The Cauldron Effect, page 15
HAND IN HAND, MERRYN and Braden ran through the woods. She couldn’t believe all the witches had fled unscathed. It had been a narrow escape. If Braden hadn’t appeared like an avenging angel with his blessed sword, who knew what might have happened. Even now, their odds were slim, for that warlock was right. This was his wood. She would have to avoid using magic for that reason. It would be too easy to be tracked.
Not using magic meant no safe pathways to run through and rocks and debris were everywhere. She held her gown up to prevent tripping. Her breaths came out in puffs. All the while, Braden’s reassuring grip on her hand never wavered.
They ran into a little clearing where a fox lay sprawled on the ground. At their precipitous entrance, the animal gave a frightened yip and raced into the brush. They kept going.
A glance to the side showed Braden, too, was tired. She called a brief halt by tugging at his hand.
“Rest?” He sounded out-of-breath. “Want to fly?”
The latter question sounded like a reluctant suggestion and Merryn hid her grin. “Too dangerous to use magic, and I can’t use my powers while transformed.”
She helped him instead to fashion a sheath from his coat so he could carry the sword at his back.
“Thank you.” He slid the sword into place. Then he surprised her by pulling her close and kissing her. Slowly. Thoroughly. He stole away her last remaining breath. “That’s for staying alive until I could get to you,” he murmured.
They set off again, leaving Merryn’s emotions spinning. Several minutes later, her lips still tingled from his touch, and her heart pounded from the thrill of that kiss.
What are you doing, Merryn? she asked in silent wonder. He’s a church guard. You’re a witch. You might as well be down a mineshaft igniting a wick while covered in gunpowder.
“This is foolish,” she muttered and then realized she’d said that aloud.
“No more than Agamore appearing in my hand,” Braden said. “I’m no magician, Merryn, yet suddenly, everywhere, life seems magical. That includes my feelings for you.”
He has feelings for me.
“What kind of feelings?” she asked in a gasp. At least she could blame her breathlessness on the running.
He gave her a quick sideways look from deep blue eyes that dared her to suggest she did not mirror his attraction.
“Oh,” she said, “those feelings.”
He jumped over a high log and turned to lift her up and over it, only he didn’t set her back on her feet. Instead, he rested her against him.
“Yes, those feelings.” He kissed her again, long and deep, and with a promise of much more soon.
Her legs wobbled dangerously when they touched ground. He laughed and hugged her close.
“We’re in danger, my lord,” she said in a stern tone, but rested her face against his strong shoulder. She didn’t ever want to let go. Just one more lovely embrace, she promised herself, wrapping her arms around his solid form.
“Yes.” He sounded troubled. “More so than I ever imagined possible.”
She leaned back at that. “What do you mean?”
“It occurred to me back there that if warlocks can so effectively influence the church guards and likely the archbishop, who knows what else they are capable of? All of England could be endangered.”
Merryn shivered at the worry in his voice. All this time, the war had only been between witches and the warlocks. She wasn’t sure she was ready to invite the rest of the kingdom into their battle. Too many people could be hurt. “Let’s keep going.”
They ran a while longer and then Braden called another halt. She stopped, breathing heavy, feeling the start of a stitch at her side.
“How did you keep him from influencing you?” he asked, bent over, hands on knees, breathing as heavily as she.
“I sensed his mind touch. It is not easy to discern. Your guards and your archbishop should not have been so influenced.”
“What do you mean?”
“Humans react badly to Wyhcan mind magic. An ancient warlock once postulated that it had something to do with a basic human need to exercise free will. I do not understand how a warlock could have so effectively directed this event.”
Braden flexed each of his legs.
Watching him, she followed suit, for every muscle ached in protest.
“Can they have discovered a way to better control their mind magic?” he asked.
“He claimed as much.” She walked about the area stretching out her arms. “For centuries, warlocks have been working on a spell to make their mind magic more successful against humans.” The idea that they might have succeeded terrified her.
“Can anything be done to help the church guards?”
“One of our healing witches might be able to break the spell.”
He whipped her around to face him. “Merryn, that is indeed good news. Can this truly be done?”
She feared she had no easy answer. “We would need to study the problem. Even if a cure were possible, your guards may not tolerate a witch working on them. Also, there are too many who have been bespelled.”
He released her with a sigh.
“We should keep going,” she said. “The witches were to meet me a league from their coven. Shouldn’t be much longer.”
With a nod, he took her hand and off they went. The next time they stopped, he leaned against a tree trunk, pulling her to lean beside him and asked, “How about working on one person?”
Dizzy from the constant running and fear, she dropped her head onto his shoulder. It took a moment to remember what they’d been talking about. Right. The warlock spell on the guards. “Do you have someone in mind?”
“The Archbishop of Canterbury. He’s the only one who, once he’s free of warlock influence, can command all the affected guards to submit to a witch’s care.”
The daring idea stunned Merryn.
A cracking of a nearby branch had them both turning in alarm. Braden drew his sword and pushed Merryn behind him.
Foolish man. If a warlock were nearby, she could defend them better than Braden, even with his magic sword. Well, perhaps not better, but certainly as well.
“Who’s he?” a woman’s voice asked from behind a wide hawthorn bush.
“Come out and identify yourself,” Braden countered.
The woman peeked around the bush, looking worriedly from Merryn to Braden. “I’m Branwyn. I’m to guide Ms. Pendraven to where the others have convened.” She gave Braden a suspicious glare and added, “Alone.”
Merryn stepped around Braden to face the witch. “This is Lord Braden.” She indicated his sword and he obligingly lowered his weapon.
“He wears the ring of the Green Cross!” With a squeal, Branwyn returned behind the bush. “We’re surely doomed.”
“You were doomed the moment your coven made that foolish pact with the warlocks,” Merryn replied with impatience. “Now come out and speak to us.”
“The church guards are the ones that burned our building,” Branwyn protested from behind cover.
Merryn gave a heavy sigh. “Though Mattock denied it, it must have been him who talked the guards into igniting the building and then he had to have magicked the fire to ensure you couldn’t escape.”
There was still no sign Branwyn intended to step out from behind the bush.
Braden shrugged and put away his sword.
“Who are you going to trust, Branwyn?” Merryn asked, losing what little remained of her patience. “How sound has your own or your sage’s judgment proven to be in the past few days? I’m your coven protectress and I tell you it is safe to face me. Now come out this instant!”
After a moment of silence, when Merryn half expected Branwyn to have fled, the witch came out of hiding.
Her gaze was still suspiciously planted on Braden, but her timid steps brought her up to Merryn.
“Where are the other witches?” Merryn asked.
Branwyn pointed. “That way.”
“Good. Now, while we go join them, tell us about Trystan.” Matching words to action, Merryn set a brisk pace. Both her companions quickly followed.
“Were you sent to Callington to steal him for the warlocks?” Merryn asked. “Why didn’t his father just ask the mother to return him?”
“He did! She insisted the boy must be baptized first. That riled not only Mattock, but Dewer, too, and started the trouble.”
“Did Dewer steal Trystan then?” Braden asked.
“He sent his dark fae to take the boy,” Branwyn said.
“How did hellhounds get inside a church?” Merryn’s gaze swerved to Braden’s sword as she remembered its unexpected appearance at the Fishguard coven. “A lot has been happening of late that shouldn’t be possible.”
“The hounds swarmed in through the bell tower entrance,” Branwyn said. “I don’t know how they got in there. The building is falling apart so they could have stolen in through a myriad of openings.”
“As with demons, are churches normally safe from fae, too?” Braden asked, with a raised eyebrow.
“One dedicated to a saint is supposed to be protected against all supernatural beings.”
“Including witches and warlocks?” he asked. “Then how were you able to enter Saint Agatha’s church? As had this witch, as well as Trystan, who is a warlock. His mother, too, is a witch. Is that because the protection in that church failed?”
“Only humans can enter without the express permission of the saint,” Merryn explained.
“Permission?” Braden looked thoroughly confused. Then he slowly nodded. “That’s who you were talking to outside the church doors.”
Merryn nodded, pleased at how quickly he grasped events. “Saint Agatha didn’t say the dark fae had taken Trystan, though,” she added with a frown. “Why not?”
“Probably embarrassed her building is in such sad disorder,” Branwyn suggested.
“Another reason to see to that church’s rebuilding,” Merryn said. “Once this matter of Trystan has been resolved.”
“Did you see the dark fae take the boy?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t, my lord. I’d positioned myself near Trystan hoping to somehow halt the proceedings. When everything went black, I reached for him, thinking this was my chance. He wasn’t there. By the time light was restored, the dark fae had left and the boy was gone. Then his mother set up one heavenly racket.”
“So we don’t know who took him,” Braden said.
“The warlocks think I did,” Branwyn cried. “I didn’t!”
Merryn shook her head at her companions’ utter obtuseness on this subject. Unable to contain herself, she spoke in the tone of someone responding to the question, What color is the sky? “Dewer took him.”
Braden turned her to face him and spoke in a gentle voice. “We don’t know that for certain, Merryn.”
“I know,” she replied, thumping her chest with a fist.
Braden stared at her in silence and asked, “Could your grief be swaying your judgment?”
The question struck her like a slap. She shook off his condescending hold and stepped away, her blood roiling hotter than when he’d kissed her. Just because he had learnt a sliver of her history, it didn’t mean he knew her every rationale. He knew nothing when it came to Dewer.
Her words poured out like hot lava. “Who else? Who else is vile enough to attack a defenseless child? Who else controls the dark fae? Who else would have sent those hellhounds after you in London? He’s probably found out by now that the warlocks asked the Church to send the Dove after him in retribution.”
“The Dove! The bird of death?” Branwyn’s voice spiked as her gaze swerved to Braden.
“I wasn’t sent after Dewer,” Braden spoke in his hatefully reasonable tone, studiously ignoring the Fishguard witch slowly backing toward Merryn. “Sutton sent me after the Coven at Callington.”
“Why?” Branwyn practically shrieked the question.
“To retrieve the boy,” Merryn reminded him. Why had Branwyn plastered herself to her side?
“Which I intend to,” he said.
“Not if you can’t see the truth when it’s glaring at you.”
Branwyn tugged at her sleeve.
“What’s becoming glaringly obvious, Miss Pendraven,” Braden continued, and she cringed at his formal use of her last name, “is that your relationship with this Dewer goes deeper than you’ve thus far let on.”
His arms crossed and eyes narrowed, he studied her with that inscrutable look she now hated. In fact, she couldn’t remember one agreeable thing about him.
“How well do you know this man?” he asked.
Branwyn tugged again.
Merryn waved her off like an annoying fly. “Warlock.”
“Warlock then.”
“Evil warlock.”
The corner of his lips twitched with the first hint of humor, but he valiantly controlled any urge to smile. Merryn remembered one thing she did like about this domineering church guard. He had nice lips.
Branwyn’s continuous tug finally broke through to her. “What is it?”
“If you’re right, then we need to steal Trystan back from Dewer and return him to his father, or there will be no peace between my coven and the warlocks ever again.”
“How do we do that?” Braden looked none too pleased with either of his witchly companions. “Even if Dewer has the boy, we don’t know where he’s hidden him.”
“Black Mountain,” Branwyn and Merryn replied in unison. They looked at each other and nodded in acknowledgement of that conclusion.
“Dewer’s home is a tower hidden in the Black Mountain on the southern border of Wales,” Branwyn explained. “It’s where he took–” She stopped abruptly.
“My brother,” Merryn finished through clenched teeth. “Where my parents died trying to free him.”
“You’re definitely not going there,” Braden said in a tone of finality.
Now he sounded like Aunt Morwena. Of course, they must chase down Dewer to his lair.
“I am going, my lord,” she said, reverting to his formal title. This time, neither Braden nor her aunt would stop her.
“She won’t be going alone,” Branwyn put in, linking fingers with Merryn’s left hand in a sign of solidarity. “I will accompany her as finding Trystan is my only hope of saving my coven. I failed them once and I can’t afford to do it again. The warlocks can be most unforgiving. None of us will be safe until that boy is returned to his father, unharmed.”
Braden raised and lowered his arms in frustration. “If we all go traipsing up there, Dewer is sure to be alerted. We’d have a better chance if I go alone.”
“No!” Merryn and Branwyn answered in unison again.
She frowned at the Fishguard witch, not liking how often they seemed in agreement. This was the witch who had conspired with warlocks not so long ago. She disengaged her hand and stepped away.
Just then, bushes rustled nearby. The Fishguard sage came out from the cover of the surrounding greenery. Behind her followed the rest of the Fishguard witches. Merryn counted eleven.
“We grew tired of waiting,” the sage said, looking contemptuously at Merryn, Branwyn and Braden, as if all of her coven’s misfortunes were their doing. “As for Black Mountain, we all go, or none will. I do not have faith in any of you to handle this matter with the proper delicacy that will be required to resolve the issue of young Trystan.”
Merryn bit her tongue hard on her response. Of all the nerve, to accuse Merryn and Braden of indelicacy when it was this sage and her coven who had attempted to interfere with Trystan’s baptism.
“I’m glad you’ve joined us,” Merryn said instead. “We’re far enough from Fishguard. Speed is now more important than remaining in human form. Time to fly.”
Chapter 10
“Trouble approaches,” Trevor, the tallest and darkest mountain in all of southern Wales, rumbled.
“I’ve been expecting it for days,” Eionion, the Devil’s Tablet, said in a dour tone.
Eionion, a flat projection of rock at the mountain top, had a long history of witnessing trouble - spurting blood, terrified screams and powerful words of invocations, though the words were often muddled.
On those rare occasions when a ceremony was performed correctly, Eionion had the opportunity to touch the infinite as darkness consumed a soul or the void loomed close.
“Hope they plan to clean up after themselves this time,” he muttered.
“The coming rain should wash you off proper,” Trevor replied. “Clouds gather overhead. They, too, sense trouble and have been grumbling about it all day.”
“What do you think the problem with the master is this time?” Eionion asked. “Another plea to the dark one? A battle for control? Petty theft?”
“Not sure. He seems of two minds about things. First, he opens the portal to the underworld, then he closes it. I hate it when he can’t make up his mind.”
“Is he being nostalgic about that witch again?”
“Most likely,” Trevor said in his ponderous tone. “Wish he’d get over it. Problem is, each time he opens that blasted gate, dark fae roar out as if they’ve been invited to a grand feast instead of to their doom. Also, no one thinks of the mess they leave behind. A regular earthly corpse may take weeks to decompose, but a dark fae takes forever to break down and they give off a stink I never seem able to entirely shed.”
“You have my commiseration,” Eionion said with deep sympathy. “Been there, sniffed that.”
WITHIN TWO HOURS, MERRYN’S group arrived at the clearing where her carriage awaited. Those who could not fly had been carried by the larger birds. Merryn stepped behind a tree to shift back to her human self and clothe herself in private.
Before Braden would allow Merryn to change him back into a wren, Merryn had to agree to give him the dignity of changing back with clothes intact, especially in front of witnesses. So, while most of the Fishguard witches chose to remain in their changed forms to conserve their magic, Branwyn alone returned to her human state. She then changed Lord Braden back with clothes intact.
The groom and post boy lounging beside the conveyance straightened and nodded to Merryn as she approached, before looking with obvious curiosity at the rabble accompanying her – cats, rabbits, deer and a flurry of birds congregating around the carriage.
