The urge to move became irresistible. He stumbled out into the road, cold and grubby under his bare feet. A dark shape glided in from the murk — a man in a hooded gown. It went past him without a sign, but he turned and followed. This was how he had been summoned. This was how the bolts had been opened — she had sent one of her creatures to fetch him. It moved swiftly and silently and he hobbled after it, treading in icy muck.
Sea fog billowed around him, clammy and salty. He caught glimpses of doors and storefronts, but he could not stop his legs. He heard hooves and wheels on cobbles in the distance. The town was waking. His demonic guide might not attract attention in its robe, but Toby's Highland plaid would make him conspicuous, his size would make him conspicuous. So would his purple, swollen face. Any honest citizen who saw him would remember the reward and raise the alarm. He had as much to fear from the civil authorities as he had from Valda.
The creature turned down a dark alley. He followed, smelling filth and horses and stale, ancient cooking. He could have lifted his arms and touched an elbow to the wall on either side. He thought he could see nothing except a faint, vertical strip of light ahead, but when something moved near his feet he realized that there were people lying there. Towns were not as glamorous as he had been led to believe, but he had never believed they would be. He stepped around or over the sleepers. Even if he could have deliberately trodden on them to waken them, homeless beggars would not rescue him from a demon. It was ironic to think of these penniless wretches huddled there in their misery while a vast fortune stumbled by them and vanished forever.
The husk showed as a dark shape against the light, then disappeared around a corner, turning left. He followed. Here the light was brighter, the space wider. He had lost sight of his guide, but his feet knew where to go. He crunched dead leaves, passed under tree branches. A pedestal with a statue on it loomed out of the fog, floated by, vanished astern.
He could not detect the sanctuary, as he had before. Nor could he sense the demon ahead of him as other than human. His superhuman awareness seemed to have been turned off. Still gliding silently forward, the husk turned another corner. So did he.
The fog was fading, the sky growing brighter. The sun must be up by now, about to break through. A steady clatter dead ahead brought a tiny agony of hope. Someone was coming! The creature stepped to one side and halted.
So did Toby, shivering with mingled cold and fear.
A man solidified out of the fog, hauling a rattling barrow. Bent forward, anonymous in cloak and hat, he passed within easy reach of the creature and did not look at it. Then he went by Toby with the same eerie inattention, leaving a momentary odor of fresh, warm bread. Toby tried to cry out, tried to whimper or even cough, but nothing happened. His arms, which up until now had been under his control, were suddenly frozen.
Valda's creature moved on again and he followed. If it ordered him to march into the firth and drown, he would have to obey. Demons were driven by hate, Father Lachlan had said.
The street was barely wide enough for two wagons to pass; timber walls towering up on either hand. The light seemed brighter ahead — he was almost out of the burgh, heading for open country. At the very last building, the creature turned aside, stopped, opened a door, and entered. Close on its heels, Toby caught a glimpse of a window of many tiny panes of glass and then the lintel was coming straight for his eyes. He ducked hastily and stepped down to a flagstone floor. The husk stood just inside — he saw its eyes glitter as he walked past, and he caught a whiff of a nauseating stench of decay. It closed the door quietly behind him and slid bolts while he continued across the floor.
He was in a dim apothecary's shop, not unlike Derek Little's in Crianlarich, but much better supplied. Two chairs for customers stood before a massive counter of oak. The walls were lined with shelves bearing crucibles, sets of scales, mortar and pestles, innumerable mysterious jars and vials, tall bottles of colored liquors, an alembic, a skull, weighty leather-bound tomes. He smelled familiar minty odors of herbs. Shadow masked the high ceiling, but there was some sort of stuffed beast hanging up there, something with many legs.
He detoured around the end of the counter, walked through an open door into blackness beyond — and stopped.
He felt a thin rug under his feet, smelled stale human habitation. Darkness slowly brightened into gloom. Shapes began to appear. A dozen candlesticks had been set wherever there was space, all around, flames were twinkling like stars. A brighter glow came from the open door of an iron stove and some light came from the doorway behind him.
A woman sat at ease in the chair by the fire. Her voice was low and tuneful and familiar. 'I see you have embarked on your career in pugilism without my assistance. How is your opponent?'
'Dead, my lady.'
'I should be much surprised to hear otherwise.'
He began to make her out — a glitter in her dark hair, the pallor of her face and hands. The rest of her was still invisible. Blue fire… On her breast hung a jewel as large as the top joint of his thumb. He forgot the hexer herself, his whole attention aimed at the fires of that sapphire. Certainly she might have a demon bottled in such a gem, but it was not the thought of another demon that caused the uprush of despair in his heart.
Fool! Idiot! Hulking, musclebound imbecile!
It had lain in his sporran when he broke free of Valda and escaped from the dungeon. It had been with him when he eluded the wisp in Glen Orchy, when he bested Crazy Colin at the grotto, when he tore down the hillside. It had been there for all the miracles. And now?
In his mad, driven rush to leave the attic, he had left his sporran behind.
The amethyst was the answer to the mystery. Whatever its powers — whether it had come with them from Granny Nan or had somehow collected them during Valda's gramarye — they were lost to him. He was no more than mortal now.
CHAPTER FOUR
Like a very weary pillar, he stood in the center of a small room. He suspected that his feet were forbidden to move, so he did not even try to move them. Were he laden with chains from neck to ankles he could be no worse off, for he could not resist the will of the demon, which was Valda's will. The stench of decay told him that the creature had come to stand right at his back. His skin crawled at the thought that it might be about to touch him. He should be able to hear its breathing, but he could not.
Valda said, 'Krygon, fetch more firewood.' With a barely audible hint of movement, the husk went to obey.
But then the hexer just sat, regarding her captive with interest, not speaking, but calm and poised as a queen on a throne. She might be waiting for her creature to return; she might be politely allowing Toby's eyes time to adjust to the gloom; or she might be letting his innards melt away altogether from pure terror. If the latter was her aim, she was succeeding admirably.
As his eyes adjusted, she came into view like a landscape at dawn. Her weighty black tresses were piled on her head with the same glittering tiara she had worn to dine with the laird in Fillan. Her face was carved from pure alabaster, adorned with lips as red as fresh blood and lashes longer than seemed humanly possible. Her tiny, perfect feet were clad in silver sandals, her nails painted dark, the firelight on the foot closest to the stove showing that they were crimson. Yet, surprisingly, her gown was a simple, somber thing that swathed her in wool from chin to her wrists and ankles. It was the sort of garment that might have belonged to any respectable burgher's wife, and not at all what he expected of Lady Valda. If she hoped such modesty would let her pass as an honest town wife, she was doomed to disappointment. Even in such a sack, she was intoxicatingly, maddeningly beautiful, and the glint in her eyes was utterly evil.
Something hissed briefly. Toby tore his attention from the hexer and glanced around the stuffy little room, trying to locate the noise. The roof was very low, the beams barely clearing his head. A ladder in one corner led up to a hatch. The single chair, a table with a striped tablecloth on it, and the remains of a meal, shelves with dishes and pots, an empty coal scuttle, a basket of dirty washing, a desk heaped with papers, an untidy dresser —
