Dominion by Fred Saberhagen (spiritual books to read TXT) 📗

quick look around him now, at the door to the once-secret tunnel standing wide open, then at once back to Marge.

   Marge couldn’t answer. She wouldn’t have been able to speak, even if she’d had words ready; there seemed to be something wrong with her throat. She was pretty well boxed-in behind the rack, with little room to maneuver. The stone wall touched her back.

   “Come here.” The man moved toward her slowly. His eyes were unblinking, and in them grew a frightening happiness. Then he smiled lightly, as if at the foolishness of simply telling her to come to him.

   His strong-looking arms were half extended, fingers curved for a quick grab.

   “No.”

   “Oh yeah. Oh yeah, lady. Here to me.”

   If the man lunged straight across the rack he would be able to grab her. And now he did lunge, with unexpected, cobraish speed. He had Marge by the wrist, trying to pull her toward him.

   Marge had wiry strength, and desperation. They struggled together for a moment like obscene actors, across the old man’s naked torso. Then something happened, Marge couldn’t tell what, but the crushing grip on her arm was suddenly broken. Her assailant made a strange sound, slumping back, sliding down to one knee.

   Gasping as if she had been knifed, Marge scraped herself out from behind the constricting rack and ran for the tunnel door. Wherever the other door might lead, her attacker had come from there, it was his turf, there might be more of him that way. Her one thought was to reach the open air and daylight. Once out in the tunnel she climbed the stairs in a mad all-fours scramble that brought her back to the main passage. Then she turned to her right and ran, gambling that she could run in this thick gloom without disaster, rather than delay the fraction of a second needed to get the flashlight from her costume’s pocket.

   Daylight had all but disappeared when Marge reached the cave mouth. In her terror she saw this fact as another phase of an attack aimed at her. Sobbing, she threw herself down at the base of the barred gate that held her in the cave, fumbling in a mad panic to loosen again the padlock and the chain. With every second stretched in terror she heard imagined footfalls of pursuit. And yet no horror arrived to seize her from behind. Somehow the lock did open in her fingers; the chain rattled through them, tearing at her skin.

   Marge burst the freed door clanging open and ran out. A few heavy, preliminary drops of rain were striking on the paved court, on the stone table with its obscure sundial. A statue gaped in her path, glaring at her with dead gray eyes; she ran around it. The heat of the day had dissipated now in the damp hush before the storm; the shadow of the castle lay enormous on the woods around her now. She scraped her shin, uncaring, on the low stone fence that rimmed the courtyard from the woods. Tree branches hanging

motionless in gloom scraped at her as she fled. The path was not really visible now, but here there was only one level route a path could take. Marge sped along it gasping, the branches that clawed at her threatening to turn into apparitions.

   Even with the forest altered by dusk the intersection of paths was unmistakable. She turned downhill, running without pause. In what seemed nightmare slowness the switchback curves of the descending path flowed past her. It was now so dark that she was sure the sun was down. A single raindrop struck her cheek. Through gaps in the trees, by the light of an odd sky, she saw clouds coursing thick and low, like airborne giants hunting across the valley of the Sauk.

   The ugly realization overtook Margie as she ran: there would be no boat waiting at the landing below. Simon would already have taken it back across the river.

   Then she would plunge into the water, swim, wade, do whatever she had to do to get away. At least, thank God, no one was chasing her.

   And then she heard, from up the hill behind her, that someone was. Or something. Not even human feet. In a moment the sound identified itself to her fear as a pounding, four-legged run, as of some monstrous dog.

   Terror compounded, escalating into something approaching madness. Just as Marge rounded the last steep descending turn of path, exhausted muscles failed and her foot slipped, the ankle starting to twist. She came down heavily, in rough grass and weeds. With superhuman speed her pursuer was catching up. The sound of onrushing feet was mixed now with a hideous growling and snuffling, the noises of a menacing dog amplified to the proportions of a bear.

   Marge screamed, her mind gone in blind panic. Just as she lunged to regain her feet, a shaggy, stinking shape loomed over her. What felt like a furred muzzle struck her on the cheek, hard enough to knock her down again. She had a moment’s glimpse of literally glowing eyes, and monstrous fangs.

   Marge screamed again, a hopeless quavering. The pressure of a paw at her throat kept her down on her back. At last with pure relief she heard the running arrival of a pair of human feet, she cared not whose.

   The black man’s soft voice, panting, was hot with anger now.  “You got her. Good.” It sounded as if he were speaking to another person, not a beast. Then his tone shifted, purring at Marge:  “One more yell, and he’ll take a chunk out of you where you won’t like it. Believe me?”

   “Yes,” said Marge. And the animal, as if her answer had satisfied it, at once removed its pinning weight.

   “Get up,” the man said.

   Marge got up, very slowly, surprised to find herself practically unhurt. What had been a gauzy costume was little more