by E M Graham
‘Is this a secret entrance?’ I asked, feeling a small frisson of excitement.
‘Not so secret,’ he said. ‘More like the tradesmen’s entrance, the castle’s back door. You’re to present yourself here at eight o’clock every morning except Sundays, and these good people will escort you to Nachtan’s quarters.’
He nodded his head at an army jeep with a soldier in attendance.
‘Military?’ I whispered mock-furiously as I stopped short and pointed my finger accusingly at Hugh. ‘Am I a prisoner?’
I was only half-joking, because his comment about fixing ‘all that’ still stung.
Hugh only laughed at me as he pushed my hand down. ‘No, you’re here willingly, you belong here. The Castle is still the headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, and the Kin and the Ministry of Defense have a long-standing agreement to share the space. It’s really only within the past few centuries that the two have been split off into separate bodies. These days, we share it with the tourists, too. You need an escort to enter the grounds because, well, these are the times we live in. You’ll have an ID badge made, although we still have to go through security every time we enter the grounds.’
He greeted the soldier with a salute and hopped into the passenger side of the jeep, leaving me no choice but to scramble into the back. The tunnel ride lasted no time at all, and the jeep stopped in front of yet another large stone building. A strong breeze whipped through my hair as I looked straight down in awe over a low rock wall at the expanse of the city before us.
‘We’re pretty high up here,’ I said, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth.
‘It’s a great city,’ he murmured. ‘It’s my home base these days. And if you end up working with the Kin, which is a distinct possibility, I hope you’ll make it your home, too.’ He edged a little closer to shield me from the wind.
I liked the sound of that. All of that. Maybe this wasn’t such an awful idea, not if it could lead to me and Hugh living here, working together. I nestled in a little closer.
He grabbed my hand. ‘Come on, I’ll show my favorite part of the stronghold.’
We walked up an inclined road, passing stone and brick buildings and cannons until we reached what must have been the highest part of the whole hill. We waited our turn to enter a small, ancient looking structure and, once inside the wooden door, we entered into the tiniest church I’d ever seen. Such a small space, yet it was full of light and peace.
‘St. Margaret’s Chapel. Do you feel it?’ He looked at me, a light shining in his eye. I nodded, I did feel it. This was a side of Hugh I’d never seen before. ‘It’s the oldest surviving building in all of Edinburgh. It was built by her son, David, after she was canonized.’
‘That’s the formal process of being made a saint,’ he added, seeing my look of query at the word, and knowing that I’d been brought up by atheists.
The door opened behind us to allow another group in, and we slipped out, hand in hand, staying that way as he led me back down the incline to a covered staircase like an alleyway under the surrounding buildings. Hugh nodded at the soldier on guard, and then we found ourselves in a square, as if we were in any old European city and not in an ancient castle stronghold at the top of a hill. Buildings loomed all around us on four sides, but it was quieter here, away from the endless throngs of tourists.
‘This is where the Venerable Nachtan’s rooms are,’ Hugh nodded, indicating the tallest stone building. ‘We can have quick look through so you’ll be able to find your way tomorrow morning.’
Given the reverence with which Mrs. Mac had spoken of the Venerable Nachtan, I’d expected that witch to be housed in palatial comfort, but the entrance to this building was a plain, unassuming wooden door with only one step leading up to it. Inside the stone walls, it smelled just like an old office building would, of paper and ink and dust. This was a place of work, not a museum or showcase of history for the tourists. Men and women in uniform passed by, nodding cordially, not questioning our presence.
‘The Regiment also works out of this building, the old Hospital,’ Hugh said in a sotto voice as we walked along the corridors. ‘The washrooms are along here, and I’ll show you the small cafeteria where you can pick up lunch.’
We walked down a few stone stairs, and walked into a small yet high ceilinged room. I paused to look out the huge window which looked over the city far below, and I shivered as I noted the drop straight down.
He then led me down more steps and through a long hallway. There were no windows here, just the unadorned stone walls of the building’s foundation. Something about the roughness of the hewn rock told me we were now in a very ancient part of the castle, and the arched brick ceiling was so low Hugh had to bend his head to avoid scraping it.
‘The direct stairs to Nachtan’s rooms are just around the corner here,’ he noted. ‘This is the only route to his quarters, I’m afraid. You’ll have a bit of a climb.’
‘You said he’s in a tower,’ I objected. ‘It doesn’t make sense to have to go down before you go up.’
‘There’s a special magical force field in this part of the building, the oldest section,’ he replied. ‘The Kin needs this.’
We turned a corner in the passageway.
‘What’s in here?’ I stopped in front of a thick plank door tucked into a nook. It had huge iron hinges, the really elaborate, medieval kind that meant business, but what caught my interest was the sign on the door. It had the Witch Kin emblem, the intertwined letters W and K, followed by the words ‘Uncommon Forces’.
‘What’s so uncommon about these forces?’ I laughed, loving the quaintness of the language.
‘Ah.’ Hugh was at my side and leading me quickly away. ‘That’s... don’t ever go in that door.’ He spoke in a very low voice, right into my ear.
‘Why?’ I whispered back, infinitely intrigued by this. ‘What on earth are the Uncommon Forces of the Kin?’
Hugh looked so uncomfortable, I could have sworn he was squirming, and he bundled me through an arched door and up a spiralling stone staircase without giving an explanation. I filed this door away for later, when I could explore on my own.
‘So, as I said, Nachtan’s quarters are on the top floor,’ he continued in a normal voice, but I could still catch an underlying tenseness in it. ‘We’ll just poke our noses in to see if he’s available for an introduction.’
There was no such luxury as an elevator offered here, so we began to make our way up the stairs. I was huffing and my butt muscles were aching just a little.
‘This Nachtan,’ I said as I paused to catch my breath. ‘Tell me what to expect.’
‘I thought we’d been through this.’
‘Remind me. My brain hasn’t been fully up to speed the past couple of days,’ I pointed out. ‘Magical coma and all that?’
‘To begin with, his full name is the Venerable Nachtan, and he will expect to be addressed as such.’
‘Jeez, that’s pretty formal. What made him so Venerable?’
Hugh stopped and let me catch up with him, then continued in a hushed tone. ‘He is the oldest living Kin in the world. He is a very powerful witch, so powerful that he no longer practices or takes part in the ordinary Kin world. The Venerable Nachtan knows, quite simply, everything there is to know about magic.’
‘So he’s going to, what? Teach me?’
‘No. I’m going to instruct you, he’s going to oversee, I told you that,’ he said. ‘Also, he will be advising.’
‘I don’t get it. Advising about what?’
We were standing on a landing in this twisting stone staircase. There was dead silence all around us except for the hissing of the torches on the walls. No sounds came into this ancient tower, nothing from the busy Regimental offices or the throngs of tourists outside. We could have been alone in the world.
‘The Venerable Nachtan is the only witch with direct experience in your case,’ Hugh said solemnly.
>
‘’My case? But I’ve never even met him.’
‘Alright then, in cases like yours,’ he amended. ‘Or I should say, the only other case in the history of the Kin.’
‘Then I’m not the first?’ This was news to me, I’d been told so very little about what to expect.
Hugh shook his head, his face drawn in a grim expression. ‘No. And the Kin, well, they made mistakes last time, but fortunately we learn from these errors. And I’m going to make sure things are done right this time.’
THAT’S ALL HE WOULD SAY. We climbed, and climbed, up and around with not even an arrow slit of a window to give natural light. The only illumination came from the erratically placed lit sconces on the walls. We finally came to yet another arched wooden door, but the stairs continued past this landing. Hugh knocked three times and entered.
Inside the door, the round tower room was bright with glass windows all around. As I allowed my eyes to adjust to the daylight, I became aware that Hugh was speaking with a woman behind a large oak desk.
‘Mrs. Battersea, good afternoon.’
‘Well, look at you, young Sabarin,’ the woman cooed. She was dressed in an impeccable robin’s egg blue suit, and her blonde hair was tidily tucked away in a French twist. She peered over her white cat’s-eye glasses at me. ‘And this is herself, then. Welcome, Dara.’
I smiled, but didn’t get a chance to speak, for she continued without seeming to take a breath. ‘He’s not taking visitors at the moment, Hugh. You’ll have to come back another time, not that he wouldn’t be pleased to see you. So you’ll need to toddle off then, and we’ll see you tomorrow.’
She nodded quickly and turned her attention back to the papers before her. In that short space of time, we had been greeted and dismissed. This woman was very efficient.
‘Wow. She always like that?’ I asked him after he shut the door behind us.
He shrugged and nodded. ‘Always,’ he replied. ‘But she’s a very busy woman. She looks after the Venerable Nachtan and other very delicate matters within the Kin.’
We descended the stairs again, passing the Uncommon Forces door on our way out of the building. Hugh didn’t mention it, but I wasn’t going to let it go. It was just too intriguing.
‘Well, what next?’ Hugh asked, looking all around us in the sunshine. The clouds had dispersed again.
‘I think you need to tell me what’s behind that door.’
‘Which door would that be?’ Hugh looked all around the square.
‘You know the one. Inside. The Uncommon...’
He took my arm in such a way that I couldn’t wriggle free, and he hustled me back towards the tunnel entrance. ‘Not here,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll tell you, but we need to get out of here first.’
5
A FEW STEPS AWAY from the Esplanade of the Castle entrance, Hugh led me to a building on the south side of the cobbled street.
I looked up at the sign above the entrance. ‘The Witchery? Seriously, Hugh?’ The Scottish Kin didn’t seem to even to try to hide amongst the Normals, not like back home.
‘I bet you could eat again,’ he challenged me. ‘How about a spot of High Tea, as you’re doing the tourist thing today?’
I wasn’t too sure about the sound of ‘High Tea’.
‘I am hungry again,’ I admitted. ‘But you’re not putting more drugs into me are you?’
He laughed, himself again finally, all tenseness gone. ‘You truly are an uneducated urchin,’ he said beneath his breath as he took my arm again, but his tone held a note of fondness within it. ‘A Scottish High Tea is one of life’s most unforgettable events. Consider this a late birthday treat.’
The inside of the restaurant was luxurious, that’s the only word I could find to describe the decor, all red velvet and dark wood, fine linens and gleaming silverware. But we didn’t linger in there, the waiter brought us out to a glassed in conservatory kind of room. We were the only customers, and it was totally private here.
‘This must cost a fortune,’ I mouthed to Hugh behind the server’s back.
He cracked a grin and nodded. ‘Get used to it. We’re on the Kin’s tab today, and if all goes well for your future, you’ll be living in style all the time. Oh, that reminds me.’
Reaching into his inside coat pocket, he pulled out a small plastic card, a credit card like no other I’d seen before. Some cards are Onyx, some are Gold, some are Platinum, depending on the level of credit given, and all are a visible status symbol of a person’s financial worth, but this card sparkled like a chandelier fully lit for a ball, prisms of colour escaping into every corner of the room.
‘A credit card for your expenses while studying,’ he said as he passed it over to me. ‘I don’t need to tell you to use it wisely, do I?’
I held the plastic reverently, letting the rainbow of reflected light play over the table. I’d never had my own credit card before, and couldn’t even think what I would buy with it. But I also knew that there was nothing free in life, and that bills come due eventually, and I would still have no money to pay for any purchases. I shook my head and began to hand it back to him.
‘No,’ he said, laying his hand on mine. ‘It’s yours. Any amounts are automatically paid by the Kin accounts. Don’t worry about it, it’s for business expenses, you’ll get used to this.’
Free credit? I guess I could get used to that, I thought with a grin as I tucked the plastic into my wallet.
Being poor all my life, I’d learned to watch money carefully, but one thing I didn’t realize was that costs are not always tallied in finances. Everything comes at a price, especially the free stuff, and I had just unwittingly handed over all my privacy as if I’d voluntarily placed a GPS tracker on myself.
THE HIGH TEA WAS THE MOST SUMPTUOUS repast I’d ever had. My previous best experience with fine dining had been the Indian take-out Aunt Edna’s boyfriend used to bring us, but this was far, far beyond that.
First of all, they uncorked a bottle of champagne for us, and then the silver platters began to arrive, the tiers loaded with tiny trimmed sandwiches of combinations I would never have thought – beetroot and candied walnut, cucumber and a lemony sauce, crab and honey. The second platter held savouries like quiches and sausage rolls and other pastry wrapped delights, while the third held sweets, puff pastries with cream, tiny petit-fours, individual cheese cakes and chocolate eruption cakes, all of them miniature and individually sized. It was heavenly. The champagne went down quickly, so we ordered another one.
When I couldn’t possibly eat another bite, I leaned back with a smile. Now to satisfy another urge.
‘So. The Uncommon Forces. Tell me.’
Hugh lifted the bottle and refilled our glasses, then looked down and smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from the tablecloth.
‘The name says it all, really, don’t you think?’ He looked up at me.
I shook my head. ‘No, not even remotely. More explanation, please.’
He sighed, puffing his cheeks out, then double-checked to make sure the server had left the enclosed garden space. He played with an unused fork as if to buy time, then took a deep breath.
‘These are the special forces of the Kin,’ he began. ‘More of a... a shadow division, really.’
‘What, they can’t be seen?’
He gave a small smile at what he saw as a joke, but I was seriously trying to understand what he was saying. ‘They’re an elite force, specially trained in magic and firearms together. They’re called into action when... when there is a serious upset in the magic world.’
‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Sort of like a magical U.N. army?’
He shook his head. By the downturn of his mouth I could tell he wasn’t happy to share this information. ‘No, the U.N. tend to be peace-keepers, whereas the Uncommon Forces are used to quell perceived insubordination. In any jurisdiction of the world.’
‘I don’t understand. Their existence is approved by
the Kin, right?’
‘Part of the Kin, yes. The Covenanters put them into place after Auld... after some issues experienced back in the early part of the last century. Not all of us agree with their continued existence, we’d like to see them disbanded. But witches like Cromwell insist on keeping them funded. Well, he would. He’s the Commander in Chief of the Uncommons.’
‘Are they... bad?’ My brain was a little sozzled by the champagne now, and my vocabulary was slipping out of my reach.
‘They can be,’ Hugh said dryly, as he looked up at me. ‘They tend to kill first and ask questions later. It doesn’t give the rest of the Kin a good rep in the global situation.’
‘Wow.’ A special team of magical troopers, ready to murder any opposition. Not a good thing if their direction was in the wrong hands. ‘Are they ever used against... your own people?’
He set his mouth grimly. ‘It has happened.’
‘But in what sort of circumstances?’ My thoughts were running, in a fuzzy kind of drunken way, along a path that wasn’t comfortable. If these shadowy Uncommon Forces could be used against witches, and they were under direct control of Elder Cromwell (who really didn’t approve of me), then this begged the question – could they be used against me? Never mind that I was planning an illicit trip to the dimension of the Ice Kingdom, for no one knew about that. I realized shakily that without Hugh’s protection in this unknown world, my position might be very tenuous indeed.
He must have seen the expression on my face, for he shook off his memories and tried to lighten the mood. ‘Hey, this is supposed to be a celebration! Drink up, birthday girl. We’ll go out on the town.’
We raised our glasses. In this subdued light, his eyes reflected the green of the hot house plants all around us, while a stray ray of the lingering sun caught the gold glints deep within.
I had to find out more about these Forces, for forewarned was fore-armed, and I needed all the ammunition I could get.
