Pilgrimage (12 page)

He landed face first on a pile of bodies. Griffith screamed. He struggled through the pit of corpses towards the edge but every movement sunk him further down. Rotting arms and maggot ridden-faces piled over him.

“No, no, no!” Griffith called and groped for a handhold. An ancient, dead foot snapped off in his grasp. He sank further into the pit. He felt something wrap around his ankle. He kicked at it with his other foot and dragged himself away with his arms. The bodies were suffocating. The light disappeared as he fell – or was dragged – deeper into the mass grave.

Then something brushed against his hand. He couldn't see any more, could only feel his one hand above the bodies. Griffith pushed himself up on somebody's head and grabbed at whatever he felt. His fist closed around a clump of hair, no, it was grass or maybe leaves; whatever it was didn't matter. He'd grabbed solid earth. Griffith shut his eyes tight and pulled himself up. With his other limbs he swam towards the surface. He pretended the bodies weren't there. It wasn't a grave he'd fallen into. It wasn't a pit of corpses. It was just, well, it could be anything else. Anything was better. It was a pile of narcoleptic puppies that he couldn't wake up. It was a swimming pool full of jelly. It was absolutely anything that wasn't rotting corpses.

Griffith's other hand broke the surface and he grabbed the edge of the pit. With two hands secure, he hoisted himself straight up, knocking aside the things-that-weren't-bodies with his shoulders and head. Griffith crawled out and dragged himself along the ground, away from the pit. Then he emptied his stomach on a tree. Dizzy, his throat burning and half-way to a screaming panic, Griffith chanced a glance back at the pit. He couldn't fight the morbid curiosity. Where had it—

Gone.

Griffith stood upright and looked around. No bodies. No hole. They were as gone as Roland. Something in Griffith's mind ticked over and it all began to make a kind of frightening sense. He'd heard stories about places like this. Sorcerers had known about them for centuries. But Roland wouldn't know. Roland was vulnerable. Griffith stepped away from the tree and gazed through the bush. Which way had he come?

A low hum caught his attention. The droning sound started soft but grew. The sound buzzed louder and louder, like a warning siren or an incoming jet plane. Griffith turned towards the noise while telling himself to hit the deck and hope it ended soon. Morbid curiosity 2, Griffith 0. A black, buzzing cloud wove around the trees, swallowing up foliage and light like a moving, shadowy sponge. The swarm rushed towards him, thousands of locusts gnawing their way through everything green in their path and leaving only skeletal remains in their wake.

Griffith ran. Griffith ran like his life depended on it. He'd never outrun it, but if he could keep ahead of it long enough, he might be able to turn them away with magic. Griffith swallowed hard. His legs burned. Each breath strained and wheezed out his mouth. He'd never cast a spell while running. He needed calm and stillness to focus his magic. First time for everything. Griffith gathered his thoughts as much as he could. He gave them focus and intent, fuelled by a need to live, fuelled by pure terror and he sent his spell barrelling through the bush in front of him. A torrent of force, pure energy, snapped off branches and scattered rocks in front of him. A clear path to keep running. He'd gotten lucky once and the spell worked. Now for the bugs.

Griffith pictured water. Hundreds of litres of water, rushing from a geyser, flowing out of underground pools. Hot, endless waves of water. It was a lot to conjure on the fly, without time and without focus, but Griffith didn't have options. All he had was desperation. That would have to do. Fortunately, magic came easier in a place like this. His desperation became need, his need became will. Griffith channelled his will one more time, giving his thoughts power and intent.

He didn't know if it was a result of his spell backfiring or not, but time seemed to slow. The air crackled with static electricity. The hair across his body stood on end. Something flashed hot and white beneath him. The roar of the wind around him drowned out the buzzing swarm. Griffith felt his body lift. The wind whipped at him, spinning and twisting his limbs in every direction. Time ticked over in its normal pattern again, just in time for Griffith to feel his body thrashed against the trunk of a gum tree.

Griffith rolled off the trunk and wrapped around a branch. The branch snapped and he kept falling. He curled, instinctively, into a ball and tucked his head into his arms. He bounced off one branch, broke through another and rolled off the edge of a final one before dropping straight to the ground.

*****

Roland took a step closer to the bed. The sobbing stopped again. The pile of blankets rolled away from him.

“Violet, it's me,” he said. The mass of bedding shifted closer. Roland wanted to say something else but nothing sounded right.

“Roland,” The pile of blankets said. “Roland, is that you?” The voice wasn't hers. He knew that voice. He knew it but it couldn't be true. Or could it? Fucking magic. Of course it could be true. Roland backed away. He kept his eyes on the bed. The bedding shifted again and rose up, falling away in layers. The face beneath the blankets confirmed Roland's fears. His hands touched the door frame. Roland spun and ran. One step out the door, the world fell away. Roland dropped like a pin, straight into water. He kicked and waved his arms until he stopped sinking. He kept his eyes shut tight. Beneath the surface, he heard screams. Muffled by the water, he heard crying. It was the unmistakable sound of a baby crying. Roland heard it all around him until he broke the surface, not with a splash but a stiff ripple in the water around him. He felt the water ooze down his face and drip off his nose. Roland wiped his face clean and opened his eyes. The water, thick and stagnant, was bright red. It wasn't water at all. He had fallen into a lake of blood. He swam towards the shore, clawing through the blood and kicking until his feet touched solid ground.

“You can't escape me!” The voice came from behind him. He didn't look back. He didn't answer. He kept swimming until his hands scraped through the dirt and then he crawled up out of the lake of blood.

Roland gagged and coughed. He spat blood onto the ground and wiped his face again.

A hand clasped around his hair. Somebody yanked Roland up to his feet and bent his neck and spine back in ways they weren't meant to go.

“Where are you going?” The grabber punctuated his sentence with a kick to Roland's calves. Roland buckled. The attacker pulled Roland up again. Roland rose up easy, like a rag-doll in his hands. Then the assailant tossed him aside like so much garbage. Roland fell. His leg landed right on top of a rock. He cried out and gritted his teeth. The attacker stalked towards him. Roland stared up at the man. The same man who couldn't be, from the bedroom that wasn't there.

“What the hell are you?” Roland asked.

“Don't you know?” Another kick. Roland grabbed his leg but he couldn't hold it. His attacker had all the strength and health of a much younger man. “Don't you recognise me?”

Roland pushed up to his hands and knees. “I don't understand.”

“What's there to understand?” The man pulled Roland upright and struck him across the jaw. Roland toppled over like a bowling pin. “I'm you.”

*****

The magic came easier to Griffith once the pain had settled from hot fire to a dull throbbing. The locusts had gone back to wherever they came from. Alone, in the quiet, Griffith focussed. Whatever damage the fall had done, he undid by his spell. Bruise by bruise and limb by limb, Griffith felt his health and his energy return. Casting the spell in that place came as easy as breathing and walking. Mere seconds delayed him from getting back to his feet.

Griffith flexed his fists and kicked his legs out. Everything worked the way it should. Now that he knew where he was, he could keep control. No more surprises for this sorcerer. But Roland was almost certainly in danger.

Griffith started walking. Sounds echoed around him, indistinct in the vastness of the bush.

“Sounds,” Griffith said. “Sounds,” he repeated. The word meant something. He knew he'd missed something. Something to do with sounds. “Sounds. Roland!” Griffith's walk became a jog and then a run. There couldn't be much making sounds out there. Griffith ducked around trees and ploughed through low growing shrubs. A giant, fallen tree blocked his path. Griffith turned and sprinted alongside it, rounding two more trees wedged around the fallen trunk. On the other side, Griffith saw Roland. He stood in a small, round clearing. Another man lay at his feet. Roland gave the man on the ground just long enough to think he could get up, before beating him down again.

Griffith rushed towards them. Picking fights around here was only going to get him hurt. Roland had no idea what he was doing.

“Roland, stop!” He shouted. Roland looked up. Griffith dug his feet into the dirt. He stopped, nearly falling flat on his face.

“He's only getting what he deserves!” Roland said, before kicking the man on the ground again. The man gasped and called out. He tried to drag himself away. Roland let him go a few centimetres before grabbing his ankles and pulling him back.

“Leave him alone!” Griffith couldn't muster the same force in his voice this time.

“Or what?” Roland shot a glare at Griffith that felt like knives in his chest. Griffith had never seen so much anger or hatred in those eyes. Something about Roland was different. He carried himself upright, chest forward. He had less grey hair and less dark wrinkles under his eyes. He physically trembled with rage and hatred. When Griffith didn't answer, Roland turned his attention back to his victim.

Roland pushed the man over, onto his back and dragged him up by his shirt collar. Griffith stepped back in shock at sight of the man. Their eyes met and Griffith saw that this angry, young Roland was attacking the Roland that Griffith knew. The younger Roland struck his elder double across the jaw, let him drop and then stomped on his ribs.

“Griffith, help,” The older Roland wheezed.

Griffith let it all sink in, then sighed and shook his head. “It's not real, Roland.”

“Like fuck he's—” Roland didn't finish. Young Roland knelt down beside him and wrapped his hands around the older man's neck. Roland pushed back and clawed at his doppelganger’s face. Young Roland held tight and turned away. Roland thrashed his legs out ineffectually. His face started to turn purple. He gagged and choked. Young Roland stayed placid, unflinching in the face of his own suffering.

“He's a construct of your own mind,” Griffith said. “He doesn't exist. Just calm down; whatever it is you're thinking about, just let it go. Think about nothing and you— and he will become nothing.”

Roland didn't answer. His arms fell limp to his side. The younger Roland stood up and stared at Griffith. Griffith stared back. He watched as the false Roland faded away, leaving not so much as a footprint in the clearing. Griffith sighed and shrugged. The closer he came to Roland's body, the more he could feel the pain in the air, like an oppressive weight piling onto his shoulders. He checked Roland over, felt him breathing in shallow breaths. He grabbed Roland's arm and lifted him up, leaning his unconscious friend on his shoulder.

“Come on, Roland,” he said. “We've walked out of worse things than this.” The dead weight of the man was tremendous but Griffith struggled forward. Staying wasn't an option.

When Roland came to, he was sitting upright and leaning against a tree. He felt tired, exhausted, in fact. A breeze brushed over him that felt like ice against his skin. He was still wet. The sounds of crying and a blood red lake flashed in his mind. Another cold chill ran over him. He grunted and pushed himself up to his feet.

“You awake?” Griffith asked. Roland couldn't see him. He leaned around the tree and saw the sorcerer sitting on the opposite side.

“Yeah. What happened?”

“You beat yourself up real bad. I had to drag us somewhere safer.”

Roland looked around. “This is safer?” he asked. The trees were thinner there, but it was still bushland as far as he could see.

“Yep,” Griffith answered. “We won't be attacked here.”

“What happened back there? I saw—”

“Yourself?” Griffith stood up and joined him on his side of the tree.

“And more.”

“It's called a Weird. Can you walk?”

Roland nodded. “A Weird?”

“Yeah. They're pretty rare but not impossible to find. We just stumbled into one by accident.” Griffith started walking. Roland fell in beside him.

“But what is it?”

“It's magic.” Griffith shrugged. “Sometimes, when a person casts a spell, it leaks magic. The spell uses all the energy it needs and whatever is left just kind of hangs there. Usually it dries up or gets blown away or something. I don't know what happens to it. But if you cast enough spells in one place, it starts to add up. Before long it starts to take on a life of its own and weird stuff happens. Hence the name. Some sorcerers create them deliberately because it's easier to cast spells in a Weird.”

“So this place is haunted by magic?”

“Actually, that's a good way to describe it. I think a lot of places people think are haunted by ghosts are probably just Weirds.”

“A lot? But not all?”

Griffith shrugged. “I don't know. I'm just an apprentice.”

“But back there, I was fighting myself. That was me. And there was a lake of blood and a door.”