Sumissisolodimrof osan!
Sumissilibirroh osan!
When she finished chanting the spell backward, Maglet’s nose had shrunk an inch.
“Good,” Lizbet said. She went over to the hanging cage of iron slats that held Griffon and Cupido. She slid the paper with the spell on it through the slats. “When the Pope of Storms releases you,” she said, “I want you to say this spell backward, a lot, until Maglet gets her normal nose back.”
“Urrrmmmphh!” said Cupido around his gag.
“What happens if they say it backward too often?” Strix said. “Will Maglet get a nose-shaped hole in her face?”
“Strix,” Lizbet said, “you have the weirdest ideas. Can you walk?” She bent a shoulder under Strix’s arm and helped her up.
With a thigh slashed almost in half and a crushed foot, Strix couldn’t walk unless she had one arm over Lizbet’s shoulder, with Lizbet bearing half her weight. Lizbet found that Strix weighed much less than a mortal, but they still couldn’t go very fast. They had a long way to go, all the way back over the Montagnes du Monde.
First, though, they had to get past the goblin town of Slattern. It was almost full night. They had no hope of avoiding the goblins, who would be awake and active. Night was their day. To circle the town, though, would add miles and hours to their journey.
Lizbet had another idea. It’s always dangerous when someone else has plans for you, but you don’t have plans for them, Strix had said. This time, Lizbet decided, she would be the one with the plan.
The rutted track away from the Pope of Storms’ stronghold led up a slope, directly into Slattern. The stars were out, the moon was bright. Off-key music, shouts, and sounds of raucous merry-making issued from the goblin buildings ahead.
“Are we really going through Slattern?” Fudge asked. His voice was worried. “They don’t like me there. They say I put on airs.”
“Sometimes the safest place is in the middle of your enemies,” Lizbet said. From an alleyway, a goblin was staring at them. Then it ran into a building. A moment later, the goblin reappeared, a dozen more goblins behind it. After a minute or two of vigorous debate (basically a shouting match punctuated by fistfights), they started toward Lizbet, Strix, and Fudge.
“Our current situation feels insecure to me,” Fudge said. “You’ll forgive me if I retire from the lists until the passage of time lends clarity to events.” He tried to slink backward, but Lizbet caught him by the scruff of his stubby neck. With her other hand, she drew the mouse-rain spell from her pocket.
Plurat mus muris!
Aetherius pluvius!
Celebritas!
Exercitus,
Hastatus,
Mus multis partibus . . .
A light rain of mice began to fall from the sky. A mouse hit Lizbet on the top of the head, squeaked, and bounced off. Lizbet stifled a shriek and kept on reading the spell. Plop, plop, plop! Mice fell into the dirt, shook themselves off, and scuttled away. Lizbet reached the end of the spell and started again. Strix picked up a sleek black mouse by the tail and dropped it into her mouth. “Stop that,” Lizbet said. “The mice aren’t for you, they’re for the goblins. Fudge, you too. If you eat so many you can’t walk, I’m not going to carry you.”
The mice pelted down with increasing fury, great dark sheets of mice sweeping across the land. “I hope we’re not going to get mouse hail,” Strix said, looking at the sky doubtfully.
Still chanting the spell, supporting Strix with one arm, kicking the reluctant Fudge forward with a boot, Lizbet led them into Slattern. As she had hoped, the goblin posse barely noticed their presence. Overcome by greed and gluttony, they scuttled to and fro, grabbing mice by the handful and stuffing them into their gaping mouths.
Among the crooked streets of crooked buildings, they walked as quickly as they could through the rivers, pools, and eddies of mice. Guided by the moon behind them, Lizbet headed west, hoping they would come out in the right direction, on the side of the Montagnes du Monde.
She spotted cathedral towers leaning drunkenly above the crowd of mean buildings. A thought came to her. Might it be . . . ? She led Strix and Fudge toward the cathedral, hoping.
In the town square by the cathedral they found Violette still standing where they had left him, the first bit of real luck they’d had since Lizbet couldn’t remember when.
“Oh, Violette, you are a sight for sore eyes!” Lizbet exclaimed.
They arranged themselves on Violette’s back, Strix in front, Lizbet in the middle, and Fudge last, a chubby parcel rolling back and forth atop Violette’s haunches, trying to hold on to Lizbet’s skirt tails.
Strix urged Violette to a trot, and they were off, up the street they had come down days ago. In a few minutes they were out of Slattern.
The mouse rain ended. Moonlit fields and meadows flanked the road. Lizbet sometimes glimpsed the river off to the right, sparkling silver. Ahead, the dark masses of rising hills, and beyond them, the Montagnes du Monde, a ragged black blot rising high against the stars.
All through the night they rode. By the time the dirt track began to climb into the foothills of the Montagnes, the eastern sky had lightened, and the stars were beginning to go out. Ahead, in the dim predawn, Lizbet could make out the dark line on the slopes of the Montagnes where alpine meadow yielded to forest. It was near there that she and Strix had made their first camp after they had crossed the mountains, and where Strix had saved her from the earth witches. Lizbet had the comfortable feeling of a traveler who returns from foreign parts and first catches a glimpse of familiar landmarks.
For the first time in days, she felt hopeful. She had faced danger time and again, and escaped every time. She was halfway to her goal. All they had left to do was to retrace their footsteps over the Montagnes. She felt more than hopeful. She allowed herself to feel a little smug. She had run from the goblins, from the sewer people, and from the Pope of Storms, but she hadn’t run from Maglet. With magic and courage, she had defeated Maglet. She had made a plan for passing through the goblin city safely, and her plan had worked.
For the first time in a long, long time, Lizbet felt smart, and strong, and capable of anything. The steady rhythm of Violette’s body beneath her had the effect of the drum that stirs men to battle. Lizbet threw her arms around Strix’s waist, laid her face on Strix’s shoulder. A breeze sprang up behind them and blew Lizbet’s hair around her face, to mingle with Strix’s rusty curls.
“We did it,” she said, raising her voice over the sound of Violette’s pounding hooves. “Strix, we really did it. We’re through the worst of it. We got what we came for.” The Margrave’s book was a solid lump in her skirt pocket that bumped her thigh with Violette’s hoofbeats.
“You got what you came for,” Strix yelled back.
“You did too,” Lizbet said. “Mrs. Woodcot sent you to help me, and you did. I couldn’t have done it without you.” She hugged Strix tightly. Strix’s left thigh squeezed Violette’s flank tightly, but her right leg swung loose. Lizbet gingerly touched Strix’s thigh. Her fingers probed over the cut edge, where Maglet’s oar had slashed it. The feel of the loose papers and string, fluttering in the wind, made her shiver. Strix’s thigh was cut all the way to the bone. Or whatever Strix had for bones. “Your poor leg,” she said. “And your foot too. As soon as we get back, we’ll go straight to Mrs. Woodcot’s and have her mend you. You’ve had just terrible injuries, and all for me. Strix, you’ve been like a hero to me. I know you’re going to say something sarcastic, but I don’t care, you really have been.”
“I can’t go back to Mrs. Woodcot,” Strix said. “I can’t go back ever.”
The wind behind them whistled louder. It whipped Strix’s words away, and Lizbet had to strain to hear her voice.
“Why?” she yelled.
“Because I wasn’t supposed to be a hero to you!” Strix yelled back. “
It was all a lie! Mrs. Woodcot didn’t send me to help you. She sent me to stop you! None of this was supposed to happen.”
“Why? Why didn’t you—?”
“I was trying to be your friend.” She dug her good knee into Violette’s flank and shouted encouragement in the horse’s ear. “Listen, we’re in trouble. Hang on tight.” Violette shook his head and broke into a gallop.
“My goodness gracious, I’m bound for such a spill!” Fudge exclaimed. He hiked up his grip on Lizbet’s skirt.
“Don’t you dare touch my butt!” Lizbet yelled.
“I’m going to fall, I’m going to fall!” Fudge yelled.
Lizbet turned to yell at him. The words died in her throat.
Behind them, blotting out the dawn, came the whirlwind.
A swirling funnel of darkness descended from an angry sky. It whipped back and forth across the land. Where it passed, trees tore out of the ground and spun into the air. A false twilight descended. Lightning crackled in the clouds. A fine stinging rain spattered Lizbet’s cheek.
“Strix!” Lizbet yelled. “Is it the Pope of Storms?”
“Yes!” Strix yelled back.
“What . . . what can we do?” Lizbet felt sure a spell about noses or mice wouldn’t stop a whirlwind.
“We can’t do anything but run,” Strix yelled. “I’m trying to get us up into the forest. Maybe it will block the wind.”
Higher they galloped up the twisting road through the foothills, ever higher, ever steeper. Violette’s muscles strained. His joints squeaked and groaned. His nostrils blew steam that was torn away by the winds. Sheets of rain turned the road to mud and soaked Lizbet to the skin.
Fudge had Lizbet by the waist. He tried to yell, but all Lizbet heard over the howl of the storm was “Eeep!” or “Oooo!”
Gusts of wind blasted against them, rocking them back and forth. Could Violette even keep his feet” Lizbet wondered. Then, as she watched in shock, a square of muslin from Violette’s skin ripped loose, peeled from his body, and was swept away by the wind. Beneath, feathers and sawdust erupted through the hole. Another patch of skin popped its stitches, ripped away, and was lost. The wind worked its way under Violette’s patchwork hide. Huge sheets of it were torn loose and sailed away in the wind, until Violette looked like a flayed horse, all his muscles exposed to the wind and rain.
Straw began to fray from his straining muscles beneath Lizbet’s legs. Larger chunks tore off. Violette’s gait slowed, from a gallop to a canter to a limping trot. The funnel cloud roared closer. Crooked lightning played about the column. The tornado’s tip swerved across the hills, as if it were seeking them.
Slowly, more slowly Violette walked as parts of him blew away, until at last he stopped, and Lizbet, Strix, and Fudge were sitting atop only an unmoving sawhorse of naked wooden beams. With a screech, its joints gave way, and it collapsed into a pile of timbers, spilling its passengers into the cold mud.
Fudge struggled up and tried to stand. The wind bowled him over, squealing. Over and over he rolled, like a furry ball, faster and faster, the wind pushing him before it.
Lizbet helped Strix to her feet. “Come on!” she yelled in Strix’s ear. “We’ve got to hurry!” Up the slope, the dark line of trees marking the forest seemed very far away. Strix’s lips moved in reply, but in the howl of the wind, Lizbet couldn’t hear her words.
Then, in horror, Lizbet watched Strix’s upper lip peel back, tear off, and fly away. Then a strip of her forehead. Part of her neck. The skin of her cheek.
“STOP!” Lizbet screamed into the wind. She desperately tried to cover Strix’s face with her hands. She feared her own soul might be blown away, but she squashed that fear down. She had to save Strix.
She tried to cover Strix with her own body, but there was too little of Lizbet. The whirlwind was almost upon them. All the world turned to roaring and darkness. Muddy rain dashed against her. Blowing twigs, bits of wood and pebbles, filled the air. Something struck Lizbet’s ear and bloodied it. She shouted defiance, but her words made no sound above the roaring of the wind.
From out of the whirlwind, the voice of the Pope of Storms.
Perfidious Strix. You have betrayed your mistress again and again. You are good for nothing. Come to me, Strix. Come and be dissolved.
The wind screamed. As if grasped by an invisible fist, Strix was pulled out of Lizbet’s grasp. Lizbet desperately tried to hold on, but her fingers tore through Strix’s clothing and flesh. Strix’s skin sloughed away against her.
As Lizbet cried in horror and loss, Strix’s body pulled free and sailed up into the whirlwind.
Her strength sapped by despair, Lizbet sank into the wet grass. The front of her dress, her arms, her face were covered with wet brown papers, teabags, and string that had been Strix’s skin.
Strix’s naked body rose into the air, into the storm. She hung limply in the sky, illuminated by lightning, her ripped flesh fluttering madly.
Dissolve, said the Pope of Storms.
The screaming wind rose to a frenzy. As Lizbet watched in horror, Strix came apart.
Her body disintegrated into uncountable tiny scraps. Something small and hard struck Lizbet on the chest and bounced off. Lizbet grabbed it out of the grass. For an instant, a flash of lightning illuminated it. Lizbet stuck it in her pocket.
Lizbet.
“What!” Lizbet screamed into the storm. She couldn’t even hear her own words. She screamed anyway. “I don’t care what you do! I don’t care anymore! Damn you!”
Dissolve.
The furious wind dashed branches and stones against her. Lizbet cried out in pain. Her flesh was more solid than Strix’s, but even a human body would be reduced to lifeless pulp if battered by windblown debris for very long.
Strix was gone. Strix, the best friend Lizbet had ever had. The only friend she had allowed herself to have.
The object in her pocket, that she had glimpsed for a moment in the lightning flash, was an oval seashell with a smooth, rounded top and a toothy seam on the underside. It had a lustrous brown center, with white around the edges.
Lizbet recognized it as one of Strix’s eyes.
She did care what happened. Despite what she had screamed at the Pope of Storms, she did care. All she had left was the memory of Strix. Of friendship. Lizbet wanted to live. She wanted to live for that, if for nothing else.
Could she save herself? She couldn’t fight a whirlwind. The forest up the mountainside was too far away. When her father had been imprisoned, she had gone to the Margrave for help. When he wouldn’t help, she went to Mrs. Woodcot. Who could help her now? Who could stand up to the Pope of Storms?
Fighting the wind, Lizbet knelt, balancing on her hands on the muddy earth. It was perilous. The winds threatened at any moment to knock her off her feet. Flying debris hit her like stones from a sling. Blood seeped through her clothing in a dozen spots, and there was clotted blood in her hair. She lifted one foot and kicked with her toe as hard as she could on the ground.
She saw something immense and dark out of the corner of her eye. She dropped flat. A tree swept over her, its branches scraping her flesh. She struggled up again. She kicked the ground as hard as she could. “Help! Help me! I . . . I have something for you!”
Beneath her, a rumbling that Lizbet felt more than heard. Before her, the muddy earth swelled, cracked, and fountained up. A figure like a twisted tree root thrust up through the hole, its eyes and mouth bottomless dark blots.
“Well, howdy-doo, sweetie!” The earth witch craned her head around. It creaked. Her voice wasn’t especially loud, but it cut through the storm as if the storm weren’t there. “Quite a spot of unsettled weather we’re having, ain’t it? But spring’s like that, don’t you know.” She surveyed Lizbet. “What’cha got for me, sweetie, hm?”
“I have . . . myself,” Lizbet shouted into the wind. “Please
. Take me with you. Take me underground. I will be your corpse.”
The earth witch bent close to her. Her myriad fingers, like twitching white worms, played over Lizbet’s body. Where they touched her wounds, Lizbet flinched. “But you ain’t a corpse, sweetie. You’re wood and iron from the middle down, and flesh on top, but you’re still alive and kickin’. Get it? Kickin’? You had to kick the ground to fetch me? Oh me, oh my, I’m so droll.” She tittered.
“I’ll be a corpse soon,” Lizbet pleaded. “I’m half-dead now. See how I’m bleeding all over? Please, please, just take me. You can have my corpse if I die.”
“So it’s a gamble, now, is it?” the earth witch said. “Maybe you’ll die, maybe you won’t, la-di-da. If you don’t, no corpse for me. I’m less interested all of a sudden. A sure thing is more my style.”
Leave her. The mortal girl is mine.
The earth witch stared into the sky. “Is that you, Stormy? Are you the one what beat this child half to death?”
She is a thief, old grannie. She stole a book of mine. She is the spy of a mortal general over the mountains.
“Oh, stop your prattle,” the earth witch said. “Everybody knows there’s nothing on the other side of the mountains but the sky!”
She is my prisoner, escaped with her confederate, who is now dissolved. It is time for Lizbet to come to me.
The winds screamed. Lizbet felt her body lift up off the ground. She was about to be pulled into the whirlwind. She shrieked and grabbed for the earth witch. It was like grabbing a dirty, twisted root, crawling with grubs. Lizbet squeezed her eyes shut and tried to hang on. She felt herself, and the earth witch with her, being lifted into the air.
The earth witch shouted, “Lemme go! You’ve got some nerve, you big bag of wind!”
The earth witch plunged into the ground, dragging Lizbet with her. Down, down, down into the earth they fell, into blackness and wet and the smell of soil and decay. With a smash, dirt and rock closed above them.
The wind and rain were gone. In their place, silence. Utter darkness. Stillness. Lizbet sat in a puddle of cold slimy stuff. Mud?
Half-Witch Page 21
