So did Toby, shivering with mingled cold and fear.
A man solidified out of the fog, hauling a rattling barrow. Bent forward, anonymous in cloak and hat, he passed within easy reach of the creature and did not look at it. Then he went by Toby with the same eerie inattention, leaving a momentary odor of fresh, warm bread. Toby tried to cry out, tried to whimper or even cough, but nothing happened. His arms, which up until now had been under his control, were suddenly frozen.
Valda's creature moved on again and he followed. If it ordered him to march into the firth and drown, he would have to obey. Demons were driven by hate, Father Lachlan had said.
The street was barely wide enough for two wagons to pass; timber walls towering up on either hand. The light seemed brighter ahead — he was almost out of the burgh, heading for open country. At the very last building, the creature turned aside, stopped, opened a door, and entered. Close on its heels, Toby caught a glimpse of a window of many tiny panes of glass and then the lintel was coming straight for his eyes. He ducked hastily and stepped down to a flagstone floor. The husk stood just inside — he saw its eyes glitter as he walked past, and he caught a whiff of a nauseating stench of decay. It closed the door quietly behind him and slid bolts while he continued across the floor.
He was in a dim apothecary's shop, not unlike Derek Little's in Crianlarich, but much better supplied. Two chairs for customers stood before a massive counter of oak. The walls were lined with shelves bearing crucibles, sets of scales, mortar and pestles, innumerable mysterious jars and vials, tall bottles of colored liquors, an alembic, a skull, weighty leather-bound tomes. He smelled familiar minty odors of herbs. Shadow masked the high ceiling, but there was some sort of stuffed beast hanging up there, something with many legs.
He detoured around the end of the counter, walked through an open door into blackness beyond — and stopped.
He felt a thin rug under his feet, smelled stale human habitation. Darkness slowly brightened into gloom. Shapes began to appear. A dozen candlesticks had been set wherever there was space, all around, flames were twinkling like stars. A brighter glow came from the open door of an iron stove and some light came from the doorway behind him.
A woman sat at ease in the chair by the fire. Her voice was low and tuneful and familiar. "I see you have embarked on your career in pugilism without my assistance. How is your opponent?"
"Dead, my lady."
"I should be much surprised to hear otherwise."
He began to make her out — a glitter in her dark hair, the pallor of her face and hands. The rest of her was still invisible. Blue fire… On her breast hung a jewel as large as the top joint of his thumb. He forgot the hexer herself, his whole attention aimed at the fires of that sapphire. Certainly she might have a demon bottled in such a gem, but it was not the thought of another demon that caused the uprush of despair in his heart.
Fool! Idiot! Hulking, musclebound imbecile!
How does the demon stay close to you? Father Lachlan had asked him, and he had never thought of the amethyst Granny Nan had given him when she said good-bye.
It had lain in his sporran when he broke free of Valda and escaped from the dungeon. It had been with him when he eluded the wisp in Glen Orchy, when he bested Crazy Colin at the grotto, when he tore down the hillside. It had been there for all the miracles. And now?
In his mad, driven rush to leave the attic, he had left his sporran behind.
The amethyst was the answer to the mystery. Whatever its powers — whether it had come with them from Granny Nan or had somehow collected them during Valda's gramarye — they were lost to him. He was no more than mortal now.
CHAPTER FOUR
Like a very weary pillar, he stood in the center of a small room. He suspected that his feet were forbidden to move, so he did not even try to move them. Were he laden with chains from neck to ankles he could be no worse off, for he could not resist the will of the demon, which was Valda's will. The stench of decay told him that the creature had come to stand right at his back. His skin crawled at the thought that it might be about to touch him. He should be able to hear its breathing, but he could not.
Valda said, "Krygon, fetch more firewood." With a barely audible hint of movement, the husk went to obey.
But then the hexer just sat, regarding her captive with interest, not speaking, but calm and poised as a queen on a throne. She might be waiting for her creature to return; she might be politely allowing Toby's eyes time to adjust to the gloom; or she might be letting his innards melt away altogether from pure terror. If the latter was her aim, she was succeeding admirably.
As his eyes adjusted, she came into view like a landscape at dawn. Her weighty black tresses were piled on her head with the same glittering tiara she had worn to dine with the laird in Fillan. Her face was carved from pure alabaster, adorned with lips as red as fresh blood and lashes longer than seemed humanly possible. Her tiny, perfect feet were clad in silver sandals, her nails painted dark, the firelight on the foot closest to the stove showing that they were crimson. Yet, surprisingly, her gown was a simple, somber thing that swathed her in wool from chin to her wrists and ankles. It was the sort of garment that might have belonged to any respectable burgher's wife, and not at all what he expected of Lady Valda. If she hoped such modesty would let her pass as an honest town wife, she was doomed to disappointment. Even in such a sack, she was intoxicatingly, maddeningly beautiful, and the glint in her eyes was utterly evil.
Something hissed briefly. Toby tore his attention from the hexer and glanced around the stuffy little room, trying to locate the noise. The roof was very low, the beams barely clearing his head. A ladder in one corner led up to a hatch. The single chair, a table with a striped tablecloth on it, and the remains of a meal, shelves with dishes and pots, an empty coal scuttle, a basket of dirty washing, a desk heaped with papers, an untidy dresser — this kennel was the apothecary's home. The low ceiling had been put in to make a sleeping loft overhead. There was no other door and no window, which explained the stale stink of the place. The extravagance of candles must be Valda's doing. She had made free with her host's hospitality, placing them on table, desk, shelves, even on the floor. The leaden casket on the table was hers, familiar from the dungeon in Castle Lochy.
Hiss! again.
The noise had come from the stove. He looked up. A dark stain disfigured the planks above it. "Blood?"
"Blood," Valda agreed. "Krygon is a messy killer."
He fought down a heaving sensation in his belly. He must not let her see how much she frightened him. "Is that our host up there?"
"And hostess, too, I think. I don't know if there were children — go and look if you are interested."
He shook his head, then yelped in pain as something slammed against his hand. The creature had returned, bringing one of the chairs from the front shop, and had taken the opportunity to strike him with it in passing.
"Krygon, put the wood on the fire," Valda said wearily, "and do not harm the man again — unless I tell you to, or am in danger."
Without a word, the creature proceeded to rip the chair apart and stuff the fragments into the stove. Watching it snap the long members without even putting them over its knee, Toby was impressed, horribly impressed. He knew he could not do that. That was the legendary demonic strength he had seen kill Crazy Colin. Demolition complete, the husk took up a heavy metal poker to mix the new fuel with the hot embers. When it straightened, it turned in his direction. He saw the glitter of eyes within the hood and remembered what Father Lachlan had said about hatred. He would have no chance against that monster, no matter which of them held the poker.