Witchlanders

by Lena Coakley

  He smiled and didn’t dispute the reason for her tears. “I climbed a mountain in these clothes. How’s Pima? Is she all right? Are you?”

  Skyla nodded. “It was horrible when the monsters attacked, but Yulla kept her head. She carried Pima on her back all the way to the catacombs.”

  “I’m sorry, Skyla,” he said, guilt overwhelming him. “I should have been with you.”

  “I don’t understand. I don’t understand what’s happening. If your mind hasn’t been addled then . . . what? You left to kill a Baen and came back a singer.”

  “I’m not a singer,” he said sharply. “Don’t say that.”

  “The coven is in chaos,” Skyla went on. “No one knows what to do, and everyone is fighting. Aata’s Right Hand has broken her vow and confessed to Sodan that none of her prophecies were real, that they were made by someone else! Some want her banished from the coven, but of course she can’t leave now. The snowslide has trapped us all in the caves, but no one wants to start digging out until we know for sure there won’t be another attack. Most of the witches wanted to kill the Baen immediately, and a few of them wanted to kill you, too. But Aata’s Right Hand told everyone who would listen that you saved her, that you and the Baen destroyed two creatures with your voices.” She took his hands again. “Tell me, is that true?”

  “Yes!” Ryder said. “And she wasn’t the only one who saw it! Weren’t there others at the cave entrance?”

  He was sure he had seen Kef there at least, but Skyla shook her head. “Everything was so confused. Most saw only that you sang and the snowslide came. Aata’s Right Hand isn’t from this coven—she’s an outsider. And hardly anyone wants to believe her now, not after she pretended to be a boneshaker. Some of the witches actually hiss at her when she opens her mouth, and the ones who’ve taken the vow themselves put their hands over their ears.”

  “I need to speak to the elders,” Ryder said. “To the whole coven. They can’t kill Falpian.”

  “You don’t understand,” Skyla said. “Sodan did listen. Aata’s Right Hand convinced him to at least hear your friend’s story. But when they went to get the Baen for interrogation, he was gone, along with Kef and Visser.”

  “Gone?” said Ryder. “Where could they go?”

  “Down here, there are many places where he might have been taken. Another storeroom like this one, maybe.” She hesitated. “But Ryder, Visser was among the witches who did not want to listen to the Baen—who wanted to kill him outright before he could do any more damage. I don’t . . . I don’t think there’s much hope for him.”

  “No!” The words fell like stones into Ryder’s heart. “Skyla, you’ve got to untie me! Falpian might be a Baen, but he deserves more than a knife in the dark for something he didn’t do.”

  Skyla bit her lip. “Would you really mourn for him if he died?”

  “I . . . would,” he admitted.

  She stared at him uncomprehending. “Is he a traitor to his people, then? Is he on our side?”

  Now Ryder was the one to hesitate. He knew why Falpian had crossed the border; he’d seen the thoughts of war in his mind. “No,” he said. “He is not on our side. But Skyla, are we only allowed to care about people who are on our side?”

  Skyla leaned back, frowning. She must have heard the emotion in his voice. For a while they were both silent.

  “I won’t try to tell you that he’s not dangerous, because he is,” Ryder went on. “Sodan should question him. I hope he does. Falpian is a black magician. He knows things, things that are happening in the Bitterlands, things that scare me. But when I needed help destroying those creatures, he didn’t stop to wonder if he should. He just did it. He has a better heart than he gives himself credit for. Besides . . .” He moved a little closer to her. “I believe our mother sent me over the border to save him, to keep him from being assassinated. She must have done it for a reason. Maybe the witches are right and he’s addled my head—you can’t see the world from somebody else’s point of view and not be changed—but as far as I know, I’m still thinking with my own brains, and my brains are telling me that we shouldn’t let him die.”

  His sister considered his words. “I always thought your head was made of rock,” she said finally. “The poor Baen would need a chisel to addle it. Give me your hands.” From the sash of her reds she pulled a small knife sheathed in leather—she’d come prepared, he realized. Ryder held out his wrists.

  “And there’s something else,” he said. “If there is even a chance that Falpian and I can destroy the creatures, why would Visser want to get rid of him so quickly?”

  “You mean . . .” She paused. “You mean you think she might have made them?” She didn’t seem as surprised by the idea as he would have thought.

  “If not Falpian, it must have been a witch—no one in the village has this kind of magic.”

  “Aata’s Right Hand told me that’s what you’d say.”

  “She did?”

  There was a sharp bump, and the door swung open. Ryder started, guilty as a criminal, but Skyla didn’t even look up. It was the white witch.

  “Here.” She tossed a bundle of clothes at Ryder’s feet—reds. “Put these on.”

  “The guard?” Skyla asked.

  “I told him he was wanted by the elders, but my lie will be discovered quickly.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Ryder. “Are we going to find Falpian?”

  “Aata’s Right Hand has another idea,” his sister said. “And I think you should listen to it.”

  The tunnels were narrow and dark. They hadn’t seen any bodies, not yet, but the dank, musty smell reminded Falpian of a time back home when he’d found a dead rat in one of the attics.

  The covens are blind, Falpian thought as he walked. The witches can’t read their bones. It wasn’t a secret that would save him, or even do him any good, but he couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer size of it.

  “Where are you taking me?” he said over his shoulder to his captors. Kef grunted by way of answer and gave him a push between the shoulder blades. Falpian stumbled forward into the semidarkness.

  When they came to a fork in the tunnel, Visser took the right-hand path, giving instructions to Kef before they parted. “You know where to meet me,” she said quietly. “Finish the task as quickly as you can. There is much to be done.”

  Falpian stole a glimpse at Kef and saw that his eyes were sick with dread; they both knew the “task” she was referring to. Visser’s glim receded as she hurried off down the passage. Falpian remembered what Kef had said about these tunnels being forbidden, and thought Visser knew her way quite well for someone who wasn’t supposed to ever come here.

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked Kef again.

  Kef raised his glim, steering Falpian by the scruff of the neck. “The preparation chambers. You will have the honor of lying beside dead witches—that is, until the spring comes and the ground is soft enough to bury you.”

  “Bury me!” The thought frightened him even more than dying. He didn’t want to spend his afterlife as a wandering spirit on the wrong side of the border.

  If only he could escape with this secret, this enormous, unexpected secret that had fallen into his lap, that he’d stolen from the mind of his own talat-sa. Wasn’t this what he’d crossed the border for? Falpian had called himself a spy, but he’d never expected to find out something this big. The covens blind! Even the most peaceful of the Baen nobles would have to agree: It was the perfect time to attack.

  This was the gift he could lay at his father’s feet, the gift that would prove that he was worth more alive than dead. But of course, his father would never receive this gift now. Kar’s sense of humor was getting darker and darker.

  “That witch was lying and you know it, Kef,” Falpian said. “I didn’t make those things. You saw Ryder and me destroy two of them with your own eyes—why would I destroy my own monsters?”

  “I don’t know,” Kef said. “I don’t have to know.”<
br />
  “You’re just going to do what you’re told.”

  “That’s right.”

  They walked on, and the rough stone walls seemed to close in on them. At times Falpian had to hunch to squeeze through the passageways, scraping his shoulders as he went. They passed dark alcoves leading off to other tunnels, but Kef kept them on the main path. The air grew thin and stale. I could run, Falpian told himself, but without a lamp he couldn’t get far.

  Behind them, something rattled, like a foot slipping on stones. Kef turned and raised his glim, keeping a hand on Falpian’s collar. The two stood silent, but there was only blackness behind them. “Visser?” Kef called, his voice belying his nerves.

  “It’s probably just your guilty conscience,” Falpian snipped, hiding his own fears. Kef narrowed his eyes and pushed Falpian on. “If your parents were here now, they’d tell you to think for yourself. They did. They knew that not all Baen were evil, no matter what some witches claimed.”

  “My parents aren’t here now.”

  “But if they were—”

  “My parents were punished for what they did during the war—punished for helping the Baen!”

  Ahead Falpian could dimly see a widening in the tunnel, could just make out the outline of a door. It must be the preparation chamber, he thought—the place where Kef would kill him.

  “Punished how?” he asked, turning around, trying to slow their pace.

  “The Goddess took them. That’s all I’ll say.”

  But Falpian knew more, remembered more. Disparate images from Ryder’s memory coalesced in his mind. “The scabbing disease,” he said, his voice growing gentler.

  Kef’s face darkened. “Ryder certainly has told you a lot about me.”

  The scabs. A bad way to go by any reckoning. And worse to watch. “Kar’s sake,” Falpian said softly. “I’m sorry. But plagues . . . They kill the good and bad alike, you know. There’s no explanation—”

  “No,” said Kef firmly. “No. Only children and the old die of the scabs. There had to be a reason why two healthy people were taken. They were the only ones in my village to die of the disease that year—the only ones! And I knew why. I knew the secret they were keeping.”

  Kar’s eyes, thought Falpian. How could he argue with that logic? How could he argue with just a few steps left? “You can’t kill me because of your parents! What have I got to do with them?”

  “I begged to join the coven so that I could atone for what they’d done,” Kef said, his voice raw. “I told the witches I’d do anything. And killing you is what they’ve asked of me. I’m . . . sorry.”

  Another noise behind them made Kef wheel around, his light upraised. Again nothing. This was Falpian’s only chance. He took a deep breath and balled his hands into tight fists. When Kef turned back, Falpian swung his hands upward as hard as he could. His fists connected with Kef’s jaw, and he heard a click as teeth snapped against teeth. Frantically, he grabbed for the knife at Kef’s belt, but he missed as Kef stumbled back. The glim smashed against the ground, spraying hot fat.

  “Where are you?” Kef said to the dark. Falpian pressed his body against the wall of the tunnel, trying to quiet the beating of his heart. At any moment, Kef’s knife would find his flesh.

  There was a loud, cracking thump, and Falpian heard Kef cry out in pain. Something fell heavily to the ground. Falpian stayed frozen, listening, but all was quiet. It was probably a trick. Kef was probably trying to wait him out, trying to get Falpian to make the first sound. Someone grabbed his arm, and Falpian screamed.

  “Follow me,” said a voice, a woman’s voice.

  “Who are you?” Falpian cried.

  “Quickly. He’s unconscious now but could wake at any time. I used a stone. Poor boy—but I’ll go back to him when you are safe.”

  “What? Who?” Falpian saw nothing in front of him but pitch blackness. “Who are you?” he managed to sputter.

  “Yarma,” said the voice. “Friend.”

  CHAPTER 20

  THE BLACK WITCH

  It was pitch-dark, but the mysterious woman seemed to know where she was going. “Stay here,” she said. A cool hand guided Falpian to the corner of a stone table. He gripped it tightly. She’d cut his bonds, and his hands were still tingling back to life.

  “Where are you going?” His voice sounded high and quavery and he didn’t care. He wasn’t convinced this person was a friend—maybe she just wanted all the Baen-killing for herself—but without her he was trapped in a mountain full of dead witches.

  “I’ll be back soon.” The woman’s voice was gravelly but pleasant, like the singing of a rusty door.

  After the cramped tunnels, Falpian felt dwarfed by the blackness all around him. This must have been the place Kef had called the preparation chamber, whatever that meant. Falpian couldn’t guess its dimensions, but something about the way his voice carried gave him the feeling of space and high ceilings.

  “Hello?” he called. There was a slight echo in the room, but other than that he got no answer. He ran his hands over the cool stone of the table and touched what he thought was a large crate or box sitting on top. He moved his hands up the wooden sides. There was no lid, but inside the box was some sort of sand. He pinched a bit of it and touched his fingers to his tongue. Salt.

  From far across the room, a light appeared. Then another. The two lights bobbed toward him. “That’s better,” said the voice. “I do hate the dark.”

  As the lights came closer, Falpian began to distinguish rows of rough wooden shelves around him, each one filled with bottles and jars. Dried plants hung upside down from nails driven into the cave walls. He could see where he was now, could see that the stone table was very large, and that the box he had touched was one of three, about as long as men. There was something in the nearest box that he hadn’t noticed before.

  “Kar’s thousand eyes!” he yelled, jumping back.

  A woman holding two glims hurried forward. Falpian pointed in horror at a mound sticking up out of the salt. Fingers.

  “One of the witches who died in the attack,” she said calmly. “This is where I will prepare their bodies.”

  Falpian gagged and wiped his tongue on the sleeve of his coat—he’d actually tasted the salt around those corpses! The witch tilted her head, bemused. It was the woman in black he had seen praying in the chamber of Aata and Aayse. She was older than her flexible body had led him to believe. Now Falpian saw the deep lines around her mouth and eyes, saw that her short-cropped hair had paled to white. Her eyes were sharp, though, he noticed, bright and curious.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I meant no . . . disrespect.” She looked him up and down. “Please, don’t be alarmed. My name is Falpian.” He remembered that you were supposed to bow to witches, so he quickly bent over, stooping so low that he could see the tile work on the dusty floor. “I know you probably haven’t seen a Baen in a long time. . . .”

  “I thought you would be older.”

  Her words didn’t register. “I’m not here to harm you.”

  “You’ve come too early.”

  He stood up. “Honestly, I—what?”

  The witch stared at him with her bright bird’s eyes. “Come along.” She turned and began to walk quickly toward the other end of the chamber. “There is an exit,” she said over her shoulder. “But I’m afraid it is a long way down, and you will have to climb back up the mountain on the Witchlander side. It will be dangerous, but it’s the only way. We must get you back across the border.”

  “Wait!” Falpian stood where he was. “I—”

  “Young man!” The witch raised her two glims. “You must go home. Now. Don’t you know what we did to people like you during the war?”

  Falpian’s mouth went dry. He knew. He hurried toward her, not wanting to be left in the dark. “But I have a friend. He’s here in the caves. I need to speak with him.”

  “You have no friends in the covens,” she said sharply. “No friends but me. You must go f
orward.” She was right, of course. It was foolish to want to see Ryder again—what made him even think of it? He’d only be caught by the witches, and he had a mission to complete.

  “Why would you call yourself my friend?”

  The woman stared at him in the light of the glims. Her eyes were still bright, but something in the depths of them made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He’d thought her eyes were birdlike; now he remembered what strange little creatures birds really were. Then she laughed a jovial laugh that made Falpian wonder why, a moment before, he had been afraid of her.

  “Follow me,” she said, and she turned without answering the question. “I can’t go with you. But I will show you the way!”

  Ryder let out a deep breath when he got to the chamber. He’d made it through the main cavern without being noticed, though all the while he’d felt as if the Goddess were shining a light on him from above, angry at his wearing reds. Aata’s Right Hand had said they would call too much attention to themselves if they all went together, so Ryder was alone, waiting in the dim quiet for the two girls to join him.

  From the walls, blue-stone eyes stared at him placidly. Ryder took a large lamp from the wall and held it up to better see the portraits of two women. One of the faces was especially fine; the light glittered on blond hair made of hundreds of gold and yellow tiles. But the second portrait was damaged, with only a few of its original stones remaining.

  “The twin prophets,” he murmured. He drew a finger across the yellow hair in the damaged portrait, then examined the yellow stain on his finger.

  His sister came out of the tunnel and slipped in beside him. “What is it?” She must have seen these portraits before, but to Ryder they were new and strange.

  “I’ve seen something like this somewhere else,” he said, thinking of the day the monsters came when he saw the two faces at the waterfall: one Witchlander, one Baen. Ryder bent down and picked something off the floor—a shard of jet-black stone with a curved edge—and a wild idea flashed through his mind. He tried to fit it into the empty eye socket of the damaged portrait, but it was hard to tell exactly where it belonged.