Into the Green

by Charles de Lint

  But there was one thing she needed to know.

  "Lammond," she said.

  As he glanced at her, she caught the faint glint of madness behind his darkening gaze. She remembered what Johnny Tow had told her.

  There's a meanness in him that's easy to miss until it turns on you.

  No, she wouldn't try to stop him.

  "Please," he said. "Don't interrupt me, Ann Netter."

  "It's... it's not that. It's just—"

  She swallowed thickly. Just thinking of the glascrow made her break out in a sweat.

  "The merchant has something I need," she said.

  "Does he, now."

  Angharad nodded. "A puzzle-box."

  "A black and silver puzzle-box?" Lammond asked.

  "Yes. How did you... "

  "I've seen it," Lammond said. "Would you like to have it? I know where it is."

  "Yes. That is... "

  "Oh, it's no trouble at all. One moment while I—"he turned suddenly, impaling Corser on the tip of his blade, then putting his weight behind the thrust so that the sword went straight through the merchant's body—"finish this."

  Angharad turned away. Corser wailed, clapping his hands over the hole in his chest as Lammond withdrew the blade Corser dropped to his knees. Blood spewed from between his fingers, washing his hands and chest. A moment later, he toppled over to lie on the floor with his witch-finders, as dead as the pair of them.

  "Come along then," Lammond said.

  Angharad lifted her gaze to his face. The mad glint was hidden once more. He spoke as though they were simply browsing through a marketplace and he wanted her to see something interesting at another stall. As he stepped towards her, obviously meaning to give her a hand up, she scrambled quickly to her feet.

  She couldn't face touching him— did he see that in her eyes?

  If he did, he gave no indication.

  "The... the bones," she said.

  He gave her a surprised look. "You want them?"

  "No. I... They should be burned, so that others won't use them."

  "Of course."

  "Only I can't... "

  "Bear to touch them?"

  Angharad nodded.

  "I'll get them for you."

  Arn, how was it possible? How he could so calmly kill those three men, then act as though the deed had never been done? How could he be so cold, yet in the next instant, appear warm and understanding?

  She stood to one side, hugging herself, as he carefully returned the bones to their pouch.

  "Shall I carry them?" he asked, as he straightened up.

  "Please."

  Outside the cell, her witchy sight returned to her with a rush. It was as though she'd been blind and could suddenly see. No, it was more than recovering from blindness. It was losing all her senses, all the depth and meaning from life, and suddenly having them returned to her— all at once.

  Her gaze focused on the pouch that Lammond held. With the return of her witcheries, she realized that it hadn't been the glascrow calling to her from the merchant's house, but rather his bag of fingerbones.

  Their bright magics, sullied.

  Their green, faded and dead.

  Become a darkness, each witch's pain worked into the marrow of each bone so that they twinned the aura that hung about the glascrow.

  For wasn't this mutilation but another kind of green death?

  She leaned against the wall, steadying herself for a long moment, before she could follow Lammond across the storage area of the wine cellar. It wasn't until she was upstairs and out on the lawn with him, that she remembered she'd left her staff behind.

  "My staff," she said.

  With her witchy sight returned, she could see in the darkness, could see his smile.

  "Your witch-wood staff?" he asked. "The white rowan wood?"

  "You know?"

  "That you're not Ann Netter, the simple fishergirl? All along, I'm afraid."

  "Then why have you helped me?"

  Lammond shrugged. "Why not? I've nothing against witches— only lords. Besides, I've need of a witch."

  All the mismatched pieces came together for Angharad then. It wasn't Aron Corser, monster though he was, who had the green death. It was Lammond. Arn help her, how was she to prevail against him?

  "You have the glascrow, "she said.

  "The what?"

  "The puzzle-box."

  "I know where it is," he said.

  "What do you mean to do with it? You said you have nothing against witches. If that's true, then why do you want to kill the green?"

  "The green? Is that the supposed otherworld of the kowrie— Hafarl's realm?"

  Angharad nodded.

  "I don't want to kill it. I just want to kill lords. All of them. I've heard that this box has a secret in it that can do just that."

  "It's not true. You won't hurt the housey-folk with it. You'll just hurt my people. You'll destroy the green. You'll take away the last traces of wonder and magic that are left in this world."

  Lammond gave her a long silent glance, then his shoulders lifted and fell.

  "Wonder?" he asked. "Magic? I don't see any in this world. I never have, not since... "

  His voice trailed off, but Angharad knew what he'd been about to say: not since his sisters died. For even urchins in the slums could know wonder and magic, if there was love between them.

  Then she thought of what Lammond was saying. He could bring her to the glascrow. Well, what more did she need? Hadn't Tarasen told her to find it?

  Now she could.

  No matter what he expected of her, or of the glascrow, once she held it in her hands, she could attempt what she'd come here to do.

  Wake it.

  Banish it.

  She could at least try.

  "Never mind," she told him. "Take me to it and we'll see what we see."

  Lammond smiled. "You're thinking to play a trick on me."

  Angharad regarded him seriously.

  "I came here to wake it," she said, "and that's what you want of me too, isn't it?"

  "Wake it," Lammond agreed, "with your triad magic, and then send its witcheries out to kill them all."

  "I promise to wake it," Angharad said, "but once its power is woken, I can make no more promises. I was told that it can't be controlled."

  "Then how did you mean to defeat it?"

  "I think it requires a sacrifice," she replied, struggling to keep her voice steady. "I think I will have to give myself to it, to die while it is in me, so that it dies with me."

  "I can do that," Lammond said softly.

  Angharad merely regarded him. That would do no good. He didn't have the Summerblood in him. If a sacrifice was required, it was required of one Summerborn.

  "If it will do as I bid," Lammond added, "then I will gladly die for it."

  That wasn't quite what she'd meant, Angharad thought.

  "Is there any particular place that would be best to work this magic?" Lammond asked.

  "Are there stoneworks near Cathal?"

  Lammond nodded. "On the south shore of the bay, above the town. There's a solitary holed stone there that the locals call the Whistling Man for the sound it makes when the wind comes in from the shore and blows through its hole."

  "Then that is where we should go," Angharad told him.

  33

  Old Tom heard everything they said.

  When he learned that d'es Teillion would be taking Angharad to the Whistling Man, he moved soundlessly back through the garden, eschewing the rear lane that they would be taking for the broader avenue that ran in front of Corser's house.

  This late at night there were no guards about, nor rich folk to call them out, so he made good time as he hobbled down the cobblestone street. The last of his drunkenness was gone now, but by the time he reached the spot where Edrie Doonan was waiting with the two provisioned horses on Bellsilver Lane, he was completely out of breath.

  Edrie gave a start at his sudden appearance, th
en wrinkled her nose when she saw— smelled, was more like it, Tom thought— who it was.

  "Lord, but you gave me a fright," Edrie said, obviously trying to put up a good front, though why she'd care what an old drunkard wondered about her business, Tom didn't know.

  "Don't"— huff—"have much time."

  "Tom... Naghatty, is it?"

  Tom nodded. "The witch," he said. "Angharad." Huff. "Do you mean to help her— to truly help her?"

  Dath! What if he was wrong? What if she was thick as thieves with d'es Teillion?

  "Angharad... ?" Edrie began, then she nodded. "So that's her real name."

  Tom wanted to shake her. Any moment now, and the pair of them would be coming down from Corser's house where he'd left them.

  "Do you know of the green death?" he demanded.

  "The green death?"

  But Tom could see from her eyes that she didn't-no more than he had until he'd overheard Angharad and Lammond discussing it. He told Edrie what he'd heard.

  "D'es Teillion has it," Tom finished, "and he means to use Angharad to wake it. He thinks it'll kill all the lords, when what it actually does is kill the green."

  "So that's why he's been so helpful," Edrie said. "I should have known better than to trust him."

  "He's going to fetch the thing," Tom went on, "then he's taking them both— Angharad and the death— to the Whistling Man. Can you get help?"

  "Help? Arn, but you haven't thought this through. Who'd risk themselves against Lammond for a witch? Who'd even help a witch out of the gutter, even if all it took was a hand up?"

  Angharad had offered him more than a hand up, Tom thought. She had offered to restore meaning to his life, if he were only willing. And, inadvertently, she'd given him back a sense of worth.

  "What of Billy Perrin?" he asked. "Isn't he her friend? I heard her and Jackin talking about him."

  "I don't know if Perrin knows she's a witch."

  Tom shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Jackin's there. He'll help. Dath, she helped him, didn't she?"

  "Will you do it? Will you ride out and bring them to the stone?"

  "And what will you be doing?"

  "I'll go ahead on my own."

  Edrie simply looked at him. "You? Against Lammond?"

  "I was a soldier once."

  "Once. But look at you now."

  He wasn't much to look at, it was true. Dath, he knew it better than anyone. But...

  Tom took a steadying breath.

  "I've the Summerblood, as well," he said.

  It was easier to say than he'd thought it would be.

  "Do you, now?"

  Tom could hear footsteps in the lane.

  "They're coming. Will you ride for the farm?"

  "I will."

  "Then luck go with you."

  He started to turn away, but Edrie caught his arm. As he faced her once more, she handed him the reins of one of the horses.

  "Let's not give him any more advantage than he already has. Take the horse."

  "But..."

  She read his face, even in the dark, without witchy sight.

  "I trust you," she said. "Now go!"

  She swung up into the saddle. A moment later, he was mounted as well. Giving her a quick wave, he knocked his heels against the horse's sides and the street was filled with the sudden clatter of horses' hooves on the cobblestones— he riding the one way, Edrie the other.

  He passed d'es Teillion and Angharad as they emerged from the lane, head bent over the far side of his mount's neck so that they wouldn't recognize him. He heard d'es Teillion call out after him, but then he was around a street corner and out of sight.

  He slowed the horse and straightened up in the saddle.

  The Whistling Man, was it?

  How long before d'es Teillion arrived, with Angharad and the green death in tow? More to the point, how long before Edrie could bring help? For, brave words though he'd offered the innkeeper, he knew as well as she that there was little he could do against the swordsman.

  True, he'd been a soldier, but he was just a drunkard now. Of little good to anyone, little to say for himself.

  But he had the Summerblood, didn't he?

  In his mind, he heard the belling of that otherworldly stag. And the ghostsong, calling to him. Her voice in that song. Her eyes looking at him with approval.

  For the first time, he understood— truly heard— what she said.

  You did no wrong.

  Not to be a coward any more.

  But that he'd done no wrong when he held the blade to her, when the steel cut deep, when the blood flowed...

  Blood.

  What was it about blood... the blood of the Summerborn and the ancient stoneworks?

  He tried to snag the elusive memory as he rode out of town. His horse's hooves clomped on the shingle beach as they followed the shoreline to where the holed stone of the Whistling Man kept its watch over the tide line. Where it stood and gazed across the dark waters of the Grey Sea.

  It was when he saw the stone, when he heard the doleful whistle of the wind through its hole, that he remembered.

  34

  Angharad sensed the glascrow as soon as they entered the Gallant Archer, where Lammond had his room. Just entering the common room, she could feel the puzzle-box's emanation. It lay like black smoke on the edges of her thoughts, curling about the vague sparking glows that marked the minds of the inn's patrons.

  A malevolent presence, ancient and evil.

  Calling to her.

  Waiting for her.

  Broom and Heather, she thought. How could she not have sensed it before? How could she have missed its taint upon the swordsman when she first met him?

  But Lammond wasn't Summerborn. The green death wouldn't affect him as it did her. It wouldn't leave its mark on his soul. And besides, he had his own mark upon him. A death mark. A madness. Well hidden, it was true, but having witnessed it at Corser's house, she knew it would always be plain to her now.

  There's a meanness in him...

  It wasn't until they entered Lammond's room that she saw why she hadn't sensed the glascrow itself earlier.

  The puzzle-box sat on a table, seeming to gather darkness into itself. Beside it was a cast-iron box, its lid standing ajar, in which the glascrow must normally be stored. The iron would have kept her from detecting it before.

  She tried to ignore its ebony and silver patterning, but it drew her gaze, as surely as it drew the room's shadows to itself. A dark swirling pattern that pulled her down, down, to where her own answering shadows called to her...

  "So this is your witch."

  With an effort, Angharad looked away from the puzzle-box— its pattern still spiraling bleakly through her thoughts— to regard the woman who had spoken. She wore a silky gown, loosely tied about her waist, that did little to hide her voluptuous figure. Noting her exaggerated rouge and use of powder and paints, Angharad marked the woman for a courtesan.

  "Veda," Lammond said, nodding towards the woman. "And this is Ann Netter." He was in an obvious good humor. "And there," he added unnecessarily, "is your puzzle-box."

  "Does she know what you mean to do with it?" Angharad asked, refusing to turn her gaze back to the table.

  The glascrow whispered in her mind, calling to the seed it had already planted in her mind through Fenn's scryer.

  Come walk the road of shadows, it whispered.

  "I do," Veda said, answering for herself.

  "We are fellow travelers, Veda and I," Lammond said. "Veda is my... agent, I suppose one might call her. Through her work with the upper classes, she learns who I may approach for new assignments."

  So she was a courtesan, Angharad thought.

  "It's all very civilized," Lammond added.

  "Why bother?" Angharad asked.

  Lammond gave her a puzzled look. "I'm sorry?"

  "Why bother taking on assignments, or getting paid to kill gentry? Why not just do it?"

  "Well, we need to make a li
ving."

  "That doesn't seem like you," Angharad said.

  Veda laughed. "How does she know you so well, so quickly?"

  Angharad never smiled. "It seems to me you'd be much further along with your goals if you simply went about methodically killing all the gentry in a certain area. When you were done there, you could simply move on to the next."

  "It's not that simple," Lammond said.

  "I know," Angharad said. "It's not civilized."

  "That, too. But how long do you think the gentry would allow me to live if I went about my business in such a crude fashion? They can have no complaint when they hire me to do their work for them— and there are always lords in need of my talents. Mine and Veda's. Our kind is quite indispensable to them."

  Angharad looked away from him, turning her attention to Veda.

  "I suppose you have a similar tale of childhood misfortune to tell?" she asked.

  She heard Lammond's sharp intake at her side, could feel the dark anger flare in him. Veda's eyes narrowed. She glared at Angharad for a long moment, then her features cleared. She shrugged— a fashionable, easy motion.

  "Pity you couldn't have found one with better manners," she said to Lammond, her tone light.

  "But find her I did," Lammond replied, his own voice betraying none of his anger. "Triad magic— witch, harper and tinker. What more could one want?"

  "No need to go looking for witches," Veda explained to Angharad. "That's what Lammond said. Not when the box will bring them to us."

  "Lures them like a moth to flame," Lammond said.

  "The man from whom I received the box explained it all to me. I was to take it from its protective casing at regular intervals and merely set it in the air."

  "But not for too long," Veda said.

  Lammond nodded. "For, given enough exposure to it, it can work its uncomfortable wonders on those without the Summerblood as well."

  Now that, Angharad thought, was patently untrue. Tarasen had said...

  It needs the Summerblood to be kindled.

  Tarasen. Who'd told Angharad she must—

  Find it.

  Now found it was.

  Wake it.

  Had she ever had a choice to do anything but?

  Not since that night by Ballan's Broom— that morning when she spoke with Hafarl's daughter in the woods of Avalarn.