The Shining City

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘They were enemies!’ Nina cried.

  ‘So she said.’

  ‘But Rhiannon was going to stand witness against him. Without her, we would no’ have kent about the necromancy.’

  ‘She did no’ stand witness against him, though, did she?’

  ‘Only because he escaped from prison.’

  ‘Yes. Lucky chance, that one.’

  ‘The laird tried to break her out o’ prison, too, remember, and she would no’ go.’

  ‘Again, according to her. There were no other witnesses to it.’

  ‘What about the laird o’ Fettercairn’s skeelie, Your Highness?’ Iven said. ‘She stood witness against Rhiannon. Why would she do that if they wanted Rhiannon free to kill Lachlan?’

  ‘I do no’ ken,’ Iseult admitted. ‘Perhaps to throw dust in our eyes. Perhaps to force the satyricorn girl to do as they bid. There could be any number o’ reasons.’

  ‘But …’ Iven protested.

  ‘Do no’ argue with me,’ Iseult cried. ‘I ken ye are fond o’ this girl, despite her crimes. Yet I canna see how ye can still defend her! She escaped from her prison with a blowpipe and a bag o’ poisoned barbs the very hour Lachlan was murdered with the same weapon! She has the uniform o’ a Yeoman in her bag, on a night when the Yeomen were almost as thick on the ground as wedding guests. And …’ Iseult paused for effect. ‘And whoever killed Lachlan had a quick escape route, one that succeeded in evading all o’ the above Yeomen. What better than a winged horse?’

  Both Nina and Iven hurried into passionate speech, but Iseult raised her hand imperiously and they both fell silent, though with obvious difficulty.

  Iseult turned to Captain Dillon, who was standing guard over his dead Rìgh, scowling ferociously as he listened to the prison guard’s report.

  ‘Dillon, we must find her!’ Iseult commanded.

  ‘She’ll be long gone on that horse o’ hers,’ he answered.

  ‘She murdered my husband!’ Iseult hissed. ‘She helped that blaygird laird steal away my bairns! I want her found and I want her hung.’

  ‘It would be my pleasure, Your Highness,’ Dillon replied, ‘if I had a winged horse at my disposal to hunt her down. But I do no’. There is naught I can do to catch her. She would be miles away by now.’

  Iseult stood very still, biting her lip until blood began to run down her chin. ‘I will hunt her down myself,’ she said, and the air about her turned so cold it seemed she was surrounded by a nimbus of frost. She lifted her eyes to the shadow-hung ceiling, raised both her hands and began to intone, in a deep, strange voice, ‘Caillec Asrohc Airi …’

  ‘Iseult, no!’ Isabeau cried.

  Her twin sister did not respond. Her eyes were rolling up in her head, and she was shaking with the force of the magical summons she spoke.

  ‘… Telloch Cas,’ she finished. ‘Come to me! Once more I shall ride the dragon’s back!’

  The vast wood which lay between tower and palace had come alive with hundreds of bobbing balls of witch-light, as search parties hurried through the innumerable paths through the trees. It was the only form of illumination that could withstand the gale-force winds, blowing with snow. Gusts of hail pelted the heads of the searchers, and lightning cracked like a whip of white fire.

  Lewen stamped his feet in their thin leather shoes and rubbed his icy hands together, wishing he could take the time to go to his room and change. He dared not, however. His fear had expanded in his chest until he found it hard to breathe. Fear for his beloved Olwynne, fear for his dearest friend Owein, fear for his Rìgh. He was torn by conflicting needs. On the one hand, he wished to stay and search for the young Rìgh until he was found, yet on the other hand all he wanted to do was rush back to the palace and find out what had happened to Owein and Olwynne. His duty must come first, though.

  Lewen knew that Captain Dillon and the Dowager Banrìgh would expect him to have made every effort to find the young Rìgh, and to gather information about what could have happened to him so, after he was sure the search parties were being coordinated properly, he hurried to the healers’ wing to see if he could find any clue as to where Johanna had been taking Donncan and Thunderlily.

  The Royal College of Healers was eerily quiet. He came into the front hall and found the porter, fast asleep in his chair, his chin on his chest. Lewen tried to rouse him, but he only fell off his chair and lay, snoring, on the cold floor. No matter how Lewen shook him, he could not wake him. Wishing he had a sword, Lewen drew his little eating dagger and went on into the tower.

  Lights blazed from the dining room, though there was no sound of any life. Lewen pushed open the double doors but stopped so abruptly on the threshold that the doors hit him as they swung back into place.

  Long tables lined the hall, laden with platters of roasted vegetables, and stuffed mushrooms, and little round pies of baked egg and herbs. Half-empty wine glasses and mugs of flat ale sat by every plate. The hall had been decorated with garlands of flowers and coloured ribbon, and more flowers adorned the heads of many of the people who lay slumped over the table, or fallen onto the floor. There were at least two hundred of them, men and women, dressed in the green robes of the healers.

  It felt as if an icy fist had closed about Lewen’s heart. He staggered forward and dropped to his knees by the closest person, a man who lay fallen from his chair, a puddle of red wine spreading across the flagstones like blood. Lewen’s fingers fumbled for a pulse. The man’s skin was cold, but a faint throbbing in his neck showed he was still alive. Lewen felt faint with relief. He checked another body, and then another. They all lived, but he could not rouse them.

  Lewen got to his feet, hesitating, and then went blundering out into the hallway again, calling for help. There was no reply. Lewen went running through the tower, banging on doors and flinging them open. Most of the rooms were empty, for everyone had been at the feast. On the top floor of the tower, however, he threw open a door and found a pale figure collapsed on the floor. He saw the long pale hair, and the simple straight lines of the robe, and his heart smote him. He went down on his knees beside her, and gently turned her over. It was the Stargazer. Her pulse was so faint he could barely feel it, and when he bent his cheek to her mouth, he could not feel her breath at all.

  Raised by his mother to revere the Celestines, rulers of the forest faeries, Lewen had to fight hard to keep panic from overwhelming him. He lifted Cloudshadow, who weighed no more than a small child despite her height, and laid her on the bed, covering her with the counterpane. The hearth was brushed clean and empty, for the weather had been hot until this unnatural winter had been conjured out of Iseult’s grief. He chafed the Stargazer’s cold hands between his own, and looked for wine to dribble between her lips. He found some on a table near where she had been lying, and had just lifted the glass to bring to her when he remembered the wine spilt like blood in the dining room. He stared at it in horror and saw heavy dregs of some undissolved powder still floating in the bottom of the glass.

  Very carefully Lewen put the glass down again, and then, after making the Stargazer as warm and comfortable as he could, went slowly and methodically through the rest of the tower. He found the other Celestines drugged and unconscious also, and was unable to rouse any of them. Once he had covered them all up warmly, he went to Johanna’s room, at the top of the tower. There he found signs that someone had been bound with rope, and cut free with a knife. There were faint bloodstains on the rope, and a scrap of torn silver gauze. He also found Donncan’s brooch, dropped under the table. He took it up in his hand, hardly able to breathe with fear. Holding the brooch tightly in his hand, he went running down the stairs and out into the garth, shouting hoarsely for help.

  Outside, the storm shrieked and wailed with new intensity. He put his arm over his face and leant into the wind. Crossing the garth was like trying to cross a glacier. He could not believe how thick was the snow. He staggered into the main hallway of the Theurgia, where a command centre had been set up
to coordinate the search for the missing Rìgh. Huge fires had been kindled at either end, and Lewen could smell mulled wine and hot chestnuts. The change in temperature was such a shock to his system he almost fainted, but he pulled his swimming senses together and called out to Fat Drusa, the sorceress in charge.

  ‘Lewen!’ she cried, and waddled towards him. ‘What is it? Ye’re white as a sheet. Come, sit down. Drink some o’ the wine. What have ye found? No’ … no’ …’ Words failed her and she clasped her plump hands together before her in dismay.

  ‘Healers’ College …’ Lewen gasped. ‘They’re all drugged … unconscious … the Celestines …’

  Someone passed him a cup of hot, spiced wine and he gulped it down gratefully. Only then could he describe what he had found with any degree of coherency.

  ‘We must go and tend them,’ Fat Drusa said. ‘Katrin, go and find as many blankets as ye can. Rouse up the chamber-maids and bid them help ye. Cameron, we’ll need firewood and plenty o’ it! Take ye a party and see if there’s any cut. If no’, ye’ll need to chop us some and right quickly! Edithe, run up to my bedchamber, will ye, and find my smelling salts. They’re in the cupboard by my bed. Run, girl, run! Rafferty, do ye ken where Lewen’s room is? Go and get him some warm, dry clothes, will ye? He’ll catch his death in that thin shirt. Good girl, Fèlice, well done.’

  At the sound of his friends’ names, Lewen looked up and only then saw that the room was crowded with young apprentices, all milling around and trying their best to do as Drusa commanded. It was Fèlice who had given him the cup of mulled wine. She was now kneeling before him, unlacing his sodden shoes and drawing them off his feet, which felt like blocks of ice. Gently she rubbed them dry with a warm towel. As feeling began to return, Lewen cried out in pain.

  ‘Fancy running around in the snow with naught on your feet but a thin pair of court shoes,’ Drusa scolded.

  ‘I canna rest here,’ Lewen cried. ‘I must go and find His Highness! Give me back my shoes.’

  ‘Ye’ll have frostbite if ye go out again without a proper pair o’ boots on. Rafferty, go! Lewen wants some good stout boots, and a muffler and gloves too, if he’s going out into that snowstorm again.’

  ‘No! Send someone else,’ Lewen cried. ‘I need Rafferty. He’s the fastest.’

  Gladly Rafferty turned and came back, dropping down on his knees before Lewen. ‘Ye must take a message to the Dowager Banrìgh,’ Lewen said rapidly. ‘Tell her there’s been foul play here as well. Tell her the Rìgh Donncan is missing too, and Thunderlily the Celestine. They’ve been taken by Mistress Johanna, I do no’ ken where. Tell her we need soldiers to help us search the witches’ wood, it’s the last place they were seen. Tell her all the healers have been drugged, or poisoned, I do no’ ken which, and the Stargazer and her retinue too. Can ye remember all that?’

  Rafferty nodded, and rapidly recited the message, counting off the points on his fingers. When Lewen nodded in commendation, he was up and running out the door.

  Fèlice seized Lewen’s hand. ‘Ye said “Donncan is missing too”. What did ye mean, Lewen? Who else is missing?’

  Lewen’s heart sank. He looked down at the pretty, frightened face turned up to his. ‘Olwynne and Owein have been taken,’ he said. ‘Roden too.’

  Fèlice’s eyes widened, and her breath caught. ‘Taken? Taken where? By who?’

  ‘The laird o’ Fettercairn. We do no’ ken where, or why.’

  Tears spilled down her face. ‘Oh Eà, oh Eà, oh Eà,’ she whispered. ‘No, no! No’ Owein. He … I … I did no’ ken … Oh, Lewen! He left me a message, he said he wanted to see me. I screwed it up and threw it away. Oh, if only I had answered it, if only I had gone to see him, maybe …’

  ‘Their plans were very well laid,’ Lewen said, squeezing her fingers. ‘I think they would have found some way to kidnap him even if ye had answered his note. Do no’ feel bad, Fèlice. It is no’ your fault.’

  Fèlice hid her face in her hands. For a moment Lewen was afraid that she was going to dissolve into tears, when he had neither the time nor the energy to be comforting her, but she took a deep, shuddering breath and managed to control herself.

  ‘What can I do to help?’ she asked then, her voice trembling only a little.

  ‘We must rouse the Celestines,’ Lewen said. ‘If anyone can help us find Rìgh Donncan, it is them.’

  Fèlice nodded. ‘I’ll find Maisie,’ she said. ‘All Maisie wants is to be a healer. She’s spent all her spare time studying and going to extra lectures. She’ll ken the best way to wake them.’

  ‘Good,’ Lewen said. ‘Let me ken as soon as they wake. I’ll be out in the woods searching for His Highness.’

  In only a few minutes, Fèlice, Maisie and a large group of young female apprentice-witches were hurrying through the cold, dark halls of the Tower of Two Moons, taking the long way round to the healers’ hall, rather than get their loads of blankets, warm cloaks, firewood, tinder and kindling wet by cutting across the snowy courtyard. It had been difficult finding enough people to help. Most of the servants had been given leave to celebrate Midsummer’s Day, and many of the witches and students had taken advantage of the holiday to go home to their families. Most of the Circle of Sorcerers had been at the wedding, leaving only Fat Drusa and Wise Tully behind to overlook the festivities at the witches’ tower. Both were physically incapable of helping much with the desperate search through the snowy night, or for setting up a hospital in the healers’ great hall, one because of her immense size, the other because of her immense age. So it was left to those students not too inebriated after the day’s partying to take on the responsibility.

  Lewen was himself torn. All he wanted was to go sloshing through the sewers searching for his lost love, but he had been given his task and he was duty-bound and honour-bound to do as he was ordered. Find Donncan, the Keybearer had commanded, and so that was what he must do.

  He gathered together a search party of young men, many of whom had spent the last hour fruitlessly tramping through the storm-tossed darkness and were not that keen to face the driving snow again.

  ‘It’s useless,’ one said angrily. ‘Any tracks the Prionnsa may have left have been swept away by the storm. We’ve been searching for hours and found naught!’

  ‘Everything’s been covered with snow. All we found were our own tracks, going round and round in circles,’ said another.

  ‘It’s bitterly cold out there, Lewen,’ Cameron said. ‘Are ye sure …?’

  ‘Our Rìgh is missing,’ Lewen said tiredly. ‘If we canna find him, there will be no law, no order, no rule. We must try! Besides, I have an idea …’

  Lewen knew that the woods separating the witches’ tower and the palace were sanctuary to thousands of faeries of all kinds, from the tiny bright-winged nisses to tree-changers to corrigans. Most would be sheltering from the storm whatever way they could, but Lewen hoped that some at least would answer his call and come to tell him what they knew. Having been raised near an ancient forest by his tree-shifter mother, Lewen knew most of the languages spoken by the forest faeries, and it was in these languages that he called.

  He was lucky. It was not long before a nisse came swooping out of the darkness and swung off his finger, chattering away in high excitement.

  ‘This way the star-girl went, glimmering and gleaming in her silver dress. I flew fleet following her and the two big ones of no account. Fast and far I flew, wondering why and where they went, but then the wind turned to ice, howling and hollering, and shivering shaking I flew fled back to my own safe snug tree …’

  ‘It is very cold,’ Lewen said gently. ‘If ye sheltered here under my scarf, could ye show me where they went?’

  ‘Comfy and cosy,’ the little faery said approvingly, snuggling up under the soft wool. ‘I happy to settle stay here!’

  With the arctic wind blasting him, needling his face with ice and blowing back his hair, Lewen tramped through the wildly tossing trees, his witch-light flickering
above him. The nisse was not a reliable guide. She chattered away almost non-stop, and it was difficult to concentrate on her words when he was so very cold and tired, and occupied by such an acute anxiety it felt as if someone was trying to drill their way out of his stomach.

  Eventually, though, the nisse led Lewen and the search party to the very centre of the forest, where lay the magical maze that protected the Pool of Two Moons. There, caught on the narrow iron gate that led into the maze, Lewen found the scarlet sash that Donncan had worn to his wedding.

  Puzzled, Lewen stood, holding the sash in his hand and staring down the dark corridor of yews. Even with his witch-light bobbing just above his head, he could see only a short distance into the maze, with the frosty wind howling about his head and snow blowing into his eyes. He did not know the secret of the maze. It was a secret known only to those of the MacCuinn clan, and the Circle of Sorcerers. It was impossible for him to go on. Already he was exhausted, and so cold his hands and feet seemed to have disappeared. If he led his search party into the maze, they could all well die.

  ‘We’ll go back,’ he muttered. ‘We’ll send a message to the palace. In the morning, perhaps, we can keep on searching.’

  His words were met with sighs of relief all round. Lewen, however, felt only misery and despair. If he could have found Donncan, it would have been worth not insisting on chasing after Olwynne. He would have been free to help in the search for Owein and Olwynne.

  Then his heart lightened. Perhaps, back at the Tower of Two Moons, good news would be waiting for him as well as hot spiced wine and a warm bed. They said Finn the Cat always found what she sought.

  Suddenly the nisse gave a high-pitched shriek and burrowed deep into his neck, drawing the scarf tight around her. Lewen felt her sharp nails scratching him. Even as he reached in and sought to drag her out, he heard, high overhead, the unmistakable trumpeting cry of a dragon.

  It tore through the night like a rush of flame through paper. Lewen threw himself to the ground, his arms over his head, his face pressed into the snow, so overwhelmed with terror he felt his bowels loosen involuntarily. Sternly he clenched the muscles of his sphincter together, curling his knees to his chest. By the sudden odour, he knew some of his fellow searchers had failed to control their own bowels. Someone sobbed out loud.