When I hit the ground, I vanished. Again, everyone stopped to stare in momentary confusion. Before they could recover, I sprang to my feet and ran for the forest.

Chapter 44

WHEN I STARTED RUNNING, THE MEN WERE RIGHT BEHIND me, but soon they began to drop back, unable to keep up the pace. I kept waiting-hoping-for the footfalls to peter out, but I should have known they wouldn't. These guys hadn't seen a victim in decades, even centuries; they sure as hell weren't going to give up the moment their first one took off.

I couldn't take them all on. Trsiel had said the Fates would send someone after me if I didn't return. The only thing I hated worse than running away was hanging around waiting to be rescued, but this wasn't the time for a show of independence. The smart thing to do was hide and wait. Stung like hell, but the alternative would hurt a lot worse. Stand and fight, and there might not be enough of me left to rescue. It was my fault I needed rescue in the first place. Suckered by a magician's pickpocket trick. I could say it was an all-time personal low, but I'd be lying.

As I ran deeper into the forest, the night took over, enveloping me in black. I tried my light-ball spell again. This time it took hold-dim but steady. Dim was good, though. At full strength, it would have been like running with an Olympic torch, an obvious target for my pursuers.

My night vision would have been even better, but I didn't even hope for that to kick in.

When I hit the fork in the path, I veered down the right-hand branch, heading deeper into the woods. After a few minutes, I caught a glimpse of a clearing to my right. Instinctively I focused my long-range vision. Of course, that failed. Without slowing, I swung my light-ball in that direction. Through the trees, I could make out the dim shapes of houses. Shit! More villages? Why not. Maybe that's what this dimension was, not a single smattering of houses, but a whole world of villages, each with its own mob of killers.

I hit a thin patch of woods where someone had cut down a handful of trees, clearing an unintentional window to the village beyond. I'd seen this same open patch before, this same pattern of cut trunks. As I raced past the clearing and looked through to the village, I knew what I'd see. The stone houses I'd just left.

It was the same village. The seemingly endless forest was an illusion. Walk north from the village, and you'd find yourself at the south end. That was why Dachev headed back the way he'd come when he thought I'd kept running down the path earlier-so he could head me off when I unintentionally looped back around. The moment I thought this, I saw a shape moving through the trees ahead. I glanced over my shoulder. More shapes running that way.

I dove into the forest on the left. Even as I crashed through the bushes, hearing nothing behind me, I knew I wouldn't get far. Not only had I lost the advantage of speed, but I was cutting their path for them. Any minute now, they'd be close enough to see.

I stopped running, dowsed my light-ball, slipped off to the left, and cast a cover spell. A moment later, the forest erupted in crashes and curses, as they stumbled through the dark looking for me. Should I stay here, covered, until the cavalry rode in? I was relatively safe, but would my rescue team know where to find me? I had to trust that they would… or that I'd hear them. So long as I was hidden here, with the killers fumbling in the dark-

A light flickered to my right. As I strained my eyes in that direction, I saw orange flame bouncing through the darkness, approaching from the west. A torch. Someone had gone back to the village for a torch. Within moments, all of them carried a lit tree branch, swinging it about and peering into the darkness.

"She's using magic," Dachev called. "She can make herself invisible, but she cannot move. If you bump into her, she will reappear."

A few grunts of satisfaction.

"There are two ways we can do this," Dachev continued, voice ringing over the shuffle of footsteps and the spit of the torches. "Competition or cooperation."

"I help no one," club-man's voice rumbled. "I find it, it is mine."

"Then you do that. Those who want to help me find her, come here and we'll split up, do this systematically."

"And then you will take her," someone said.

A chorus of agreement.

"No, then I will let you have her. All who help me will get a turn. And when you are done, she is mine. If that sounds fair to you, come over here. The rest, search on your own."

Several shapes moved toward Dachev, while others headed farther off, beginning to hunt. I waited until the lights dimmed, then began to creep away. There was no sense continuing west. If Dachev had come that way with the torch, that meant that he'd come from the village. This world was spherical. Keep walking in any direction and you'd end up back where you started. The deepest part of the woods, then, would be that strip to the north and south. That's where I headed.

I moved as fast as I dared. Once I was far enough, I'd find a tree and try that trick again. At least that would make it impossible for one of the searchers to stumble into me and snap my cover spell. But what if they bumped the tree? Would that vibration be enough to break my cover?

I should stop and fight. Lure them away, one by one, and disable them. Sure, great plan… provided I could outwit and outfight every last one of these bastards, with my spell-casting still drained from the fireball spell. Don't be stupid. Just find a tree and hide. But what if the bird-man had seen me jump from that tree, and told Dachev my trick?

In the midst of this internal debate, a hillock appeared in my path and, only a few yards to my right, a boulder blocked a blob of darkness deeper than that of the hillside. Some kind of hole. I walked over and peered in the narrow slit above the boulder. Beyond it, the darkness stretched as far as my light-ball illuminated. Not a hole, but a cave. Oho. Now, that's what I needed.

I moved to the side of the boulder and pushed. My pierced hand flared again. I grabbed a handful of leaves from the nearest tree and, using them for padding, put my hands back on the boulder, dug in my feet, and heaved. The rock didn't budge. Okay, not so perfect. Or was it? If I couldn't move the rock, they'd never think to look behind it. With proper leverage and a telekinesis spell, I should be able to shift it aside enough to squeeze through.

I found a thick branch and used it to pry the rock as I pushed and cast a telekinesis spell. The spell was intended to displace small objects, but many witches used it as an added muscle boost for moving heavy objects, like pushing out the fridge to clean behind it. Practical magic.

With the spell, my pry-bar branch, and a hefty dose of push power, I managed to move the rock about a foot, giving me an eighteen-inch gap to squeeze through. Problem was, the rock had been there so long, it had sunk into the ground, so I was prying it up from a hole. The moment I let go, it would roll back into place-and block the entrance again. I could try pushing it right out of the depression, but that meant going inside and leaving the door wide-open. First guy who walked by and saw the cave opening would know exactly where I was hiding.

So I squeezed through, yanked the branch in with me, and let the boulder tumble into place. Then I recast my light-ball spell and looked around.

The tunnel extended as far as I could see, the floor angling downward, like the entrance to a subterranean passageway-like the one that had linked the two castles. Had someone dug this one, too? Maybe that would explain the rock, put there by the Fates to keep the inmates of this dimension in the village where they belonged.