Huw had put the Fakenham cage in his bedroom, next
to his bed, but he wasn’t entirely sure what he would do with it. It was a
seven foot tall box, made of a rather shiny expensive metal alloy and it was
designed to keep out all projected magic. Two people could stand up in it, if
they were friendly enough, but there was no way that anyone could sleep in it.
Angharad had let
him have her spare cage, but reluctantly. He had to think up some cock and bull
story about experimenting with an esoteric branch of magic, but he wasn’t
convinced that she believed him. Maybe that didn’t matter – he doubted whether
she cared enough about what he was doing to tell anyone.
On the third night
after he had brought the cage home, just after midnight, Kratos came to visit
him again – or at least a projection of the Archwitch – and as soon as he heard
the dreadful voice he jumped into the cage, half awake and entirely terrified.
The voice went away immediately. He stood there, sweating in the November chill,
wondering when it would be safe to go back to bed. He waited, listening for the town clock
ringing out the quarter hours. At three o’clock he pushed his head out of the
cage and there was nothing. He crawled back to bed and slept ‘until noon.
***
He had heard about her powers before – the Witch
of Old Quay. She could read your thoughts and feelings and tell your fortune.
He knew nothing more about her, but it was with an encounter with her in the
back of his mind that he wandered down to the crumbling docks area. These were
the abandoned warehouses and piers of the old river port, which had been
replaced by the shiny new buildings of New Lock to the west.
There was a middle
aged woman sitting on a low wall as he strode past a derelict packing plant.
She had long, mad, brown hair, and was very round. She smiled at him.
‘You were looking
for me?’ she asked
He stared at her.
She seemed harmless but crazy.
‘Possibly…’
‘Got yourself into
a bit of a pickle, haven’t you, you foolish dab’
His mouth was dry.
How could he tell a stranger his problems if he couldn’t tell his closest
colleagues?
‘Possibly…’ he
repeated
‘You’re Huw
Hargest, aren’t you, a servant of Eth’
He shook his head.
‘That’s not so; I
am a witch, I serve my coven’ he said
‘And I know which
coven you belong to, too – a coven full of Ethian witches, following Ethian
ways.
‘That’s a lie – I’m
Rhylic born and bred’
‘Yeah – posh
Rhylic; in the High Lord’s pay, the lot of you’
Huw felt a rush of
righteous irritation. This was rude and unfair. He turned to walk away.
‘I don’t need to
listen to this; I think I will leave now’
But there was
something in her voice that made him turn round.
‘Not without
getting what you want, you won’t’ she chuckled
‘I can’t imagine
that there is anything you can give me that I might need, witch’
She stared and him
and muttered under her breath. He knew that she was casting a spell but he had no idea what it was.
‘You don’t want
that voice in your head getting rid of then?’
His body froze and
his heart skipped a single beat. How could she know? He was determined,
however, to stay calm.
‘How do you think
you can help me, then – old witch?’
‘Well, first, by
giving you some advice about how to address me. My name is Cerys, like your
coven’s founder. I am her great granddaughter…’
Her voice, which
had started out hard and confident, damped to a whisper
‘…or so my mother
insisted…’
Huw almost laughed
at this preposterous claim, but he still wasn’t sure whether this woman might
still be useful
‘Cerys…’ he
repeated, calmly, ‘how can you help me?’
She stared at him.
‘I can read your
fortune…’
Huw winced
involuntarily at the banality of the offer. He was surprised to see that she
reacted in turn: her face fell. For
moment she looked vulnerable. Her next words were hurried.
‘But only for my
interest and pleasure… After that I have some information for you’
Huw thought for a
second.
‘No – go ahead,
read my fortune, if you’d like’ he said, wondering why he was behaving as if it
mattered how she felt. Of course it didn’t matter –she was just some itinerant
hedge witch.
He sat on the wall
next to her.
She pulled her
cards out of her trouser pocket. They
were dog-eared and filthy. This wasn’t a very impressive start.
‘I need to do this
first’ she explained
She lay five cards
on the table, Huw knew the tarot pack well, but he had never seen these cards
before: the first was a red demon, with a giant red tongue; the second a tall
blonde haired woman surrounded by an unbelievably green forest; her hands were
surrounded by a nimbus of power; the third was a queen with a crown standing
above a crowd of adoring peasants; the fourth a female elf in a battered
jacket; the fifth a very thin red haired woman, dressed as a priestess in a
grey robe. They were strange cards.
His eyes wandered
back to the second card. The woman in it was very well rendered. If you’d known
her you’d be able to recognise her easily.
‘That’s Celia’ he
blurted out
‘You know this
woman?’
‘I do – she is our
combat witch’
‘Is she now…’
murmured Cerys
‘What’s she doing
illustrated on a tarot card?’
She shrugged.
‘They are always
the first five cards out of my deck. I have to discard them before I can do a
reading. They represent something important but I’m afraid that I don’t know
what’’
‘But those aren’t
standard cards…’
‘They were once –
they were the archfiend, the mage, the Empress, the Hierophant, and the High
Priestess. But they’ve all changed, for the last few months’
I must tell the coven about this he
thought, but then stopped himself. He could never tell them about this meeting,
ever, he knew.
She interrupted
his thoughts.
‘How many do you
want?’
‘What?’
‘How many bloody
cards?’
He twisted his
hands so he showed her his palms.
‘What’s the choice?’
She waved the pack
in his face.
‘This is no game –
any number … except nought’
‘Three’ he said,
without thinking
With
well-practiced hands she dealt out three of the magic cards, face up.
‘The fool, the hanging
man, the lovers’ she intoned as the cards dropped on to the wall. These were the normal cards of the pack: a
young man dressed in a traditional fool’s costume, holding a stick over his
shoulder with a bag at its end, a man, dangling upside down, one of his feet
tied to a bough of a tree; and two figures entwined, male and female.
‘So, you’re a canny witch’ said Cerys, ‘how would you read those
cards?’
Huw shrugged
‘I am to go on a
journey, which will involve an important choice and that it will lead to a new
alliance or friendship? Is that it?’
She looked at him
closely
‘You have the
gist’
She seemed in no hurry to say any more.
‘Is that it,
then?’
She caught his
gaze and held it.
‘Anything more
you’ll have to find out for yourself, in any case you didn’t seem very bothered’
That was true. He
made straight for what he really wanted.
‘You have some
information for me…’
‘I do. I know
someone who may be able to help you’
‘How do you know?’
‘What?’
‘how do you know
about the help I might need?’
She laughed
‘I have my
sources’
‘Which are?’
She stopped
laughing and assumed a very serious expression.
‘Dark forces from
before this time and beyond this place’ she whispered
‘Of course, they
would talk to you – and I suppose
that you can call spirits forth from the vasty deep?’
She shook her head
‘Don’t be a fool.
Do you want my information or not?’
He nodded despite
himself. Part of him wanted to laugh in her face, but another part was
listening intently/
‘Travel to Kinspit
and find the mage Euclid the Sophist. He’s based at the Advanced Mage Studies
school. He knows everyone in the city; perhaps he can find someone who will
stop the Voice…’
‘What voice?’ he asked feebly. She blinked.
‘That I cannot
say…’
‘Is that it?’ he
asked, thinking now that perhaps she was just guessing about everything.
She pursed her
lips.
‘Take it or leave
it, boyo’
His impulse was to
walk away without saying another word. But some other feeling made him fish
around inside his pocket He offered her a gold barbar.
‘I don’t want your
filthy Ethian money’ she said
He searched around
for another coin and threw both coins on the floor. He could see her
scrabbling for the money as he walked away. Soon he had turned the corner and
she was out of sight.
A minute later the coyote trotted out from
behind the wall. He looked up at Cerys. She fished around in her bag and handed
him the ribeye steak that he’d been promised. He barked once, grabbed the steak
and then was away.
No comments:
Post a Comment