The Witch Queen Part 23

"It doesn't matter," Mabb declared magnanimously. "You were unprepared. You may send your gifts later, with my subject here. This apple is from my special tree," she added. "No other in the world has the same sweetness."

"Thank you," Fern said again.

Gaynor felt it was time to rush into the breach. "How is the house-goblin-Dibbuck?" she asked. "Will he be able to go back to Wrokeby now?"

Mabb's face seemed to darken. "None of goblinkind will go there for an age and more," she said. "When all the spirits are driven out of a place by some great evil, it brings the abyss very close. Sometimes, it is an act of sorcery; sometimes, a mortal deed. Mortals talk loudly of honor and chivalry and the code of war, but they surpa.s.s werefolk in evil, when they wish. Are not the witchkind mortal, at birth?"

"We are always mortal," Fern said bleakly. "We just forget."

"About Wrokeby," Gaynor said hastily.

"Even the birds will not go back there for a long while," said Mabb, "or the little nibblers and sc.r.a.ppickers who live in old houses. Only malignant elementals will roost in its rafters, the kind who are drawn by the nearness of the void and the black humors that gather in such places. If the house-goblin returned, they would send him mad."

"Will he be all right with your people?" Gaynor inquired.

The queen shrugged, twitching her wings. "Maybe; maybe not. He is not strong like us wild goblins. He pines for his lost wardship. He may pine away until he loses his hold on existence and sinks into Limbo. Or he may live, and brood, and wither slowly in a long, long autumn. Who can say?"

"I wish him well," said Fern. "Tell him that."

Unexpectedly, Mabb inclined her head in acknowledgment. "The wish of so great a sorceress is a potent thing," she said. "I will tell him."

Gaynor saw Fern suppress a wince.

The queen declined a gla.s.s of wine, to Skuldunder's disappointment, and departed, leaving behind the barkload of gifts and the lingering reek of Dior and dead fox. Studying Fern's face, Gaynor replaced the chardonnay with gin.

"Mighty," said Fern, almost musingly. "Such a horrible word. It sounds heavy heavy, like a mailed fist. Mighty is righty. I don't look look mighty, I don't mighty, I don't feel feel mighty, but I am a great sorceress. I destroy my enemies even when they think they are invulnerable and I slay my lovers lest I grow too fond of them. That is what I have become, or what I will be. It is written." mighty, but I am a great sorceress. I destroy my enemies even when they think they are invulnerable and I slay my lovers lest I grow too fond of them. That is what I have become, or what I will be. It is written."

"Written where?" said Gaynor.

"In the annals of Time-in a prophecy of stone-in the rushing wind and the running water."

"In other words, nowhere," said Gaynor, determined to be pragmatic. "Nothing is written till we write it ourselves."

"Who said that?"

"I think I did."

"It's a good one," said Fern. "I like it. But I already wrote my my fate. In blood." fate. In blood."

At work the following day, a prolonged session with the creators of Woof! Woof! magazine did much to take the edge off her mightiness. Hitches sprang up like toadstools: Gothic rock star Alice Cooper, invited to the launch because he was rumored to sleep with a couple of pythons, admitted to a snake phobia, and writer Carla Lane had gone into print to boycott the party since so many of the superstar pets were endangered species. A joke memo circulated the office saying that Richard Gere would be bringing his collection of gerbils, Freddie Starr a born-again hamster, and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson her new coat. (The last item turned out to be true.) Fern did not smile. She was about to quit her desk for an unavoidable stint in the Met of socializing with clients when the phone rang. Her hand hovered, hesitated, lifted the receiver. She wasn't looking forward to the bar. magazine did much to take the edge off her mightiness. Hitches sprang up like toadstools: Gothic rock star Alice Cooper, invited to the launch because he was rumored to sleep with a couple of pythons, admitted to a snake phobia, and writer Carla Lane had gone into print to boycott the party since so many of the superstar pets were endangered species. A joke memo circulated the office saying that Richard Gere would be bringing his collection of gerbils, Freddie Starr a born-again hamster, and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson her new coat. (The last item turned out to be true.) Fern did not smile. She was about to quit her desk for an unavoidable stint in the Met of socializing with clients when the phone rang. Her hand hovered, hesitated, lifted the receiver. She wasn't looking forward to the bar.

"Can I speak to Fern Capel?"

"Speaking."

"Dane Hunter." Of course: the American accent. A little to her surprise, she remembered him at once. "I'm the archaeologist you met at the site in King's Cross. You were right about that inscription. We won't be working there much longer-the developers never give us enough time-but I thought you might like to come and have a look before they build over it."

"Yes," she found herself saying. "Yes, I would."

XII.

Fern went to King's Cross the next day, stretching her lunch hour. It was raining in a thin, drizzly, disheartened manner, but despite rat's-tail hair, dripping noses, and crumpled windbreakers the volunteers were still working with enthusiasm. Dane came to meet her in a damp sweatshirt and straggling ponytail, his tan faded to sere in the gray of a British summer, his smile switched on a little too late, as if something about the sight of her disconcerted him. He was thinking she had lost weight and looked indefinably more fragile, less perfectly composed than before. He said: "Those shoes won't do." She wore high-heeled mules that seemed to hang loose on her feet; even her ankles appeared brittle.

"d.a.m.n," said Fern. "They'll have to. I forgot to bring any others."

He took her arm to a.s.sist her over the rough ground.

"How did you get my number?"

"You wrote out the inscription on the back of your business card," he reminded her. "I hope you didn't mind my calling."

"No, of course not."

"I tried you two or three weeks ago," he went on, "but they said you were on holiday. Since then, things have been a bit busy. I've been attempting to convince the developers this site is important enough to be preserved, but we can't get any backing from English Heritage-they say it's 'interesting' but there isn't enough here. What they mean is, there's nothing to pull the tourists. And no one but you has been able to decipher the language on the stone. Take a look."

The trench was much deeper now, the fallen stone raised so that the engraved lettering was visible on the side. Dane sprang lightly down and, without asking, lifted Fern after him. She leaned closer to read the words she had already seen in her mind. The script was Roman, not the far older Atlantean alphabet that is similar but more complex, including a separate sign for th th and several different vowels for variations on and several different vowels for variations on e e. "Uval haade. Uval nean-charne." "Uval haade. Uval nean-charne." A tremor ran through her as she recalled what Mabb had said about Wrokeby. "I think . . . something happened here a very long time ago, maybe thousands of years. It's left its mark. It isn't a place for the curious to stand and stare." A tremor ran through her as she recalled what Mabb had said about Wrokeby. "I think . . . something happened here a very long time ago, maybe thousands of years. It's left its mark. It isn't a place for the curious to stand and stare."

"My team don't seem to mind," Dane said. "At least . . . one of the girls was diagnosed with depression, but she probably had it anyway. Someone fell in a trench and sprained his ankle, we had the usual cuts and bruises, and one guy's eczema came back. Is that enough to justify a curse?"

"Not a curse," said Fern. "Just . . . leftover evil. The aftertaste of emptiness."

He didn't mock. "I guess I know what you mean. I always need a drink when I quit the site. But that's pretty standard, too." He scrambled back up out of the hole and reached down to swing her up after him. "I could use a beer now. How about you? There's a pub around the corner."

"I have a meeting at three-fifteen."

"That gives us at least an hour."

The pub was small and poky inside, yellowed with cigarette smoke, patronized by a handful of barflies who looked as if they had been there since the Stone Age, or so Dane said in a murmured aside. "So has the beer," he added.

"I don't drink beer," said Fern. She asked for a mineral water.

"No alcohol at lunchtime?"

"Not really. Oh all right, a G and T. Thanks."

The barflies stared at Fern, but were evidently accustomed to Dane. He paid for the drinks and led her to a corner table. "If you're hungry they do sandwiches, but they're not very good."

"I'm not hungry."

"Excuse me if I'm being too personal, but have you been ill lately? You look kinda thin."

"Stress," said Fern. "Lots of stress."

"I thought witches could just wave their wands and magic their problems away."

"I left my wand on the tube," Fern said with the flicker of a smile.

"Must be real easy to do. Like umbrellas. When I first came to England I always carried one, but I kept leaving them everywhere."

"You go through a lot of wands in my business," Fern affirmed. "I don't see you as an umbrella person, somehow. More a getting-wet person. Like now."

Dane grinned, pushing back a damp forelock. "Maybe I exaggerated a bit. But when you come from California, and you've heard so much about English rain . . . well, I did have a couple of umbrellas to begin with. Till I lost them."

"It's been a lousy summer."

"So everyone keeps telling me."

"Have you been over here long?"

An hour later, she glanced guiltily at the clock. "I must get back. We've got the dog-biscuit people coming-they're sponsoring the magazine and paying for the party, so we have to keep them sweet." She had told him about Woof! Woof! "I-I've enjoyed this." She sounded slightly nonplussed by her own response. "I-thanks. I wish you luck with the site and everything." "I-I've enjoyed this." She sounded slightly nonplussed by her own response. "I-thanks. I wish you luck with the site and everything."

He stood up with her.

"No chance your telepathic skills could find me a human skeleton lying around there? That always gets things moving."

"Sorry." Her smile flickered again. "I don't do bones. You need a dog."

"Well, thanks for your help, however you did it. I'll always believe in witches now."

Outside, they shook hands by way of good-bye, and he held hers a moment too long. Just a moment.

"How about dinner sometime?"

She went out with him on Sat.u.r.day, starting with drinks in a pub and moving on to a Vietnamese meal in a restaurant of his choice. It was far less sophisticated, and less expensive, than her evenings with Luc, but she didn't care. At the liqueur and coffee stage, Dane asked her: "Are you going to tell me what caused all this stress you've been having recently-or am I being too nosy?"

"I was seeing someone," Fern said. "It didn't work out." She concluded, after a pause: "All fairly commonplace."

He heard the quiver in her voice. "Was he playing around?"

"Playing? No-nothing like that. It just . . . wasn't working."

"Rich guy?"

"How did you know?"

"You look like the kind of girl who pulls rich guys. I don't mean-h.e.l.l, that came out all wrong. You look-high maintenance. And you must meet plenty of rich people through your job."

"I don't usually check," said Fern. "And for the record, I maintain myself. Anyway, what about you? Some archaeologists are rich. Heinrich Schliemann and co."

"He's dead," Dane pointed out. "For men like that, archaeology is a hobby, not a career. I get by. I lecture in term-time, dig in the vacation, sometimes both."

"Like Indiana Jones?"

"You got it. Picture me with a whip and a leather hat, stealing the green eye of the little yellow G.o.d from a gang of crooks. Beautiful girl on one arm-"

"Dead rat on the other?"

They both laughed.

"Whoever your guy was," Dane resumed presently, "he must have hurt you pretty bad. You look like you haven't laughed much in a while. Was he a fool or a knave?"

"Knave," said Fern, "I suppose. We-we had a disagreement . . . an argument. You could say it was a question of ethics."

"So it was you who ended it?" said Dane.

"Yes," said Fern. She produced a pale smile. "I ended it."

Back at the flat, feeling comfortably wined and dined despite the conversational hurdles, she drifted easily into slumber for the first time in weeks.

It was dark when she awoke, and a glance at the bedside clock showed the time was twenty past two. She lay for a few minutes feeling restful, even though sleep was ebbing from her brain. Gradually, she became aware of a presence nearby, or the imminence of one, an elusive pressure on the atmosphere that did not quite take shape and solidity. She detected a muted heartbeat, a sense of menace, yet she was not afraid. "It's all right," she said. "You're invited." He developed slowly, a thing of air and darkness hardening into flesh. He was clean now, his coa.r.s.e mane softened into an aureole from recent washing, his hot, animal smell more un.o.btrusive than usual. Her witchsight could just make out the terrible pitting on his brow, but beneath the ridge of bone his eyes were almost calm, their red gleam deep and soft as burgundy. "It is good to see you," she said, and meant it. "If you go and wait in the living room-that way-I'll put something on and we can have a drink together."

"Is that what friends do these days?" Kal asked.

"Yes," she said. "That's what friends do."

They did what friends do. She opened a bottle of Corton that she had bought to share with Luc, and they drank their way through it. He looked bizarre sitting in an ordinary armchair, dressed in oddments of fur and hide, one leg outstretched, the other crooked, his lion's tail looped over the armrest. The man-made light shone on his giant muscles, his disfigured face, the twisted coil of his horns. He glanced around from time to time, when he thought she wouldn't notice, half-nervous, half-wondering, as if he had difficulty believing he was really there. Fern found herself filled with a deep warmth toward this mongrel creature with whom she had once traded friendship as part of a bargain, an offer made in cold blood to save her own life, and who had since become a friend indeed. It seemed to her that, more than anyone, he was the person she could talk to about everything that had happened, the one who would truly understand. She told him about the final battle with Morgus, and the courage Luc had shown, and that hiatus after when they came together at last. And the dream, and the wakening, and what followed. "I killed him," she said. "He hesitated-I know he did-but I didn't. I killed him I killed him."

"It's natural," he said. "I have killed often and often. To feed-to win-in vengeance-in hate. I have killed the howling dog that disturbed my sleep and the fox that slunk from my path and the beggar who would not share a crust. Your little killing is nothing, Fernanda. It is your conscience that magnifies it, born of your soul. I have no conscience, no soul. I cannot comprehend such feelings."

"Then why did you never kill your mother?" said Fern. "Why did you love her, in spite of all she did to you? Oh, yes, you did-you loved her and loathed her, and when her death released you, in a corner of your heart you mourned, because now there was no chance she would ever turn to you."

"You are seeing phantoms," said Kal. "I never loved my mother, nor mourned for her."

"Liar," said Fern. "I can sense your emotions, even the ones you deny. They are prisoners as you were, trapped in your subconscious. Let them free."

"Give me the wine, and let my emotions be. We were talking of yours, little witch. Your lover betrayed you, and threatened you, and you killed him to save yourself. That is the right of any living thing."

"Is it?" said Fern. "Or did I kill for the sake of killing, because I could? Because he made love to me, and without killing him I knew I would never be rid of the taint?"

"You are not a killer by nature, I know that. Hence these torments."

"I am not tormented," Fern responded. "I am . . . diminished. I have always believed that your soul grows when you do something that is good and brave, a right thing, a true thing, and when you do evil-no matter what the motive-your soul is eroded. Well, my soul is less. I feel an emptiness inside. As if there was a little bright flame in the nucleus of my being, and now it has gone out, or withered to an ember. I don't . . . I don't quite know how to go on living."

"Yet you manage," Kal said. "That emptiness is familiar to me. I have always had it."

"You have a soul," Fern a.s.serted. "At least, a soul in potentia in potentia. I can see it."

"My father was an immortal who had no seed. My spirit was plucked from the ether and forced to inhabit a fetus botched together by magic from an unholy union. My heredity does not include a soul."