‘Not as well,’ Miskyia said, with just a touch of sharpness in her voice: she hadn’t realised that Iwa had followed. ‘The craft is always drawn to the hidden places of the world and they are becoming harder to find. The world changes, continents shift, seas change their course, even the seasons alter, and magic is less common than it once was.’
‘Though it hasn’t entirely disappeared,’ Iwa said, looking around for some landmark so that she could fix this place. Now she knew that Miskyia was as mad as the krol. The mountains and the land were eternal and winter had never been anything else but winter.
‘I can guide you,’ Miskyia replied. She took Iwa’s hand and pressed it to her. ‘There is so much that you have to be wary of. Our way is so difficult and fraught with peril.’
And I want none of it. Iwa smiled. Yet for all her reservations she couldn’t help but like the woman. As a rule the clan were slow to trust outsiders. Even those of other clans had to prove themselves. At the great clan meet they were slow to mix, until the rituals began and the food was shared and the traders’ vodka opened. Then of course things would be different and they’d be united by their common tongue and gods. But some of the reservations would remain, the men often watchful and the women guarded, at least until the dances started.
But this woman seemed different somehow, for all her talk of magic and the craft. There was an ease about her which Iwa had rarely encountered. Hunters were always watchful, always waiting. Iwa glanced around, there was a coldness to the air. She didn’t trust this place, there was something wrong about it, a stagnant scent from the still waters that lay brooding in the darkened corners.
On the ground ahead there lay the remains of what, to her, appeared to be the trunk of a stone tree. Behind it more columns rose, cracked and worn, to form what had once been a colonnade, though the roof had long since been smashed and the slates lay scattered on the ground, barely visible amid the undergrowth.
‘But that is enough for now. My master calls and his hands must answer.’
‘Jezi Baba?’ Iwa said in shock, straining her ears, but she couldn’t pick out any call or noise at all. A chill run over her as she looked into Miskyia’s face, her fondness turning to a crawling fear.
‘Why talk of the night hag?’ Miskyia said in a voice so smooth that it almost disguised the hint of concern hidden beneath the words.
‘Because I saw you…’ Iwa’s voice trailed away, but it was too late.
‘So this is not the first time that you have stumbled into this place.’ Miskyia threw her a suspicious glance. ‘I had some inkling that this was not your first foray into the hidden places. You carry the scent of such magic about you.’
‘I saw you cast your spell and Jezi Baba came across the water. She killed some of the woyaks too, earlier in the woods. I saw that as well.’
The woman flinched but, when Iwa next glanced up, Miskyia had regained her composure. ‘If only I had the power to summon the night hag – but that was not Jezi Baba who you saw that night. It was my master.’
‘But she killed the woyaks because they want to destroy the forest.’
‘That too was my master, and his name is Bethrayal.’
‘Bethrayal?’ Iwa tried the name, so strange and unfamiliar on her tongue.
‘Silence, child, that is not a name to be uttered lightly, least of all here. These stones have long memories. Not that this is his true name, even I dare not speak that here.’
‘I thought that this place belonged to him.’
‘Once, long ago. He stood before these very stones, lord of all. Many people owed him homage and were proud to call him lord. He was called by many names then. From here he worked his magic and protected the forest, but he had many enemies and they gathered to kill him.’
‘Didn’t his magic protect him?’
‘Magic is a double-edged sword, and his enemies numbered many Czarwonica witches and Molfar warlocks amid their hordes. There was a great battle that shook the mountains to their core. It took more than a dozen Molfar warlocks and many hundreds of men, but eventually my master was defeated and cast out to become nothing more than a wraith, prowling the outer dark beyond the firmament that rages between the worlds. Powerful spells keep him from returning. Hush now and you may hear them weave their magic still.’
‘So he cannot come back?’
‘Much of his magic was destroyed in the final battle and even some of his own spells turned against him. For centuries he has roamed the outer dark, his name all but forgotten except here. The stones carry his memory, whispered in the cold depths of night. It was here that I came across them and was bound to his service.’
‘So that’s why he can’t be seen, except as mist?’
‘Good,’ Miskyia smiled, ‘you are quick to grasp the truth. He has not the power to come fully into this world. There is a way for him to return, but the spell requires an amulet and a weaver of power to wear it.’
‘And this will bring him back?’
‘It acts like the totem you spoke of earlier, but it is very much more powerful. My master created it in the final dark hours when the battle turned against him and fire raged across these stones. His hearth guard died here, cut to pieces in the outer halls.
