The Codex of the Witch: Fantasy Novel

by Federico Negri

  “Who are those two men you took onboard?”

  “English military.”

  “I thought the English navy was forcibly disbanded after the war.”

  “Oh, yes. But in reality they’re all still in it, even if it’s unofficial. You should have Silla tell you a story or two someday. When she meets an English sailor in port, she has a whole peculiar way of communicating, winking an eye and secret codes with her fingers—but, you know, the sailors are still a very united entity.”

  Hansi rubs his fingers over the worn surface of the table. “Are they friends?”

  “Good question. Yes, I would say so. Even if the Cerriwdens fly a flag which I’m unable to interpret. To be honest, I’m not at all interested in politics. My aunt would love it; she’s a dragon for these things.”

  “It’s my fault we’re in this mess.”

  “No.” Alina gives him two pats on his soft shoulder. “We’ll get out of it, but try to give yourself some presence.”

  “Some what?”

  “Don’t look all whimpering and dejected. Head up straight, like you were on the Needle. You looked like a lion, whereas here…”

  “Your aunt gave me her trust. Here I really feel like a dead weight. And one hanging by a thin thread.”

  “I vouched for you. And also,” she takes his hand, “I’m by your side, remember that. I don’t go down easily. I’m young, but I have a very powerful gift. You try to be strong.”

  “Like that Englishman?”

  “What does he have to do with it? He’s just a blowhard. And a traitor, to boot.”

  Hansi falls silent and watches her with furtive glances. His hand between Alina’s is more lifeless than a dummy’s.

  “Turtledoves,” the voice of the first officer, the witch Maike, makes them jump, but she’s already moved past the door, down the hallway, with a sneer on her lips.

  ***

  Kasia beats the threadbare map of eastern Germany on the mess hall table. “Where are they?”

  “Hey.” Leonardo puts a hand out in front of him, as if to block an imaginary blow. “I told you, it’s just an idea of mine.”

  “You’ve had some stupid ideas lately. Like unloading the American on me.”

  “It was a good deal. It is a good deal. How could I know the Channel wasn’t safe?”

  “Don’t play me for a fool.” Kasia prods him with her index finger. “Why didn’t you go to Londion yourself? Risk management, that’s why, a war tactic. It was too dangerous to carry the information and the source of the information in the same airship.”

  “We’ve both failed, we’re still stuck here, in Den Haag. The Channel is too risky, we’d have to cross further north.”

  “I have a more pressing matter at hand. I need to get back my niece, Alina, remember? I’ll ask you once more: where are they headed?”

  “You need to reach Londion, but the Baron won’t let you go. We should cut from the North, perhaps from Gothland. You can’t change course now.”

  “Oh no? You decide, damned Swiss man. Either I go to search for Alina or you go.”

  “Hey, I gave my surety for the repairs. I’m in a money pit; I need to buy you another quasi-aluminum frame.”

  “I think it’s the least you can do given the trouble you caught me up in.”

  “The repairs have still yet to begin, Captain,” Leonardo murmurs, curling his sizable blonde moustache.

  “You wouldn’t dare hold me hostage.” Kasia feels her jugular vein pulsate and the dragon who stirs in his shallow sleep.

  Leonardo rises to his feet. “We don’t have a choice. Of course I wouldn’t hold you hostage, but our options are limited. I’m installing a fighter’s frame for you. German material, with a specific weight under the fourth gradient, frightful torque. Military grade.”

  “On an English airship?”

  “You’re not English anymore, remember? What’s more, I have credits to collect here. You, however, need to reach Londion, or at least Gothland. As a gesture of true friendship, I can stray as far as Warzsaw. I’ll look for your niece, or news on her.”

  Kasia studies him for a long moment with her jaw clenched. “That’s fine. But my first officer is coming with you.”

  “Why in the world?” Leonardo raises his eyebrows.

  “That’s the way it is, to assure myself you ask the right questions. And don’t ignore inconvenient answers.”

  “A witch onboard my airship? It’s true my people are all gentlemen, but…” the dealer in information smiles.

  “Silla of the Blue Mountains was in the assault airships during the last war while you were hiding behind your bloody mountains. I think she can handle four or five randy men.”

  PART TWO: IT CAME FROM THE DEPTHS

  “The Cerridwens don’t work for us,” Kenneth whispers to Alina with a hand in front of his mouth. “It’s an assignment from the Palatinate.”

  The East Wind’s mess hall is much more spacious than the Needle’s and, sitting at the end of the table, allows for a certain level of intimacy. The first officer, the witch Maike, snickers with Julya, another member of the Cerriwden crew, while they put away the dishes.

  “So they’re on the Dutch payroll? That’s… crazy,” answers Alina. Witches have served under the English flag for over a thousand years, after the famous Treaty of Fontanelle.

  The man looks at her, opening his blue eyes wide. Then he says softly, almost inaudible, “I know where we’re headed.”

  Alina checks that the other witches are keeping up their lively chatter, remembering old Sabbaths and amorous exploits. The date of the festival is close now, and the excitement in the air is so dense she can almost touch it: “It’s the same as our destination was, on a secret mission from our government,” he continues.

  Alina knits her brow. “Could they not have figured the place out from the orders they swiped from your airship?” And that saved your ass, she would have liked to add.

  The Englishman gives his head a barely noticeable shake. “No, they already knew everything. I’m certain of it.”

  Alina doesn’t understand all this certainty; maybe Kenneth wants to absolve himself for his treason. Either way, it’s scandalous that those witches have pocketed Dutch coin, betraying their people and the Council.

  “I have a plan,” the sailor speaks up once again. “Are you with me?”

  A shiver runs along Alina’s spine. The man is English to the core, and he seems like a good person. Nevertheless, plotting behind the Cerriwdens’ backs, on their airship, could be a dangerous move. She only wanted to get back to the Needle in a hurry, to her aunt and her friends. However, she can’t leave treachery of this magnitude unpunished.

  “Yes,” she answers. Then, after a moment’s hesitation. “That is to say, tell me your plan first.”

  “Not now, I just wanted to confirm you were still loyal to the Queen. And your little boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a lost soul we picked up during our last voyage, and who, by chance, ended up with me on this adventure.”

  Kenneth studies her with an inscrutable gaze and a faint smile that says “Tell me another one.”

  Alina feels the tips of her ears burn and lowers her eyes.

  “Is he with us?”

  “Of course,” Alina whispers, “He’ll do what I tell him.”

  “Allport.” Jillian Cerriwden materializes behind them. “If you’ve finished eating, return to the sick bay to your accomplice. He’ll have soiled himself again; change him and wash him.”

  “With great pleasure; better to clean up English piss than drink German beer. Captain.” The man rises and sets off down the hallway, but not before throwing one last look of understanding at Alina.

  Cerriwden remains planted still as a post and stares at her, her hands—painted with black hieroglyphs—resting on her hips.

  “What were you two whispering about, Santuini?”

  “Oh, nothing important. He was telling me the story of t
he attack on their airship.”

  “What did he say?”

  Alina forces herself to look the other woman in the eye. “It was evening, and they were traveling at reduced speed. They intercepted an unknown airship without a flag that didn’t respond to their radio messages. They engaged it, but the enemy had incredible luck, such that all their blows hit their mark on the ship’s frame, while the two English bombardiers both missed their target.” She repeated in a monotone voice the story she heard on the bridge, when Kenneth told it to the East Wind’s whole crew.

  “Incredible luck, right.” She kept her eyes glued to the young witch. “Be careful, Santuini, I don’t trust that dandy. The fact that he’s an Englishmen and he’s handsome doesn’t automatically mean he’s a reputable character.”

  “But we’re allied with the English, right?” Alina snaps.

  “We were, up until the end of the war. Since we’ve been exiled in Gothland, the English have abandoned us.”

  “Well, to sign the armistice they had to endure very heavy sanctions. We can’t forget—”

  “Child, when the war was going on you were still playing with dolls. Don’t speak of things you don’t understand.”

  Alina moves to get up and open her mouth to respond, but Cerriwden stretches out her hand and continues, “And furthermore, remember you’ve committed yourself with the word of your clan. You’re under my command, don’t you ever forget it.”

  Alina sits back down and slowly lets the air out of her nostrils, staring into the space in front of her. In her heart the rain dragon moves its head, irritated.

  “Is there something else you want to say to me, Santuini?”

  “No.” Alina seals her lips.

  Cerriwden observes her for a few seconds. “Good. We’ve almost arrived at our destination. There will be a bit of walking there. We’ll split up into two squads and you will disembark with the first, together with your English dandy. I want to trust you, but pray don’t disappoint my expectations because I know how to be vindictive.”

  “Where are we?”

  “In the area of ancient Volgogard, a city dead for centuries. In a half hour, on deck, I’ll give you the instructions for your mission.”

  Alina shoulders her icy gaze for several seconds in the silence of the kitchen. The crew’s titillating conversations evaporated as soon as the Captain showed herself at the door.

  “Use your head, Santuini,” Jillian grouses, before shooting off down the corridor behind them.

  Perfidio scurries from under her belly and rubs the young witch’s legs, taut with stress.

  ***

  “Down there,” Jillian points to a blurry outline, on the other side of the airship’s window, “in the middle of all that fog, there’s a fortress called Yellow Sinecure. It’s been deserted for at least a hundred years. The Kazakhs built a secret laboratory here, almost five centuries ago. They conducted research on magic, sweeping up a hundred witches from the whole region and subjecting them to terrible experiments, driving them to madness and then to death.”

  Jillian takes two steps toward her crew, supplemented by Hansi, Kenneth and Alina, and continues her explanation. “The Kazakh scientists—or torturers really—were interested in witches’ ability to maintain a youthful appearance for a great many years. They were also fixated on the idea that magic, if used correctly, could resurrect the dead.”

  “Black magic,” Davidna mutters, the witch in front of Alina, putting a hand in her pocket, maybe to rummage for an amulet.

  “Needless to say, most of their attempts failed. Nevertheless, in the last few years, they achieved some successes. Sadly these ‘successes’ turned against them. Creatures neither alive nor dead, but endowed, so they say, with a diabolical intelligence and extraordinary aggression.”

  “And the Kazakhs?” the first officer, Maike, interrupts her.

  “At first they tried to contain them. But then, when it was clear the experiment was out of control, they decided to blow the place up, and all the witches and scientists inside it, in addition to their un-dead creations.”

  “Spring cleaning,” Gabriela remarks, elbowing Alina.

  “Fortunately, the Kazakhs did not limit themselves to cannon fire, but they built a cement ditch, twelve yards deep, all around the Sinecure. They filled the moat with toxic acid, which would kill any living creature with its fumes alone, and they continued to replenish it for decades, using remote controls. I say, fortunately, because the bombs didn’t kill all of the zone’s inhabitants.”

  “Why are we here, Captain?” Maike asks.

  Jillian Cerriwden lets out a long sigh and looks at her sisters one by one. “From what the Germans said, there’s something buried beneath the building’s secrets. It might be a creature or an object or a strong magic aura. Furthermore we must seize the log of the procedures they used, provided they’re still there. From what we know, we’re not the only ones interested in it. It’s certain the English are on the trail of these rumors.” Her gaze stops on Kenneth Allport. “But unfortunately there are also newcomers, mysterious visitors, who they actually say come from the other side of the ocean.”

  “Who are they?” Alexa asks, one of the crew’s old witches.

  “We don’t know,” the Captain says. “We’ll split into two teams. I’ve put a telepath in each team. The first to descend will be Maike, Gabriela, Alina Santuini, and the Englishman Allport. In the other team will be myself, Alexa, Davidna, and the young German. Julya will remain on the airship. We’ll move out a few dozen yards apart, always keeping in telepathic contact. Down below, there’s probably something. The monsters created by the Kazakhs haven’t gone away completely. The odd explorer over the years has already tried to penetrate the ruins, but none ever returned.”

  “It’s a suicide mission,” Alexa mumbles, lowering her pink irises.

  “It’s a mission with which the Baron commissioned us,” Jillian Cerriwden quickly retorts, burning the witch with her eyes, “and we can see it through. This is the map of the Yellow Sinecure, try to commit it to memory because down there we might be forced to act in a hurry.”

  Alina speeds her breath up slightly. A few members of the crew start to chant, but she has no need of that to awaken the dragon. She contracts her abdominal muscles and moves a bit from one foot to the other. A drop of heat rises from her private regions until it touches her heart, like a needle heating up a damp, throbbing wound. The dragon stirs, roused from its sleep. Alina stares at the map, black lines on a white background: outer walls, doors, inner walls, second floor, stairs, doors, another wall, a tight passage, stairs, stairs, cells, chambers, corridors, wall, wall, wall. Every detail is imprinted in her mind under the dragon’s stern watch.

  Her sisters all around her are finishing their memorization rituals. A flaming tooth flickers with her knowledge, then quickly returns to the dark. Gabriela is watching and smiles at her.

  “To arms!” the Captain commands.

  “First squad,” Maike shouts, “Santuini, Gabri, Allport, to the armory.”

  Hansi turns to Alina one last time with lost eyes, but the witch can’t find any gesture of encouragement in her repertoire, her legs are trembling too.

  ***

  On the deck below, while everyone is readying her revolver and checking the charges in her blunderbuss, Maike starts up again with a gentler tone.

  “Alright, children, you heard the Captain, right? It’s dangerous out there, there’s bound to be some filthy hybrids or some leftovers of the past experiments. I’m not about to make such distinctions. Shoot at everything that moves. Hey! Allport, no blunderbuss for you.”

  “And how shall I defend myself? With bad words?”

  “Captain’s orders. Just a revolver and six shots in the chambers.”

  “But it’s absurd! You just said that it’s dangerous out there!”

  “Don’t argue, Englishman. Those are the Captain’s orders. Santuini, you on the other hand will be armed to the gills. Have you fire
d a gun before?”

  “Of course,” Alina says with a sneer. “My aunt taught me to shoot in Gothland. And I’ve already found myself in a couple of situations where I had to make weapons sing,” she lies. She’s drawn a gun to fire it only during the skirmish in Den Haag, and it led to her separation from the Needle and her Aunt Kasia.

  “Gabriela, are you ready?” the first officer asks.

  The other witch’s sclera are already brilliant and black like the wings of a scarab, and she’s connected to Davidna, the telepath in the second group. “Of course.”

  “Let’s move out,” Maika says, opening the hatch at the airship’s bottom. “Go, Allport, you first. Then you, Santuini, then Gabriela. I’ll bring up the rear, look lively.”

  The English sailor casts one last disappointed look at her, but then he starts to descend the rope ladder.

  When it’s Alina’s turn, as soon as she’s outside, the wind presses her dress against her and smacks her bare legs. She chose to free herself from anything that could encumber her; she’s wearing only boots, a pair of mid-thigh military stockings and a short sailor’s jacket of yellow leather. A blunderbuss and a long, curved blade hang from her bandolier, while she has another revolver and an oil lamp on her belt.

  The ropes disappear into a blanket of greenish fog enveloping the landscape. A few scrawny tree boughs protrude from that miasma, and the gray walls of the Yellow Sinecure complex are hinted at in the haze of daybreak. She treads down each rung until she submerges herself into the gloom that obscures everything. Kenneth waits for her, his eyes staring into empty space and his gun pointed into the fog.

  “Alina,” he whispers. “Are you with me?”

  She plants a foot on the ground, relinquishing the ladder’s safety. “Of course. But let’s try to get out alive,” she answers quietly, and wrinkles her nose.

  Her nostrils burn as if she were breathing vinegar.

  A few yards above she makes out the figure of Gabriela, who soon reaches them, followed by Maike.

  “Go, Allport,” Maike orders and they set off, their senses amplified as much as possible to try and catch the slightest suspicious noise among the vegetation’s branches.