The second Merrow from the assault who had targeted Graeme had jumped from his mount before it disappeared. His saw-toothed blade had scuttled from his grasp. He had landed within an arm’s reach of Graeme. The Merrow’s face hardened. He slapped the pistol from Graeme’s hand with the end of his tail. Graeme grabbed the fin as it neared him for a second strike and held tight. Viper wrenched the trident from between Graeme’s legs. She plunged the trident into the Merrow’s tail.
“Like for like,” she hissed at the wailing mer-man.
Graeme flipped his dirk in his hand and kneeled on the Merrow’s arm before he sliced off a panel of armour. He thrust the blade into the exposed chest. Green fluid spurted from around the knife into the air as the Merrow flailed his arms uselessly.
The Scotsman wiped the watery mess from his face. “Keep it up, Lassie. I might not be magic enough to hurt the horses, but I can scale a fish!”
A fist of water tore the bridge from its footings on the opposite side, nearer Clare and Dhillon. Everyone scrambled. The rest of the Merrows streamed at Viper and Graeme in the wake of the distraction.
Clare’s hand slipped off the railing. “Viper! Don’t let me drown!” Her legs neared the water. Viper fired at Merrows with her magic to reach Clare.
Dhillon pulled himself up the railing in front of Viper’s path. “I’ll get Clare. You stop them.”
A bone-tipped spear sliced Viper’s arm and narrowly missed Dhillon. The clang of metal on metal demanded her aid. With a brisk nod, Viper turned back. She pulled a Merrow from its watery steed by his tail, then lobbed him towards the riverbank. The Merrow smashed through the windshield of a parked delivery van.
Viper glanced over her shoulder. Dhillon had secured himself against the section of rail that projected above water. He extended his satchel to Clare.
“Grab it!” he coached. Clare reached for Dhillon’s strap. Seeing that the girl would be safe gave Viper a surge of energy. With a double thrust of elldyr fire, Viper vapourised two Water Horses. Of the riders, she burned one and left the other for Graeme. Then Viper lassoed the last three attackers and pulled them from their steeds before destroying the watery beasts. She tossed the stunned Merrows at Graeme’s feet.
“Here, fishmonger,” she said. Graeme laughed heartily. A smile of triumph broke Viper’s austere countenance.
“Viper!”
The sound of her name being drowned made Viper feel like she responded in slow motion. A broken leather strap lay in Dhillon’s white-knuckled hand. The Medway swelled like an accomplice for the Merrow who had kidnapped Clare and swam downstream with her. Viper saw the flash of red and yellow fins submerge beneath the surface of the river before she snapped out of her shock.
She dove into the water in pursuit, knowing that she could navigate the waters faster than the humans despite her injuries. The immortal didn’t travel far before she encountered a toroidal bubble near the riverbed, in which Clare floated on air, semi-conscious. A Merrow in the centre of the ring cast the enchantment with a long driftwood baton etched with glyphs.
The Merrow held out her palm and invited Viper forwards. Viper progressed into the air with caution. The ring of air within which she breathed started above her ankles and barely enclosed her head. Her feet sank a little into the muck of the riverbed. She didn’t pass through to the watery middle.
The Merrow lowered her amber eyes in reverent greeting. “I am Zia, of the High Weald.” Her voice hummed in Viper’s ears. “We don’t have long to speak.” Combs of freshwater muscle shells and the leaves of river weeds adorned her braids. On the crown of her head, additional bony processes flanked the feathery fins whose under water ballet undulated with the current. Elongated spine fins wrapped around her naked, human torso like scarves. Her lengthy tail bifurcated at the end into sparkling red and blue fins.
“The humaine, Clare. She is unharmed?”
Zia smiled with seaweed coloured lips so beautiful, they removed the threat from her fangs. “I don’t want her to witness our conversation. The girl’s under an enrapture spell. When she breathes free air, she’ll awaken and remember nothing after she fell into the water.”
“Fell in? I saw thee abscond with her.”
“I rescued her. She would’ve drowned if I weren’t watching nearby.”
Viper crossed her arms over her chest, unconvinced.
“You don’t know me,” Zia continued, “but you knew Melazine. She was the Elizabethan Merrow who imparted the hope we needed to survive Annys’ tyranny. In secret, we whisper: Of land, Melania born; she awoke, a slave, in water. Delivered from men by a snake; Remember, Melazine’s daughters! Our bargains with Annys turn us into these half-human Merrow and we are oath-magic bound to do her bidding.” The Merrow shrugged slyly. “Some measure of our minds are our own.”
Viper had long forgotten her first chance meeting with the Merrow named Melazine. She glowered at Zia, incredulous that the brief interaction impacted the present.
“If ’tis true that magic binds thee to Annys, why did not thee fight on the bridge?”
“Those Merrows are warriors.” Zia caressed her baton with dysphoric eyes. “I am one of the few water witches, as was Melazine before me. Our tasks are more insidious.” Outside the ring, a surge of water rushed past them. Zia cocked her head to one side, attuned to the messages in the currents. “Reinforcements approach. Annys wants this girl, but for what reason she will not say. Take her and escape the Medway. I’ll redirect the others downstream.”
“What is thy wish in exchange?”
“Our transformation from human to Merrow cannot be undone. So long as Annys lives, we are hers. Give the Merrow freedom as you once promised.”
“Annys’ tortures know no limits.” Viper extended her hand into the water at the centre of the ring. She and Zia clasped each other’s forearms. “By my troth, I swear you shall be free.”
Viper stared at the water witch’s eyes. The human Zia had once been stared back. The immortal couldn’t tell if Zia was crying in the water. Viper turned her head, unwilling to sink farther into the grief in the Merrow’s eyes.
Zia squeezed Viper’s arm before she let go. “You cannot go back to the footbridge. I’m sure the broken bridge and the Merrows’ bodies have generated unwanted attention.” Zia placed her palm on the interface between wall and water. An image of Graeme and Dhillon in a boat floated between her and Viper. “Your friends escaped and are searching for you. Let me take you to them.” She swam upriver, moving the ring and its passengers with her baton. “Viper, what will you do?”
Annys would know if Viper stayed near water. She bit her lip and rationalised turning to the Sisters for help a third time. If she didn’t swallow her hubris, she would lose another conflict.
“I shall go to the west bank,” Viper said, ready to pursue her only option.
“The Water Horses can follow you on land,” Zia cautioned.
“Not through the passageway I intend. If I am fortunate, I shall escape your warriors afore they arrive.”
The hull of the boat carrying Graeme and Dhillon floated directly above them, not far where they fought the Merrow. Zia held the baton straight up and spun in place, as did the air in the toroidal bubble. When the ring of air broke the surface, Viper treaded water with Clare under one arm. Graeme and Dhillon lifted Clare into the boat and Viper hauled herself inside. Clare took a deep breath and coughed a little. As Zia promised, the girl didn’t have any knowledge of the events underwater.
“Guide the boat alongside that amphitheatre to the west,” Viper instructed Graeme before he asked what happened. They landed, and, with one last check of the river, the Daoine Tor jumped from the boat. She rushed to the grass behind the row of almshouses facing the landing site. The men climbed out, then helped Clare to do the same.
In the middle of the large rectangular lawn, Viper took a deep breath, preparing herself for resignation. “Sisters, forgive my arrogant outburst. I was too rash. At the midway of the river you foretold of
an end. I do not know if you meant of my life, or that of my Foundling, for thereupon I learned that Annys dares attack him whilst her Merrows did the same of me. I must retrieve the Mort Lake Glass and Owain needs me. I cannot accomplish both tasks. I beg of you, help me, please.”
A horizontal slab of stone flecked with white quartz rose from the ground. Two vertical sarsen pillars on either end pushed it clear of the soil. Graeme and Dhillon arrived at the open space, supporting Clare, as the trilithon of stones formed.
“Now’s not the time for landscaping, love.” Graeme’s face glowed triumphantly beneath the mingling sweat and blood from a cut above his eye.
“This is the Sisters’ stone magic.” Viper wiped dirt off the surface and exposed markings similar to the runes on her arms. “The trilithon will take me to the Mort Lake Glass.”
“You’re still going to get some stupid glass?” Dhillon threw his bag on the ground. He clutched his pendant beneath his shirt. “Owain’s probably dead, Clare’s been attacked, and you’re going to leave?”
The group heard the Sisters’ voices on the flutter of birds’ wings. “Two paths. One choice.” A murmuration of black Starlings undulated overhead.
Viper chuckled. The Sisters’ message was abundantly clear, for once.
“Therein thou hath thy answer. Once choice for each of us,” she said.
What are you saying? Clare signed, her face full of confusion. She pointed to her receivers and said, “I can’t hear you. Water shorted out everything.”
Viper evaluated the bedraggled young woman with her damp, goose-bumped skin. Though the immortal feared taking on the burden, Viper knew she couldn’t leave Clare at the mercy of Annys. Both her adversary and the Sisters valued this girl. That wasn’t a co-incidence.
“Except Clare. I hath made her choice. She comes with me.”
“That’s crazy!” Dhillon protested. “She should be in London.”
“Why?”
Dhillon stammered, unable to provide Viper with a solid answer. Graeme put his hands on his hips. Viper knew that he’d go to London to protect Owain without encouragement.
“C’mon Dhillon,” Graeme said. He reached for Dhillon. The younger man brushed him off. “Hey, it doesn’t matter where Clare goes. Viper will keep her safe. Let’s go help Owain, yeah?”
Viper’s intuition overran her patience. “Sisters! We hath chosen. Take the men away to London. Clare and I shall journey through your passageway.”
“What?” Dhillon shouted. “No!”
He was too late. The swooping cloud of birds swallowed him and Graeme. White elldyr creft swirled among them. The cyclone lifted the men off the ground, heading to London.
“Fly little bird,” Viper sneered at Dhillon’s cursing face. She blew him a kiss and waggled her fingers in goodbye. The boy and his romantic pursuit of Clare was harmless enough, she supposed. At the very least, removing him guaranteed her a less annoying progression to the Mort Lake Glass.
Viper smiled at Clare reassuringly. They approached the trilithon hand in hand. A hint of ozone, crisp and electric, surrounded the standing stones. Viper extended her elldyr creft. The purple magic infused into the glyphs on the stone’s surface, turning them a golden-white.
“Après moi, le deluge,” she said towards the river, as if to Annys herself, repeating the last words she had heard before her confinement in Annys’ prison four hundred years ago.
18: Blue Annie
October 18th, 1562.
Croydon cum Clopton, Cambridgeshire.
The bustle of a harvest market no longer brought calm to Viper. She cursed the simple lives of the farmers preparing their wares for the St. Crispin’s Day festivities nearer the month’s end. England’s fields flourished as much as did the aeir of the farmers under the influence of Elizabeth’s powerful energy during her summer progressions across the southern part of the country.
When Viper had lived in Cammerwelle, she freely haunted the rooftops. Now, in the crowded and thriving village of Croydon cum Clopton, she squeezed into the narrow space between the newly built timber shops framing the main square. Viper, accustomed to going wherever her lithe body wanted, feared that a mortal on the bustling street would bump into her bulky clothes.
Humaines called the passageway a close, and with good reason. The layers of white silk and black velvet of Viper’s puffed-out dress almost touched both sides of the dim alleyway, the name of which rhymed with the morose feeling it conveyed. She had refused to wear the corset and farthingale customary among the women of Elizabeth’s Court. As it was, the cumbersome clothes prevented Viper from climbing buildings with ease.
Viper and Elizabeth didn’t speak of the Parhelion, and the magic Viper bungled, in the weeks following Elizabeth’s recovery. Elizabeth’s swollen belly generated gossip that she had secretly given birth to Robert’s lovechild. Unable to speak the truth about Viper, Elizabeth grew detached. Her pride undertook more damage than her body. Her fickle temper towards her favourites was well known. Viper never thought she would be its target. Elizabeth often gave Viper curt answers, and refused to be alone with the immortal. As a final insult, Elizabeth banned Viper from feeding upon courtiers or royal livery.
To appease Elizabeth, Viper wore elaborate Court dresses instead of the simple tunic and leggings she preferred. Even without the added width from the wood and linen Spanish farthingale, a structure meant to billow out the skirt, Viper felt suffocated in the close. She pulled the starched, ruffled collar from her neck and threw it out of the alleyway. The ruff landed in front of the butcher’s shop next to a bowl of congealing blood collected from a freshly hung goose.
The rest of the geese, with feet wrapped in tar and linen, honked loudly from an adjacent wattle pen, as if warning mortals of Viper’s growing irritation. The butcher didn’t notice the birds or the discarded ruff next to his collection for goose-blood pudding. He chopped the head off of another bird and exchanged the dripping body for coins given to him by a dirt-smeared youth. The young man carried the beheaded bird to a small, black bear tethered to a pole in the centre of the market square.
He taunted the bear with the dead goose. Thick saliva streamed from the beast’s mouth. Mangy fur hung over sharp ribs and withered muscles. The bear lunged forwards and snatched away the goose when the youth turned his head to boast to his friends. The ragtag beast narrowly missed chomping off the youth’s hand. The bear’s handler jerked on chains as filthy as his own clothes.
Iron spikes strangled the bear’s throat and he relinquished his prize. The mocking youth grabbed a stick from a passing cart, swung it at the animal and missed. The surging crowd groaned in disappointment. Friends of the youth paid the bear keeper with pennies for their turn against the beast.
Viper gagged at the acrid smell of the bear’s urine, mixed with the ferric odor of blood, and foul goose manure. Watching humaines torture the bear made her momentarily forget her frustration with Elizabeth. The immortal opened and closed her fist, imagining that she squeezed the handler’s throat. She felt the violence of the garen possess her, a malevolent power spoken of by the two Daoine Tor she had encountered at Hampton Palace. Viper counted to one hundred through teeth clamped together so tightly that her temples ached. If Viper succumbed, she would rip apart the youth and the handler, leaving their bodies for the bear to eat. Her muscles tensed as she foolishly prepared to strike.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Viper scaled the walls between the butcher’s shop and the adjacent building with such speed that she tore a hole through the layers of her long skirts.
A man in a faded, lapis blue coat, with a hooded shoulder wrap of grey, stood below her. “I did not realize that the Daoine Tor were so agile,” he said, his mouth open in surprise.
“Turstin!” Viper’s body sank with relief. “I did not expect you until eventide.” The tatters of her dress fluttered around her legs when she jumped down. The heat of the garen vanished as she beheld the man for whom she waited. For the first time, she spoke
to Turstin without his Mistresses. She had dubbed the duo “the Sisters” because they refused to refer to themselves by anything other than “Us” or “We.”
“My apologies, Eternal One for startling you.” Turstin greeted Viper with a formal bow. She returned his greeting with a gentle nod. “I forget that you are unaccustomed to a companion such as me.”
Turstin had not changed since the night Viper first saw him, when he kept watch from the broken chapel window at Hampton Palace. Since he could see through her veil of invisibility, Viper supposed that she underestimated the man who outwardly appeared as average as any Englishman. With his square face, long nose and thick eyebrows, Turstin had dark features and a fair soul. His aeir revealed that he developed mild kyphosis in his spine, disguised beneath layers of wool. His eyes didn’t match. One green and one brown, they regarded Viper without a trace of fear.
Turstin rubbed his trimmed beard. “A horrible game, bear baiting.”
“Indeed. That that humaines rejoice in such cruelties causes me much gall,” Viper replied, soft eyes on the animal. “I do not know why Elizabeth favours the sport. Humaines treat the bear like a thing to be broken with nary any respect for its nature-given power. See how they feel emboldened enough to strike only when it hath iron spikes piercing its neck? The legacy of mankind is victory through suffering, and strength over the weak. In a month, that starving creature will be carrion in the woodland. The fertility of the world rests upon the blood man hath shed.” She cringed from another whack upon the bear’s skull. The impact left a bleeding wound in its matted fur.
“They do not know the veracity of what they do,” Turstin said, his voice unforgiving. “My Mistresses empathize with the ordeals that humaines cast upon the flora and fauna, as is my Mistresses’ gift, and their curse. Sometimes, I wish they would stir up insurgency.”
Viper shook her head. “Mutiny is not in their nature. Your Mistresses are so pacified, they are petrified.”
“Your time with us hath taught you much,” Turstin said, the corners of his mouth threatening a smile, “and you are most wise to say so only in their absence.”
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