The Cursed Towers

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘I remember,’ Ishbel said softly. ‘I am sorry to hear she died, though.’

  ‘Can ye work weather?’ Isabeau asked. ‘Many o’ the things ye say mirror what she said, but she could no’ fly. I asked her.’

  Ishbel shrugged. ‘I have never really tried to use the forces o’ air in that way. Weather magic has as much to do with the element o’ water or fire. Ye might have some skill with the weather but I do no’ think your Talent is to fly. I am sorry I canna teach ye more.’

  ‘You were able to teach Iseult,’ Isabeau said, her voice tight.

  ‘She had the Talent,’ Ishbel replied. ‘She was just too used to using her own strength and vigour, rather than the forces o’ air. Ye have power, I can sense that, and I know Meghan always thought so too. It is different from mine, though. Ye seem strong in all the elements, while I could never manage to manipulate fire or earth.’

  Ishbel looked down at her hands. On the heart finger of her right hand she wore a blue topaz, showing air was the element she was strongest in, and the moonstone ring Lachlan had given her at his Testing was on her middle finger. On her left hand she wore a sapphire and an opal, indicating that she had passed the Sorceress Tests of Air and Spirit.

  ‘Ye must have been very young to win your sorceress rings,’ Isabeau said.

  ‘Aye, I was. I was no’ yet twenty, and as ye know, ye usually must wait until ye are twenty-four before ye are allowed to sit any o’ the Tests o’ Elements. My Talent was so strange and so strong, however, that the Coven made an exception. Some o’ the other witches were no’ pleased, but Meghan insisted.’

  Isabeau sighed and stretched, admiring the flash of the rings on her own hands. She too wore a moonstone ring on the middle finger of her right hand—that was the first ring any witch won—while on her left hand she wore the dragoneye stone the dragons had given her when she was born. The sight of it reassured her, and she stood. ‘We had best keep on climbing if we are to reach the Great Stairway by dawn tomorrow,’ she said abruptly.

  Feld, Ishbel and Isabeau had set out the previous day to climb the mountain, Bronwen in a sling on Isabeau’s back as usual. Somehow the young apprentice witch did not feel comfortable riding on Lasair’s back now she knew he was really her father. So she walked, her arms filled with a great branch of sweet-scented roses, their white petals frilled with red. This was the rose-tithe, the payment the MacFaghans had to make to the dragons in return for their friendship and forbearance. One of the decaying tapestries hanging in the great hall showed Faodhagan the Red giving the queen-dragon a rose he had carelessly plucked and tucked in his buttonhole. The gift had so amused and pleased the queen-dragon she had allowed the cheeky human to live, and so the friendship between the sorcerer and the dragons had begun.

  For centuries the rose-tithe had not been paid, but Feld had only been allowed to stay in the valley if he revived the ancient custom. When Iseult lived at the Towers, it had been her duty to cut a bunch of roses and carry it to the dragons’ palace every midsummer, and now it was Isabeau’s task. She had picked the roses while they were still tightly furled, then sprayed them with icy water to try and prevent them from wilting during the long climb to the Cursed Peaks. Their sweet, faint scent wafted around her as she clambered up the rocky path, and she wondered if she could distill the perfume for her candles and bath oil.

  The way grew steep, but the view was so spectacular that Isabeau was content to climb slowly, occasionally pausing to wait for Feld, who often stopped to examine a flower or stone, or to read a passage from his book, which he carried under one arm. Feld was wearing a long coat of velvet, which Isabeau had brushed and darned for him, and had replaced his worn slippers with a pair of equally shabby boots. His long, striped scarf was wound around his neck, the raggedy ends dangling down his back, while his beard was looped through his belt. On his head he wore a moth-eaten cap pulled low over his ears, and his grey hair stuck out from underneath it like straw spilling from an overstuffed sack. Behind his spectacles, Feld’s eyes were vague and kind and, like a child’s, always on the lookout for something new and wondrous.

  Ishbel did not walk with them, but flew about as aimlessly as a sparrow, sometimes alighting in a tree to wait for them, sometimes dropping down to walk with the stallion. Lasair picked his way ahead of them up the path, breaking into a gallop when the way led into a meadow, wheeling around to call to them from the top of a hill, his bright mane flying.

  They camped that night in the overhang of the cliff, Isabeau lighting a fire with a snap of her fingers and cooking them a nourishing stew from the supplies in the pack the stallion carried for her. Lasair lay down in the grass beside them, and Isabeau leant against his comforting bulk gratefully. Just around the bluff was the massive stone archway that marked the beginning of the Great Stairway. The stone dragons that spread their sculpted wings on either side of the archway were chilling reminders of what Isabeau had still to face. She tried hard to think of the coming confrontation with excitement and confidence, reminding herself again and again that the MacFaghans had always been friends to the dragons. Deep inside her was a niggling fear the great creatures would find her unworthy of their regard, however, maimed as she was and a failure.

  Dawn across the icy peaks was a breathtaking sight, and Isabeau stood and watched the delicate splendour of the mountains with a sense of awe and humility. She drank her tea and ate her unsalted porridge in silence, and then picked up her armful of roses and made her way to the Great Stairway.

  Isabeau stood alone under the shadow of the archway, looking up at the glowing sky with mingled apprehension and anticipation. Although she scanned the horizon constantly, the whistling dive of the dragon from above her still took her by surprise and she stumbled back with an inarticulate cry. Wings folded along his lissom body, he plunged down as fast as a flaming arrow, then flung open his wings just above her head. Isabeau was nearly knocked over by the force of his passing. When she recovered her balance, she saw the dragon was resting on the curve of the archway above her, his long serpentine tail wrapped several times around the camber of stone, his chin laid on his daintily crossed claws.

  Close-lidded eyes of bright topaz regarded her with interest. Apart from the gentle swaying of the tip of his tail and the faint pulsing in his creamy throat, the dragon was still.

  Isabeau had to fight down the terror that weakened every muscle and organ in her body. She took a deep breath and sank into a curtsey, keeping her eyes lowered. Greetings, Great One, she said haltingly, in the oldest and most difficult of languages. I have brought ye the tithe o’ roses in the name o’ the MacFaghans, as the dragons decreed long ago, and hope that the long friendship between my clan and yours may grow and flourish as the roses do.

  To her consternation, the dragon yawned, his long, supple tongue, the colour of the summer sky, curling out from between rows of needle-sharp teeth. He laid his angular head back on his claws and closed his eyes. Every line of his body suggested boredom and scorn.

  Isabeau laid the branch of rosebuds on the first step and stepped back, waiting, though her palms were clammy and her knees weak. After a long period of silence, the dragon yawned again, and examined his claws through slitted eyes. The tip of his long, serrated tail began to swing more quickly.

  Isabeau calmed her breathing and tried to remember everything Feld had told her. He had studied the lore of dragons ever since he was a young apprentice witch and knew more about the great, magical creatures than any human alive.

  I know that I am o’ as little account to the dragons as a gnat or a flea, a mere irritant in their flesh to be idly crushed between their claws. I humbly beg their indulgence, in the name o’ my ancestor Faodhagan the Red, and beg that I may be allowed to pay homage to the Circle o’ Seven, and receive the privilege o’ their wisdom. I have brought gifts, insignificant though they are.

  Moving slowly, her head still bent in supplication, Isabeau brought out the handful of artifacts she had chosen from the Towers. There was a
n armband set with an uncut ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg, a solid gold statuette of a dragon in flight, a long string of milky pearls, a chalice carved with magical runes, and a silver dagger, so stained and notched that the fine workmanship was barely recognisable.

  There were many such things in the Towers of Roses and Thorns—some piled in chests and cupboards, others lying among the dust and cobwebs and owl guano as if they had simply fallen from someone’s hand. Feld had helped Isabeau choose a selection to bring for the dragons, passing his hands over the pile, his shaggy eyebrows drawn together in a frown of concentration. Isabeau had copied him and had been amazed to feel responses within her—some gave her a shiver of delight or distaste, others brought an image or sensation, so brief and frail that the insight was gone as soon as it came.

  Isabeau was shaken with excitement. It seemed the veils that had covered her third eye were truly dropping away, giving her the clear-sight she had always longed for. A witch without the witch sense was no witch at all, and Isabeau had found it hard to swallow her resentment at Meghan for sealing up her third eye without her consent or knowledge.

  The ruby armband had given her an impression of a tall man with a shaggy mane and beard of red hair turning to grey, quick to laughter and anger, with hands that spoke of a craftsman, strong and long-fingered. With it had been a square-cut ruby ring, which Feld had fingered for a long time and at last put back in the chest with a sigh, saying, ‘Happen we shall have need o’ this in time, lassie. Take the dragons the pearls instead—they are finely matched and worth a rìgh’s ransom, and as creatures o’ air and flame, the dragons are always fascinated by things o’ the sea.’

  The dagger Isabeau had found while clearing out the garden at the foot of the northern tower. As soon as she laid her hand upon it she was overcome by a vortex of emotion so intense she had grown dizzy for a moment. Obsessive hatred and jealousy, grief, fury, a stifling misery—all of these and more had washed over Isabeau so that she flung the dagger from her in panicked reflex. Later, when her hammering heart had slowed and the tumult of emotions had subsided, she went hunting through the undergrowth in search of it again. She picked it up through a fold in her plaid and carried it at arm’s length into the library, able to feel it and smell it even through the thick wool.

  Feld clambered down from the ladder, a book under his arm, and took it from her with a vague query in his myopic eyes. Immediately his eyebrows shot up and he dropped the dagger as if it had burnt his hand. ‘Obh obh!’ he cried. ‘Where did ye find this!’

  Isabeau explained, and he pursed up his mouth and examined the blackened knife closely. ‘I wonder …’ he said. ‘Ye say ye found it at the foot o’ the northern tower?’

  Isabeau nodded, and he said thoughtfully, ‘That was Sorcha’s tower, ye ken. Happen this was her knife. It seems steeped in murder to me.’ He gave a little shudder and they stared at the dagger with fascinated eyes. It seemed to throb with a malignant power that set all the hairs on the backs of their necks quivering.

  ‘What shall we do with it?’ Isabeau had asked. ‘I do no’ think I could bear to have it near me. Should we bury it, or throw it on the fire?’

  ‘Let us give it to the dragons,’ Feld had replied. ‘It is just the sort o’ thing to give them pleasure.’

  So Isabeau had wrapped the dagger in oiled cloth, trying not to touch it with her fingers, and pushed it to the very bottom of the pack. She brought it out just as reluctantly, laying it with the other artifacts on the stone, stepping back as if the notched blade truly stank of death and blood.

  The dragon unwound his body from the archway with quick and sinuous grace, and flew down to the ground with such swiftness that Isabeau again scrambled backwards in instinctive fear. Coiling his tail around his hindquarters, he bent down his great, square head to smell the dagger, his red, cavernous nostrils flaring.

  The dragon’s breath hissed. From under her lashes Isabeau could see his slitted pupil widen. Then the dragon shot her a glance and Isabeau was transfixed in the dart of his golden gaze like a butterfly on a pin.

  Isabeau knew one should never meet a dragon’s gaze. She knew one lost all will and sense, as helpless as a coney hypnotised by the stare of a sabre leopard. She had carefully kept her eyes averted all through their conversation, despite her fascination with the great, gleaming, scaled creature and its sinuous, menacing grace. That one quick glance undid her. Isabeau was drowning in the rough gold of his huge, steadfast eye, rapt in its fiery beauty.

  She saw a fountain of fire, the sky raining ashes, a river of stone. She saw stars blooming, comets of ice soaring, suns collapsing into whirlpools of darkness in which time itself was bent.

  The fiery darkness wheeled around her, blanking her senses. Isabeau felt the ground beneath her feet reeling. For the first time she knew, terrifyingly, in every fibre of her being, that the planet spun through space like a conker swung by a child. It seemed the ground rushed up to slam into her. She lost consciousness for only a moment but still experienced such a sense of dizzying dislocation and confusion when she opened her eyes that it seemed she did not know who she was or where. Then she saw her hand lying on the mossy stone, the two fingers and thumb slack and slightly curled, the scars of her torture white and shiny. Reason rushed back upon her.

  She was lying on cold stone. Sharp pain was piercing her arm. Isabeau shifted and saw her arm had fallen upon the branch of roses, its thorns piercing her flesh. She sat up slowly, her hand to her head. By her foot was a great claw, arching over her like the vault of an ivory pillar. Fear chilled her blood. She glanced up and saw the dragon towering over her, as tall as the tallest tree in the forest. His scales gleamed like polished bronze, paling to satiny cream on his breast and belly. He bent his huge, angular head and regarded her with those beguiling golden eyes, and she stared back at him, unable to resist the desire to drown in his gaze again.

  It is a brave human who meets the dragon’s stare, he said in a surprisingly gentle voice. Thou hast brought us kingly gifts indeed, and ones that I understand are of significance to thy clan. The gifts that are a wrench to give are the gifts that please us most. Rise, Isabeau the Red. Know that thou hast permission to climb the Great Stairway and take audience with the Circle of Seven. Thy companions must wait for thy return.

  Isabeau opened her mouth in some distress, knowing how much both Feld and Ishbel longed to take audience with the dragons’ council also, but the words dried on her lips at the nearness of all that shining, dangerous beauty, and she merely bowed her head in acquiescence.

  The dragon bent and gathered his strength, its wings stretching wide, then he launched into the air, the wind as it passed almost knocking Isabeau over. She staggered and grasped at the stone pillar to keep herself balanced, then watched the dragon soar out of sight, a tightness akin to tears in her throat.

  She bent and picked up the artifacts, packing them back into her satchel, gathered up the roses again and went to tell Feld and Ishbel what the dragon had said.

  Feld was disappointed that he was not to accompany her, both for her sake and his own. He had spent all his life studying and observing the dragons and yet could never get his fill. Only occasionally did they allow him to make the journey to their palace or answer the many questions he asked, and he was sorry that Isabeau’s coming to Tìrlethan had relieved him of the rose-tithe duty. More importantly, however, he worried that Isabeau might forget his lessons or advice and so inadvertently anger the dragons.

  Ishbel was rather relieved that she had to stay behind, even though she desperately wanted to ask the dragons how Khan’gharad could be freed from his enchantment. She gripped Isabeau’s hands painfully tight and said in a quavering voice, ‘Ye will ask them for me, will ye no’? If anyone can break this evil spell, it will be the dragons.’

  Isabeau nodded and said, ‘Have a care for Bronwen. She will miss me while I am gone and may fret a wee.’ She bent and picked up the little girl and hugged her tightly. Bronwen pressed her warm f
ace into Isabeau’s neck, babbling, ‘Bo-Bo-Bo,’ the closest she could come to Isabeau’s name.

  ‘We shall look after her, dinna ye worry,’ Feld answered. ‘Be careful and canny, Isabeau, won’t ye?’

  She smiled rather wanly, shouldered her satchel again and left them with a wave. Then she crossed under the shadow of the arch once more and began to climb.

  The road was built of large paving stones fitted together so closely that few weeds were able to find room in which to flourish. On either side was a high wall carved with scenes of men and animals and faeries, separated and bordered by an intricate frieze featuring the familiar design of roses and thorns. As Isabeau climbed she became absorbed in the bas-relief sculpture which seemed to be depicting stories from history and myth. She recognised one sequence as being the tale of Faodhagan and the dragon, for there was the tall man down on one knee presenting a perfectly carved rose to the great winged creature coiled above him. Isabeau saw the kneeling man wore an armband like the one she carried in her pack, and her eyes widened in amazement. So the ruby ring and armband had belonged to the Red Sorcerer—no wonder the dragon had been pleased with her gifts.

  Higher up the road was a sequence of panels showing the building of a city, directed by a man with a tall bow and a grave face, a falling star carved overhead. Another series of panels showed tree-changers dancing, their leafy hair spread out in the wind, while an antlered man stood with his head bowed beneath a flowering tree. Higher still the bas-relief sculpture depicted a sea serpent coiling its long body around a ship with a broken mast, the towering waves all around thick with the sleek bodies and tusked faces of the Fairgean.

  Once or twice each day Isabeau scaled the wall to peer over the edge, but she only ever saw variations of the grand vista of snowy mountains stretching as far as the eye could see.