Beckoning of the Gate

Prologue

PrologueMarget wiped the sleep from her eyes. Standing at the cottage threshold, she peered into the night. Mist blanketed the dense wood of spruce, fir, and witch-hobble east of the village. Beyond, silhouetted by the rising moon, stood the ruined towers and walls of a castle. Eerily beautiful, but nothing at all worrying.

But then why would this feeling not leave her?

Unless …

She strained her eyes, her ears, her will. It was much too still. Not a branch stirred. No insect sang. The fog carpeted the mossy ground, dense and opaque, like a slab of marble. She’d felt this absence before, had grown almost accustomed to it, though not quite.

Cold pricked at her chest and her pulse raced. The hunter.

In her mind, the master shouted, Run!

Marget flung herself from the doorway, into the night, skirts drawn up, her bare feet churning the fog as she fled into the forest.

East! cried the master. East!

Pure white light erupted from the necklace at her chest. Marget clutched at it, shrouding it from prying eyes in her fist. The evergreen trunks flickered past, a mural of shadows.

Faster! Had she ever heard the master so fierce? It thrust the power upon her and she drew from it. Marget accelerated, her feet ensorcelled, until she glided over land and fog like an eldritch spectre. South! Marget veered, one hand gathering her skirts, the other at her chest to keep the master safe.

As she sprinted towards a grove of spruce and birch, she felt the absence grow stronger; a deeper shadow hidden in the night. From within the foliage came an insectile chittering, sudden and oppressive, momentarily drowning out her own pounding heart and haggard breaths.

East, east! To the river.

Marget spun, kicking up a spray of dirt and needled leaves. The din of insects abated and the presence, the feeling of that heavy shadow, drew inexorably closer as the master’s influence waned. She slowed. No, not again. She gritted her teeth. Keep going. Not much farther.

And still she could not shake the shadow. Unlike the others whose presence she sensed like the beating of a drum, his was barely a whisper. Sweat plastered her hair to her scalp. Every stride threatened to be her last. But she was close. She had to be. Then, just beyond the trees, a torrent of cold water glistened in the moonlight. Once she crossed it, pursuit would be impossible. No wight could follow her there, not even the hunter. They were saved!

The master lashed her chest with cold: a warning. Marget gasped and tried to sidestep—too late. An enormous weight barrelled into the small of her back. Breath erupted from her lungs as she was sent sprawling.

She choked and spat dirt and pine needles from her mouth. The great pines and elm trees pressed about her, deepening the shadows and confusing the eye. Yet something was there, something broad and squat and sidling towards her. Iron bands seemed to clamp Marget’s chest. Her knees, torn and bloody from the fall, spasmed beneath her so she had to pull at a low-hanging pine to scramble to her feet. No, no, no, no! The river. She lurched towards the promise of the black, flowing waters, taking only two steps before a hand gripped the back of her neck and lifted her off the ground. Squealing, she struck out with fist and nail, knee and foot, but he was impervious. Grunting, the hunter flung Marget to the ground, smashing her forehead against the base of an elm. Dazed and breathless, she pushed her face into the rough bark, putting her back to the fellbeast that had pursued her for months.

‘Leave me be,’ she whimpered, her left hand going to the leather pouch—the master—suspended about her neck.

The hunter chuckled. ‘That we cannot do.’ His voice was not as she had imagined. It was too gentle, too human, though instinct told her it made him all the more dangerous. She curled into a ball. ‘Look at us, Marget,’ he commanded.

Marget bowed her head lower against the elm, wishing it would swallow her up.

The hunter sighed. ‘We said, look at us, Cahbrúin.’

The breath halted in her throat. When had she permitted such evil to learn her true name—her very soul? Jaw clenched, nostrils flaring, Marget resisted at first, but it was no use. Hissing and spitting through her teeth, she turned to face the creature. Her glimpse of the immortal being, hunched over her in an ill-fitting cloak, dark eyes pinning her, turned her bowels to water.

‘Thou hast led a good hunt.’ His lips, though drawn and twisted, imparted his words slowly and elegantly. ‘It has taken thee down a different path than the others.’ The grey one stepped closer, hunched and peering. ‘We almost thought … Ah, well, thou knowest what must be done now. Give it up and we shalt end thy pain. It can be over in an instant, Marget, if thou will it.’

Master, help me, she implored. And the master reached out with reassurance—and a name. Marget rolled upright, feeling the rough bark pull at her dress, and pressed her back to the elm trunk, a solid sensation that gave her courage.

‘Please, Mortthis. Please do not do this. Mortthis …’

He reared back with a growl, gnarled hand raised. Marget braced herself, but the grey one composed himself, clasping his hands behind his back.

‘Tch, tch. It goes too far, but thou art not to blame.’ His lips unknotted into something resembling a smile. ‘On our honour, we shalt hasten thy death if thou dost give it up,’ he said, his words like honey. ‘Consider well, Marget. We grow impatient.’

Marget swallowed hard, and though her heart was in her throat, she drew herself up. ‘To die quickly or slowly? A beggar’s bargain,’ she snarled at him, looking the wretched thing in its coal-chip eyes. ‘I will not beg for either, Mortthis. You’ll have to do better if you would make me give up the master.’

Her left hand reached up to the leather pouch at her neck and grasped it. Help me, she pleaded. I know not what to do.

Fear not, said the master. It flooded her with calm, the chill of it smoothing her doubts, inviting her to yield as it had countless times before. It whispered in her mind and she obeyed. It had never led her astray. Marget rose and pulled the necklace off over her head. She held it out to the immortal.

‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Take it, Mortthis!’ The grey wight reached out and Marget laughed as she drew it back slightly, baiting him. ‘If you can ...’

But then something changed. A sudden wrongness.

The master tugged itself free from her grasp and launched into the air. Pain lanced Marget—in her chest, behind her eyes, her hands—as if something inside her had cleaved itself free. The pouch generated a blinding whiteness that seared her vision, blinding her for a moment. The hunter grunted as they both retreated a little. The glow faded. Suspended in the gloom, the master had woven itself a dazzling cocoon of white, and the sight filled Marget with a great sense of loss. She had been judged and found wanting. She was no longer its chosen.

‘Why?’ she screamed. ‘Why?’

With a loud noise, like an immense limb from an ancient tree snapping off, the master was gone, the light it had brought forth sucked from the very air.

Hands trembling, Marget sagged with exhaustion, and she wept. A wicked laugh escaped Mortthis’s lips and she felt the master’s betrayal all the more keenly. Her whole body began to shake. Tears streamed down her swollen face and she slumped to the forest floor. Forsaken.

‘Cahbrúin,’ Mortthis rasped.

Without the master’s influence, the power of her true name hit Marget with a terror that silenced her sobs. She rolled onto her back, paralysed, her eyes no longer her own as they stared up into the face of death.

‘Did we not warn thee?’ he said. ‘It has used thee and cast thee aside. Now, for thy foolishness, thy life is forfeit.’

Mortthis hissed, his hatred for all humanity keen in Marget’s ears. Her eyes, though, showed her only her doom—but for one brief moment when she saw a small man perched in the elm above them, observing the scene with weeping eyes. I’ve gone mad, she thought. Clenching her teeth, spittle frothing at her lips, she fought against the wight’s hold.

‘Hickory! ’ was all she could manage, but the man shook his head sadly, and when she blinked, he was gone.

Along with any hope Marget had of living.

PART 1