The Witch Queen Part 19

"You are my coven sister, my-" I fumbled for the word "-my friend friend. You must have seen something, learned something."

"She was with a man."

"A man man?" I was taken aback. I had thought better of her-even her. "What kind of a man?"

"Not handsome, as you or I would have it, but who is? What can I say? I saw him briefly, through my lashes. If he were a knight, his armor would be black. He would win in the joust because he could not endure to lose. If he had come to my island, I would have snared him with a will. I would have turned him into a black boar, but he would have kept the mind of a man, even to the moment when I set him on the spit for roasting. He had power, of a kind. The Gift, or something else."

"This is nonsense." She was rambling; she had often rambled. "Death has done nothing to sharpen your wits. Forget your brain-soft fantasies. As for his Gift, how could you know?"

"I did not know. I felt felt."

"Are you sure?"

"No. How could I be sure? I kept my eyes closed-"

"Venture further with your impudence," I whispered, "and I will lance your core with an auger, and watch the mold ooze out."

"I am dead. You cannot harm me."

"I can hurt you."

"Then hurt me. I will tell you this much: Morcadis has grown. Not in inches, but within. Her power, her spirit waxes to a new fullness. I saw her face, and it was as cold and implacable as the moon. She will find a way to defeat you: it is her fate, and yours."

"There is no way!" My grasp tightened on the severed stem and gossamer hair.

"There is always a way. Don't you remember the stories? The door that cannot be opened, the task that cannot be completed, the battle that cannot be won, and yet there is always a key, completion, victory. Your doom was in her face, Morgus: I saw it as if it were written. Do you believe in stories, my coven sister, my friend? Do you-"

"Go to h.e.l.l," I screamed, "the quick way!" and I hurled the head against the wall with all my strength.

Maybe that was what she wanted. I have wondered.

Half her face was squashed into a red mess; the debris dropped to the floor; blood-bright juice ran down the wall. The remaining eye rolled, and was still. "That was swifter than your deserts," I said, but she was silent now, and I had no means to retrieve her voice. She had been my sole companion for endless ages under the Eternal Tree, but Morcadis had slain her, and now she was gone indeed. (Morcadis, always Morcadis. There was too much to add to the reckoning.) I did not miss her. There had been love between us once, when our exile was still fresh, but it had worn out long, long ago. I would not miss my Sysselore.

Nehemet waited, her tail twitching, her feline features impa.s.sive. What goes on behind her unchanging expression I will never know.

"I must find Morgun," I said. There were secrets to be whispered, tales to be told. Somehow, I sensed that with my twin I would learn the answer to the final question, the question I could not frame. I must have forgotten she, too, was only a fruit.

I went to the spellchamber, but it was undisturbed, though they had been there. Who the man might be with Fernanda I did not pause to speculate; some henchman presumably, a servant or an admirer she had enspelled whose potential for power Sysselore had undoubtedly overestimated. He was not important; I had other concerns. The trail led to the attic, to the prisoner whom I had not visited for weeks. The stench made my senses reel. The spell barrier was undamaged as I had been sure it would be; none other could unravel the complexities of that pattern, nor would have the power to counter my Commands. But she had been there, with Morgun: she had stood by the door, staring into the barred gloom, seeing the downfall of the creature she had used and discarded. She might have considered him her ally, but I doubted it. She had learned that much from me: accord no man respect that he cannot compel, give no man grat.i.tude that he cannot demand. My prisoner had always been less than a man; now he was less than a beast. He cowered in the corner, below the single window cas.e.m.e.nt. Outside, no moon sailed, no star peeped. Within, the darkness was yet darker, but he still skulked behind dirt-clogged hair, arms wrapped around his torso, tail hiding his feet. His eyes were mere slits between puffball lids.

"Morcadis was here," I said. "Your little witch. Was she pleased to see you?" And, when he remained silent: "I asked you a question. Answer it, or I will send the nightmares to plague you again! Was-she-pleased-to-see-you?"

"She didn't say." The response came as if wrung from his lips.

"What did did she say?" she say?"

"Hail and farewell. What was there to say? She tried to let me out."

"And she failed! She will always fail. Hope if you will: it prolongs your suffering. Despair is the more terrible when it succeeds a period of hope."

"I will remember that."

"Only my will can release you-"

"Or your death."

"My death! I snapped her charms like cobwebs, yet she could not penetrate mine. I am the greatest of witchkind, twice-born, once into life, once out of death; my body was anointed in Stygian magic and the sap of the Great Tree runs in my veins. I cannot be slain, nor conquered. There is no power in the world that could engender my death."

"Then why are you afraid?"

I would have boiled his meager brain inside his skull, but I had made the spell wall too strong, and it would take time to bypa.s.s it. He was right, of course. That was unforgivable.

"When I have leisure," I said, "I shall enjoy refining your punishment, since there is clearly still something left of you to punish."

"Not much . . . but something." He tried to grin, baring ragged teeth. I saw them, a yellow gleam in the darkness. Stained, chipped into bitter sharpness. Probably he had attempted to bite through his shackles or tear up the floorboards. It would avail him nothing. The magic held him.

"Good," I said, and turned to leave.

"She has-something-that belongs to you," he called after me.

"I know. Did you see it?"

"It was in a bag, I think . . . gagged. It may have tried to speak."

My eagerness redoubled, and my urgency. "Don't worry: I will get it back. She will regret her theft-but not for long."

Only later did I wonder why he should have told me that. Maybe it was the nearest he would come to wheedling, to begging a diminution of his punishment. But I would hear him beg, and see him rot, before I reduced it by as much as an ounce of suffering or a minute of time.

When I left him, I descended to my bedchamber. I was in too much haste to draw the circle, but there were questions I wanted to ask, though I doubted the answers would be very instructive. A seeress cannot lie, but she may be enigmatic with the truth. And although the sisterhood see farther than other beings, there are none left who can read the future, save in the indices of the present-and that is a trick anyone with a little wisdom can a.s.say. I pa.s.sed my hands across the oval mirror above my dressing table, murmuring the words of summons. In such a mirror, Snow White's stepmother fished for compliments; mirrors have many uses. They can be an all-seeing eye, a dimensional breach, a portal between reality and dream. This particular mirror was old and knowing: there were times when I had seen my face in it the way it used to be during my sojourn beneath the Eternal Tree, a bloated pallor, slug lipped, the nostrils like pits. But the eyes do not alter, whatever visage I choose to wear. As I spoke the gla.s.s clouded and my reflection was lost. Gradually, another face emerged, broad and ebon dark, veiled in scarlet. Leopana Pthaia, Leopana the Black. A hand removed the cloth and set the Eye in one empty socket.

"You are peremptory, Morgus, to call me with so little ceremony. A seeress should not be summoned as if she were a familiar imp, and to a looking gla.s.s, forsooth!"

"Yet you came." I had the power, and she knew it. It would have cost her dear to deny me.

"Question me, and be done with it."

"I planted a cutting from the Eternal Tree in this world, and it bore fruit. The fruit has ripened into the head of my sister Morgun-or so it appears. Is it indeed my twin?"

"That is beyond my Sight."

"Then tell me this at least: she was fruit on the parent Tree, but did she pa.s.s the Gate?"

Leopana's gaze grew misty as she peered backward in time. "She did not. She was strong in enchantment, and she found a way to put her spirit elsewhere."

"So it is her! But why? Why would she linger? And why is she ripening on my my Tree?" Tree?"

"I am a seeress," the Pthaia responded, and her Eye flashed. "I can tell you what is, and what was, and what may be, but it is not for me to reason or deduce. The magic is yours: search your own thought for understanding."

"If you know what is," I persisted, though her evasion vexed me, "then you know Morcadis has stolen my fruit. Is it unharmed?"

"It is."

"Am I I in peril?" in peril?"

"The waters of the Dead River rendered you invulnerable, and your power is greater than that of any other mortal, greater than many of immortal kind. Even I, the Black Sybil, must be at your beck and call. What could threaten you?"

Seeresses never refer to themselves: impersonality is a rule of their vocation. Her gaze appeared fixed, but her mouth was sly. "Do not answer a question with a question," I said sharply. "Can Morcadis injure me through the head?"

"Perhaps."

"I must regain it! Where has she taken it?" I could follow the trail, but it would help to know where it led.

"The house of her family in the north country, near a village called Yarrowdale. You should know the place: your spies have been watching it for some weeks."

"Of course I know it: that is where I first found her. I have seen it often in the spellfire. It is far from any major town, isolated and remote. She will have little protection there, save her own feeble magics. Is my power indeed greater than hers?" I had no need to ask, but I wanted to hear a straight yes-or no.

"Why pose a question to which you know the answer? Do you seek to test me?"

"Is my power-"

"Yes. I told you, you are the mightiest of Prospero's Children. Morcadis is still young; she has far to go. Gift for Gift, spell for spell, she cannot match you."

"It is well, but I think she will not go much farther." I smiled at the thought, though I had not smiled all night. "Have you any other word for me, ere I release you?"

There was a pause. A pythoness is never irresolute, yet it seemed to me that she hesitated. "Only one," she said at last. "Beware!"

My temper hardened. She was trying to frighten me, and I knew it, yet still I was afraid. I had been too much afraid of late, and I am not accustomed to fear. "You tried that one before," I said. "Beware of what what? Be more specific."

"I cannot. It is between you and your fruit. Find the head, and the truth will be revealed."

She was speaking in riddles, as seeresses so often do when they wish to conceal ignorance. I dismissed her brusquely, and watched the mirror clear. My own face reappeared, a flawless structure sculpted in flesh, tinted with the hues of youth renewed. But the eyes-the eyes were always old, black as the Pit, luminous with secret power. I thrust the warning aside, deeming it empty, shared another smile with my reflection, and hastened back downstairs to the car. Nehemet, as ever, was at my heels. Hodgekiss had been sleeping, but he woke on cue and we drove off, heading northward.

On the other side of morning my enemy was waiting, with the stolen apple in her hand.

The summer dawn came early, but they did not stop. Despite the discomfort of riding pillion, Fern found herself nodding off and wondered if it was possible to sleep in that position, and whether she would fall, but fortunately she never found out. Luc had the head under his jacket: it had chewed through most of the gag and was now trying to bite its way out of the bag that imprisoned it, so far without success. He could feel it pounding against him; he even imagined he could sense the grinding of its teeth. He had occasional flashes of horror at the nature of what he carried, but after all he had seen and endured that night his nervous system was numb and he thought nothing could shock him anymore. Around six they halted for breakfast: rubbery eggs and leathery bacon (or vice versa), and coffee that consisted of milky water on a basis of sediment. They didn't talk much. Luc's jacket heaved with the struggles of its captive. "Cat," he told the waitress, in case she was interested, but she wasn't. By the time they reached Yorks.h.i.+re Fern's body was one huge ache, and she was chilled to the bone and could barely manage to stutter directions. She knew she must get some sleep before she could face Morgus, and it was with relief she saw the solid facade of Dale House. Dimly, she recollected that it was Sat.u.r.day. Mrs. Wicklow wasn't there. Fern unlocked the door with shaking hands, stumbled into the hall. Lougarry slipped out of the kitchen on noiseless paws and thrust a cold nose into her outstretched palm.

Sometime later, when Will telephoned, Fern was asleep in one bedroom, Luc in another, while Bradachin kept watch from an upper window and the she-wolf from the moor above the road. Both mobiles were switched off. The house-goblin contemplated answering-he was conversant with the mechanics of telephones and often disconcerted sales callers with the incomprehensibility of his curious brogue-but he did not want to leave his post. Fern heard it ringing, somewhere in her dreams, and rolled over, and the sound was smothered by the pillow.

It was well into the afternoon before she got up and tottered sleepily downstairs to find Luc already awake and attempting to make coffee without a percolator. "Tea for me," Fern mumbled. "Please." And: "Any movement?"

"Not that I can see. Maybe we weren't the only ones who needed a rest."

"Maybe." Fern wasn't satisfied. "She's thinking," she concluded, "planning something. She won't just come storming in here."

"Perhaps she's learned to fear you." Luc produced a wry smile. "G.o.d knows I do."

Fern missed the aside. "That's not good," she said.

"Why not?"

"I prefer being underestimated. When Morgus starts to think, she's more dangerous than ever. I want her impetuous and arrogant. She should be off-balance, not careful and calculating. Oh well, there's nothing we can do about it now. We may have to play it her way for a while. I'd better ring Will." She had left her phone upstairs.

"Use mine." Having mastered the coffeepot, Luc began to look for tea bags. "I called the clinic."

"Is Dana-?"

"She's conscious. Doing fine."

"You should have been there," Fern said. "Not absconding to the wilds of Yorks.h.i.+re with me."

"It's only because of you that Dana came around at all. I pay my debts."

Fern asked, without looking at him: "Is that why you're here?"

"No." He poured himself coffee, made her a cup of tea. "I found fresh milk in the fridge. Also sliced bread, b.u.t.ter, cheese. Do you always keep emergency rations here?"

"That's Mrs. Wicklow. She used to be our housekeeper, till she became part of the family. She likes to be prepared. If we don't come, she'll eat the stores herself. If we tell tell her we're coming, she'll cook enough food for a small invading army. Should we survive the encounter with Morgus you'll probably meet her. She's very dour, but don't let it fool you. That's just the Yorks.h.i.+re her we're coming, she'll cook enough food for a small invading army. Should we survive the encounter with Morgus you'll probably meet her. She's very dour, but don't let it fool you. That's just the Yorks.h.i.+re persona persona."

"Soft as b.u.t.ter underneath?" Luc suggested.

Fern investigated the fridge, removing a slab of b.u.t.ter that was frozen hard. "Depends on the b.u.t.ter."

The day dragged. It had been a bad summer, but in Yorks.h.i.+re it was worse. Great siege towers of cloud came rolling out of the west, ready to topple over the landscape; eastward, a defiant sun beat down on the chilly sea, turning it to burnished steel. A few flurries of rain formed a prelude to the approaching squall. Lougarry trotted in around five, communicating with Fern mind-to-mind, as she did with those who knew her well. "She's out there," Fern reported. "The car's parked about a quarter of a mile away. She's keeping her distance, waiting for her moment. Lougarry says she's standing up on the hillside, looking toward the house. One arm extended . . . first and fourth fingers pointing . . ."

"She'll get wet," said Luc.

"Not she. Raindrops would evaporate before they touched her." Unusually, Fern locked the back door. "I think we should all stay inside now."

The afternoon was growing swiftly darker. Too swiftly. Luc, watching through the kitchen windows, saw a cloud-shaped blackness gathering over the house; flying specks wheeled past and seemed to be sucked up into it. The gray daylight was cut off and there was a rustling, whirring noise like the beat of a thousand wings. But it was a minute or two before he realized what was out there. And then Bradachin came tumbling onto the table, materializing from midair with the carelessness of haste. "Birrds!" he exclaimed. "Muckle birds! No they piebald glitterpickers but great corbies wi' beaks as long as your hond! Ye maun be working on some powerful cantrips, hinny, for these will be coming in without ony inviting." As he spoke the first one hurled itself against the window: a carrion crow twice normal size, scissor-beak jabbing at the pane. Then another, and another. Each bird hit the gla.s.s in the same place, and on the third impact it cracked as if from a gunshot, splinter lines webbing outward. On the fourth, the gla.s.s disintegrated, and the birds were in the kitchen. Luc had s.n.a.t.c.hed a broom and lashed out with the bundled twigs; Lougarry bared her fangs; Bradachin, spearless, grabbed both knife and rolling pin. Fern focused her power, and live energy crepitated from her fingers, searing anything it touched. There was a smell of burnt feathers, and two bodies fell to the floor. The rest took flight.

"They'll be back," said Luc. "This house has too many windows. We can only cover those in here."

"I'm thinking the corbies hae been told tae gang after the maidy," opined Bradachin. "Wi' luck-"

The crash of breaking gla.s.s came from Will's old studio. Luc slammed the kitchen door, jamming the latch with a fork. "We can't stop them invading the rest of the house," he said. He turned back to the shattered window-the breach in their defenses-kicking the corpses out of the way. "They're so big big. Are they ravens or crows?"

"Baith," said Bradachin. "They wouldna normally flock thegither, but these maun come from the other place-"

"They're from the Tree," said Fern. "Morgus has called them."

"They won't get the head." Luc had regagged it, and stuffed it in a metal trash can, and weighed it down with a sack of potatoes.

"I'm wis.h.i.+ng ye would stop bringing them things hame, la.s.sie," Bradachin remarked. "I hae told ye afore, I dinna hold wi' necromauncy."

"It's important," Fern said tersely. She was listening to the sound of birds blundering down the hall, battering themselves against the kitchen door. "The house is going to be full of birds.h.i.+t, apart from the breakages. Mrs. Wicklow won't like that at all."

"I'm no sae blythe mysel," said Bradachin darkly.