Ley Lines

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Book excerpt

CHAPTER 1 – The Hanging

Gailin’s knees knocked together in fear as she stepped shakily up onto the gallows. You will not be frightened, she ordered herself silently. The gathered crowd of gawking villagers swam before her eyes, making her dizzy. She tried not to look at the two other men who already swung from the cross beam. One still kicked and jerked obscenely, but the clinical part of Gailin’s brain knew that was because the hangman had moved the knot to the back of his neck instead of off to the side where the abrupt fall would instantly snap his neck. Instead the pathetic  man must strangle to death in slow agony. Which would it be for her? Snapped neck or slow, torturous strangling?

Of course, she had not murdered anyone, nor raped the hangman’s daughter like the strangling criminal. No, her crime was different. She had tried – and failed – to help a broken leg. A village draftsman had been pinned by the falling of his collapsing cart and after the rest of his team had extricated him, the men had brought him to her cabin on a stretcher with a nasty compound fracture of his upper leg. Given Gailin’s reputation for having a healing touch, the townsfolk often brought her the sick to tend, but this was her first case of dealing with an otherwise healthy man. She had treated breaks before but not when the bone was completely out of position. This did not bode well for her. She probably didn’t have the physical strength to even muscle the bone into place and had warned the victim’s distraught wife of this possibility.

Then foolishly, she had tried to set the bone. The positioning of the break went as well as could be expected, but marrow from the bone must have gotten into his bloodstream, poisoning him. He had died in a terrible fever in Gailin’s cabin two days later and when the men of the village came to collect the draftman’s body, they also came to arrest her for witchcraft.

No trial for a witch, for she would put a spell on you. How else would her aging grandmother have survived so long? How else would she and those close to her have survived, without a mark, the pox that had dealt a blow to the town that winter? Gailin must be a witch and had deliberately poisoned the draftsman.

And so the next day she was to swing from the gallows like the two other criminals.

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Drake could not resist a hanging, and this one boasted three ropes already set on the gallows.  That his prey had come to this town and blended into the crowd was convenient, for now Drake got to enjoy the spectacle and follow his enemy into town. Perhaps the local villagers would let him dispose of the bodies…no, best not get involved. He needed to follow the Mountain Man and nothing must distract him from that pursuit. If Drake got to watch the execution so much the better. He could observe the Mountain Man easily enough from the audience and not miss a bit of the event.

The entire village must have come out for this execution. Drake watched with interest as the first criminal, hands bound behind him, was ushered up onto a stool and then had the noose placed around his neck. His crimes were read dutifully to the assembly while the criminal looked down in agony. He had been found guilty of murder, for he had beaten his wife in a drunken fit and killed her. Then, without more ceremony, the masked hangman kicked the stool out from underneath the criminal and the snap of his neck came echoing to Drake’s magical ears. The sorcerer drank in the familiar wash of emotion sinking through his guts warming him through and through.

Then the hooded hangman marshaled another criminal onto the gallows. This villain showed the fear of a guilty man, Drake noted. This criminal’s eyes bugged and he frantically looked over the crowd in abject hope that someone would come to his rescue. His broken nose and swollen eyes spoke volumes, for he had been beaten quite handily by someone while in custody and Drake felt each bruise as a warm spot on his own face, and licked his lips in anticipation. He watched carefully as the hangman deliberately moved the knot to the back of the criminal’s neck and Drake had to stifle a chuckle. This one he could not wait to see. The crime; rape, caught in the act. Of that, Drake could care less. He wanted the stool to go skittering across the gallows. And when it did, the pleasure Drake felt almost made him melt. Each struggling gasp and kick of leg, desperate for some purchase, made the hunter feel that welcome sensation of ecstasy.

Without waiting for the rapist to actually die, the hangman went off the platform for his final victim. This one surprised even Drake, forcing him to look away from the struggling rapist. A woman? She was a delicate thing with honey gold hair and a young, innocent face, but she looked out over the crowd with steely green eyes. She was not repentant, nor afraid, but instead, resigned. Her body did not tremble, but she looked at the other two criminals, her companions in fate, with a strange fascination. Did she have the same attraction to death that Drake did? What crime could this small woman have committed to warrant such an end? Hanging a woman was so rare that Drake could not recall ever seeing it in his very long and varied experience.

The hangman retrieved his stool, had the girl step up and realized that she was simply too short even then for the noose and he had to go leave briefly to find something more to raise her up so the rope would reach. When he returned with a thick book to stand on, the girl obediently stepped up higher. The hangman pulled aside her braid so the noose would fit snuggly around her slender neck and then whispered something to her, probably apologies.

Would the height of the noose be enough to snap her neck, Drake wondered in fascination? He hoped not. He had never performed an autopsy of a woman and wanted her lovely neck to remain unbroken. Let her suffer and strangle so that he could later caress her cold neck intact and smooth as silk. Without meaning to, Drake magically shifted the knot ever so slightly to the back of her neck so no one would notice. A little sorcery went a long way to quench his pleasure and need.

The young woman’s crime was read: witchcraft and Drake almost cringed. If witchcraft for failing to help an injured man was worthy of hanging, what would a full-fledged sorcerer like himself warrant? For him, they would break out a bonfire. Why hadn’t they burned this girl? Not that Drake was ungrateful. A burned body of such a lovely woman would not be nearly as pleasurable to work on and he wanted to take his time with her corpse, not having to hold his breath because of the stench of burned flesh. In his native country they would have drowned her, and that would be nice if he got to her body soon enough. Now, how was he going to get the bodies, Drake wondered greedily.

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Vamilion came into the town with trepidation. Being followed by a dark sorcerer meant nothing at this point; he had been hunted for years and always found a way to escape. This, however was different. He simply had to find out what was going on here, or the niggling magical instincts that forced him from his home would drive him insane. Crossing the open land, far from the safe mountains made him restless too and while he could have traveled magically, right now he needed to be in contact with people to find the source of his instinctive itch and that meant walking instead of magically leaping. Oh, the logical part of Vamilion’s brain told him he needed to keep moving to avoid a confrontation with the hunter sorcerer. He also needed to wear himself out so the magical itch would not keep him awake. So he walked three hundred miles in a week across the plain to this village on the Don River.

Walking this river for days Vamilion had passed through four towns and now found this one with every citizen out on the village green for an execution.  The itch he felt only grew stronger. Restlessly he blended in with the gawkers, feeling a little sick at the spectacle they had all come to see: a hanging. However, Vamilion knew he had come to the right place. The magical itch shifted in his head, becoming almost incessant; obviously this gruesome event was what he had come to address.  

Without considering it Vamilion went to the base of the gallows and ducked underneath, out of sight before reaching out with his magical instincts to find the source of this insistent pinging. He acutely felt drawn to the three criminals chained together at the steps behind where the people had gathered. The three would remain out of sight while the magistrate checked papers, advised the hangman and saw all was in order. Meanwhile Vamilion reached out to tap into the minds of each of the criminals. One, a drunk, one a rapist that almost made him want to vomit and finally, and to his surprise, Vamilion brushed his mind against that of the woman.

He lurched, and sat down with a thump in the dust under the gallows. To balance himself, he placed his hands against the ground, seeking a deep place where stone waited and felt the world settle a bit before he could concentrate again. Gailin. He had found her, despite his concerted efforts not to go Seeking her. He didn’t want to find this woman. For twenty-five years he had avoided this moment, hoping it would not happen for ages more. Gailin, the woman to whom he must give the magical gift, a woman who could match his formidable talents, the woman who would be the next Wise One.

The woman who would become his wife.

Vamilion sighed with regret as his ever-present grief loomed like a mountain, crushing him. How would he explain this to Paget? If his wife who had stuck with him throughout his forays into magic could endure being supplanted, she was an angel. Could he keep this a secret from his sweet Paget? Could he keep the compulsion and attraction he would invariably experience being near Gailin from kicking in? So far, all he knew of this new lady were her feet and then that brief brush with her mind. He would not risk going any nearer, but already he felt an unmistakable urge to come investigate and rescue her. It had dragged him from hundreds of miles away, from his safe haven to come find her, with that frantic itch.

Couldn’t he just let Gailin hang? Despicable as the thought might be, it would solve his problem. Eventually another Gailin would be born in another age. He would find that other one, surely. But the itch had been demanding. It was unthinkable to let any innocent die, especially since she was facing the gallows because of magic. The ethics imposed on him by his own power, the Wise One magic, would not allow it. Vamilion sighed with regret and began considering a way for him to do what he must, without putting himself in the direct face of discovery or he would find himself swinging from the gallows right beside this girl.

As the murderer was hung, Vamilion planned. The Mountain Man, Drake’s prey, conjured his needs and knew exactly what to do by the time the second man had swung. Vamilion stepped out from his hiding place to stand just behind Gailin, near the back steps of the platform. Keeping his eyes closed, fearful of making eye contact with the lady, he hesitated until the hangman came down to retrieve her. Then without letting anyone actually see, he touched the hangman’s arm, caught him as he fell under a sleeping spell, changed his own appearance into that of the executioner, hood and all, and shoved the sleeping man under the gallows in one swift move. Gailin did not even notice that. He then took her arm and escorted her up onto the platform.

Vamilion carefully kept his eyes on the crowd, even spying the hunter in the audience, watching for him, but he was reasonably sure his enemy was distracted by the hanging itself, so the mountain man felt he could work undetected. He gently lifted Gailin to the stool and then reached for the noose. Too short, even when she helpfully stood on tiptoe. Disconcerted by this oversight, Vamilion went back down the back of the platform and rifled through the hangman’s equipment, finding nothing to help. So he conjured a book as thick as his arm and pretended to locate it in the executioner’s things.

“Please step up, miss,” he said solemnly. Gailin did as ordered and with seven inches shoved under her boots, Vamilion could reach up and grasp the rope. He lifted her brilliant hair to the side while trying to actually look or feel it, and placed the noose up under her chin where it almost cut into her pale skin even with the extra height.  Then Vamilion secretly placed a glowing ball of Heart Stone in her hands that remained tied behind her back. He felt her turn to look at him in curiosity, but avoided her gaze and instead made sure she grasped the walnut sized orb.

“When you drop, wish for the rope to break, grab the book and then run for your life, Gailin,” he whispered behind her back, as he tried not to breathe in her evocative scent of herbs.

Vamilion didn’t think about what he was doing while the magistrate read off the charges of witchcraft against her. What he was about to do might even bring a worse sentence for her, but he could not shy away or the magic would prevent him from kicking the stool out from under her. Instead he faced toward the back of the gallows, looked past her up the river and wished for mountains. Then, the moment the magistrate finished, Vamilion took a deliberate step into the stool and kept walking as she fell. He hopped off the back of the platform and began running. He never heard if her feet landed and if her wishing magic would work, but now it didn’t matter. He had turned her into a Wise One and his duty for now was done.