Well, she told herself. I guess we know why the tracking spells didn’t work.
She kept moving as moonlight glinted through the trees and reflected off the giant rocks. The intruder was barely visible in the distance, a tiny figure set against immense boulders that seemed larger than houses. Frieda forced herself to slow down as the intruder paused, before resuming his walk. She felt very small as magic pulsed around her, a weird dullness that made her feel she’d drunk a very weak sleeping potion. The rocks were just too big… she knew, intellectually, that she wasn’t entering a land of giants, but it was hard to be sure. The old tales suddenly seemed very real to her. Emily had even seen the remains of a giant, bones left to rot hundreds of years ago…
The thought mocked her as she slipped through the cracks, wondering if she should try to change herself into an owl or raven or something — anything — else that might pass unnoticed in the night. She put the thought out of her head a moment later. Self-transformation was just too dangerous, particularly when she might need to use her magic in a hurry. And yet… she sensed life all around her, hidden rodents and insects scurrying away from the two humans. She hoped the intruder didn’t realise he’d been followed as he reached an overhang and stepped into the shadows. If she was lucky, he’d assume he’d been the sole cause of the disturbance.
Frieda shivered as the moonlight grew stronger, throwing the overhang into sharp relief. It didn’t look completely natural… she frowned as she realised someone had literally carved a doorway into the rock, converting an inner cave into a… into a what? The tainted magic grew stronger as she approached, making it harder for her to pick up on anything from within. The intruder had completely vanished. Frieda hesitated, unsure if she should keep inching into the darkness or go back to the camp. She could round up reinforcements, then return to catch the intruder in the act…
And then she heard a child cry.
She hesitated, just for a second. There were things in the darker parts of the forests that sounded just like lost children. No one knew what they really looked like, because no one had come back to tell the tale. Prudence suggested beating a hasty retreat and yet… there was a missing child, a little girl taken from the village below the mountains. Frieda asked herself, quickly, what Emily would do, yet she already knew the answer. Emily would throw herself into the cave to find the child, risk be damned. It was crazy, by local standards, and yet… Frieda had good reason to be grateful. If Emily had turned her back on her…
The shadows loomed around her as she slipped into the cave. The interior was weird, as if parts of the tunnel had been carved and other parts had been left completely alone. She couldn’t tell if it was intentional or if the structure had been abandoned long enough for wind, rain and earthquakes to start wearing it down. The wind blew into her face as the tunnel started to climb upwards, suggesting the upper levels were open to the elements. She stumbled over a broken step, nearly fell to the ground. If she’d made a sound… she gritted her lips and forced herself to keep going, despite the growing magic. The tunnel grew wider as it leveled out. A faint glimmer of light shone at the far end.
Frieda kept moving, clinging to the shadows as best as she could. The walls were lined with strange carvings, eerie diagrams and drawings that seemed to change every time she looked away. Her eyes narrowed as she studied an image that looked weirdly familiar, even though she’d never seen anything like it in her entire life. And yet… she remembered, suddenly, exploring the caves and tunnels under Mountaintop and Heart’s Eye. There’d been similar carvings under there too.
Hoban would love this place, she thought. And so would Emily.
The tunnel widened again, revealing a giant chamber. Frieda looked up, spotting a faint pulsing light darting overhead. The magic felt wrong. She had the uneasy sense she’d walked into a trap and braced herself, but nothing happened. And yet… she froze as she spotted the bodies, piling against the far wall. They were unmoving… she forced herself to inch towards them, even though it was clear they were already dead. She shuddered, feeling a sudden urge to throw up, as she saw the expressions on the dead faces. They’d died in screaming terror.
She frowned as she eyed the topmost body. Sir Wheaton?
Her mind started to race. It was Sir Wheaton. He was dressed — the other bodies were naked — but she thought she would have recognised him regardless. There was no sign of what had killed him, nothing beyond the terrified expression on his face. Frieda inspected the bodies quickly — they weren’t the first corpses she’d seen, growing up in the mountains — but found no hint of how they’d died. Her eyes narrowed as she realised the corpses should have decayed by now. Sir Wheaton had only vanished a few days ago, but everyone else… she shook her head. There were at least ten bodies in the pile, and if they’d all vanished at the same time… no, they’d been taken and killed over the last few months. The headman had said as much.
She stood upright, frowning. Who were they?
Taxmen, perhaps, she thought. Her lips quirked. Taxmen were about as welcome as mercenaries, as far as the villagers were concerned. It isn’t as if anyone would bother to waste time looking for missing taxmen. They might find them.
The child cried, again. Frieda spun around and headed into the next chamber, throwing caution to the winds as she followed the sound through a network of caves and caravans. The stone walls pulsed with strange shimmering light, magic — wild magic — spinning through the air. Her senses started to hurt, her head pounding as if she was on the verge of a headache. A low thumping sound echoed through the air, like the beating of a giant heart… she wondered, fancifully, if she was running through the remains of a giant’s body. There were stories of people who lived in dragons…
She slowed as the sound grew louder, taking a breath… the air was dusty, too dusty. She sneezed. She heard something clatter ahead of her and cursed savagely, forcing herself to run faster. The intruder knew she was there now… she kicked herself, mentally, for not using more powerful concealment spells. They might have been enough to snuff out the sound before it reached his ears. Magic — weird magic — blossomed as she crashed into the final cave and stopped, dead. The child — a young girl, barely old enough to help her mother — was sitting on a rock. It looked a little too carved… Frieda’s blood ran cold as she realised it was an altar. Ivanovo was standing behind the rock, holding a knife in one hand and something weird, something alien, in the other. It felt deeply — deeply—wrong, as if her mind refused to look at it properly. It was… it was wrong.
Like the artefact, she thought. Did he find it in the dig?
“You?” Ivanovo stared at her. “You….”
He jabbed the thing at her, as if it were a wand. Frieda felt something crash into her, a power so strange and alien she couldn’t even begin to define it. She sensed tendrils of power spinning around her, vanishing into the distance… straight back towards the dig. It was a flash of lightning, parting the shadows long enough for her to get a glimpse of what was waiting for her before the shadows fell again. The power was overwhelming and yet, seemingly unfocused. It should have killed her and yet… she had the weirdest sense she’d only caught a tiny flicker of the power Ivanovo had unleashed, that most of it had gone elsewhere. There was something underground, something sleeping… her blood ran cold. It was waking.