THE shadows lengthened and seemed to grow more substantial, taking on three dimensions. They reached toward me with long tendrils that might have been the fingers of some lost soul seeking to claim my body for its own.
“Nonsense,” I said aloud, willing my fearful imagination to rest. “The sun is still above the horizon, and the twilight lingers long this time of year.” Hearing my voice speak the words made my reassurance more real than the shadows.
The old fortress and ritual maze stood between me and the bridge over the River Itchen. Should I take the easy path around the hill or the shorter one over the top?
The crumbling earthworks of the fortress and outer walls held many traps for an unwary traveler. Few creatures but demons and lost ghosts would be comfortable within the abandoned hill fort after dark.
I hurried along an overgrown pathway that should lead me around South Hill to East Bridge and a safe crossing of the river. The wind rose to a howl, driving me up the hill. The sun neared the horizon. I tasted chilled salt and sulfur in the air. The gates to the Netherworld creaked open early.
Was someone summoning demons before sunset? Who would be so foolish? Demons set free on Samhain didn’t have to obey the spellcaster and return to their own world at dawn.
Over the hill would cut my journey by half a league. My feet sped up the uneven path without me urging them forward.
Voices, loud and rowdy. Smoke. Wavering light. More sulfur greeted my senses as I rounded a curve of the hill. I spotted nine moving creatures. Grotesque, oversized heads, hairy, unclothed bodies, and hunched-over posture branded them as demons.
They blocked my path. Whose magic had summoned them early from the Netherworld?
I didn’t think I knew anyone stupid enough, or desperate enough, to try using demons on Samhain. Demons were difficult to control at best. Impossible to contain on this last night of the year.
I bolted off the easy path and up the steep slopes of South Hill toward the ritual labyrinth. If I could walk the entire looping pathway from beginning to end without faltering, I might be able to raise enough power to protect myself from the creatures.
As I reached the first rampart, broken in several places, the demons stepped onto the processional way on a course parallel to mine. The processional way was a kind of labyrinth in itself, twisting and winding around the steepest slope of the hill, filled with traps designed to stop an army, not hinder demons.
I had to reach the center of the labyrinth before the demons reached me. Once they entered the maze, they would grow in power. Unchecked, they might be able to permanently prop open the gateway to the Netherworld.
My heart pounded in my ears. My lungs labored. Cold sweat broke out on my brow, back, and under my arms. Pain stabbed my side. I needed to stop and take deep draughts of air. I couldn’t afford the time.
Darkness threatened to overtake me too quickly. Demons controlled this darkness.
Through my side vision, I kept track of the demons as they climbed the hill. Unearthly bobbing lights betrayed their looping passage of switchbacks on the eastern slope.
At last I reached the second rampart. Gulping air in heaving sobs, I scrambled over a small breach in the earthwork wall. The drop into the ditch on the other side was longer than the outside scramble. Brambles and pointed sticks awaited me. I checked over my shoulder for the demons. They were close. Too close. The processional path looped very close to the broken place I had chosen to climb.
No time to think. No time to prepare. I slid and slithered down the wall noisily, keeping my feet out in front of me. The soles of my feet collided with the shaft of one of the pointed stakes. Grateful that I hadn’t impaled myself on the stake and ripped great holes in my flesh, I rolled to my knees, seeking my next path.
Among the deep shadows, I spotted the wiggling pink nose of a small creature. Rabbit? Cat? I crawled through a small tunnel in the brambles after the animal. A fully-grown man in armor, carrying weapons, couldn’t have navigated that prickly path. Small as I was, thorny vines snagged my gown and plucked at my hair.
I crashed onward until the brambles thinned and the next slope rose before me. Steeper than the outside hill, this last climb held no traps and hindrances. I took two breaths to get my bearings and darted straight toward the jagged silhouette of the fortress.
As the hill leveled, I stumbled over the rotting remains of the town that had once clustered around the protection of the hill fort. Most of the wood had rotted in the centuries since the locals had moved down to the river level. Nearly all of the fortress’ stonework now formed the stout walls of Roman-style villas within the city. Enough rubble remained to trip me. My toes burned almost as sharply as my lungs.
The wind pressed me forward.
I counted my steps to the labyrinth. Nine times nine. Sacred number to firm my bond with the Goddess.
A complex pattern of circles within squares, cut into the cropped turf, lay before me. The chalky ground gleamed faintly in the red sunset. I placed my right foot onto the beginning of the path. My foot barely fit between the low ridges of close-cropped grass on either side. I knew that I had to follow the path exactly to the center, then back out to the beginning, just like the labyrinth on Avalon’s tor. One wrong step could send me into the arms of Cernunnos or any of his horned servants. Tonight, when the walls between reality and other realms faded and blurred, I needed to be doubly careful.
But the demons had to follow the path, too. They could not cut across the turf of the maze, through the layers of power I built. Once I reached the center, I’d have enough protective magic to safely reverse my path and walk back into the city.
“Please, Dana, guide your handmaiden correctly. Protect me this night from forces that would trick me away from your service.” I clutched the two sprigs of rowan tied together with red thread I kept in my sach.
No whisper of wind or giggle of faeries assured me that anyone had heard my prayer.
The sun touched the horizon. Darkness sped across the valleys between the hills. Too soon the half-light would dissolve into full darkness with only a small sliver of a new moon to light my way.
I should have at least another half-hour of twilight. Why was it so dark, so soon?
Magical power enfolded me the moment I placed my left foot on the path, directly in front of my right. I couldn’t turn back now if I tried.
The driving wind died. I was on my own.
The path veered sharply right. I teetered, almost lost my balance, one foot and both arms waving wildly. With all of my will, I forced my foot back down onto the path. My senses centered again and I move downward. I saw torchlight crest the first rampart. I had to hurry.
Strange. Demons shouldn’t need fire to light their way. I didn’t have time to think the problem through.
The lights crept forward. Deep voices howled.
Nine steps to the next left-hand turn. Nine more steps and I sped along the outermost line of the labyrinth. Only a very thin wall of power separated me from reality. I wasn’t sure if the demons could reach through it or not.
Nine more steps and I faced a curving turn to the left. I raised my left foot to step into the turn. The path darkened abruptly, hiding the white chalk that I followed. A lightning jolt of power shoved me backward. My arms flailed. Hastily I set my left foot back where it had been, behind my right.
What had I done wrong?
Begin again, a voice whispered in the back of my head. My father’s voice. A memory or instructions?
I couldn’t step out of the maze and start over. I had to keep going.
The demons let out a mighty howl of triumph as they spotted me. They ran toward me, ahead of their bobbing lights.
Knowing I had to follow the path correctly, without backtracking or stepping off the chalky line, I closed my eyes and searched for the power that blocked me. Energy pushed back against my seeking hand. A deterrent, not a barricade.
Keeping my eyes closed I stepped forward, this time on my right foot, as I had begun the maze. The energy dissolved. I took another careful step forward.
Six demons approached me. They reached for me with talonlike fingers. They caught the hem of my gown. I yanked it free of their grasp, hearing cloth tear.
The demons screamed his rage at my escape. His voice echoed across the rolling hills, shaking my senses and numbing my ears.
I ran forward, seeking the center with all my senses. I still had three quarters of the maze to traverse.
With a determined screech, another demon ran across the plateau and launched himself through the wall of power. His penis bobbed with each step. Alarm shot through me. Some demons had elongated and engorged genitals, others had no sex. All of them had a lump at the base of their spines — vestigial tails. This one had the normal size and shape of a human.
He landed facedown behind me, inside the labyrinth.
Inside the labyrinth? How? How could he penetrate that far without having walked the pathway first?
He scrambled to his knees, adjusting his face. Not a face. A mask. A hideous mask made to look like a demon. A naked man leered at me and stretched his arms wide. Two long strides across the turf and he captured me within those arms. He held me securely with a warrior’s strong muscles.
I must have fainted. When I opened my eyes, a blindingly bright bonfire burned before me.
Dazzled by the flare of fire, I threw my arm up to ward against the glare.
My arm wouldn’t move. My shoulders screamed in pain at the movement. I twisted and fought whatever held me in place. The fire flared again, revealing eight naked men in demon masks and deer antlers, in imitation of Cernunnos, dancing around the fire. The face of the horned god of the Underworld seemed outlined in the flames. Magical power shot upward with each new flare of fire.
The ninth man chuckled behind me as he jerked my bound hands upward and tied them to the upright pole that pressed against my back.
o0o
Drums throbbed in the distance, matching my rapid heartbeat. I couldn’t look away from the naked men. They wore human torcs and their masks — nothing else. Nothing hid their virile arousal. The man who had tied me stepped between the fire and me. He towered over me. His well-muscled shoulders stretched through the uncertain light, seemingly without end.
His penis stood proudly erect, moist and ready.
I shrank away from him. He clasped my jaw within a huge fist and pressed it upward, stretching my neck. Pain shot down my spine.
The drums intensified, filling the center of the moldering fortress with an almost tangible sound until they blotted out thought. The noise and the power came from everywhere and nowhere, beating an odd tempo with no discernible rhythm. A sense of insatiable hunger pulsed with the drum.
More, it demanded. More.
More what?
I smelled blood and greed. Fear washed over me in waves. My body lost all strength and coordination. Self-defense techniques fled from my mind in the face of the demon-man before me.
Laughing and gloating with his power over me, the tall man grasped the neck of my gown and yanked downward. Cloth tore. Cold night air chilled my skin. My exposed nipples drew into tight balls.
The dancing men circled closer, feeding off of my fear. The ritual they performed was unlike any I knew of. In a bizarre perversion of Beltane where the fertile body was worshiped and enhanced, these creatures inflicted self-mutilation with split switches, small knives, and burning coals. Blood ran down their bodies. In the roaring light of the bonfire, their body tattoos writhed and squirmed into the twisted faces of evil beings.
The paint making those ugly designs faded and ran when mixed with sweat and blood. Vaguely I recognized those men as thrill seekers rather than true disciples.
True priests endured long rituals that embedded their tattoos permanently on their bodies. These men had only painted themselves for the night.
True priests of Cernunnos would have placated the demons, tried to contain them, and reduce the damage they caused. These men incited demons to wreak more havoc.
Virgins willingly gave themselves to Belenos and fertility in the spring. On Samhain Eve, Cernunnos, the trickster, ruled. Women who wandered abroad on this last day of the year were often kidnapped into the Netherworld and raped by demons in a sterile union. If a child should have the ill luck to be conceived this night, by demon or a human male hosting a demon spirit, he would bear the taint of the Netherworld all his life.
The man who pressed himself against me had genuine tattoos burned into his skin with a hot needle and vivid paint. This man was a priest — not of Cernunnos, with recognizable patterns on his forearms like Da — but a priest of some unknown demon/god who demanded pain and blood and rape.
All of the tattoos on the men circled flat male nipples in reverse spirals, a mockery of the fertility symbol of the Goddess. Slashing arrows and convoluted whorls, which might be demon faces, spread across hard-muscled chests and drew my eye downward toward their flat bellies and anxious erections.
Lust engorged their manhood with each slash of switch and knife, until all of them must seek release within an unwilling woman.
Me.
More! The bonfire flared with the demand. More power, more blood, more uncontrolled lust.
The tall demon-man raked my body from breasts to pelvis with probing hands. His broken fingernails scratched my skin, leaving me raw and sensitive. Behind the mask I saw his eyes widen in glee, then narrow in speculation. I didn’t need to see his mouth to visualize his malicious grin.
Da, help me! I screamed in my mind. But Da was in the city, attending Uther’s banquet.
Escape must come from my own cunning.
What could I do against nine drunken, lustful men?
My mind and body unfroze at the first touch of his hand in the dark hair between my thighs. He had tied me hastily. My struggles loosened the rope. I lashed at his neck with my fingernails.
He managed to imprison one of my hands within his fist. I darted my free hand into the false pocket of my overgown, hanging loosely from my shoulders. The little eating knife that was belted around my waist came to my fingers readily. I raised the blade and rammed it toward his chest.
He captured my knife hand in his own a hair’s breadth from his heart. He laughed wickedly, taunting me to inflict wounds and pain. At the same time he pushed my other hand up and back, painfully twisting my shoulders.
Firelight slithered across his chest, turning his tattoos into demons that dragged my knife into his skin. Demons guided my knife in a long slash diagonally across his chest from left nipple to right rib. Blood drops welled up along the cut, spilling over the straight edges in a growing cascade of fire-touched crimson.
A surface cut only, no lasting damage to muscle or vital organ. But it would leave a scar.
He laughed again and again, head thrown back, shoulders shaking. The pain in my back, shoulders, and neck eased. His laughter drowned out the cries of the other men and the incessant arrhythmic drumbeat.
Then he turned the knife in my hand on me.
I watched, horror stricken, as he forced my hand holding the blade toward my vulnerable throat. Fear fueled my muscles in resistance. Still his strength mastered my feeble attempts to keep the blade away from me.
I screamed. I know I did. But no sound rose above the man’s wicked laughter. I raised my knee to slam into his vulnerable genitals. He laughed again and caught my leg with one hand. Then he pushed my knee high into his pelvis and pressed himself closer. I thought he’d crush my ribs with my own knee. My balanced tilted.
All trace of my life pattern fled from my mind.
He stopped the blade at the center of my throat, just barely pricking my skin. Suggestive thrusts of his belly mimicked the rape to come. Impatiently he thrust my leg down again. His penis replaced it pressing hard against my lower ribs. Hot, gooey moisture trickled across my belly. I smelled his musk. My stomach turned over in revulsion. I screamed again.
My fear only fueled his lust.
A new figure came into my peripheral vision. I couldn’t make out face or form, only a presence watching, waiting.
The new person and I both watched my captor force my knife along my throat, closer and closer to the vulnerable life pulse.
I screamed and tried to slam my knee upward again. My thrust fell short. He was too tall. His weight pressed me off-balance against the pole.
The knife found the tip of my left breast. He circled the nipple with my blade. Hot pain followed the blade’s path. He laughed again as my belly muscles quivered with fear.
The sight of his naked flesh so close to my own sent new waves of strength to my limbs.
“If I must die this night, then I take you with me into the Underworld!” I ceased trying to control the knife. My fingers unclenched from the hilt and slid free of his grasp. I raked my fingernails, ragged from picking and digging herbs, across his chest. The clean cut split and tore.
He screamed. The knife fell as he clutched his wound.
I raised my knee in a blow meant to cripple.
A blinding explosion of white light and roaring sound threw me sideways onto the fallen knife.