entirely possible that the villagers locked us in themselves.”
Rod scratched his head. “We didn’t try the door after they left,” he admitted, “But why?”
“Remons!” said Ryu, impatiently, as if they were all feeble-minded. Arville nodded.
“But we’re supposed to be the ones getting rid of whatever it is!” Alma protested. “It makes no sense for them to lock us in!”
“It also makes no sense for a demon or a ghost or anything else like them to be stopped by mere walls,” Rod added.
“It may make no sense, but according to everything I’ve read, the Karsite demons clearly are stopped by walls.” Elyn could only shake her head at all the contradictory evidence. “Perhaps there is some magical boundary set about the buildings here.”
Her nerves were slowly settling; the horses were quiet again, enough so that she and Arville pulled the bags off their heads. But they were so soaked with sweat—as were the Companions—that they needed a thorough rubdown and blanketing, lest they get a chill. After that, failing anything else to do, since it seemed futile to keep trying the door, they went to lie on their bunks or bedrolls after blowing out the various lanterns and candles, leaving only the two night-lamps mounted on the front of the wagon burning with their wicks turned down. Elyn set the younger Heralds on short watches, and she was acutely aware of the stiff silence in the building, the sort of silence that meant everyone was staring up at the ceiling or the bottom of a bunk, listening with every fiber, waiting for a resumption of the horrible noises.
But nothing happened. And after what seemed like an eternity of staring into the darkness, she must have fallen asleep, because she woke with a start to hear the doors opening.
The doors!
She very nearly broke her neck scrambling out of her bunk and stumbling out the door at the rear of the wagon. The first thing she saw was Alma throwing open the doors on a gray dawn, frowning heavily. There was no one outside.
“I lay awake all night, listening, and finally I decided to get up and try the door,” the young Herald said, scowling. “There was no one there. And the door wasn’t barred anymore.”
Elyn turned her attention to the kyree, who, with his presumably keener senses, would have heard what Alma didn’t. “And did you hear anything?” she asked.
The kyree shook his head. Elyn chewed her lip thoughtfully. By this time the others were clambering out of the wagon, rubbing their eyes sleepily. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” she pointed out. “Someone intimately familiar with this place could easily slip up to the doors and unbar them.”
“Maybe they could slip up to the doors, but slide the bar out without a noise?” Laurel asked doubtfully.
“Let’s find out,” replied Rod, and Alma nodded. “Look here,” he continued, examining it. “If you slide it, yes, it makes a noise.” He demonstrated; the bar was one that slid into four cast-metal carriers, rather than dropping down into them. “But if you lift it a little—”
This time the bar made not a whisper of noise as he moved it.
“That doesn’t rule out ghosts or demons,” Laurel protested.
“Maybe not, but my money is on common men.” Rod’s chin was set stubbornly, which did not at all surprise Elyn. Rod hated supernatural explanations and usually managed to avoid them entirely.
“Nevertheless, logic dictates that we go about this assuming that either could be true.” Elyn turned to the four Companions. “You lot are better suited to look for the supernatural than we are, so I suggest you pursue that, while we investigate human interference. Now, let’s get some breakfast going and discuss where to start.”
Since it had begun, as far as they could all tell, up at the little stream called Stony Rill, that was where the five of them headed. This time Rod and Alma were determined not to be caught off-guard. Well, so was Elyn, but she wasn’t making it as obvious as they were. If they got any more square-jawed with determination, she would be able to split logs with their chins. There were times when that was tempting.
Arville and Ryu slunk along like a pair of reluctant cats, heads swiveling this way and that with every sound in the woods. Laurel was the only one that looked normal, though that was superficial; Elyn knew her well enough to know that she was walking on eggs, so to speak, and the least little thing would set her off.
Elyn frankly did not know what to expect. They reached the spot where the villagers had told her that the “Shadows” were to be seen, and saw exactly nothing. She and Alma searched the area around the little pool that the Rill formed before it spilled over and went on its way, looking for swampy areas, odd plants, vents in the ground, any sign of anything that could account for hallucinations, and found nothing.
Alma even pulled off her boots, rolled up her trews, and went wading in the pool, peering into the water. Elyn wasn’t sure what she was looking for, although she did spent quite a long time at it, and gathered up some rocks and a sack of sand. Finally, she clambered out, got dry, and pulled her boots back on. “I think we should go upstream,” she said. “Maybe there’s something there. Swamp gas or something that only drifts this way when the wind is right.”
Rod nodded. “That seems like a good idea to me.”
Elyn gave Alma a close look. She had a notion that while Alma wasn’t saying anything, the young Herald thought she might have discovered something intriguing. But Alma wasn’t one to say anything until she was sure of herself. Annoying, but the girl was stubborn, and until she was ready, there would be no prying it out of her.
With a stifled sigh, Elyn motioned onward, and the five of them, with their Companions and the
Meanwhile there still didn’t seem to be anything that could have been mistaken for these “Shadows,” and no wildlife making odd noises that could have been taken for maniacal laughter.
Elyn was busy trying to keep an eye out for plants and fungi she knew were poisonous and gave hallucinations, when Rod suddenly said, “Is that a boundary marker? No one said anything about anyone living up here—”
“That’d be because that worthless lot down at the Stone’d like to fergit I be still alive,” said a harsh voice.
It startled all of them. Ryu and Arville yelped in an almost identical pitch. The Companions all threw up their heads and snorted. Laurel squeaked, and Elyn jumped back just a little. Rod’s back stiffened, and Alma clutched the bag of rocks and sand she was holding as if she were prepared to use it as a weapon.
From between two trees, out of a shadow Elyn certainly had not suspected was holding a person, stepped a man. Balding, gray haired, but powerfully built and clearly still fit, he had a bow with an arrow nocked to it, and although he was not yet aiming it at them, it was very obvious that he had no compunction about shooting them.
“Did that pack of scum send ye up here?” he spat. “I got no use fer them. I don’ need their help, and I don’ want their company. Did they send ye here because I run off their brats? I got my rights! They was tramplin’ all over my property! Thievin’ brats, stealin’ fruit, honey, an’ ’shrooms, poachin’ my game, aye, I ran ’em off! I’ll do it again too, at th’ end of a pitchfork!”
“No one sent us here to disturb you, sir,” Elyn said soothingly. “We’re investigating some rather strange goings-on, and although the villagers did send for us, they don’t know we intended to come up here.”
“Ye want strange goings-on, ye look no futher than them brats o’ theirs!” he spat. “I don’ put no mischief past ’em!”
Rod and Elyn exchanged a look.
“Well, we won’t bother you any further sir,” Elyn said.
“An’ ye won’t be settin’ foot on my land neither!” he snapped. “Gerroff wi’ ye! An’ tell that lot down at th’ Stone that they kin keep their devilment t’thesselves!”
There didn’t seem to be anything much more to say, so Elyn turned around and began picking her way back down the stream. Ryu and Arville were only too happy to do the same, quickly overtaking and passing her. Laurel
