Totentanz

Book 2 Chapter VIII: Der Teufelskreis

Warning: contains violence.

DER TEUFELSKREIS
German, "the vicious circle"

The universe was bad enough without people poking it. -- Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

The next lifetime got off to an auspicious start -- compared to the last two, anyway. Diarnlan woke up in her own bed, in her own house, in the body of her twenty-four-year-old self. Her first reaction was joy. It was quickly replaced with dread. If she was back at her normal age then the first skrýszel attack was about to happen. And Karandren was a teenager. He'd been bearable -- at times he'd even been decent company, bizarre though the thought was -- as a child. But as a teenager?

Someone knocked at the back door. Oh no. That was her sister come to torment her again. Diarnlan pulled the quilt over her head and pointedly ignored the knocking. It continued uninterrupted for several minutes.

"Diarnlan! Open this door right now!"

That wasn't her sister. Diarnlan shoved the quilt back and stormed downstairs, not bothering to change out of her pyjamas. She threw the door open.

Karandren had the audacity to look surprised to see she wasn't happy to see him. "Well? Change your clothes and let's go!"

"Go where?" Diarnlan asked in her most icy tone.

"To Miavain, of course!"

She slammed the door in his face. Unfortunately he simply opened it again.

"Come on, you said I could go to Miavain if I wanted."

"I distinctly remember also saying that I wouldn't go with you."

"But I won't kidnap you or hold you hostage this time!"

Diarnlan stalked out of the kitchen without answering. Karandren, damn him, trailed after her like a puppy begging for attention.

"Come oooooooooon," he whined.

Damn it, even his eyes looked like a puppy's now. To her own horror Diarnlan found herself wavering in the face of that pleading gaze.

"Do you seriously think I'm going to help you conquer Miavain?"

Karandren shrugged. "You can do whatever you want as soon as we get there. But it'd be faster if we work together to take over. And then we'll see how long we survive by avoiding the skrýszel altogether."

Diarnlan's grandmother was fond of an old saying: never speak of wolves or one will come to your door. Karandren might as well have laid down an "All Skrýszels Welcome" sign and thrown a greeting party for them. The house shook at a distant thud. Diarnlan groaned. Karandren had been about to speak again and stopped with his mouth still hanging open.

"What's that?" he asked, proving once again that he had fewer brains than a dormouse.

Diarnlan went back to her room and hunted for Saungrafn. She found it in the bathtub, of all places, and stormed downstairs to face the latest monster. Karandren was leaning against the kitchen window, staring out with a bug-eyed expression.

"It's a skrýszel!" he announced as if this was completely unexpected news.

She ignored him as she went outside. From her garden gate she got a good view of the creature. It was the frog-like one, the first one she'd ever killed.

This doesn't prove Karandren's theory, she told herself, partly because she hated the idea he might be right about anything and partly because the skrýszels going through their own time-loop was too strange and disturbing to think about.