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"Danger?"
"No. Not direct danger."
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"What?"
She reached out and touched him on the cheek with a long forefinger. "Better
go and look."
On the far side of the high rock was a kind of natural amphitheater, the turf
trodden flat by hundreds of feet. Ryan and Krysty stood together, looking up
at a block of granite that was about ten feet long and five feet wide. The
pale stone was streaked with glittering seams of quartz, and its flanks were
heavily carved in ornate, swirling, interlocking patterns. A heavy ring of
black iron on a short chain was inset at each corner. Long, thick stains of
something black or dark brown had run down the sides of the rock that were
exposed to them. The clotted streaks were unmistakably old blood.
Neither Krysty nor Ryan said a word. They turned away from the sacrificial
altar and retraced their steps to where Mildred waited for them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE THREE FRIENDS succeeded in slipping back into the ville without anyone
having noticed their absence. Ryan passed the news of the hidden stone to
J.B., Jak and Doc. "Had to be blood. Had to be some kind of sacrifice. I
figure it as another reason to shake dust off this place."
Doc was most concerned at hearing about the slab of hewn granite out on the
hillside above the lake. "I agree we should make haste to depart from here,
gentlemen. Primitive societies have all manner of unsuspected totems, and
human sacrifice would not appear to be out of character here. We saw the
symbolic burning of the three prisoners."
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"Tad more'n symbolic, Doc," J.B. said. "Looked like a real fire to me."
Doc tsked-tsked as though J.B. were a precocious student at a Harvard seminar.
"The deaths were real. But the use of the human-shaped wicker figures turned
them into symbols. I have noticed with some alarm that Jak here appears to be
some kind of totem person to the villagers I think because of his very white
hair and pale skin. Several of the thralls make a detour to avoid walking
through his shadow." He paused and looked toward the doorway of their hut. "Of
greater concern is that they clearly regard our new freezie companion,
Mildred, as the dark side of the same coin. If anything goes wrong I could
imagine they might seek a scapegoat. And it might be Mildred."
It was one of the longest speeches Ryan had ever heard the old man make, and
it was totally free of his usual slight confusion.
"You say that they think Jak's a sort of god and Mildred is& "
"A black demon. Yes. I think we should make our move before something else
goes awry and we, the outlanders, are conveniently around to be blamed."
During that morning, two young children died in Markland.
THE SCREAMS BEGAN around noon, and came from one of the huts near the forest.
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Ryan and the others were sitting outside, enjoying the sunshine, when Erik
Stonebiter walked by, his face drawn with tension.
"What's happening?" Jak called.
The Viking hesitated, but didn't look at the albino teenager. He talked past
him toward the lake, his eyes flickering nervously. "It's the bloody flux
again. The wisewoman said Odin and Freya would punish us for taking in
the& your dark woman. Said ill would come from it."
"Who's ill?" J.B. asked. "Sounds like a woman screaming. Or a child."
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"Two skraelings.
Little ones. Sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, who was kin to the ale maker whose house
this hut once was. The men often went off together with
Ragnar's children. Harald would carry kegs of fresh spring water, and Ragnar
would fish in the same river."
Ryan glanced at the Armorer. Two families rad-sick and this common link. If
the friends had had more time and far more desire, it would have been
interesting to go along the coast and visit this strange and dangerous place
for themselves.
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