by Mark Anthony
Falken turned, thrust his shoulders back, and snapped his gray tunic straight. “And thank you very much.”
Durge’s eyes bulged, but he stifled any urge to ask for further explanation.
“Now, to answer your question, Falken,” Melia said, folding her arms across the bodice of her silver-white kirtle. “I suppose I have as much of an idea of what they’re up to as you. For years they have whispered of his coming. And last Midwinter he was revealed.”
Falken rubbed his chin with his black-gloved hand. “Who would have thought they’d actually turn out to be right?”
“No, Falken,” Melia said, her tone stern. “Do not dismiss the power of the Witches simply because you do not comprehend it. Their magic is different than that of your runes, but it is every bit as old. The name Sia has been spoken in the lands of Falengarth as long as that of Olrig Lore Thief.”
“And both have been spoken longer than any of the names of the New Gods of Tarras, in case you had forgotten.”
Melia’s eyes flashed molten gold, and Durge took a step back, even though he was not the focus of her ire.
“I have hardly forgotten, Falken. The magic of Sia is ancient, and it is alien to me—although in some ways it does not disturb me as does the magic of runes, and often I wonder why that might be. All the same, I’ve heard it said there are some in the Witches who no longer speak the name Sia, but that of my sister, Yrsaia the Huntress—who is, if it had slipped your mind in your heathen ways, one of the New Gods.”
Falken laughed. “Just because I haven’t discarded the Old Gods for every new mystery cult that comes along doesn’t mean I’m a heathen.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Melia ran small fingers over the spines of a shelf of books. “But sometimes it seems you have difficulty accepting anything that is new, Falken. Yet the world grows newer every day.”
The bard grunted, and when he spoke his voice was gruff. “I will not argue the point with you. But there is one thing you must concede. Any power the Witches have comes not from Yrsaia, no matter what name they speak.”
Melia hesitated, then nodded. “It is true. My sister tells me that she has not heard any prayers from these Witches.”
“That’s because it’s a front. Sia makes people think of toothless hags casting curses, so they pick a fresh, pretty, and popular goddess as their mascot. But deep down they’re still the same old Witches. Some things don’t change, Melia.”
There was a silence, and at last Durge cleared his throat. “I do not pretend to understand what you both speak, but are not Ladies Aryn and Lirith witches? And certainly my mistress, Lady Grace, must be called a witch as well. Do you accuse them of some misdoing? If this is the case, then with all respect, I must take offense.”
Falken let out a deep, musical laugh. “Don’t get your greatsword just yet, Sir Knight. I don’t think duty will require you to lop our heads off. Of course our three good ladies have done no wrong. But it is because you know them so well that we asked you here this morning.”
“Certainly we don’t mean to say the Witches are evil, dear,” Melia said. “Strange as they are, many of them are healers and do great good. But there is … something more.”
At these words the small hairs of Durge’s neck prickled. But that was foolish; he was a man of logic, not superstition. “May I ask that you speak plainly, Lady Melia?”
The small woman drew in a breath, then glanced at Falken. The bard’s face was grim now.
“For many years the Witches have foretold the coming of a man,” Falken said. “One whom they keep watch for.”
Durge shrugged. “Why is it our place to be concerned with one whom the Witches seek?”
Melia locked her eyes upon him. “Because the one whom the Witches seek is Travis Wilder.”
A short while later, Durge walked down a lonely corridor, away from the castle’s library. That morning he had donned only a gray tunic of light cloth against the summer day, but now he felt as cold and heavy as if he had strapped on his chain mail in the blue depths of winter.
For a quarter hour, he had listened as Melia and Falken spoke in low voices of the one called Runebreaker. But it wasn’t only the Witches who watched for him. Once before Durge had heard the name Runebreaker. The ancient dragon Sfithrisir, whom they had encountered in a high, barren valley of the Fal Erenn, had also referred to Goodman Travis as Runebreaker. When Durge had pointed this out, both Melia and Falken had given him tight-lipped nods.
Yet in all of this, Durge could find no logic. Why would witches and dragons have such great interest in Goodman Travis? Durge knew that Travis had certain … abilities. However, it was also true that these abilities seemed largely tied to the three Great Stones—the Imsari—none of which was in Travis’s possession any longer. What was more, Travis was no longer even on Eldh.
It is true, Melia had said when Durge spoke these facts. But if Travis were ever to return to Eldh, he might be in grave peril.
But why? Durge had asked. What do they seek him for?
However, Melia and Falken had only exchanged solemn looks; if they had any notion why the Witches sought Runebreaker, they had not voiced it.
It’s important that you let us know if you hear anything, Durge, Falken had said. It might help us protect Travis.
Durge’s mustaches had bristled. I will not spy upon my mistresses.
We’re not asking you to spy, Durge, Melia had said. Then the diminutive lady had done a thing that had shocked him. She had gripped his hand, and she had looked up into his eyes with what could only have been described as a pleading expression. But you will listen, won’t you? Promise me, Durge.
Who was he to deny this woman anything? He had nodded.
I will listen, my lady. On my sword, I promise it.
However, as Durge walked through the castle back to his chamber, he knew he would never hear anything of use to Melia and Falken. He had promised Lady Aryn he would remain in Ar-tolor, and remain he would. But he had said nothing about being near. Instead he would remain at a distance—a safe and proper distance.
It was better this way: to be present, but not to be seen. Just like the two ghosts he had glimpsed that foggy morning. They were sad reminders, yes, but they had no true power to affect or harm. They were merely shades of what had once been.
And you should be a shade as well, Durge of Stonebreak.
He flexed his fingers, feeling the joints of his knuckles grind together. Maybe, before too long, he would be. He pressed on alone through dust and gloom. This corridor was seldom trod—which was exactly his reason for choosing it.
A faint sound reached Durge’s ear—a soft scrabbling—and he came to a halt. He peered into the dimness, but though his eyes remained sharp, he could not make out a thing. Still, instinct told him he was not alone. His rough hand slipped to the knife at his belt.
“Show yourself, shadow,” he said.
A faint noise drifted on the air—like mirth, or perhaps like a song—and the hairs on Durge’s arms stood up. Was it the ghosts again, returning to remind him of what never could change? He took a step backward. As he did, something dropped down from the rafters and landed with a plop before him, looking like nothing so much as a great, gangly spider—a spider clad in green, with jangling bells on his cap and pointed shoes.
Durge let out his breath and let go of the knife. In a way he had been right; it had indeed been a ghost stalking him, only this was the still-living kind.
“Out of my way, Fool,” he rumbled.
Tharkis hopped from foot to foot, tapping the tips of his spindly fingers together, his perpetually crossed eyes looking at Durge in alternation.
“Where are you going, dreary old knight?
Do you not have a dragon to fight?
Did the beast hear you sneaking
From your bones and joints creaking,
And spread its wings and take flight?
“Or is there another reason you’re here?
More than a beas
t—a thing that you fear.
Can eyes of blue and hair black as night
Be harder to bear than a dragon’s bite?
Yes, flee from what you hold dear.”
Durge felt anger set fire to his veins, but he clenched his jaw and forced his blood to cool. It was Master Tharkis’s game to get a rise out of others, and Durge did not intend to hand him a victory. A king he might have been, but Durge knew things changed—that people changed. All Tharkis was at present was a nuisance.
“I said out of my way, Fool. Do not think I won’t remove you from my path if need be.”
Tharkis trembled in mock apprehension, the bells of his costume jingling. “Oh, dread knight, please spare me do—for news of your quarry I bring to you.”
Durge frowned. He knew it was dangerous even to listen to the fool’s words—they were crafted to baffle and befuddle—but all the same the question escaped him.
“What quarry do you mean?”
Tharkis grinned, displaying rotten teeth. “The spiders of course—the weavers of webs. Has the moon lady not sent you to follow their threads?”
“What do you know of that? Were you there in the library, listening to us?” Durge advanced, fist raised. “Tell me, Fool, or I’ll throttle it out of you.”
Tharkis scampered back a step. “No, no, fearsome knight, I heard not a thing. There’s no need for Fool’s poor neck to wring. But I know things, I do—I cannot say how. They come to me sometimes. They come to me now.”
Durge lowered his fist. Something about the fool altered even as he watched; the mad grin faded from Tharkis’s lips, and his wandering eyes grew distant.
“What do you mean, Fool? How do you know things?”
Tharkis pressed his thin body against the stone wall. “I think … I think it is part of what was done to me.” He licked his lips, whispering now. “There’s so much—it’s all right there. I can see everything. The eyes … the eyes are in the trees, and the shadows are reaching out for me. I fall, and my horse runs, and I run … but the shadows are too swift. They have me.”
Durge stared at the fool. Only dimly did it register on him that Tharkis was no longer speaking in verse.
The fool coiled his bony arms around his skull. “There’s too much, too much. I can see everything that happened, but it’s all in pieces, like a thousand broken mirrors I can’t put back together. Only the rhymes … only the rhymes make sense. Only they fit together. The shadows are in my head.…”
Tharkis went stiff, his mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land. Durge hesitated, then reached out for him.
A bony hand batted him back. The fool sprang away in a neat flip. His crossed eyes were bright again, and his grin had returned, splitting his gaunt face from side to side.
“You can’t catch me, my doddering knight, for on my feet I’m far too light.”
The fool had changed for a moment—he had seemed more like a small, frightened child than a mad prankster. But whatever had happened, the moment was gone, and Durge had had quite enough.
“And under my feet you’ll be pressed, Fool, if you don’t move—now!”
Durge barreled forward, and Tharkis was forced to jump into the air and turn a somersault to avoid being trampled. There came a dissonant chiming as the fool landed behind him, but Durge kept moving. Tharkis’s shrill voice called out behind him.
“A spider spins a shimm’ring web,
And seeks to catch us with her thread.
But all her plans can come to naught
If in her own web she is caught.
“Who’s the spider, who’s the fly?
This riddle answer as you spy:
If a spider can be captured,
Who then spins the web that traps her?”
The words faded on the dusty air, but Durge did not turn to reply. Instead he shut his ears to ghosts and madness, and strode away down the corridor.
12.
In all the activity of the three days between the first meeting of the High Coven and Prime Incant—when the Witches would weave a new Pattern to last them until their next meeting—Lirith was almost able to forget about the dreams. And the tangle she had glimpsed in the Weirding.
This was only the second High Coven she had attended since her entry into the Witches. The first had been seven years ago, held in the castle of Baron Darthus in southern Toloria—where it was said that the old baron knew quite well his young wife was a witch, and that he was more than pleased by the fact, given the simples she brewed which had brought new vigor to his loins. That had been in the spring of Lirith’s twentieth winter, and only months after she had fled the Free City of Corantha, walked on bare, bloody feet to Toloria, and never looked back.
At that High Coven she had been more a mouse than a novitiate: small, brown, and wide-eyed, pressed into corners while she watched those of greater strength and cunning prowl around her. But she had paid attention, and she had learned.
It was less than a year later when she caught the eye of Lord Berend of Arafel, one of Baron Darthus’s counts. Six months later they were wed—despite Lirith’s lack of history and the protests of Berend’s sister, who fancied herself countess and did not care for competition.
When Berend died just over a year later, it was whispered—and mostly by Berend’s sister—that it was a potion concocted by Lirith that had done the trick. However, while it was true that Lirith had used some small charms to gain Berend’s notice, it was not by magic that he had loved her, and not by magic that he had died. While Lirith could not say she had truly returned Berend’s love, she had felt affection for the count, and she had never been cruel to him.
After Berend’s death, his sister had petitioned Queen Ivalaine for possession of the estate, but the queen had refused and Lirith remained countess. After the count’s sister followed her brother to the grave the following winter—there had ever been weak hearts in that lineage—no one seemed to recall that Lirith had not been born to the position. She had ruled for several years, and her subjects had cared for her.
Then, two years ago, when Queen Ivalaine summoned her to Ar-tolor, Lirith had gone willingly. She had left care of the estate to Berend’s nephew, and so the count’s sister finally got what she had wished for—only she had not lived long enough to enjoy it, as happened often with those who were consumed by desire.
In the time since, Lirith had thought little of Count Berend or their estate in southern Toloria. This was where she belonged. In Ar-tolor, in the service of the Witch Queen, attending a High Coven.
And this time Lirith did not hide in corners. Instead, she sought out those witches of most interest to her, to speak about herb lore or the art of scrying, or ways to Touch the Weirding and weave it in new patterns. It was no chance that many whom she went to were the eldest of the Witches: the crones and hags. It was they who held the deepest knowledge and the most ancient secrets. However, it was not lost on Lirith that she was one of the few younger witches to seek out and speak with her elders.
“But I don’t want to know what they know,” Nonna, a witch from the Dominion of Brelegond, said to Lirith in a whining voice. “They’re all so ugly.”
This was the first evening after the High Coven began, at the meeting of the small coven to which Lirith had been assigned, which contained seven witches her own age, one from each of the seven Dominions.
Lursa, a solemn-eyed witch from Embarr, let out a sigh. “I fear no one told me it was a requirement of wisdom to be pretty. I suppose I shall have to color my lips and comb my hair before I can learn another spell.”
Unexpected laughter escaped Lirith. She winked at Lursa, and the plain-faced witch gave a shy smile in return. However, some of the other women shifted uncomfortably; not everyone disagreed with Nonna.
“It was the hags they took first,” one of the witches said in a quiet voice.
The other six turned to gaze at the speaker. Her name was Adalyn, and she came from the Dominion of Eredane. Earlier that evening, they had l
istened to Adalyn’s bone-chilling tale: how she had escaped from Eredane just after last Midwinter, and how black knights who served a nameless baron had begun riding across the land, murdering all witches, runespeakers, and priests—or anyone who was accused of being one.
“I think they were the easiest to see and catch,” Adalyn went on. “The ancient ones, the crones. Soon it seemed as if any old woman who muttered under her breath or who owned a cat was put to fire. At first we were silent; it was not we who were burning. But soon they came after anyone who was rumored to be a witch. Many of my coven sisters were … not able to flee as I did. Maybe if we had stood against the black knights earlier, when they took the old ones, we might have put a stop to it.”
After that, there was no more talk about hags. But Lirith saw the hard light in the eyes of Nonna and some of the others, and she knew Adalyn’s tale had only strengthened their dislike of the elder ones.
The next two days brought more meetings and more witches. Lirith greeted all with interest. While most of the time was focused on the exchange of learning, there was also no lack of discussion about how the Pattern would be designed at Prime Incant. Many spoke of Yrsaia, and how her name should be woven into the pattern alongside Sia’s—or perhaps, some boldly stated, atop it. Others held that the time was coming when the Witches would no longer just watch the Warriors of Vathris but would begin to work actively against them.
These rumors troubled Lirith, but not so much as a few whispered fragments she caught.
… that he is already among us …
… to stand against him, we must …
… but I say the end is closer than we …
Always the whispers abruptly ceased when Lirith drew close. But she knew the whispers started up again as soon as she was out of earshot, and she knew what at least one of them would be.
It is said she traveled with him.…
On the second day of the coven, just as silver twilight fell, Lirith strolled along one of the castle’s high battlements, taking a rare moment to herself to consider all she had learned. Insects hummed drowsily, singing the summer away.
