I counted out several bills. “Thanks for the ride.”
As he accepted the money and pressed it into a shirt pocket, I noticed the dull ring on his third finger. A familiar figure was embossed in the thick face: a rearing dragon.
“Y-your ring,” I stammered. “My grandfather had one just like it. Where did you get it?”
He looked down at the ring briefly and without interest. “A street seller.” Climbing back up to his seat, he took the reins in hand but hesitated mid snap. “Do not be fool,” he said, peering down on me. “The journey is not for mortals. It will not forgive curiosity or covetousness. Tell your friends this.”
“Friends?”
He raised his gray eyes to the pension.
“You are not only foreigner here.”
3
I encountered foreigner number one just beyond the pension’s entrance, in a sitting room. The young man, with a stylish tousle of blond hair and cheery blue eyes, looked to be about my age. He sat in a corner chair facing the door, a glass of dark wine in hand, as though waiting for someone to join him in drink and conversation.
“Lovely weather, eh mate?” he said in a pleasant English accent.
I wiped my shoes on the mat and dropped my pack beside the door. I was interested in food, a bath, and a bed, in that order. There was no space on my immediate itinerary for chit-chat.
“Name’s James.” He pushed up a sweater sleeve and crossed the room with his hand extended.
I dried my hands on the sides of my pants and accepted his hearty shake. “Everson Croft.”
“Let me guess. You’re also on the hunt for the fabled manuscripts of Dolhasca?”
I stopped unzipping my jacket and looked up at him.
He laughed as though we’d just shared in a particularly clever joke. “I read the article in the Historical Journal, too. I’m a fifth year at Oxford. European History.”
“Midtown College in New York,” I replied. “Mythology.”
“Sharp minds think alike, eh?” He clapped my shoulder.
“Guess so,” I muttered.
He switched to an old form of Latin. “The manuscripts are said to be in archaic Latin.”
I nodded and answered in kind. “So I’ve heard.”
He beamed at me as though I’d passed some test. “Well go on,” he said. “Shed your jacket, grab a towel. I’ll ready you a glass of the local spirit. Not vintage, mind you, but it gets the job done.”
At least he wasn’t treating me like a rival. Academics could be petty that way. Take the new chairman of my history department, Professor Snodgrass. Now there was a piece of work. I sank into the couch and accepted the glass of wine he’d prepared. James raised his own glass brightly and we both sipped. To my surprise, the hit of alcohol, coupled with the soft cushion, soothed my travel pains and the irritability that went with them. James tugged at the white collar of a shirt that poked from his too-green sweater. He could have been a golfer taking a break from the links.
“So how long have you been here?” I asked.
“Since Monday. I was hoping to set out for the monastery yesterday, but the weather’s been bloody dreadful.” He sighed and gazed out a window running with rain water. Distant lightning paled his face in twin flashes.
“You sound confident in the monastery’s location.”
“Well, I have technology to thank for that.” As he dug in his pocket, the ensuing thunder rolled in, shaking the walls. James held up what looked like a small two-way radio, a rubber antenna poking from the top. “Using a satellite map program, I was able to identify the ruins. That gave me a GPS location. According to this, the monastery is approximately 48 kilometers north by northwest from our current position.” He held the device toward me. “Care to take a look?”
“No, no.” I leaned away and showed my palms. “I have a way of breaking that stuff.”
It was true. Technology never failed to get pissy in my presence. The last time I’d tried to use a library computer, the screen blacked out and smoke drifted from the keyboard. Seconds later, the entire college network crashed. Fortunately, I was a whiz on my mechanical typewriter.
James shrugged and returned the GPS device to his pocket.
“But, hey…” I went to retrieve my pack. “Would you mind looking over my maps and telling me if I’m in the proximity?”
“What in God’s name for?” James asked. “Now that you’re here, we can make the journey together.”
I lowered myself back to the couch. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Two heads are better than one. I’d enjoy the company, besides.”
“Well cheers to that.” I raised my glass, and we drank again, my worries over the monastery’s location resolved. But with the next flashes of lightning, I recalled the driver’s scars, the pale ridges of tissue shining through his damp hair. The wolf’s claws must have flayed the poor bastard to his skull.
“Something the matter?” James asked.
“Has anyone warned you about going into the forest?”
“Other than everyone I’ve talked to?” He smiled and waved a hand. “We’re in the old country, mate. Good people, the very salt of the earth, but simple minds. Where there are unexplored wilds, there must be monsters, right?”
“I get your point. But I’d feel better if we had an escort. There have been wolf attacks.”
James examined his held-up glass with an unconcerned air. “I’ve already asked around. No one’s interested, I’m afraid. It seems there are only four of us willing to venture into those wilds.”
The driver had mentioned foreigners, plural. “Who are the other two?”
“Well, there’s a Flor from Spain.” He lowered his voice. “A treat for the eyes, but beware her tongue. I believe I still have a few welts from our little disagreement this morning at breakfast.” He chuckled as he rubbed his upper arm. “The other is Bertrand, a prominent French academic. Not particularly friendly, though.”
“A real United Nations,” I remarked, to which James chuckled again. “And they’re trying to reach Dolhasca, too?”
He nodded. “But we’ve all
