Witch's Honour, page 31
she wasn’t. By the time they reached Yorkshire, Fern’s body was one
huge ache, she was chilled to the bone and could barely manage to
stutter directions. She knew she must get some sleep before she could
face Morgus and it was with relief she saw the solid fac¸ade of Dale
House. Dimly, she recollected that it was Saturday. Mrs Wicklow
wasn’t there. Fern unlocked the door with shaking hands, stumbled
into the hall. Lougarry slipped out of the kitchen on noiseless paws
and thrust a cold nose into her outstretched palm.
Some time later, when Will telephoned, Fern was asleep in one
bedroom, Luc in another, while Bradachin kept watch from an upper
window and the she-wolf from the moor above the road. Both mobiles
were switched off. The house-goblin contemplated answering – he was
conversant with the mechanics of telephones and often disconcerted
sales callers with the incomprehensibility of his curious brogue – but
did not want to leave his post. Fern heard it ringing, somewhere
in her dreams, and rolled over, and the sound was smothered by
the pillow.
It was well into the afternoon before she got up and tottered sleepily
downstairs, to find Luc already awake and attempting to make coffee
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without a percolator. ‘Tea for me,’ Fern mumbled. ‘Please.’ And: ‘Any
movement?’
‘Not that I can see. Maybe we weren’t the only ones who needed
a rest.’
‘Maybe.’ Fern wasn’t satisfied. ‘She’s thinking,’ she concluded,
‘planning something. She won’t just come storming in here.’
‘Perhaps she’s learned to fear you.’ Luc produced a wry smile. ‘God
knows I do.’
Fern missed the aside. ‘That’s not good,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I prefer being underestimated. Besides, when Morgus thinks, she’s
more dangerous than ever. I wanted her impetuous, arrogant, off-
balance, not careful and calculating. Oh well, there’s nothing we
can do about it now. We may have to play it her way for a while.
I’d better ring Will.’ She had left her phone upstairs.
‘Use mine.’ Having mastered the coffee-pot, Luc began to look for
tea-bags. ‘I called the clinic.’
‘Is Dana –?’
‘She’s conscious. Doing fine.’
‘You should have been there,’ Fern said. ‘Not absconding to the
wilds of Yorkshire with me.’
‘It’s only because of you that Dana came round at all. I pay
my debts.’
Fern asked, without looking at him: ‘Is that why you’re here?’
‘No.’ He poured himself coffee, made her a cup of tea. ‘I found
fresh milk in the fridge. Also sliced bread, butter, cheese. Do you
always keep emergency rations here?’
‘That’s Mrs Wicklow. She used to be our housekeeper, till she
became part of the family. She likes to be prepared. If we don’t
come, she’ll eat the stores herself. If we tell her we’re coming, she’ll cook enough food for a small invading army. Should we survive the
encounter with Morgus you’ll probably meet her. She’s very dour,
but don’t let it fool you. That’s just the Yorkshire persona.’
‘Soft as butter underneath?’ Luc suggested.
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Fern investigated the fridge, removing a slab that was frozen hard.
‘Depends on the butter.’
The day dragged. It had been a bad summer, but in Yorkshire
it was worse. Great seige-towers of cloud came rolling out of the
west, ready to topple over the landscape; eastward, a defiant sun beat
down on the chilly sea, turning it to burnished steel. A few flurries of rain formed a prelude to the approaching squall. Lougarry trotted in
around five, communicating with Fern mind-to-mind, as she did with
those who knew her well. ‘She’s out there,’ Fern reported. ‘The car’s
parked about a quarter of a mile away. She’s keeping her distance,
waiting her moment. Lougarry says she’s standing up on the hillside,
looking towards the house. One arm extended . . . first and fourth
fingers pointing . . .’
‘She’ll get wet,’ said Luc.
‘Not she. Raindrops would evaporate before they touched her.’
Unusually, Fern locked the back door. ‘I think we should all stay
inside now.’
The afternoon was growing swiftly darker. Too swiftly. Luc, watch-
ing through the kitchen windows, saw a cloud-shaped blackness
gathering over the house; flying specks wheeled past and seemed
to be sucked into it. The grey daylight was cut off and there was
a rustling, whirring noise like the beat of a thousand wings. But it
was a minute or two before he realised what was out there. And then
Bradachin came tumbling onto the table, materialising from mid-air
with the carelessness of haste. ‘Birrds!’ he exclaimed. ‘Muckle birds!
No they piebald glitterpickers but great corbies wi’ beaks as long as
your hond! Ye maun be working on some powerful cantrips, hinny,
for these will be coming in without ony inviting.’ As he spoke the first one hurled itself against the window: a carrion-crow twice normal
size, scissor-beak jabbing at the pane. Then another, and another.
Each bird hit the glass in the same place, and on the third impact
it cracked as if from a gunshot, splinter-lines webbing outwards. On
the fourth, the glass disintegrated, and the birds were in the kitchen.
Luc had snatched a besom and lashed out with the bundled twigs;
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Lougarry bared her fangs; Bradachin, spearless, grabbed both knife
and rolling-pin. Fern focused her power, and live energy crepitated
from her fingers, searing anything it touched. There was a smell of
burnt feathers and two bodies fell to the floor. The rest took flight.
‘They’ll be back,’ said Luc. ‘This house has too many windows. We
can only cover those in here.’
‘I’m thinking the corbies ha’ been told tae gang after the maidy,’
opined Bradachin. ‘Wi’ luck –’
The crash of breaking glass came from Will’s old studio. Luc
slammed the kitchen door, jamming the latch with a fork. ‘We can’t
stop them invading the rest of the house,’ he said. He turned back
to the shattered window – the breach in their defences – kicking the
corpses out of the way. ‘They’re so big. Are they ravens or crows?’
‘Baith,’ said Bradachin. ‘They wouldna normally flock thegither,
but these maun come from the other place –’
‘They’re from the Tree,’ said Fern. ‘Morgus has called them.’
‘They won’t get the head.’ Luc had re-gagged it and stuffed it in a
metal dustbin weighed down with a sack of potatoes.
‘I’m wishing ye would stop bringing them things hame, lassie,’
Bradachin remarked. ‘I ha’ told ye afore, I dinna hold wi’ necro-
mauncy.’
‘It’s important,’ Fern said tersely. She was listening to the sound
of birds blundering down the hall, battering themselves against the
kitchen door. ‘The house is going to be full of birdshit, apart from
the breakages. Mrs Wicklow won’t like that at all.’
‘I’m no sae blythe mysel,’ said Bradachin darkly.
Another attack came on the windows, only this time there were
more of them – 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 boxfull of matches amongst them, crying one word:
‘ Inye´!’, and every match flared. Many of the invaders concentrated on Luc, raking his arms with beak and claw, trying to home in on
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his face. Others swarmed round Bradachin and Lougarry. The metal
dustbin 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 golfballs
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, wires mangled, sink and table limed. Avine
corpses strewed the floor. The assault on the closed door had ceased.
Fern pressed the switch for the main light, but the flex was ripped;
Nature’s pyrotechnics provided the principal 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 Hitchcock 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 sombre, almost-handsome face which
she could not read, possibly 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 re-group in the same
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numbers: most of the birds had fled back to the place from whence
they came. In the branches of the Eternal Tree the weather changed
only with its dreams: a phantom sun warmed it, rain fed its thirst, but lightning that could fry an oak and hail that would strip its leaves
were nightmares from a dimension it had rejected. The birds that
fly between the worlds dwelt there in relative safety, menaced only
by each other. A few ravens remained behind, circling the house,
perching briefly on gable and chimney-stack, 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 cumulus, 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 bird-lime.
In Will’s old studio, they covered the broken pane with a black bin-bag, since all the clingfilm had been used in the kitchen. Fern even leafed
through the Yellow Pages and telephoned a glazier, 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 be watching her more closely than
she realised.
‘Nothing. Nerves.’
She knew Will would be waiting for another call but she did not
ring, 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 god switched on the
Evening Star, its tiny, friendly glimmer winking at her down the
lightyears. 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
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hand of the driver pounding the knocker, heard him call something
which might have been: We know you’re there. Then another voice, whisper-soft but so clear 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 axe 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 realised. She instructs an ordinary mortal to break in and issue
the invitation . . .
‘Shouldn’t we do something?’ Luc hissed, scowling.
Fern looked a negative. They drew away from the kitchen door,
positioning themselves by instinct, without any prearranged plan, Fern
in front of the patched window half leaning on the dustbin, Luc to her
left, Lougarry to her right, Bradachin lurking unobtrusively in the lee of the dresser. 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’ 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 basement but slowly, deliberately. Her gaze locked
onto 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
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slender. The serpentine tangles of her hair made an irregular black
halo around her face; contemporary makeup emphasised the fixity
of her expression, staining the set mouth, outlining the deadly eyes.
Her presence was so overpowering the room appeared to rearrange
itself around her, becoming mere background for her personality. Yet
Luc, glancing at Fern, thought that despite the force that Morgus
exuded, there was something in Fern’s face, for all its delicate angles and fine-drawn features, something indefinably, elusively similar,
matching look for look, meeting power with challenge. A hint – a
phantom – the shadow of a resemblance.
‘You have stolen something which 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.’
‘No,’ said Fern. The monosyllable seemed to escape her with
difficulty. She was clenching her power, braced, armed. In the bin
behind her, the head hammered against the sides with a muffled
boom . . . boom . . .
‘So!’ cried Morgus. ‘It is there!’ The familiar lightning flashed from
her hand. Fern made a quick gesture of defence, but she was just too
late, and the jolt knocked her off balance. Luc and Lougarry leaped
from either side, but Morgus’ movements were thought-fast: she singed
the she-wolf ’s fur and sent Luc reeling, burned even through his
jacket. The lid flew off the dustbin and the head sprang out in a
volley of potatoes, gag and blindfold unravelling. 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,’ said Morgus. ‘You stole – me. You stuck my guardian like an insect on card – you slew my Tree with my own poison
– and then you rob me of my self, a 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
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maggot-like creatures which wriggled into her clothes. She fought
