Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

this place, Dragozin. I’d stake my balls that these people are being held in thrall. A witch or a dark shaman, drawn to this haunted land and using it to entrap people.”

Another sharp gust of wind blew between the yurts, rattling anything left loose on the ground. I flinched as a speck of cold touched my cheek. Snow. I looked up, frowning. The camp was now covered in a very low, very dark ceiling of clouds, thick enough to obscure the light of the moon and reflect the firelight from below.

“The sky was clear before.” Karalti batted at a snowflake as more of it began to swirl down around us. “Everything still smells nice, but...”

“But this place is giving me some serious Silent Hill vibes, yeah.” There was a soft, throaty growl from behind us. I glanced back, but only saw the shadow of the dogs as they slunk behind one of the darkened yurts and out of sight.

Every fire circle was bustling with activity. Goats bleated, chickens clucked, children played... and yet, the closer we got to the center, the more unreal everything seemed. The people and animals stopped whenever we passed by, staring at us with blank, expressionless eyes. When I looked back, all I could see was clouded darkness, our tracks obscured by the snow now falling over us like a soft, smothering blanket.

Vash came to a stop beside a drystone shed stacked high with dried dung, staring at it incredulously.

“What?” Karalti sniffed the air anxiously. “Wow. That’s a lot of camel poop.”

“This shed was in this exact place when I was a child. It’s like it never aged. The roof is still intact, everything...” he trailed off as he stumbled forward. “These tents. Hector, these are my family’s tents.”

There was a large ring of yurts here, insulated with white felt and covered in draping covers of beautifully painted leather. The firepit was blazing, but the light didn’t seem to properly penetrate the darkness. A delicious smell wafted from a pot bubbling merrily on a tripod over the flames.

“Momos!” Karalti chirped, eagerly brushing past me.

“No! Eat nothing here.” Vash caught her wrist and halted her in her tracks. He was breathing hard, the cords of his neck standing out in sharp relief. “We cannot trust what we see, here, smell or feel here. That’s my mother’s cooking. My mother’s tent. And this...

Vash walked numbly to a stone slab. An iron hatchet lay on it. Both the stone and the axe were brown with dried blood.

“This is the axe she used to disfigure me,” he finished, reaching out to touch the door beside it. “Placed outside of the yurt in which I lived with Saaba and my father.”

I flinched as the snow suddenly picked up, the wind blowing it so hard and so suddenly that the sky above us moaned. “Uhh, I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but my spook-o-meter is ringing pretty hard right now.”

Vash didn’t seem to hear me as he caressed the red wooden door. It was painted with pictures of birds. The ones higher up were painted with incredible attention to detail. The ones at knee-height were colorful M-shaped scribbles, drawn by a child’s hand. Vash’s father had stained the door around those pictures, so as not to hide the birds drawn by his children from view.

“Our father was an artist. He sold and painted furniture so fine that the Vlachian lords would send camel trains on a month-long trek here, just to fetch a set of his chairs or tables.” Vash unlatched it, and opened it ahead of him.

“Vash, I’m not sure this is a good- aww fuck.” I hadn’t even finished speaking when he stepped inside.

The yurt was cozy, warm and dark. Rich rugs lay spread across the ground. A lantern hung over a beautifully decorated chest of drawers, carved and painted with meadow flowers and fish. Vash went over to it, his shoulders slumping as he lovingly ran his hands over the top. He picked up a tea cup, then looked back, to the large bed that he’d shared with his family. “The bed, the stove, the tea cup… all of it, it’s exactly like how it was before my sister went on pilgrimage.”

“Hey!” I tried to catch his eye, but he ignored me and stalked over to the bed. The red and purple quilt spread over it had been embroidered and beaded with great care. Vash lifted it to his face and breathed in deeply. “Our grandmothers made all the children quilts like these. No. This exact quilt.”

“Earth to Vash.” I hung behind him, waving by the side of his head.

“I can’t tell if this is real, or if…” He hugged the quilt to his chest, his usual cockiness and self-composure pushed back by old grief. He looked—and sounded—much younger than he was. “I can feel the cloth, I can smell my family here, I-”

“Vash!” I caught him by the shoulder and pulled him back from the bed. “Remember what you just told us? We can’t trust what we see or smell. It’s all a lie. This is… fuck. I don’t know what it is. Whatever it is, it’s not real. Not after thirty years.”

Vash’s eyes were wild and hazy. Just when I thought I was about to have to slap him, he bunched the quilt and threw it back to the bed. Then he drew a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

“The Five Hinderances,” he muttered, eyelids fluttering. “Sensory desire. Ill-will. Torpor and sloth. Anxiety. Indecision. Everything in this place evokes the hinderances for me, as if it were made to foul the senses and the mind. Mine, in particular.”

Karalti, who had stayed by the door, sniffed loudly. Then she turned and sniffed again.

“What?” I let go of Vash and called the Spear to hand, pulse pounding in the side of my throat.

“The