Lamma's Night (anthology)

'Lammas Night is but a few days away!'

'Many are already preparing to leave,' Jon said, verifying.

Alluen wanted to know more, every little detail, but she was sure poor Jon could not provide them. He'd finished with this tankard as well now, and his words were getting too rounded to understand. 'No doubt, you will be gone in the morning,' he said after a time, more or less. 'I can hardly blame you. Thella can, and the rest, but not me.' He grinned, again holding his head as if it weighed too much.

'No,' Alluen said. She had been in too many places where no one trusted or wanted her, sometimes even when their need was great. Places like home. This village would be different. This time. Jon was different, and Lennet had surely been a fool, or not of the Light to begin with. She went round and helped the miller to his feet. 'I will be here,' she told him. 'And I will do whatever I must do. Trust in that.'

'Aye,' Jon muttered, and nothing more.

Alluen lay in bed that night thinking about all that the miller had said, until finally she slept. She woke in the middle of the night, aware that she was not alone.

He was just there, in the night. And still there, come morning, though he was nothing seen or heard. Alluen was sure the presence was a 'he,' though she could be sure of little else. Other than the fact that he was following her through the house. Now she remembered the miller's words only too well.

'I am not afraid of the Dark,' she said to the entity that seemed to watch her as she dressed, seemed to shadow her as she stoked the fire, attend her as she ate her dinner, and lie just beside her as she went to bed that night. She felt a chill whenever she allowed herself to acknowledge the subtle apparition. She sensed the other's regard, an earnest devotion, perhaps, though there was something cold and empty about it, too, a gnawing hunger.

'What do you want?' she asked, reaching in the night, sensing the presence fade back out of reach.

No answer. She hadn't truly expected any. Lammas Night was still a few days away, after all. It was quite likely that this creature of the Dark, whatever he was, gained substance as the time drew near, that he did not spring fully formed from the nether realms on his birthday like a gift from a box. Good, she thought, steeling herself against the fear that gathered in her throat—telling herself so that she might accept it. Well and good, for this will give me time and chances to learn more of that which I must face. Time to find a means to abrogate its claims upon this world.

She slept lightly, finally, though despite the mild night and several blankets, she never got warm.

In the morning she found fresh water in her basin, and a splash of sweet perfume. Downstairs she found the fire already stoked, a bowl and a cup already placed on the table.

'Perhaps you are afraid of me,' Alluen mused out loud. Or you are full of wicked games... the more likely truth. Alluen's father had raised no fool. The creature might well have wooed young Lennet in much the same way—might have been female for him.

Late in the day, when Alluen left the house to visit a woman who was suffering dizzy spells, the presence remained behind. She felt a chill leave her spine as she realized she was free of him. Though soon enough it was time to return. She dreaded the fact, and yet...

She found water for stew already heating over the fire, a clean plate on the table, and on the plate, a single fresh-cut blossom, a lover's token. Few men from her village had come to court her, her being born of magic folk, and Alluen had never known a lover, her father had seen to that. Leaving home hadn't changed anything. She hadn't stayed any one place long enough to allow another man to attempt to measure up.

Love both intrigued and frightened her, to be sure, but the love of a demon was something altogether different. A forbidden thing. Unnatural. Untenable. Yet she could not deny the thought. Could not ignore the kindness, the ardor this one seemed capable of, at least toward her.

Alluen lay awake most of that night, sensing the presence almost beside her, fighting the urge to imagine what forbidden moments might await her on Lammas Night. Or what swift death, she reminded herself, not for the first time, though this night that warning seemed less palpable.

Finally she slept, but only to dream. She woke with a start, her head still filled with swirling images. The man in her dream was surely Lennet, the young sorcerer who had died in this very house, and he had come asking for her help, begging to be allowed to die, finally, truly. But he brought a second plea as well, for herself: warning her not to listen to the people of the village, to believe nothing any of them said about the Dark, about old Kimall, about what had happened to him, or she might surely share his fate.

It was not unheard of that the soul of one who died in torment should remain tied to a place, and Alluen was already convinced that this was precisely what she had encountered in her dream. She even had an idea what she might do about it. In the dream she had seen an image of Lennet's own book of magics, open to one particular group of spells. She went straight to the book and found it already opened. As she began to read, she discovered the spell before her to be one of banishment.

This was what all such souls desired, to be set free of this world, to finish dying and find eternity's peace. Whatever sort of scoundrel or fool Lennet had been, he deserved that much.

'I will help you end your torment,' she said out loud, noting the structure of the spell, and one detail in particular: this spell, like many, was tied to a single date. There was but one time of the year when she could be sure the spell would work. The night of the beast. Lammas Night.

But abruptly the page turned by itself, revealing the spell that followed. This was much like the first but for one important word. She had never considered the possibility, yet there could be no mistake. Rather than setting a mage-born spirit free, this spell would let the mage-born dead take flesh, and live again!

'Not death,' she said aloud, seeing it now. 'You want life!'

As she read the spell's fine points she saw the same stipulations, and the same, most troubling, date. She looked up as she felt the presence in the house gather near her again, and felt an overwhelming sense of anguish and emptiness touch her spirit.

Suddenly all the many implications filled her mind, rushing in one on top of another until her head ached and her body began to shake. She slammed the book shut, and ran out of the house.

Cold rain swept through the night air, chilling Alluen's flesh, though her own thoughts lent a coldness that ran much deeper. She didn't know who or what to believe, or where to begin figuring it all out anymore. Everything