The Cursed Towers

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Isabeau,’ Lilanthe whispered in delight and nudged Dide, standing stiff-backed before her. He nodded once, brusquely.

  ‘Lachlan, is there no’ some other way to get the metal ye need?’ the red-haired woman asked wearily, and both Lilanthe and Dide started at the sound of her voice. It had an odd, stilted intonation, quite unlike the eager tones of the Isabeau they both knew. Lilanthe leant forward, staring at her intently, then, at Dide’s raised eyebrow, shrugged.

  Dide and Lilanthe had first been drawn together by their friendship with the red-haired Isabeau. It was only because of Isabeau’s capture by the Anti-Witchcraft League that Lilanthe had left the safety of the sheltering forests and joined the rebel movement. It was partly the hope of seeing Isabeau that had persuaded Lilanthe to accompany the jongleurs to Lucescere rather than staying in Aslinn with the other tree-shifter, Corissa. It had cost her dearly to leave Corissa for, until she had helped rescue her in Arran, Lilanthe had thought she was the only one of her kind—half human, half tree-changer, and welcomed by neither. She would happily have stayed in Aslinn, sleeping away the winter in the shape of a tree, had she not hoped to see Isabeau again, and had her secret feelings for Dide the Juggler not meant she wished to stay by his side.

  ‘We shall just have to try and find the men to work the iron mines,’ the old woman said, stroking the donbeag’s brown fur. ‘Though it be cruel work in this bitter weather, with the rations so short.’

  ‘Make all those that refused to submit to us work the mines,’ the redhead said. ‘All those prisoners o’ war that Tòmas insisted on healing should be put to good use. We have little enough food for our supporters without feeding and housing all those still championing Maya the Ensorcellor. Perhaps a few months digging in the darkness will make them regret their defiance!’

  The ruthless note in her voice made Lilanthe frown in puzzlement, for it was so unlike the tender-hearted Isabeau she knew. Tentatively she probed the mind of the white-robed girl. Immediately the bright blue eyes turned her way, meeting Lilanthe’s perplexed gaze with no hint of recognition. ‘But we have guests!’ the woman said, rising awkwardly, one hand bracing her back, the other trying in vain to support the weight of her enormously swollen stomach.

  Lachlan swung round and his scowl disappeared at the sight of the jongleurs. ‘Enit! Dide!’ he cried and strode forward, the kilt swinging. ‘Glad indeed I am to see ye! What in Eà’s name has kept ye?’

  He seized Dide’s hands and embraced him, then took Enit’s clawlike hand, kissing her withered cheek. From the group of courtiers by the fire came an inarticulate cry, and a tall man with a haggard face came stumbling forward. ‘Douglas, is it ye?’ he cried.

  ‘Dai-dein!’ Douglas rushed forward and was pulled into a fierce embrace.

  His father, Linley MacSeinn, said brokenly, ‘I thought I had lost ye as well! Douglas, where have ye been? What happened to ye?’

  Ghislaine and Gilliane NicAislin were being as eagerly greeted, for their parents had also been among those to flee the siege of Rhyssmadill. The other children shifted unhappily and wished they too were being reunited with their families. They had all been kidnapped by Margrit of Arran for her Theurgia, and many were a long way from home.

  ‘What a crowd! Where’s my wee Nina? Heavens, how ye’ve shot up, lassie!’ Dide’s younger sister Nina laughed and dimpled, her black eyes dancing at the Rìgh’s words. She made a pert response, and Lachlan picked her up in his powerful arms and spun her around.

  ‘But, Lachlan my lad, wha’ is this?’ Enit asked in a trembling voice. ‘Your claws, they are gone! Ye move as gracefully as any young man should. Wha’ happened? How did ye break the enchantment?’

  ‘A long story and one I hope ye will write a ballad about to woo the people to my side!’ he laughed. ‘Come, Morrell, set your mother down, ye must be dying for a dram on this wicked cold night.’

  ‘That I am!’ the fire-eater said. ‘But wha’ do ye do holding war councils at midnight? Surely all good people should be abed at this hour?’

  ‘Sleep is the one thing we have little time for,’ Lachlan responded, the laughter dying from his face, leaving it haggard with tiredness. ‘I am glad indeed ye have come, for we need all the help we can get.’

  In the whirl of explanations and introductions which followed, Lilanthe stood to one side, tired and bewildered. She did not understand how the redhead could look so much like Isabeau but be so unlike her in voice and temperament. She wondered if such a profound change could be the result of the torture Isabeau had suffered at the hands of the Awl during her imprisonment. Then Lachlan introduced the woman as his wife, Iseult NicFaghan, and Meghan said, ‘She’s Isabeau’s twin sister, Enit. Ye must remember Isabeau from that time in the woods, when we laboured so hard together to release Lachlan from his enchantment? She was only a bairn then, and Dide a mere lad.’

  ‘O’ course I remember her,’ Enit exclaimed. ‘So this is her twin? I remember ye hinting at such, last time we were able to speak.’

  The two old women gossiped on, but Lilanthe did not listen. She was gripping her hands together in sudden dread. She had seen the relief and gladness that had transformed Dide’s face at Meghan’s words. With a sharp pang she wondered whether his quietness this past month had been because he was afraid his one-time playmate was married and with child rather than because he was concerned about the ill will in the countryside. When a door at the end of the hall opened quietly and Isabeau slipped inside, Lilanthe saw the nervous anticipation that flashed over the jongleur’s expressive face and knew her suspicions to be true.

  Then she heard her name called in joy, and Isabeau had seized her hands and embraced her. ‘Thank Eà!’ Isabeau cried. ‘I have so wondered about ye these months. What are ye doing here, Lilanthe?’

  All Lilanthe’s anxiety and loneliness melted away, and she hugged her friend tightly. ‘I’m here to join the rebels,’ she answered gruffly and heard Isabeau’s familiar laugh peal out.

  ‘We’re no’ rebels any more,’ Isabeau said. ‘We won the Lodestar at Samhain and now we rule the land, as the auld proverb says—’

  ‘Those parts o’ the land no’ overrun by the Bright Soldiers or held by supporters o’ the Awl,’ Meghan said dryly and held out her hand to the tree-shifter. ‘Welcome to Lucescere, Lilanthe; I have heard much about ye. Glad we are indeed to have ye with us.’

  Outside, the howling wind threw handfuls of snow against the palace windows, but inside Isabeau’s chamber everything was warm and quiet. The young witch had ordered a tub of earth from the conservatory for Lilanthe to sink her roots in, and the tree-shifter’s feet were thankfully buried. Her slender torso looked more like a tree trunk than a human form, her arms stretched into lissom branches that dangled towards the ground. Only her face still retained its humanlike characteristics, though occasionally a shiver ran over her like a susurration of wind, and then it seemed as if Isabeau was confiding in a weeping greenberry tree instead of her best friend.

  It was very late and the palace had at last quietened. Lilanthe resisted the temptation to shift entirely into her tree shape and listened intently as Isabeau finished the tale of her adventures. The red-haired witch kept her hands tucked close under the silken bedclothes, not gesticulating as she once would have done. Lilanthe knew she hid her maimed hand and wondered how else her torture and imprisonment had changed the carefree girl she had known.

  In a cradle by the bed, a baby whimpered in her sleep and immediately Isabeau turned to look within the canopy and murmur soothingly.

  ‘So that is the Ensorcellor’s babe?’ Lilanthe whispered, and Isabeau flashed her a quick glance.

  ‘Aye,’ she answered, a defensive note in her voice.

  ‘In the villages, there is much talk o’ raising an army to restore her to the throne. They say she was named heir and Lachlan the Winged had no right to seize the Crown.’

  ‘That is bad news indeed,’ Isabeau whispered back. ‘Lachlan already looks on the babe with dis
trust. If he sees her as a threat to the throne, who kens what he will do.’

  ‘Who has the right o’ it?’ Lilanthe asked, her voice almost inaudible as she stifled a timber—cracking yawn.

  Isabeau shrugged and slid down in the bed, her face troubled. ‘Who is to say. The Lodestar went to Lachlan’s hand, no’ the babe’s, and by Aedan Whitelock’s law it is he who wields the Lodestar who rules the land. Yet Jaspar named his daughter heir, and there are many who do no’ wish the days o’ the Coven to return and will seek to undermine Lachlan’s charter. We had hoped the saving o’ the Lodestar would prevent civil war, yet it seems we canna escape it.’

  Isabeau glanced at the tree-shifter and saw she had closed her long eyes so they looked like mere knots in the smooth bark of her trunk. ‘Go to sleep, Lilanthe,’ she said affectionately. ‘I canna sit here talking to a tree, for Eà’s sake. And yell need your rest—none o’ us are getting much sleep these days.’

  The only answer was a slight shiver of Lilanthe’s bare twigs, and with a small hand gesture Isabeau snuffed the candles on the mantelpiece and caused the fire to sink down to embers. She did not close her eyes, however, but stared into the darkness with a grimly set mouth. She was so tired her bones ached, but she was too troubled to sleep easily.

  It was the fourth week of winter, almost a month since the success of the Samhain rebellion and the winning of the Lodestar. That month had been crammed with activity. On the winter solstice, Lachlan had been crowned Rìgh of Eileanan in a grand ceremony, with Iseult causing an absolute sensation by turning the white velvet Toireasa the Seamstress had brought her into a trouser suit instead of the trailing, clinging gown the seamstress had imagined.

  The new Coven had been reinstalled at the ruined Tower of Two Moons, Meghan of the Beasts leading the solemn procession with the sacred Key hanging at her breast. It had been a bittersweet day for Meghan, for she had been unable to muster the thirteen sorcerers and sorceresses required for the full council of the Coven. After sixteen years of persecution, any witch who had not died in the Awl’s fires was still in hiding, and there had not been time for more than a few to make their way to the Shining City.

  Jorge the Seer had been chosen as the Keybearer’s second, pacing close behind Meghan in the procession, his ancient face wet with tears. Behind him walked Feld of the Dragons, who had flown down from the mountains for the ceremony, though Ishbel the Winged had not woken, despite all his entreaties, instead remaining deep in her grief-troubled sleep. Arkening the Dreamwalker had arrived in the train of the rebels, having been rescued from the fire in Siantan, and a sorcerer named Daillas the Lame limped along behind her. He had been cruelly tortured by the Awl and was yet another frail figure in the pitiful parade of elderly, blind and crippled sorcerers.

  Behind the five members of the council had walked those few fully trained witches who did not have either the power or the training to have won their sorcerer’s ring. Toireasa the Seamstress and Riordan Bowlegs were accompanied by a wizened old woman called Wise Tully who had trained at the Tower of Ravens many years earlier, and a gloomy-visaged man called Matthew the Lean who had escaped the burning of the Tower of Blessed Fields. With them, her face lowered in shame, walked Latifa the Cook, who had been pardoned for her betrayal during the Samhain rebellion after much pleading by Meghan. As the Keybearer said, there were very few witches of any ability left at all, and they were in much need of Latifa’s culinary magic with so many hungry mouths to feed.

  Altogether they only made ten, and Meghan was bitterly conscious of the gaps in their ranks. The former Key-bearer Tabithas was still trapped in the shape of a wolf, while hundreds of her former friends and colleagues had been burnt to death.

  Still, all journeys began with the first step. Meghan hoped that more witches would emerge from hiding and return to the Tower of Two Moons as word of the successful rebellion spread.

  Meanwhile behind the witches walked a small flock of apprentices, Isabeau among them. Close behind were the Theurgia, those children aged between eight and sixteen who had joined the witches’ school. Many of the city’s young had joined, while the school’s numbers had been further swelled by the children of refugees only too glad to know their offspring would be housed and fed. At their head marched the League of the Healing Hand under a fluttering banner of blue and gold carried by Tòmas the Healer.

  The procession had been a brave sight, and it brought a lump to the throats of many of the elderly among the crowd, who well remembered the great days of the Coven. Isabeau had been deeply affected too, for she had been raised by Meghan of the Beasts and had dreamt of the return of the Coven all her life. As she lay awake, mulling over all Lilanthe had told her, Isabeau dreaded the difficult days that lay ahead of them. The only one of their enemies who had been satisfactorily dealt with was Sani the Seer, Maya’s servant and the High-Priestess of Jor, whose crumpled body had been found in the garden of the Pool of Two Moons, a white-fletched arrow through her heart. Maya had not been found anywhere, and they feared she had returned to her Fairgean father with many secrets about Eileanan’s defences and strengths. Many people were suspicious of the news of Maya’s evil deeds, thinking them mere propaganda spread by the new Rìgh to absolve him of any wrongdoing. And now there was all this talk of restoring Maya’s daughter Bronwen to the throne, the baby who had been Banrìgh for a few short hours before being dispossessed by Lachlan. Loving the baby as she did, and fearing for her future, Isabeau did not sleep at all that night.

  Isabeau woke Lilanthe at dawn and they did not return to their sleeping spots until the wee small hours of the next day, a pattern that was to become their routine over the coming weeks. The red-haired apprentice witch was teaching a large troupe of trainee healers everything she knew about herb lore, and much of the morning was spent foraging in the snowy forest for anything that had curative or nutritional value. Nuts were shaken out of trees, roots of all kinds were dug up, and bark was carefully stripped from the winter-bare trees. Isabeau even begged the donbeags and squirrels to part with some of their precious winter hoards to help feed the thousands of refugees who crowded the streets of Lucescere.

  What was not made into soups and coarse bread and ladled out twice a day to the crowds at the gate was distilled into healing potions to help cure the many illnesses that plagued the city. With the help of the League of the Healing Hand, Isabeau cared for the sick and injured, offering comfort and restorative medicines and trying to prevent Tòmas the Healer from exhausting himself too much. The young boy spent all day in the hospital, but they had limited him to healing only those who would have otherwise died. Nonetheless, he was as delicate as a bellfruit seed, with dark shadows under his sky-blue eyes.

  Isabeau also assisted Matthew the Lean in the conservatory, where young plants in all stages of growth were carefully nurtured, their development coaxed along with magic so that the scanty food supplies would soon be supplemented. Anyone who showed any ability with plants was being trained to feed the seedlings with their own powers, and Lilanthe found she was soon spending many hours in the conservatory’s warm, steamy interior, crooning the plants to spurts of unnatural growth.

  The two friends spent their afternoons in study at the Tower of Two Moons, under the tutelage of whatever witch could be spared to take the class. Shivering with cold and exhaustion, they struggled to understand and use the One Power, the energy force that existed in all living things and which the witches drew upon to work their magic. Lilanthe also found herself lecturing about the ways of the forest faeries, for although she considered herself appallingly ignorant about her mother’s people, she still knew more than anyone else in Lucescere. Along with the cluricaun Brun, she did what she could to change the attitude of the common people to the faery folk.

  There were no idle hands in the city that winter. Every beggar, thief and refugee was put to work. Many an abandoned warehouse in the city was turned into a weaving factory where women toiled to produce cloaks and kilts for the growing army,
blankets for the shivering homeless and oiled tents to shelter them in. Blacksmiths laboured at the forges, shaping swords, daggers, pikes and arrowheads from every spare scrap of metal that could be found. Stonemasons sweated through the wintry days, repairing the city walls and rebuilding the burntout shell of the Tower of Two Moons, which had been destroyed by Maya’s soldiers so many years before. Even the jongleurs were only able to catch a rare hour of sleep, singing themselves hoarse in every inn and tavern in the city. Ballads were composed honouring Lachlan the Winged and describing the beauty of the faeries and the valour of the witches. Old songs about Aedan Whitelock and old tales about the great days of the Coven were dug out, and new ones composed.

  Even the prionnsachan and great lairds spent the days hunting stag and wild boar to feed the people, and the evenings teaching the finer points of the craft of war. Everyone between the ages of sixteen and forty was being taught to fight, for Lucescere was a city under siege. Although no army had yet attempted to breach its walls, the entire countryside beyond the Rhyllster was occupied by the Bright Soldiers of Tìrsoilleir, with legions camped outside every walled town and castle.

  ‘The only consolation,’ Lachlan said moodily one night, ‘is that the blaygird Fairgean seem to have disappeared. I canna understand why. All o’ Clachan and lower Rionnagan lay open before them, yet they swam out to open seas again and we have no’ seen them since.’

  ‘They went north again,’ Isabeau said, rocking Bronwen against her shoulder. ‘They spend the winter in the polar seas.’

  ‘But why? It is all icebergs up there at this time o’ year. Why do they no’ stay down here in the south where at least the seas do no’ freeze over?’