Witchfall

by Victoria Lamb

  ‘William!’ I called, throwing as much power into my voice as I could, and heard no sound from below. ‘Father!’

  ‘They will not come,’ he said calmly. ‘I told them the spell I had to perform, and they both agreed it is the only thing to do.’

  ‘Why do this?’ I asked in disbelief as he knelt to rub out the circle and pinch out the ceremonial candles. My fists clenched, my nails biting into my own palms. Had he no mercy? No pity in his heart? ‘You want Alejandro to die? Is that it?’

  He looked up at me angrily, his cut face still swollen from the beating he had received at the hands of Dent’s men. ‘You don’t know much, do you?’

  ‘What does that mean?”

  He had started winding the knotted cord around his wrist that he had used to perform the charm. He threw it down, his near-black eyes spat with fury. ‘It was Alejandro who told me to do this. On the journey to the tower, when he realized what Dent was planning, he told me that if I got the chance, I should seal you in your room until after the time had come for him to die.’ His voice seethed with bitterness. ‘I know this will make you hate me even more than before. But I swore I’d do it, and I have. You only have another day to wait, until sundown tomorrow, and then I can release you. Alejandro will be dead by then, and William and I will take you away from here. Somewhere safe where Dent will never find you. Then we will put about the rumour of your death.’

  ‘What?’

  Richard’s face was grim. ‘Dent believes you to be the witch who is destined to kill him, so he will never stop his pursuit while he thinks you are alive. One day I will find a way to kill him. But until then, this is what we must do to keep you safe.’

  I stared at him, hating him as he had predicted. ‘I am not worth all this trouble,’ I said coldly. ‘Just let me go to Dent and get it over with. My death will make things easier for everyone.’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s true,’ Richard agreed, his smile twisted. ‘Hold on while I say the spell to release you. No, wait, perhaps I should not allow a talented witch to go needlessly to her death.’

  ‘I am not talented,’ I threw at him wretchedly, and slammed both fists against his invisible barrier, angrily aware that I was unable to punch so much as the smallest hole in it. ‘I am a fraud, Richard. I am no witch. I no longer study the magickal texts, I say no spells . . . I can barely light a fire with my power these days. Let me go, it is Alejandro who must be saved. He is worth ten of me. Do you not see that?’

  ‘No, I do not see that,’ Richard said violently, and came close to me, though unable to touch me through the barrier his spell had erected. ‘You’re a fool, Meg Lytton.’

  ‘A fool?’ I repeated, staring into those black, black eyes.

  ‘Do you not know that I love you?’

  My lips parted, but for a moment I could not speak. ‘You . . . love me?’

  ‘I love you. That is why I was glad to agree to Alejandro’s plan. That is why I will keep you here until your betrothed is dead. Because I love you, and even though I know you feel nothing for me, perhaps one day . . .’

  ‘Never.’

  He hesitated. ‘Never?’

  ‘Never.’ My body was numb with shock as I watched him retreat. He loved me? Richard loved me? I must indeed be a fool, for I had not seen that coming. ‘You think I could ever love a man who had allowed Alejandro to go alone to his death?’

  Richard folded his arms, his face tense, looking away from my expression of contempt. ‘Hate me, then. But I shall keep my word to Alejandro. I shall not let you go until at least tomorrow evening, once the hour is past when you were to meet Marcus Dent.’

  ‘So be it,’ I said with pretended calm, and stepped back into my room, closing the door on him.

  There I stood a moment, my head down, struggling to control my fury. It would do me no good to lose my temper here. What I needed was to find a spell to break Richard’s, and that would require a clear mind and an even spirit, not these cloudy batterings of anger.

  I knelt, taking out my magickal books again and began to read. Slowly my head cleared. I had one night and a day to find a solution, and this time I knew what I was looking for.

  I sat by the window in my sealed chamber the next afternoon, looking above the trees to the flushed clouds in the west and thinking longingly of Alejandro. Was he in pain? Had he steeled himself for death in my place? It must irk him terribly to meet his death in such an ignominious manner, dying at the hands of Marcus Dent and not in battle, not in some glorious charge against the enemies of his people. How brave he was. And how unutterably stupid. Alejandro knew I was the only one with the power to confront Marcus Dent. Yet instead of allowing events to unfold, he had instructed Richard to have me sealed magickally in my chamber until it was too late to save him.

  I smiled softly. ‘Fool,’ I murmured, and cherished that word on my tongue. ‘My lovely fool.’

  I would rescue him from Marcus Dent tonight or die in the attempt. It was as simple as that.

  The time had come. I stood and centred myself in the room, my hands spread open to my sides. I lowered my head and called on my aunt’s spirit to help me. This would be one of the hardest spells I had ever worked. Indeed, I had never attempted anything even remotely like this before. But then, I had never summoned a dead King before, yet I had managed that. With Richard’s help, it was true. But he would hardly help me with this spell – escaping his own – so I would have to find the strength alone. I only hoped it would be enough. For my failure would mean Alejandro’s death.

  ‘Diripe!’ I called out forcefully in Latin, ordering the very fabric of the house to tear itself apart, and lifted both hands towards the frame of my window.

  The thick leaded glass jerked in its frame, the wooden shutters rattled uneasily. But nothing happened.

  I leaned against the bricks and timber of my bedchamber wall with the full weight of my mind, calling the word aloud again. ‘Diripe!’

  Gently, with infinitesimal slowness, one of the timbers began to move. It shuddered against the dried wattle and daub that held it, then pulled away from the wall with a deep grinding sound. I watched in silent amazement, my hands still spread out towards the window, as another timber loosened itself from its moorings, then jerked free. A brick from the nearby fireplace began to rock, then another, then both were loose, spinning gracefully though the air towards me. I directed them away from my body without difficulty, watching them glide past me to land on the floor with slight creakings and groanings, then turned my attention to the window itself. This was more stubborn. It rattled and shook against its frame, then suddenly cracked. The pieces blew outwards into space with a noise like a bucket of water crashing into a deep well, then at last the whole wall beneath it followed, timbers floating away to the left and right of me, masonry dragging itself free.

  At the first grinding sound of the timbers, I had heard hurried steps on the stairs. Then William’s voice through the door. ‘Meg? Is that you?’

  Richard joined him a few moments later, and there was a swift exchange. ‘I can’t open the door. It’s been sealed magickally until nightfall.’

  ‘You must do something. She isn’t answering.’ A pause. ‘What is that terrible noise?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know? What if Dent grew tired of waiting and has come for her himself?’ My brother sounded desperate. ‘Open the door, Richard! We have to be sure Meg is safe.’

  The timbers continued to creak and protest as they were released from the wattle and daub. Behind that noise, I heard the sound of Richard beginning to unpick his spell, chanting in a strained voice as he skipped backwards through the nine-fold charm.

  Too late, I thought, and stared at the wall. Too late.

  At the top of the wall, above the window frame, a single thick wooden beam still kept the ceiling up, sturdy and resilient. But beneath it, where the window had once been, and at the side of my ancient fireplace, was a huge gaping hole in the wall of the house.


  Ignoring the shouts from outside my door, I stepped through this hole, my hands held out for power, and leaped into space.

  I did not so much fall as glided down on the wintry afternoon air, sinking into a defensive crouch as I landed, then straightening as I realized it was done. I was free. Above me I could hear Richard undoing the last part of the spell and I picked up my gown, running towards the stables before he could throw open the door and come to the window.

  It took me only a few clumsy moments to free all the horses, flinging myself inelegantly onto one horse’s back and sending the others scattering into the night. I spoke a single word into its ear and the horse jerked forward beneath me. It clattered out of the cobbled yard and towards the narrow grassy track that led out of Lytton Park. Exhilarated, I felt rather than saw Richard tossing halt-spells after me, but either they missed or some spirit was guiding my flight from home, for soon we were thundering down the track, the wind in my hair, my fingers tangled in the horse’s mane as I lay low over the animal’s neck.

  It was a long way to ride without a saddle, I soon realized. My bottom was sore after only a few miles, my thighs aching horribly. But there was nothing to do but go on. I knew Richard and William would probably be behind me soon enough, once they had managed to catch some of those runaway horses. And they could ride much faster than me.

  ‘Find the tower,’ I murmured into the horse’s ear, and stroked his neck, letting my seeking-spell do its work.

  TWENTY

  The Tower

  About half an hour before sundown, the sweating horse stumbled and nearly fell down a rocky ravine, tired out by the relentless pace, its head drooping on its chest as I dragged it to a halt. A trickle of water ran beside us between the rocks, and the horse looked at it longingly, its hooves shuffling on the dusty ground. Straight ahead, I saw a vast building rising out of the trees and knew this must be Dent’s tower. It pointed towards the sky like an accusing finger, its grim stone walls broken only by a series of tiny arrow slits, no doubt to illuminate some winding stair within. To either side stood tall trees, barren as the ground around them, leafless in winter, their trunks scarred, some leaning to one side as though the tower’s foundation had cut into their roots and was slowly killing them. My skin prickled with a sudden awareness of evil. My spell had worked. This was the place.

  I swung off the horse and left the exhausted animal by the side of the icy stream, then picked my way hurriedly across the wasteland and rough boulders to the base of the tower.

  A door yawned open in the tower ahead of me. Inside a dark stair beckoned.

  ‘Master Dent!’ I shouted, suddenly afraid I was too late, that he had already executed Alejandro. ‘I have come as you demanded. Come out and show yourself!’

  Slowly, a shadow detached itself from the nearby trees. It was Marcus Dent. He stepped into the dying rays of the sun and threw back his hood, revealing his scarred face, one bright blue eye fixed in my direction, the other eye nothing but a dead socket. He looked exactly as he had done in my dreams and visions, which I had not expected. Somehow it had been easier to deal with his intrusions into my mind when I had thought him a work of my imagination. But if he had been able to place himself inside my head . . .

  I pushed the thought away. It would do me no good to fear him now. Fear would only make it easier for him to kill me.

  ‘Where is Señor de Castillo?’ I asked coldly.

  Dent lifted his hand. I saw other men emerge from the trees, a small band of shuffling men in cloaks and hoods. Amongst them, dishevelled and quite clearly furious, his arms bound behind his back and his mouth gagged, was Alejandro. At his throat was a dagger, clutched in a filthy hand by one of Dent’s sharp-eyed men.

  The relief when I saw Alejandro was almost more than I could bear. I wanted to kill them with a word and tear him away from his captors. But I knew if anything went wrong and I failed, Alejandro would die.

  ‘Don’t waste your breath,’ Marcus said caustically, coming forward. ‘Personally, I deplore the spilling of good Catholic blood. But I shall be happy to make an exception in your Spaniard’s case if you are so unwise as to attempt to work your magick against us.’ He gestured to the men to draw back into the shadows of the trees. ‘You and I will ascend the tower. There is much we need to discuss, and the view from the top is quite breathtaking.’

  I glanced after Alejandro, but could no longer distinguish him from his captors, a band of shadows moving uneasily amongst the trees.

  Marcus had seen my nervous glance. ‘They await my signal to take your friend and release him a mile away at the edge of the woods. I will not give that signal until we are at the top of my tower.’ He laid a hand against the rough stone wall of the tower. ‘Beautiful, is it not?’

  I did not trust myself to answer this politely.

  ‘Unfortunately for you, the tower has been designed so that no magick can be worked within its bounds. The walls are worked with wood and stone known by the ancients to repel the dark arts, and even the foundations were blessed and doused in holy water. I would not suggest you pit yourself against such power.’ He held out his hand to me. ‘Shall we go up? If my men do not hear my signal by a count of three hundred, the Spaniard will die. So you had better hurry.’

  ‘How can I trust you to honour that arrangement?”

  Marcus smiled drily. ‘You can’t.’

  I looked at him, hating the man. There was nothing more to say. ‘Very well,’ I murmured, knowing that I had been outmanoeuvred. He wanted me to climb his blasted tower, and to this end his men would hold Alejandro hostage until Marcus Dent had me exactly where he wanted me.

  But I still had until we reached the top of the tower to think of how to save Alejandro without using magick. And I was very aware that my brother and Richard might be on the road behind me, perhaps at this very moment riding straight into danger.

  ‘Let me speak to Alejandro first,’ I insisted. ‘I did not see his face clearly. How can I be sure that man is even him?’

  Marcus hesitated, frowning. Then he nodded towards those hiding among the trees.

  A second later, I heard Alejandro’s familiar voice cry out, ‘Get away from here, Meg, for the love of God!’ There was a muffled struggle, then a groan, and I knew he had been gagged again.

  But I had what I needed. Evidence that it was indeed Alejandro, not a shadowy figure intended to deceive me, and that he was still alive. I had remembered Master Dee’s prophecy that Alejandro’s life was in danger. This must be what he had foreseen. The realization that it was my fault he had been brought so close to death made my blood run cold, my fingers itching with the desire to work some powerful magick and sweep all those men away.

  But I knew how dangerous it would be for Alejandro if I got even the slightest part of such a spell wrong. And the sound of his voice had given me new strength. ‘Wait for me, Alejandro,’ I called after him. ‘I will not be long.’

  Marcus smiled cruelly at my bravado, gesturing me to enter the tower. ‘After you, Meg Lytton.’

  The top of the tower seemed dizzyingly high as I groped my way out of the low arched doorway and into the air. As in my visions and dreams, the wind was stronger here, blowing at my hair and flapping my skirts about me. The sun was still just above the horizon, flushing the sky a wild dusky red, clouds chasing each other above the hills.

  At my back was Marcus Dent, close behind me as he had been during the long, arduous climb. I could hear him breathing harshly and knew he was diseased, his body broken from its journey into the void.

  Straightening up as he emerged from the dark stairway, Marcus grabbed my hair and dragged me to the edge of the tower. There was no wall built about the top to prevent a fall. The roof of the tower was open to the elements, the grim stones rolling away into nothingness like a cliff top.

  ‘Look down at your fate, witch!’ he ordered me, and I looked, my head spinning, my body jerking wildly as he held me out over space for a few horrific seconds. Then he threw me back o
nto the stone floor, his face twisted with rage. ‘That is how it was for me when you sent me into the abyss. One moment of divine terror as I was sucked into oblivion, then pain and torment beyond anything I could have imagined. Now I will give you a similar death. Except there will be no coming back for you, no magickal resurrection.’ He smiled coldly. ‘Yes, you may well look surprised. I hear everything and I am everywhere at once, Meg. I am in your nightmares and your daydreams. I am the whisper in the walls that you cannot quite get out of your head. I am the shadow in the dark corner that moves whenever you are not looking at it.’

  He is a madman, I thought dizzily, and scrabbled back along the rough stone floor as he strode towards me.

  ‘I intend to sever your head from your body,’ he said harshly, bending over me. ‘Your magick will not save you up here, and there can be no return once the head has been severed. Do you understand? Nod if you understand me, witch.’

  I nodded, and had to watch my enemy gloat over my impending death.

  So my visions had been a prediction of the future, after all. Hope drained from my body. I was going to die here today, on the top of this tower, and as Marcus had rightly said, there would be no coming back this time. But I could not allow him to kill me before I knew that Alejandro was safe.

  ‘Alejandro,’ I croaked.

  ‘Ah yes, the Spaniard. Well, I shall have him released, for I am a man of my word. But when you are dead, I shall take great pleasure in hunting him down and destroying him. Your other companions too. The Lady Elizabeth is a particularly troublesome female. She cannot be allowed to take the throne. So I shall destroy her too. Once you are dead, the spells of protection you have laid about her household will dissolve.’ His smile was repellent. ‘Then I shall simply walk in through the door.’

  ‘Make the sign,’ I told him urgently. ‘Tell your men to release him. They will have reached a count of three hundred by now.’

  He looked at me. ‘Beg for his life if you want me to spare your friend. I would like to hear you beg.’