Dean R. Koontz - The Crimson Witch

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Dean Koontz – The Crimson Witch

[Version 2.0 by BuddyDk – September 5 2003]

[Easy read, easy print]

[Completely new scan]

THE MANBAT

CHITTERED LOUDLY

IN A SAVAGE WAR HOOP . . .

lifted itself with beating wings, raked its claws down Jake's cheeks.

The second manbat swept in and was upon him. He swiped feebly with his

knife, but all his strength had left him. He could barely swallow the blood as fast

as it poured into his mouth.

The manbats screamed wildly with knowledge of their success, then headed for

his eyes . . .

THE

CRIMSON

WITCH

BY DEAN R. KOONTZ

MODERN LITERARY EDITIONS PUBLISHING COMPANY

NEW YORK, N.Y.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Prologue: THE CRIMSON WITCH

? She came spinning out of the thunderstorm, mad as all hell. Lightning flashed above her, rippled across

the horizon like a great, semitransparent jellyfish, sink-ing liquidly into the horizon. The sky was a uniform

gun-metal gray as if the clouds had been hammered into sheets and welded together from horizon to

hori-zon by some industrious God of Melancholy. Thun-der boom-aboomed like mountainous waves

crashing against weathered rocks, each clap trailing off into the whisper of seafoam. Boom!

Ssshusscrack! Her anger boiled as fiercely as the elements, lanced through her mind in awesome, painful

flashes.

Her red robes fluttered behind her as she drifted through the night, swept in a halo like satin wings,

fil-tered the lightning into the color of freshly spilled blood. She plunged into the dank, heavy clouds and

came out in the spaces between, unruffled. Following the pulsations of the mammoth storm, she moved

downward toward the small and fearful earth.

A black gull swooped toward her, oblivious of her approach, chortling to itself, dreaming of worms

and insects, of things that squirmed and were good to eat. She puffed it into white smoke and gray ashes,

zipped through the spot where it had been, moving down and down . . .

“Damn him!” she shouted to the thunder.

Her robes fluttered winglike.

“Damn him!” she roared again. And she did not mean the gull.

The storm echoed it back, madly clashing its cym-bals, insanely thumping its drums.

“Damn him to Hell!”

Echoes in other moments of the storm.

She could have damned him, too—literally. She could have sentenced him to a living Hell or death or

a dozen different things in between. If he had been normal, like all Commoners, she could have lifted him

up bodily with the twitch of a single finger, twirled him about without ever really touching him, and sent

him plunging straight through the crust of the earth and into the bowels of eternal damnation—or at least

into permanent juncture with solid rock. But he was not a Commoner. And in that lay the crux of the

prob-lem. All the twiddling of all her fingers could not stop him from doing what he had done to her, from

taking her and using her as he wished. As she flew now, rain in her face, the fire in her loins told her it had

not been entirely rape, not completely one-sided. After all, he was a handsome man . . . But no. No! Her

magics had failed on him, and he had taken her. She must consider it rape. She must continue to roil hate

through her mind, continue to build her animos-ity into formidable structures. He had used her!

And no one used Cheryn in any way. She was master of her mind and of her body. There was no

one above her, no one to tell her what to do, how to do it, or when it should be done. She used others;

oth-ers did not use her. It had always been like that! No one used Cheryn the Crimson Witch and got

away with it.

Suddenly, she was below the clouds, flashing to-ward the earth. Rocks, trees, huts, and rivers flashed

by below, colorless and nearly featureless in the storm gloom that sapped it of life and made all the world

cower beneath its black splendor. Ahead lay the mountain with the red eye that stared blankly at the

night, its pupil flickering now and again. She struck for it. Slowly angling in toward the shelf of earth and

stone that protruded beneath the eye, she landed gently upon the soles of her tan, bare feet and rushed

forward into her den.

The Death Screen hummed as she passed through it, recognized her, and closed its invisible mouth

instead of biting. There had been a time, when she had first created the Death Screen, when the stones at

the foot of the cliff had been littered with the flesh and bones of those who thought they might dare her

invisible barrier to seek her lair and her soft and pliant form. Now, examples having been set in

abundance, the stones were clean below, and her privacy was assured.

Inside, the polished black stone floor glittered brightly with the reflected tongues of the hearth fire.

She could have devised regular lighting, for that was not a Lost Art, but there was something special

about a fire, something that appealed to her more than the cold blue bulbs of quasi-fire. Now, even the

hearth fire was unnecessary, for her eyes were aflame brightly enough to illuminate the darkest of

caverns. Aflame with hatred. Well-nourished, carefully grown hatred,

“I'll teach him!” She spat the words out to no one but herself. Beautiful, she remained strangely alone,

seeking no companionship but the comfort of her own magics and the things they could do for her.

Warm, she fought to be cold, and her reputation about the kingdom was one of dullness and aloofness,

one of odd, solitary smugness. She paced the middle of the room, stood before a cauldron of bright

green liquid that held her face in as much detail as a mirror of fine quality might. It was a fine face, a

lovely face. The midnight hair tumbled around smooth, perfect skin, contrasted magnificently with her

green-green eyes, framed her pert nose and her honey-dripping, bee-stung lips.

Her voice changed from fury to an electrified calm, from razor screech to a thing of humdrum and

wind-moan. “As I am the Witch of Eye Mountain, the Crimson Witch, Cheryn the Daughter of Mulgai,

thus I command you to clear, to show me the vision I seek.” She closed her gem eyes, strained her

forehead.

The liquid began to bubble, forming froth that swam to the edges and clung to the iron cauldron like

filings to a magnet. Then the bubbling grew less and less until the surface had once again become calm

and smooth. But it no longer reflected her lovely face or the sleek curve of her sensuous neck, the pert

upthrust of her breasts. Now it showed pictures . . .

She opened her eyes and stared at the vision.

Her face was gone . . .

Instead, there was a man and a dragon . . .

Chapter One: THE TREK BEGINS

? Jake reigned his mount, digging his feet hard against the beast's thick sides, and came to a halt,

sway-ing as the beast swayed. He crossed his arms on the great horny ridge that was the front of his

saddle and sat looking across the gorge. Steam snaked up from be-low where the Ice River splashed

onto the Hell Boul-ders, sissing, dissipating itself in a furious explosion of white, condensing and

continuing beyond as a new and purer stream, smaller in size, but warmer. Far away, across the crack in

the land that some Common-ers called Devil's Grin and some called The Lips of Satan, stood the purple

mountains like rotting teeth, dark, emerald forests ringing them like diseased gums. The mountains

tempted, beckoned to him. He watched them as clouds, white and full, drifted among them, curling like

fog fingers of some sentient mist creature. At the mountains, he would find that which he needed, that

which he had come here for. He let his mind indulge in fantasies of success. Finally, his hind-quarters

itching and sore, he slid from the gi-ant back of his mount, dropped the last ten feet to the ground, shook

his wild mane of blond hair and de-lighted in the clatter of his walnut shell necklace that hung to his waist.

Rounding the colossal leg, he said, “Yonder is Lelar.”

“Lelar gives me the shivers,” the dragon said, low-ering the huge head that topped its graceful neck.

It stared across the gorge with him, clucking its tongue and sighing heavily.

Jake kept his gaze fixed on the mountains as his mind fiddled with the remnants of his wishes. “Why

should anything scare you?”

The dragon, Kaliglia as he was named, snorted, clucked his giant pink tongue in his cheek again,

mak-ing a sound vaguely like a shotgun blast muffled in a pillow. “There are stories.”

“And that's all they are. Stories. Nothing more.”

Kaliglia shook his head negatively, stirring a small breeze that played through Jake's hair. “Lelar is an

evil kingdom. It has always been an evil kingdom, ruled by King Lelar since its founding more than six

hundred years ago.”

Jake snorted his disgust, pushed his hair back from his face, “Now, how could that be? Even in this

coun-try, men don't live that long.” He stretched, yawned. He sat on the ground, folded his brawny arms

across his chest and drew up his knees. He still had thoughts of the witch, the red-robed wonder with the

body of a goddess. He remembered her sleek legs, her hand-sized breasts and taut, chiseled nipples. He

also remem-bered her weakly issuing curses and waving charms, wanting him as much as he wanted her

but unwilling to admit it, to give in and enjoy. He wanted to laugh as the memory lodged in his mind and

replayed itself over and over. He shook his head instead. Walnuts rat-tled. “The longest a man has ever

lived, that I know of, was the Priest of Dorso. Kell mentioned he was 245 or so.”

“I would not judge,” Kaliglia said, misunderstand-ing the reason for the man's amusement, “until I had

heard some of those stories for myself. You form opin-ions without any evidence. You are rash and

undis-ciplined. And you seem to accuse me of foolishness.”

“No. The Sorceress Kell told me you were a reli-able and noble beast when she gave you to me. I

trust her. You aren't a superstitious fool—just a little mis-guided.”

“Maybe. But you don't know the stories.” There was an

I'm-going-to-make-you-beg-to-hear-them-too tone in his rumbling. He bobbled his head up and down

on the end of his slender neck as if agreeing with himself. He clucked his tongue again, wiped his lips with

a hard, yellow tongue, clucked again.

Jake sighed, still staring at the mountains. “Well, tell me one, then.”

Kaliglia settled down onto the massive pillars of his legs, knees bent, rolled slightly onto his side,

shaking the earth and sending a dull booming reverberation through the nearby countryside. He sucked in

an enormous breath, exhaled slowly. “You are too bull-headed to really listen, I'm sure. Your biggest

prob-lem is an inability to admit your own narrow-minded-ness. Or to admit you are wrong. But I'll tell

you any-way. Once, several years ago, a sailor came to the home of the Sorceress Kell. He was a

weathered, beaten, half-starved hulk who had no mind left to him. Rather, his mind had been locked

within itself, doubled and twisted and tied in so many knots that all his mem-ories crisscrossed and

short-circuited him into delir-ium. He did little but babble and drool. He could not even feed himself with

any degree of success. He had to be attended to day and night, for if he were left to his own devices, it

was quite probable that he would unwittingly bring about his own death, tumble over a cliff or some such.

The Sorceress Kell had to open his mind, reach into it with her many and sundry powers and untie it so

he could be whole again.

“Over the days that this required, she began to piece together a story so horrible as to make her

seriously question its authenticity and yet so detailed as to de-mand that it be believed. There are some

things a man can be made to believe are true by various conniving drugs and a clever drugsman. But the

problem with drug-induced fantasies is that they have little verisim-ilitude, very little shaping detail. This

story was too detailed, too finely drawn to be anything but genuine. In those days, Kell confided in me,

coming out from her hut and sitting with me in the evening when the stars shone full and the sky was clear

and endless. She told me his story in day-to-day installments. Thus, she unloaded some of her horror

onto me, sharing the im-possible burden of ugliness that the sailor had imparted to her with the spilling of

his tale.

“It seems that this sailor, Golgoth, had signed aboard a sailing ship bound for the kingdom of Lelar

from the kingdom of Salamanthe, that sheltered and exotic island nation that depends upon trade to

main-tain itself. It was not a matter of working in exchange for pay that induced Golgoth to enter as a

ship's hand on this particular cruise. No, the situation had darker roots than that. He had been in a fight in

a dockside pub and had killed a man. The only way he could avoid the death penalty was to sign on for

ten years in the service of a merchant marine vessel. It was a good op-portunity, considering his other

choices. It meant a place to sleep, a hope for the future, and the means of a steady and lucrative income.

He leaped at the chance to be free, vowed never to take another drink and thus stir his killing rage,

pitched into his sailor's duties with much vigor, and secretly made plans for escape in Lelar.

“The journey began as a good one, blessed with stormless skies and sound wind.” Kaliglia paused,

held out his tongue to collect the rain water that was now falling lightly. After a moment, he continued:

“But when they reached Lelar, things immediately began to darken.”

“It's beginning to sound like a wives' tale.” Jake held out his own tongue for a wetting.

Kaliglia grumbled good-naturedly. “I would bite off your head if I were not so amiable.”

“You'd get indigestion, old son.”

The dragon weaved his head agitatedly, sighed, sucked air, sighed again, but continued. “The first

night in dock, the first mate got drunk and knifed the captain over some petty argument about

black-market-ing a crate of fruit.”

“What's so supernatural about that? Drunken brawls and petty theft are common among seamen—

as Golgoth bears testimony to.”

The rain fell harder.

“Then,” Kaliglia said, pausing dramatically, “rats infested the supplies.”

“So?”

“Don't you see?” the dragon snorted. “Murder and rats. Murder and rats. What more could you wish

to see to prove that something wicked and debased is bound to happen?”

“There are always rats around docks, and they are always infesting ships and supplies and cargoes.”

“Okay,” the dragon rumbled. “Then I will get on with Golgoth's story and see if you think that's

nor-mal!”

“Please do.”

Both took another tongue wetting, sucking at the rain, before Kaliglia continued with Golgoth's tale.

“Golgoth, as I said, planned to escape from the ship and set up life in Lelar. His superiors—the

second mate was made captain by a vote of the crew—were not as aware of his status as were the

original captain and the first mate (who was now confined to the brig and or-dered to live on bread and

water until their return to Salamanthe, where he could be given a fair trial and summarily executed for

murder). The watch that had been kept over Golgoth was neglected by the new officers, and the criminal

found his escape much easier than he had anticipated. On the third day of their docking—rather, on the

third night—while the ship waited only to lay in new provisions and cleanse the craft of vermin, he slipped

out of the common quart-ers and onto the deck. He snapped a hand into the neck of the lone watchman,

and disappeared over the rail-ing without so much as a whimper of protest or notice from anyone. He

was again a free man. But not for very long.

“Seems he drank too much in a dockside grog house and entered into roulette with the house as his

oppon-ent. The game, apparently somewhat less than honest, had soon drained his pockets of all that

jingled and all that crackled when folded. He found himself out in the streets, staggering about with no

coin either to quench his thirst and belay the onrushing headache that pounded dully at the rear of his

brain or to rent a bed in a one-night rooming house. He lurked about the docks, forcing his befuddled

mind to come to grasps with some plan of action to rescue him from what could prove to be very dire

circumstances in-deed. Finally, he tried beating a smaller sailor with the idea of making off with his

money. But the smaller sailor happened to be a foot-fighting expert of some renown in the area. Ten

minutes later, Golgoth was sitting in a jail cell, three of his teeth missing, and a bruise splotching one entire

cheek and half his chin. He moaned about his misfortune for a time until cell-mates threatened to bruise

more of him than his miser-able face. Then he began examining the circumstances from an optimistic point

of view, deciding that—no matter what else might happen—he had a bed and a meal coming. He settled

down to sleep, the liquor tem-porarily mollifying the pain in his mouth. Yes, he rea-soned, he was

well-off. If the new officers realized he was a convict doing time on the ship, they would cer-tainly not

extend their search to the jail. That would be the last place they would look. When he got out, they

would be gone, and it would be safe to walk the streets of the capital. And when he was released, he

would not be so foolish as to pick a male victim no mat-ter what his size.

“But Golgoth was planning uselessly. It was not to be that simple. In the blackest part of the night,

some hours before dawn, guards liveried as under the House of Lelar came into the jail and collected the

four prisoners in custody there. They were chained together and led away, all of their protests and

ques-tions answered only by the slam of club to groin. They sooned learned their lessons and grew

moodily silent, not daring even to talk among themselves. They were marched through the streets to the

castle of King Lelar where they were put into private rooms, the doors locked behind them.

“These rooms were sumptuously decorated. The walls were covered with brilliant crimson velveteen.

The floor was a swirl of golden-threaded marble. Later, servants delivered the best of foods and large

quantities of it. Golgoth was served wine that had been processed from the best vineyards of the

kingdom, dark and light stuff as sweet as honey, as smooth as water. Even a whore was brought to him,

a wondrous woman with enormous breasts, and he was encouraged to indulge himself to his full extent.

Being some time without a woman, Golgoth indulged in the whore several times before dawn. Only then

did the nature of this treatment begin to have its effect upon him. He grew weary and fell into heavy sleep.

And when he awoke, there was fear in him like a cold stone in his stomach. He had come to realize,

whether through his dreams or his waking thoughts or an amalgam of both, that the treatment he was

receiving was much the same treatment a condemned man might expect on the evening before his

execution.”

Jake coughed, watched the lightning flash as the storm passed on to the west and the rain began to

slow in its fall. “No trappings, please. Just the bare story.”

Lightning flashed dully.

Thunder boomed like baby giants laughing.

The rain was cold and good.

Kaliglia snorted but went on: “Golgoth was brought before King Lelar that same morning, though the

meeting had none of the airs of a royal audience. Golgoth was brought into the royal chamber by three

guards who held him at sword point as if he might turn and scamper if they dropped their attention for an

in-stant. Lelar sat in the background with several white-robed officials, much as an observer. Golgoth

was tied firmly to two thick ropes, one on each ankle. When he asked what was to happen, he was

clouted and told to remain quiet in the presence of Lelar. Then, with little ceremony and no warning, too

fast for the poor man to get his wits about him, he was thrust into a cir-cular blue aperture in the wall

beside the king's throne.”

“Thrust into the wall?”

“Yes.”

“Is this the portal to my own world that Kell has told me about?”

“Yes again.”

“Go on.”

“Inside the wall, Golgoth was weightless. He seemed not to amount to a single gram as he floated

about in the gloom there. And that is just what it was. Impenetrable gloom. Only one spot of light shone,

the portal through which he had been shoved. Beyond this, King Lelar and his advisers stood hunched

to-gether, peering in at him. Then, just as he was getting a hold on his fear, great gusts of wind clutched at

him almost with the sensitivity of fingers, bending around him, molding to him, spinning him away in the

gloom. The portal dimmed to a mere spot of light, a pinprick, fainter, fainter, fainter. The rope unraveled

and un-raveled, his only hold on the real world.

Kaliglia paused to catch his breath.

“And?”

“And then came the smoke ghosts.”

The harshest part of the storm was gone now, blast-ing between the towering peaks of the Twin

Towers, its black trail still darkening the sky, the faint tint of the setting sun tracing gold behind it.

“Smoke ghosts?” Jake asked.

“That's what Golgoth called them. They were creatures composed of smoke. They were bilious and

unreal, yet they maintained some mockery of form. They were mists, yet he could feel their hands upon

him, more solidly than the eerie hands of the winds, ice hands that drove needles of cold sleep through

him, deep into him.

Jake shivered a chilly ache that was not altogether new. The only other times he had felt it were

burned brilliantly into his memory. The first time had been when they had buried his mother. They had

taken her to the cemetery in the oblong box and had left her there beneath the earth, left her alone. They

had come back to the skeleton house, come back to the rooms like hollowed out ice cubes where her

presence had held the fire that burned no longer. He had been taken up the long set of winding stairs to

the bathroom. They had cajoled him into showering—his aunts had —and had shoe-horned him into his

pajamas. But on the way to the bedroom, he had stepped on something cold. He had looked down, and

he had seen one of his mother's hair pins still twined through with a strand of blond hair. A shiver ran

through him then, flooded into a scream that lasted an hour until the doctor could get there and give him a

sedative. That first time, that first cold ache was a knife plunge through his bone marrow, a thing he

would always remember. The second time had been when he had stepped through the dimensions and

found himself in this world—and had realized that the old world was behind him and he had exchanged

realities. That time, he had just barely choked a scream. “And what did they do with Golgoth?” he asked

Kaliglia.

The dragon rumbled. His voice cracked. He sniffed and began again. “He felt the smoke ghosts

touching him, humming ghostily moans as if they wanted to tell him things. He lost consciousness then,

screaming, just as he felt the ropes being retracted. He remembers nothing else until the Sorceress Kell

opened his mind and freed him of his horror.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Well?” Kaliglia asked, wiping a tongue across his thick, black lips and bunking his enormous eyelids

down over his blue and green eyes.

“Well what?”

“Now do you believe Lelar is an evil kingdom?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then we won't be going there?”

“Oh, yes, but we will.” Jake stood and stretched.

“But with the smoke ghosts and—”

“I have to go there. It is there that the portal to my own time line exists. Without it, I must remain

here forever.” He walked to the beast's side, pulled him-self up the great back, climbed into the natural

horn saddle. “Let's get up to that rock bridge and camp there tonight. Tomorrow morning we cross into

Lelar.”

Kaliglia turned his truck cab head around, looking over his shoulder, snorted with disgust. He

lumbered to his feet and crashed off along the gorge in search of the natural bridge . . .

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