Chantress Fury

by Amy Butler Greenfield

  Outside, the street teemed with people, most of them as jubilant as the courtiers I’d seen inside. But as I skirted around them, I heard worried voices at the edge of the crowd.

  “Better safe than sorry,” a frowsy woman in moth-eaten wool advised her neighbor. “There’s something not right when it looks like that.”

  A child tugged at the woman’s skirts “Where did it go, Ma? That’s what I want to know. All that water. Where did it go?”

  “We all prayed for it to go down, but not like this,” said a sober man in plain brown garb.

  I wanted to ask what they were talking about, but at best that would delay me, and at worst it might lead to trouble. Behind me, I thought I heard Nat’s voice, but I didn’t turn for that, either. Instead I drew my hood up tight and pressed my way through the multitudes, aiming for the river.

  The crowd soon thinned out, and as I picked my way down the last lanes to the Thames, I saw not a soul. By now, I’d expected to hear the river clearly. To my consternation, however, I could not hear it at all.

  The houses here had borne the brunt of the flood, and the streets were filled with the muck and wrack left by the sea. I plowed through them as best I could. High-water marks were etched on the walls around me. Broken windows revealed rooms filled with mud and pools of stinking water.

  When I finally reached the Thames, the sights were even more shocking. Across from me, entire sections of Southwark had been gouged out. Gray earth yawned where solid houses had once prospered, and the remaining buildings stood in silt up to their windows.

  Just as distressing was the sight of mighty London Bridge to the east. For five hundred years, it had spanned the Thames, and in that time it had survived fire and flood and rebellion alike. But no longer. Its central arch had been swept away, along with all the shops and homes that had rested upon it. Several more arches had sustained damage. How long could they remain standing?

  It was a nightmare London. But what made the scene even more unreal was the river itself. The people on Cornhill had been right. There had been low tides before, but not like this. The Thames had all but vanished, leaving a wide expanse of oozing mud flats with a mere trickle of yellow water wandering through the center. It was as if someone had pulled out a plug and the river had drained away.

  Small wonder people had run away in terror.

  Small wonder I had not been able to hear anything.

  No, the miracle was that I’d heard that faint, furious echo up on Cornhill. Had I caught it only because I’d been gripped by fury myself and open to its influence? Perhaps. Or perhaps the tune hadn’t come from the river after all. Perhaps it had rung out only in my imagination.

  Still, whatever I’d heard, something was very wrong here. And I was determined to find out what it was.

  Hitching up my bespattered skirts and cloak, I leaped from the steps down onto the riverbed. My boots, already covered in muck, promptly sank ankle deep into it.

  Ordinarily I’d have sung to the water in the mud, asking it to bear my weight, but I was leery of working Wild Magic near the Thames now, especially when it was behaving so strangely. Keeping quiet, I pulled myself step by slurping step toward the last vestige of the river.

  When I reached what was left of the Thames, I bent down to listen. A blast of pure rage hit my ear. I straightened quickly, then leaned down again to catch anything else I could. This time, I heard not just rage but anticipation.

  Something was coming. But what? I couldn’t begin to imagine.

  My boots were sinking fast. I wrestled one foot from the mud, and when I stepped back, water filled the hole, turning it into a tiny, still pool. As I looked down at it, the water darkened, and for a dizzying moment I thought I saw snakes twisting under its surface. Startled, I wobbled, then lost my balance completely. I fell forward, obliterating both picture and pool.

  On my hands and knees, splattered in mud, with my head practically on top of what remained of the Thames, I finally heard it—a wave, still in the ocean now but gathering speed.

  An enormous wave.

  A wave big enough to drown a city.

  And it was coming this way.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A WALL OF WATER

  Was there any way to stop the wave? I listened with everything I had in me, but I couldn’t tell. I didn’t even know how much time I had till it hit. All I knew was that fury and anticipation had tipped into action, and that the water was coming for us.

  I have to warn the city.

  Half-covered in oozing mud already, I got muddier still as I pushed myself back to standing. As I staggered forward, I looked up to see a woman standing at the far edge of the riverbed—Melisande’s scrawny servant.

  Behind her, just coming into view, was Melisande herself. Raising open palms toward the river, she began half-keening, half-crooning a song. Was she calling up the wave, or merely cele­brating its existence? Either way, I had to stop her.

  How, though? Wild Magic might be too risky, and yet there was nothing else.

  With relief I saw men appear on the riverbank not far from Melisande. Not my men, but at least they were wearing the King’s colors. I waved to them and shouted, “Catch those women!”

  As soon as I called out, Melisande and her servant bolted. Instead of chasing them, the men stared at me from the top of some river steps. Couldn’t they hear what I was saying?

  “Catch them!” I shouted again.

  The leader of the patrol cupped his hands and bellowed at me. “You there, whoever you are! Out of the riverbed!”

  “I’m the Chantress,” I bellowed back, slogging through the mud toward the riverbank. “Don’t let those women get away!”

  Even as I pointed, however, I saw it was too late. Already Melisande and her servant were disappearing into an alleyway.

  At least I’d stopped her from singing. But when I listened again, I realized that wasn’t enough. I could still hear the wave coming.

  All I could do now was get the King’s men back before it hit. “Retreat!” I shouted at them. “Danger!”

  A chorus of confusion:

  “Blimey, it’s the Chantress.”

  “Maybe it’s an illusion.”

  “What’s she saying?”

  I shouted more loudly. “All of you, get back! There’s a wave coming!”

  More confusion in the ranks, but this time they started to retreat. The leader shouted something about finding Lord Walbrook. And then they were gone.

  I lurched another yard toward land and lost my boot. As I floundered to retrieve it, someone shouted my name. I looked up. Nat was running down the river steps toward me.

  I waved him away with my muddy arms. “Go back!”

  He leaped off the last step, down into the mud. “What?”

  “Go back!” I shouted. “There’s a wave coming, big enough to swallow London. Go and warn everyone!”

  Behind me, I heard gurgling. The trickle of water was bubbling, quivering, widening. Giving up the boot for lost, I started to run. A second later, Nat did too. Mud hindered our every step, and frantically I wondered how much time we had left. The music from the river was growing louder by the second. By the time we reached the edge of the riverbed, it was overpowering.

  Half-leaping, half-climbing, Nat pulled himself back onto the river steps and reached out for me. I gasped as his iron ring bumped up against my bracelet and our hands met, skin to skin.

  As he swung me up, I caught sight of the remaining sections of London Bridge, and what looked like a hazy cloud in the distance behind them. Only it wasn’t a cloud, I realized a second later. It was the white crest of a wave.

  “Run!” I screamed at Nat.

  We bounded up the steps together, but the wave was coming too fast. I could see it more clearly now, the water cleaving together as it barreled down the riverbed. The ground shook with a rumble like thunder.

  Maybe Wild Magic would only make things worse. But it was all I had to protect the city, to protect us.
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  Turning toward the oncoming wave, I sought to turn its destructive power back on itself. When the water ignored me, I turned in desperation to the wind, calling on it to blow the wave out to sea. A terrible gamble this, because I might sing up a gale by mistake. But I had to try.

  As my song spun out, strong winds swooped down from all directions, singing in my ears, whipping my hair from its hood. They scattered everything before them. Debris from the flood flew through the air. I had to grab at a broken beam to stay upright, and so did Nat.

  Still I sang, and in response the whole sky twisted. The winds bore down on the enormous wave, funneling around it, penning it in. The wave sang out in sudden uncertainty. Towering over London Bridge, it hovered in midair, spitting out spume.

  My song was working! Now to send the water back out to the sea.

  When I drew breath, I heard a strange keening sound—and in that moment, I lost control. A furious music blasted through the water, giving it new force and energy. I kept on singing, but the winds weren’t strong enough to match the wave now. All I could do was beg them to protect the city as best they could from the blow that was coming.

  Immense and malevolent, the wave soared still higher. The frothing gray-green wall made even the seven-story houses on London Bridge look tiny. As the wave rose, I saw terrible shapes writhing inside it—the coils of serpents, the gray tentacles of kraken . . .

  Roaring with fury, the wave came crashing down. It slammed into the bridge, smashing its arches, blowing the houses to bits. Like a vast and hungry sea monster, the wave swallowed the city—and swallowed us.

  As it hit, I grabbed Nat. He wasn’t the swimmer that I was, and he wasn’t going to drown if I could help it. Kicking hard, I fought to keep both our heads above the surface. But brackish water rushed into my open mouth, gagging me.

  Breathe. Sing.

  Thrusting my head back to the surface, I gasped and spat, then sang the only song that came to me—a song I hadn’t known I knew, a song that must have been buried somewhere deep inside me, a song whose meaning was plain to me.

  Save us.

  One phrase, and then the waters closed in again. I struck one arm out blindly, reaching for air. Beside me, Nat fought too. But it was no use. The water sucked us under, hurling us like stones into the deep.

  Chest burning, I braced myself. Any second now we would hit the bottom of the river.

  Instead we only sank faster, rushing down into water so black, it was like falling into a well. The otherworldly music pounded in my ears. My chest stopped burning. A second later, I realized I’d stopped breathing. Had I already drowned without knowing it?

  Maybe. But then something twisted below me. I saw a faint green light even farther down and heard the song of fury coming from it.

  If I’d been frantic before, it was nothing compared to this. I kicked and lunged, but moments later, I saw the flash of scales in the currents around me. Nat’s hand gripped mine hard, then slackened. In the dim light, I saw a serpent coiling round him. Was it trying to kill him? I couldn’t tell. I could only lash out and refuse to let go of Nat as the creature pulled him down. Moments later, something scaly snaked around my legs, binding them.

  It was like the scrying, but now I wasn’t the only one who was caught—and I couldn’t wake up, couldn’t get us away. The coiling creature dragged us down toward a circle of green light that grew larger and larger. Soon its rays illuminated everything—the shining serpent scales, the slickness of slippery tongues, Nat’s slack head rolling back as if in death.

  I screamed, but made no sound. All I could hear was the other­worldly singing, wild and furious and booming in my ears.

  We were at the very mouth of the circle now. The light flashed in my eyes, so bright it was blinding. Then we were through, touching bottom at last.

  The coils released me. I kicked out again, but my feet hit only sand. A minute later, when my eyes had recovered, the serpents were nowhere to be seen. I was in a gigantic and dimly lit cave, Nat lying flat out beside me, horribly gray-green and still. The iron ring was gone from his hand. My own wrists were bare.

  As I bent over him, I became aware that I was moving through something murkier and more dense than air. Water? Maybe. Yet it didn’t have water’s buoyancy; I couldn’t swim in it. Some kind of ether?

  Whatever it was, I was breathing it. And Nat, I was relieved to see, was breathing again too—though very shallowly.

  “Nat?”

  He didn’t respond. But maybe that was because the other­worldly singing had drowned me out. Though it no longer boomed in my ears, it had an insidious low thrum that seemed to make the ether itself vibrate. Even my stone, trapped under my sodden cape and bodice, was shaking in time with it.

  I tried again, my lips almost touching his ear. “Nat?”

  Still nothing. Trying not to weep, I kissed his temple, then touched my hand to his neck. His pulse was weak but steady. Surely that had to be grounds for hope. And now that I was becoming used to the ether, I could see that his color was not so terrible after all. Everything here, even my own hand, had a greenish cast; it must be a trick of the light.

  But where was here? And why was no one coming? From the effort they’d made to bring us here, I’d expected to be fighting off enemies long before this.

  Not that I had any idea how I would fight them, beyond using my bare hands. Listen as I might, I could hear nothing here that resembled the Wild Magic I was used to. Instead there was only the singing: low and cruel, and so controlling that my heart couldn’t help but beat to its rhythm.

  I rocked back on my heels and stood up. Where there was a song, there must be a singer. And perhaps it was better to go out searching than to wait to be found.

  There were several mouths to this cave, but the largest was in front of me. With a quick backward glance at Nat, I crept toward it, and heard the song grow still louder. It was like a physical force, this song—like the tide of the ocean, or the pounding of a storm.

  When I peered past the edge of the cave, I saw the eye of the storm—a dark-haired woman, as still as a statue, standing on a high rock at the center of a vast cavern, chanting out the furious song that was drowning the world. Her expression was remote and terrible to behold.

  And the very worst shock was this: In every detail, her face was the twin of my own.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  MONSTROUS LIES

  My heart hammered in double time. It was like seeing my own reflection in a mirror-still sea. The singer and I had exactly the same broad forehead, the same small chin, the same wide-spaced eyes.

  I blinked. No, not exactly. The singer’s face was a little narrower. A little older. Framed by hair that was quite a bit straighter than mine.

  I gasped. This otherworldly singer—this singer who was destroying everything I held dear—wasn’t my twin. But could she be . . . my mother?

  My mind whirled.

  Mama is dead.

  So I’d been told. So we’d all believed. But maybe we’d been wrong. Maybe she had survived. Maybe she’d been on the other side of the wall all this time.

  A mad hope seized me. Without stopping to think, I ran out to her, shouting to be heard over her song.

  “Mama! Mama, stop!”

  I hurled myself toward her—to embrace her, to reason with her? Truly I didn’t know which, but it didn’t matter. When I reached for the rock she stood on, my hands flew up, burning like fire, and I was thrown back onto the sand.

  “Mama, it’s me. Lucy.”

  She didn’t even look down. She kept singing her terrible song, her face as distant and serene as the sky.

  I stared up at her in utter dismay. Perhaps this wasn’t my mother, after all. Perhaps it was some dreadful illusion. The appearance was right, but the voice itself was all wrong—vicious and overpowering, utterly unlike my gentle mother. But—

  A change in the vibration of the song warned me of another presence. I spun around and blanched.

  Behi
nd me was an enormous glowing mass, half eel, half jelly­fish. Dozens more like it, only smaller, crowded behind it. In the middle of their bright horde I saw Nat, eyes closed, limbs flung out wide, completely at their mercy.

  “Nat!” I charged toward him.

  The largest creature lashed an undulating tentacle in my direction and hummed a soft, strange melody—a melody that had some of the same tonalities as my mother’s song. My heart jolted, and I fell to the ground. For an instant I burned all over, just as I had when I’d approached my mother.

  Gulping for breath, I pulled myself to my feet. Running to Nat’s rescue wouldn’t work. I needed a song to help me, a song to help Nat. But the only music I could hear was my mother’s.

  No, wait. There was something else, a dim undertow beneath my mother’s melody, more cacophony than music. But I couldn’t hear a note of the Wild Magic I was used to on Earth, and without it I couldn’t work my own enchantments.

  A few of the horde shimmered toward me, humming all the while. Wary of more jolts, I backed away. They pursued me, edging me toward a cleft in the wall. There was no way to avoid them, except by stepping into it, so I did. As they pulled away, I felt relief. The cleft was actually a small cave, and they weren’t going to follow me into it. Then a bony lattice went down in front of me, and I realized I’d been trapped.

  I scrabbled at the lattice, but it was thick and as hard as shell. Wherever I touched it, it burned.

  Hands stinging, I screamed, “Let me out!”

  “Not until you have paid,” said a liquid and malevolent voice.

  I looked up. It was the largest creature who had spoken, the one who had lashed out at me. And it was turning human.

  Or almost human.

  It hovered on the other side of the lattice, body still round and transparent but now with a woman’s head in its center. Heart-stopping in its beauty, the face was fringed not with hair but with slithery tentacles. Like eels in search of a meal, they snaked through the ether, shining like blue fire in the dreary light.