"Master, I do not think we can find her!" Zabar's expression was desperate. "We have searched for nigh onto a half an hour, and I am no longer certain of the direction from whence came the scream!" His hand gripped the pommel of his sword, and his mind was filled with fearful thoughts of the stories he had heard about the sinister cultists who practiced their rites of blood and pain beneath the shadows of the trees. "Perhaps we should look to our own lives, and flee this dreadful place. The cultists will not hesitate to strike down any who oppose them!" His voice trembled as he spoke.

"No, we are going to try to find the woman." Esarhaddon was filled with firm resolve and could not be dissuaded from the course he had chosen. "Now dismount, and lead the horses! The night is as foggy for the cultists as it is for us! They do not have the eyes of cats to penetrate the darkness!"

"What if they lie in wait and ambush us?" Zabar raised the lantern high and tried to peer through the gray mists. "We do not know our way through these woods, but they know the forest like they know the backs of their hands." He lowered his voice and looked around fearfully. "I have heard on good account that they cut secret signs upon the trees to guide them, signs that only they can read, circles and mystic marks, signs of the heavens and the ethers and the things below and the things above." He felt as though a wad of cotton was stuck in his throat, and he found it hard to swallow. "They will find us and burn our bones upon their altars!"

"Are we cowards?" Esarhaddon retorted loudly.

"Aye, Master, I am!" Zabar exclaimed.

Esarhaddon snorted with disgust. "Give me the lantern, and I will go first!" Although his words sounded brave, he wondered if he had the audacity to carry through with them.

Constantly vigilant, the men twisted their heads from side to side. The misty filaments of the chill, damp fog clung to the trunks of the trees like the tatters of a worm-gnawed shroud. Were those ghostly forms they saw in the cold places beneath the trees? No, it was just a trick of the fog... or so they tried to convince themselves. A nervous whicker from one of the horses set their already taut nerves into spasms of fear. Zabar's hand reached out, touching a tree trunk, and felt a furrow cut deeply into the bark. His fingers traced the outline and found a strange jagged circular mark. He drew his hand back as though it were bitten by a serpent.

"A ring of power," he gasped, his face becoming ashen. "It is one of their signs. Let us leave this perilous course and find our way back to the road!"

"We are going forward, and my word is final!"

"As you command, Master," Zabar mumbled and wondered if his master's misfortune-fraught journey in the North and concern for his deformed son had been too much for him. "I still do not think we should endanger ourselves so. What is this woman to us?"

"Nothing," Esarhaddon shrugged and walked between two tall trees which towered ominously over them like the black pillars of ancient standing stones. A slight wind stirred and twisted the fog back against their faces, leaving the skin chilled and clammy.

"Master! Over there!" Zabar pointed to a spot between the trees. "Did you see that light? We – we should go no farther. There could be cultists about, just waiting to drag us from our horses and carry us off into the forest!"

"Courage, Zabar, courage." Esarhaddon's mare shuddered and balked again, skittering like a thing possessed by shades that only she could see. He felt icy prickles race up and down his spine. "Come, my fine mare," he murmured softly, coaxing her forward.

The two tall trees were past them, and as they probed the mists ahead, they could see nothing but the shapes of more trees. Continuing onward, they came to another opening in the forest. Esarhaddon walked over to a nearby tree, and holding his lantern close to its trunk, he saw by the flickering light a series of unfamiliar runes.

"More of their marks!" he exclaimed.

"Master, I know, I know! We are cursed if we go ahead!" Zabar moaned, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"This must mark one of the trails used by the cultists. Perhaps if we follow these signs, we can discover where they have taken the woman. If we are lucky, we can rescue her, or bring back help," Esarhaddon remarked, tugging his horse along.

"Perhaps we should have sought help from one of the road patrols ere ever embarking upon this venture," Zabar muttered, his fingers quivering upon the reins.

A whimpering wail suddenly cut through the fog somewhere ahead.

"Listen," Esarhaddon exclaimed triumphantly, "we are close!"

"That is what I fear, Master! I do not want to be any closer than I am now!" Zabar felt he might lose control of his bowels and could not stand the thoughts of that embarrassment. Why was Esarhaddon driving him into this frightening place on a chase for the victim of a cult of insane zealots? The woman would probably be dead ere they ever found her, and then the cultists would turn their bloodlust upon him and his master.

A slight wind from the west rippled the fog into misty filaments and tossed the shreds aside. The two travelers could see their surroundings more clearly now, although the forest canopy above them permitted no starlight to chase away the perpetual shadows which lurked amongst the trees. Their clothes were saturated with a mixture of mist and sweat, and they pulled their cloaks tighter against their bodies in an effort to ward away the chill.

"The fog is less now," Esarhaddon proclaimed, his voice barely above a whisper. "I can see something ahead."

Trying to summon forth some small degree of courage, Zabar gripped the reins tighter and jerked the horse forward. Taking a deep breath, he licked his dry lips as he remembered the flask that Esarhaddon carried at his side. If only he had a sip, the fiery comfort of the draught would steady his nerves and stop the trembling in his legs.

A pale form suddenly emerged from the misty shadows, the unexpected appearance of the wraith-like interloper sending the horses into a wild panic. Esarhaddon's mare tossed her head high and broke free of his hold upon the reins. As Ka'adara galloped away into the forest, he cursed to himself and wondered if she had more sense than he did. She was surely not here by choice. There was no time to dwell upon such matters, though. Esarhaddon's hand jerked to the hilt of his scimitar, and the blade swished as he drew it from the sheath at his belt.

"Only the Dead and fools walk this road!" The stranger's voice was stern and heavy with dire portent. "Go back!"

"Who are you, stark stranger, to appear as if from nowhere and impede our course?" Esarhaddon shouted. "What is your business in this forest? It can be no more important than ours!"

"A sojourner of the Thraqum Wood. Beyond this copse of trees lies only death!" the spectral figure hissed. "Content yourselves with being fools and turn back before you join the Dead!"

The stranger strode forth towards them, no flickering lamp to guide his feet. Clad in lighter colored garments of some indeterminable shade, he looked as though he were a phantom formed from the heavy mists which swirled and eddied beneath the trees. Esarhaddon held the lantern closer, and beheld the stark planes of the interloper's gaunt face. His skin was as pallid as sun-bleached bone, and ashen gray hair escaped from the confines of his hood to fall over his brow in lank strands. However, his most striking feature was his eyes. One was a deep pewter, the ominous hue of a brooding sky, while the other was an orb of pale light which twisted and turned in its orbit, roaming this way and that.

Zabar dropped the reins and fell to his face as his horse scampered off through the trees. "Mercy, mercy, O great Shaman of the Forest!" he sobbed, rising back up to his knees to bow again and again. "Do not cast an evil spell upon us!"

"Shaman," Esarhaddon spoke calmly, only a trace of a tremor in his voice, "why do you come, a herald of doom, and seek us out?"

"Because these are the woods of fate," he replied, his eye casting about haphazardly.

"Then how do you walk them in safety?"

"Because I endure," the shaman whispered.

"What manner of being are you?" Esarhaddon gasped and felt a shudder course through his spine.

"A lingerer... some say a purveyor of darkness," the eccentric mystic cackled. "I see things that you do not, and I see your fate hanging on a puff of mist."

The shaman's quivering eye fixed itself upon Esarhaddon's face, and Esarhaddon felt an icy tentacle burrow deep within his mind. He cursed as the lantern fell from his grasp, the light flaming up as it crashed to the ground.

"Old one, do not threaten us with your mumbled spells!"

"There is no light to guide your way," the shaman chortled as he stepped aside. "There is nothing except the words of one who abides, and soft footfalls in the darkness."

"We heard the screams of a woman when we were traveling on the road. Surely you can understand our concern?"

"Concern ill-considered is no concern at all, and fair favored fortune goes to the wise. What you seek to do cannot be done, for the dark ones hold sway in these woods. You should have held to your course on the road. Tonight is not the night for mortals to be in the forest," the shaman muttered as his wayward eye leaned awkwardly to the left. "Come, I shall lead you and your servant to safety." He cast his gaze to Esarhaddon's lantern, and the wick sputtered and then faintly began to glow. "Take it to your hand, Esarhaddon uHuzziya, and then turn and follow me. My eye shall guide us through murky places."

Esarhaddon bent, reaching down for the lantern. The ember, taking strength, flashed up into flame. "I am not leaving without the woman," he stated adamantly.

"You may find the maiden you seek, but you cannot reach her. She is locked within the confines of the black transit."

"I do not care where she is. I will find her."

The shaman sighed, his wizened form seeming to cave in upon itself as his stooped shoulders slumped forward in defeat. "Then, before you go off chasing your own doom, learn the meaning of my rhyme. What is life, only time?" With these cryptic words, he began to chant:

Poisonous adders and wasps that sting
Silent fingers creep beneath the dirt
Witches' milk hangs from the clouds
The moon has put on the sun's skirt

Birth pangs hasten ever near
Nothing ventured brings no gain
But naught is found, only tomb
Only riddle, the scorpion's pain

"You are mad!" Esarhaddon gasped, more unsettled by the strange rhyme than he wanted to admit. "These foolish words have no meaning whatsoever, only more attempts to waste my time." He turned to his bodyguard, whose eyes were wide with the same fear he felt, but refused to acknowledge. "Zabar, follow me! There is a woman in danger, and we must save her, if it is not too late already!"

As Esarhaddon stormed away, he tried to focus upon his anger at the shaman, lest fear take command of his senses. The old charlatan was probably in league with the cultists, he thought bitterly to himself as he stalked through the woods. He did not particularly know where he was going, but he was certainly glad to be rid of the wretched elf with his foolish rhymes. How much time had they wasted by giving that blathering fool an audience? Was it too late for the poor woman whose piteous screams had reverberated through the forest as she desperately cried out for help from any who heard her?

The light of the lantern did little to drive away the darkness and cut through the thick fog, but it was enough to help Esarhaddon find his way. Zabar followed behind him, his hand ever upon the hilt of his sword. Every now and then Esarhaddon halted, listening for cries of distress. After a brief period of walking, the ground beneath their feet began to rise as they climbed up the slope of a small knoll. Branches whipped their faces as they traversed the sparse undergrowth that clung to the rocky hillside, and their legs strained at the growing incline. The fog began to thin as they approached the summit, and the air became easier to breathe. When at last Esarhaddon gained the top of the hill, he saw a clearing beyond, the grass of the little meadow charcoal gray against the black mass of the surrounding trees and the deep slate of the starless sky.

The moment the two travelers emerged from the protection of the trees and stepped into the hilltop glade, they immediately sensed that something was deeply, terribly wrong. Their ears were struck by a sudden silence which hummed and pulsated like the constant high-pitched whine of a horde of locusts, and they felt their breath grow shallow as though the air had been pulled from their lungs.

The glade was empty, but yet it was not.

Every fibre of Esarhaddon's being cried out to run, to flee from this place of impenetrable dread. A great evil lurked here, ancient and inscrutable, invisible to mortal eyes, but perceived clearly by the spirit. It watched their every movement… and waited with malevolent purpose.

His heart pounding in his chest, Esarhaddon was about to turn away and retreat back down the hill. But then the ringing silence lessened its deafening hold upon his ears, and he heard a whimpering moan coming from the center of the clearing. "Help me," cried out a plaintive voice, faint and muffled, as though the speaker were trapped deep within the earth.

The woman! He had to save her from the fiends who tormented her! Even though his bones quaked with terror, he could not abandon this poor soul to torment and death. He thrust the lantern into Zabar's hand and charged on ahead, relying upon instinct rather than eyesight as he sprinted towards the center of the clearing.

And stepped into a burning ring of green fire.

Hastily drawing to a halt, Esarhaddon's feet almost stopped of their own accord as he gaped in astonishment at the circle of flame which surrounded him. Although the flames burnt low to the ground, he could see little beyond them; it was as though the fog had returned, now heavier than ever. His throat began to burn, as though all the moisture had been drawn out of his flesh. His nostrils tingled as an acrid smell assailed them. His eyes stung as though they had been rubbed with nettle, and his vision began to cloud with tears. Somewhere behind him, as though coming from a great distance, he heard the frantic shouts of Zabar.

The prone form in the center of the circle stirred slightly. "Help me," she whispered weakly.

Esarhaddon's head swam with dizziness as the noxious fumes surrounded him. As he bent down to pick up the maiden, she turned over and gazed up at him through glazed eyes.

"I knew you would come," she murmured in an addled voice, "and you have found me!" He screamed as a bony taloned hand locked around his arm in a grip of iron, his flesh shrinking beneath her touch. "Look into my pretty eyes," she shrieked, "and you will see death!"

Esarhaddon grasped the bony hand and pulled the clawing fingers away from him. As the woman fell backwards to the forest floor, he saw that her face had undergone a dreadful transformation. Where there had been the visage of a young woman now was a ghastly white skull beneath a tangled mane of black hair.

"Join me, join me!" she chanted. "In the blood, in the blood!"

Skeletal arms reached out for him, the tattered remnants of a shroud hanging in shreds from the moldering bones which were filled with a dreadful life. The fleshless hands locked around Esarhaddon's arms, and he watched in horror as a phosphorescent green vapor rose up from the ground and wrapped around his body in suffocating tendrils. His legs crumbled under him, and he fell forward, collapsing upon the decayed body of the wight.

When Esarhaddon awoke, there was no trace of the circle of fire or the dreadful ghoul that had attacked him. He tried to focus his eyes on a light in the distance, and as his vision cleared, he saw that it was shining from a window. His head pounded with a relentless fury, and he could smell the faintest trace of incense in the dank air. His skull seemed thick with green vapors, and his arms burned as though they had been seared with acid.

"Master! You are awake!"

"Zabar," Esarhaddon mumbled, having difficulty forming the words, "you did not run away!"

"No, Master," Zabar replied, crouching down beside him. "I would not leave you. I tried to follow you when you ran off into the clearing, but you had such a head start on me, and I feared to go too fast lest I drop the lantern. Then you just… disappeared! Vanished into thin air! I was afraid that the cultists had dug pits into the earth to trap unwary travelers, and you had fallen into a hole. In that moment, I realized that I had no way to get you out, for the lead ropes we brought with us were in the horses' packs. I considered going back to the shaman's cottage for help, but then he appeared behind me."

Clutching his aching head, Esarhaddon struggled to sit up. "What happened then?"

Zabar looked around uncertainly and then lowered his voice. "To be honest, I do not rightly know. The ancient one told me to stay back, and I am not one to interfere with a sorcerer and his craft. He began speaking in those strange rhymes of his, as though he were conversing with some unseen presence. Then his voice grew louder, and he began singing in a language I have never heard before. A brilliant light erupted, like the sudden flash of lightning, followed by the sound of a tremendous explosion, and I could neither hear nor see. When my vision cleared, the shaman was bending over you. It was strange – there was a charred outline of a circle in the grass around you, but I never remember seeing any flames."

A door opened and then closed, and Esarhaddon turned to look towards the small cottage nearby. The umbral darkness of the night still held the land in its clutch, and so he was unable to discern much about the dwelling. Soft amber light emanated from the windows and cast its luminescence upon the dew-covered grass, the homey glow a welcome sight in the gloom of the treacherous woods. The shaman approached them, a candle lantern held in one hand.

"It is time for the sleeper to awaken," the spectral voice intoned. The flickering light of the lantern cast an eerie glow about his haggard face, and the pale, vagrant orb which saw little – or perhaps saw all – wandered aimlessly in its socket. "Take my hand and I will lead you to the light, for I am a sojourner, an exile far from home, a wanderer in the wilderness.

The gulf is wide, the sea is deep
And deathless wanderers never sleep
The sea is broad, the journey far,
And I look for mariner's star

"But he shall not find me, for the sight of land is lost," the shaman cackled, his face twisting with a strange wry humor only he understood.

"What happened to me?" Esarhaddon asked as he reached up and felt the seer's hand pulling him to his feet.

"When you entered into the circle, you entered into the realm of the unseen," the shaman told him. "The black transit takes one between the worlds, but it is a dark path fraught with many perils. A mortal who seeks the unseen realm through a circle of power – or one who falls into a circle laid as a trap – is at great danger from the living, the dead, and those who are neither and both at the same time."

Esarhaddon shook his head in an attempt to free himself from the cobwebs which seemed to infest his skull. "What happened to the woman I tried so desperately to save? When at last I found her, I discovered that she was no woman at all, but some sort of hideous ghoul!"

"The maiden you sought lived long ago; what you saw is all that remains." The shaman's voice was tinged with sorrow, and his face softened with what seemed to be untold centuries of suppressed emotion. "Do not blame yourself for her fate, for the guilt lies elsewhere."

His mind reeling with confusion, Esarhaddon clutched his throbbing temples. "I do not understand. How could the woman I saw already have been dead?"

"Within the confines of the circle, that which is invisible to mortal eyes becomes visible," the shaman stated gravely. "By the same token, those who walk in the shadows now perceive clearly those who dwell in the light. Spirits which hold little sway in the world of the living may wield great power, and those who exist in both realms at once become even more terrible in might."

"What manner of creature assailed me in the circle?"

"A piteous one who suffers beneath a terrible curse." With a sigh, the ancient elf bowed his head. "All those who dwelt in the forest during the years of darkness suffered the same fate: as long as the Power that cursed them endures, their spirits are bound to the earth. To give themselves substance, they must inhabit what remains of their decaying bodies… or claim new vessels to house their spirits."

A chill shuddered down Esarhaddon's spine as he listened to the shaman's words. He had heard the legends of the Thraqum Wood, but he had put little stock in them. According to the old tales, a village of woodsmen had once dwelt in the forest during the early part of the Second Age. For a time, they enjoyed the friendship of the Dark Lord, but when he called upon them to fight for him in Eregion, they had refused to leave their homes, not wishing to die at the hands of elves in a faraway land. The Giver of Gifts accused the woodsmen of taking his gifts freely but giving nothing in return. For their cowardice and greed, he cursed them to haunt the forest as wights, driven to covet the wealth of the living but deriving little enjoyment from their hoarded riches.

"What… what did this ghoul want with me?" Esarhaddon's throat constricted as he asked the question. Beside him, Zabar moaned in abject horror.

"Dwell not upon misfortunes which did not come to pass, Esarhaddon uHuzziya." The faintest of smiles played over the shaman's thin lips. "You will find your horses waiting beyond my grove of trees. Touch them gently, and they will know your hand. Go back to your own house, and leave the spellbound mists of this place behind. Soon enough you shall return to these woods, although perhaps you will not be so fortunate then. The forest does not forget those who escape its snares." Morbid laughter rumbled in his throat, and his wandering eye rolled around in its socket to trap Esarhaddon in its piercing gaze. "My eye sees no more. I am a sojourner, a wanderer in the wilderness, an exile far from home. The path is lost to me. The sea grows dark. Farewell."

With those cryptic words, the shaman turned upon his heel and retreated into the amber light of his cottage. The heavy wooden door closed behind him, and the two travelers once again found themselves alone in the darkness of the Thraqum Wood.