones at that.

These idle thoughts offered little comfort, and it was not long before any lingering curiosity about what this place might have been was driven from his mind entirely.

With every step along the path pointed out to him by the black shard, the air seemed to grow heavier. A sense of unease washed over him, twisting his stomach into knots. Something was here, he knew, which ought not to be, something here was wrong, and he was walking towards it. Dread clawed at his heart, and panic rose in him, leaping up his throat, but he bit it off, smothered it before it could blossom. He could not afford to break and run away, not now. He had found what he was looking for, and to flee, in this moment, would almost certainly mean his life.

He forced himself to walk forward, step by step, his breath ragged, until finally he stood before the entrance of a cave.

It may have been a natural cave, or perhaps it had once served as an entrance to a basement for whatever building had once lain here. It was impossible to tell. If it had been built by man, no sign of that remained. It was little more than a hole in the earth, large enough for him to step into without ducking, that descended down, quickly, into a darkness so black that it seemed to simply drink the light that shone into it.

The man stared down into that darkness for a long moment. The entire world seemed to fall away. The forest, the wind, the clearing, the faded statue, all gone. All that existed was him, standing at the lip of this dark hole, and the more he gazed into it, the surer he became that it simply went on forever. If he fell into it, it would be nothing but that utter darkness and himself, for all of time.

“Move,” he whispered to himself, so softly that even his own ears could not hear. But he did not, could not. He felt as if he wasn’t within his body, that he was without it, watching himself. "Move, move," he hissed furiously, and finally something in his blood seemed to awaken, catch fire.

He stumbled backwards from the cave, and then dropped to his hands and knees and began to clear the leaves from the forest floor. Once he had exposed a large patch of bare dirt, he snatched up a stick and began scratching patterns into it. Concentric circles, spiraling in on each other. Pulling a dagger from his boot, he unsheathed it and, without hesitation, nicked his thumb, letting the blood drip into the dirt. He shook his sliced finger, and squeezed, until there was a small pool of red soaking into the ground. Hurriedly, he mixed this with the dirt, and then began tracing the dark paste into the pattern he had drawn, sparingly.

A low, keening wail pierced the eerie silence. The wizard looked up sharply, eyes wide. That sound had come from somewhere deep within the cave. There was no mistaking it.

He worked at his patterns quicker, now, sweat beading upon his brow. He could feel it, as well. Within the earth, something stirred; in this ancient and abandoned place, something wicked had made its home in timeworn stone. Like a fool he had sought it out, with both hope and dread but not dread enough, certainly not dread enough, now that he could feel it slithering towards the throat of the cave, towards him, what a mistake this had been…

The wail grew louder and louder. It was not a sound any animal could make. At first it seemed a low whistle, a moan, almost like the wind itself. At other times, it seemed like a man's scream, but not of any emotion or feeling a man might hold in his heart, no, an inarticulate, flat howl of otherness, drawn out longer than any human breath could hold it. It seemed even less a howl than a long, mocking groan. The shadows lengthened, and the light of day, what there was left of it, seemed to dim. The wizard closed his eyes to focus, trying to keep the endless shrieking out of his mind, trying to trace his pattern in the dirt with trembling hands as the darkness drew closer and closer.

And then, all at once, the wailing stopped.

The wizard rose from his knees on legs that he struggled to keep from trembling, standing in the center of the pattern of circles he had drawn in mud and blood. It was as if all he could see was the mouth of the cave, a hole into hidden darkness. He knew this wasn't right, something wasn't right, it was not dark as it seemed, if only he could turn his head he would still be able to see the worn and ancient stones, and the forest around him, in the evening light. But he could not, he could not tear his gaze away from the cave's entrance, because there - just out of the edge of the light - if only he could strain his eyes hard enough - there it was, he knew…

“Martimeos,” called a voice from the darkness.

He nearly broke and ran right there. The voice was wrong, somehow, thick with cruelty. There was the hint of laughter in it, too, and a hunger, a red impulse that throbbed into his mind the moment the word was spoken aloud. This creature would hurt him, he knew, in ways he could not possibly fathom, if it could.

He could not run. It was far, far too late for that now. He stared at the lip of that cave, the only thing in the world, trying to still his mind, calm his breathing. All dark powers such as this have limits. All have laws they must obey. He clung to those words of wisdom, hoping they would be his shield. The wizard licked his lips, his mouth suddenly felt bone-dry. "That I am, demon," he called out in a croak, with more bravery than he actually felt. "How is it you know my name?"

Something within the darkness moved, rasped against the cave walls. For an instant, just an instant, Martimeos caught a glimpse of something gray and pale before it vanished back into the black. “I was waiting for you,” the demon crooned, sounding oddly lyrical, almost as if it sang instead of spoke. “I knew you would come.”

Martimeos tried to work his mouth, tried to speak, but found he could not. They have limits. Why did it know my name? His breath caught in his throat, and it seemed like something was burning behind his eyes, burning through his thoughts. He had to say something, but he could not think of what it was, and he could not summon the bravery to say it. He could not tear them from the entrance to the cave. It’s lying. Nothing ever said it would know my name. Why…

An awful sound drifted up out of the entrance of the cave. The wizard thought that it might be laughter, if a demon like this could be said to laugh. “Poor little mageling,” it crooned, and its voice seemed to silence even the wind. “You’re going to die.” It was a promise. Within the darkness, something began to move.

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“Wait,” Martimeos managed to whisper, but his throat seemed to seize and he could say no more.

“Will anyone know?” The voice seemed to grow stronger, and that burning feeling behind his eyes did too. “Who knows that you are here? Your family? No. No one. You are all alone, aren’t you.” The voice paused, and when it spoke again, it almost felt as if it were whispering in his ear. “Who is this golden-haired girl I see behind you, on your path? Perhaps I will find her. Tell her-”

“Silence!” Martimeos shouted, outrage finally cutting through his fear. His hand shook as he gripped the hilt of his sword, and he could not make himself let it go, even knowing that a sword would be worthless here. His stomach had curdled upon hearing the demon mention his family, but when it spoke of her - it felt like a violation that this creature should even know the color of her hair. How did it know? How could it know of her? He almost asked the question aloud, but he knew it would do no good. He did his best to discipline the rage he felt. Threats would not work here, but he could seize upon it for courage. “I…I have an offering for you,” he forced out, his voice tight.

The demon did not reply, but whatever was in the cave had stopped moving, for the moment, as if waiting. Martimeos managed to peel his fingers away from his sword, and from a jacket pocket he produced a figurine, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. It was in the shape of a long-whiskered catfish, its open, gaping mouth filled with a staring eyeball. And it seemed to be carved from midnight, just as the little shard in the cage that led him here had been. He held it out in front of him, on his outstretched palm. “All that is rightfully yours I offer,” he intoned. That was one thing he knew he must not do. He must not imply that he owned this object in any way. “I was not the thief, just the finder, but in good faith I return it.”

There was silence, still. But the figurine trembled on his hand, once, twice, and then it flew through the air, faster than his eye could follow, and disappeared into the darkness of the cave. He waited in, holding his breath, for some sign, some reply, something.

“That is not all you have which is rightfully mine,” the demon hissed, and for once its anger sounded almost human. “Is it.”

Martimeos felt something tugging at his neck - the leather thong that carried the cage, and its little dark prisoner. It rose beneath his scarf, now, held in the air by some invisible force, straining towards the cave. His hands flew up to remove it, but it snapped before he could, and flew, cage and all, down into the dark.

And then a moment later, something flew out of that dark to strike him in the forehead so hard that stars bloomed behind his eyes and the world seemed to spin. He could immediately feel warm blood flowing down his face, even before he touched his glove to his forehead and saw that it came back wet and red. He looked down at his feet at what had struck him. It was the little iron cage that had held the dark shard, only now it was torn open, and the jagged, ragged edges glistened with his blood. It could have taken out his eye, he realized, feeling a little sick. Blood had flowed down over his lips and into his mouth, and he spat it out. So much of this was not going as he had expected it to. How did the demon know his name? Know of the people that he knew? He thought he could not be harmed by it, while within the circle. Perhaps I really am going to die.

He kept all these thoughts to himself. He pulled a kerchief from a jacket pocket - little more than a dirty rag - and held it to his forehead to staunch the flow of blood. He winced at the pain - it was a shallow wound, but ugly. Something about that pain, though, dispelled some of the fear he felt. “Is the offering sufficient?” he called out. So much else had gone wrong that he could not expect that it was.

Something shifted in the dark. “Yes,” came the demon’s voice. It had lost its mocking edge, at least for the moment. But it still seemed to have that odd, almost musical quality. “Let the Finder have his payment.”

A long, thin arm of gray, pale flesh emerged from the darkness, and Martimeos very nearly clapped his hands to his mouth to stifle a shout of terror. Sweat rolled down his forehead as he watched that sickly arm, gripping the edge of the cave - then another - then another, whipping out of the dark, clawing at the ground, raking thick furrows in the loam. They looked almost as if they might be human, except that they had too many fingers - Martimeos could not count them, only that he knew they were more than five, perhaps six or seven - and their nails were pitch black. They strained with whipcord muscle as the demon pulled itself up.

Its body was draped in long, stained rags, layers upon layers of them, so that much of its flesh remained hidden. It rose up tall, taller than most men, though its back was humped and stooped. The only part of it visible uncovered by those filthy rags, other than its arms, was its head - a fox’s head, luxurious with bright red fur, but much larger than any fox’s would be. In place of its eyes were glittering black stones, midnight stones, as were its teeth, bared in a vicious grin.

As it rose, the world seemed to narrow again, the light to grow even dimmer. Those eyes, those jet-black eyes, they seemed to drink the world in until all that Martimeos could see was the demon. And it was wrong. Even setting aside its appearance, something about it was simply not right, something that made his bones shiver, like he was looking at something he wasn’t supposed to see. The way it moved, as it approached him, was unnatural, almost seeming as if it was going to collapse at any moment. But for all that it moved quickly, never wavering, never taking those jet-black eyes from his, and for a moment Martimeos was certain that it was going to kill him, it was going to sweep over his circle as if it wasn’t even there, this was all a sick joke, he would die screaming…

The demon stopped just outside the circle he had drawn. Though it was taller than he was, it was so hunched and stooped that the strange fox-head was at the same level as his. It was like that fox-head was the only thing in the world he could see. His head pounded, and his vision was mostly darkness, and if only he could bring himself to speak, but his breath seemed all at once too ragged and too quick to get a word out.

“Martimeos,” the demon spoke, as if relishing his name. The fox-head did not move in the slightest as it did. Whatever it was speaking with, it was not that mouth. “Little wizard. I know what it is you want.” Dimly, Martimeos realized he could not tell if the voice even came from the creature in front of him. It seemed to hum within his own head, like his skull was a bell, suffocating his own thoughts. “You have lost your quarry. And you want a Telling to set you on your path.”

“Yes,” he managed to force out, past a tongue that seemed too thick. Truth be told, he almost didn’t care about that anymore. Almost. He forced himself to meet the demon’s gaze, tried to rally the tatters of his thoughts. Laws that it must obey. The demon owed him. “Yes, yes,” he repeated, his voice growing stronger each time. “That is what I want.”

Silence, for a long, heavy moment, was his only reply. The demon was close enough, he realized, that if this thing breathed, he would have felt its breath. But it didn’t breathe; in fact, it now seemed so still, so perfectly, impossibly still, that Martimeos for a wild moment wondered if somehow, time had stopped. No creature, no natural, living thing, could remain so utterly unmoving. You will be stuck here, frozen here, for eternity with this demon, forever.

“Blood,” the demon’s voice echoed through his mind, just when he felt that he must have lost it. “I need your blood for this.” A mottle-gray hand extended out, black fingernails as sharp as talons, but it did not cross the circle.

Martimeos wondered for a moment if this was a threat, but the demon seemed to wait patiently for his response. His blood? Quickly, he remembered the rag he still held to the wound in his forehead. He drew it back, and it was soaked through, red and wet, and a fresh trickle began to run down his face, though not nearly as much as had before. Careful not to cross the circle himself, he half-dropped, half threw the rag into the demon’s waiting clutches.

Whip-quick, the demon brought that rag to its twisted fox’s face, and breathed in deep; it dragged its tongue across it, tasting it, tasting his blood. It raised its snout to the air, and sniffed, as if scenting on the wind. When it spoke, it seemed subdued, somehow calmed. “I see your paths, little wizard. Dancing with each other. Yes.” Its nose, Martimeos saw, was wet with his blood. It stood for a time, nose flaring, as if savoring the taste of it. “Less than a tenday’s travel. To the South. By the shores of the great lake of Nust Drim, you will find the cursed village of Silverfish. And there you will find the trail again.”

Martimeos waited for the demon to say more. When it became apparent it would not, he swallowed, his throat feeling as if it were dust, and asked in a hoarse whisper, “What sort of curse?”

But the creature did not answer him. It simply lowered its bloody snout, that fox-head grinning at him, leering, with flat, black eyes.

Martimeos knew he ought to accept this; to take what wisdom he had been given and go. A part of him longed for the demon to be gone. It still dominated his vision, fuzzed his thoughts and blurred his sight, dimmed the light, and dragged his eyes towards it every time he tried to glance away. And it might take the implication that what he had been given was not enough as an insult. Still, he asked the question his tongue itched to speak. “Isn’t there anything else that you could tell me?”

That grinning snout seemed to laugh, revealing more black fangs, and a gray, limp tongue. However bright the fur of the fox-head was, it looked dead inside. “Someone follows you, Martimeos,” the demon’s voice burned in his thoughts. “Someone walks in your shadow.”

And then, before the question could be put to it, the demon was gone. Martimeos nearly stumbled as the world seemed to lurch around him. The heavy feeling of the demon being in his skull was suddenly gone, along with the sense of disgust, the feeling of being in the presence of something filthy. The world no longer seemed so dim - or, any less than it should be, the day’s light was very nearly gone. He could feel the wind again, and the cave no longer held its hypnotic pull. It was simply a hole in the ground.

Still, Martimeos could not help but feel uneasy. The demon had simply vanished, there one moment, gone the next. And he realized, looking at the rim of the cave, that signs of its passing were gone too. The creature had dug long furrows in the ground as it pulled itself out of the cave, and yet now it was undisturbed, as if it had never been touched. He wondered wildly if the demon had ever been there at all.

Putting a hand to his forehead, he winced. He could feel tender flesh, and the start of scabbing. That was real, at the very least. Catching the scent of something burnt, he looked down and felt his heart quicken. That circle he had drawn on the forest floor, in a paste of dirt and his own blood, was burnt into the ground now, as if it had caught flame around him.

Martimeos stared at this for a moment, then scuffed the circle with his boot. He had no time to wonder at this. Night was coming on, and he would have to walk quick to make it back to his camp before it fell. With one last look back at the cave - darkness there, and nothing more - he set off, leaving behind the clearing and the forgotten, worn statue, long legs expertly picking a path through the thorny underbrush, quieter than the wind.

A waste of time, is what that was, and a deadly one too, Martimeos thought grimly. It had done little more than tell him to continue the path he was already on. Demon or no, he likely would have made it to Nust Drim and Silverfish eventually. He spat, shifting his cloak around him, and then sighed. It wasn’t totally useless, he knew. Now, he knew to go straight there, and he knew to linger in Silverfish to find what he was after. And, he thought, you know that someone is following you.

Remembering the last thing the demon said, he paused. It was very nearly dusk, and the deep shadows of the forest could hide anything. Why would someone be following him? Whatever reason they had to be doing so, it couldn’t be good. More calmly than he felt, he unslung his crossbow from his back. Pulling back on the built-in lever to cock it, he slid a bolt into the groove. It was small, and not very powerful, but it did well for him in hunting. And it could kill a man, from up close.

He stalked forward, his finger on the trigger, ready to fire at anything that moved, his eyes straining at every shadow and his heart racing with every creaking branch. Despite the chill, he felt as if he had sweat through his underclothes by the time he made his way back to his camp. Such as it was. It was little more than a ring of stones he had placed around the remains of a fire, and his hide satchel hung on the low branches of a tree.

With a sigh, he removed the bolt, and let the tension go out of the string. He had half been expecting someone to be waiting for him by the time he got back.

If someone was following him, he had certainly detected no sign of it, and he was not uncautious. He knew these woods were dangerous, and more so alone. If they were following him, for how long had they been doing it? They would have had ample opportunity to steal while he was away, and yet his satchel was still there, where he had left it. He checked it, just to be sure, but it was completely undisturbed, and nothing was missing from it.

Could it be possible that the demon had lied to him? For the simple joy of deception? He didn’t put it past the creature, but then again, it had been part of his Telling, and it would not have lied about that. Laws that had to be obeyed. Or perhaps it had not been part of the Telling. It had been an additional question that he had asked at the end, after all. Martimeos didn’t know, but he thought perhaps that he had been lied to.

Still, he declined to light a fire that night, and slept with his back up against the rotten trunk of a fallen tree, with his cloak wrapped tight about him and a whispered word to it to keep it dry and warm against the chill. Despite the wards he had set that would warn him if anyone came near, he found himself straining his ears for any sound in the dark of that moonless night. It was a long time before he finally drifted off to sleep.