Death After Death

Chapter 378 - Hidden in the Shadows

At first, Simon thought his discomfort was vampire-related memories he tried hard to suppress. Even though he knew logically that they were very messy eaters that would be easy to spot, his mind filled in this place's gaps with his own personal demons easily enough.

Freya is not lurking out there to retake you, he told himself. She doesn’t even exist as that person anymore. She’s a barmaid in Schwarzenbruck, nothing more.

It was less plausible than the far-fetched theories that everyone had been discussing. Still, those worries were enough to make his vision blur enough so that it scarcely showed him anything, and it took an act of will to restore that clarity.

When he did, he looked at the village again with his second sight, but little had changed. Places were much harder to taint than people, and so there were no obvious auras to show what the problem might be at first.

That first day, they stayed only a few hours. That was enough to find some answers, but not enough to explain what might have happened. Instead, they only deepened the mystery. For one thing, the farm animals were still around, and except in cases where they’d been penned in and starved to death in their stalls like the horses, they seemed to be doing quite well.

There was also the complete lack of blood or other evidence of violence. Evidence of thievery was obvious in every home, but that was expected. What was less expected was the lack of footprints and even spoiled food. Small animals might have explained both of those, but auras or not, something about the whole situation put Simon's teeth on edge, but that was more true after Sir Harvin found the tinkerer’s wagon and blew a horn to call everyone over.

“Well, I think we found our thief,” the knight said as everyone gathered around the wagon.

“And the man who got the word out about the situation, if the story can be believed,” Sir Rozman said, taking the situation in. “At least what’s left of him.”

In truth, there was nothing left of the man who had piled the wagon high with valuables stolen from the rest of the ghost town. It might not even be the same peddler, Simon cautioned himself, but deep down he thought that it probably was. He could definitely see someone like that getting spooked enough to flee and tell the story, only to come back and press his luck a little too far.

“The question is how he got himself killed,” Simon said out loud, drawing a few looks. “I mean, if he knew there was danger, and he still got caught unawares, that says something about our own precariousness, doesn’t it?”

His conclusion was strong enough that, for once, no one mocked him for it. Instead, they all slowly looked around, searching for a threat they could neither understand nor see.

“I want everyone ready to go an hour before sunset today,” their leader told them finally, even though that would be in twenty or thirty minutes. “There’s no need for us to solve this on our first day. We will take no chances.”

Simon saw no problem with that. There was too much they didn’t know. Instead of exploring any more buildings, he spent the rest of that time searching through the wagon for some magical artifact that might have done this. His best theory for the missing tinkerer was that the man had been perfectly safe until he’d touched whatever magical mystery was at the heart of this. It was a fine theory, but by the time the expedition's teamsters had finished removing the carcasses of the dead horses from the wagon’s harness and hitched new horses, he was still no closer to proving it.

Simon kept looking even after they got back to camp under the guise of “cataloging the donation to the brotherhood,” but after another hour, when full dark made further work impossible, all he had was a list of mundane treasures that were valuable enough to steal, but hardly enough to kill over.

By the time he rejoined everyone else by the fire to eat, Simon was forced to rethink his theory. What if this really is new, he thought as he ate a bean-heavy stew that reminded him of chili. What if there really is magic out there I haven’t seen before?

He was lost in thought, chasing himself in circles while others talked around him, and he stayed that way until their leader addressed him directly. “So what is it we know?” Sir Rozman asked Simon over the fire that night after everyone was done eating.

“We know that being careful won’t save you and that whatever happened can happen again thanks to the merchant,” Simon answered.

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“We also know that the magic is subtle,” another knight said. “If it were loud or dramatic, some of the townspeople would have fled.”

“And it only affects people, not animals, so only the ensouled need to be concerned,” a squire added.

While the former point was obvious, the latter was interesting, especially because Simon hadn’t thought of it until he mentioned it. Whatever did this isn’t inimical to life, but to intelligence, he noted. Having a soul was also possible, as the young man had said, but Simon considered that less likely, unless demons were involved.

He personally still believed that they’d find a warlock of some sort at the heart of this, and despite the tragedy of the human cost, he was hopeful he’d find a new word of power. Whether it turned out to be humans or fae, though, they kept a strict watch, and when Simon was woken up after only four hours to patrol the edge of the camp by torchlight, he didn’t complain.

Instead, he focused on trying to see the world without a torch, which wasn’t so hard once you got into a certain mindset. It rendered the world into an illustration of sorts and made it difficult to tell which tree or branch was in front of another when his view was especially cluttered, but he was fairly certain that he could see with it, even in pitch dark. It was a useful exercise, and he thought he’d practice it more often. Still, he kept the torch within arm's reach, because he’d been ordered to.

There were no mishaps during the night; no one saw anything strange, and no one vanished. In the morning, they were able to start their search in earnest.

This time, they went street by street and house by house, traveling in pairs, to leave no stone unturned. Simon was paired off with Sir Harvin, who didn’t care for him, because almost everyone else had a squire. Nonetheless the man was professional, if a bit cold.

For the first hour, no one found anything, and when Simon finally detected something amiss, it was the taste of sulfur. Nothing was immediately visible, but as he paused and forced the world to give up its secrets beneath his intense gaze, he noted a strange carpet in the middle of the room they’d just entered.

No, not the carpet, Simon realized, something under it.

Sir Harvin saw him freeze and said, “Something is off here. I feel it too.” Still, he didn’t notice the rug until Simon pointed it out, and when they pulled it away, Simon immediately saw the problem, and Sir Harven blew a horn to summon their brothers.

While the eddies of evil he’d barely been able to make out through the fabric had been circular, the actual design was complex. It was smeared and ruined now, and scorched in several places where runic lines had touched when they shouldn’t have, but he was fairly certain it was drawn in blood to start with. Still, it was legible, and Simon read it as the summoning circle for a demon named Vagaroxarath. It wasn’t a familiar name, but he’d check the mirror to be sure when he had a chance.

Sir Harvin looked at the same thing he did, but it was evident that he saw none of those details. He simply made a warding sign and looked to Simon, who decided not to reveal too much. “Something awful must have happened here,” Simon volunteered. This has to be the source.

Even as he said that, though, and other knights started to arrive, he knew that wasn’t so, though, at least not completely. Demons are banished to hell when their circles fail, aren’t they? He asked himself. So if thisVagaroxarath ate everyone, who covered the circle back up? Who killed the peddler days or weeks later?

Even as everyone else arrived to discuss what they’d found, Simon brooded. This wasn’t fairy magic as everyone had thought it would be, but it was inexplicable. There was something here that didn’t make sense with the way magic worked as he understood it.

After a cursory examination where Simon noticed Sir Rozman didn’t violate the edge of the broken circle, he declared, “This is definitely a work of infernal evil. Whoever created this caused the village's hardship.”

He ordered one of the knights to sketch it before they obliterated it. Simon thought about warning them to be careful, but decided that, as mangled as the circle was, the odds that anyone would recreate what it was supposed to look like were minuscule. Instead, he volunteered, “If a witch or a warlock created this, they almost certainly have a grimoire hidden nearby, don’t they?”

“Good thinking, Enis,” Sir Rozman agreed. “Tarnton, you keep drawing. Everyone else, find me that book.”

The home was small, and half a dozen men were able to tear apart the place fairly quickly. One of the apprentices found it in the false bottom of a desk drawer. The dark leather tome was thinner than Simon would have expected, but even if it didn’t actually radiate evil, it looked menacing enough. He would have loved to investigate it, but given the speed at which their leader tucked it away, it didn’t seem likely.

There was a wand too, but that didn’t interest Simon. From the markings, it was clear to him that it was an implement of fire powered by the wielder. He could have carved one in his sleep. Still, he listened to everyone discuss the right way to dispose of it, along with other ceremonial implements; all of it could be safely burned without issue, but he listened to everyone else work through that instead.

It was only after a few more minutes, when the sketches were complete and discussions about just burning the house down in its entirety were occurring, that the group figured out that they were a man short. Sir Rozman’s squire, it would seem, had vanished.

The boy had been searching the house with everyone else. One moment, he’d been searching the pantry, and the next, he’d vanished. At first, knights called out for him, especially his master. After that, there was a concerted effort to search for him, room by room. They tore every space in the place apart, but the boy was simply gone.