The Witch Queen Part 20

Another attack came on the windows, only this time there were more of the birds-giant ravens hacking at the remaining panes, gangster crows in an unending stream, even a couple of the blue-banded magpies swooping in to loot what they could. The dull afternoon was completely blotted out; charmlight strobed through the flock. Fern scattered a boxful of matches among them, crying one word: "Inye!," "Inye!," and every match flared. Many of the invaders concentrated on Luc, raking his arms with beak and claw, trying to home in on his face. Others swarmed around Bradachin and Lougarry. The metal can rocked as the head strove to leap out. And then, with a noise like the crack of Doom, the storm began. and every match flared. Many of the invaders concentrated on Luc, raking his arms with beak and claw, trying to home in on his face. Others swarmed around Bradachin and Lougarry. The metal can rocked as the head strove to leap out. And then, with a noise like the crack of Doom, the storm began.

It was a summer storm like no other, brief but violent. Rain rattled on what was left of the windows. Hailstones the size of golf b.a.l.l.s bombarded the flock outside, fragmenting the spell-driven mob into panicked individuals. Some of those indoors turned and fled; some were isolated and killed. Eventually the battle of the kitchen was over; crockery was broken, sink and table fouled. Avine corpses strewed the floor. The a.s.sault on the closed door had ceased. Fern pressed the switch for the main light, but the cord was ripped; Nature's pyrotechnics provided the princ.i.p.al illumination. Lougarry had been protected by her coat, the goblin by his tenuous substance; Luc bled. Fern did her best to staunch the flow with a dishcloth. "This storm," he said, "was it you or Morgus?"

"Neither. Weather can be controlled, but it's very difficult to conjure. There are other powers in the world far stronger than mine-or hers. There's even supposed to be someone called Luck, though I'm told you shouldn't rely on him." The premature gloom lightened a little as the water-cannon rainfall slowed to a monsoon.

"Does Morgus really hope to defeat us with those birds?" Luc pursued, frowning. "Or is she just an obsessive Hitchc.o.c.k fan?"

Fern accorded the remark a smile that was merely polite. "She may be aiming to exhaust my Gift," she said.

"If I have the Gift, too, can I use it?"

"I . . . I don't know. If you have, you haven't learned to discipline it-or channel it. And it won't work the way mine does: different people always have different talents. Stick with the broom: it's safer."

There was a quality in the somber, almost-handsome face that she could not read. Possibly it was withdrawal. She had forgotten to look for Rafarl in him: in these moments he was only Luc. "Presumably, when the birds run out, she'll come herself," he was saying.

"I hope so," said Fern.

The flock, dispersed by the storm, did not regroup in the same numbers: Most of the birds had fled back to the place from whence they came. In the shelter of the Eternal Tree there were no extremes of weather, and the birds dwelt there in relative safety, menaced only by each other. A few ravens remained behind, circling the house, perching briefly on gable and chimney, calling to their mistress in harsh voices. She waits for dark, thought Fern; but the evening was long and light. The cloud cover split, and an unexpected sunset overflowed the gap, spilling its yellow fires across the underbelly of c.u.mulus, irradiating the landscape. Lean shadows stretched out behind hump and hummock, hill and tree. Fern and Luc relaxed their vigil enough to begin tidying up and cleaning off the droppings. In Will's old studio, they covered the broken pane with a black garbage bag, since all the plastic wrap had been used in the kitchen. Fern even leafed through the Yellow Pages and telephoned a repairman, booking him for the following Monday, hearing her own words spoken with a sense of dislocation in time. There was no Monday, she would not be there, the universe must turn around before Monday came again . . . She told herself sternly not to be a fool. There was always Monday: in a world of working weeks it was the one thing you could depend on.

"What's the matter?" Luc must have been watching her more closely than she realized.

"Nothing. Nerves."

She knew Will would be waiting for another call, but she did not phone, not yet. She felt less and less able to talk normally.

The sunset faded slowly, leaving a wide green pool of empty sky beyond the departing cloud. Some kindly G.o.d switched on the evening star, its tiny, friendly glimmer winking at her down the light-years. Gradually, one photon at a time, the day died. Night fell like a black velvet curtain.

Morgus came.

She came to the front door, not the kitchen. They heard the heavy hand of the driver pounding the knocker, heard him call some-thing that might have been: We know you're there. We know you're there. Then another voice, whisper soft but so resoundingly clear it seemed Morgus could have been in the room with them already: "Let me in, Morcadis. You know you cannot keep me out. Don't waste your strength. Let me in, and I may spare you, at the end." Then another voice, whisper soft but so resoundingly clear it seemed Morgus could have been in the room with them already: "Let me in, Morcadis. You know you cannot keep me out. Don't waste your strength. Let me in, and I may spare you, at the end."

As you spared Kal? thought Fern. Break the taboo. I dare you.

But she made no audible answer.

There came the thudding of an ax or machete hacking at the door, splitting the weathered oak. Then footsteps entering, pausing. Hodgekiss. "Come in, mistress." She thinks to cheat the Ultimate Laws, Fern realized. She instructs an ordinary mortal to break in and issue the invitation . . .

"Shouldn't we do something?" Luc hissed, scowling.

Fern shook her head slowly. They drew away from the kitchen door, positioning themselves by instinct, without any prearranged plan, Fern in front of the patched window and half leaning on the trash can, Luc to her left, Lougarry to her right, Bradachin lurking un.o.btrusively in the lee of the cupboard. Luc found he had picked up the broom automatically, and propped it in a corner, reaching instead for one of the larger carving knives. Morgus's voice sounded again, from the hallway just outside.

"Let me in, Morcadis."

The kitchen door shook. The fork-wedge was back in place, but it flew out with such force that it shot across the room and stuck, quivering, in the opposite wall. The latch lifted of its own volition. The door opened. Morgus entered, not on a gust of rage as she had done in Moonspittle's bas.e.m.e.nt, but slowly, deliberately. Her gaze locked on to Fern's. Nehemet slid into the room behind her in a single fluid motion, like a worm through a crack. Her muzzle swayed, catching the scent of goblin; but the sight of Lougarry deterred her. Hodgekiss waited in the rear, faithful as an automaton.

Morgus said: "At last," but there was no exultation in her tone. She seemed taller than Fern remembered, perhaps because she was so slender. The serpentine tangles of her hair made an irregular black halo around her face; contemporary makeup emphasized the fixity of her expression, staining the set mouth, outlining the deadly eyes. The room appeared to rearrange itself around her, becoming mere background for her personality. Yet Luc, glancing at Fern, thought there was something forceful in Fern's face, too. For all its delicate angles and fine-drawn features, something indefinably, elusively similar was matching Morgus look for look, meeting power with challenge. A hint-a phantom-the shadow of a resemblance.

"You have stolen something that belongs to me," said Morgus. "You crept into my house by night and took the one ripe apple from my Tree. Like Eve, you will pay dear for your theft. Give it to me. Give it to me now now."

"No," said Fern. The monosyllable seemed to escape her with difficulty. She was clenching her power. Braced. Armed. In the can behind her, the head hammered against the sides with a m.u.f.fled boom . . . boom . . . boom . . . boom . . .

"So!" cried Morgus. "It is there!" The familiar lightning flashed from her hand. Fern made a quick gesture of defense, but she was just too late, and the jolt knocked her off balance. Luc and Lougarry leaped from either side, but Morgus's movements were thought-fast: she singed the she-wolf's fur and sent Luc reeling, burned even through his leather jacket. The lid flew off the can and the head sprang out in a volley of potatoes, bandage and blindfold unraveling. The lips were bitten raw from the savagery of its struggles; the eyes rolled. Morgus caught it by the hair, her Medusa stare meeting its true reflection. "Morgun?"

"Morgus," said the head.

And in that moment of comprehension, they were one.

"It's . . . me me," Morgus shrieked at Fern. "You stole-me. You stuck my guardian like an insect on a collector's card-you slew my Tree with my own poison-and then you rob me of my Self Self, a part part of me-!" A hissing stream of Atlantean issued from her mouth, and Fern's bare forearms bubbled into blisters that burst immediately, evacuating tiny maggotlike creatures that wriggled into her clothes. She fought to stay calm, muttering a counterspell, suppressing a scream when the maggots began to burrow under her skin. A frustrated Bradachin hurled his rolling pin, but Morgus batted it aside with barely an effort. The larvae were crisping into coiled cinders, dropping off Fern's body, but she was bleeding from a hundred minute wounds. She tried to shield, knowing she should have done it before, cursing herself for her stupidity. Morgus's incantation continued relentlessly. of me-!" A hissing stream of Atlantean issued from her mouth, and Fern's bare forearms bubbled into blisters that burst immediately, evacuating tiny maggotlike creatures that wriggled into her clothes. She fought to stay calm, muttering a counterspell, suppressing a scream when the maggots began to burrow under her skin. A frustrated Bradachin hurled his rolling pin, but Morgus batted it aside with barely an effort. The larvae were crisping into coiled cinders, dropping off Fern's body, but she was bleeding from a hundred minute wounds. She tried to shield, knowing she should have done it before, cursing herself for her stupidity. Morgus's incantation continued relentlessly. "Sangue luava, duum luave invar . . ." "Sangue luava, duum luave invar . . ." The trickle of blood became a gush. Fern fell forward, seeing spots, too weak to fight back . . . The trickle of blood became a gush. Fern fell forward, seeing spots, too weak to fight back . . .

On the floor, straining to push herself up, she saw Nehemet squirm between her mistress's legs as if in affection-and nip her ankle. There was an unexpected touch of malice to the action. Morgus broke off her chant, crying out more in shock than pain, and stumbled backward over the cat, losing her grip on the fruit. The spell failed. The head, teeth bared, bounced toward Fern. But she was drawing on her Gift, reviving swiftly, using the respite to flood her limbs with pure power. She s.n.a.t.c.hed at the hair, scrambling to her feet-"Luc! The knife!"-seizing the weapon when Luc kicked it over to her.

Morgus appeared briefly paralyzed, staring at the cat.

"You betrayed me," she said. "You . . ." "You . . ." She heard again the words of the seeress speaking of her sister: She heard again the words of the seeress speaking of her sister: She found a way to put her spirit elsewhere She found a way to put her spirit elsewhere. But not in the Tree, nor any of its later fruit . . .

"This is you," Fern said to her, holding the prize that writhed and snarled in her grasp. "Your Tree, your head. You've seen it, touched it, acknowledged it. The magic is complete. And it's never been dipped in the Styx."

The witch queen raised her hand, began to speak-but this time, it was she who was too slow. Fern plunged the knife into one eye; it felt soft, like b.u.t.ter, like all the cliches, and then there was denser matter, muscle or sinew, an instant of resistance before the point penetrated the brain. Two voices gave vent to a single scream, less a cry than a choke, cut off in seconds. Scarlet juice burst over Fern's breast and splattered the floor. Scarlet blood streamed down Morgus' cheek, clogging in her hair. But the wounds did not close. There was a splinter of time when she seemed to be still alive, when the scream still gurgled in her throat and a hand groped toward the hideous injury and her good eye gaped and stared in final malevolence. Then her body jerked and folded, slowly, slowly, and her face emptied of all but the terminal impress of pain. And there she was on the floor, a disorderly heap of flesh and bone, suddenly shrunken to mortal proportions, smaller with the smallness of death. Deprived of health and heartbeat, the power of the Tree could no longer sustain her or her fruit: the head rotted in Fern's grip, the juice stains fading to brown, while the corpse was already beginning to decay, a thousand years of aging compressed into less than a minute. The flesh greened and shriveled, wafting a foulness through the kitchen, withering to a tumble of white bones that brittled visibly and subsided into dust. Even her clothes were gone, caught in the magic, perishing with their wearer. The goblin-cat approached the little dust pile that had been her mistress, sniffed it, and then, inexplicably, slashed it with her paw. The last atoms of Morgus were scattered across the stone flags, blown on a sudden draft and lost, not on a battlefield as she might have wished but in a scullery. Nehemet lifted her head, looking at Fern for a long moment in a way she did not understand; then she slunk out.

She was never seen again.

Luc got up, wincing from the burns on his chest. He came to Fern and put his arms around her, not speaking; her blood soaked into his shirt. Presently, he said: "Did you know that would happen?"

"No," she admitted shakily. "I just hoped."

"You're hurt."

"So are you."

Lougarry was licking her scorched fur, Bradachin ground his foot in the dust that had once been Morgus. "Guid riddance," he said. "Howsomedever, la.s.sie, next time ye couldna be mair siccar? That wa' a wee bit close for my liking." He picked up the knife that Fern had let fall and put it on the table; the fruit had rotted away to an evil-smelling smear. Hodgekiss walked in, looking like a sleepwalker suddenly and rudely awakened.

"Mrs. Mordaunt . . ." he mumbled. "Where's Mrs. Mordaunt?"

"She's gone," said Luc, "and she won't be coming back. If I were you, I should take yourself home. Leaving now. It's a long drive." And, as an afterthought: "Tell your company to send the bill to Kaspar Walgrim."

"They always do."

"What we need," said Bradachin when the man had gone, "is usquebaugh. Usquebaugh tae fight the devil, usquebaugh tae heal the hert . . ."

"Robbie Burns?" said Fern.

"Boggan," said the goblin.

He fetched the whiskey. He knew where it was kept.

In the study of his Knightsbridge home, Kaspar Walgrim was sitting in front of his PC when he had the sudden impression that Time jarred. He found he had upset his sherry, and looked around the familiar room as if unsure where he was. His recollection of recent weeks-months-was inexplicably blurred. And then he blinked at the computer screen, and saw the details of the company he had invented, and the vast sums of the bank's and clients' money he had poured into it. In a frenzy he flicked through account after account, watching the money dodge here and there, acquiring a will of its own, ducking and diving, switching ident.i.ties, bleeding away into the ether. He had never done anything criminal in his life, and now, seeing the evidence of his madness unfolding before him, his brain spiraled into panic. It was a dream, a nightmare-but no, the nightmare was over, and this was the awakening. He saw the name of Melissa Mordaunt and wondered fleetingly who she was. And then the memory returned of a woman with a bird's face, a spike-haired harpy who melted into a raven G.o.ddess caressing him with fingers of silk, transporting him into a dark Paradise . . .

At Wrokeby, the spell wall in the attic shimmered into view, a woven net of strange and sinister beauty-and vanished. Kal reached through the bars, probing the air, feeling nothing. He withdrew his hand, his expression undiscernible beneath the mask of grime, the lice-ridden hair. (He had eaten the lice when he was hungry.) He knew what it meant. Morgus had been his mother, had rejected and tormented him, punishing him for his birth, his being, for the monster she had made him. And now she was dead . . . There was something in his eyes that might have been pain, or perhaps simply a longing for the pain that was suddenly no longer there. Then he thought of Fern thrusting her hand through the barrier. He seized the chains that fettered him, the muscles in his arms stiffening into rigidity. He was part werefolk: captivity had not weakened him. The chains creaked, link grinding on link, straining at the ring that held them to the wall-then snapped like breadsticks. His legs were free; a few more minutes and his arms followed. The manacles still clasped wrist and ankle, loose ends of chain clattering as he moved, but he could deal with those later. He grasped the bars, trying to force them apart, wrenching, bending. It took a long time, but he had time. His strength was more than human though his soul was less, and gradually the gap widened, and the bars twisted, tearing up the floor where they were embedded, sending great cracks zigzagging across the ceiling. After nearly two hours, there was enough s.p.a.ce for him to insinuate his body between them. On the other side he straightened up, stretching; the muscle web across shoulders and torso flexed, tensed, and relaxed into suppleness. Then he moved through the attics, chains rattling faintly, his stench following him like a darkness. In the ghostless house there were no eyes to watch him go.

Downstairs he met Grodda, who at Morgus's whim had brought him food: Nehemet's leavings, mice she had trapped, worms from the garden. On the rare occasions when she had arrived with a proper meal, she always spat in the dish. Seeing him, she turned to run, but she was not fast enough.

He broke her neck.

Then he went out, leaving the door ajar, letting the country night flow in to fill the emptiness.

In Dale House, Fern and Luc were patching up their injuries. A search of the bathroom cabinet had yielded a selection of antiseptic creams, one or two suitable for minor burns, and such antiquated remedies as iodine and hydrogen peroxide. There were also Band-Aids of a.s.sorted sizes, lengths of bandages, pads of gauze. Luc had stripped off his damaged jacket and unstuck the bloodstained shirt from his burns; Fern spread cream gingerly on the blistered area and insisted that he wash every spider scratch even though, as he pointed out, those lacerations were old and dry. "I'll deal with them later," he said. "Your turn. Take your top off. And your bra. And your jeans."

"I'd rather-"

"And don't fuss."

She complied. The maggot bites on her upper torso were tiny, but there were very many of them, and Morgus's magic had seen to it that she bled freely. Her top was already stiffening from the drying blood, and she squirmed out of it with difficulty; underneath, her white bra was blotched crimson. Bradachin dematerialized tactfully, muttering something about a robe, while she peeled off her jeans. Her body was very slender, twiglet boned, curving slightly outward at the stomach, like a child's. When she removed her bra Luc saw her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were small and conical, tapering to nipples like hard pink shoots. She did not work out, and her thighs were slim and soft, her thin arms lacking the reinforcement of visible biceps. Her fragility and the number of her wounds roused him to an unfamiliar gentleness: he wiped away the blood with cotton b.a.l.l.s dipped in a bowl of boiled water and peroxide, feeling her every wince, every instance of teeth-clenching pain deep in his own loins. "How come these don't self-heal like your hand?" he asked her.

She explained, trying not to react to the proximity of his naked chest, the hurts that made him vulnerable, her own nakedness and vulnerability. Despite the stinging of the peroxide, the touch of the cotton ball was cool and pleasant.

"They're not deep," he was saying. "I could bandage half your body like an Egyptian mummy-"

"Don't bother. Let them breathe. But you ought to cover those burns."

"Perhaps we should let them breathe as well." The cotton ball moved along the crease beneath her breast, daubed her nipple. She felt suddenly warm inside, very warm, though her customary pallor did not alter. And then Bradachin reappeared with a bathrobe, and she put it on, fumbling clumsily with the tie, and turned away to see to Lougarry, and Luc resorted to the whiskey bottle.

Later, unexpectedly ravenous, they raided the fridge and opened cans of soup from the larder. Fern telephoned Will, telling him at length what had happened, absentmindedly sipping her way through a large gla.s.s of scotch on the side before she hung up. Lougarry lay in her preferred spot by the stove; Bradachin, seeing the two humans did not need him, faded un.o.btrusively from the scene.

"Do you still wonder if I am your first love reborn?" Luc demanded abruptly, cutting the thread of conversation. "Are you afraid to believe it?"

"Not afraid, no. It just doesn't matter anymore." Her eyes, green with latent magic, looked straight into his. "Rafarl was part of the Past-even when I met him, he was part of the Past-and it's wrong to look back. I've learned that much. If you're always looking back, you can't move forward. You're you, whoever you are. You stood by me, you killed the spider, you defied Morgus. I don't want you to be anyone but yourself."

This time, she knew he would kiss her, and he did, pulling her to her feet, holding her carefully, carefully, the only roughness in the pressure of his lips, the invasion of his tongue.

"Mind your injuries," she said, in a moment of respite.

"Mind yours."

And somehow, somewhen, they were in bed. She thought she was falling into darkness, a blindness all touch and sensation, a slow, inexorable intimacy like serpents twining in a living rope, like two rivers running together into a drowning sea. After a while, she no longer knew where her body ended and his began, whether the pleasure she experienced was his or hers. Luc's initial caution grew into certainty, and they forgot their wounds, and the soreness, aches, tiny jabs of anguish only intensified the dark sweetness of their lovemaking. If it was was love they were making. To Fern love seemed such a little word for something that was so fundamental, so primal, a plunging into the roots of being, an exploration not simply of the physical self but of the spirit. She had never felt so defenseless, so totally exposed, even to her very core, and she luxuriated in it. And at last she understood that what they were making was not just love but magic, and the Gift in him woke to hers, and the power flowed through them both, so all their nerve endings were alight, and their senses were magnified. They fed off each other like succubi, and drank each other like vampires, and gave themselves as willing victims, until hunger was sated and thirst slaked, and their souls were drained to the dregs. Fern saw Luc open himself to her, saw the layers of dissemblance that hid his heart peeled away one by one, until in the moment of ecstasy he appeared as a deity of the night, demiG.o.d or superhuman, his body arched backward in a terrible splendor, the darkness spreading out from him like wings, his face racked with ultimate agony, ultimate bliss. When the magic finally ebbed it felt like dying, if dying is a terminal relaxation, a drifting away of self and thought. Fern slid voluptuously into the blackness of sleep, and dreamed. love they were making. To Fern love seemed such a little word for something that was so fundamental, so primal, a plunging into the roots of being, an exploration not simply of the physical self but of the spirit. She had never felt so defenseless, so totally exposed, even to her very core, and she luxuriated in it. And at last she understood that what they were making was not just love but magic, and the Gift in him woke to hers, and the power flowed through them both, so all their nerve endings were alight, and their senses were magnified. They fed off each other like succubi, and drank each other like vampires, and gave themselves as willing victims, until hunger was sated and thirst slaked, and their souls were drained to the dregs. Fern saw Luc open himself to her, saw the layers of dissemblance that hid his heart peeled away one by one, until in the moment of ecstasy he appeared as a deity of the night, demiG.o.d or superhuman, his body arched backward in a terrible splendor, the darkness spreading out from him like wings, his face racked with ultimate agony, ultimate bliss. When the magic finally ebbed it felt like dying, if dying is a terminal relaxation, a drifting away of self and thought. Fern slid voluptuously into the blackness of sleep, and dreamed.

The same dream. The surreal city, the Dark Tower, the office with its window on the world. And the shadow who showed her the file bound in red, and the doc.u.ment with its strange calligraphy: the doc.u.ment she signed in blood. She saw the knife nick her arm, and the blood run down, staining the quill, saw the unreadable signature begin to trace itself across the page . . .

She woke up. The moon had put in a belated appearance, nearly full now, shining low through the windowpane. Its long rays reached across the bed, silvering Luc's uncovered chest, his left arm extended toward her. She saw the V-shaped scar of the knife wound, clear in the moonlight. The dream filled her.

Now she knew what it meant.

XI.

Luc woke to find himself bathed in moonlight; Fern lay in the darkness beyond. He reached for her, but she was as motionless and unresponsive as stone. He could not distinguish her expression; only the glitter in her eyes told him she was awake and aware. "Come to me," he said, and his voice was soft and sure.

"No." She said it the way she had said it to Morgus, a grudging monosyllable wrung from her lips.

"What's wrong?"

"You ask me that." She did not even turn her head.

"Yes. I'm asking."

She lay unspeaking, letting the silence do its work.

"What is it?" he persisted, but he did not touch her again.

She felt so cold. At last she said: "Why? Why did you do it?" but she knew.

"Do what?" His tone had flattened; he could not maintain his air of bewilderment.

She sat up brusquely, thrusting her face into his. The moon spotlighted her, showing the tumult in her eyes; he drew back from that look. "I have the Gift," she said. "Don't you know what that means? I can dream my way into your head. The face can hide your feelings, but in the soul, nothing hides. I have been inside your soul. Only it isn't yours anymore, is it? You made the ancient bargain, you gave him your Self. For Dana? Was that the excuse?"

"It was the reason," Luc said. "But not the only one."

She lay back again, disappearing beyond the light. "Honesty. At last."

"The nurse at the hospital-the one I told you about-sent me to the place. I had seen it before, in other cities, always from a distance-a few streets away, between buildings, a tower among other towers. I felt it was my destiny."

"You were afraid," she said.

"Yes. And desperate."

"But he showed you all the nations of the world and promised to spread them like a carpet beneath your feet. He promised you wealth, power, and an eternity of-what? Servitude? And Dana. He promised to restore Dana. But you and I did that, without his help."

Luc said: "He showed me the way to you."

"And I thought it was chance, or fate. He told you about Rafarl, didn't he? He told you what to say. He plucked the tooth out of your lower jaw." Still she lay in the dark, on her back, unmoving.

"The tooth . . . yes. But my dreams were my own. My soul knew you long before we met, with or without Azmordis. Maybe I am your lost love, maybe not, but I loved you tonight. You know that's the truth. With your Gift, you know it."

She was silent so long he might have thought she slept, but for her body's tension. "If you are my lost love," she said eventually, "I would you had never been found. As for tonight . . . that was not love. That was Judas's kiss. With my Gift, I know it."

"If that is what you wish to believe."