To Hunt Alone
by Winter

The following is an excerpt from the 1996 online edition of Handbook for Witches.

Margin
Sometimes spelled Mare-gin or Mareginn.

1) (Noun) An alcoholic beverage, commomnly consisting of a variety of herbs, including wormwood (artemisia absinthium) and devil's sage (salvia sulphuris), and spirits, traditionally gin but sometimes aquavit or vodka, thickened with fresh pine sap and sweetened with honey.
Earliest mention is in a 1550 English translation of the Bavarian spellbook 'Grimoire des Dunkelwalds' (see this entry). Said to, if brewed correctly, allow the drinker the ability to take control of his or her own 'Nightmare' (see this entry), allowing them to control their own dreams or visit and study specific memories, even ones long forgotten.
The first part of the name   is commonly believed to be derived from the Scandinavian spirit-witch 'Mara' (see this entry).

2) (Verb) To travel inside one's own dreams or memories after drinking margin.
English verb form of the Scandinavian noun margin.

* * * * * *

Prologue.
I'm dreaming. I am little Ricky, seven years old, giggling as my father throws me in the air then catches me before I can fall. I'm so happy, so safe. So secure in my knowledge that the world is all it seems to be.

I'm dreaming. I am Rick, a lanky towheaded youth of fifteen; the combat warlock's apprentice. I'm watching Erick, my adoptive father as he uses nothing but the will of his mind to gather energy around and into himself. The air is shimmering with blue electric sparks. I mimick him, ignoring the pain as my skin burns.

I'm dreaming. I have no name. No identity. No memories except for the safetywarmth that rejected me into a cacophony of pain and fear and strange sounds and smells. I am thirty minutes old. All my life has been confusion, panic and crying. Now I'm sleeping for the first time, with nothing yet to dream about and only the womb and my mother's steady heartbeat to long for.

I'm dreaming. All alone in one of the high places of the Earth. Eric is somewhere below, unable to save me because my stupid, clumsy gloved fingers dropped the rope he would have used to reach me. I am nineteen, a rookie mage. The creature in front of me might be a thousand years old. The filthy man of the snow. The Yeteh. The abominable snowman. Or just another monster, this one taking the lives of a dozen climbers before we were called in. I'm facing him alone, armed with nothing but an ice pick, a Swiss army knife and adrenaline.

I am awake. My hotel room comes into focus around me, and I strive to pick up the threads of reality to separate them from the dreamweave. I'm here to hunt, alone. Orphaned for the second time. I'm twenty-seven years old, my name is Rickard Nylén.

I am a monster hunter.

* * * * * *

I.
Everyone has their own Nightmare. At least, that's what Erick used to tell me. His own 'mare had been of the British tradition; a white horse who some nights met up with him at the edge of sleep, then carried him into the land of bad dreams. I imagine that a combat warlock had some spectacular nightmares, especially a veteran like him, though he never divulged them to me. Not even on the nights when he would wake up sweaty and screaming.

My own 'mare was different. In Sweden we have the mara, and every time I meet my personal aspect of her, I envy those fortunate ones who only have to feel the effects of her power, rather than having to meet her face-to-whatever. When the carrier of nightmares is as scary as the dreams themselves, you'd long for normal sleep, too.

The bottle on my bedside table called to me, begging me, daring me to take a sip. To slip away into lucid nightmares and vivid memoryscapes. To let the mara guide me towards the answer I needed; the key I had to find if I would ever unlock the mystery of Erick's death.

And yes, I should probably mention it; the margin is not only a highly potent potion for dreamtravelling, it's also highly addictive. To wean oneself from the habit is technically possible, but it's not easy. And the aftereffects of even a small dose can last for a long time, affecting your mind even when you just take a brief rest. Hence my apprehension. I had dreamtravelled three times already that summer, and the lack of normal sleep was beginning to take its toll. On my body, on my mind.

Still, I knew I would have to try again. I had tracked Erick's murderer to Ainsleigh's Down, a small end-of-the-road village a few miles outside Aviemore, but I still had no idea who he was. Or to be more accurate, what it was. My revelation spells were nowhere near as precise as Erick's had been, and all I could discern was a strong male scent, the sound of a gravelly, growling voice, and a vague feeling of strength. Of power. Of hunger.

Casting the locator had worked better, but every time I got close, whoever it was moved away with a speed that suggested a light aircraft or a fast motorcycle. If not for the fact that he, or it, crossed bits of land that had neither airfields nor passable roads, without even slowing down. Which would probably suggest an it rather than a he. And if there were one bit of my father-sensei's teachings that had stuck in my mind, it was to always know what you're dealing with before you confront it. Occult sodiers, or monster hunters if you want to be crude, do not live long without proper recon.

My stomach growled, not pleased with skipping all the day's meals. 'Travel could be a harrowing experience, though, and if I were to be sick again I wanted as little in me as possible. I gritted my teeth, feeling an urge to resist the call of the margin almost as strong as my need for answers. In the end I gave in, unstopped the bottle and sniffed its familiar contents. The stickily sweet scent of honey and pine sap almost masked the bitter stench of wormwood oil and the medicinal reek of valerian concentrate. I poured about a teaspoon's worth onto my tongue and swallowed it quickly. The flavor wasn't too bad, but the gloopy texture of it always made me queasy. While I waited for the first effects to kick in, I double-checked that the 'Do Not Disturb' sign hung on my hotel room door, and that my wrist watch alarm was set for eleven-thirty. Staying in for longer would have passed risky and entered pure folly. When my eyelids began to droop I lay down on my bed, reached in underneath my pillow and traced the runes carved into the customised alderroot grip of my 71 Jaguar. Just to make sure it was still there.

The other substances that made up the potion, the ones I really shouldn't name here, began to make themselves known. While I drowsed away. Images passed before my closed eyelids, more vivid than any ordinary dreams. Erick, face down in a dark red pool, his steel grey crew cut almost black with congealed blood. My first kill, nigh on ten years ago; a chenoo that had been harassing villages along the Ontario seashore. That one chilling moment when I first learned that the things that go bump in the night were actually real and did much more than just go bump. At the age of ten, when my world was uprooted and turned upside-down at the same time. More memories blended into one another in a haze of battles, blood, camaraderie, travels, scares, triumphs. Deaths.

Then, my mind stilled. I stood up without moving a single muscle, and a low growl of a voice hissed into my ear.

"You are asleep, Rick. Marginning again, are you?"

To (may)be continued