by Sarah Rayne
In the dim light, Morrigan might easily have been eight feet tall. She might certainly have possessed giant blood.
But the real Joanna was safely at the centre of the courage, and the real Joanna could not possibly be touched or harmed by anything that Morrigan might do. I am quite safe, said Joanna to Joanna firmly. I have a carapace. Presently, Joanna’s voice said calmly, “Do to me what you must, Morrigan. I see you have still not learned to control your own body. How weak you are, my dear.”
Morrigan hissed and the snake-tongue darted out, but Joanna saw that the taunt had hit home.
The voice that was Joanna’s but did not use Joanna’s words, said amusedly, “So you still give way to tantrums, as well, do you Morrigan? Do you recall how you truly lost the Battle for the Trees? Childish rage, Morrigan, that is all.”
Morrigan reared up to her full height — ten feet, thought Joanna, horrified. “It was not lost,” said Morrigan. “The Trees still sleep.”
“But you did not gain control of them. Well, you poor ineffectual creature, your rages and your sick passions have lost you a throne more than once, they will do so again. You will not have Tara, you know. Not for your evil master, and not for yourself.”
Morrigan said, “For that, High Queen, I will skin you alive with my own hands and cut your flesh into cold collops for the Erl-King’s table.”
“And I will summon the mighty armies of Finn mac Airmail and his Fiana, and the bewitchments of the Sorcerers of Tara,” said Joanna’s voice, in the sort of voice one might use when saying, “You silly child, I am a grown-up with a grown-up’s strength.” There was a low blurred laugh. “You will never vanquish me, Morrigan.”
For a moment Morrigan did not speak. Then, “Dierdriu,” she said in a voice filled with loathing. “I promise you that this is the final battle. You will not escape.”
“But I have escaped before, Morrigan. I escaped you before and I shall do so again. I promise you that.” The voice that was Joanna’s and yet not Joanna’s became yet more menacing. “I also promised that if ever the Darkness should again threaten Tara, I would return. Did you ever know me to break a promise or forget a vow?”
“Human chivalries!” said Morrigan contemptuously. “And where have they brought you, Your Majesty? Into my house and into my power, and into the Miller’s cages! Your wolf lover is bound and chained and your followers have deserted you!” Confidence was coming back into her voice. “Where are your armies and your famous Fiana now?” said Morrigan jeeringly. “Where is your beloved Finn mac Airmail? Where are the sorcerers you once ruled with your wonderful powers?” She leaned forward and hissed into Joanna’s face, her breath sour and dry. “You are alone, Dierdriu, you are abandoned, and this will be the last battle of them all!”
Joanna’s voice said, “We shall see!” And then, with a touch of irritation, “Oh let us get this over with. Do to me what you must. Relieve your itch on me if that is your pleasure, Morrigan.” Joanna felt the impatience course through her. “Well?” she said. “What you waiting for?” and Morrigan turned to light the candles.
*
Dierdriu’s anger and Dierdriu’s unfailing courage stayed with Joanna in the hours that followed. She could not move from the bed however much she struggled; Morrigan had her firmly pinned down.
Joanna thought: I shall bear it. It will come to an end. I shall free Cormac and the others. I shall find the Nightcloak, and then I shall be able to rout this filth. The thought of the cloak, still somewhere inside the house, was immensely comforting, and Joanna felt at once better. She raised her head to look about her.
Morrigan’s bedchamber was dark and smelt of evil magic and of old dark enchantments. There were no windows, and the only light was from the black stumplike candles. There was a stale sour smell and Joanna thought it was like being in a worm’s earthhole. This was how it would feel if you had been captured by a giant worm who had brought you back to its lair, and this was how you would feel as you lay waiting for the worm to come slithering in, blind and boneless, to crush you and eat you with its wet, toothless mouth.
There was a smeary kind of light in the room, and there were dull red bed hangings, and it was chokingly hot. Joanna’s throat began to close and she had to fight very hard to be calm and she had to cling very tightly to the courage that did not belong to her.
The floor of the bedchamber was strewn with rugs made from some kind of skin. Joanna had had to walk across them with bare feet and they had felt rather nasty. They were not the thick luxurious pelts of animals Cormac had had at Scáthach, nor were they the strong furry hides that they had taken with them for sleeping during the march to Muileann. And I could not have borne it if they had been wolfskins, thought Joanna. But these were thinnish, rather smooth and very pale skins, and they felt cool and leathery to the touch. The soles of Joanna’s feet had contracted in an instinctive horror.
“Silver platters and golden goblets,” Morrigan had hissed, grinning. “But what do we do with the hides, my dear?”
The bed was hung with silk and brocade, but it felt cold to the touch, and a bit slimy. There was an overripe scent on the air, so that Joanna was reminded of rotten fruit-luscious and juicy on the outside, but with a decayed stench to it, so that you knew the minute you bit into it, it would be soft and squelchy and liquid, so that your teeth would sting and the water would rise in your mouth.
Morrigan was removing Joanna’s clothes now, and Joanna thrashed and felt again the anger and the contempt surge up, so that she turned a look of such fury on her, that Morrigan hissed, and hatred glittered in her eyes.
“Still as haughty as ever, Your Majesty? Well, let us see how you react to this!” She ripped the jerkin from Joanna’s breasts, and tore off the wide warm leggings that had been donned in Scáthach for the journey.
A hundred days ago had it been? Or a hundred years? And hadn’t it been another person who had put on leggings and a jerkin and ridden from Scáthach with Cormac? Dierdriu is very close to me now, thought Joanna. Is she sharing this unspeakably dreadful experience? Joanna waited, and began to feel the ruffle of sweet strength.
Of course I am sharing it, my dear, and we shall defeat the filth, we shall banish the Adversary together …
Then I can bear it, thought Joanna. I believe I can bear it.
But it felt unbearably vulnerable to have to lie there flat on her back, entirely naked now, her legs stretched apart. And there was something so unclean about the room that Joanna felt as if its decay and its stench might soak into her skin: I shall never be clean again; if I take a thousand hot baths, I shall never again feel clean.
For she is filth and she is decay and all things loathsome …
Yes! thought Joanna gratefully. Yes, she is!
And always was, my dear …
Joanna thought that without Dierdriu’s strength and without Dierdriu’s steadfast anger against Morrigan, she could not have endured any of it. She had thought she would certainly break down and weep, and beg for mercy, and cry to be set free. But now she knew she would not give Morrigan the satisfaction of seeing her beaten and defeated; she certainly would not let Morrigan see how frightened she was. If she did not think about what might be ahead, she would probably be able to bear this. If she did not think about them all being flung into the cages and cut into collops and served up to the Erl-King, it might be possible to appear quite brave.
And Dierdriu was still with her. That was the thing that weighed most of all. Even so, thought Joanna, even so, I believe it is up to me. I believe I must watch my every chance for escape. And at least this cannot be much worse than the things that Muldooney did … can it?
With the memory of Muldooney the horrid pigman, his fat greedy face and his prodding sausage-fingers, there came another faint, far-off memory. Not Muldooney, but someone connected with that world. Someone with black-fringed, blue eyes, who would sack cities and topple empires to save her … Someone infinitely sweet and entirely strong and wholly precious … And — I
am coming to you, Joanna, said a distant, barely heard voice, so that Joanna frowned and half sat up and tried to hear more.
For the splinter of a second there was another memory — eating wild strawberries on a windy hillside, and then an even older vision, herself riding out at the head of an army with someone at her side, and an enveloping security and an all-enduring love … What had Morrigan said? “Where is your beloved Finn mac Airmail now?”
The moment passed, for Cormac’s spell still held Flynn’s memory at bay, and Joanna looked at Morrigan.
Morrigan pushed her back on to the bed and climbed on top of her.
*
There are a good many things which men and women can do to one another with their bodies in the name of love, or even only in the name of lust. Most of them are exciting and some of them are unexpected; nearly all of them are pleasant. But there are only a few things that women can do to other women with their bodies alone, and unless a woman is so made that she enjoys that, none of them are in the least bit pleasant.
Joanna was not so made. She found Morrigan’s touch and Morrigan’s cold, now naked body utterly repulsive. She found even more repulsive the array of artefacts and accessories ranged before them at the side of the bed.
Joanna had thought herself prepared for anything and everything Morrigan might do to her, she had thought herself braced for all manner of twisted practices. The nights with Cormac had opened her eyes, she thought hopefully; he had taught her all there was to know, and he had done to her all there was to do, and surely nothing this creature could do would be so very terrible.
But Cormac, wild and wolvish, had been, in part at least, human. Morrigan, daughter of an old and corrupt line, was not human at all. Some stories told how she was the result of a union between giants and snakes, others said she came from a curious little-known breed of sea creatures, that she was part sidh with their merciless sexual appetites, and part fish with cold, colourless fish blood in her. Still others whispered that she was directly descended from the evil Hags of the North, and this, perhaps, came closest to the truth.
Her skin, once she had shed her clothes (like a snake shedding its skin? No! Don’t think of it!) was cold and dry and rough. There were scales between her legs, gray and faintly luminous. The hands that caressed Joanna were boneless, the fingers that slid between Joanna’s legs had no knuckles.
Cormac had laughed and teased and been strong and gentle and exciting. He had poured wine over Joanna’s bare skin for the pleasure of licking it off again; he had been warm and alive, and he had sometimes hurt her and he had sometimes made her do things that she had never dreamed humans could do. But there had been a warm masculine scent about him; there had been bones and eyes and skin and hair, and there had been a soaring delight and a sharing. When he woke in the mornings he had been drowsily passionate, and lying in bed with him had been secret and safe and exciting.
Lying in Morrigan’s bed, with Morrigan naked beside her was like lying in a snake’s nest, and feeling the snake crawl over your bare flesh. Joanna’s skin shivered and she struggled uselessly against Morrigan’s relentless hold.
Then she felt the snake-tongue, and a wave of such disgust engulfed her, that despite her vow of fortitude, she cried out and shuddered uncontrollably, and strained back in the bed, away from the sorceress. No! Not this! This is too terrible for anything. I cannot possibly endure this and still live! But she did endure it and she did live, and Morrigan raised her head to look at Joanna, eyes glittering, face filmed with sweat, lips stretched in a smile that held a real intimacy, and Joanna felt sick all over again.
“Not enjoying it, my pigeon?” said Morrigan.
Joanna knew that surely now was the time to act, now, when the creature was made vulnerable by her own disgusting passions. She turned her head on the pillow, seeking a weapon. What? Joanna snatched up a two-pronged phallus object that lay near the bed and brought it smashing down across Morrigan’s face. Bone splintered and tore, and flecks of blood and matter spattered Joanna’s bare skin. (Dreadful. Don’t think about it. You can wash away somebody else’s blood quite easily.) Morrigan screamed and put up a hand to ward off further blows, and Joanna thought: at any minute, oh dear God, at any instant, she will summon her sisters and they will work some dreadful enchantment and then I shall be lost and Cormac will be lost, and we shall all be in golden goblets and on silver platters …
But there was no sound of running footsteps, there was no dark gathering in the air which might indicate the presence of evil magic. Morrigan was cowering in a corner, her hands covering her face, and Joanna felt a tremendous surge of power.
I have you in my power, filth! I have you at my mercy at last! THAT for Cormac and THAT for all the evil you have wrought, and THAT for your reign of terror and all your merciless killings!
She hit Morrigan again and again, and all the time she could feel the enchantress’s strength ebbing and all the time she could feel her own power flowing. I am invincible, I am unstoppable. I can do anything and I need fear no one. But the tears were streaming down her face, and somewhere deep inside her was a tiny appalled core of feeling. I cannot really be doing this; I cannot really be inflicting these wounds and I cannot possibly be enjoying it.
Morrigan fell back on the floor, barely conscious, and Joanna saw with revulsion that the blood oozing from her wounds was a thick whitish fluid. Fish blood!
*
There was not very much time to spare. Morrigan was rendered incapable, but it would only be a temporary thing. She would recover, she would summon her sisters, and she would invoke her terrible enchantments, and Joanna would die more horribly and painfully than bore thinking of. At any minute, Morrigna might burst in, and at any minute the goblin men might come running. I must get out quickly, thought Joanna, scrambling into her jerkin and leggings, for she would not go running naked through the house, not even if all the spells in the world and all the goblin men in Ireland were chasing her. And I must find the cloak.
The house was in darkness and there was a brooding quiet about it. Quickly! cried Joanna silently, oh quickly! Let me find the Nightcloak, and then I may save Cormac and the others! And then we shall be out of here, over the hills and far away, into the safety of the Morne Mountains, into the realm of Cait Fian of Gallan. She sped from room to room, throwing open doors, heedless now who heard, expecting every minute to see Morrigan barring her way, certainly expecting to be confronted by the jeering goblin men.
She could feel a “something” stirring somewhere in the house now, a kind of clotting coalescing malevolence. Morrigan recovering from her wounds? Yes, certainly. She is not human, thought Joanna, and shuddered at the memory of the cold, whitish fish blood; she is not human, but she is sufficiently human to feel pain. This comforted her rather more than she had expected, because it showed a chink in Morrigan’s armour.
I hurt her, thought Joanna, fascinated and appalled. Did I really smash that — that object — into her face? It hurt her, thought Joanna, and managed a rather sickly grin, just for reassurance. If you could smile at something, even when you were on your own, things were never quite so bad. She dredged up another smile, just to be sure of this.
The Nightcloak was lying discarded and dismissed on a chair in the room where they had been taken earlier on. Joanna snatched it up and swung it about her shoulders, fastening the clasp firmly. The thick soft folds settled about her, and there was a soft sigh of relief. Now I am safe. Dierdriu, is your courage still with me? Yes, and the strength, my dear, onwards now. All right, thought Joanna, taking a deep breath, here we go. Now for Cormac and the others.
She descended into the bowels of the house, opening a door into a scullery, pausing in the doorway to look about her. Morrigan’s scullery smelt horrid — silver platters and golden goblets? oh please no! — and Joanna wasted precious seconds in being truly horrified at the sluttish mess. But in an odd way, the greasy pans and crusted plates and discoloured ovens strengthened her thin flow of confidence
. You could not be frightened of a person who left burnt soup splashes on the top of a stove. You certainly could not be frightened of somebody who did not put a good pinch of wood ash into the washing up water to remove egg stains from plates. Somebody had breakfasted off cooked eggs, and somebody had lunched off soup, and the stains were still all there. I hope they are only soup splashes, and I hope they are only egg stains, thought Joanna. Oh Cormac, Cormac, please be somewhat nearby!
She snatched up the half of a candle that someone had stuck into a pewter stick — the wick needed trimming of course; were Morrigan’s servants truly so slovenly! — and turned to confront the two doors that led from the scullery.
And now it was very important indeed to remember that she was not afraid, and it was very important indeed to remember that Dierdriu’s courage and strength were still with her.
Two doors … Joanna looked upwards, and felt sick all over again … Huge, a huge wide door, the iron handle so far up that she would only reach it if she stood on the tips of her toes. A giant’s door, a door so massive that surely there could not be anyone in the world who would ever need to use it.
But the Giant Miller of Muileann is not just a legend, Joanna … He is fifteen feet high, and he wears seven league boots that can stride across the land … Be more careful of him than you have been of anything yet, Joanna …
Set deep into the wall, very nearly unnoticeable, was a low door, and Joanna looked at it and paused, because there was a vein of ancestral memory here; there was something comforting and quite magical about it. Joanna’s ancestors, before they blew up the world, had known about symbolism and about imagery. “The low door in the wall” had been a key and a symbol, and Joanna, suddenly feeling very much better, thought: of course they will be down here, they will be through this door. Of course they will. I am going to find them. It is going to be all right.
She stepped through the door, and felt her way cautiously along a dark rather narrow passage. Not a giant’s passage at all. A human-sized passage. And a dim light ahead of her. Nothing has happened to me yet, thought Joanna, and because this was a good thought to have, she fixed it firmly in the forefront of her mind.