Neophyte / Adept (45 page)

We would be passing it shortly. It was almost like a
fourth
magic city, was old Venice.

“...The Benandanti also existed in Rome and Germany...” said
Ballard. “We should go looking for them, when we get to Prague....”

I wasn’t really paying attention. “Don’t you see, though,
the old Histories are cross-mutating, interbreeding,” he said.

How come Dallace and Camille had been allowed to create
their own magic city? They were vampires, after all. Yet they seemed to pay no
allegiance to Paris. Why not?

Ballard removed the nozzle, and put the cap back on his fuel
tank. “The last thing we want is to be drawn into a three-way war. There have
been stories about disagreements in the past, between the Grigori and the
Benandanti, and us... I figure I can introduce myself around. See what’s up,”
he said.

My head felt like it was going to explode.
Find Them––Look for them.

The weather was changing. It was becoming colder. We got
back on the autoroute; finally it started to snow.

Neither Ballard nor I had any thoughts of stopping. The
snowflakes felt otherworldly. As though there were
two
worlds––the one, non-magic, the other,
magical
.... The impulse to continue was
so strong in us that in consequence we made very good time.

I eased my helmet off, riding momentarily no-hands, and came
alongside Ballard. My hair––already long––flew behind
me in a whipsong of wind and fury; my eyes stinging with how fast we were
going, I changed to a higher gear. I passed the mile markers without really
having passed the mile
stones
,
Wiccanwise. What, if anything, would we find? I rode without any particular
fondness of feeling, content in the deep-seated assurance that I rode to
nowhere.

The Dioscuri had set me a mission. They were the Enemy,
vampires changed with longevity––they knew things, foul things,
things I wanted to know.

We passed like shadows in the night.
Always––always––I looked behind me. I didn’t know why,
but it felt like we were being followed. We flew past police speed traps, but
whoever the two ghosts were, the officers never found out. Ballard knew his
geography well. I saw him ease up, steering with one hand, while he looked at
his map with the other. We ghosted like that some time––the
ever-helpful moonlight bright on my tires, as I cut through the snowfall which
was turning to sludge. A pale light was coming over the horizon. Mountaintops
filled my vision. Ballard signaled for us to take the next exit; there was a
roadblock ahead he said we needed to avoid; I followed after him. I was all for
risking
our way through Central
Europe, but he said: “I’m taking no chances.”

We wound our way through surface streets, passing small
towns; Ballard assured me we would get to Prague, eventually. I didn’t know
what to think. He hadn’t lead us astray, yet.

We drove to Verona, when the trek got really hard. The
sweeping countryside gave way to hills––craggy, dramatic,
out-of-nowhere. The scree threatening landslides.

“It’s only going to get worse,” he said.

The Dolomites were northeast. At the town of Giazza, on the
Monti Lessini plateau, I saw a spectacular view. Mountain ranges filled with
trees, and snow, there in the distance. The Alps were directly before us. The
roadways began becoming perilous. A picture-postcard, Giazza was snowed under.
We passed vineyards, dead or dying, when my Gambalunga started having fits. We
decided to give it a rest, the Gambalunga, not the trip, to see what we could
see.
Some soul saver.
We slept until
evening in motel rooms.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” said Ballard, “for it is the end
of our comfort, when it goes. Soon we will have to leave the road behind
us––any food will come either from our packs, or the cunningless
game misfortunate enough to wander into our traps.”

He showed me the map––the “place of trees,” the
Stromovka
, as he called it, the deep
swaths of forest surrounding Prague. The Czech Republic lay in the heart of
Central Europe. Our path lead right through it.

“That is our route we are taking,” he said.

“There are no roads,” I noticed.

He readjusted his pack. “Not to worry,” he said.

And to think, I told myself, if I had just taken the
Eurorail, I could practically be there by now. Prague was beginning to feel
like a million miles away. But then I remembered about my status as an illegal alien
and shut my mouth. Ballard had to see what was wrong with my Gambalunga first.
I moved our stuff into our rooms; a fast, laborious trip. I plopped on my bed
in the unknown room. Ballard popped his head in. “I topped the oil off,” he
said. “Your Gambalunga should be okay. It’s just old. See you tonight.” He was
anxious to get his shut-eye. I shut and locked my door and then fetched out my
diary. I had decided to make use of my time by creating a travelogue, an
ongoing narrative account of my Roman exodus, and our journey to parts unknown.
My pen whizzed across the page. The elastic catch-all on the exterior of my bag
was becoming satisfyingly full of coke-bottle caps and other souvenirs. I could
hear Ballard snoring through the paper-thin walls. When his head hit pillow, he
went right out.

“Something is wrong,” I wrote. “It’s like the Spring is
late. It’s nearly March. It shouldn’t be this cold. Maybe it just stays extra
cold extra long, where we’re going.” I pulled out my guidebook, something I had
not been obliged to do for a very long time. There was a section on Northern
Italy. Apparently I could expect more freezing cold, because the guidebook
assured me Central Europe did that. I shook my head. What had I gotten myself
into? At least it wasn’t December. I couldn’t explain it... Even though the
weather was supposed to be cold, this felt wrong... Unnatural...

I put my book away. Lennox and his eyes were coming out of
the darkness after me: they were feral, hungry-looking. Before I knew it, I was
awake.

Central Europe seemed like the Dark Ages to me, when I
looked at it on the map. I knew it was silly Western
superstition––but that was where Transylvania was at. Ballard’s map
showed Europe’s major rail routes, like a crisscrossing web of interconnected pathways.
Still, when I looked at the map, all roads seemed to lead to Paris, not Rome;
mildly off-putting

“You always do that,” said Ballard. We were eating our way
through strawberry landslides. The waitress seemed to think we were both crazy,
sitting outside in the cold. But Ballard and I had become supernaturally
acclimated: He with his radiator-like heat, and me my throbbing mark.
“Grimace...” he said.

I had slapped it. I made a noncommittal noise.

“Sometimes it hurts,” I said.

“Your mark, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

Paris would have to wait. I couldn’t go there until I knew
Wicca... Even though it
was
where
Lennox was from...

There was nothing on the map about finding the actual
Districts of Magic. Almost as though they were off the beaten path, or worse,
hidden. How did one enter an unseen world?

By going there? Trying
to find it?
I told myself.

“I think we have to stumble our way upon it,” said Ballard,
who didn’t know either. He wiped his hands on a napkin and we paid up.

From here on out, the path, according to the map, would be
one long winding, vertical road, up into the snowy-filled Alps.

* * *

They were beautiful, those Alps. The narrow roads filled
with sharp, hairpin turns. I felt revitalized after the long rest. Perhaps it
was all the talk of Ballard’s People, but I thought I saw one––a
real, live werewolf––there, on the periphery of my vision. We were
out of the Boot, headed East, leaving Italy––zigging and zagging
our way up, past drifts of snow banks. Headlamps of passing cars preceded
curious faces, as they passed us by. I fetched out my hoodie. It felt thin
against the onslaught of wind, but what the H? The Alps were
crazy––huge plummeting drops, with other, perilous, points. Soon
the roads were empty. What I thought I saw was a giant, shaggy grey wolf. When
I looked again, it was gone. It was just Ballard and I. Hypothermia was
beginning to set in. “I need to stop,” I said. My non-Wiccan fingertips felt
like ice cubes. They were about to fall off. We had to battle on. There was no
stopping. We had to get through here––the Alps were killing Ballard
and I. The maps hadn’t prepared us for this.

The border crossing was coming up. Soon we would be in
Austria. But something was with us. A second traveler.

I caught glimpses of it, here and
there––hallucinations. I didn’t know what to think.

A pair of eyes, always on the outskirts... They would seem
to melt away, when I looked, and then come back.

We had to get out of the Alps. I didn’t like stopping for
the night here. And Ballard seemed uncomfortable. We were aware of the Hunter,
even though we could not see him. “I think he’s out there,” said Ballard. I
shivered, remembering the vision I had seen: Of it killing the two
gravediggers. They had been burying it. Why?

The air was slick with moisture––my knobby black
tires grabbing the asphalt, the Gambalunga humming along. It left me feeling
terribly exposed.

Still, I felt something powerful and ancient and primal
stirring within me; my own get-up-and-go. It would be morning soon. The Grey
Wolf couldn’t hide from us, then. I didn’t know what Ballard’s reaction to it
would be, when and if he saw it. “I can’t explain it, but I felt as though
something was watching us,” he said. Maybe it was a member of one of Ballard’s
teams of riders. They were patrolling the northern border. Lost, astray, rogue.
It, the Grey Wolf, had disappeared and we were briefly alone.

It flashed through my mind, the vision I had seen, Ballard
and I, racing through the trees; it was like we were after
something––or something was after us... But there had been a third
person... And he,
or she
, was with
us––and we were together––and we were
headed––... somewhere.

We were through the Alps, into Slovenia, in a region of
karst––beautiful, exotic fissures of limestone; the snow so bad
here we had to fit snow chains on our tires. That explained the clinking sound
I had heard coming from Ballard’s pack. He was full of wonders.

We made a light supper of shellfish paella. Our days and
nights were starting to get themselves
un
-confused––soon
the light would come. That just left the problem of first watch. Ballard was
getting feelings. “Might as well stay up,” he said. “I want to figure out what
they mean.” Because it was out there––we both could feel it. What
would we do if the grey wolf actually attacked us?

That night I had visions of eyes and a dark-filled voice
saying
Come––Be with us
.
The vision changed. I saw him. Lenoir! It must’ve been. As he spoke, things
unbidden crept into my imagination. I heard clashing, rapiers whipping
magically through the air––I saw wizards and witches, engaged in
combat, meeting in heaths, to settle some ancient grudge. And there was also a
fire-blade, blacker than the rest; and it could not be beat.

He was entering upon a heath, Lenoir, the wicked weapon in
his hand, where others were fighting. But as he passed they died, slain by his
comrades, spread like an infection. And there was also a stone circle.
Come––Be with us.

Nobody fought with swords anymore. Who would? It was very
much an anachronism. My mind rebelled against it.

I could hear the tongues of scorching fire, clinking
hammers, the hiss of steel. But no faces. Ballard nudged me. I woke shouting.
The face of the hunter, coming out of the darkness. It was time to leave, he
said.
Clink-clink, clink-clink,
clink-clink.
He had a strange look on his face, Ballard, and had stayed up
the night.

* * *

Austria was one long rolling hillside of dairy farms and fat
cows––leastways, that’s how it appeared to me. I missed Rome; I
missed the heartbeat of the city. Soon we would be in Slovakia; from thence,
the Czech Republic. My travelogue was filled with names like souslik, gyr
falcon, Grey Wolf.

Near Bratislava we got lost in a hornbeam forest. I saw
kingcups and peach-leaved bell-flowers. Ballard kept repeating phrases: “Put
him off! Gotta get lost! Lose him!” He was more manic than a maniac. Nothing
could convince him against the route we had taken.

I completely understood! Hadn’t
I
listened to that same mysterious voice, which was the voice of
premonition?

Because, despite our rudderless wanderings, I knew Ballard
and I were destined to meet up with a third member of our pack; who, for some
reason, I had always imagined to be Lia. But she couldn’t shift anymore, could
she? Then who had been the other wolf I had seen in my dreams of this moment?

We crossed in secret from Slovakia, to the Czech Republic,
and
walked
our bikes across. The
ground was covered in trumpetcreeper and snapdragons, not to mention mounds of
sneezeweed. I still wore my Harm None ring. It was on the index finger of my
right hand.

More of the Prague viburnums––fitting since we
were almost there. I wondered who would come for us, if we managed to traipse
into Prague. Surely, not the Dark Order.

I don’t know why, but I was thinking about Vittoria, and her
role in this. And about Ballard’s proposition that I should make her feel
welcome somehow.

It was four days since we had left Rome; four days of
traveling through swamps and peat bogs, rock quarries, and over mountain tops;
and now we had a new obstacle; the omnipresent twilight under dark forests,
which made seeing where I was going impossible: I nearly crashed a million
times. The crackling twigs and other detritus littered the
floor––and so endless.

One felt compelled towards drastic lashings-out. Trees were
everywhere. It was silent under their canopies, which stretched on forever. I
was not used to feeling so stifled. In truth, it was like being back at St.
Martley’s. But worse. Here there was no end in sight. It was just tree after
tree.

A happy and flickering fire jumped at the roots of a Silver
Linden, under which we made our camp. Ballard and I fashioned walking sticks.
We had marched our way through so much smelly swampland my boots squished with
the stuff. They were off, now, drying by the fire. Prague was only about a
hundred miles away, he said. If Ballard and I didn’t get out of the forest
soon, we would have to turn cannibal. I didn’t fancy muzzleburgers. “What makes
you think you would win?” said Ballard, somewhat indignantly.

The paella was gone.

A twig snapped. My heart rate spiked uncomfortably. I felt
the adrenaline flow through my veins––but that could’ve been Dark
Magic; the aether was inside all of us,
remember
,
I said to myself. Every witch and wizard, whether we wanted it or not. Ballard
stiffened.

I was too busy fashioning my walking stick. I decided to
make the point extra sharp, like a spear. That way if any wild boar were in the
Stromovka, I wouldn’t have to eat Ballard.

Ballard got to his feet and went to have a look around. I
could hear him striding through the trees, trying to scare off whatever was
after us.

Not even the stars could penetrate to where we were at; it
was impressively dark.

I gripped my walking stick. The flames crackled; their
embers shooting into the air. It was silent for miles around. Ballard put on
another log. The fire caught and spit. “Goodnight,” he said. He crawled into
his sleeping bag. I was left staring at the flames, not really seeing them.

Isn’t it funny? I thought. Here I am, all the way out
here...

Hours passed, Ballard snoring softly beside me. It happened
rather fast. One minute, I was warming my hands by the fire, admiring the
firelight glinting off my ring, the next the whole length of my right arm began
glowing with silver-bright magic.