The Scholomance (5 page)

She was standing
at the bottom, where the lake met the mountain, looking up at a sheer face of
rock when he saw her. He was neither surprised nor pleased to find company, but
in those first moments, believing he had caught her unawares, he contemplated,
in foreign words but explicit imagery, how best to sneak up and kill her.

Mara looked at
him.

He stared back
at her, savoring his red thoughts, and began to make up his camp.

Before dark,
they were joined by another man, one whose mind spoke some sort of French far
too rapidly for Mara’s halfhearted high school studies to follow. Nevertheless,
the word Scholomance was clear, and so was his intention. He was out of shape,
out of breath, and badly startled by the presence of strangers here before him,
yet seeing their tents, set up his own and waited.

All through the
night, people closed in on them, some staggering through the dark in vague
search patterns, others coming in bullet-straight lines towards this most
particular peak. Mara watched them from the Panic Room, resting her body while
keeping the more sinister of her two companions under close mental observation.
Twice, he got up with murder in mind; twice she woke and put a hand on her
knife, letting him see her see him. Although he had many opportunities, he
never went after the French guy. He apparently saw Mara as his only real
competition. She couldn’t help but feel a little flattered.

It rained the
next day, all day. The wind blew fantastically cold. In the Panic Room, none of
this had any effect that she could feel, so she stayed there, monitoring her
body’s condition without any of its discomforts and making sure it was kept fit
in case Mr. Murder made a run on her. Four more people trickled in at four
separate hours. Three were American, and one of these, the only other girl Mara
saw or even sensed out there. They immediately grouped up, united by a common
language. Mara pretended not to understand them when they hailed her, but she
watched them make their communal camp. They had a bottle to pass, and later,
little dried mushrooms and some good, pungent reefer. They talked about the
Devil in adoring tones, about deathrock and shoegazing, about nihilism and
Baudelaire, but after dark, the talk died. They emptied the bottle and then
just looked at each other. The fat man who spoke French tried to go over and
sit with them, but they turned him out with jeering laughter, and he went into
his tent and did not come out again.

Midnight. Someone’s
watch beeped. The Americans looked up at the mountain. They talked a little
more, smoked another two joints between them, and went to their separate tents.
So did Mara. So, eventually, did Mr. Murder, but his thoughts stayed with her
and stayed dark.

There were
wolves in the mountains somewhere. They howled to each other, the sound
deceptively close as it bounced and rolled over rock, and the wind howled back,
shaking the tents. The lake slapped at the stony shore. No one slept but Mara.

The fat
French-speaker stayed shivering in his sleeping bag and cried a little, off and
on. The other guy poured some pills into his shaking hand and washed them down
with a fifth of vodka. Eventually, one of the Americans slipped out of his tent
and across camp. The girl didn’t mind waking up for him. They had loveless,
frightened sex, and he returned to his own tent. The other American went next,
to the same welcome, the same silent return. Mr. Murder lay awake thinking they
would all be asleep in another hour or so and it would be the work of a few
minutes and his sharp knife. This was no longer the idle hostility of a man
surprised by strangers, but a real plan and she supposed she’d better deal with
it.

Mara woke
herself up and walked barefoot to Mr. Murder’s tent. He had the knife in his
hand already when she let herself in, but seemed reluctant to use it when she
pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it on his floor. She closed his
tent, opened his sleeping bag, took his wrist, and helped him cut her panties
away. She licked the blade and he forgot about killing her.

She didn’t talk,
didn’t react to his whispers or his attempts to embrace her, but she gave him
things to think about, even things he didn’t particularly want to think about. The
human mind can desire many things that repel it, and once a seed is planted
under the right conditions, it almost always grows. It stopped being fun for him.
She got on top and pushed him down, staring into his eyes as he lay motionless
and panting beneath her, and made him remember every sordid, shameful, secret
pleasure as she moved. He began to think she wasn’t human, began to be afraid. She
rode him harder, let her fingernails dig into his chest and draw tiny dots of
blood, but he was too far gone to move. He saw fangs in her mouth, thought her
eyes were filled with moonlight. He came crying and she grabbed his throat and
leaned in close, letting him believe whatever he wanted to believe about what
was coming next, how it would end for him, where he would go after.

Then she kissed
him, her lips shut and her eyes open wide. She got up, put her shirt on, and
left without ever speaking.

He packed up and
left soon afterwards.

Mara slept.

CHAPTER THREE

T
he others were up with daylight, but Mara made
herself stay under and at rest until well after noon. It was apt to be a long,
difficult night. When she did rise, she didn’t bother breaking her camp. It
would be here when she and Connie came back, or it wouldn’t and they’d have to
do without a tent. Either way, its weight was bound to be too great a
distraction. Mara was not an accomplished climber, but she knew enough to be
careful of her balance.

No one, it
seemed, was eager to start up the mountain. Over the course of the day, four more
stragglers had come in from the questing fields, but only four. She could sense
dozens out there, searching the cliffs in mounting frustration as the day wore
on, but they were ignorant of this location and it was unlikely they would come
across it by accident. Of those gathered in the proper spot, only two had a
clear memory of where the opening had appeared in years past: Mara had stolen
hers from Mr. Murder, and the other had seen it only from a distance. There was
nothing now, of course. The rock stayed shut against them and would remain so
until dark.

In the dark was
a bad way to climb a mountain under any circumstances, and this was Romania in
October. The wind, the cold, and the treacherously crumbling cliff-side weighed
on her more heavily as the hours passed. She was tempted to start up now, while
there was still a little daylight to speed her way, but knew that the first
person on the rock was likely to start an exodus and she was certain the
competition would turn bloody. Most of these people believed that only the
first person to reach the opening would be allowed to enter the Scholomance
that year. Mr. Murder had known, and therefore so did Mara, that they were
wrong, but there would be no convincing them. Best just to stay back and take
no chances. Connie was depending on her.

As she had often
done since arriving at the foot of this mountain, Mara scanned the Mindstorm
for the particular frequency of her friend’s thoughts, and again found nothing.
She was not discouraged. Her psychic range was hardly infinite, after all, and
it was always more difficult to reach through solid objects, particularly heavy
minerals. If there were very many tunnels occupied by this fraudulent little
coven, she might have a tough time finding Connie even on the inside. All the
same…

Mara did not
often experience doubt, but here was a situation that went well beyond the
normal crowd of people with the petty lies and desires she was accustomed to
feeling. She had a rough idea of what was going to happen when the sun went
down, because Mr. Murder had seen it all before, but after that?

Outside, the
wind blew. The tent shook, deafening her physical ears. In the Panic Room, Mara
listened to the uncertain babble of minds both near and excited, and distant
and dismayed. They were nerving themselves up to meet the Devil out there, and
she knew that she must either join them or walk away and leave Connie’s last
letter unanswered.

Around her neck,
a cheap heart-locket hung as it had for half her life. Eight bucks worth of stainless
steel and gold paint…Did it really buy the rest of her life?

The Americans
were mustering, shrugging into backpacks and harnesses, planning a joint
ascent. They didn’t know each other, didn’t trust each other, but felt, perhaps
not unduly, that they stood a better chance of success that way. E Pluribus
Unum and all that. Forty billion nickels couldn’t be wrong.

And that was
pretty selfish, yes, but it had to be nobler than Mara, hiding in a tent and
cold-bloodedly considering the abandonment of her one and only friend. After
coming all this way, oblivious to cost and inconvenience, that she could permit
herself to succumb to hesitation now grated on her. Succumb, ha, she’d thrown
herself at it, wallowed in it, and why? Because she couldn’t guarantee an
outcome. Of all the world, Connie had called out to her—not her family, not her
priest, not the police, but only her—and here she sat, looking for a better
reason than that to save her.

Mara dropped
down into her body and found it smiling. She guessed her mind was made up. It
was half past four and the sun was going down. Time to climb.

The last ray of
sunlight left the sky as Mara zipped her empty tent up and walked to the shores
of the lake where the others had loosely gathered. The sky held on to color for
another minute more, turning the mountains to shadows and the clouds to clots
of blood, and then it just seemed to give up and die. Darkness came with hungry
speed after that, eating the rest of the overcast light and giving nothing back—no
moon, no stars, only darkness. The Americans moved closer together without
seeming to be aware of it. The other hopefuls shifted further apart, eyeing one
another. Mara put her backpack down by her feet and waited.

Stillness. In
the distance, the lost and hunting stragglers grew louder as their emotion
turned to desperation, but here at the foot of the mountain over Lake Teufelsee,
the minds of the pilgrims of the Scholomance quieted to a subaudible hum of
wordless anticipation.

‘The killing is
about to start,’ Mara thought suddenly, and frowned.

Sound, low, more
felt than heard. It groaned upwards against the soles of Mara’s boots, then
passed away into the hissing trees. The wind wheeled abruptly about, sending
stinging sheets of rain into her face and plastering the tossing mane of her
hair to her skull in seconds. That sound again, like rusted gears at the core
of the Earth, like the explosion of some undersea volcano, like the death knell
of a dragon. The Americans, pale even under their deaths-head makeup, huddled
closer. One of the others broke then, broke and ran, muttering incoherent
excuses in a language no one else knew. At the very edge of Mara’s perceptions,
Mr. Murder’s brain sent out a plaintive pulse of anger, loss, and a piercing
relief that wore Mara’s face. He would not be back next year, nor any other
year. He would never look again upon the golden light of the UnderEarth, or
drink from the cup of Solomon. He had failed in his pilgrimage and would live
and die as mortal.

High above them,
the mountain opened. Not as a mouth, which was meant to open, and not as a
door, which had been built to open, but as a wound, torn open suddenly and in
violence. It bled light, unnatural light, like yellow paint poured over the
black rock, illuminating nothing. How done? She didn’t wonder, didn’t care. The
night was not infinite and the climb was not going to be easy.

Mara’s first
step broke the eerie paralysis that held them all. With a tidal surge, they ran
at the rock and up it, swallowing rain and snarling at each other like animals.
No, she sure didn’t want to be first, unbalanced and fighting for each grip
with
that
behind her. Mara paused, watching the first lap of this race
run itself to its predestined conclusion.

The man in the
lead was foreign, unprepared, unequipped. He’d expected stairs, for some
reason. He slipped only a few feet off the ground and fell badly; the snap of
bone seemed louder than his scream, and was ignored. The others swarmed over
him, kicking off his grasping hands and punching at each other. The Americans,
united by language and experience, went up like monkeys, screaming
encouragement over the wind and covering great strides in a well-choreographed
drill of pick, heave, clip, swing, and climb. They angled themselves out over
the lake, directly below the opening and out of the throng. The made great
time, enough to provoke one of the others into prying rock out of the crumbling
cliff-face to throw at them. Once he started, the others took it up, and it was
just a matter of time before one of the missiles—a rock the size of a big man’s
fist—smacked into an American’s skull.

Mara didn’t hear
that sound, but she was close enough to hear the others shouting when the man
fell. Roped together, he couldn’t fall far, but his weight was enough to stop
the climb. Did they pull him up, check his wound? No. Did they cut him loose,
keep climbing? No. They started throwing rocks too.

Safely out of the
crossfire, Mara was free to examine the mountain, plan her route, and study the
opening above. There were figures in the light, dark figures in the shape of
men. They stood without moving, watching the carnage from their high vantage. She
could sense them, sort of, but there was something strange about their minds. It
wasn’t that they were protected as much as overlaid by something else,
something foreign. Feeling at them was like looking at an x-ray, seeing bone
(disconcerting enough), but also the ghostly smudges that could be organs,
skin, stones, tumors, and not knowing what any of it meant.