'Indeed,' Klaus Nellak snapped nastily. 'Be careful where you step. There are some dangerous bogs along the river banks.'
The piper laughed and made his way to the river. He gazed up at the moon and thought how perfect the bright moonlight would be for allowing his employers to see all that happened. He looked about him; all was still; all was quiet.
He began to play. The melody this time was mellifluous and quite catchy; the men from the town found themselves tapping their toes to it — until they saw the first few rats scurry by. The piper's tune continued with little deviation, only slight variations. Within minutes, thousands of rats lined up near him, completely still and completely silent, staring straight ahead.
The piper's lips curled into as much of a smile as he could allow without hindering his performance.
Suddenly, the piper seemed engulfed in a mist that blew around him and slowly passed him. It smelled horrible, and he coughed several times. His tune was momentarily halted, but when the mist passed him, and he noticed the rats twitching and beginning to scatter, he resumed his tune. Again, the rats stood silent and faced the river.
Then a crisp but husky, alluring voice called out to him: 'Your music is magical.'
The piper turned his head to the left and saw a woman standing a few feet from the river's edge. She was radiant. She wore a white gown that hung low over her shoulders, nearly touched her feet, and gave her the appearance of hovering over the ground, not merely standing upon it.
'Are you a stranger in these parts?' she asked softly.
The piper nodded, his eyes taking in all her beauty, his song continuing all the while.
'Then I must make you feel welcome. 'Jacqueline slipped one of the straps of her gown down over her shoulder, revealing a generous sight of her cleavage. 'Has it been a very long while since you had a woman?'
Again the piper nodded, blowing on his pipe while thanking the stars above for his good fortune. He smiled at her; Jacqueline recognized the lewdness in the grin and responded to it by extending her arms out to him.
Yes, she thought, come to me, you torturer! Come to me! Feel the delightful sensations I have in store for you!
The burgomeister grew nervous as he watched the piper, continuing to play his music, step toward the woman, but he dared not follow. He nudged his accomplices with his elbows and whispered,' What is the fool doing? Who is that accursed woman? I cannot see her features. Is she a witch?'
The piper was within twenty feet of her, close enough that he felt hypnotized by her beauty, felt himself sinking into her seductive, twinkling eyes. Sinking into them. Into her eyes. Sinking.
Sinking!
The cold wetness that surrounded his legs halfway up his thighs awoke him. He tried to step forward, but his motion only resulted in him sinking deeper into the bog. He struggled again, and sank deeper, before he realized that struggle was useless.
Jacqueline laughed evilly, loud enough to frighten the men from the town, who tried in vain to see — through an ever-thickening fog that now obscured their vision — what was happening. She stepped toward the musician, raised her hands to her chest, and her form quickly and smoothly changed into that of a rat. She squealed, the sound every bit as loud as her human laughter. Her rat form ran lightly over the scummy top of the bog; then she bit the outstretched arm of the piper until the instrument fell from his hand. She picked it up in her teeth and scurried back to the dry land surrounding the bog.
The piper screamed, but even that much exertion caused him to sink lower. He watched as the murky wetness climbed to his chest. Then he turned, expecting to see the rat, but looking at the beautiful woman again.
'I know a magical air myself,' she said mirthfully,' though I am certain I lack your skill. Care to hear it?'
She expected no answer and received none. She began to play, fingering the pipe as if she were a little girl with a new toy. There was no logic to the progression of the notes, no recognizable melody. Yet the notes provided the desired effect: the rats assembled at her feet.
The piper's eyes grew wide in terror, and his muscles contracted, causing him to sink to his shoulders in the clammy bog.
Jacqueline's improvisation changed slightly; higher notes emanated from the pipe now. The rats turned toward the piper. Then several hundred of them dashed into the bog. They swam, crawled, even fought each other in their overwhelming desire to find an unprotected part of the piper's hands, neck, head, and face to rip into with their razor-sharp incisors.
He screamed until his lungs could scream no more as the flesh was torn from him in tiny pieces. In his last moments of consciousness, he prayed he would mercifully sink, quickly and completely, into the bog.
Jacqueline turned to revel in the reactions of the men from the town, but in this she was cheated. They were already gone, having fled when the piper's screams ripped through the fog, and were in all likelihood already shivering in fear in their beds.
The next morning, in the relative safety of bright daylight, surrounded by guards, Burgomeister Nellak made his way to the bog to search f o r. . something. He did not really expect to find the mysterious woman — a wererat — but perhaps he would find. . something.
What he found was a sight that sickened him every bit as much as the occurrence the night before. There in the bog, the pipe pointed straight up out of the murky liquid. One of the guards reached over and attempted to pull it out, but it seemed stuck. The guard positioned himself better and pulled again with all his strength.
The burgomeister nearly retched when he realized the instrument was wedged between the clenched teeth of what was left of the piper's face.
He backed away from the grisly sight, and the guard let go. Suddenly, the air was fouled by an offensive, loathsome odor, and the vision of all those present was blurred for a few seconds by a flowing white mist. The odor passed quickly; yet the mist hovered over the river within a few yards of them.
Then a swarm of large rats charged up the riverbank toward the men. Horrified, they ran back toward town, the sound of loud, formidable, evil, female laughter echoing through their very souls.
The Wailing
The baby's shrieking stabbed into George's heart like a hot poker. He let himself burn with a murderous rage, knowing it was the only emotion that could stave off numbing cold fear.
Since he had begun tracking the old Vistana woman who had abducted the infant, the ranger had listened to the baby's distant wails, trying to gauge his plight. The first day the child seemed to be sobbing for the comfort of loving arms. The next day the sobs became howls of hunger, thirst, and discomfort, which continued through the night and into the following day. The third night, the fourth day, and last night, George hadn't heard a sound from the baby, although he knew he was still hot on the Vistana woman's heels. He hoped fervently that the old crone had finally given the child some nourishment, but he knew it was more likely that the baby had just grown exhausted and given up its futile crying.
This shrieking was a different sound, a terrifying sound. George didn't want to think about what the Vistana could be doing to the child; instead he wondered what kind of person would make a baby suffer so.
Less than a mile's travel after the baby had begun to shriek, the landscape started to change. The ground rose sharply and the lush forest thinned out suddenly, revealing the rubble-strewn slopes of a great mountain. The trees growing at the base of the mountain were stunted and twisted and leafless as if the wind ravaged them constantly, yet the air was still all about him, except of course for the cries of the baby. His horse Perseus began to whinny nervously and tried to shy back down the slope, a sign, George realized, that there was something unnatural about the mountain.
A strand of long black hair caught on a branch indicated to the ranger that the Vistana was climbing the slope. He looked upward at just the right moment and spied a flash of red and yellow through the gnarled tree branches — colors of the scarf the old Vistana woman wore on her head. She wasn't more than a mile ahead of him now. He had taxed all his skill and endurance in tracking her, fearful of speeding up, lest she use some wily Vistana
