The Witch Queen Part 15

"Too general," said Ragginbone. "Anyhow, she had no friends and all her foes are dead. It was a long time ago. You'll have to-"

But someone was there. A woman. Gaynor, startled to the point of horror, saw with slight relief that she looked rather like a middle-aged water maiden who had spent too long in the shower. She was as thin as a pipe cleaner, her att.i.tude languis.h.i.+ng, almost drooping, with straight wet-look hair hanging to her waist, a dress that clung damply to her bony figure, and skinny arms with drooping, long-fingered hands. Her face was beautiful in a haggard way, fine-penciled with lines, heavily shadowed in the eye sockets. She gazed around her with an air of vague surprise, until her regard came to rest on Gaynor.

"Who are you, child? I think we have not met before."

"I'm Gaynor. Gwennifer. Aren't I supposed to ask the questions?"

"Don't you know?" said the woman. "Dear me. This is very confusing. I thought you summoned me."

Gaynor glanced wildly at Ragginbone, but he was studying the visitant with a frown and offered no advice.

"Go on," said Will.

"I summoned . . . someone," Gaynor explained. "Someone who knows Morgus. The witch. Do you-"

"Oh, yes. I know her. I've always believed she was dead. So much time gone by-so many centuries-I never kept count. Are you telling me she lives after all? That would be bad news for the world, or at least our corner of it. How could she manage to evade the Gate?"

"She hid," said Gaynor, "in a cave among the roots of the Eternal Tree. Now she's back in this dimension, and we don't know how to deal with her."

"I can't help you there," said the woman. "No one could ever deal with Morgus. The G.o.ds themselves were afraid of her. Mind you, there were many G.o.ds around in those days, and some of them were small and nervous. I used to suspect it might be due to their digestion: too much red meat at the sacrifice, not enough herbs-"

"Who are you?" Gaynor interrupted, prompted by Will.

"I am Nimwe. I thought you knew. I was an enchantress-quite a good one, if I may say so; that's why I'm still around. I've slept through much of history: I didn't like the way it was going. I was waiting for something, though nowadays I don't always recall what. It will come back to me. When the time is right."

"But you knew Morgus once?" Gaynor persisted. "You knew her well?"

"Well enough. Did you say you were Gwennifer? Little Gwenny? You look like her-in a bad light. She died, of course, way back. In a nunnery. There was a fas.h.i.+on for such things. Repentance, you know, and a life of chast.i.ty. Locking the safe when the treasure has already been stolen. Poor Gwenny. They married her to a king, but she loved another and blamed herself when it all went wrong. A sad tale, but common enough. I hear they still make songs for her, even now. Something about a candle in the wind . . ."

"Wrong princess," said Gaynor.

"Same story," said Will, "more or less. Can't you get her to keep to the point?"

"I'm trying," Gaynor said indignantly. She turned to Nimwe. "Please tell us about Morgus."

"Ah . . . please please. Always the magic word. I like courtesy in the young. They say it has gone out of style, but I'm glad to see they're wrong. Gwenny was a polite child, I recall-very important for royalty. She could be sharp with her equals, but she was always charming to the peasantry."

"Morgus . . . ?"

"She was never polite, not even to the G.o.ds. She cowed the weak with hard words and the strong with harsh deeds. Succor, valor, honor, that was the knightly code, but she twisted it and mocked it. She had no fear of any man, neither king nor wizard."

"Nor any woman?" Gaynor asked.

"Certainly not me, if that's what you mean." Nimwe fidgeted with her long hair, her eyes dreamy under drooping lids. "Of course, we wanted different things. She was concerned with dominion over others and earthly power; I wanted illusion, and enchantment, and love. She went mad; I didn't." Her gaze lifted, focusing on Gaynor. "I am quite sane, you know, even after all these years. Quite Quite sane. Shall I show you something?" sane. Shall I show you something?"

Gaynor hesitated, unsure how to respond, and Nimwe shook her hair, scattering water drops on the circle. Segments of the fire ring were extinguished, damped into a smoking rim that leaked magic. The floor at Gaynor's feet sprouted gra.s.s that shriveled and died within seconds, like a high-speed nature film. The earth crumbled and heaved with white worms. Something that might have been a hand came groping upward, greenish with long decay. Moonspittle, frightened out of his panic, for once reacted quickly, jabbering a succession of Commands. The circle closed again, the hand sank, floorboards scabbed over the worm-ridden earth. Nimwe laughed sadly, a curious sound. "He isn't ready to wake yet," she said. "One day . . ."

"Morgus must have feared someone," Will said, "else why did she flee?"

"She feared winter," said Nimwe, when Gaynor pa.s.sed on the question. "The Northmen came, bringing the ice in their hearts. Or maybe it was Time she feared, because hers had run out. Who knows? They say she feared her sister, but Morgun went away and did not wait for the future. They were identical twins, coequal in power but very different in character. Morgus was-and no doubt still is-a creature of cold pa.s.sions, greedy, cruel, heartless. She feeds off others' pain, even as did the Spirits of old, but her weaknesses are human. The insecurities of a mortal ego. Morgun, too, was pa.s.sionate, but her blood was hot. She was reckless, driven by love as well as hate. In the end, so they say, love conquered her, and she sought redemption. She and her maidens took the wounded king from the site of the last battle and carried him to the lost isle of Avalorn in search of healing. So they say. In some stories, I was there: did you know that?"

"Were you really there?" asked Gaynor.

"No. I stayed. I had other business. Someday, I may complete it. When he he wakes." Her head dropped; her thin body sagged like a willow overburdened with leaves. Suddenly, she looked up again. Her strange eyes met Gaynor's: they were dark, with smoky lights moving in their depths. "Why did you call me?" wakes." Her head dropped; her thin body sagged like a willow overburdened with leaves. Suddenly, she looked up again. Her strange eyes met Gaynor's: they were dark, with smoky lights moving in their depths. "Why did you call me?"

"I needed your help," Gaynor replied. "Against Morgus."

"None can defy her. Her sister dared to try, and ran for her life. They were lovers: did you know? Twin cherries on a single stem, as the bard says. A later bard, that; doubtless he stole from his predecessors. Anyway, they were wound together, Morgus and Morgun. Rumor said the demons themselves would go to spy on their lovemaking: they were so beautiful, and so perfectly matched. They would lie lip to nether lip, limb tangled with limb, their secret skin rose kissed, beaded with the moisture of love. The very G.o.ds of desire fainted with l.u.s.t at the sight. But Morgun betrayed her sister for the love of men and left the world, and Morgus is gnawed ever by vengeance unfulfilled. Mention her sibling, if you wish to strike at her empty heart. She may not be injured, but she will be annoyed."

"Thank you," Gaynor said uncertainly.

"Are you done with me, child? I am very tired now. If we cannot wake the sleeper, then let us join him."

"Of course. I-I release you. Is that right?"

Nimwe faded slowly into what looked like a shower of silver rain. Her last whisper fell softly into the silence of the room. "We will meet again . . ."

"Now what?" asked Gaynor.

"Nothing," said Ragginbone. "We close the circle. It is dangerous to continue. I did not know Nimwe was still around: the Gifted can be a long time dying. She must have bound herself in an enchanted sleep, waking intermittently as the spell wore thin. I suspect she is only . . . quite quite sane." sane."

Moonspittle finished the ritual, the fires died, the power drained, the circle was cold and dead. Only a faint tingle in the air indicated that the protection spells were still in place. Mogwit, no longer restrained, prowled around the room, pouncing on shadows.

Will said: "I need a drink."

"What do we do now?" Gaynor reiterated.

"We wait for Morgus," said Ragginbone.

The flashlight beam darted around the entrance hall, slicing the dark into segments of shadow that twitched and s.h.i.+fted around them. More shadows slid under doors, leaped up the stairs; eyes peered from a portrait. Luc said: "There's a light switch here somewhere."

"Leave it." Fern was curt, perhaps from nerves.

"We needn't fear discovery. With Morgus absent-"

"There may be other occupants. Besides, our burglar here would not like too much light. You're meant to be our guide, hobgoblin. Start guiding."

Luc swung the flashlight, but Skuldunder was gone; Fern picked him out as a black hump shrinking in the lee of the stair. "Point the light elsewhere," she told Luc. "Come on out, burglar. You do your queen no credit, running from a single ray of electricity. Where is the spellchamber Dibbuck spoke of?"

"Tell him to leave me alone," Skuldunder muttered. "Spellchamber . . . upstairs. Dibbuck said it used to be a sitting room. He He should know." A crooked digit indicated Luc. "She uses the cellars as a storeroom. Below the kitchen. That's where Dibbuck saw the Tree." should know." A crooked digit indicated Luc. "She uses the cellars as a storeroom. Below the kitchen. That's where Dibbuck saw the Tree."

"What about the servant?" said Fern. "The hag? We should deal with her."

"In the kitchen."

Luc said: "This way, I think . . ." He shone the flashlight ahead; Skuldunder followed behind Fern, well away from the prying light. Luc had visited the house only rarely, but eventually he found a descending stair with a yellow gleam beneath the door at its foot. Fern thrust it open and walked boldly in. The hag was backing away from her, lips working on some primitive charm or the voiceless mouthings of panic. Her narrow black orbs seemed to exude a mixture of malevolence and terror. The cowl had fallen back from her head and her gray hair, dense with tangles and small insect life, fanned out from her scalp as if animated with static. Fern seized a handful of her filthy robe-Grodda was light, scant flesh on gnarled bone-and thrust her effortlessly back, and back. Then Luc was there, lifting the lid on a chest freezer, and between them they bundled her in, slammed it shut, and placed a stack of ceramic ca.s.serole dishes on the top.

"Won't she die in there?" Luc asked without any particular concern.

"Doubt it," said Fern. "I don't know much about hags, but they're supposed to be incredibly tough. Like c.o.c.kroaches."

"Where next?"

"The cellars. Morgus's storeroom."

They clattered down another stair in the wake of the flashlight beam. Luc kept a hand on the wall, but Fern seemed to see beyond the meager light. "There should be a cat," she muttered. "The goblin cat . . ."

"Maybe she took it with her," Skuldunder suggested hopefully.

"We'll see."

The cellar door was locked. Luc had the key, but when he tried to slot it in his fingers cramped and pins and needles ran up his arm. Fern produced a glove from her pocket and put it on: her hand became a lizard's paw, mottled patterns rippling over it, fading above her wrist. She turned the key without difficulty and they went in. Here, she switched on the main light. The illumination was poor but enough to show the shelves of bottles and jars, hanging bunches of herbs, saucers for burning oils and gums stained with toffeelike residue, white candles skewered on iron candlesticks, scribbled runes marking cupboard and drawer. The contents of some of the jars moved; at the tail of her vision, Fern glimpsed drifting eyeb.a.l.l.s that appeared to watch her, following her progress around the room. Using her gloved hand, she opened drawers, finding knives, ladles, pincers, and took down bottles, peering closely at the labels. Some were in Atlantean, some in Latin, Greek, and what might have been Arabic. She didn't know what they all meant, but several bore the emblem of a tree. She uncorked one or two and sniffed cautiously, catching a familiar smell of dankness and greenness, growth and decay. Behind her, she heard Luc say: "What's this?" and turning, she saw the small table standing on its own, the empty jar with the crystal stopper, the sigils written in red.

"You don't want to touch that," said Skuldunder hastily, but Luc was already reaching out, and the air thickened around the jar, so his hand seemed to be pus.h.i.+ng through glue, and shadows slid from the corners of the room toward them. As Fern drew closer she saw the jar no longer looked empty: a glitter of vapor coalesced inside and a.s.sumed a shape, too vague to specify, which beat like a trapped b.u.t.terfly against the gla.s.s walls.

"It's her!" said Luc. "It's Dana."

"I think so. Wait-there's bad magic in here. I need to penetrate the s.h.i.+eld."

She selected a bottle with more optimism than knowledge-one with a colorless liquid inside and red label bearing the Atlantean word for "burn"-and let a single drop fall on each of the sigils. They hissed and smoked, stinging her eyes; scorch marks blackened the table. "Uvale!" "Uvale!" Fern ordered, and the spell barrier, worn thin over the months and never renewed, crumpled at a touch. Fern picked up the jar in her gloved hand and pa.s.sed it to Luc, who took it gingerly, as if it were very fragile, though the gla.s.s was thick and the base solid. "You know what to do," Fern said. "Imagine her body in the clinic; hold that picture in your mind. When you take out the stopper say the words Ragginbone taught you. Call her by name. Send her home." Fern ordered, and the spell barrier, worn thin over the months and never renewed, crumpled at a touch. Fern picked up the jar in her gloved hand and pa.s.sed it to Luc, who took it gingerly, as if it were very fragile, though the gla.s.s was thick and the base solid. "You know what to do," Fern said. "Imagine her body in the clinic; hold that picture in your mind. When you take out the stopper say the words Ragginbone taught you. Call her by name. Send her home."

Luc nodded, his dark face at once set and brittle. She saw his throat muscles flex as he swallowed. He seized the stopper, twisted it-for a moment the wax resisted, then it began to crack. A red flake peeled off, and another, and at last the crystal came free. He murmured in Atlantean the spell of unbinding, and a thin vapor streamed out, growing swiftly, spreading into an ill-defined form with trailing wisps of hair and clothing and wide frightened eyes whose whites gleamed as her gaze turned this way and that. "Dana," Luc said softly, and: "Dana!" a little louder. "Find yourself. Go to your fleshly home. You know where it is . . ." Fleetingly, her eyes met his. Then there was a sound like a rush of wind, and the vapor was blown away, and the vacant jar fell to the floor, cracking into pieces, and Luc started at the sound as if wakened from a trance. "Did I do it right?" he asked.

"I hope so."

"I must go. I must go to her."

"If you want. Freeing Dana was your task; the rest is mine."

He looked around the cellar, no longer searching, only skimming. "You need me. I'll wait, but hurry."

She walked along by the shelves, stopping beside the flask containing the eyeb.a.l.l.s. They lined up against the gla.s.s, focused on her; she fancied there was a kind of pleading in that dreadful lidless stare. She picked up the container and unscrewed the cap, murmuring a charm similar to the one Luc had used. "Be free," she whispered. "Pa.s.s the Gate. Varde! Varde!" The eyeb.a.l.l.s bobbed in the preserving fluid and then went still, revolving slowly, no longer in alignment. A thin chill fled past her and was gone. "Rest in peace," Fern adjured, "whoever you were." A vision flickered through her brain of a golden island sea-ringed and a young man with a beautiful face whose bright brown eyes were narrowed against the sun. She turned and saw Luc was standing close by her, and she knew he had seen it, too.

"Come on. If you want to look over the rest of the house . . ."

"One moment."

There were few cupboards, but all were marked with runes of guard. She opened them with her lizard's paw, scanning the contents: spellbooks plastic-wrapped against possible damp, more flasks and phials, what appeared to be a winged fetus curled up in a greenish fluid. She took nothing, though she retained the bottle with which she had destroyed the magic symbols. The last cupboard was set deep in the wall, its double doors padlocked.

Luc asked: "Can you break the lock?"

"Not with magic. For a lock, there must be a key. What have you got?"

Luc's collection of house keys proved unhelpful, but Fern found the right one in an adjacent drawer. "Almost as if the padlock is for show," she remarked. "A gesture." She unfastened it, and the doors swung wide.

It was Luc who screamed, a cry of astonishment and horror abruptly cut off. There was a single big jar inside, and it contained a human head. Fern, more accustomed to such things, merely froze and stared. It was the head of a woman with her eyes closed as if in sleep and her long hair floating in the liquid around her. Her skin was almost translucent, showing the faint blue tinge of veins at her temples, though no blood beat there; her mouth was as exquisite as a half-opened rose, but very pale. Luc said: "What kind of a h.e.l.lhole is is this?" And: "Do you know her?" this?" And: "Do you know her?"

"I think so," Fern answered slowly. "Don't worry: this isn't human. It is . . . fruit. Unalive and undead. We will not disturb her now." She closed the cupboard, replaced the padlock. She added with the edge of a smile: "Of course this is a h.e.l.lhole. It's a witch's lair. What did you expect?"

"I don't know." Luc shrugged. "Black velvet curtains-black candles-an altar to wors.h.i.+p the devil."

"Witches wors.h.i.+p no one but themselves," said Fern. "You're thinking of Satanists. They have no true power, only the crumbs they can borrow from whatever Spirits they invoke."

"Can we go now?" The voice of Skuldunder piped from the corner where he had retreated as soon as they entered the cellar.

"Where next?" Luc demanded.

"The spellchamber. That might have black velvet curtains. I wonder what Morgus did with the Tree? She must have planted it somewhere." Fern checked the level in her stolen bottle: it was still three-quarters full. As they pa.s.sed through the kitchen, ignoring the sounds of the hag hammering inside the chest freezer, Luc helped himself to the longest of the skewers and thrust a vicious-looking knife through his belt. "You look like a pirate," Fern commented. "Aren't you going to carry one in your teeth?"

Skuldunder muttered something and appropriated the nearest implement, which turned out to be a carving fork. Wielding it, he resembled a clumsy miniature Beelzebub, rendered even more comic by the hat brim screening most of his face. But n.o.body laughed. The emptiness of the house would have sucked up laughter, like a vacuum swallowing air.

When they reached the ground floor again, Luc said: "If you're looking for a tree, there's a conservatory. One of those Victorian monstrosities big enough for a small jungle. As far as I can remember, it's badly in need of repair."

"Dibbuck mentioned it," Skuldunder volunteered. "He said there was a gypsy working there."

"We'll try it," said Fern.

Luc switched on the flashlight again and led them along a dark corridor toward the back of the house. They saw the conservatory entrance across a sitting room full of slumbering mounds of furniture: a many-paned gla.s.s door set under a high arch that flashed the light back at them in broken glints. Luc opened the door without any hindrance. "No hex this time," he said. "There can't be anything here of importance."

"Then let's go," said Skuldunder. "I don't like it."

Fern peered ahead into a different kind of darkness-a leafy darkness rustling without any wind. Fear emanated from it, tangible as a smell. She said: "There's something here."

Luc had seen enough that night not to argue. As he stepped over the threshold, Fern touched his arm. "Go carefully," she said, "and very slowly."

"I'll wait," said Skuldunder.

"If you run away," Fern tossed over her shoulder, "I'll spit you on your own fork."

They moved forward down a kind of aisle between unseen thickets. The flashlight beam glanced over huge moth-eaten sprays, the withered fronds of dead palms, a cracked urn hatching a writhing nest of stems. The rustling had ceased: every sprig, every blade was still. Their soft-shod footsteps and the susurration of their breathing made the only sounds. At one point Fern's toe nudged what she a.s.sumed was a piece of snapped branch, only it gleamed white in the gloom, like bone. And then the beam, probing ahead, found something she recognized. She did not speak, but her grip tightened on Luc's arm, and he stopped in his tracks. He had no alternative. In front of them, filling the end of the aisle, was a tree. The Tree. It had been planted in a stone trough, but the stone was already cracked; groping roots reached out across the floor and thrust down between the paving stones. Its trunk, twisting slightly so as to spread itself within the confines of the conservatory, was broader than Luc's waist. The light beam moved upward, taking in the oaklike foliage, blinking back from the convex panes of the roof beyond. "Back down," Fern whispered. (She didn't know why she chose to whisper.) "I saw something . . . there there." The beam fixed on what might have been a misshapen apple hanging from a low branch, its rind very pale, a wisp of black down sprouting from the junction with the stem.

"What is it?" asked Luc. He, too, kept his voice low.

"Look further," said Fern. "There may be one more advanced."

The light roamed to and fro among the leaves. The beam was weak, but it traveled almost down to eye level now. It lit up another apple, smaller and greener, and then at last, within easy reach, it alighted on the object Fern sought-and dreaded to find. This time, Luc did not scream. Fern heard the hissing intake of his breath, saw the smudge of light tremble before it grew steady. The head hung there, life-size and complete in every detail, its milky skin glistening faintly as if with predawn dew. Jetty tangles of hair snaked down below the neck stump; eyes and mouth were closed. Luc held up the skewer like a sword, pointing at the monstrosity. "Explain."

"This is fruit," Fern said, "of a kind. The parent Tree is the one I spoke of: it grows in another dimension. The heads of the dead ripen there: it is said all who have done evil must hang a season on that Tree. Sometimes many seasons. This-it can't be a seedling: the Eternal Tree has no seeds-it must be a cutting, nurtured by magic. But I don't understand how it can bear fruit, here, in the real world-or what fruit this might be. It looks like Morgus herself, but she lives. It must be her twin sister, Morgun . . . Maybe this Tree is so imbued with her power that it will carry only those who are part of her history."

"Like that one in the cupboard?"

"I . . . doubt it. That's Sysselore-she looks much younger than when I knew her, but I'm sure. I believe she was taken from the original Tree and brought here. It's been done before."

"By whom?"