Belladonna (20 page)

"Caitlin Marie, I don't know the customs of your people, so I hope you won't take this in a way it isn't meant."

"Take what?" she asked, suddenly too aware that she was alone with a man she didn't know on a small bit of land she couldn't leave.

He smiled. "I think it's best if I take you home to meet my mother."

"S
entinel Stones," the Heart of the Bog said, pointing to the two massive stones that rose out of the bog on either side of the

"trail."

"I never thought I'd see the likes of them out here," Michael said quietly, awed and uneasy. He'd seen Sentinel Stones before.

They were always placed outside a village in a field beside a main road. Easy enough to reach, but set back far enough that going to them would be intentional.

There was power m the Sentinel Stones, and some strange magic in the air between them. People disappeared when they walked between the stones. Sometimes they came back with wild tales of seeing different countries or of suddenly finding themselves walking the streets of a town on the other side of Elandar; more often they were never seen again.

"No," Michael said, stopping when he realized the Heart of the Bog intended to walk between the stones. "We can't go there."

"That is the border," the Heart of the Bog replied, turning back to face him. "There is no other way to reach the other landscape from here." Its yellow eyes studied him. "You afraid, Magician?"

"Yes." No point blunting the truth.

The Heart of the Bog was silent for a moment. Then, "You must pass between the Sentinel Stones to find the Justice Maker.

He is the next step in your journey. If you do not find him, you will not find her."

Damn the darkness. "People disappear when they walk between Sentinel Stones."

"That is the purpose of the Stones. But these mark a border and only go to one place."

That is the purpose of the Stones. Lady of Light, did anyone besides the Merry Makers know this?

Michael swallowed hard, trying to push his heart back down his throat.
You don't have many choices, lad. You can't stay here,
and it seems a walk between the Stones is your only way out. The world has turned strange, and a great evil is out there,
somewhere. And Caitlin Marie is out there, somewhere.

"What do I have to do?" Michael asked.

"Hum a note that sounds like what you seek," the Heart of the Bog replied.

He thought about the woman who stirred him in dreams in ways other women had never done and who was somehow connected to this dark piece of the world. He took a deep breath and hummed the note.

A moment later, another note filled the air, creating a simple harmony.

The Heart of the Bog nodded, then wrapped its long fingers around his wrist. Humming the two notes, they walked between the Sentinel Stones.

Michael felt the lightest tingle of power. Then he was through the space between the Stones and ...

The bog was gone. From what he could tell in the moonlight, there was open country in front of him and some lights in the distance that might be a village. The air felt different — and it didn't smell like home.

He looked back and saw a handful of Merry Makers appear between the Stones, but there was no sign of the bog now. The Stones were just standing in the middle of a field.

"Not much farther," the Heart of the Bog said, releasing Michael's wrist and heading toward the lights. "Humans will find us soon and take you to the Justice Maker."

Nothing to do now but follow. The pots on the outside of his pack clacked and clattered to the rhythm of his walk. After a minute or so, two of the Merry Makers pulled out their reed whistles and began playing a tune that turned the rattle of pots into percussion.

Well,
Michael thought,
if the lanterns and the musical clatter don't attract someone's attention, nothing will.

They were halfway between the Sentinel Stones and the lights when the Heart of the Bog stepped onto a cart path that began in the middle of a field for no reason Michael could discern. But a few minutes after that, two men came riding up to block their path.

"Halt!" the older man said. "State your business."

"This human came to us without warning, appearing deep within our piece of the world," the Heart of the Bog said. "He seeks the Justice Maker."

Not by choice,
Michael thought. Who were these men? Law enforcers? Thugs? He couldn't tell by the look of them.

"Do you want us to take him the rest of the way, or are you bringing him to the Den?" the man asked.

The Heart of the Bog considered for a moment, then shook its head slowly. "Take him. If the Justice Maker is pleased with the Magician, we will trade him for another kind of meat."

Michael stared at the Heart of the Bog. "What kind of meat?"

The Merry Maker shrugged.

"What kind?" Michael demanded. Lady's mercy, would they drag some poor fool to those Sentinel Stones and hand him over to the Merry Makers? Or ... different meat. Did the Merry Maker mean a woman ... or a child? "I'll go no further until I know what kind of meat." And if he didn't like the answer, he would do the most harmful ill-wishing he could think of before he was dragged away.

The Heart of the Bog studied him. Then it smiled. "Cow. Sheep. Maybe goat."

Michael's huffed out a breath as relief shivered through him.

The Heart of the Bog stepped closer. "You are worthy of what you seek, Magician. Remember that." It tapped Michael's chest above his heart. "In here."

Then the Merry Makers turned away and headed back toward the Sentinel Stones.

Michael looked at the two men. "My name is Michael. Who would you be?"

"Addison," the older man replied. "This here is Henley." He hesitated, then added, "From the sound of you, you come from a landscape that's a fair distance from here."

"I come from a country called Elandar."

"Country? Huh," Addison said, nodding as if Michael had just confirmed something. "Didn't take you for a city dweller, since most of them wouldn't know what to do with a pack like that, let alone be able to carry it. Come on, then. It's not too far a walk for someone who's used to using his feet."

Michael walked in front of the horses, torn between wanting to lengthen his stride to walk off his annoyance and wanting to slow down to delay getting to their destination — whatever it was.

Obviously they thought a wanderer was an uneducated man and couldn't tell the difference between
being from
the country and living
in
a country. So let them underestimate him and judge him by his clothes and the pack on his back. All the better for him to get away from this place and figure out how to find Caitlin.

It didn't take long enough before they passed stables, paddocks, and a line of hitching rails as well as ... Yes, those wooden slats
were
bicycle racks. Looked like everyone left their conveyance here and went the rest of the way by foot.

The street was cobblestone, which was common enough. The colored lights that lit up the street ...

There was a feel of a harvest fair about the place, and he almost expected to see the booths that offered games of chance. Of course, it felt like the seedy side of the harvest fair, where the games of chance weren't as innocent as a ring toss to win a stuffed animal for your sweetheart.

There had been times, when his belly had been as empty as his pockets, when he'd accepted a coin or two in exchange for bringing someone a little more luck at those games of chance — or a little bad luck if the coins had come from a man's rival.

"Is there some kind of festival going on?" Michael asked.

"Nah," Addison said. He dismounted and handed the reins to Henley. "The Den of Iniquity always looks like this. You can leave the pack here. No point in jangling down the street, is there?"

Lady's
mercy.
The last time someone suggested he leave his pack, they hadn't wanted anything worth selling to be ruined if things got messy when they killed him. Music had gotten him out of that bad patch, and he'd made a point of avoiding that particular fork in the road ever since.

He looked at the two men — and noticed that each of them had a hand resting on a weapon. The Heart of the Bog had cleaned his tin whistle, valuing the instrument far more than the man, but he hadn't had time to assure himself it was in any condition to be played. So it was best not to offer entertainment he wasn't sure he could deliver — especially to men already suspicious of him because he was a stranger.

He slid the straps off his shoulders and set the pack on the ground.

"This way," Addison said. "If Sebastian isn't at Philo's, the folks there will know where to find him."

"And he rules this place?"

Addison pondered for a moment, then nodded. "That's a way of saying it."

Wondering what kind of justice would be found in a place called the Den of Iniquity, Michael followed Addison, who headed for a courtyard full of tables and statues.

Then he shoved Addison aside and ran to the woman standing next to a table with her back to the street.

He spun her around and grabbed her arms in a bruising grip. "Damn the darkness, Caitlin Marie, you scared me out of a decade of my life pulling a stunt like this! If you weren't a grown woman, or close enough, I'd take a strap —"

He was dimly aware of the sound of chairs crashing as men shoved away from the tables, dimly aware of men and ...

something shaggy ... moving toward him with deadly purpose. But what he saw with painful clarity was the fear in the woman's blue eyes. He gentled his grip but still held on to her, ready to catch her if she swooned.

"I am sorry," he said, working to make his voice soothing. "When I saw you standing there, I thought you were Caitlin Marie."

"Who deserves a strapping?" Her voice trembled with fear, but there was an undercurrent of anger now — the kind that came from a woman who knew the feel of a leather belt against tender flesh.

The men and the shaggy things were closing in, and he was pretty sure he was holding the one ally he might have in this place

— if she chose to be.

"She's my sister," he said quickly, too aware of how little time he had to explain. "My little sister. She disappeared. Just vanished from the village where she and my aunt live. I have to find her. There's something evil out there, and I have to find her.

And I thought, when I saw you — the right height, the right color hair — I thought I'd found her."

"Take your hands off my wife."

Hearing the "or else" under the command, Michael released the woman, took a step back, and took stock of how much trouble he was in.

The blond-haired man on his left was holding a sharp table knife, but not in a way that said he was used to street fighting. On another day, the two shaggy, horned creatures that looked like bulls walking on their hind legs would have scared him out of half his wits — especially since one of them was carrying a club and the other had a large knife, and they
did
look like they knew a lot about street fighting. But it was the dark-haired man coming up on his right that held Michael's attention. He was dressed in black leather and had cold green eyes, and there was something about the way he rubbed his thumb against the fingertips of his right hand that produced a ball of fear in Michael's gut,

The woman hesitated a moment, then shifted enough to half block the man's approach. "Sebastian," she said, taking hold of his arm with both hands.

So this was Sebastian, the Justice Maker who was going to decide his fate.
I'm a dead man.

"He wasn't trying to hurt me," she said. "His sister is missing, lost in the landscapes."

"And this is how he responds to finding his sister!"

The woman's mouth primmed as she looked at Michael and made a lightning-flash decision. "I've been told that men who are scared tend to yell at a loved one as a way of showing relief. Which is totally unfair since the person being yelled at has already had a difficult time because otherwise she wouldn't have been late. But unfair or not, I've been told that this is a male thing to do and men have to be forgiven, eventually, when they do it."

Irritation tightened Sebastian's mouth when the blond-haired man choked back a laugh, but it was enough to break the coldness in his eyes.

"I thought we agreed that discussion was finished," Sebastian said.

"It is finished," she agreed. "I was just reminding you of it."

He would have found the domestic byplay more amusing if his life didn't depend on Sebastian's temper.

The woman looked at Michael. "You came here to find your sister."

"I came here by mistake," he replied.

"No one comes to the Den by mistake," Sebastian said. "By accident, yes, but not by mistake."

Michael nodded to indicate he understood the distinction. "By accident then."

"The Merry Makers brought him across the border in order to see you," Addison said from behind Michael.

"Why?" Sebastian asked.

"I'm looking for the answer to a riddle," Michael replied. It wasn't really a riddle anymore since he'd already figured out

"belladonna" was a woman and not the plant, but if he kept these people intrigued about why he was among them, he might be able to talk his way out of this place.

"You said you were looking for your sister," the woman said, shifting so she no longer blocked Sebastian's right hand.