The Witch Queen Part 24

"We are more than our heredity," Fern declared. "Someone said to me recently, nothing is written till we write it ourselves. I owe you, Kal: you are always reminding me of it. So I will give you something. I will give you a soul."

Kal's eyes gleamed red as flame. "You have a spare?"

"Wait." She left the room, returning some ten minutes later with Mabb's apple wrapped in tissue paper. "Take this. It is a goblin apple; the fruit is not good but at its core is a soulseed. Plant it, nurture it, and as it grows, so will your soul." She had put a spell on it to encourage rapid growth. "One day it will become a tree, and when the tree blossoms, your soul, too, will flower. But remember, magic is not enough. You must nourish it with deeds, you must try to-"

"To do the right thing, the true thing?" He cupped the apple in one swarthy hand. His tone was suspicious. "Goblins have little magic, only petty charms, slumbersongs, will-o'-the-wisp lanterns. I have never heard of a soulseed."

But Fern was ready for that one. "Mabb is a picker-up of discarded enchantments," she improvised, "a h.o.a.rder of secrets who will forget in a moment what they are or where she has hidden them. She gave me this, no doubt, because she did not know or could not recall what it really was."

"Why should the light-fingered queen of a race of malmorffs be sending you gifts?"

Fern explained about their allegiance, telling him of Skuldunder-Kal had barely noticed him at Wrokeby-and Mabb's recent visit.

"Truly you have mighty allies," he commented, with amused sarcasm.

"I hate that word," she said, suddenly cold. "Mighty. Mabb called me me mighty. But I don't want to be." mighty. But I don't want to be."

"I think you need this apple more than I."

"It wouldn't work for me," she said. "I'm supposed to have a soul already. If it is damaged, no magic will make it grow."

"Then take your own advice. Nourish it with deeds. Live again, love again, whatever love may be-" his manner was mainly flippant, but not all "-and your soul will revive."

"Love again?" Fern shrugged. "I met someone lately, someone I could have-might have . . . but it's no good. If I loved him, I couldn't lie to him-I couldn't tell him the truth-it will always be there, the thing I did, like a great red wound that no one else can see. I won't be able to forget it, or ignore it, or set it aside. It will always be part of me-a part I can't share. I fear I am damaged for good."

"It is not for good," said Kal. He picked up the bottle and drained the last of the wine. "Thank you for my gift. I will grow myself a soul. Now I owe you, little witch-for many things."

"There are no debts between friends," she said.

"For that also I owe you. I will find a means to repay . . ."

She was growing tired now and she thought he had begun to fade, blurring from her sight. Then, as in a dream, there were strong arms lifting her, carrying her to her bed, and even as sleep supervened she felt the pillow beneath her head, and someone drawing the quilt up to her chin.

About three weeks later, she returned home from work to find a phial on her dressing table that had not been there before. Beside it was a note written in an ill-formed hand on a sc.r.a.p of her own paper. You know what this is. A single draft, and your Gift, and all you have accomplished with it, good or bad, will be forgotten. You can start again, no longer my little witch, just Fernanda. Good luck to you, however you choose. You know what this is. A single draft, and your Gift, and all you have accomplished with it, good or bad, will be forgotten. You can start again, no longer my little witch, just Fernanda. Good luck to you, however you choose.

The phial was very small, the size of a perfume bottle, and seemed to be made of rock crystal. As far as she could tell, it contained about a mouthful of clear water. When she held it up it took the light and broke it into rainbow drops that danced and flickered around the walls.

She sat for a while, remembering the caverns of the Underworld where Kal had been her guide, and the silver notes of a fountain now little more than a trickle, all that remained of a spring that had once fed a great river. Its name lived on in legend, though the healing water had all but gone. The well of Lethe.

She closed her hand tight around the phial, but did not touch the stopper.

Summer declined into autumn with little appreciable change in the weather, except that it got wetter. Will's production company won its first significant commission, involving about six weeks' filming in the more inaccessible parts of India, as a result of which he decided he needed to cement his relationship with Gaynor by moving into her flat. "With such an unstable job," he announced, "I need a stable home life. Besides, when some unhappily married creep comes around trying to sob his way into your sympathy, I want him to see my socks in the bathroom. And I want photos of us all over the place. Soppy ones."

"Next you'll be saying you want me to get pregnant," said Gaynor.

"We'll see about that in due course."

They gave a party to celebrate and Fern brought Dane, who, perhaps under her influence, had cut his hair short and wore something that might have been a suit if the jacket and trousers had matched. "He's lovely," Gaynor told her friend in an aside, hoping desperately that with someone like that Fern might learn to forgive herself, and let go of a past she could not forget.

"Isn't he?" said Fern, and her expression went cold. "I don't really know what to do about it. I don't deserve him."

As Will was going to be away until the second week in December, they made long-term plans for Christmas. "Family, friends, all together," said Will, offhandedly including Dane. Fern said nothing either to confirm or deny.

"We could go to Yorkshire," suggested Abby, Robin Capel's permanent girlfriend. "The house is big enough."

"Not Yorkshire," said Fern, so flatly that no one attempted to disagree with her.

Ragginbone paid Will a visit, a few days later, on one of his occasional trips to London. Hearing about Dane Hunter, he remarked: "I knew something about that excavation was important to Fern. I didn't pretend to know what."

"Will she ever be able to put all that business with Lucas Walgrim behind her?" Will inquired.

"Who knows? She is who she is. That is something that cannot change."

"As long as Dane doesn't turn out to be the reincarnation of some psychotic Viking or a mad Celtic druid."

"He may well be," said Ragginbone. "So may you. Since you can't remember, what does it matter?"

In late October, Fern and Dane took a weekend break in the Peak District. He had asked her to come to America to meet his family, but she refused, insisting it would be inappropriate as theirs was only a casual affair. The peaks were mostly obscured by rain, but he dragged her out on bracing walks and warmed her up afterward by the log fire in their hotel, and she wished she had more to give him than just the outer layer of her self. She was driving down the motorway on the way home when it happened. That sudden jolting of reality-an image from the spellfire flashing into her mind-a blinding glimpse into the moment ahead. She was in the fast lane, doing perhaps sixty-five, the wipers swishing the rain this way and that across the windshield. On the other side of the central divide there was a lorry coming toward her-huge, dirty, anonymous-she saw it in great detail. And behind the sweep of a single wiper the driver's face shrank into a skull, and his teeth jutted in a grin of triumph . . .

Glancing around, hand on the horn, she swerved abruptly across the traffic flow, skidding to a halt on the hard shoulder. Dane cried: "What the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l-" but his words were cut off by the scream of tires, a horrific thud, the crunch of metal on metal. Even as Fern moved to evade it the lorry had mounted the crash barrier, bucking like a giant bronco, carried forward by its own weight and slamming straight into the car that had been behind her, mashing it into the road. The two interlocked vehicles slid across the wet asphalt, adding other victims to a pileup that finally stopped about thirty yards back. Dane took one look and reached for his mobile, dialing emergency services with his left hand while his right arm held Fern very tight. She was still clutching the wheel, her teeth starting to chatter from shock. "How did you know?" he said. "How did you know to swing over like that?"

"I'm a w-witch," she said when she could speak. "I knew."

It had not been an accident-she realized that only too clearly. The death's-head was no hallucination; she didn't need to listen to the news the next day to learn that the driver of the lorry had mysteriously disappeared from the scene of the pileup in which two people in the car behind her had been killed and three others seriously injured. (My fault, whispered a still, small voice in the back of her mind.) She was at the top of Azmordis's. .h.i.t list: she always would be.

Until they got her.

That night, for the first time in a long while, she dreamed of Atlantis. She was back in the Past, living it, at one with it, and she was sixteen again, and the burden of her years was so light, so light, and the Fern she was now dwelt in the mind of Fernani, the girl of those far-off days, and danced for joy in the cleanness of her spirit, the freshness of her heart. And there were the lion-colored colonnades, and the slaves sweeping horse dung, and the smell of perfume and spices and dust, and the great disc of the sun beating down on the dome of the temple, and the sound of the drums throbbing like heat on stone, like blood in the brain. In her dream she experienced all the sweetest moments again, jumbled together in a moving mosaic, a wonderful kaleidoscope of images and feelings, taste, touch, scent. She was in the dungeon with Rafarl, and escaping over the rooftops, and supping in his mother's villa in the sapphire-blue evening, and making love on a beach at sunset where the sand was made of gold and the sea of bronze, and the great arc of the sky hung over all. Rafarl's face was clear in her vision, and the beauty that came to him when he stood in a fountain shaking the water drops from his hair, or rose from the waves like a sea G.o.d, and they walked in the deserted orchard of Tamiszandre plucking the peaches that grew there, silver and golden, and the Fern of today thought her heart would break with happiness to be revisiting her city, her love, her self.

But the throb of the drums grew louder, until the mosaic shattered like gla.s.s, and she was in the temple with the priests chanting and Zohrane opening the Door, and the shadow of the tsunami swept over them, blocking out the sun. The dome broke like an eggsh.e.l.l, and the columns cracked, and the nympheline nympheline Uuinarde was hurled into the maelstrom, and Fern fled with Rafarl down the tunnel to the harbor with Ixavo the High Priest in pursuit, clutching the wound in his head to stop his brains from oozing out. And they took ship, though it was too late, but at the last she threw herself overboard to delay Ixavo, and saw Rafarl sailing, sailing into the tempest, and thought he was saved. But the hurricane tore the ship apart, the mermaid took Rafarl, and the earthquake swallowed the golden city and everyone in it. The Ultimate Powers buried it deep and forbade even the vision of it to witch and sybil alike. But they cannot forbid my dreams, thought Fern, even as she slept, and in her dream she woke, and wept, wept a pool of tears, like Alice, then a lake, then her tears turned to starlight and she was sitting on the silver sh.o.r.es at the Margin of the World, waiting for the unicorn who would never come again. But because it was a dream he came, and bore her away, bounding through the star spray. Uuinarde was hurled into the maelstrom, and Fern fled with Rafarl down the tunnel to the harbor with Ixavo the High Priest in pursuit, clutching the wound in his head to stop his brains from oozing out. And they took ship, though it was too late, but at the last she threw herself overboard to delay Ixavo, and saw Rafarl sailing, sailing into the tempest, and thought he was saved. But the hurricane tore the ship apart, the mermaid took Rafarl, and the earthquake swallowed the golden city and everyone in it. The Ultimate Powers buried it deep and forbade even the vision of it to witch and sybil alike. But they cannot forbid my dreams, thought Fern, even as she slept, and in her dream she woke, and wept, wept a pool of tears, like Alice, then a lake, then her tears turned to starlight and she was sitting on the silver sh.o.r.es at the Margin of the World, waiting for the unicorn who would never come again. But because it was a dream he came, and bore her away, bounding through the star spray.

Where are we going? she asked, and he said: she asked, and he said: Home, Home, and she was glad, though she knew and she was glad, though she knew home home was neither Yorkshire nor London, nor even Atlantis. They rode on, and on, and the constellations were beaten to dust beneath his hooves, and the galaxies unraveled around them and streamed in ribbons through the flying universe. was neither Yorkshire nor London, nor even Atlantis. They rode on, and on, and the constellations were beaten to dust beneath his hooves, and the galaxies unraveled around them and streamed in ribbons through the flying universe.

When will we get there? she asked, and she knew it was the wrong question, because he answered: she asked, and she knew it was the wrong question, because he answered: Someday, Someday, and with that word the stars vanished, and the world turned black, and she moved on to another awakening. and with that word the stars vanished, and the world turned black, and she moved on to another awakening.

She was in the Cave of Roots beneath the Eternal Tree, gazing into the spellfire. She saw the graveyard of dragons in a mountain range beyond the reach of man or beast, the huge bones of one long-dead behemoth soaring upward like the skeleton of a cathedral, the dark-faced man who had come to steal the last dragon's egg walking under the arched ribs. She met his eyes in the smoke, in the instant before his death, and they were blue as wereflame and seared her like an ice burn. And she cut his head from the Eternal Tree, and brought it back to the real world, to finish what he had begun. He told her he was helpless in that form, without limbs to carry him or heart to care, but I will be your limbs I will be your limbs, she promised him. I will be your heart. I will be your heart. But he burned in dragonfire, and pa.s.sed the Gate, and she knew him no more. But he burned in dragonfire, and pa.s.sed the Gate, and she knew him no more.

Fern turned over in bed, reaching for the head on the pillow where she had laid it, and started back, because it was not the dragon charmer, it was Luc. He was as pale as his own corpse, and there was blood on his lips, but his eyes lived. "Blood washes out," he said, "but not the sap of this Tree. My sap is on your pillow, on your hands. Look-" and he vomited a gush of red, and smiled, and the smile became Rafarl's, and the head was rolling over and over down the beach, bouncing on juts of rock, spattering her with sap. The tide had gone out, exposing the seabed, and tiny fishes flapped helplessly to and fro, dying in the air. The head of Rafarl lay among the fishes, half sunk in the ooze, watching her sideways. She struggled to get out of the dream, but she was floundering in a quicksand, and the darkness closed over her.

With an effort that felt like lifting gigantic weights she opened her eyes. But the dream went on relentlessly; she was trapped in its maze and it would not release her until she was dreamed out. She was making her way through the city-the unreal city of rain-soaked lights and people with animal faces, beaked and furred and fanged. She reached the Dark Tower, and the elevator whisked her skyward, and she stood in the topmost office with the dripping quill in her hand, and Luc said: Sign Sign. And she must have signed, because he was smiling, and his face was changed, becoming both more beautiful and more terrible, and his wings unfurled like angel's wings, only black. The huge window vanished, and he drew her after him on wings of her own, soaring through the cloud wrack, and the city lights spread out far below, numerous as grains of sand. Ahead they saw the storm clouds piled into top-heavy cliffs, but they flew over them, and beneath them the lightning stabbed earthward, and whole areas of the city were darkened, but Fern knew it did not matter, because Luc said so. I am Lukastor, Lord of the Serafain. I will show you your destiny I am Lukastor, Lord of the Serafain. I will show you your destiny. But now it was all dark below them, blacker than a black hole, and the last grains of light were sucked in, and the storm clouds, and she knew it was the abyss. She too was being sucked downward, and she s.n.a.t.c.hed Luc's hand, but her fingers slipped through his. You are too heavy, You are too heavy, he said. he said. It is your soul that drags you down It is your soul that drags you down . . . . . .

She was floating in a lightless vacuum of utter cold. Every so often a face drifted past, billowing like a jellyfish. Some she recognized, Morgus, Sysselore, Alimond; others were merely familiar. One was just a pair of eyeb.a.l.l.s trailing a few thin filaments of nerve. She did not like this part of the dream at all, but it seemed to go on a long time, the floating and the emptiness and the cold that ate into her heart. Eventually there were no more faces. She grew very afraid, and cried out, calling on G.o.d, though she was not sure she believed in Him, not the G.o.d of conventional religion with His constant demands for worship and repentance. But there He was, drawing her out of the darkness, and she was sitting on a green bank beside Him, having a chat. He looked rather like Ragginbone, only kinder, white-haired and bearded, wearing a sky blue cape.

"How do I stop the dream?" she asked.

"You know how," he said.

And of course she knew.

She awoke in the pale gray of early morning feeling like a traveler returned from a long, weary voyage. For a while she lay thinking and thinking, conscious of what she must do yet dreading that final irrevocable step. She would have to make the necessary preparations, close every loophole; a single mistake could cost her more than her life. And maybe she should say farewell, to Ragginbone, Lougarry, Bradachin-but no, it would be too hard, she would do what had to be done and leave the explanations to Will. (Will and Gaynor: she must talk to them.) At least now that she had made her decision there was no more need to agonize: she had only to plan, and to act. She had killed-whatever the motive, whatever the circ.u.mstances-and there was a price to pay. The price for Luc's life, and for hers. Now she knew how it must be paid.

December was pa.s.sing. In the center of London there were Christmas trees on every promontory, shop windows festooned with tinsel and fairy lights and aglitter with snow scenes, elaborate montages with cribs, angels, shepherds, kings-goose girls, pixies, ogres, dragons. Children besieged the toy shops, demanding dinosaurs and video games, cuddly monsters and svelte princesses. The streets were infested with carol singers and people dressed as Santa Claus. It had rained recently, and in the premature dusk every glint of neon, every streetlamp, every fairy light was reflected back from puddled pavement and gleaming road, and the splashback from a pa.s.sing car sparkled like fireflies. Fern was making her way through the City, past the bulging bosoms of turkeys hanging in a row, and pheasants in all their feathered glory, and old-fashioned puddings in linen bags, and chestnuts roasting on a brazier that smoked and spat in the wet. The faces around her were mortal, flushed with seasonal good cheer, happy faces calling greetings even to those they did not know. The demons had turned into latex masks, masks and games and toys, and this was the reality she wanted, this safe, human world. Safe if only she could make it so, if her gamble worked, if she dared to lose all, to gain all-or all that was left. She pa.s.sed the entrance to a tube station, and saw the crowds boiling in the depths, and b.u.mped into a man who did not smile but simply sidled away, muttering. And then she found the pa.s.sage, just as she had known she would, because it was always there for those who looked. She paused for a moment-the last moment, when there was still time to draw back. Then she walked under the arch.

The lights behind her were cut off; it was very dark. She emerged into the square where the lamps were scant and wan, and the people, few or many, stood in little groups, always far away. At the center was the Tower. The city had receded into the distance, and the Tower stood alone, so tall it made her dizzy to gaze upward, plated with black gla.s.s, strengthened with black steel, outsoaring all other skysc.r.a.pers. Yet it is only a tower such as men build, she thought. Azmordis has no ideas, no imagination of his own, only what he has stolen from us, down the endless ages of dominion and envy and hate. She held on tight to that thought, hoping it might give her courage, or the semblance of it. The wide steps were before her, spreading out like waves on either hand, and the scarlet-cloaked guards with their metal faces, blinking once as she walked between them, and the great doors that parted automatically and swallowed her without a sound. She went up to the reception desk, hearing the tap of her booted feet on the marble floor echoing around the lobby. "I have come," she said.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"He is expecting me." He had been expecting her for more than fourteen years.

She crossed the narrow bridge to the elevator without looking down. Then as in her dream-in every dream-they rose upward, slowly at first, then faster and faster, leaving her stomach behind and making her ears pop and crushing her skull with the pressure of their ascent. At the top she stood reeling, pulling herself together. Then she stepped out. It is the same bridge, she told herself; only the drop is different. And somehow she walked across, with no noticeable hesitation, and mounted the escalator that traveled in a spiral around the outer wall of the Tower to the office. His His office. The doors slid open with a soft swishing noise, and she went in. office. The doors slid open with a soft swishing noise, and she went in.

The red lamp shone across the desk, but not on him. He was just a darkness in a suit. The carpet lapped the walls, and the curtains poured down from above, and the windows were huge and black with unrelieved night. She walked straight up to him, facing him across the ebony desktop. The walk seemed to take a long time.

He said: "So you have come to me at last." His voice was soft and deep as a purr, but colder, and it penetrated to the very recesses of her spirit. "The doc.u.ment is ready. I had it drawn up long ago." He pushed the red leather folder across the desk. Her name was embossed on the cover: Fernanda Elizabeth Capel, called Morcadis. She wondered how he knew about the Elizabeth. But he would always know.

"I sent you Lukastor, Lord of the Fellangels, to help in your fight against the witch queen Morgus," he went on.

"That was generous of you," she said. Politely.

"He was both brave and true," the demon said. "And he loved you. Yet you returned him to me with a spear in his belly. I valued him highly: his Gift was undeveloped, but under my tutelage he would have learned to use it, and he might have achieved much. You owe me for this, Fernanda, and for many other things. The debt must be paid. Therefore my terms are not so liberal as they might have been."

"I owe you nothing and you value no one," Fern said with all the scorn she could muster. "I have not come to accept your terms, liberal or otherwise. I have come to offer you mine."

There was a long, long pause-a pause such as that office had never felt before. The muted hum of something resembling air conditioning ceased. The whole force of his being shifted, focusing on her with a new and terrible intensity.

"Yours?"

"My soul is not for sale," she said. "But I will make you a deal for yours, such as it is, if you will hazard it."

"I-have-no-soul." The words grated, stone on stone.

"Then I will take what you have," said Fern. "Your unsoul-your spirit-your immortality."

"You will take- will take-you will offer-! What deal would you dare to offer will offer-! What deal would you dare to offer me me, least of witches? What makes you think you will leave this place alive? A word from me will melt your bones where you stand."

"I have protection," Fern said.

"What protection could you find that would avail you here here?"

"I invoke the Mother," she said.

Another pause, another jolt in his concentration. All his far-flung, casual power seemed to contract into the shadow before her; she could feel the glance of his unseen eyes like a ray of darkness probing her mind.

"She will not hear you," he sneered, yet there was doubt behind the derision. "She Who Sleeps will never rouse at your your whimpering." whimpering."

"She hears me," Fern said, and as when she had made the spell shield around her friends, another voice spoke through hers. In Moonspittle's bas.e.m.e.nt, she had touched the ancient power by accident, not knowing what she did. This time, she knew. "She was stronger than you once, Ysis-Astolante, Pangaea Allmother, but the priests bound her in slumber, and the world was ruled by men. You found them more apt to your hand than women, did you not? But the world changes, and maybe she sleeps but lightly now."

"So you are her her handmaiden?" handmaiden?"

"No. Not yet. I am no one's va.s.sal; I told you that before. I have come to buy you, if you will sell. She She is my surety." is my surety."

He stood up, growing taller and darker behind the light. He no longer appeared to be wearing a suit. She was aware of clouds forming beyond the windows, pressing close to the gla.s.s with clammy hands. Stars shone through them, in pairs.

She kept her attention on Azmordis.

"What can you you offer me?" offer me?"

She took the phial out of her bag, holding it up. Even in that place its contents shone pure and clear. "This is a single draft of the Well of Lethe. If I drink it, I will forget the very name of Morcadis, and all that I have done as a witch-as the least of witches-all that I learned, all that I was and all that I might become will be lost. I will no longer trouble you, nor threaten your schemes. I will live out my life as an ordinary mortal, and grow old, and pa.s.s the Gate, and none will remember me. That is my offer."

"And what must I do in return?"

"Forgo your vengeance on me and anyone connected with me, distant or dear. You must pledge your unsoul, for you and all who serve you or seek your favor. The doc.u.ment is ready." She drew a file out of her bag, set it down on the desk. It was red. "I had it drawn up according to the correct procedures. There are no loopholes. It wants only your signature."

A wind came howling around the Tower; the cloud shapes were whirled away in a writhing torrent, all groping limbs and gaping mouths. But within the office it was utterly still.

"If I should give my pledge, and break it?"

"The effects of Lethe would be negated, and your immortality would be forfeit." The shadow was enormous now, filling the room, and all the winds of the world shrieked outside, and in the blackness there was only the dull red glow of the desk lamp, like the smolder of a dying fire, and the glimmer of the phial in her hand. But her tone strengthened, and the power of her will and the steel in her soul mastered her fear. "Break your pledge and I swear, if it takes a thousand centuries, if I have to waken the Allmother and every other Spirit who ever slept, I will destroy you. Morgus opened the abyss to banish a handful of ghosts, but I will open it for you, and cast you into the void. I swear it."

"And if I tear up your doc.u.ment and send you squeaking from my presence clutching your leftover life in your feeble hands?"

"The same. I can do it; you know I can. Among the million possible fates that lie ahead of me that is one. For all your might, for all the height of your Tower and the depth of your hate, you fear me." Her heart trembled as she said it, but not her voice. "Sign, and you will be secure from me, if not from others. For men are many, and have resources beyond the Gift, and despite your servants and your slaves, your countless faces and names, you are only one."

There was a rumble in his throat that might have pa.s.sed for laughter, though it sounded like thunder far off. "Whenever men have tried to reject me, whether through some shining new creed or gentler religion, intolerance and pride have always turned them to my service in the end. Men are my creatures; they eat from my hand. The abyss itself will be filled ere they defy me."

Fern stood there, silent. Defiant. The chorus of winds screamed in mockery.

"You want me to ransom my very self to a mere mortal? I, Azmordis, ruler of both this world and the other! Who would you find to witness such a pact?"

"The Ultimate Powers," said Fern.

The tumult outside was suddenly quiet. The cloud thinned to a mist; the pairs of stars winked out. There was only darkness within and darkness beyond. The ember of the lamp was smothered and for the first time that night she saw his his eyes, filled with a glow the other side of light. His voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. eyes, filled with a glow the other side of light. His voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.