Terry Brooks - Running With The Demon

"Yes."

"Then why aren't you there? What are you doing here, in this little, insignificant Midwestern town? No one is dying here. Nothing is happening here!" Her voice rose. "What is so important about Hopewell?"

Ross did not look away, dared not. "I can't answer that. I go where I'm sent. Right now, I'm tracking the demon. I'm here because of him. I know that something pivotal is going to take place, something that will affect the future, and I have to stop it. I know it seems incredible that anything occurring in a tiny place like Hopewell could have such an impact. But we know how history works. Cataclysms are set in motion by small events in out–of–the–way places. Maybe that's what's happening."

She studied him fixedly. "It has something to do with me, doesn't it?"

Tell her! "It looks that way," he hedged.

She waited a moment, then said,

Ross nodded slowly. "It's possible."

She glared at him, needing more, wanting a better answer. "But how would that change anything about the future? What difference would that make to anyone but us?"

Ross started walking again, forcing her to follow. "I don't know. What was it you were going to show me?"

She caught up to him easily, kept her hot gaze turned on him. "If you're hiding something, I'll find out what it is." Her voice was hard–edged and determined, challenging him to respond. When he failed to do so, she moved ahead of him as if to push the matter aside, dismissive and contemptuous. "This way, over there, in those trees."

They descended a gentle slope to a small stream and an old wooden bridge. They crossed the bridge and started up the other side into the deep woods. It was silent here, empty of people, of sound, of movement. The heat was trapped in the undergrowth, and none of the river's coolness penetrated to

ease the swelter. Insects buzzed annoyingly in their faces, attracted by their sweat.

"Actually, it wasn't a dream," she said suddenly. "About Gran, I mean. It was a vision. An Indian named Two Bears showed it to me. He took me to see the spirits of the Sinnissippi dance in the park last night after you left. He says he is the last of them." She paused. "What do you think?"

A chill passed over John Ross in spite of the heat. O'olish Amaneh. "Was he a big man, a Vietnam vet?"

She looked over at him quickly. "Do you know him?"

"Maybe. There are stories about an Indian shaman, a seer. He uses different names. I've come across people who've met him once or twice, heard about some others." He could not tell her of this, either. He could barely stand to think on it. O'olish Amaneh. "I think maybe he is in service to the Word."

Nest looked away again. "He didn't say so."

"No, he wouldn't. He never does. He just shows up and talks about the future, how it is linked to the past, how everything is tied together; then he disappears again. It's always the same. But I think, from what I've heard, that maybe he is one of us."

They pushed through a tangle of brush that had overgrown the narrow trail, spitting out gnats that flew into their mouths, lowering their heads against the shards of sunlight that penetrated the shadows.

"Tell me something about Wraith," John Ross asked, trying to change the subject.

The girl shrugged. "You saw. I don't know what he is. He's been there ever since I was very little. He protects me from the feeders, but I don't know why. Even Gran and Pick don't seem to know. I don't see him much. He mostly comes out when the feeders threaten me."

She told him about her night forays into the park to rescue the strayed children, and how Wraith would always appear when the feeders tried to stop her. Ross mulled the matter over in his mind. He had never heard of anything like it, and he couldn't be certain from what Nest told him if Wraith was a creature of the Word or the Void. Certainly Wraith's behavior suggested his purpose was good, but Ross knew that where Nest Freemark was concerned things were not as simple as they might seem.

"Where are we going?" Ross asked her as they crested the rise and moved into the shadow of the deep woods.

"Just a little farther," she advised, easing ahead on the narrow path to lead the way.

The ground leveled and the trees closed about, leaving them draped in heavy shadow. The air was fetid and damp with humidity, and insects were everywhere. Ross brushed at them futilely. The trail twisted and wound through thick patches of scrub and brambles. Several times it branched, but Nest did not hesitate in choosing the way. Ross marveled at the ease with which she navigated the tangle, thinking on how much at home she was here, on how much she seemed to belong. She had the confidence of youth, of a young girl who knew well the ground she had already covered, even if she did not begin to realize how much still lay ahead.

They passed from the thicket into a clearing, and there, before them, was a giant oak. The oak towered overhead, clearly the biggest tree in the park, one of the biggest that Ross had ever seen. But the tree was sick, its leaves curling and turning black at the tips, its bark split and ragged and oozing discolored fluid that stained the earth at its roots. Ross stared at the tree for a moment, stunned both by its size and the degree of its decay, then looked questioningly at the girl.

"This is what I wanted you to see," she confirmed.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Exactly the question!" declared Pick, who materialized out of nowhere on Nest Freemark's shoulder. "I thought that you might know."

The sylvan was covered with dust and bits of leaves. He straightened himself on the girl's shoulder, looking decidedly out of sorts.

"Spent all morning foraging about for roots and herbs that might be used to make a medicine, but nothing seems to help. I've tried everything, magic included, and I cannot stop the decay. It spreads all through the tree now, infecting every limb and every root. I'm at my wits' end."

"Pick thinks it's the demon's work," Nest advised pointedly.

Ross looked at the tree anew, still perplexed. "Why would the demon do this?"

"Well, because this tree is the prison of a maentwrog!" Pick declared heatedly. Quickly, he told John Ross the tale of the maentwrog's entrapment, of how it had remained imprisoned all these years, safe beyond the walls of magic and nature that combined to shut it away. "But no more," the sylvan concluded with dire gloom. "At the rate the decay is spreading, it will be free before you know it!"

Ross walked forward and stood silently before the great oak. He knew something of the creatures that served the Void and particularly of those called maentwrogs. There were only a handful, but they were terrible things. Ross had never faced one, but he had been told of what they could do, consumed by their need to destroy, unresponsive to anything but their hunger. None had been loose in the world for centuries. He did not like thinking of what it would mean if one were to get loose now.

In his hand, the black staff pulsed faintly in response to the nearness of the beast, a warning of the danger. He stared upward into the branches of the ancient tree, trying to see something that would help him decide what to do.

"I lack any magic that would help," he said quietly. "I'm not skilled in that way."

"It's the demon's work, isn't it?" Pick demanded heatedly.

Ross nodded. "I expect it is."

The sylvan's narrow face screwed into a knot. "I knew it, I just knew it! That's why none of our efforts have been successful! He's counteracting them!"

Ross looked away. It made sense. The maentwrog would be another distraction, another source of confusion. It was the way the demon liked to work, throwing up smoke and mirrors to mask what he was really about.

Nest was telling Pick about the encounter with the demon in church that morning, and the sylvan was jumping up and down on her shoulder and telling her he'd warned her, he'd told her. Nest looked appalled. They began to argue. Ross glanced over at them, then walked forward alone and stood directly before the tree. The staff was throbbing in his hand, alive with the magic, hot with anticipation for what waited. Not yet. He reached forward with his free hand and touched the damaged bark gently. The tree felt slick and cold beneath his fingers, as if its sickness had come to the surface, coated its rough skin. A maentwrog, he thought grimly. A raver.