The woman sitting on a chair on the opposite side of the room smiled. They were, Krystal estimated, more or less the same height, but Cadenza seemed smaller somehow. She certainly had a narrower waist and a bigger bust than Krystal. The Tangleroots Witch was a beautiful woman with quite a round face over a pointed chin, a nose that tilted up at the tip, full lips, and large violet-hued eyes. Her hair, Krystal realised, was similar to her own hair in scales: long with a base of blue and streaks of red and purple in it. She was dressed in a stylish, black dress with a sash of pink silk hanging from her right hip and a bodice which showed off Cadenza’s cleavage rather well.
At her feet was another cat. This one had more blue to its feathers, and the edges were more iridescent, showing various different shades as the creature groomed. It seemed to be entirely ignoring Krystal.
‘This young lady is Opal,’ Cadenza said, indicating the cat. ‘Nightshade is her son and Opal is my familiar. They’re tanglecats. I’m sure you’ve heard of them, but don’t worry, Nightshade doesn’t seem to wish to bite and Opal is only acting snooty because she doesn’t really like visitors.’ Opal paused in her preening to look up at Cadenza. ‘Yes, you are. You know you are. You always do.’
Krystal decided that ignoring the exchange was probably for the best. ‘Uh, you said we’d met before. I came here because… Well, I got a cryptic message from one of my ancestors… Maybe from one of my ancestors. They said you could tell me, well, who my parents were. Or something. It was cryptic and maybe you aren’t even the right witch. They said–’
Cadenza held up a hand. ‘Trudy Black told me about the message.’ She smiled an amused-yet-knowing sort of smile. ‘Passed on through the Black family… Anyway, yes, I’m the right witch. They sent you back to where you were born, and you have come back to where you were born. The same room, in fact.’ She paused briefly. ‘Perhaps we should go through to your friends before we go further with this. They’ll want to know you’re awake.’
‘I… Yes. Okay.’
Nodding, Cadenza got to her feet. ‘Your clothes are on the chair beside the bed. I’ll let you get dressed. Turn right out of the door and… Well, I’d imagine you’ll hear voices fairly quickly.’ Turning, she headed for the door with Opal on her heels, and a second later she was gone.
Krystal turned her head and looked at Nightshade. ‘I have to get up.’ The cat looked back with an interested sort of impassivity. ‘Uh, that means you need to move.’ Nightshade made no effort to follow her suggestion. Krystal started to push herself up off the mattress and immediately saw long, very sharp claws extend from Nightshade’s paws to dig into the blanket. ‘You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?’ Krystal asked, wondering how thick the bedding was. She could have sworn the tanglecat was grinning at her.
~~~
There was the sound of voices to follow, but there was also the cat. Nightshade trotted out of the room, down a corridor, and through another door ahead of Krystal, and Krystal suspected that he was leading the way. The voices just confirmed things.
There was not much light to guide her either. While dressing, she had noticed that the room was lit by candles and had no windows. The corridor was also windowless and it had only a couple of oil lamps. The room Krystal found herself in after following Nightshade was larger than the little bedroom, but it also had no windows. It was illuminated by four light spells set in the rafters which, Krystal suspected, were long-term spells kept running at all times. A trick which suggested Cadenza had more than a little skill in light magic.
The room looked like a weird combination of lounge, dining room, library, and workshop. There were a couple of large chairs set near a fireplace which was, currently, not alight. There was a trestle table which might have been used for dining, but it also had various pots and books at one end of it suggestive of potion making. And there were more tables dotted around the back of the room with various alchemical and herbal equipment on them, as well as charm-making tools. There were bookshelves too, and Krystal wanted to get her hands on some of those books just because of their obvious age.
The misfits were spread around the room on chairs and benches, and they were all looking at the door by the time Krystal walked in. Trudy was already on her feet and walking over.
‘How are you feeling?’ Trudy asked.
‘Headache,’ Krystal replied, rubbing at the back of her skull. ‘Otherwise… I’m fine.’ She looked around for Xanthe. ‘Xan, you got bitten, how–’
Xanthe, seated on one of the benches at the dining table, looked up from her attempts to attract Nightshade with some meat. ‘I’m fine, Krys. Cadenza fixed me up. I probably could’ve taken care of it myself eventually.’
‘That is one scary-powerful lady,’ Charlotte said. ‘She took care of all of us, after running those wolves off. Explains a lot.’
‘Huh?’ Krystal asked. The last remark seemed to come out of nowhere.
‘She certainly is quite the magus,’ Felicia said. She was sitting on one of the chairs beside the fireplace. Jesse was perched on the chair’s arm.
‘Not to mention herbalist,’ Jesse added. ‘If your head’s still hurting in a little while, Krys, she’s got some remedies for… Well, just about everything.’
‘Okay,’ Krys said, ‘so we were attacked by wolves and–’
‘We were attacked by wolves which someone sent to attack us,’ Xanthe said. ‘Not even the wolves in Tangleroots would attack a larger force through fire. They were being forced.’
‘I would tend to agree, Xanthe Wild,’ Cadenza said, coming in behind Krystal. ‘You’re up, Krystal. I’m glad to see you seem to be fully mobile. Next time, try not to fall on your head.’
Krystal’s brow furrowed as she saw the other girls exhibiting signs of discomfort. Trudy took Krystal’s hand in a comforting manner. Felicia looked like she might start crying. The others were just looking anywhere aside from at Krystal or, it seemed, Cadenza. ‘What’s going on?’ Krystal asked. ‘Why do you lot look as though I’ve just had really bad news delivered?’
Cadenza was putting food on the table. Her back stiffened, though she continued working. So, it seemed that this news, whatever it was, was something to do with Cadenza.
‘Not bad news, darling,’ Felicia said.
‘Maybe a little disturbing?’ Trudy suggested.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Krystal replied.
‘I… haven’t told her,’ Cadenza said. ‘Yet. I haven’t told her yet.’
‘I’d have thought she could work it out,’ Ramona said. ‘We all did. You have used that sight-correction spell, haven’t you, Krys?’
‘Yes, but–’
Trudy slapped her forehead sharply. ‘Yes, but she’s never actually seen herself in a mirror, have you?’
Krystal frowned. ‘Of course I have! This is getting–’
‘In scales, Krys. You’ve never actually taken the time to look at yourself in scales.’
‘Oh, uh, no. No, I haven’t.’
‘Well,’ Charlotte said, pointing at Cadenza, ‘now you pretty much don’t have to.’
‘What? Her hair’s the same, but–’
‘When you’re in scales, she could almost be your twin,’ Trudy said. ‘We haven’t seen her in scales yet, but I bet you look even closer.’
Krystal’s eyes widened and she stared at Cadenza.
‘You, uh, got your skin from your father,’ Cadenza said. ‘His hair was that colour too. Um, I guess we both had the same eyes, and so do you…’
‘You?’ Krystal said, her tone a little incredulous, and a little angry. ‘You’re my mother?! Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I… Well, I really thought you’d… I thought you’d kind of… work it out.’
‘I simply can’t believe you’ve never looked at yourself in a mirror, darling,’ Felicia said. Her tone was light: she was trying to bring Krystal down from the anger which seemed to be bubbling up.
‘Mirrors were not encouraged
in the orphanage,’ Krystal said through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t spend much time in scales because I don’t know who my parents are, so it might be dangerous for someone else to find out, and frivolously staring at my reflection has never seemed important.’ She faltered a little. ‘I suppose the hair should’ve… Why did you do it?! Where’s my father?!’
Cadenza flinched. ‘Your father… I believe he’s dead. I assume you want to know why we… why we gave you up. It was for your own protection. Neither of us ever expected to see you again. You don’t know what it means to me–’
‘You were living practically on my doorstep! You could’ve seen me any time you wanted!’
‘Krys…’ Trudy said and Krystal flashed angry eyes at her.
‘I think I should let you… recover… for a while,’ Cadenza said. She walked past Krystal and Trudy to the door, and Krystal did nothing to stop her.
‘Krys,’ Trudy said again.
‘No,’ Krystal snapped. ‘I think I’ve a right to be a little angry. She was here! She was right here all along. I mean, maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to be raised in a ruin, but she could have… She could have… I don’t know! But she could’ve done something to let me know she was here!’
‘Maybe,’ Ramona said. ‘Maybe not. If you’re just going to glare at her, I don’t think there’s much point in her explaining.’
‘You wanted to find out who you are,’ Felicia said. ‘You’ve found more than you could have hoped for, darling. You have a mother. Speaking as someone who has recently… suffered some difficulty with her parents, I’d have thought this was a good thing.’
Krystal let out an exasperated breath. ‘I don’t know! I need to… think. I need to get my head around this. Just… Just give me a while to think this through.’
‘If you want,’ Trudy said. ‘I’m not sure this is something you can think your way through, Krys. You need to feel it, and that’s not going to be easy.’
~~~
The idea to explore the ruins had been Trudy’s. The girls had sat through an almost silent lunch with Cadenza as Krystal continued to try to work her way through her feelings, and Trudy had asked whether it would be safe to take a look around. Assuming that they took some care, Cadenza had said, the remaining buildings were quite stable.
The reason for the lack of windows was obvious if you thought about it, but it became thoroughly apparent when they had to go up to reach ground level. The ruins were stable, but they mostly lacked any form of roofing. That meant that a lot of them were overgrown: they had been sitting in the open for a thousand years, give or take, and that had given the plants plenty of time to establish themselves. The structures had once housed homes, kitchens, halls, and utilities, but now there was little to tell them apart.
‘You’d need an entire university of archaeologists in here to make sense of the place,’ Krystal noted.
‘You really think they could figure any of this out from what’s left?’ Charlotte asked.
‘Well…’ Krystal paused, dropped to one knee, and picked up a fragment of pot. ‘There is some evidence around and archaeologists can be great at making assertions based on a pottery shard. Like, maybe this was part of a cooking pot, so this was probably a kitchen.’
‘Doubt it,’ Trudy replied. ‘No evidence of chimneys.’
‘Okay, storage room then. Of course, someone could just have dropped a pot outside their front door. I think respectable archaeologists would probably base their interpretations on more than one shard.’
‘Maybe we should try the tower. There seems to be more of that still standing.’
Once upon a time, the tower had to have been quite something to see. From the looks of it, it had been the corner of a large, two-storey building: the centrepiece of the castle in all probability. The building had been badly damaged in the war, leaving little but short runs of stonework to prove it had been there. You had to wonder why the attackers had left the tower standing, but there it was. You could climb up about four storeys before you found yourself standing on the remains of that level and looking out over the forest. The tower had been circular and, from the look of the rooms, designed more for residence than warfare. Then again, the Armonias had not been soldiers, according to the history books: they were noted for their skill in magic and diplomacy, not in fighting.
‘You know,’ Ramona said, musingly, as they stood at the top of the ruined tower, ‘this place was never really designed for defence. Not siege defence anyway. The citadel in Scarlin Cantervale has thicker walls and a buttressed curtain wall. I know we’re looking at ruins, but if this place came under siege, it wouldn’t last long from what I’m seeing.’
‘It was never supposed to,’ Krystal replied. ‘From what I’ve read, the Armonias used the Crown of Harmony to avoid having to fight people. Before that, they relied on the fact that their lands were on an island and they were skilled magicians. If you wanted to attack the Armonias, you had to sail to get to them and invading fleets tended to suffer from terrible bad luck before they even landed.’
‘But the Nightskys and the Scarlins managed to march in here and destroy the place.’
‘Supposedly, the Nightskys managed to create defences against the Armonias’ magic and that allowed the Scarlins to bring in their armies. I’ve never been entirely satisfied with the historical narrative, but it was a thousand years ago. There’s no one around to tell us what actually happened. I wonder what’s under this place.’
‘The stairs in the tower went down as well as up,’ Jesse said. ‘We’d need light, but I bet you can handle that.’
So, they went down. Like the rooms Cadenza was occupying some five hundred feet away, the rooms under the tower and its attached building were more intact than might have been expected. There were some smashed-in doors and one room showed signs of a small fire which had darkened the stonework long ago, but as they moved further into the underground corridors, the damage decreased and the place looked more and more as though it could be reoccupied following the judicious use of a sweeping brush.
‘This place makes so little sense,’ Ramona said. ‘It’s like they swarmed in with all this righteous fury, flattened the place, and then gave up. I mean, the stories I was told suggest there should be bodies, well skeletons, lying around the corridors. Everyone was slaughtered where they stood. There’s nothing here, and the rooms all look like the family left this morning.’
Krystal pushed open a door and lifted the light ball she was carrying with her to see inside. ‘Well, if they left this morning, they went around collapsing all their bookcases first, but I do see what you mean.’
The room was full of a lot of bookcases which seemed to have decided that gravity was too much for them. A few were still standing, but frequently with individual shelves collapsed. Most were fallen, or had collapsed in on themselves thanks to the weight of paper they supported. There was a distinct smell of mildew about the place, but there were books! There was no way they were keeping Krystal out of the place. Trudy started giggling as soon as Krystal started examining the fallen volumes.
‘What?’ Krystal said, tossing a book aside as the pages crumbled as soon as it was opened.
‘You and books,’ Trudy replied, still grinning. ‘If there are any in here that aren’t rotten, I’ll be surprised.’
‘Well, you might be surprised then. There’s enchantment in here. I can feel it. I think there are a few magical books in here and those might have survived a thousand years in damp conditions.’
‘Can you tell where?’ Felicia asked.
Frowning, Krystal focused on the sensation she was getting and then pointed toward the back of the room. ‘That way.’ And she began picking her way through the fallen tomes, clearing them aside where she had to.
There were several books in a pile at the back of the room which seemed to have escaped the ravages of time, and not all of them had any hint of magic about them. Krystal handed one of them to Jesse. ‘Plants of the Southern Hemisphere,’ she sai
d. ‘Rare to see it complete and one of the best works on the plants of the southern jungles.’
Jesse sniffed the book and opened the leather cover. ‘Needs some airing, but it looks like it’s still basically sound. Thank you.’
Krystal shrugged. ‘Seems like no one else wants it.’ She picked up another book, thinner and in slightly poorer condition. ‘Huh, Jellico Armonia. Compendium of Spells for the Musician. One for you, Mona?’
‘I’ll take a look,’ Ramona said, grinning.
‘What about that one?’ Felicia said, pointing at a thick, heavily bound tome with a metal closure on it. There was no lock, but someone had felt the need to bind the book in thick leather with metal bracing on the spine and a metal lever which held it shut. ‘Nothing written on it.’
Frowning, Krystal lifted the book. Her fingers tingled. ‘Heavy, and there’s something magical about it. Uh, everyone stand back a little.’ No one actually moved, so Krystal shrugged and opened the clasp, then the book. There was no sudden rush of escaping demons or any other disturbing magical effect. ‘A Treatise on True Harmony by Nadira Armonia. I’ve never heard of it.’ She gave a small shrug and added, ‘Of course, I hadn’t heard of that other Armonia book either. “True Harmony,” huh? Something to do with the Crown of Harmony?’
‘Maybe Cadenza knows,’ Trudy suggested.
‘Why would she?’
‘Because she’s obviously been hanging around these ruins for a lot longer than we have. If she doesn’t know, maybe she’s got a book that could tell us.’
Krystal closed the book and snapped its clasp back into place. ‘Okay. I guess I have to talk to her and this is something safe to start with before I start on… more recent history. Let’s gather up the books here that look like they won’t fall apart if we move them. We can give my m– Cadenza some new volumes for her library.’
~~~
‘You found…’ Cadenza trailed off, staring at the book Krystal was holding. ‘You’re quite sure of the title?’
‘I can show you if you want,’ Krystal replied. ‘A Treatise on True Harmony by–’
Misfit Witchcraft (Misfits Book 2) Page 17
