The Witch Queen Part 8

"No blade can wound her, no poison choke her. But she is still mortal, and all mortals are vulnerable. Everything that lives must die."

"That is no answer," Fern said.

"It is all that we know."

"Thank you," Fern sighed, loosing her hold on the magic. The sisterhood removed the Eye and faded into vacancy.

"None other has ever . . . thanked us. We will remember you . . ."

In the dimness beyond the circle, Gaynor found she was pinching Will's arm. She heard Moonspittle mutter: "The Gifted do not need such courtesies." The cat writhed in his grip, spitting back at the fire.

Ragginbone said to Fern: "Don't overreach yourself." But Fern was already pacing the perimeter again, repeating the liturgy of summoning. This time, the vapor at the center condensed swiftly, darkening and solidifying into the figure of a man almost seven feet tall with the antlers of a stag. A doeskin covered little of a body where the muscles swelled like giant pods and vein stems entwined forearm and calf. His coloring was dark, not African dark or Asian dark, but a dark of the spirit, deeper than a deep tan, green tinted from the shadows of forest and jungle. The matted pelt on his head and chest was bronze-black; the eyes were set aslant under sweeping brows that met unnaturally low. His nostils flared at the unwholesome smells of the stale bas.e.m.e.nt and the traffic-ridden city beyond.

"Cerne," Fern said. "I give you greeting."

"Greeting, witch. Why do you call on me? I have no love for your kind."

"You once did," said Fern, "if love is the term. That is why I summoned you."

"Love was not the term," Cerne responded. "Love was the sentence. She hungered, and I fed her. She was more beautiful than you, taller, and her hair was midnight-black, and her skin was like cream. I bathed in her skin, and slept in her hair, and filled her with my lifeless seed, and she took it, and performed an abomination. I have no more love for witches."

"She plucked a spirit from the dark," said Fern, "and sealed it in her womb, and gave a life, if not a soul, to your son."

"He is not my son. The immortals bear no children: we have no need. Like the mountains we grow, enduring agelong, and like them we are ground into dust. Our life is the world's life. We may sleep, or sink into Limbo, but we cannot pa.s.s the Gate. My-son-is a blasphemy against the Ultimate Law."

"It wasn't his fault," Fern protested, provoked to unplanned indignation. "He had no will in the matter. He was born, and he suffers. You should care."

There was a pause, then Cerne threw back his head and laughed. And laughed. The red cavern of his mouth was open wide, and she saw old bloodstains on his teeth, and the steam of his breath in his nostril pits. "Harken to the witch! I am the lord of the wilderness, the hunter in the night, a killer of both the weak and the strong. Men have wors.h.i.+ped me, and set aside for me the best cut of the roast, and sacrificed their own kin on my altars. And I should care care? A sorceress stole my sp.a.w.n and magicked it into existence-and I should care? What folly is this? Did you call me here to plead for the brute beast that is Morgus's brat? Would you defy the Ultimate Powers?"

"If they were wrong," Fern said doggedly. "Everyone has a right to love, or at least compa.s.sion, no matter how they were made. But that isn't why I called you. I have Morgus to deal with. I thought you would know her-her weaknesses."

"You are so close to the droppings of her womb-ask her her."

"We are forever enemies. I burned her with fire crystals by the River of Death, but she crawled into the water, and was restored, and now no weapon can touch her. Yet I must kill her."

"You kill kill her her?" She felt the smolder of his gaze probing her body. "The aura of magic is bright around you, but you are still small, and slender as a peeled wand. There is no strength in you for such a contest."

"I have strengths you cannot see," Fern said, hoping it was true. "I have to stop her. There is no one else who can."

"Then I wish you good fortune," said Cerne, with something that might have been a smile or snarl. "When I learned what she had done, I would have spitted her with these-" he indicated his antlers "-but she slipped from me, and s.h.i.+elded herself with spells, and after the beast squirmed free of her loins I knew I needed no other vengeance. Nonetheless, may the dark powers guide your hand. She has enjoyed life too long."

"I doubt if she enjoys it," said Fern.

He could tell her no more. She thanked him, as she had the sisterhood, and released the spell. She was beginning to feel drained, and there were still other spirits to summon, and questions to ask, and she seemed to have received no answers, only more questions. Ragginbone poured her something from one of the gla.s.s retorts-something that looked ancient and mellow and tasted like cooking brandy.

Then she resumed the spell.

The full moon shone straight through the window into my spellchamber. The climate seems to have grown warmer since the old days: I opened the cas.e.m.e.nt, giving the light a clear path, and the air that followed it was mild, smelling of the wood beyond. Then I drew the curtains over the other windows, lit the blue fire. I wanted to open the circle a long way, to reach far and deep, and the spellfire empowers me. Flimsy spirits, primitive and crude, had begun to cl.u.s.ter among the roof beams and under the tiles, sucked in by the vacuum of the ghostless house; I could see some of them seeping through the ceiling like a shadowy stain. They are mere elementals, individually ineffectual, but in swarms they have the insidious strength of ma.s.sed bacteria. My dark magics attract the most basic type, the sort who are drawn to acts of power and pride. They both feed them and feed off them, surrounding the circle with their miasma. Nehemet saw them, too; I noticed her gazing upward, with the spell glimmer in her eyes.

I moved around the periphery, chanting the ancient words. In the center, moonlight met firelight, silver mingling with blue. There was a mistiness at that point that grew slowly denser; too slowly. Vague shapes interlocked, failing to materialize. I saw the veil of the seeress, and phantom fingers clasping the Eye, but they were too many, a whole sisterhood in a single ent.i.ty. Their voices sounded somehow remote, as if echoing from within the Wrokewood, or floating down a moonbeam. "We are weary. Do not call us now. We will not speak again."

"Then go," I said. "All save one. I summon Leopana Pthaia. Let her come before me!"

The multiple figure dwindled into a solitary shape squat and rounded like the idols of the Mother, with the claws of an animal dangling between her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a scarlet cloth over her sable features. The Black Seeress. She removed the cloth, showing the nose spread wide across her face, and the unsmiling curve of protuberant lips. Her bones were not visible, for she is the most powerful of the remaining seeresses, and the closest to mortal flesh, and it is not for her complexion that she is called the Black. She fixed the Eye in her left socket, and the ring of the iris darkened against its sudden glow.

"I am the Pthaia," she said. "What do you want of me?"

"I did not summon the sisterhood. Why did you not come alone?"

"We were bound together. There is too much magic in the night. Question me, and be done."

"There is one that I must find. She was named Fernanda, but I rechristened her Morcadis, in honor of her Gift. I would have made her my coven sister and mixed my blood with hers, but she betrayed me and fled, seeking my death. But I live, and have returned to the world, and will take back my kingdom! Yet first I must have my revenge. Where is she?"

"Neither too far, nor too near. Look for her, and you waste your sight."

"Why is that?" I demanded. Leopana was not usually so cryptic.

"She will find will find you you. Have patience, and she will come. She is only a circle away."

"What do you mean? Speak more plainly!"

"I have spoken. You are clever, Morgus, and you rank high among the Gifted, and you think yourself beautiful. The River of Death has sealed your flesh against all weapons that bite, so you are as untouchable as a G.o.d. Yet I say to you, beware! You are too proud, daughter of the north, too greedy, too vengeful; but there are those who are prouder and hungrier, and whose enmity runs deeper. Do not measure yourself against the greater foe, or overlook the lesser."

I felt her anger, and I knew her words sprang from that source, and were not a warning but a curse. The Eye smoldered but could not pierce. "I did not summon you for advice," I said. "d.a.m.n me with visions, or be silent. Have you nothing more to tell me?"

"Everything that lives . . . must die . . ." Her voice grew faint, and she plucked out the Eye, pulling the veil over her face and vanis.h.i.+ng without dismissal. My grip on the magic seemed to be erratic, though I did not know why, and I poured my will back into the circle, drawing taut the perimeter, reaching out beyond the boundaries of the night. An old, old crone appeared briefly at the heart of the spell, half bald and dressed in corpse clothes, mumbling to herself. I knew her, of course: Hexate, who had made herself a G.o.ddess among witches, and drunk the blood of a thousand sacrifices, and grown fat on human flesh; but she was nothing now. A senile hag who gibbered and cackled, sinking toward a sleep from which she might never awaken. For the immortals, senility can last a long time, and the sleep must be profound indeed that can carry them into Limbo. I banished her without questions, though she remembered my name, and I called on another of the old ones, the first spirits who have remained to consort with Men. He was manifest as a slight figure scarcely four feet high, his anatomy undeveloped, his face infantine and pure, save for the eyes. I say he he as a matter of convenience and custom, but in fact the s.e.x of the Child is not known, and his androgynous features may look sometimes more feminine, sometimes closer to those of a boy. He wore a tunic of white samite and a wreath of leaves on moon-gilded curls. as a matter of convenience and custom, but in fact the s.e.x of the Child is not known, and his androgynous features may look sometimes more feminine, sometimes closer to those of a boy. He wore a tunic of white samite and a wreath of leaves on moon-gilded curls.

"Eriost," I greeted him, "who is also called Vallorn, Idunor, Sifril the Ever Young, by your names I bind you. Answer my questions."

"You have left too many out," said the Child. "I am also Teagan the Beautiful, and Maharac the Corrupter, and Varli the Slayer. Question me as you wish, but you cannot compel my answer."

"I do not need to," I said. "The question is direct but the answer is obscure, and I think you will not know it."

"Ask," said Eriost.

"Even the Black Seeress answered me only with riddles and curses. You are too ignorant-"

"Ask!"

"I seek one Fernanda Morcadis, a witch of untried Gift and stolen skills. Yet it seems that her inexpert nets are too subtle for the gaze of the wise and fa.r.s.eeing."

A frown puckered the creaseless forehead; the knowing eyes glowed like marsh gas. "I feel no subtlety," he said. "There is something else, something-" And then he was gone. There was no warning: he disappeared like a light suddenly extinguished, leaving the circle empty. I stared, caught my breath-released it in a torrent of Atlantean. The suspense seemed to endure a long time, but in reality it was only moments. Then he was back, and the glow dimmed in his eyes.

"She has no subtlety," he repeated, and anger disfigured his innocence. "But she has power-though it may be less than yours-and the courage to use it. She will come to you-she will come soon-and when she does, you must kill her. Don't hesitate, don't try to trap her. Kill Kill. Or you will not see another sun."

"You overestimate her," I said. "My Gift is greater, my will stronger. No weapon can harm me, not even the guns of the modern world. When I have her, I will snap her like green wood."

"Green wood bends," said Eriost. "You called me: heed my words. She has a treasure you have never had. Mortals value it highly."

"What is that ?"

"Friends."

I cursed him away, scorning his fears. What need have I for friends, when I can collect souls and imprison them in flagon and jar, when I can whistle the birds from the Eternal Tree and enslave both beast and man to my slightest whim? Friends are a weakness: they drain your emotions, hurt you, betray. I have Nehemet for a companion, and with the head of Sysselore I shall have whatever conversation I require. I wish Morcadis joy in her friends.h.i.+ps. They will destroy her.

Nehemet wormed herself between my legs as if in affection, but I need none. Even ordinary cats are not by nature affectionate: they offer caresses and purring to gain the saucer of cream, the plate of fish. And Nehemet is a goblin cat, whose kind love only the hunt. Her gestures are a matter of style, a feline affectation.

She retreated, adopting her usual pose of statuesque immobility, while I invoked some of the lesser spirits who attend the practices of sorcery. If Morcadis had been using her Gift, they should have sensed it. They are akin to the elementals but far stronger, beings who rarely act but merely are are. Their coming can bring temperature changes, freaks of weather, moods of oppression and foreboding, sounds and smells from the environment where they first flourished. Some are composites, spirit cl.u.s.ters of a hundred or more united in cloud form. Others make themselves visible with human features, or the masks and limbs of beasts.

They came and went at the hub of the circle in an unholy procession: Boros brought the howling of icy winds, Mallebolg the ogre was mantled in his own gloom, Cthorn appeared as a monstrous blob frilled with lip, Oedaphor bulged with a thousand unmatching eyes. Yet those eyes had seen too little, and the others wailed, or groaned, or s...o...b..red their ignorance.

"I seek a witch with friends," I told them. "That is rare enough. Who are her friends? I must know must know."

But no one could answer me.

There was a girl, I remembered. The wrong girl. My emissary had taken her by accident, finding her in the same house with Morcadis, and I had sent her back without learning her name. She wore her hair very long for these days, and her eyes were dark and frightened, like those of a nervous animal paralyzed by the gaze of a predator. I could not call her, but I searched deep in my memory to find her face, re-creating it diligently in the nucleus of the spell, summoning her with her own image. It takes great strength to perform such a feat, and I felt myself growing faint from the strain of it, striving to flow along the current of the magic, to reach the source of that face and draw it to me. There was an instant when something something connected, and the power of the circle redoubled, and lightning stabbed upward from the perimeter, and the invading moonbeams turned red. connected, and the power of the circle redoubled, and lightning stabbed upward from the perimeter, and the invading moonbeams turned red.

And then she was there.

"Concentrate," said Ragginbone. "You must must remain in control, or the results could be fatal." remain in control, or the results could be fatal."

"I can't reach him," Fern said, and her intensity was almost savage. "I know he's there-I can feel feel him-but I can't reach him." him-but I can't reach him."

"He's dangerous-unpredictable-half-monster. He may resist your call. Expending your energies for such as he is folly."

"I swore to be his friend," Fern said. "It's too long since I spoke with him."

"You choose your friends ill," Ragginbone muttered, but his mouth was wry.

"I know." She took a slow breath, repeated the summons. "Kaliban, sword child, man-beast, conceived in sorcery from an empty seed, I, Morcadis, call you. Son of the demon, son of the witch, come to me! By your soul I conjure you! Venya! Fia.s.se! Venya! Fia.s.se!"

A darkness solidified at the circle's heart, growing horns. Red eyes gleamed in the werelight. A voice that was little more than a growl said: "I have no soul."

"Yet you came." Fern was panting from the force she had exerted.

"Your call reached a long way, little witch. Even beyond the world. I wondered . . . what evil have I done to merit so insistent a summons?" He grew more defined as he spoke, and the firegleam lit his face, showing the mark burned deep into his brow.

"What is that that?" Fern demanded, and the direction of her gaze made no gesture necessary. "Who-"

But he withdrew back into darkness, shrinking inward upon himself, vanis.h.i.+ng as swiftly as a genie into a bottle. "Kal!" Fern cried. "Come back! Kal!"-calling him not as a witch calls a spirit but as a mortal to a long-lost companion.

He did not come. In the circle, there was a blur of glitter and light, and another figure materialized abruptly. A small figure, leaf crowned and dressed in white, with the soft perfect features of a child. Fern had seen it once before, watching another invocation from behind a chair. "-wrong," it said. Its voice was s.e.xless and pure. "What form of witchery is this? Who called me here?"

"You were not called," Fern said coldly. "Begone!"

She began the motion of dismissal-and stopped short, arrested by his next words.

"I seek a witch named Morcadis."

"Why?"

"You are she?"

"Why?"

"Your enemy has found you-"

"Good." Fern raised her hand. "Tell Morgus, since you have become her page boy, that I I have found have found her her. Envarre Envarre!"

The Child disappeared instantly. Ragginbone took Fern's arm, but anger had strengthened her, and she did not need support. "Bravado," he said. "It sounded well, even if it wasn't."

Moonspittle was muttering apprehensively, presumably to his cat. "Who-or what-was that that?" asked Will.

"A spirit," said Ragginbone. "One of the oldest, despite its appearance."

"Evil?"

"Neither evil nor good, but, like so many of the old ones, it inclines the more to evil, or at least to mischief. Its preferred apparition is in accordance with its mind-set. It has no known gender, but can a.s.sume the semblance of either." He turned back to Fern. "You should not have admitted it."

"I didn't," said Fern. "It was just there there."

"You must have relaxed your grip."

"No. I would have sensed that."

"The circle is too open," Moonspittle averred. "Anything can get in. Look now!"

Fern had not attempted a further summons, but in the midst of the spellground a gray dimness was gathering, coiling in upon itself, changing shape. Fern launched into another incantation, securing the boundary, but whatever was trying to manifest itself came from within, and did not need to violate the perimeter. There was a noise of wind, and the room grew bitterly cold. The liquid froze in the retorts, forcing out stoppers, causing one to burst with a sound like a gunshot; fluid leaking from another dripped into an icicle from the edge of the bench. Frost crackled along the spines of books. Gaynor's teeth chattered; Fern felt her fingers growing numb. In the circle, a blizzard swirled, and at its heart there were eyes as hard as winter. "Boros," Ragginbone said, through cold-stiffened lips. Fern croaked a dismissal, and the blizzard seemed to sag, losing momentum, and the eyes blinked and were gone, and warmth seeped back into the bas.e.m.e.nt. The spellfire leaped in the grate, but it gave out little heat, though its core could have melted metal. In the background, Moonspittle could be heard complaining in a routine manner about the damage.

"He's right," Ragginbone said. "You appear to be attracting undesirable elementals. This is becoming dangerous. Close the circle."

Fern gave a quick shake of her head. "I am not done yet."

Nor was the spell. The last of the snowflakes were sucked into a blackness that bulged and grew, straining this way and that as if something with too many body parts was smothered in the gloom and struggling to escape. It did not want to be dismissed, grunting and bellowing with several voices. "Mallebolg the ogre," Ragginbone said helpfully. "He has three heads and a number of different personalities, none of them pleasant. G.o.d knows where he came from."

It took Fern some minutes to dispose of him, and even then the blackness did not disperse, merely turning paler and brown around the edges, settling into a featureless ma.s.s that simply sat there, pulsating very slightly like an animated blancmange. Gradually, some of it extruded into a species of double frill, fat and fleshy, which spread until it encircled over half the blancmange. Then it spoke.

"I am Cthorn," it said. "I have come. Feed me."

Fern uttered the familiar words of dismissal, but she was growing weary again and desperate, and they seemed to hold less force. A section of the lips extrapolated, shaping themselves into a tube-there was a sucking noise, a gulp-and her spell was swallowed up. The blancmange grew a little, ominously.