The Cursed Towers (67 page)

"Only because he did no' believe Lachlan was truly his brother," Isabeau replied swiftly. "And ye ken the Lodestar chose Lachlan. It knew Eileanan needed a strong Righ and warrior. The land is already in chaos, Maya. The people do no' need more doubt and confusion in their hearts and ye ken Bronwen is too young to rule."

"She is the rightful heir," Maya said obstinately.

"Admit that ye wish to be banrigh again and have everyone adoring ye and obeying your every command," Isabeau said tartly. "If ye canna be banrigh, regent is close enough, is that no' so? Well, I will no' let ye sacrifice my sister or the Coven or the people to your selfish ambitions. Ye canna take Bronwen away."

"I dinna want to go 'way," Bronwen said, suddenly beginning to cry. "Wanna stay wi' Is'beau. Wanna stay."

"It's all right, my lassie, ye do no' have to go anywhere ye do no' wish to go," Isabeau said, drawing her close and looking Maya defiantly in the eye. She could only hope that Maya would not want to upset her daughter and change Isabeau into a toad before her very eyes. Seeing the Fairge gather in her will, she tensed, ready to throw up her defenses or to try and dive behind the rocks, futile though both actions would probably be. Bronwen was clinging close, though, and Maya hesitated then relaxed, unable to risk losing her daughter's tenuous affection.

After a moment she said softly, "Will ye give me my daughter and let us leave if I remove the curse from Lachlan?"

Isabeau stiffened all over.
"Ye
cursed Lachlan? That is why he sleeps so? How?" Maya said, "Will ye give me Bronwen and no' follow us or try to stop me? Will ye let us go and no'

follow?"

Isabeau shook her head, resisting the urge to let her will be submerged beneath Maya's. "No! No, I canna! Meghan would never forgive me."

'Ye mean she'd rather have Lachlan lying more dead than alive?" Maya said silkily. "What about your sister? He's no' much good to her like that."

Isabeau's emotions were in a tumult. She clung to the little girl, saying, "Nay! Ye canna take Bronny away from me!"

"She's no' your daughter!" Maya snapped. "She's mine! Ye wonder why I do no' want to stay with ye when ye act like ye're her mother and I'm some kind o' interloper. How can she come to love me with ye always snatching her away from me?"

"Ye do no' want her because she's your daughter and ye love her, ye just want her so ye can get the Throne back!"

"She's my daughter! If ye do no' let her go, I shall turn ye into a toad, I swear it!"

"I do no' believe ye really cursed Lachlan!" Isabeau cried, adroitly distracting the Fairge's attention. "Ye are just saying that to make me agree to let Bronny go."

Maya rummaged through the bundle of clothes she had dropped on the ground and unwrapped the wooden chest Isabeau had found beside her on the mountain. Isabeau was filled with consternation. Although small enough to carry, it was still heavy and unwieldy. She wondered how Maya had managed to conceal it from her as they had walked through the valley that morning, and then she realized Maya must have hidden it near the underground loch previously. This then was no impromptu decision—Maya had been planning this escape for some time.

Maya unlocked the chest and drew out a little black bag made from a square of cloth tied up with black cord. Isabeau stared at it, conscious of its throbbing, malignant power. Using only the tips of her fingers, an expression of distaste on her face, Maya held it out for Isabeau to see. "A cursehag cast the curse for me," she whispered. "It is bound by my own blood. None can break the curse but me." Although there was nothing to see but a black bag, Isabeau believed her. She said in a low voice, "But where would ye go? How would ye survive?"

Maya said, "All rivers run to the sea. That is one thing I was taught as a child. All rivers run to the sea, and so shall we."

"But the Rhyllster is fresh water," Isabeau objected. "Ye need salt." Maya nodded. "I ken. We shall have to swim fast. Besides, I brought some salt for emergencies." She lifted a small sack out of the chest and Isabeau recognized it with chagrin. She had carefully gathered that salt from the hot mineral pools in the Cursed Valley and stored it for Bronwen. It angered her to see it.

"What shall ye eat?" she said tightly. "Did ye steal provisions too?" Maya looked at her, oddly anxious, and nodded. "Aye. I hope ye do no' mind." The incongruity of the statement jarred with Isabeau. She frowned, soothing the anxious, questioning child absent-mindedly and thinking over what Maya had said.

"But where will ye go?" she asked again. "Do ye return to the Fairgean?" Maya shook her head emphatically. "How can I return there? They will feed me to the sea serpents. Nay, I will try and find somewhere safe at first. Maybe one o' the islands. I do no' ken what I will do then."

"But ye are safe here," Isabeau objected.

"Ye do no' understand," Maya said. "Swimming in that loch is like being buried underground with dead things. I want to swim in the open sea where everything is free and alive. I want Bronwen to ken what it is to swim in the sea. She is three years auld and has never seen the sea!" The tone of Maya's voice expressed clearly how strange and horrible that was to the Fairge.

"But it will be so dangerous—how can ye take Bronwen into such danger?" Isabeau drew the little girl closer, her hands shaking. For the last three years she had looked after the banprionnsa as if she were her own child, and the idea that she might be about to lose her opened up the future as a gaping emptiness. Isabeau searched desperately for ways to keep Bronwen with her but the black bag was a palpable presence between them, hot and sinister.

Isabeau had seen her sister's distress as the months passed by and Lachlan still did not recover, and she knew how difficult it was for Iseult to try and rule while her husband lay under such an odd affliction. Isabeau knew she had to give Bronwen up if that would lift the curse, but the decision had rushed too suddenly upon her, it was too great for her to make easily.

"I will have a care for her, I promise," Maya said gently.

"Only because ye want to regain power through her," Isabeau said bitterly, pressing her cheek against Bronwen's.

"No' only," Maya said rather haughtily. "She is my daughter." Bronwen had been following the conversation intently and now she flung herself on Isabeau, sobbing,

"No, no, stay wi' Is'beau, stay wi' Is'beau!"

Reluctantly, tears so thick in her throat she could hardly speak, Isabeau held Bronwen away from her.

"Ye must go with your mam, dearling. I wish I could go with ye but I canna, I must stay here with my mam and my
dai-dein.
Ye must be good, and mind your mam and remember what I've taught ye, and hopefully the Spinners will bring our threads together again very soon."

"No!" the little girl wailed. "I dinna want to go! Stay wi' ye!" Isabeau crouched down beside her and said, "Remember, my Bronny, that I love ye very, very much and that ye can always come back to me if ye need me. But now ye must go with your mam. She loves ye too and it is time for ye to be with her. Do ye understand? Remember what I have told ye—everything in its rightful time and place."

The little girl nodded tearfully, though her grip on Isabeau did not lessen. Through her tears Isabeau looked up at Maya, saying, "Ye must remove the curse now! And ye must burn it all so ye canna cast such a hex again. Do ye promise?"

Maya nodded. "I do no' ken how to do it, though," she said. "Shannagh o' the Swamp cast the actual curse, using my blood. I do no' know how to break it. I am no' a witch." Although Isabeau bristled up at the Fairge's contemptuous tone she did not protest, toying with the wet straggles of Bronwen's hair and murmuring, "If we only had
The Book o' Shadowsl
That would tell us how to break the curse." She looked back up at Maya and said, "Ye must return with me to the valley. I canna break the curse here. I need to read Meghan's books and find out the right time and method. I need to know the best phase o' the moon, and to make some candles scented with angelica and St. John's Wort, with clover perhaps, or rosemary. And Meghan has some dragon's blood, powerful indeed for spell-making ..."

"So do I," said Maya surprisingly. "And other things too, I'm no' sure what." She indicated the chest, saying with an odd fluctuation of color, "It belonged to a wizard I kent . . ."

"Please, will ye no' come home with me? I promise to let ye go again if only ye'11 let me cast off this curse properly. I give ye my word."

Maya nodded. "Very well. But do no' try and trick me for I ken the way out o' the valley now and if I have to, I will transform ye, I warn ye."

Isabeau bit back bitter, angry words and said merely, "I ken." Mist swirled all around the resting army, making the stark trees look as if they were swaying forward, reaching out with skeletal hands. When the marsh-faeries drifted out of the haze, the sentries all gave strangled shrieks before composing themselves enough to call the alarm. Most of the soldiers leapt to their feet, hands on their weapons, but a grim-faced Iain gestured them back and went forward to meet the Mesmerdean alone.

There were hundreds of them, their inhuman faces strangely beautiful. Their multitonal humming filled the air, thousands of many-veined wings whirring, thousands of claws rubbing against their hard abdomens. Iain looked very small and very alone, standing before them. There were long, long minutes of silence and then the humming changed. It deepened, softened, harmonized, sounding much like the satisfied purr of a cream-fed cat. The Mesmerdean's wings lowered and folded back, and they dropped their claws. Gwilym's grim face lightened a little. "The Mesmerdean have accepted Meghan's offer and have pledged us their support! Who would have believed it was possible? They must want ye very much indeed, Keybearer."

Iseult's expression only became more somber, and she put her hand on Meghan's shoulder. The little donbeag Gita clung to the old witch's collar, his whole body quivering in distress. Meghan nodded her white head a few times and twitched her grim old mouth, soothing Gita with a hand that trembled. Duncan gave swift orders to pack up the camp and advance, and all round the clearing the rigid stance of the soldiers relaxed. Swiftly they rolled up their blankets and shouldered their packs, while the ranks of Mesmer-dean slowly and deliberately stripped off their fluttering, gray draperies and flung them into the bog. Without their covering they looked more alien than ever, with a long, hard, segmented body that curved forward, ending in a sharp point. They had six legs, the highest also the longest and most maneuverable, the others curling back into their body. Their stiff wings were in constant motion and they darted about in unexpected directions, causing many of the soldiers to jump, startled and alarmed. With the bogfaeries scouting ahead and the Mesmer-dean flying all about, they were able to press on into the swamp at a much faster pace. Many times the Thistle's men tried to ambush them but, despite the fog which rose up thick and stifling all around them, the Graycloaks were forewarned and able to beat them off. As the day passed, most of the army's casualties were due to mud-sprites, who reached their bony hands out of the bog and dragged unwary soldiers in, drowning them before their frantic comrades could rescue them. A few were bitten by poisonous snakes, dying quickly but painfully, despite the attempts of their companions to suck out the poison.

Most of the Graycloaks learnt to carry their ropes tied at their belts, not coiled in their packs, for the ground was treacherous and many of the soldiers slipped into bogs or quicksand and had to be dragged free before they were sucked under.

Now that they had the Mesmerdean as allies, Duncan and Iseult had decided to abandon any attempts at stealth and so were making their way toward one of the few roads that wound through the marshes. The Thistle needed a solid highway for the wagons that carried Ar-ran's exports out to the world and brought in the many luxuries the banprionnsa required. The Banrigh had not attempted to use the highway previously, knowing it was heavily guarded, choosing instead to trust to Iain and Gwilym's knowledge of the secret ways through the swamps.

They camped that night uncomfortably and uneasily but managed to survive with only a few casualties, thanks to the Mesmerdean who drifted along the chain of camp-fires like ghosts, thwarting any attack by the Arran soldiers. They went to sleep in dense fog and woke to the same close, impenetrable dampness, so thick that each man could barely see the soldier marching a scant few paces ahead. As they neared the road, the fighting grew much fiercer and many Graycloaks were lost, despite the assistance of the marsh-faeries. Nebulous flickering lights led the soldiers astray so that they stepped into quicksand or were killed from behind by a quick dagger thrust. The men of the swamp knew the terrain and were easily able to conceal themselves in the clumps of rushes and sedge grasses, or in the huge water oaks that grew out of the many patches of still water. Suddenly a rain of arrows or poisoned darts would hit the marching columns of men, killing or injuring many before the soldiers could bring up their shields or take cover.

Although the witches could sense the minds of the hiding men, they were all marching at the head of the column and so the Thistle's men simply waited until they had passed, then poled silently through the watercourses in flat-bottomed boats or crept up through the hidden ways to attack the men marching behind. After several such silent attacks, Iseult sent Gwilym, Iain, Niall and Dide to walk with those of the prionnsachan who did not have any witch senses, and asked the Mesmerdean to fly out through the marshes and disable any of the Thistle's men hidden some distance away. After that they had no more major casualties, although the attacks continued in increasingly desperate forays. They reached the highway just on dusk. It was a narrow, winding road, built on a firm base of stones and shale which was continually having to be shored up to stop the highway sinking back into the bog. The mist continued to shroud everything in a pale gloom and many of the Graycloaks were jumpy and anxious, so that Iseult ordered an extra ration of whiskey to be passed around, to warm their chill bodies and settle their nerves. They camped on the road itself. Although hard and stony, it was a far more comfortable camping spot than the treacherous bogs had been. They were able to camp close together and set up sentries to patrol the perimeters rather than being scattered through the marshes on whatever patch of firm ground they could find, with the constant fear of being dragged into the quicksand by a mudsprite.