Demon Sword

would poison me, and I would die. They said I had lost so much blood already that if they cut it off I would probably die anyway. Then they asked me what I wanted them to do. They had a great butcher's saw there, and men standing around waiting to hold me down. Can't go near Rae's shop without seeing the saws and thinking of that day.'

'And you told them to cut it off?' the boy asked, horrified.

'I did. I told them I couldn't stand the smell of it. And it still hurts! It isn't there, but I feel its ghost, and it hurts, hurts all the time…'

Now the boy was a man and it was his turn to make a decision.

Everyone was waiting. Meg and Hamish were aghast; even Rory was frowning. Murray Campbell's face was a granite outcrop.

'If I am possessed,' Toby said, 'then isn't a quick death the best thing I can hope for?'

Father Lachlan blinked over his spectacles. 'Well, unless the demon can be removed…'

'Would it let itself be exorcised? Would it let me approach a sanctuary? I think I can walk into that cave — let me go and ask the spirit!'

'Very well, my son,' the acolyte murmured, nodding to the keeper.

The keeper limped forward without a word and the others followed in single file into darkness.

Toby waited until the end, but Rory waved him ahead, bringing up the rear.

He might be going to his death. He might never walk out of this hole.

Why? Why was he doing this? Was it courage? He did not feel very brave. Or was it cowardice? Was he craven like Kenneth Tanner, who had chosen mutilation over the chance to remain a whole man? Was he just afraid to live with uncertainty, desperate for superhuman reassurance that he was only mortal?

This would be his third trial in three days. The Laird of Fillan had tried him for the murder of Godwin Forrester and found him guilty. The elders of the village had tried him for the murder of Granny Nan and acquitted him. Now an immortal would try him for the crime of being possessed.

The still air felt warmer than the wind outside. It had a dead, stony odor, but the absence of rain was a real joy. Someone, at some time, had leveled a path, which wound to and fro like a snake, gently descending into the hill. A rail had been spiked to the wall to guide supplicants; the wood was worn to silky smoothness by the rubbing of countless fingers. He could see nothing ahead except Meg's cap, which was a paler shade than her plaid. He could hear only a faint shuffle of feet and rustle of cloth. There was no echo at all. He sensed that the roof was rising and the tunnel spreading, and he decided that the walls he felt nearby were probably only fallen boulders.

He wondered how safe the roof was, and whether the spirit ever dropped rocks on unwelcome visitors.

Then the others were stopping, edging into a line abreast, silhouetted against a faint glimmer of light ahead. The path had widened into a smooth floor. He stood with Meg on his left and Rory on his right. Taking their cue from the adepts, they all knelt. The rock was flat as ice on a bucket.

His eyes adjusted with maddening slowness. The cavern was huge — far larger than he had expected. He began to make out marble columns and carvings, a strange white stonescape of incredible beauty. Curtains of ice draped the walls. Pointed pillars hung from the roof, masking the source of light, which must be a shaft leading eventually through to daylight. Other columns rose from the floor, except that there was no real floor. He was suspended halfway up the side of the chamber. Overhead hung the toothed ceiling, but downward the chamber was equally rugged, with great white fangs fringing a funnel-shaped pit, from whose heart poured even more light than came from above. It was like nothing he had ever seen or imagined. The spirit must have worked for centuries to make this unearthly abode for itself.

Somewhere water was dripping.

Meg's hand found his, tiny in his grasp. Her fingers were shaking. He squeezed to convey a comfort he did not feel.

The shelf was completely flat and level. It ran all around the cavern, sometimes wide, sometimes very narrow. It was incredibly thin — how could anything so frail even support its own weight, let alone the weight of the worshipers kneeling on it?

Water dripped irregularly: Plop… plip, plop… plop… plip, plip, plop… plop…

Suddenly the lower half of the chamber rippled in spreading circles and Toby's head swam with vertigo. He was looking at a pool, a small lake — kneeling on a shore, not a shelf. Crystal-clear water lay exactly level with it, reflecting the roof. The light from below was the light from the chimney above, bent back by the mirror.

'Great Spirit of Shira!' cried Murray's raucous voice. 'I bring you supplicants, who come in reverence and good will!' He was at the far end of the line. He had drawn a flap of his plaid over his head to conceal his face. The cavern swallowed his voice without a hint of echo.

'Hear our prayers, Spirit!'

There it was. At the far side of the lake, just over the water — a shimmer. It was a mist, a shower of faint sparkles, a hint of smoke, but not unlike the hob at Lightning Rock. Toby's skin broke out in sweat and goosepimples.

'They bring you offerings!' the keeper screeched. 'First, Lachlan of Glasgow, whom you know, a holy man!'

Father Lachlan tossed his book out into the pool. It landed with a splash, sending circles floating outward, rippling the phantom reflections. For a moment it bobbed and floated, and then sank in silence.

But while the surface was disturbed, Toby saw through it. The pool was very shallow, paved everywhere with ancient offerings. He saw all sorts of things: shoes, tools, candlesticks, bowls and goblets, carved figures, little precious things that worshipers had been able to bring with them and dedicate to the presiding spirit. Now they were all white stone. For centuries the immortal must have accepted offerings and preserved them by turning them into white stone to match the rest of its shrine.

The water stilled, the shiny surface again hiding the hoard beneath, but now the ghostly shimmer hovered over the place where Father Lachlan's book had submerged, as if the spirit was examining the sacrifice.

'Hamish Campbell of Fillan, a distant kinsman of my own.'

Hamish's penknife made a tiny plop, sinking instantly. The ghostly glimmer of the spirit moved to inspect it. Toby could only just detect it, and he wondered if anyone else had noticed it at all. Meg did not seem to be looking in that direction.

He leaned forward a little. Staring almost straight down, he could see the bottom through the illusion of space. He made out a baby's shoe of pure white marble. What story could that tell?

'Meg Campbell of Fillan.'

Meg tossed her brooch only a little way and the glimmer drifted closer.

'Tobias Strangerson of Fillan.'

Now! Toby reached up and dragged the straps over his head. He took the great sword in both hands… and froze.

This is right! I must be rid of this thing before it perverts me utterly and I wreak devastation with it.

But it had been a gift… it would not be right to throw away a gift. If he was possessed, then throwing it away would solve nothing. One sword would do as well as another.

He hugged the blade and its clumsy wooden scabbard to his chest, unwilling to part with it, unable to make the effort.

This is a massacre sword. My arms and strength could do infinite damage with a blade like this. Give the terrible thing to the shrine, and it will never kill anyone again.

If he was only human, then the sword was meaningless. If he was a demon, then he could easily find another. Throwing it away would be a foolish gesture, perhaps even a deception. That might even make him relax his guard, thinking he had disposed of the problem when it was really still there. His fascination with the crude broadsword was a constant warning, and he would be safer keeping it by him as a reminder…

Plop… plip, plop… plop, plip…

Do it now! Quickly!

He raised it overhead with both hands.