The Witch of Torinia

by Clifford Beal

  “And that means not giving my father a reason to cause grief here.” He reached up and stroked her cheek. “It will be good to voyage with you again, my Citala.”

  She smiled and looked down. “Yes, and to swim in the great sea far away from shore.”

  “There will be another passenger.” Danamis paused to steel himself with the courage to utter the rest. “Master Necalli must come with us too.”

  The force of her two hands against his chest sent him tripping backwards into the thatched wall, as if a charging bull had hit him square on.

  Ten

  LUCIUS KODORIS, REPENTANT murderer and High Priest of the Temple Majoris, looked like he had just bitten into an unripe gooseberry. He had never expected to see the man who stood before him again in this lifetime; a reminder of another life, one nearly forgotten and lost to his own past.

  “Ugo Volpe.” The name slid off his tongue in a tone of disbelief.

  “Pax vobis, Holiness.” Volpe folded his arms across his chest and bowed low. Acquel stood a few paces behind, watching the High Priest’s reaction on seeing his old companion from Astilona. From what Brother Ugo had already told him about the old days, Kodoris’s lukewarm welcome was no surprise.

  Kodoris turned and walked back into his receiving chamber. “I require no service of yours. There can be no good reason for your visitation.”

  Acquel followed him in, a grinning Brother Ugo at his side. “I think you should listen to what he has to say, your Holiness,” said Acquel. “Of all men he probably knows best what we are facing.”

  Kodoris stopped and spun about. “That is precisely why we should not seek his aid, Magister! He was cast out of Astilona for his philosophy, as he called it. Black arts more like.”

  “We were all cast out of Astilona,” said Volpe, unperturbed. “I was only the first.”

  “Yes, when the Duke of Saivona grew to fear our power; our martial power. But the brotherhood was beginning to fear you.” Kodoris shook his head, looking the monk up and down. “You are an ill wind, Ugo Volpe. What blows you to the Ara now, after all these years? I can only hope you are too old to cause trouble anymore.”

  Volpe shrugged. “I was not needed here before. Now I am.”

  “And how do you know this? We have told no one of the unholy attack upon us.”

  “I had a dream, and a vision. The Lawgiver himself told me to come to defend the One Faith.”

  Kodoris looked to Acquel. “Am I the only one on the Ara not to hear from Elded? How can you give credence to this... brother? Has he told you how he was cast out before the monastery was dissolved? For conspiring to use the very magic that we see used against us now.”

  The old monk raised himself up. He was now without his staff and seemed to have no use for a crutch. “That is an untruth, his Holiness knows full well. My science does not come from those infernal powers that plague us. It comes from our own faith. A gift of God for those who know how to wield it.”

  Kodoris puffed out his chest, indignant. “It is blasphemy. It was then. It is now.”

  Acquel placed his thumbs in his sword belt. “And I say it is not. Show me where in the holy text it says magic is forbidden. I am charged with defending this place and I’ll take what aid I can get.”

  Kodoris flushed crimson. “You would do well to remember my office, young blackrobe.”

  “And you would do well to remember how we both came to our offices... Holiness.”

  Kodoris swallowed his anger. “You will undertake no action without my knowledge, and participation. Do you understand?”

  Acquel gave a polite nod. “That is why we are here, Holiness.”

  “The power of prayer alone will not defeat the likes of what has come,” said Volpe darkly. “Brother Acquelonius has told me of the harpies in the Temple. I can tell you I have seen worse in my dreams. Defence will require more active measures, and my science.”

  Kodoris grimaced. “I do not believe spells and incantations will save us from the unholy. It can only let them in among us.”

  “Yet I understand it was you who invited a Seeker to aid you,” said Volpe. “The same Seeker who has now turned against you and the Faith. I would say it is you who does not understand what rises against us, or its power. Why do you think they took the Hand of Ursula?”

  “To deprive us,” replied Kodoris. “And to dishearten us.”

  Volpe shook his head. “Think harder. That relic has been lost and found a dozen times over the ages. It’s probably not even Ursula’s arm bone. It could be a monkey’s for all I know.”

  “How dare you speak such sacrilege to me,” the High Priest spat.

  “I am saying, Holiness, that the Hand is carried before the king’s army when Valdur goes to war. That is all it is used for. It follows that if war comes this sorceress will attempt to win favour by giving it to the king. Its power lies in the faith it gives to men. It is not intrinsically sacred. That is nonsense.”

  “The king is dead,” said Kodoris.

  Acquel’s head drew back but Volpe seemed unmoved. “Then that fact gives more weight to my argument. She will give it to the man she wants to be king.”

  “What has happened?” Acquel said, staggered by the news.

  “The king was killed by a tame beast at the palace, a cockatrice it is said. Bitten and poisoned.”

  “Fate or design?” mused Volpe. “That is the question, even though the answer will be much the same. Chaos.”

  “I do not know,” said Kodoris. “The news arrived by messenger from the High Steward only last night. It is a terrible thing, and the prince is too young to rule.”

  “Let me show you what I can do to help defend the Ara,” said Volpe. “We are already at war.”

  Kodoris looked again to Acquel, who was his only alibi for what he had done—or caused to be done—the previous summer. Only so much truth could be shared before the strands would unravel and damn him. Acquel returned his stare, not giving an inkling whether he had told Volpe everything he knew. Kodoris realized the young monk wasn’t so young as to not know the value of blackmail. He himself had never seen Ugo Volpe practise his magic but he had heard of others who had watched and fled at what they witnessed. Now, despite his fears, he had no choice. Lucinda della Rovera had unleashed upon them something beyond his own power to fight. And the sins that lay on his soul made him a fragile and flawed champion of the Faith. It frightened him, but Volpe was right.

  He wet his lips. “This is a dangerous course, Magister. Are you prepared to take this path?”

  Acquel was solemn. “I believe him. I believe he has been touched by Elded. As was I. We must be prepared to fight what is coming.”

  “Then God help us. I will come with you down to the crypt... and to the abomination that grows there.”

  NO DAYLIGHT PENETRATED the under croft and crypt of the Temple Majoris. Its thick sandstone walls, seven hundred years old it was said, rose up to the ceiling of the temple floor overhead, some thirty feet high. The three of them descended the wide stone steps, the dank cold striking them and filling their nostrils before they had even made it halfway to the bottom.

  Kodoris clutched at his robes, drawing them closer about his neck, and thrust out his torch. He had come back to this place but once after the horrors he had witnessed. He could still hear the sound of his predecessor’s blood as it spattered upon the stump of the petrified tree and the flagstones around it. Acquel was out in front, Brother Ugo beside him, each bearing their sputtering tallow and rag torches, the halos of orange light barely driving back the darkness. None of the brethren dared come down to light the iron wall sconces since the harpies had raided the temple a week ago.

  They made their way deeper into the crypt, to the northwest corner where the remains of the pagan tree lay; a shrine to Elded’s triumph over the old ways. Acquel watched as Volpe’s eyes scanned the chamber, his face set hard. He made a grumbling noise in his throat and shifted his leather satchel on his back.

  “Can you
not smell the sweetness?” he said, quietly. “Not the sweetness of natural corruption. Something else.” He turned to the High Priest. “Tell me again. You were here. What did the canoness do?”

  “She poured the blood of Brachus upon the stump. Spoke words in an elder tongue. Invoked... Berithas. And she said the roots of the tree grew deep... slumbering.”

  Volpe nodded and resumed walking forward. “Then what?”

  Kodoris looked over to Acquel, whose face was pale. “The ground shook. The paving stones cracked. Then they dragged me away to—” He stopped, not wanting to go further.

  Acquel continued. “When we next came here, the shoots had emerged and spread. We burned them with pitch, threw down lime, but still they returned after a week.”

  Volpe lifted his torch and pointed it towards the nave where the stump was, dimly visible like some giant unmoving spider, legs bent and poised to spring. He looked at the floor and saw the black vines streaming out across the stone, emanating from the dead stump of the unholy tree. “The tree that Elded hewed.” He turned to the others. “Your sorceress is quite correct, its roots go deep. Across the land.” He stooped down just short of where the tendrils stopped and rummaged in his satchel. He took out a coil of thin rope. Acquel saw that it had coloured ribbons tied to it, spaced along its length. Volpe looked at Acquel and smiled. “But we have talismans, and we have protection.”

  “Can you kill this thing?” asked Acquel.

  “It is growing elsewhere,” replied Volpe, uncoiling the rope. “Even as I journeyed here, I came across a sapling on the edge of the road, below the forest and not far from a little village. It was growing as I watched. It had been nourished by followers of the old ways. I could see animal bones around it. Someone had hung a few squirrels from its branches. Its leaves shivered as I approached; foul smelling and slick.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Burnt the thing back to hell.” Volpe’s eyes widened with fervour. “Not with fire mind you, that is but a temporary measure.” Volpe reached into his sack and pulled out a phial. “With this. A distillation of my own making, rowanis berries and a few other things. Long forgotten by those in the Faith.”

  “Poison,” said Acquel as he looked at the little stoppered blue bottle.

  “Of a sort,” replied Volpe, nodding. “Your sorceress wakened this tree with a powerful incantation and the blood of Elded’s anointed representative. I hope that I can put it back to sleep. Here, take this.” He handed Acquel the rope. “Take the end and pay it out in a circle, around us.”

  Kodoris stood with his torch held aloft, watching as the rope was laid out around them. “I pray to all the saints that you know what you are doing.”

  “Prayers wouldn’t go amiss,” said Volpe as he followed Acquel around the newly formed circle, a circumference of seven feet. As Acquel completed the circle and coiled the remaining line, Volpe changed the circle by straightening the curves. It became a triangle, the tall apex pointed towards the stump ten feet away.

  Kodoris fidgeted, his discomfort growing by the minute. “I hope you’re planning on telling us what you’re doing before you start doing it, Brother!”

  Volpe barely looked up as he arranged the rope to his satisfaction. “Worked last time, your Holiness. You and the young Magister will stay inside the rope.” He looped the rope at each corner into a small circle. He then arose and looked at each of them in turn. “Remember, stay inside the triangle. I will now begin. Do not lose heart no matter what may happen.”

  The old monk’s words did nothing to reassure Acquel, whose knuckles were white on the grip of his sword.

  “This is madness,” whispered Kodoris. “He is playing with fire.”

  Volpe stepped outside the triangle and walked to the stump, holding the little phial. He cautiously sprinkled its contents onto the thickest of the roots and immediately returned to the protection of the rope. He turned and faced the stump again, arms raised, palms towards the long dead wood. His lips began moving, without sound, as he appeared to utter some prayer or incantation.

  Acquel became aware of the smell—something acrid and foul—and saw what looked like a spreading whiteness upon the top of the stump where the vines sprouted forth, like a frost. The whiteness spread along the vines and the smell grew stronger, akin now to a whiff of strong drink, of spilled acqua vitalis. Volpe’s voice rose as he chanted in a language that Acquel did not recognise but thought might be old Valdurian. He suddenly felt very cold and the hairs on his neck stood up. He suppressed a shiver and looked at the High Priest. Kodoris stood grim and stone-still with his torch aloft. Acquel saw a small cloud of condensed breath emerge from his mouth.

  And then the swarm was upon them.

  Small black things rose from the stump, like ascending ash, moving towards the rope triangle, darting and diving. They were insects, brown and wasp-like with drooping legs and iridescent, quivering abdomens. They recoiled from the triangle as if it were a wall of glass. One hovered at eye level in front of Acquel and he jumped back in horror when he saw its head. It had a human face and it was crying out, a tinny high-pitched whine of rage. More flew about them, a swirling, enraged cloud of buzzing gossamer wings.

  Volpe still stood, hands raised. His voice did not falter, the commanding bellow from his throat echoed across the crypt. Acquel watched as Kodoris swung his torch at the things, his arm passing over the rope as he desperately flailed away. The wasps were on him in a second. He tried to pull in the High Priest, but it was too late. Kodoris let out a cry of pain and dropped the torch. He fell back, cradling his arm. One of the wasps had made into the area of protection and was crawling up Kodoris’s hand. Acquel knocked it off and stamped upon it hard, hearing it crunch underfoot. Kodoris sank down, clutching his hand where it had been stung, his eyes huge with fear and pain.

  The chant of the old monk had now reached a crescendo, and with it, the swarm receded. It collapsed upon itself and flew, quick as an arrow, into the pagan tree. The last of the swarm, those not quick enough, dropped lifeless on the stump and the stones. Volpe dropped his arms, his shoulders hunched.

  “Brother Ugo!” Acquel held Kodoris upright as he cried out. Volpe saw immediately what had happened and grasped the High Priest’s wrist. They could see how the hand was already swelling grotesquely. “We have to get him out of the crypt.”

  Volpe cursed. “I told the old fool to stay inside.”

  “Those wasps! You did not warn us we might be attacked.”

  “Well, that never happened before.”

  Acquel turned back to Kodoris. “Holiness, can you help yourself up? Here, put your arm over me!”

  As Kodoris lurched against Acquel, the smell of Volpe’s tincture lingering, he saw that the vines were now grey-white and brittle. Volpe stepped out of the hempen sanctuary and returned to the stump. He grasped the thickest vine and it exploded in his hand, crumbling into dust.

  He nodded, satisfied. “Now that has happened before.”

  ACQUEL STOOD OVER Kodoris’s bed, watching him sleep fitfully. The High Priest’s hand was purple and horribly swollen. Volpe had tied a ligature below the elbow and had removed the black stinger, fully half an inch long, before lancing the wound and bleeding it. Acquel had watched as the old monk had drawn an elaborate pattern in dark ink upon the chest of the High Priest. It was intricate and dense, taking him nearly an hour, and all the while, as he carefully drew upon the loose pale skin of his one-time brethren of Astilona, he droned his spell. It was old Valdurian once again with the occasional addition of a well-known prayer, even Elded’s Prime. Two blackrobes from the infirmary exchanged dubious looks, neither very sure of the sanctity of what they were watching. They quietly backed away and left. The sleeping draught had calmed Kodoris and he had drifted off despite his pain. Volpe had given him another draught as well, something he said was to counteract the venom. Acquel also saw a long livid scar on the shoulder of the High Priest: a sword or knife wound from long ago, perhaps inflicted on the bat
tlefield.

  “Will he survive?”

  Volpe shrugged. “He is strong. But this is not ordinary insect venom.”

  Acquel shuddered as he remembered the perfectly formed miniature human face on the wasp as it had hissed at him, cursing him.

  “We will have to wait and see,” the old monk continued. “I can do no more. She is clever, this witch of yours. She must have laid an enchantment on the tree even as she worked her spell to revive it. A trap for the unwary. Hence my rope.”

  “First the Magister, then Brother Carlo, and now the High Priest,” mumbled Acquel. “And yet she is nowhere near the Ara.”

  “I need wine.”

  “For him?”

  “No. For me. He will sleep awhile now.”

  Sitting in Acquel’s rooms, within half an hour they had drained the pitcher of cherry-red Livornan wine, most of it quaffed by Ugo Volpe. “You had better send for more,” the old monk said, scratching at the stubble on the back of his head. “That barely touched me.”

  “How can they return now? After these centuries. The old gods.”

  Volpe chuckled. “Gods? They are not gods. They’re opportunists.”

  “But Elded threw them down. Beleth, Belial and Andras. All of them. If not gods what are they?”

  “They are powerful entities. But they are demons, not gods. There is but one God. Elded is his prophet and lawgiver.”

  Acquel drained the last few drops from the jug into his goblet. “But they were worshipped as gods by the people centuries ago, and now it begins again.”

  Volpe grumbled, stood up, and walked to the entrance to the chamber. “Hoy! Get an old brother a drink here!” he yelled down the corridor to two Templars. “Not like any monastery I’m used to!” He waddled back and resumed his seat at the small work table beside Acquel.

  “These entities are not of our world, but when given the chance they enter. They are let in by the ignorant, the gulled.”