An Obstinate Witch

by E M Graham

  The steps of St. Giles were deserted. Did the goblin stand me up? And me after buying those ridiculous red boots for him. I was just starting to curse my gullibility when I head the tap-tapping of heels on the pavement.

  ‘You came.’ I felt relief. And dread at the same time.

  He stood in the shadow of the statue and didn’t meet my eye, just stood there worrying a cigarette butt with his toe. ‘You sure about this, then?’

  He sounded as reluctant as I felt, but I had to go through with it. I had to meet with Auld Meg, and now more than ever. I needed to find the way to the Ice Kingdom for the next full moon, because I couldn’t trust that the Kin wouldn’t attempt to find a permanent solution to the problem of Dara Martin. There was good chance that if I was caught, I would be placed in the dungeon alongside her, but I had to take that chance.

  ‘Yes.’ My voice was much firmer than I felt.

  ‘Y’know, I really don’t...’

  ‘Trevor, you promised,’ I cut in. ‘And those boots.’

  He looked down at his feet, and bit his goblin lip.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ I said roughly.

  Trevor led me down behind the Cathedral, making a winding tour of the back alleys down the hill. We emerged on a narrow road that was surrounded with tall tenement buildings reaching up four or five stories each, with hardly a light to show our way. The shadows were deep here, and the air was chill and damp as if the sun rarely reached the hidden nooks of the alleys.

  Yet there was life here. The throb of a mindless dance beat playing in a night club somewhere pulsed through the air, and small groups of people, students maybe, huddled against the cold as they smoked cigarettes and other combustibles.

  We had stopped outside a plain oak door which had been strengthened with rusted iron bolts, and perhaps had even been painted back when Victoria was on the throne of England. There were no windows in the tall stone wall, nor was there a sign overhead indicating what lay inside, but I could hear discordant music, heavy on the bass, coming through in a muffled way.

  ‘That’s the best pub in the city,’ he said, pointing his thumb in the direction of the music. ‘We could stop for a pint, if ye like. You’re buying, of course.’

  ‘No, Trevor, we need to do this,’ I said, then lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘Now. You can’t back out.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to need human cash then,’ he replied, scowling. ‘We’ve got to grease the gates in order to get where we’re going.’

  He drew me over to a dirty, ill-lit ATM machine outside a newsagents which was still open, though there wasn’t much custom around. ‘I’d say fifty should do it.’

  ‘I don’t think I can take out cash advances on the credit card,’ I told him. ‘Hugh and the Kin won’t be too happy about it.’

  Besides which, Cromwell was monitoring every transaction, or so Hugh believed, and it wasn’t so he could watch my spending limit.

  Trevor clicked his long narrow fingers impatiently. ‘Just do it. If you really want to see her.’

  ‘Bossy little bastard,’ I muttered, but went ahead. The transaction was completed, with no alarms or magical sirens going off. I counted the notes in my hand then looked at him. ‘Okay, that’s done. What now?’

  He jerked his head in the direction of the newsagent. ‘Go buy the biggest bottle of whisky you can get with that.’

  ‘Fifty pounds should get a magnum,’ I retorted. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Do I look like I’m joking?’ he asked in his nastiest goblin voice. He was nervous, which made me even more nervous.

  The single fluorescent light overhead hissed and buzzed as I bought the largest, cheapest bottle of whiskey the store had, and met him again outside. He made me hide one of the bottles in my knapsack, then led me further down the street, around a corner and we continued in to a darkened passage. It looked like we were going under a bridge of some sort, with a soaring high vaulted archway, but it was too pitch dark in this space to tell. I shivered. I was not getting good vibes from this place, as if there’d been bad things happening all around us, for many years, as if the evil had infused itself into the very stone of these passageways. I kept close to his side.

  The goblin walked carefully in the darkness, eyes darting every which way into the depths. He felt it too, I knew.

  Finally he stopped about halfway through the tunnel and knocked on the stone wall. A crack of light opened up as a hitherto invisible door swung inwards. A single candle burned, and a troll stood in our way.

  It grumbled something incomprehensible, and Trevor took it aside, standing on his tiptoes as the creature bent down to listen to the words whispered about where its ears should be. Every hair on my body was standing to attention at this point, and I just wanted to drop the bottle and run back through the door. In fact, I did chicken out and I turned to leave, but the door closed shut even as I thought about it. The metal clank echoed in the room like a harbinger of doom.

  Trevor clicked his fingers again and motioned me over. He snatched the whiskey from my hand and gave it to the troll.

  ‘We’ll be back,’ he said to him. ‘So don’t have it all drunk by then.’

  The goblin waited until the sentry was deep into the bottle before he snatched a candle end, lit it, and led me up through into a maze of corridors and dark rooms, some with bars on the doors.

  ‘Where the hell are we?’ I kept my voice at a whisper, for there were all sorts of weird grunts and snorts and moans coming from the dark cells.

  ‘The Vaults,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The Edinburgh Vaults. Behold, the gates of hell.’

  11

  WE CREPT ALONG THE LONG PASSAGE for what seemed an inordinate amount of time, our soft footsteps echoing in the caverns, the dark spaces beyond empty doorways. My heart was going a hundred beats a minute, it was the most terrifying experience of my life although nothing actually came out of the rooms to threaten us, and we saw no other creatures, living or dead. We could hear them, though, and smell them too.

  Finally we came to the end, a small twisty stone staircase leading up and down. Trevor led me down, and we paused by a tiny window open to the night air, thick iron bars stopping anything but the breeze from entering or exiting. I took a deep inhale.

  ‘Are we in Alt?’ I could think of no other explanation for the pure horror of the place, as if centuries of terror and degradation had occurred without cease in this isolated pocket of hell.

  He had relaxed a little too, and leaned against the wall. He took off his dirty stocking cap and rubbed the sparse hair on his head. ‘Ha! No, this is your reality, although as you know the veil is nonexistent here,’ he said. ‘This space was purely created by the hand of man.’

  ‘What a horrible place. They sure knew how to build dungeons for the maximum effect in those days.’ I couldn’t think of another reason for the creation of such a dismal structure, other than for the torture of fellow beings.

  ‘It didn’t start out that way. The bigwigs wanted to build a bridge over the valley, linking the hills, right?’ He was almost conversational in tone now as if welcoming an opportunity to avoid what lay ahead, and he settled into his story. ‘So they did. And being Scots, they couldn’t bear to think of the wasted space, so they created rooms beneath the bridge.’

  ‘For people to live in?’ I couldn’t believe it. I looked around at the damp glistening on the stone walls and the moss growing in the cracks. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘Not at first, no. These were used by merchants who had their stores up on the top of the new bridge. Some of them had their workshops down here, others used the spaces for storage.’

  An involuntary shiver ran up my spine.

  ‘But when they built the bridge they didn’t pay extra for drainage, the cheap bastards. All the water from the road above came down through here, so the business owners moved their gear out, then the... the others moved in.’

  ‘You mean, the super naturals? Like go
blins and trolls?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, and glanced over to me. ‘We find our own homes, none would stay in this godforsaken unnatural spot. There’s ghosts and shades and demons here now, true, but they’re leftover haunts from the human beings who lived here then. Hundreds of them. Prostitutes, the poor, criminals. Murderers and worse. All the outcasts of Edinburgh society, all the tortured souls who couldn’t find their way out of this hell of their lives.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I breathed. ‘Don’t suppose there was any running water or...’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘No sewers either.’ Even he wrinkled up his nose, and goblins are usually inured to the worst of the worst.

  ‘Finally, the Council got embarrassed by the state of the place, so they cleared it all out and closed it down,’ he continued with a bitter sneer. ‘Well, that’s the official reason.’ His eyes slid over to mine, narrow slits glinting in the candle’s flame.

  ‘Do I want to hear the real reason?’

  He laughed, a slippery sound which echoed off the low stone ceiling. ‘You’re about to meet her,’ he said, turning to continue our path down the stairs. He talked as he walked, his reedy voice carrying over his shoulder. ‘Auld Meg went and got into that business with the Stone, as you know, scaring the shite out of the Kin. From what I heard, they couldn’t kill her, it was too dangerous to try, but they managed to curse her and keep her down here in the deepest level of the Vaults.’

  ‘Here?’ The word came out as a strangled gasp, and my feet refused to carry me further. ‘All those years?’

  I had been angry for Margaret’s sake, back at Hugh’s, about the inequality of justice meted out to her. But it had been abstract then, I couldn’t have imagined the reality of this horror of this subterranean purgatory, with the magic as thick as the dankness in the air.

  And I couldn’t help but think that no one living being would do this to another, not without good, solid reason. There were thick protection spells laid all over the place – although I didn’t recognize them yet, I could smell them for what they were. Whoever had put these into place had been deeply afraid of the threat. Something huge was being kept back here, something extremely powerful. Or someone. My steps slowed.

  Trevor had talked about needing the cursed witch’s help for my task, back when we were in the open air of the clean streets of Edinburgh, and it had sounded like a good solution. But now that we were here, in the lowest level of the creepiest place on earth, the full implication of what I was about to do hit me. If these things everyone hinted at were true, I was on my way to meet the most terrible and secretive figure in the history of the Scottish Kin, and try to somehow convince her to help me go to the Ice Kingdom. This was just wrong on so many levels. I didn’t know a lot, but I was starting to think it would be a good thing to just let cursed witches lie where ever they were. This was not something I wanted to get involved in.

  ‘I warned you about having second thoughts,’ he said as he walked ahead, as if he could read my mind. ‘Too late now, so just put on your big girl panties.’

  Then he paused and turned to face me, holding the candle stub aloft. The goblin’s eyes were mere glints in the flickering light. ‘Relax. It’s okay, as I said, she’s held by a curse. She has to write everything she knows, and can’t die until her Chronicle is written. I think that’s how the story goes.’

  ‘And you think she’ll help me? How can a witch cursed to live underground be of any assistance?’ My stomach was starting to turn, and it wasn’t just from the awful stench of this place. I didn’t have a good feeling about this. Also, where there are curses, there’s usually a lot of anger built up over years on the part of the cursed. ‘Why would she want to help me?’

  ‘I don’t know if she’ll help you,’ he said, shrugging his narrow shoulders. ‘But I bet the answer to your problem is written in her Chronicle. If you can take that, then you’ll be laughing all the way to the Ice Kingdom.’

  ‘No. No, no, no.’ Take the Chronicle? Was he mad? On so many levels, this was a morally wrong, and probably impossible, task. But he had already disappeared around the last bend in the stairs, taking the only source of light with him.

  I stumbled after him, what else could I do? My arm brushed the mildewed wall, squashing something, I didn’t bear brush it off because then my skin would have to touch it. I didn’t want to be left alone in the dark here, in the Vaults, but I had no intention of going along with his suggestion of stealing the Chronicle.

  At the bottom of the stairwell, a long, low passage stretched before us. I could feel shadows flickering all about us, and they weren’t all caused by the candle’s feeble light. I stuck close to Trevor’s back, ready to duck behind him if necessary, short as he was.

  Auld Meg’s dungeon wasn’t hard to find, I could smell malevolence in the air like a sour fart, like the forgotten fish dinner in the back of the fridge.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go any further,’ I whispered to the goblin, leaning down to his level. My body was poised to leap, every neuron was firing. ‘This might be a very, very bad idea.’ Yes, I wanted to reach my mother in that other dimension, but my reptilian brain was screaming at me to flee at any costs if I wanted to live.

  He held the candle stub aloft and turned to face me, an unexpectedly determined look on his face.

  ‘You want to get your mother, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but I just...’

  ‘If you don’t do it now, when will you do it?’ he cut in and began to scold me in a hissing voice. ‘Your mother languishes. And who knows if you’ll still have the power of the Stone next month? Can you guarantee that it won’t diminish without you being near it? What if you need to, like, re-charge from it or something?’

  He turned back. ‘We’re here now, you’ll take the book, go get your mother. No problem.’

  ‘Wait,’ I reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. Something didn’t sit right about this whole situation. By bringing me to Auld Meg, the goblin was leading us both into certain danger, and what I knew of him so far was he was always looking out for number one. ‘Why are you pushing for this? Why do you care so much? I thought you barely liked me.’

  He held the candle away and slightly behind him, so it was in my eyes but not his. ‘Because... because of friendship?’ His voice was half-hearted on the last bit, as if he knew I wouldn’t believe the obvious lie either.

  We didn’t have time to explore his definition of friendship for he turned away and began to scurry into the depths of the passage, closer to the source of the evilness emanating from the dark. I had no choice but to follow on his heels.

  The last cave, room, or cell, was a simple looking affair with a narrow doorway. If there had ever been a proper door fixed into place, it had long ago rotted or been burned for heat by previous inhabitants of the Vaults. There appeared to be no barriers to the room, nothing keeping curiosity seekers out or a cursed witch in.

  He stopped before entering, transfixed, his goblin face all aglow in the light with awe and excitement. And hungry greed. Friendship my arse. He had an ulterior motive, but I just couldn’t think what it might be.

  ‘Behold, Auld Meg,’ he whispered, his face shining in fascination overlain with a healthy dose of fear.

  I drew up behind him and looked within the cavity.

  It was not totally dark in there, for a faint light shone from the very rocks themselves, like an underwater phosphorescence in the damp of the stone; it was enough to clearly see the outline of what looked to be not a human witch, but a carved statue of one, seated at a desk, with an amazingly detailed and delicate stone quill in hand over a large open book. The figure, like the stone walls, was covered in that eerie green luminescence, and was amazingly lifelike, yet looked to be created from the very granite itself.

  It was familiar, for I’d seen this statue before in the glass bubble in Nachtan’s room. It must have been a scrying glass then, keeping an eye on Auld Meg. I gave a quick prayer of thank
s that this was the middle of the night, and that Nachtan was unlikely to be in his high tower to see me hovering at the doorway of the dungeon.

  The goblin stepped into the room, his eyes riveted on the figure as he circled all around it. I followed close behind, too fascinated to listen to the screaming senses which told me to leave and never return to this hell. There was not a sound in the chamber.

  Then, with the whispering rustle of sand washed by waves, the statue’s eyes followed Trevor. He put his hand to his mouth as he squealed. ‘She moved! She’s not supposed to be able to move!’

  And then not just her eyes, but her whole head swivelled round so those terrible haunted eyes, the only thing that looked alive in her, could hold me in their glare. The recognition therein horrified me, chilling me to my very bones.

  ‘Dara Martin.’ A grating whisper echoed through the chamber, more sand sloughed off her face as she spoke, the underlying muscles stretching as her mouth grew to a grimace. Then she laughed, her mouth open wide so I could see the rotted teeth and the inflamed red of her gums.

  The goblin had ducked behind me at the statue’s first unexpected movement and was now in full on cower behind me, I could feel his quaking. Dear God, what had we done? What awful menace had we awoken?

  ‘Come closer, my dear one.’ All the while, each time she moved or spoke the rock continued to flake off her body until there was barely enough luminescence left on her to highlight the dust in the crevices of her clothing.

  For she was still human, or close enough, I could now see. Fear and dread and an awful foreboding took hold of me, like in the long seconds when the eighteen ton semi is headed directly in your path and there’s not a thing you can do to avoid the inevitable.

  ‘How do you know me?’ My voice was a bare whisper.

  She laughed again, that terrible sound, and with great effort, slowly laid her quill down on the book before her. Her voice was hissing, like a snake, and she paused on pertinent words. ‘I have written you in my Chronicle. I write the future and the past, and you have come as foretold. Come forward, and accept your destiny.’