Chapter 48

"So, the father Malget is a reported folk healer but in truth has enough skill in demonology, a forbidden art of magic mind you, to call upon a demon who will later drive him to kill his family and then later return as a wraith to kill the son? That is all rather disturbing but quite in character for such creatures based on my limited readings on the subject." Ivar commented as we rode on the side of the Pontar to the cliffside I knew held Mavrick's family home.

Made me wonder if he was Aedirnian originally and he was accepted as a scout for Kaedwen due to his knowledge of the local area if his family lived on this side of the Pontar.

"Yup. He also has a magical basement where he keeps ancient Vran manuscripts which lead to unlocking a magical door holding an ancient Vran mage waiting for a Chosen One. All in all, the guy is much more low-key than most mages." I explained as I directed Griffin forward on the rock path. We swung around the old quarry after leaving Vergen but surprisingly on the way we didn't run into the local troll couple, then again we didn't run into the wrecked ship they dragged on land and made their "love nest" either so maybe that was a good thing.

"Wait. There's an ancient Vran mage still alive? And you're only telling me about this now?!" Ivar asked incredulously.

"He's in a secret chamber under Loc Muinne and we aren't heading there anytime soon. Besides, we need actual notes to have a chance of learning the password to get past the magical sentry anyway and that is what we are partly here to do. I promise that we will eventually since there are a few interesting things there I want to grab but not until winter passes at the earliest. He's waited over a thousand years so he's not going anywhere." I said trying to placate him.

"Ah," he said, sounding disappointed. "It's just that I once spent a year in Loc Muinne studying the Vran and their disappearance; it's a topic of particular interest to me. Now I wish younger me had known about that."

"They died out due to an outbreak of some kind of plague that made them infertile, a sample of which is locked up in another mage's workshop, also underneath Loc Muinne. He wrote several books on it actually so you can have at it when we go there later. How's that sound?" I offered.

Ivar made a choking noise. I took that as a yes. Soon the sound of scribbling filled the air as Ivar frantically wrote down what I'd told him.

I left him to his efforts and rode on silently as we finally came upon the hut. Said hut had two teenage girls out front hanging their laundry outside in the morning sun. Good thing I got a bath last night along with some rest so I didn't look like some bloody madman coming in from the wilds, only a scary Witcher.

The front door of the hut opened up and a slightly younger boy came out, mouth open to seemingly speak with his sisters, before snapping shut at the sight of us and the sisters following suit when they saw his surprised gaze. Best to reassure them I wasn't about to murder them all.

"Good morning to you three. I'm here to seek out the folk healer Malget in relation to a job I have been contracted to do. Might you bring him to me?" I asked politely.

"Of-of course, Ser Witcher." one of the girls, either Moria and Marissa, said as she dashed back into the house quickly. Leaving me with her two other siblings as Ivar and I dismounted. All three had the same dirty blond hair as their older brother and looked decently healthy despite living together in a small hut. I saw that Murron, the youngest boy, was very interested in Dogmeat as she paced around and sniffed things.

"You can pet her if you want. She might be a Witcher Hound but she is also quite friendly." I said with a smile.

That seemed to break the ice as Murron quickly walked over and bent down to pet Dogmeat, who was very happy to receive it. The sister still looked a little hesitant, which wasn't the wrong feeling in the face of an armed stranger.

Not long after she left the other sister returned with an older man in tow, his hair greying a bit and looking well into his late middle ages. Something that was quite weird considering how mages tended to not show their age. Then again maybe I was way off. Maybe Maglet wasn't a mage but a guy that was just really good at ritual magic since you didn't need to be a mage to summon a demon sadly, as Olgierd made clear.

Either way, he had to be convinced to stop for this own good.

"You Maglet?" I asked the obvious question.

"Aye, that I am. I am surprised though, most seek me out to tend to illness or a bad rash. It's the first time a Witcher has graced my home for my knowledge." Maglet said in equal parts surprise and suspicion.

"Well this job can only be done with your help. Mind if we talk in private while my companion and hound here entertain your children?" I gestured to a confused looking Ivar.

"Pardon?" he asked and I ignored him.

"... Very well then. I hope to be paid for my words of wisdom then as I would for any other service." Maglet stated.

"Naturally." I said while gesturing off to the side.

"Moria, go join your brother and sister. Behave yourself with our guests." he told the girl at his side who nodded her head and did just that.

Ivar clapped his hands. "All right! Who wants to hear a story?" He grinned at the children.

They stared at him. Crickets chirping in the morning light. Moira spoke up. "Sir, we're not toddlers. You can talk to us like we're grown-ups."

Ivar coughed. "Oh? I suppose you don't want to hear about the tale of a mighty Witcher doing battle with a wight then. Might we talk about grown-up things like math and literature then?"

"We'll take the story!" all three called out in desperation.

"Wise choice. It began when I met Markus up in Kovir…" Ivar trailed off as I led Maglet a good distance away from them so we could speak without being overheard.

"So, what is the real reason why you have traveled all of the way to my humble abode? Something tells me it has nothing to do with my folk knowledge." Maglet eyed me with suspicion.

"Correct. I'm here because… let's say a seer told me how a foolish man was conversing with a demon and sometime soon said demon would drive the man into madness and kill his children after Aedirnian soldiers come to this home and rapes his daughters. What follows is the father himself being killed by the son assuming he had committed kinslaying and the said demon coming back as a wraith to enslave his daughter's spirits and then torment the son until he too one day dies."

I was forced to block a slap from Maglet; his eyes were wide and staring, and his nostrils flared with the force of his breath. "How dare you! You, a stranger - no, a Witcher, come to my home and accuse me of such horrible things! Know you nothing of the role of a guest?" His voice was a low hiss as he spat his accusations at me.

"Behind your hut is a trap door into a basement where I assume you do your rituals to converse with the demon. What does it give you? Knowledge on how to heal? Something else?"

"Nothing!" He exclaimed. "There is no demon! You're mad, absolutely mad, coming here to harass me like this. You need to leave now, before I tell the Kaedweni that you were here to spy on them."

"If I'm mad there will be nothing there and I will move on." I said as I tried to move past him.

He adjusted himself to block me. "No! I refuse to let you desecrate the sanctity of my home. Leave now!" His voice was starting to rise.

"...Alright, I'll leave. But I will be forced to tell my good friend Seltkirk of Gulet of my suspicions and he will have to investigate. You let me do my job now to make sure the demon can't return and your name or your family's never comes to light. What do you want to do?"

"How many times do I need to tell you, there is no demon! You need to leave, NOW." Maglet looked as if he was about to blow his top.

I just sighed deeply. This man apparently had no intention of confessing, either out of fear or something else entirely. I didn't want to resort to this but…

"You will lead me to your basement and tell me about the demon." I said while I signed Axii at my side and stared directly into Maglet's eyes.

And promptly felt Maglet's hand wrap around my throat. His eyes flashed black. "I don't think so, little Witcher," said a very distorted voice. Uh-oh.

I tried to stay calm as his noticeably inhuman strength tried to crush my throat. Luckily I had an app for this.

I signed Gal and space twisted as I was now a dozen feet behind the possessed Maglet and had already pulled out my silver and dimeritium chain.

"Ivar! Worst case scenario! Keep back!" I roared as I threw the chain at the possessed man as he was turning and it wrapped around him. Ivar yelled back a quick affirmation.

"HELP!" Maglet's regular voice screamed out. "He's going to kill me! Girls, go tell the soldiers! The Witcher's gone mad!" High-pitched shrieks of terror came from the direction of Ivar and the children.

Goddammit. Demons loved playing dirty.

While Maglet was tied up I quickly turned to the frightened children and focused hard on signing Somne at them. It was hard to focus on more than one target with magic that targeted the mind and it took a lot out of me, but thankfully I was of the Griffin School and Ivar and Dogmeat hadn't minded being a test subject for training.

I was glad to see when all three children's eyes rolled into the back of their heads and they dropped like sacks of rocks.

"Ivar! The summoning circle and his notes are likely in the basement behind the house! Go and-" I really pushed my luck having my back turned to the possessed man, because even bound as he was in material that should have weakened him he tackled into my back with enough strength to send me to the ground.

"This meaty shell might be weak but it does offer some protection against your vile tools. I will enjoy ripping you apart!" The thing yelled in my ear as it actually used part of the chain binding it to wrap around my throat! Dammit! I couldn't use my Signs like this!

What followed then was a very dirty rough and tumble in the dirt as the possessed man tried to choke me to death while I tried my hardest to knock him off by rolling around, elbowing him and in general anything to make him loosen his grip a bit. It had none of the elegance nor control I would have liked to have, just a fight to breath and survive.

A sharp blow struck me in the back of the head as the demon head-butted me, my cap helped prevent the worst of it but it still hurt like a bitch. Planting his knee in the small of my back, Maglet - or the demon - gah, possessions make pronouns difficult - hauled back on the chain like he was trying to snap me in two. It was certainly threatening to crush my windpipe. My arms scrabbled at the chain uselessly, and it used its superior leverage to keep me from rolling around and knocking it to the ground.

Spots were entering my vision when the most beautiful sound in the world rang out like a trumpet just a few yards away.

"Thrice-damned, thrice-accursed, thrice-bound! In the name of all that is fair and good in this world, I name thee liar, deceiver, and traitor! Called by blood and cursed by hate, by your name I cast you out! OUT! OUT!" Ivar chanted from a dusty piece of paper not far from the hut. He followed it up with a flurry of syllables in a language that I'm not entirely sure was designed for the human tongue to pronounce, but he somehow managed it.

Maglet screamed - in pain or rage, I'm not sure - and collapsed like a puppet with the strings cut. Which, for all I know, could very well have been the case. The pressure was released, and I sucked in a breath of the greatest, purest air I could ever have imagined.

Oh god, oxygen I am never quitting on you!

I quickly untangled the chain from my neck and pushed Maglet's collapsed body off of me, still wrapped up just in case the demon was playing dead or something. I just layed in the dirty on my back breathing heavily, enjoying the fact I wasn't dead and cursing myself for being so careless in the first place. Dammit, I just know Vesemir is going to give a six hour lecture and major exercise once he gets word of this.

"Markus! Are you alright?!" Ivar's upside down head entered my vision, looking visibly worried about me.

"Yeah… good thing the demon didn't know who was the most threatening person here. He should have gone after you first. Heh." I laughed a bit, mainly to try to overcome how fucking scary that was since it was the closest I had come to dying since coming here. Not mauled by a monster or blasted by a magic spell, but by nearly getting strangled to death. This was my pitchfork moment.

I really hope I don't get PTSD from this.

"How are the others?" I asked Ivar as I slowly pushed myself up from the ground.

"The children are still asleep with nothing but bruises from the drop. Dogmeat is watching over them, poor girl being quite frightened by everything that happened. Maglet is breathing and hopefully demon free. As for the demon itself, according to the notes I got from the basement it should be well and truly banished until someone else summons it into our world, which ideally won't be for a very long time, if ever." Ivar listed off. "I'm glad we planned for this beforehand for all that I prayed it would not occur."

"What else was last night's dinner conversation going to be about? The weather?" I jested poorly as I finally stood up and rolled around my neck a bit. "I was careless though. I was really hoping he wasn't possessed, but hope doesn't mean shit without something to back it up. I also turned my back on him, which is stupid thing to so in any fight. Have I ever told you how much I value you Ivar? Because I really do." I said sincerely to the man.

"Once or twice, though you could stand to say it more." Ivar jested with a smile.

"Will do. Alright, let's drag them all back inside and I'll use some smelling salts to wake Maglet up. Hopefully the guy isn't brain damaged or something like that after being possessed for who knows how long. We have a long conversation ahead of us." I said as I bent down to pick up the formerly possessed man and drag him back into his home.

Mission accomplished… but I will be fair in giving my grading a D at best.