The Dark Citadel (The Green Woman)

by Jane Dougherty

  “So you set off, my hero, all alone, to fight the evil witch? Is that correct?”

  Zachariah knew his story sounded stupid; it didn’t even convince him. He floundered, completely out of his depth. “No…I…Yes!”

  “Azrael!”

  One of the winged demons stepped forward, a tower of dark muscle, throwing a long shadow in the flickering flamelight. A knife shone in his hand. Pulling open Zachariah’s shirt, he placed the blade below his throat. Azrael’s lips curled back in a cruel smile as the knife bit into the skin. Zachariah’s eyes opened wide in terror and he gasped as the blade descended slowly, tracing a red line from his throat down over his chest and stomach. The slit skin burned, and the line blurred as blood seeped over the lips of the wound.

  “The next time,” the fox-headed creature hissed, “he will cut just a fraction deeper, and you will see the contents of your belly spill around your feet. Think hard before you open your puling, yapping mouth again to answer. My patience, unlike Azrael’s cruelty, is not limitless. Now, would it not be that you were to tell the Witch that the Dananns have her daughter in hiding? With her daughter in safe hands, were you not to give the signal that the Witch could move against Providence?”

  Confused by pain and fear, Zachariah stammered, “The Witch’s daughter...?”

  Azrael stepped forward again, and Zachariah pulled back in terror. But the demon twisted his arms behind his back and thrust him to his knees.

  “The eyes, Azrael!”

  The dark angel grabbed his hair in a brutal grip.

  “No! Please!”

  Taking no notice, Azrael pulled back Zachariah’s head, forcing him to stare into the smouldering pits of the demon king’s eyes. He tried to look away, but his eyes were held, forced wider and wider, the delicate muscles straining.

  At last Abaddon turned away in fury. “He does not know about the girl.” With a bestial snarl, he grabbed Zachariah by the throat, his stinking animal paws and long black claws squeezed tight. “But you got out, little man, the Dananns showed you the way. So you can get back in again can’t you?”

  Zachariah struggled for breath. “Yes, sir,” he whispered hoarsely. “Yes, I can.”

  Chapter 14

  Silently the pups emerged from the bushes, their hackles still obstinately raised, grey shadows on the grey sand. Some shook themselves to throw off their fear, some snarled at the still dark sky, all avoided the patch of scuffed sand and stones with its scattering of bright crimson drops of blood. Deborah clutched Jonah’s hand tightly, feeling his grief and anger through his fingertips and mourning with him. One pup looked much the same as another to her, but Jonah’s sadness was more than she could bear. She would have given anything, years, time, a handful of her dreams, anything to bring back the dead pup and spare Jonah’s heartache.

  Jonah returned the pressure of her hand and ventured a smile that threatened to squeeze the waiting drops from the corners of his eyes. “Come on,” he whispered, “let’s get out of here,” and led the way along the path north. With lowered ears, and tails between their legs, the pups followed in a tight, silent pack.

  * * * *

  For the rest of that night and the whole of the next, until they were dropping with fatigue and faint with hunger, they kept up the same steady dogtrot. They rested from grey dawn half-light to grey twilight. In between, they trudged through darkness, straining their ears for the cringing whisperings, the half-understood mutterings of dead voices. Sometimes they found a gully and Jonah judged it safe enough to build a fire. Then they ate hot food, small desert rodents and once, a jackrabbit.

  Otherwise the eerie desert night accompanied them, cold and starless but filled with the startling silhouettes of jagged rock formations and crooked trees. They took turns watching during the long hours of daylight. The heat was heavy, and the silence that fell once the night animals slept was oppressive. Fitful winds flung clouds of sand and grit at them, and the dull light played tricks with their vision. Shadows played among the rocks, and strange, silent birds flapped heavily through the clouds of dust.

  The desert held its breath and spread out before them as a broad path. Even the thorn bushes seemed to shrink back out of their way, and no fissures opened up treacherously before their feet in the dreary darkness. No more demons fell upon them out of clouds of darkness, and Deborah began to fear it was not because they had not been seen, but because they were being lured into a trap.

  Morning followed morning of watching the same mournful peaks and gullies take form out of the night shadows, until the day finally dawned when they looked across a changing landscape. Even Deborah could see the earth was taking a deeper, more solid colour and consistency, patches of green were appearing, first as isolated plants, then, about an hour’s march away, as a solid fringe of living vegetation.

  “Look, Princess, the river,” Jonah whispered.

  Deborah’s eyes lit up, and she squeezed his hand. “Will we reach it tonight?” she asked, her eyes shining with hope. He nodded his head gravely and held her hand tighter.

  Throughout the long day, Jonah scarcely slept at all. His emotions were in turmoil. His cheek still burned with the light touch of her lips. Without the pups guiding his steps, he was not sure he would have been able to find the river in his present state. He was confused, awkward. He picked up one of the pups, Silver, his favourite, and pressed his hot face into her warm fur. The pup licked his face. The next night they would have to decide to follow Deborah or stay in the desert where they knew Abaddon was massing his forces, where their parents were baying for war and whining for their lost children.

  He could never leave the pups; they were his family, the only family he had left. But leaving Deborah, even if he had led her to safety and his duty was done, would be to tear himself apart. He didn’t know how he would bear it.

  Deborah strained to pick out the green strip that marked the river, impatient to be away. She was sure that once they got there, Jonah would persuade the pups to cross to the other side. She had come to depend on Jonah and didn’t want to dwell on how she would manage without him—because she depended on him for more than just survival. Jonah was the first person she had allowed to get close to her, the first whose opinion she cared about, the first whose company she preferred to her own.

  She thought she had no secrets from Jonah, that there was nothing she wouldn’t tell him. And in time, that might have been true. Certainly, the ordeal of crossing the desert had created an intimacy that made her shiver. Jonah had become a part of her, and she knew she had stirred something in his feelings too.

  The thought made her tingle with excitement; it also unsettled her. Sometimes she caught him looking at her, and she felt her guts turn to water. She started wearing the hateful headscarf again. At least in the desert it was useful, it helped keep the sand out of her mouth, and it hid her face when his gaze grew too insistent.

  Deborah had never given much thought to her emotions. Strong feelings were for making heroic stands, punishing evil, dealing out justice. She never imagined herself as having needs and desires. The thought of Jonah, so close she could feel his soft breath on her face, made her feel warm and safe. She found herself watching him, the confident way he moved, his long limbs hardened by life in the desert. He moved with the fluidity of a big cat, supple and silent. There was something else too, deeper and stronger.

  Jonah was part of her, his laughter, the touch of his hand, guiding her through the darkest moments. He was as much a part of her destiny as the flashes of Memory or the gentle whispering of her mother’s voice. She had known it in the cavern where she stepped outside Providence, but she had not known what that bond meant. Her heart had been unknown territory then. Then. It hurt to push him aside, but she couldn’t afford to listen to her heart. There would be time for that later, she hoped.

  Right now, the important thing was to get across the river and to the mountains. If Jonah was to be her guide, she had to convince the pups to follow him. She clasped he
r hands around her knees and thought hard. “Jonah,” she asked. The pups turned their yellow eyes on her and listened. “Is the Queen powerful enough to destroy Abaddon?”

  Jonah considered the question. “With the tree of life, the Garden would flourish, the cycle would be renewed, and the demon would be banished to the desert. As long as he didn’t manage to worm his way back into the Garden.”

  “How could he do that?”

  “He did it before. Remember the story of the Serpent?”

  Deborah shook her head. “The Elders don’t teach history, remember?”

  “He would have to be invited.”

  “Holy Mother, who’d want to do that?” Deborah brushed the objection aside in exasperation. “So, in theory, if Abaddon is defeated, the pups get their parents back?”

  Jonah’s green eyes were pensive. “That’s the theory, yes. Those who renounce evil will be free to go, to recover their true selves. Like Samariel.”

  Deborah sprung to her feet and gave him a gentle kick in the side. “Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s get to Mother, help her find the tree, and change the course of world history!”

  The pups leapt up, yipping in unison, their bushy tails thrashing from side to side. Jonah grabbed the nearest pup by the ears and kissed him on the nose. He didn’t need to explain to Deborah what they had decided.

  * * * *

  All night they walked, picking their way across a terrain that was growing increasingly difficult. The pups zigzagged as pools of mud barred the way or tufts of reeds hid deep water holes. Finally, when daybreak was still some hours away, they reached the mud flats that marked the river’s edge. Smooth and still it stretched before them, dark as oil and impassable. Thick grey mists clung to the water and obscured their view of the far bank. The current dragged sluggishly at the bank making a dull slapping sound, and the oozing mud gave off a stink of decomposition.

  Deborah shivered in the damp cold and pulled her shawl tight over her head. The shadows were rising; she felt the pitiless voices growing louder. The darkness was full of eyes, searching.

  * * * *

  “If only we had a boat,” Jonah sighed. One of the fierce desert winds sprang up, rending gaps in the river mists and Deborah pointed across the water.

  “What’s that? In the reeds by the far bank. Isn’t that a boat of some sort?”

  Jonah followed her pointing finger and sucked in his breath. “It’s a boat all right. It belongs to the ferry man.”

  “Well, then—” Deborah interrupted.

  Jonah motioned to her to be quiet. “Princess! Your ignorance is exasperating sometimes. The ferryman is Charon. He only brings his passengers one way. This is the land of the dead, didn’t you know?”

  Deborah shivered and shook her head. “And Providence?”

  “When the Queen recovers the tree of life Providence will have to choose between the light and the darkness. If the choice is left to the Elders, Providence will open its gates to the king of the demons and the desert will enter. Abaddon will rule there, and it will become as dead as the desert. That’s what the stories tell us anyway.” He added comfortingly, “They may be just a load of me arse.”

  “This Abaddon character has a pretty high opinion of himself if he thinks he can make Providence any deader than it already is,” Deborah said defiantly. “Personally, I wouldn’t put money on his chances. But these speculations aren’t getting us across the river.”

  They were resigned to waiting until daybreak and risking the light to see if there was a way across. But after only a few minutes of peering through the river mists, the mudflats began to appear sinister and disquieting. Both Deborah and Jonah instinctively crouched back into the sedge, keeping their heads down, both with the impression they were being watched. The sense that a trap was closing around them returned.

  Deborah tried in vain to pierce the darkness to see what lay ahead, but the shadows shifted, drifting over from the far bank, and gradually obscuring the surface of the water. Behind, the desolate wastes were cold and silent, not even the sound of the cruel desert creatures hunting came to them. She shivered and strained her ears towards the mud flats and the river, almost sure she could hear furtive sounds beneath the pop and hiss of gas bubbles rising through the viscous mud.

  The pups whined and slunk back into the bulrushes. The black mist thickened and coiled, and Deborah realised with a shock she could make out shapes in its depths. She glanced at Jonah expectantly, hoping for reassurance. But his face was drawn and tense and he licked his lips nervously.

  “They’re not going to let us cross, are they?”

  It wasn’t really a question, and Jonah didn’t offer an answer. A horse whinnied and something reptilian hissed. The water beneath the banks of black mist began to churn, and fiery red pinpoints of light peered like searchlights across the mud and swept over the reeds. The red points became eyes. Horseheads appeared, black and dripping, and horse-like heads, scaled and hairless.

  Jonah moaned. “Kelpies. And lindworms.” His voice was pale, fearful.

  Deborah gulped. She didn’t need to ask Jonah what they were; she could see them, or at least as much of them as she wanted. “I take it they wouldn’t be interested in being given back their past?”

  Jonah shook his head. “They were never good, those things, always venomous and crafty and evil.”

  “Can they see us?” Deborah could not take her eyes from the hypnotic red lamps. Jonah shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  “I…I’m not sure. They can probably smell us though. One good thing,” he made a pathetic attempt at a grin, “they can’t live far from water.”

  “How far?”

  “Not more than a mile, I think.”

  “Great. We must be all of a hundred yards from the river.”

  Jonah turned suddenly, away from the river, to look back the way they had come. He listened. Deborah watched as a look of terror he quickly tried to hide flashed across his face. She listened and heard it too, the snarl of hunting wyverns and the baying of hounds.

  “The kelpies and the worms, they’re going to try and force us back,” Jonah hissed.

  “I am not going back!”

  “It’s a trap, Princess. They’ve caught us in the middle.”

  Chapter 15

  Deborah thought fast. She could make out the kelpies now, as they plunged out of the river, and hear the sucking sound as they dragged their heavy hooves free of the clinging river mud. They tossed their manes and bared long teeth in a cry that was more like a predator’s howl. Behind the black water horses, the lindworms, two-headed and venomous, crawled their sinuous way across the mud. Dragon heads swung from left to right, and flaring nostrils sniffed the night air noisily for the scent of warm blood. Jonah could not kill all the creatures, even supposing an arrow could kill them, and Deborah’s only weapon was the Memory.

  Concentrating hard, Deborah chased all other thoughts from her head, looking for inspiration, looking for a place to hide. She pushed aside her fears of the demons making their way across the mudflats before them, of the unseen terror bearing down on them from the desert behind, and searched her mind for memories of the riverbank. Images flitted behind her closed lids, too fast to seize upon, but she knew she had found them. She saw vegetation rippling down to the water, strange trees growing tall and thick, mangroves dangling tentacular roots over the water’s edge, then mud, grass, and reeds reappearing as the river changed its course.

  The memories flicked past, of skies charged with thunderclouds, rain that fell in torrents, then the blinding, flickering whiteness of blizzards. Sun blazed from a brazen sky, and rampant greenery covered the riverbanks. Huge reptiles waded through the deepest part of the river. The river spread and became a lake, stretching green and opaque almost to the horizon. The lake shrank to a huge river again, and long grasses rippled across the plain where waves had once run before the wind. Hunters wearing skins and carrying spears stalked grazing animals through the waving grass. The ima
ges accelerated—a flickering film of a handful of huts became a town growing and spreading. The town sprouted tall warehouses, cranes and aerials, threw out roads filled with cars. It boxed in the river and filled it with cargo ships.

  The scenes unfolded and changed so fast it was like flying at high speed, and when they stopped, Deborah felt as though she had been thrown from a colliding vehicle. Her head spun, but it was there! The memory of the riverbank in the last days before the bombs rained down.

  In bewilderment, she struggled to make sense of the images that appeared, slower now, more focused, inviting her to find what she was looking for. The river was still there but channelled through concrete banks, and a huge port with container ships bringing building materials for Providence. The port was guarded with anti-aircraft missiles mounted on heavy vehicles, a radar tower, and soldiers waiting.

  All was beneath the mud now. She watched as soldiers scuttled to their posts, rockets streaked skywards, trap doors slid open, and dockworkers leapt inside an underground bunker. The doors slid closed behind them. The bunker was there, closed tight against the mud.

  “Get the pups digging, quickly,” Deborah whispered furiously, her head still reeling from the shockwave of images. She crouched and ran back through the sedge, away from the river. The pups followed enthusiastically. “There!”

  The pups dug. Jonah and Deborah wrenched the sedge out by the armful until Deborah heard the scratching of claws against metal. Scrabbling aside the earth, they found the metal door. She pressed the button, and the door slid open just a little before it stuck. But it was enough to let skinny adolescent bodies and scrawny wolf-dog pups through. And quite enough to let out the stale, dry air that had not been replenished in a more than a century.

  Jonah put a hand on Deborah’s shoulder. “Let me go first.”

  She hesitated, and Jonah slipped past and through the narrow gap. Deborah cast a fearful glance over her shoulder. “Be quick, Jonah. Please.”