But not much.
We were up with the morning star for a cold breakfast. I longed for a cup of coffee and was tempted to believe in magic long enough to conjure some up-but I turned mulish at the last second. Sunlight and morning had put me back into skeptical mode, and I was discounting all the spells I had worked as being part of the hallucination. Besides, nobody else there needed caffeine. So we were off as the sun rose, following our shadows down the road to the west, not that I really expected to get very far. After about an hour, though, we climbed to the top of a ridge and stopped short, seeing the telltale shingled roof of an official toll station.
"I don't mind paying for the use of the road," I said to Gilbert and Frisson. "Where there's verse, there's gold. But I'm not exactly up for a session of arguing."
"There is no avoiding it," Frisson told me, "and I have wandered far enough to know. Even were we to slip into the high grass or the woods to bypass the hut, the witch within would know of our presence by her spells."
"Magical border alarm system," I grunted, thinking of electric eyes and radar. "Well, if we have to brazen it out, we might as well do it with style." So I strode up to the doorway and knocked. My friends stared, then ran after me frantically, but they skidded to a stop as I knocked a second time, their faces sinking as they realized there was no help for it now.
But by the third knock, they were beginning to look puzzled.
"Nobody home," Gruesome grunted, disappointed; I think he'd been hoping for a quick snack.
"A border station, unmatched?" Gilbert stared. "Surely not!
'Tis unthinkable! " "Then how come you just thought of it?" I turned to Angelique. "I hate to take advantage of your special nature, but do you suppose ... ?"
"Surely, Master Saul." She was only an outline in sunlight, a gossamer strand or two-but she drifted through the cabin door as if it hadn't been there.
We waited. I tried my best to look impatient and annoyed. Gruesome just looked hungry, and Frisson looked apprehensive. Gilbert, though, stood like stone with his hand on his sword hilt. Angelique slipped back out, scarcely more substantial than birdsong. "There is no one within."
I stared. "No one?"
"None," she confirmed.
"But that cannot be!" Gilbert protested, and Frisson seconded him.
"No witch who was stationed to guard a road would dare leave her post while she lived, mademoiselle."
We fell silent at that, exchanging glances. I put it into words.
"But if she's dead, where's the body?"
"There are signs of haste," Angelique said helpfully.
"Let me see." I pushed at the door, but it was locked.
"Lemme." Gruesome hipped me aside-his shoulders were too high-took the door by the handle, and yanked. Wood cracked and splintered; the door came loose, leather hinges flapping. Gruesome grunted and tossed it aside.
"Uh-yes." I eyed the dismembered door and cleared my throat.
"Direct, aren't we? Well, let's have a look." I went in. it wasn't in the world's best condition, that was true, but it wasn't all that bad, either-sort of like somebody had stopped doing the housekeeping a month ago; that rotten smell must have been the dirty dishes in the kitchen. At least, I assumed that was what the curtained doorway in the back wall led to; this part of the house just had a central fire pit under a hole in the roof, shielded by a louver, and a desk with a huge book beside an inkwell with a quill in it. I stepped closer and peered in; there was still liquid in the pot, but you could see the thick line above that showed it had evaporated. There was a fine coating of dust on the book, not all that obvious unless you looked; I guessed it had been a week or so since it had been used. I looked up at that curtain hanging across the doorway. Something inside me balked and protested, wanting to leave well enough alone, but curiosity drew me on. Had to be curiosity, right? Couldn't have been anything else.
I pushed the curtain aside and looked in. The smell got a lot worse, and I wrinkled my nose. I couldn't pretend it was just rotting food any more-it was the stench that goes with sickness, bad sickness. Angelique had been right, though-there was no one there, certainly not in the bed. it wasn't made, though, and the dishes were piled up on the table. This was where the toll-witch lived-but where was she now?
I went back out, shaking my head. "You called it, Angelique. No one home."
Frisson clapped his hands with a smile of delight. "Most excellent! Let us go on past!"
"Yeah," I said slowly, "let's." But it nagged at me, as we went by the tollhouse. I didn't like unsolved puzzles and I liked even less the idea that somebody might be lying around sick, with nobody to take care of him. However, there was every chance that the duty-witch had been taken in for an overhaul, and that her replacement just hadn't arrived yet, so I pushed my misgivings aside and followed Gilbert into the woods. Then I heard the moan from the other side of the trail.
Chapter Ten
It was hard to say whether that moan was of pain or terror-maybe both. But I couldn't ignore it. I stopped. That meant Frisson and Gruesome had to stop, too, or bump into me - but they had stopped already and were frowning into the shadows under the leaves.
"What moves, Master Saul?" Frisson asked.
"Probably nothing," I answered. "From the sound, I'd say whatever made it is too sick to do more than lie there."
Gilbert heard and looked back. He stopped, frowning. " 'Tis not our affair, Master Saul."
"Anybody hurt is my affair," I snapped. " 'No man is an island.' I thought you were a Christian, Gilbert."
"I am indeed!" he cried, offended.
"Then remember the parable of the Good Samaritan."
"The Samaritan," Frisson said nervously, "was in no peril."
"He speaks wisely, Master Saul." Angelique's voice seemed to come from thin air. "There may be danger."
"Can't let a little thing like that stop us." I stepped into the shadows, pushing the branches aside with my quarterstaff-and just incidentally keeping it near the guard position. "Let's see what we'll find. " Leaves rustled as we moved in-then Angelique recoiled.
"Evil!"
I could smell it, too - or maybe it was just the aroma of illness. I reminded myself that this massive hallucination included a guardian angel, and kept going.
The underbrush opened out, and there, hovering near a sheer rock face, were two of the ugliest creatures I had ever seen, with multiple fangs and tusks sticking out of their snouts, under baleful yellow eyes set in red, leathery skin that turned into black as it stretched out into bat wings. Their fingernails were claws, and their feet were cloven hooves. I froze; the mere sight of them struck fear through my vitals-or maybe it was their sulfurous smell, or the aura of evil that hung about them.
They were chuckling and gibbering, jabbing long-nailed fingers at the poor bundle of rags and quivering flesh that huddled against the rock face. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that they were just hallucinations.
The deep breath was a bad idea, though; I caught a whiff of her stench and was almost glad the demons, sulfur smell drowned it out-but it was definitely the same as the trace lingering in the back room of the toll cabin.
She saw me and stretched out a hand in supplication. "Aid! Good traveler, aid!"
The devils turned in instant suspicion, saw me, and dove for me, howling.
Terror damn near immobilized me, but trained reflexes made me leap aside and slam a kick at the nearest one. I yelped; he was hard!
And hot; pain seared through my toes. My boot was charred. The devil snarled and turned, gloating - but Gilbert leapt in front of it, holding his sword up like a cross and crying, "Avaunt! Leave off, in the name of the Christ!" They actually hesitated, and I knew with a sick certainty that the only thing that protected Gilbert right then was his total, idiotic purity and the massiveness of his unquestioning faith. If I had tried it, they'd have torn me limb from limb.