The Witch Queen (11 page)

Afterward, he did not want to remember the dying. It was more vivid than dream, more real than memory. The sea closing over him, and him trying to breathe, but his breath was sea, and there was sea in his lungs, in his ears, in his head, and the terrible infinite struggle, and the slow uprush of darkness that took everything away . . .

He woke between clinging sheets, and the throb in his ears became the hum of the city, and a glance at the clock told him only minutes had passed since he’d gone to bed. He sat up, gulping air, and lay down again slowly, eyes wide as if he were afraid to close them.

You can find all sorts of things in dreams . . .

But that night he slept little, and did not dream again.

IV

Fern left work early on Friday and drove to Yorkshire. It was still daylight when she came over the moors: great cloud bastions were building up in the sky; giant shadows traveled ponderously across the landscape. At one point she pulled over, getting out of the car to catch an advancing band of sunlight. The moor stretched away on each hand, green with summer, heather tufted, humming with insect life. She took off her jacket, unbuttoned her shirt at the neck, and let the wind ruffle her sleek hair. To the casual observer—had there been one—she was a city girl shedding the trappings of an urban lifestyle in preparation for a country weekend. But Fern knew she was crossing a boundary, both familiar and imaginary, from the superficial realities of her routine existence to a world where reality was unstable and everything was dark and different. Yet now the very boundaries had changed: the dark otherworld had come even to London and lurked around corners, and under paving stones, and in the blackness beyond the streetlamps. So she stood in the sun and bared her throat to the wind as a gesture of acknowledgment and acceptance. I am Fernanda Morcadis, she told the clouds and the plateau and the indifferent bees. I am of the witchkind, Prospero’s Children. It is everything else which is unreal.

The dog came bounding over the grasses as she got back into the car. It might have been a German shepherd, except that the brindling of its fur included brown and gray rather than tan and its face was more pointed and wilder, and there was a speed in its movement and a light in its yellow eyes that no domestic animal could match. It came over to Fern and waited, panting slightly, tongue lolling between wicked teeth, while she caressed its rain-damp ruff. “Lougarry,” she said. “Tell your master to come to the house. I need his help.”

Go carefully
, said the thought in her head.
These are troubled times
.

Then the creature turned and sped away. The sun disappeared, and in the gloom beneath a vast cloud the moor changed, becoming cold and unfriendly. Fern shut the door and teased the engine into life. As she drove off a sudden squall struck, almost blinding her: the wipers struggled ineffectually to clear the windshield. The rain passed, but the murk still lingered, turning the world to gray. Yarrowdale lay ahead, a narrow valley winding down from the North York Moors to the windswept beaches of the North Sea.

As she swung onto the road that led down to the village she had her lights on, but the oncoming car showed none. It appeared as if from nowhere, on her side of the road, heading straight toward her. She swerved onto the verge, her heart in her mouth, and it shot past without slowing. Fern braked to a stop and leaned forward, breathing deep and slow to calm herself. Her headlights had shone directly into the approaching vehicle, and she was sure that what she had seen was no freak of fancy. For one instant of panic she had faced the driver of the other car, and she had glimpsed not a human visage but a grinning death’s-head grasping the wheel with hands of bone.

She waited a few minutes before restarting the engine. Then she drove gently down the valley, turning off at Dale House. Lights in the windows indicated that Mrs. Wicklow, their local housekeeper and theoretically long past retirement, had come to welcome her. She parked the car and went indoors.

The big kitchen at the back was warm from the stove and smelled of cooking. Mrs. Wicklow had been widowed the previous year and with the departure of Will, who had been loosely affiliated with York University before he abandoned his M.A., she had suffered a dearth of recipients for her generous cuisine. Fern’s father, Robin, paid Mrs. Wicklow regardless of what she did, but she claimed she was too young to accept a pension and took whatever opportunities there were to justify her wages. To Fern, she was family. They embraced, and Mrs. Wicklow produced gin and tonics for both of them. Her Christian name was reputed to be Dorothy, but no one ever used it; for all their intimacy Fern still called her “Mrs. Wicklow” without thinking.

“There’s trouble,” the housekeeper said sapiently. “I can see it in your face.”

“I had a close shave in the car,” Fern said. “Some idiot driving like a maniac on the wrong side of the road.”

“That’ll be one of the vicar’s boys,” Mrs. Wicklow deduced. “Expelled from school halfway through term and he’s pinched his dad’s car twice that I know of. That poor Maggie’s out of her mind with t’ worry of it. Vicar’s children are always the worst: it’s like t’ devil goes after them special. But that wasn’t what I meant. I was thinking of t’ other kind of trouble. T’ kind we had before. The old man’s been around since New Year’s Eve: that’s always a sign. Him and t’ dog. Mr. Watchman or Skin’n’Bones or whatever he calls himself. You’d better have him around to a decent supper tomorrow. Don’t know how he keeps body and soul together.”

“Habit,” Fern murmured.

She went to her room early, after Mrs. Wicklow had gone home. She pulled out a box from under the bed—a box that had once belonged to Alison Redmond, who had come to stay one bright morning fourteen years ago and had died in a flood where no water should have been. And because of her, Fern thought, I am who I am. I might never have known I had the Gift, if it wasn’t for Alimond.

Inside the box, there were a pair of dragonskin gloves, a videocassette that Fern had only played once, a handwritten book, the writing changing gradually from an antique script into a modern scrawl, and a number of miniature phials whose labels she had never deciphered. In a compartment she had missed previously she found a leather bag of dull bluish crystals and a small receptacle containing a silver-gray powder. Fern put on the gloves: they seemed to meld with her hands, and the mottled patterns shifted and changed without help from the light. “It is time,” she said to herself, and the realization made her shiver. The mad driver, whoever he might be, was just part of the picture, an emissary of Azmordis, a wild card, a manic phantom who had picked up her description from somewhere. In the otherworld, she was wanted. She knew that now. She removed the gloves again and went to bed, lying awake in the dark.

The house-goblin considered coming in to talk, but he knew Fern had a human concept of privacy, so he went downstairs to the kitchen and drank the whiskey she had remembered to leave out for him.

Ragginbone came to the house the following evening. He was old, old and tough, like an oak tree that has weathered many winters; his clothes were shabby, gray-brown and gray-green, blending with the moorland. The greatcoat that he had worn through all seasons had been abandoned in favor of a misshapen jacket of antiquated cut hanging almost to his knees. Atop his head he wore a wide-brimmed hat that would have been pointed at the crown if it had not been permanently dented. But the eyes beneath his hat brim were gold-green and bright as spring, and the rare smile that rearranged his wrinkles was as warm as ever. To the villagers he was Mr. Watchman, Ragginbone the tramp, but to Fern he was Caracandal Brokenwand, ex-wizard, Watcher of history, a man of many names and many travels, of short words and tall tales, her mentor, insofar as she had one, her friend since she was sixteen. And the wolf-dog with him was Lougarry, with the soul of a woman in the body of a beast, and a silent voice that could be heard only in the minds of a few.

They sat long over their dinner after Mrs. Wicklow had gone, while Lougarry lay in her accustomed place by the stove. Fern related everything that had happened and the conclusions she had drawn, and Ragginbone’s smile grew even rarer, and the lines deepened on his brow. “Mabb is a chancy ally,” he said at one point. “Goblins are by their very nature untrustworthy, and the female of the species is invariably more extreme than the male. More vicious, more capricious, shallower of heart, sharper of whim. Be wary.”

“Sexist,” said Fern.

“I was born in a sexist age. Experience has not taught me to think differently. To generalize: men are rash and cowardly, women are prudent and brave, men are strong in the arm, women are strong in the heart, men are stupid and cunning, women subtle and devious. Men are self-centered, soft-centered creatures, armored in loud words and harsh deeds. Women are gentle and fragile, selfless beyond sense, and steel to the core.”

“Is that how you see me?”

His face creased. “You are a woman of your time. Beside you, steel is pliable. Your spirit was cut from diamond.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Neither compliment nor insult, merely an opinion.” He reached for the wine bottle, topped off both glasses. “Go on with your story.”

The light was failing now, and the shadow of the hill leaned over the house. Fern switched on a single lamp and lit the only candles she could find, fixing them in a serviceable iron candelabra that dated from an era before electricity. Night crept slowly into the room, filling up the cracks between cupboards and under the fridge and tallboy. The wine bottle was empty, and Fern poured whiskey into three tumblers. “There’s always whiskey in this house,” she remarked. “The vodka runs out, and the gin, but never the Scotch. I suspect Bradachin of doctoring Mrs. Wicklow’s regular shopping list.”

“There’s nae harm in it,” said a thickly accented voice. “Nae harm and muckle guid. Usquebaugh warms the belly and strengthens the heart, and we’ll hae need o’ strong hearts in the days to come, I’m thinking.”

The house-goblin appeared from nowhere in particular and climbed on a chair, accepting the glass that Fern pushed toward him. He was a reddish, hairy creature, tall for his kind, limping from a malformed limb or old wound but spider-swift in his movements. He had come from a castle in Scotland that had been converted into a luxury hotel, dealing with the trauma of his exile by bringing the spirit of the McCrackens with him. He played the bagpipes in the small hours, and filled the dour Yorkshire house with the echoes of great halls, and high towers, and dreams of the wind off the loch. Both Fern and Ragginbone knew him to be courageous beyond the custom of his folk, stubborn, resourceful, and loyal. He had spent all his history with a family of fierce fighters, passionate feuders, and hopeless plotters, and some of their skills and their prejudices had rubbed off on him, setting him apart from his own people. Mabb had banished him from her court, when she troubled to remember it, for excessive fealty to Man, but Bradachin was still attached to his queen.

“So ye’ve had speech with the maidy,” he commented. “For all her kittle follies, she’s nae fool. What o’ this witch, then? Can ye be siccar she’s the one ye met afore?”

“I’ll have to see her,” said Fern. “Morgus is—unmistakable.”

“She may look different,” Ragginbone said thoughtfully. “She was severely burnt: her flesh melted. You always said you thought much of her bloating was stored power rather than fat. She may have been working on a regeneration spell during all her sojourn beneath the Tree, burying it in her own body, waiting for the appropriate trigger. The fire might have killed, but the river healed and the spell was set in motion. The excess power would be used up, the rest absorbed into her new body. I would expect her to resemble the woman she was in her former life, not the grotesque hag you knew. Anyway, witches are vain. She would never return to the world without doing something to restore her looks.”

“You’re saying she may be young again,” said Fern. “Young and beautiful—and invincible. I killed her once . . . must I do it again? And how do you kill someone who cannot be hurt?”

“There’ll be a way,” said Ragginbone. “There is always a way. Trust in stories. The Achilles’ heel, the Cyclops’s eye, the brazen stopper that releases the giant’s blood . . . But Bradachin is right: we must be sure. It is time to be a witch indeed, Fernanda. You must draw the circle.”

“I know,” Fern acknowledged. “That’s why I came here.” She looked down at her hands, which were child-sized, the nails tinted like bits of shell. Inadequate hands for all that she needed to grasp. “I found crystals and fire powder in the box. Alimond used the front room, Will’s old studio—”

“No. There are bad memories there. Magic wakes magic. Let them sleep. I think . . . I shall come with you to London. There is one I know who will help. He won’t like it, but he
will
help.”

“Mayhap I maun be coming, too,” said Bradachin with an air of reluctance that deceived no one.

It was left to Fern to dissuade him. “You are a house-goblin,” she said. “Your duty is here, with the house. Anyway, there has to be someone to keep an eye on the place. As Ragginbone said, too much has happened here in the past, and . . . trouble wakens trouble. As I turned into Yarrowdale, a car nearly hit me. It was coming straight at me—I had to swerve onto the verge to avoid it—and whatever was driving it wasn’t human. Morgus is not our only problem: the Old Spirit has more reason than ever to hate us.
He’s
always preferred to seek me out here, away from civilization. If there are any developments, I can get a message to you.” Wisely, she gave him no time to argue. “You can use the telephone?”

“Ay, but—”

“Good. When magic fails, there is always technology.” She turned to include the former wizard, pushing the discussion past the danger point. “What do you make of this business with the tree?”

“It is . . . disturbing,” Ragginbone admitted. “I am wondering if she has brought a cutting from the Eternal Tree out of its native dimension into the real world. I do not know what would happen if one did. It might wither instantly, unable to bear the pressure of Time and life. Or—”

“The Eternal Tree exists in stasis,” Fern said. “It has enormous power—a kind of treeish hunger—I felt that—but it
couldn’t
grow any more, it couldn’t reach out any farther. It was trapped in timelessness, in a cycle that went nowhere. When I bore the—the fruit here I was told it would rot far more quickly: that is the nature of fruit. And it was seedless. But maybe if you brought something living into this world—something with the potential for growth . . .”

“It would grow,” Ragginbone said somberly. “As a theory, it is all too viable. Bring here a twig, a leaf, a toadstool, a blade of grass. The pulse of the Tree is in it, and the restraints of its usual environment are removed. On reflection, perhaps that is what caused the great birds who roost there—the owls, the raptors, the eagle, and the roc—to far outgrow their everyday cousins. They fly between worlds, and the Tree’s hunger is in their blood. It is not a comfortable thought. But Morgus must plant her sapling: it will need earth and water, sunlight and shade. It cannot take root in the air or flourish in a silken shroud.”