A Witch's Beauty

by A Witch's Beauty (lit)

  "That is because I honestly do not know what is the best course for the witch."

  The earth tumbled in the cup and a stem poked through. As David watched, it extended and spread, took on needles. The bonsai grew swiftly, taking the shape of a small dragon, with one small, spherical white fruit where the eye might have been.

  Pericles plucked it, extended it to David. "The memory is in the fruit. You need to anchor yourself. Stay aware of who you are. That's very important. A mind is often disoriented after experiencing a strong memory not its own. It can permanently change you."

  David thought of Raphael's words. "If I feared change, Pericles, it would do me little good, for it is the only inevitable thing in the universe. A promise."

  "And a curse," the Power observed dourly. "I will watch over you." He motioned downward and David, respecting his wisdom, slid to the ground, using the fountain wall as a brace to his back. He brought the fruit to his lips.

  "You do not hesitate," Pericles observed. "Definitely a sign of foolishness. Most would meditate a bit before experiencing a memory this strong."

  "I don't have that kind of time. Is it entirely necessary?"

  "No, but it will be far more unpleasant. You will have more difficulty remembering you are in her memory, not your own reality."

  HE didn't remember the taste, or even the texture. In the time it took to take the bite, all that was swept away.

  Like most, he'd heard a second-hand account of what had happened to Mina when she was nine, but there was a vast difference between knowing what had happened and experiencing it. As the memory thrust into his mind like the growth of the bonsai, the heavy silence of the water closed in.

  His arms were bound. No. A child's were. A nine-year-old child. For a blink, a sliver of his mind struggled to remain separate, clinging to the fading words of a distant Power. But as the emotions flooded him, the first wave of what he was about to see and feel her endure, David knew he couldn't do it. He let the memory rip away who he was, so that he became his seawitch.

  Chain pulled her arms back at an excruciating angle. Her wrists were bound tightly to her tentacles with pronged restraints that sunk into her serpentine appendages so the cuffs would not slip. If they dropped her, she would sink and roll like an unbalanced jellyfish, her vulnerable stomach ripped open by contact with the coral reefs of the Abyss, and predators would close in to feed on the tender young flesh.

  As they took her down deeper into the Abyss, she began to beg. To plead.

  It was pointless. She knew that. Her mother had taught her not to seek compassion from anyone, even from her. But though she was ashamed, the fear broke her. When she screamed too loudly, one of the mermen jammed an oyster shell into her mouth. Gods, it cut into her tongue and the roof of her mouth, blood clotting inside and on her lips grotesquely, refusing to let go of her skin. Her cries intensified-she couldn't help it-but they were garbled, which seemed to satisfy the merman.

  Don't leave me here...

  She'd been alone all her short life, but this was different. Being abandoned, helpless and bound, was so different from just being alone.

  Four manacles of varying lengths hung from an iron ring embedded in the reef. She sensed the magic hovering over the restraints as well as the ghostly impressions of terrified merpeople, sentenced for crimes warranting death, who'd died and had their bodies picked apart here.

  When they put her in the four manacles, the magic clamped down on her. The manacles were spelled to hold the flesh painfully tight, adjusting as necessary so that even a captive whose appendages were being decimated by scavengers couldn't escape. A clever conjuring by Neptune's own wizards, the bindings also prohibited the use of magic by the captive, including shifting. With her mobility limited by the manacles, she couldn't completely control the direction she floated, and almost immediately drifted up against the stinging bed of fire coral clustered around the iron ring. She cried out, tried to push away, but the mermen shoved her back against it, using the wall of the Abyss to hold her still so they could finish their task, ignoring her struggles.

  They blindfolded her with a strip of metal that pressed more short, sharp prongs into her skin at angles on either side of her nose, above her ears, at the back of her skull, holding it in place.

  It didn't matter to them, to any of them, that she hadn't done what they thought.

  She'd stood in the shadows of the birthing room, watching the baby emerge from the mother's womb. Feeling the shape of the curse, Mina had known what that new daughter of Arianne, the princess Anna, would face. She would have the worst curse of all. Nothing but pure air and water would be able to touch her skin without causing her great pain. Any living being who touched her would be turned to chaotic, evil purpose. Princess Anna would be better off dead. But Mina could fix it. Her first understanding of irony. She could change for another what she could not change for herself.

  Then, unexpectedly, the new baby's mother had let go of the carved pillars of stone that countless generations of royal women had clasped as they bore their children. She'd floated over, despite the admonitions of her retainers to stay and be cosseted, to watch the midwife place the new babe in the birth net.

  "I'm sorry... I can't bear to see you suffer, but I do not have the courage to take you with me."

  She'd somehow gotten the knife that cut the umbilical cord and in one motion, too shocking and quick to stop, she had cut her own throat. The blood had swirled away toward Mina while the midwife and attendants cried out, abandoned the secured babe to cluster around the mother's floating, dying body.

  She should have done nothing. She had every reason to hate that baby, but she'd drawn close to the enclosed bassinet and looked down as two small hands reached for her.

  She had known for over a month what the specific curse would be, because she'd stepped into the world of dark visions and sinister magic to summon the knowledge to her. In her hate and anger, she'd thought of using the cure she found as a bargaining chip with Neptune. Just as her ancestor had once stood toe-to-toe with the sea king and defied him. Only this time she wouldn't lose.

  But in the end, one child had stood over the bassinet of another, looked into violet eyes and a pale face, and acted for reasons that had nothing to do with any of that.

  Opening her mouth, Mina had summoned the mother's swirling blood to her-there'd been so much of it-and taken it in like a bird carrying food to its young. Removing the infant from the spherical birthing net, she'd sealed her lips over the babe's, and forced the blood down the tender new throat. She'd cut her own lip with sharp teeth to make sure her seawitch blood mingled with it.

  "Least you deserve for trying to kill the princess," one of the mermen spat at her irritably, as if her cries and pain were something she should be ashamed of. "Should have executed your whole line long ago, before you were ever born."

  They left her there, pulling against those chains and begging them to come back, the blindfold putting her in total darkness.

  The sea was very efficient, full of those with radar for the dead and dying, and of course every creature in the ocean knew that being immobilized and exposed was the worst of Fates. The area quickly became full of the opportunistic scavengers.

  Eventually, she swore if she got free, she'd spend her life dining on every crawling, slithering one of them. But at first she screamed in horror, cried, shook them off, again and again, until she battled exhaustion as hard as she fought them. When she tired, crabs and shrimp attached to her skin, pinching, scraping in their horribly slow, methodical way. Eels slithered up around her legs, taking more aggressive bites. Jellyfish bumped into her, leaving welts, their poison bringing more agony.

  If she'd been mortal, possessing the soul of a mermaid only or any other creature made by the Goddess, she would have succumbed. But she refused. The Dark Blood in her, as well as the life she'd lived for her first nine years, told her there was no kindly Goddess Mother waiting to welcome her. Death at best might simply be oblivion, bu
t she had too much rage and hate to give in to that.

  In between her war with the sea creatures, she tried every spell. Most ricocheted off the spell-block on the manacles and burned her skin. Her only bulwark against despair was that they occasionally struck her mundane attackers. But she wouldn't give up, and she finally found one the wizards hadn't considered. She was able to shift half of her upper body and both tentacles with their manacles into the Abyss wall, embedding herself there like a fossil to protect at least that much of her. Unfortunately, that left the rest of her protected only by her wits, one arm and her teeth.

  But she learned. She'd overcome the excruciating pain caused by working at the oyster shell with her tongue and movements of her jaw, and gotten the shell out. Since she could almost reach her mouth with her one hand, to eat she captured her scavenger attackers, crushed or tore the life out of them with the aid of her often bleeding and infected mouth. She fought others off as they charged back in for an additional meal. Sometimes there were so many she couldn't protect her face and body from all of them, and of course when she passed out from pain and exhaustion, they could feast until she roused and beat them off again.

  Her body became a map of the failures, as well as the successes. While they tried to eat their way around the prongs of the mask, get beneath it to her eye, they were never successful. Ironically, the barbaric cruelty of the merpeople saved her eye.

  When they came to get her, her sentence rescinded because they'd discovered she'd actually saved the babe a life of torment, she had no idea that over twenty-six days had passed. Later she learned they'd waited a full day after the decision before dispatching someone to go after her, because no one expected her to be alive. However, with no apologies, but visibly shaken by her appearance and the fact she was alive, the same pair of mermen unchained and brought her back to Neptune's realm. To the ambivalent and sometimes malevolent attentions of the healers.

  Before she left Neptune's realm, never to return, she only asked for one thing. She asked to see Anna. She'd peered at the baby in her crib, a sphere woven of enchanted willow for protection. Anna floated about, chortling and staring about her with those wide violet eyes. The hovering nurse had strongly opposed the witch's request, not only for fear of the witch herself, but saying her appearance would give the babe nightmares. She'd had to swallow her words as Anna floated to the edge and reached through the diamond-shaped holes of the willow toward Mina's destroyed face.

  There'd been a few things already in the sphere. Toys. A sparkling medallion from Neptune. Mina reached in, tied the tiny set of chimes she'd made out of softened glass to a bar, and departed, leaving the baby's tiny hand still reaching for her. She hadn't allowed Anna to touch her. Then, and only then, did Anna begin to cry.

  DAVID surfaced. For a moment he blinked, unsure of where he was. Then he bolted upright from the ground, his hands going to his face, his arms, his legs. The sensation of touching them and finding them whole shuddered through him like an electric shock.

  "Easy, boy." Pericles was there with a hand on his shoulder, steadying him, pressing him back against the stone wall. "Easy."

  "Jesus." David bent forward, putting his head down, taking deep breaths. He was soaked in sweat, his hands trembling, and he had the unusual but not forgotten sensation of nausea.

  "I told you to stay separate."

  "No." David shook his head, shook it hard, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes as if that would help dispel the horror. Pericles was right. He wished he could forget that, but he never could. Oh, Mina. "I had to do it as her."

  "But why? Why was that necessary?" Pericles squatted next to him and took David's hands from his eyes. He squeezed the younger angel's wrists, a reassurance, a reminder of his current reality. The Thrones had drawn close again, hovering, their eyes seeing, knowing. When David shook his head, unable to answer, they did, in quiet, humming tones that vibrated through his and Pericles's minds.

  Because watching something terrible happen to someone you care about is a far greater torment than going through it yourself. No matter what that torment is.

  David drew a shaky breath. He wanted to hunt down everyone who'd hurt her, from Neptune to that nurse. Make them suffer in a way that made Lucifer's Hades look like a theme park. Christ.

  "No wonder you said nothing against her," he said, when he could trust himself to speak. He stared into the Memory Keeper's enigmatic dark eyes. "She's been through enough."

  "That was just the beginning, I'm afraid. Perhaps the worst, physically, but many other things have occurred in her life to enforce the lessons of those twenty-six days. Of the first nine years of her life, really."

  "The way they treat her, no wonder she's always alone."

  "And sometimes not as alone as a female would wish to be."

  David's eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"

  "I shared the memory you requested. You understand the most important root-"

  Pericles's voice cut off abruptly. Though weak and unsteady still, David had propelled himself off the ground, launched by the trigger of those words. He stood over the angel, gripping his tunic. "What do you mean?"

  Pericles did not appear concerned about David's anger. In fact, there was compassion in his eyes. "I will not let you experience another of her memories. One has been enough to overtax your system. But"-he removed David's hand, squeezed his fingers in silent reproof-"I will tell it to you. There were those, when she was just an adolescent, who dared to corner her, take advantage of her prettier features, perversely fascinated by her harlequin nature. She learned to fight them, to put an end to it, and they regretted their foolishness. At least one young merman disappeared, his fellows claiming he was attacked and killed by a whale, because they would not own up to the truth. He tried to force her to his will before she let her darkness take over and dispatched him. He exploded. Literally."

  David backed off, tried to steady himself, gain his bearings while assimilating that knowledge with the vibrating horror of what he'd just experienced through Mina's memories.

  "There are many things I do not understand, Lieutenant. Not only does her blood give her every reason to capitulate to evil, everything in her life has pushed her toward it. I suspect whatever tether holds her from that is tenuous. We can pity her, but the ultimate mercy may be in destroying her, as something that never should have been born, the way we treat most Dark Spawn.

  "Was her survival a matter of savagery or nobility? You've been in battle. You know at times there is a close overlap between the two. In that memory, you saw there are times there is no separation between them. Do not mistake her Dark One blood as an illness for her to overcome. It is a vital part of who she is, such that she cannot bear too great a threat to it."

  David frowned, forcing himself to focus. That uneasiness was back, as if Pericles's words had tripped a switch. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean she is the very embodiment of yin and yang. Split between darkness and light, she cannot move toward light without a proportionate response from the darkness. It will not tolerate being abandoned, and of course it would like to take over completely. So she draws in precise amounts from the light to keep it in check. Just as she was half in rock, half in water in the Abyss, so she stands, precariously balanced between two forces. She herself is the greatest potion she's ever concocted."

  "So that explains why she stays away from others? Too much light, too little dark..." David's pulse was increasing again, his heart pounding up toward his throat. "She uses the pain to help her."

  Pericles nodded. "I have told you far more than I intended. But it is important that you do not let your desire to help her blind you to what may be the ultimate truth. That when her will snaps, others will pay with their lives. Perhaps many others. It is what Jonah fears."

  David rubbed his forehead, paced in an agitated circle.

  "I didn't speak in her defense, young David," Pericles continued. "I only did not speak against her. She bears blood in her th
at embraces hatred and death, feeds on fear and pain for nourishment as well as pleasure. She cannot bear the proximity of too much white light. It drives her as mad as cornering does a rabid animal."

  Oh, holy Christ. That's it.

  As the truth echoed through him, he glanced at the sunlight and swore in a way that Zebul's hallowed hall had never heard. He was way past the hour he'd promised her. Nearly two, in fact.

  Almost at the moment he registered that, Jonah's urgent call exploded into his mind.

  Thirteen

  EVEN before he left Zebul, Jonah's sharp call came to David again, spurring his speed so that he somersaulted a pair of fiery phoenixes drifting through the library area. As he shot down through the levels of Heaven, heading for Shamain, he received more snippets from Jonah's mind. She'd lost patience with the wait, had tried to leave. Became more and more agitated as Jonah tried to reason with her, then as other angels got involved, her reaction had detonated unexpectedly.

  They'd not yet harmed her, but that effort was wearing thin.

  Don't make her feel cornered, Jonah.

  I believe that opportunity has already passed.

  The revelations of the last hour had warned him, but even so, the change in the dragon grasping the stone point of Shamain's tallest spire above the keep was startling. The sapphire blue and silver scales were now the ruby brightness of blood, both snake-like eyes a savage match, fangs bared as she roared and shot hot flame in a wide arc around her. Angels leaped easily out of reach, but they had her well surrounded above and below. Many had arrows notched and swords at the ready, prepared to move in.

  He'd achieved what he sought here, but the cost might be the exact opposite of what he intended. David cursed himself. Her reluctance, her obsessive insistence on the time limitation, had been warnings, and he hadn't heeded them. She didn't trust easily. He should have paid more attention to what she hadn't said to him, rather than preemptively celebrating what she had.