Firetale (26 page)

“
Until
everything blows over and the Judge is no longer interested in
you,” Mr. Bernardius said, his voice dark and brooding.

“
There
are a few bottles of the potion that hides you from the Judges in
the pickup truck,” Ino said. “It should be sufficient for a couple
of weeks. Take one bottle a day at the same time. Then I’ll come
around. To replenish your stocks or take you away. We’ll
see.”

“
Back
to the circus?” Greg wanted to sound confident, but he could not
hide the doubt in his voice.

Mr. Bernardius
gave a heavy sigh.
“Greg, you have brought trouble on the circus. Your presence would
be dangerous for the rest …”

Ino
interrupted just as Greg was about to
do the same.
“I think you still have to meet again, boys. You’ll decide
then. In the meantime, let’s not waste time. Greg, take provisions
from the truck. No delicacies there, but you won’t die of
hunger.”

The magician unloaded the car,
and Lazarus and Ino quickly said goodbye
and got back into the pickup. Greg
turned and went to inspect his temporary shelter.

Bernardius looked depressed,
and when they
got onto the highway, Ino asked him what the matter
was.

“
I’m
worried about Greg,” Lazarus admitted.

“
He’s
a good guy, and if he doesn’t do anything stupid, no one will find
him here. I barely remembered how to get here.” Ino exuded
confidence, but it was not enough for Lazarus.

“
That’s the thing. He relies too much on his magic. He is
too attached to it, and if he decides to use it while we are not
looking, the Judge may find him.”

Ino waved aside the
ringmaster
’s
doubts. “Oh, honey, that’s not going to happen.”

Lazarus snorted.
“
You don’t
know Greg, Ino.”

“
But I
know myself and what I can do. The potions I gave you and Greg are
a bit different from one another.”

“
Different? What do you mean? They react
differently?”

“
They
are the same. But the potion Greg drank has a small additional
effect. It not only hides the traces of magic from Judges but also
prevents mongrels from using their magical abilities. Not forever,
only as long as the potion works.”

The
ringmaster almost jumped in the
passenger seat. “Greg will not be able to use his
magic?”

“
That’s what I said, my dear. You understand
correctly.”

“W
hy did you not tell him?”

“
You
said yourself that he is too attached to his magic. I don’t think
he would have voluntarily agreed to such a thing. I’m telling you
now because we are far enough from the cabin that you won’t be
tempted to go back and tell him. Do not worry. I will visit him in
a few weeks. Everything will be fine.”

Everything was going
well
.

There were n
o surprises. Greg’s days were
tiring in their lonely monotony. Dusting took a few hours. On the
second day, out of excessive zeal, Greg chopped enough wood for a
couple of weeks. The days that followed consisted of cooking canned
food, walking in the woods, and thinking about Martha. He recalled
their conversations, their sex, their shows. He had watched with
admiration how easily she performed all her stunts, remembered her
breath on his shoulder when they fell asleep. At first, the
memories brought comfort, but the dark forest and empty house
reminded Greg that he had been deprived of Martha’s companionship
for days, and might be for weeks or months longer, which made him
unbearably sad. Sometimes his longing became physically tangible.
Greg felt it somewhere in his chest, and then a devastating wave
moved from it in all directions, reaching and sticking in his
throat, arms, and legs. He wanted to escape from it. He wanted to
break all the taboos, and go to Martha. But the wave was unnerving,
making his arms and legs weak, and he was unable move. Greg
reminded himself that he could not endanger Martha by appearing in
the circus, and he became reconciled to his existence.

Eventually
Greg began to feel as if he had
disappeared into the quiet forest, into its leaves, roots, and
branches, its majestic and deceptive silence. At the end of one
day, the sound of a sapling cracking snatched the magician from his
heavy thoughts. The cracking sound was followed by another and then
another and was getting closer and louder. He didn’t think it was
Ino, could not imagine that she had taken a wrong turn in the
twilight and was now blasting through trees in her pickup. The long
days in the hut in the forest had merged into one for Greg, but he
knew that the witch would not return soon. And it was unlikely a
lumberjack crew, drunk and lost. No lumberman could cut down trees
this fast.

Wasting no time, Greg jumped up
from his chair and ran out onto the porch. Twili
ght was rapidly turning into
darkness. Greg stared, trying to determine the source of the noise,
but he saw only trees standing close to each other. The mage
circled the house, going toward the sound that was still becoming
louder. Now he could hear not only cracking, but also … what?
Groaning, sighing, sniffing, a quiet growl? Whatever was headed to
the house and Greg, it was clearly alive. Realizing this, the
magician became confused. What creature could sigh so noisily and
fell trees with such speed?

Greg looked
up to the tops of the trees and
noticed that some of them shook from side to side, as if hit by a
storm coming from several directions. Except that the weather was
calm, and there was no wind. Whatever “storm” was approaching, it
was accompanied by sighs instead of howling winds. Greg had never
considered that sighs could be furious, but that’s what he was
hearing. Whatever was approaching the house, it did not scare Greg.
He was sure of his magic and would not run.

A tree was falling where the backyard met
the forest, pushing aside branches and the trunks of neighboring
trees. Greg thought it was going to land directly on him. He jumped
back, but the tree stood up, its trunk once again straight. And
then Greg heard a furious breath. The tree had taken a step
forward, into the backyard of the cabin.

What Greg had taken for a tree
wasn
’t a
tree. It was a woodwose. The mage had never seen one, but he’d
heard about them from Pietro. The creature in front of the magician
stood the height of two humans, and, at such a distance or in the
dark, it could be mistaken for a tree. Lumps grew from the
woodwose’s back and shoulders like branches, gnarled and covered
with leaves and moss, forming something of a crown. The monster’s
head and torso were covered with thick matted hair, in which twigs,
dead leaves, dirt, and animal excrement were stuck. Its arms and
legs resembled old tree branches, and its skin was thick, cracked,
and covered with growths, making it almost indistinguishable from
tree bark. The creature had a face like a human but it was almost
completely hidden by tufts of brown fur falling down over it. Only
its round eyes, of a blazing red color, were clearly visible.
Suddenly the wool under its eyes moved up and down, revealing a
dark dip under it. A sigh came from it. This time it was full of
rage and triumph.

The huge creature
threw one of his
long arms at Greg, but its size made the woodwose slow, and the
mage easily dodged the blow, leaping to the side and rolling over.
The woodwose released a long, irritated sigh and began to turn his
whole body to the magician to strike another blow. Greg scrambled
back up. He was ready to prepare his attack. He called the inner
fire … and felt nothing. There was no response, no spark. The flame
did not come out of his fingers, his hands did not turn into
flaming whips. Greg just stood there, his hands outstretched
ridiculously, fingers spread, like a LARP player pretending to be a
wizard. He was shocked. It was like waking up in the morning and
discovering that you have no arms or legs. The magician couldn’t
believe that the fire refused to obey him. He tried again, and
again, but the magic did not answer him. Stunned, he looked at his
hands. And missed the jab.

As Greg tried and failed to summon his
magic, the monster had enough time to turn around and attack again.
The magician was lucky the woodwose couldn’t calculate the distance
to the target, and the blow was glancing. The monster’s long,
branchlike fingers barely reached the magician, but it was enough
to knock him down. The monster’s fingers ripped Greg’s shirt,
slightly scraping his skin, but falling to the ground knocked the
air out of the fire mage’s chest. White flashes clouded the
magician’s eyes, and his lungs seemed to have decreased in size,
like a balloon pierced with needle. To the woodwose, the small man
lying on his back, gasping for breath, looked like a cockroach that
couldn’t roll over onto his stomach and escape. The monster raised
its hands and struck downwards, wanting either to flay Greg or nail
him to the ground with its long, sharp fingers.

The mage
rolled
, and
the woodwose’s branches sank a few inches into the ground, just
missing the fire mage. The monster again let out a furious sigh and
pulled its hands out of the ground. Greg jumped up and ran around
the house to the porch. The woodwose was much slower, but it took a
long step and waved its hand, aiming at the feet of the running
man. The blow struck Greg’s running legs, and he fell headfirst.
The impact made him woozy, but the magician told himself to stand
up and continue to run. Behind him, the woodwose let out a
triumphant sigh.

Greg
again tried to call the inner fire,
but there was only silence inside. It was like pounding a wall
where none had existed before. But he wasn’t going to stop
pounding. The more hits to the wall, he encouraged himself, the
faster it would fall. Meanwhile, the monster chasing Greg changed
its tactics. It picked up a stone the size of an adult human head
and threw it at Greg. A sharp pain shot through Greg’s left thigh.
He thought he heard a crack, and the next moment his left leg
buckled under him, and he fell again. He tried to get up, but he
couldn’t move his left leg. He could no longer run or walk. He
could only crawl.

Greg
spotted the ax he used for chopping
wood a few yards away, lying on the ground. It was a pitiful
weapon, but at least something. Crawling on his elbows and pushing
with his right foot, Greg crawled to it. The monster picked up
handfuls of earth and threw them at Greg. Most of the stones and
branches were too small to cause serious pain, but when a pointed
branch stuck into his left thigh, Greg’s whole body started
shaking. Finally, his fingers closed around the handle of the ax.
Only then did the magician realize how pathetic his weapon was. It
would be foolhardy to fight such a big monster with this small ax.
The woodwose was approaching. Trusting in luck, Greg threw the ax,
aiming for the creature’s gleaming red eyes.

At first, the magician did not understand
what had happened. For the first time, the woodwose let out
something other than a sigh. It was a hoarse howl, full of pain.
The ax had stuck in the body of the monster somewhere between its
mouth and shoulder. The creature thrashed, trying to get at the ax.
But his clawed fingers became tangled in its wool, and its hands
were too big and clumsy to grab the handle. The woodwose stamped
and shook its head, trying to shake off the ax like an annoying
rodent. It was Greg’s best chance. Fire could still save him, even
if it wouldn’t be in the way he had thought. Greg crawled to the
house.

It was difficult to climb the
stairs.
His
left foot was unbendable, and it knocked against every step,
causing so much pain that Greg almost passed out. He dripped with
sweat, and when it got into his eyes, they burned. When he reached
the open door, he turned. The woodwose stopped trying to get the
ax. The monster bent down, lowered his head, and charged like a
bull.

The blow hit
Greg in the back and literally
threw him into the house through the door. The magician landed in
front of the fireplace in a cloud of moss, leaves, and small
slivers of wood. The woodwose smashed at the doorway but could get
no further. His body was in the house only to its shoulders, and he
was stuck. The creature fought furiously, trying to get free. One
hand remained almost entirely outside, obstructed by part of the
wall, the second was inside the house. The woodwose was furiously
waving it, trying to get to Greg. His claws scraped the floor,
leaving deep marks in it, but they were a few feet away from the
magician.

Next to the fireplace lay chips
for kindling. Greg put them into the flame
s, and when they caught fire, he
threw them at the woodwose with his bare hands. The inner fire did
not answer him, but open flames still did not cause him harm.
Seeing the fire so close, the monster stopped trying to get to the
magician. With his free hand, he started pushing the wall that
pressed him down, reaching outside. The less this monster was
interested in Greg, the closer to the woodwose the fire mage could
get. Flaming chips fell around the monster. Some of them got on his
dirty, matted fur.