Turstin’s face contorted when he removed his eye patch. The light from Viper’s elldyr trickled into the shrivelled hole where his eye should have been.
“She set upon me to draw my Mistresses out of hiding. Annys hungers for their magic.”
A bang from the other side of the wall made him freeze. The brick chimney wall next to her warmed and the smell of burning wood eased into the cubby. Turstin held a finger to his lips and peeked through the spy hole. “These are no civilized men. See how they enfetter the Merrow.” He offered up his place at the wall. “They mean to kill her.”
Viper peered through the opening.
Lit by the fireplace’s glow, an abundance of greenwood smoke drifted through the room. The haze did little to obscure the perversion Malcom tied to the long table that acted as an altarpiece before it served as a torture bed.
Malcolm wrenched on the knotted rope and secured the Merrow’s tail. Her scales, dark silver shot with blue, blended into a woman’s sea green body, bastardized by angry purple bruises. The tall man bound her slender human wrists to the table legs, arms over her head. Heavy chains, still damp from her capture, had been looped around her waist and tail, and re-locked under the table. The Merrow’s blue lips cracked and bled around the dirty rags that had been stuffed in her mouth. The man at the top of the table yanked a red, ruffled fin plume from her head. Silver tears streamed down her pearlescent face from humaine eyes.
Malcolm wielded a red-hot poker from the fireplace. “Where is Blue Annie?” He ripped off the remains of the Merrow’s shirt and pressed the glowing iron into her side at the transition zone of her skin textures. Her scales blackened and her softer surfaces bubbled. The zealot’s fervor didn’t allow the Merrow to respond before he shoved deeper. The gag in her mouth muffled her protestation.
“We know not whether she speaks the language of men, Malcolm,” the third, smaller man said from somewhere on the other side of the wall. Viper pictured him crouched by the hearth where the heat of the fire could burn away his guilt.
Malcolm yanked out the poker and the Merrow’s green-brown clotting blood showered the floor. “This abomination is neither a she nor a he, Dafydd.” He spit into the gaping wound. “It neither deserves our pity nor our patience.” Malcolm tossed the tool towards the hearth. “More heat!”
The tallest man barked like a dog. “See the Initiate’s womanly flinch, Malcolm? You will never earn your ring if you remain such a geck, Initiate. Our ancestors hath charged us with protecting our race. Gelded weakness such as you display hath allowed a multitude of unholy infestations to pollute the minds of humans.”
“And desecrate our lands,” Malcolm added. His eyes dissected the struggling Merrow.
“Let me make my words clear.” Dafydd stepped into Viper’s field of view, his Robin’s egg blue aeir centered over his heart. “Hath not we learned from years of religious persecution by Catholic and Protestant ruler alike?” Unchallenged, Dafydd shuffled to the table. “A man tortured on the rack will confess to any profane act simply to end the misery heaped upon him. We cannot trust the words of this creature if we obtain them by brutality.”
Dafydd pulled out the gag before Malcolm could stop him. The Merrow immediately sang to her captors. The tune evoked intoxicating feelings of despondency in Viper. Tears stained her face before plopping into the dust at her feet. Beside her, Turstin sobbed silently into his sleeve.
The Merrow’s song had the opposite effect on the humaines. The melody aroused the men like wet kisses. The nameless man swayed, eyes closed with his hand over his erection. Malcolm gripped the back of a chair. His chest heaved in ecstasy.
Only Dafydd was unaffected. He removed his hands from the sides of his head. Wax he had softened by the fire plugged the opening of his ear canals. Dafydd grabbed a chair, broke off the leg and drove it into the left side of the tall man. Bubbling pink foam erupted from his mouth before he toppled to the floor, gasping.
Malcolm tore himself away from the Merrow’s beckoning rapture with an angry roar. He flipped the table over and crushed the Merrow beneath its weight. Her spell broke when her face smashed upon the floor boards.
“Son of a whore!” Malcolm leapt over the table at Dafydd. “You false knave!” He punched Dafydd in the face and the smaller man crumpled, arms raised for protection. Malcolm straddled him and hammered his fists into Dafydd’s ribs. “Atticus shall hear of thy betrayal!”
With her head cleared, Viper burst from the hiding spot with her power, obliterating the wall. She clamped her elldyr around Malcolm’s head. With a flick of her hands, her claws of magic hauled him in front of her, dragging his toes on the floor.
Malcom was dead before she laid her hands upon him.
Turstin pried Malcolm’s eyelids open. “Belladonna,” the Foundling confirmed. Malcolm’s pupils were fully dilated. Turstin pulled the chewed remnants of the toxic fruit from the man’s mouth. “This must hath been a particularly deadly strain of the plant.” Malcolm had kept the poison in his mouth and committed suicide before Viper could interrogate him.
Turstin attended to Dafydd as Viper freed the Merrow. The bone of the fish-woman’s upper arm jutted out from her skin like the mast of a ship. She startled when she saw Viper, recognition on face.
“You are an immortal, like the Mistress,” the Merrow said. “I hath displeased her and you hath come to kill me.”
“Fear not any harm from me, if you do not mean harm unto me,” Viper said. The Merrow’s face contortioned to a cry of agony when she clamped her fractured arm to her torso. Turstin helped Dafydd drag himself to her side. His dusky skin and fading aeir predicted impending death.
“Melania, my love. I hath failed thee.” The small man took even smaller breaths. Viper watched in bewildered fascination as the lovers overcame their broken bodies for a final embrace. Dafydd collapsed in Melania’s arms, his chest immobile.
“Dafydd! Husband!” The Merrow cried her husband’s name repeatedly, as though her reaffirmation could give him back his life. “What hath I done to thee?”
Turstin eased her away from Dafydd’s corpse after she wept with such intensity that no sounds emitted from her mouth. After several minutes, the Merrow calmed enough to speak.
“How did you come to this?” Turstin asked.
“Dafydd was called by the queen to fight against the Spanish Armada in the Channel. I afeared for his life. This country was so war-torn over religion that I turned to the ancient gods, from the time before the prayers of men became weapons of war.” A sob wracked her body before she continued. “A seelie wicht named Blue Annie promised that she would give unto me the power to save Dafydd. For her help, I would remain in this form, reborn as Melazine, half fish, half woman, and every bit her slave.”
“Blue Annie is a Daoine Tor whose name is Annys,” Turstin said gently.
“Marry, well did I become acquainted.” Melazine’s eyes became distant. “For her blessing, I did sacrifice my liberty and my humanity. I joined her army of Merrows, mostly women like myself. The enchantment of our songs caused the Spanish ships much delay. ’Twas not enough. Driven by their righteousness, they did not turn back. To stop them, Annys created terrible waves that dashed the Armada into the shallows at Tilbury. We toppled ships and drowned sailors. Saving our men gave the queen victory.” The Merrow’s voice broke as her gaze rested upon her husband. “Some men returned to their homes, but not my Dafydd, for whom I hath been searching among London’s dead on the Isle of Dogs. Had I known he infiltrated this group of brigands, in order to protect me from them…”
Viper’s spirits crumbled, her own heartache preventing her from hearing the Merrow’s following words. Elizabeth sought the aid she needed to beat the Spanish from the same enemy who had attacked and scarred her many years ago.
“Annys helped Elizabeth?” Viper asked in shock, interrupting Melazine.
“In the face of such a powerful foe as the Spanish king, and the might of Rome behind him, Queen Elizabeth could do little el
se.” Melazine’s tail slapped the floor. “What choice had any of us if our men were to come home? Now, hath I neither husband, nor home. I am woebegone.”
Viper’s malachite eyes caught Turstin’s polychromatic ones. Before he finished nodding his silent understanding, she said to Melazine, “If you speak not of the stone circle you hath seen in the Thamys, I shall mend your wounds and give you back to the river. For your husband, it is too late. You shall find your home where you would make it, and there, you will find freedom.”
“Why would you do this?”
Viper held her arms over Melazine, ready to mend her bones. “Annys is of my kin, yet we are not of the same kind. An enemy of mine is an enemy of thine.” The immortal paused. “Turstin, these assailants hath spoken most threateningly of otherworldly beings like you and I. My Foundling and I shall retreat with you to the Sister’s abode. There shall we be safe until Mouse is man enough to defend himself. Afterwards, I shall learn about these men and the threat they pose to the V’Braed. Unlike Elizabeth, I will not seek to befriend any enemy.”
A nagging distemper seated itself in the immortal’s mind as she mended the Merrow. Though she concentrated on Melazine’s wound, all Viper could visualize was her Faerie Queen standing with her nemesis on the English coast at Tilbury as, together, Elizabeth and Annys vanquished the Spanish fleet.
33: Old Secrets
30 St. Mary Axe.
June 6, 2012: late afternoon.
Rain drenched centuries of London’s buildings, the unyielding tears of a rebuked lover. Low ceiling clouds offered little hope for a change in the weather. Water owned the city, washing away the ground fog. Everything recognizable to Viper drowned in mist, or had been submerged beneath London’s skin long ago.
Her memories were anchored in the footprints of this city. Her past threatened her future. When she had bonded herself to a human princess at London’s white Tower, the immortal V’Braed never imagined that she would be this lost or confused. She tore herself away from the comfort of the old world and the appealing sight of the aeir swimming beneath the umbrellas below. Behind her, Owain and his son stood expectantly. A little flutter of nervousness escaped the tight armour of her heart when she saw Owain’s hopeful face.
“Then, you aren’t mad about my son?”
“My immortality was not yours for sharing,” she said, with neither disdain, nor anger.
“The centuries were lonely without you, Mistress,” Owain said, adjusting his striped bow tie. “Dhillon’s birth was unexpected. How could I obtain your blessing? His mother came to England on a backpacking holiday. She returned to Canada with my heart and a piece of my soul.”
“Did she know the truth?”
“She believed what I told her.”
“Which was?”
“Enough for me to come here and find my father after she died,” Dhillon offered diplomatically. “I know that I am like him. I’m not completely human.”
Viper nodded, unsure what to say. She couldn’t begrudge Owain’s need for companionship.
“I am so very grateful to you for saving him,” Owain said.
“Yes, thanks.” Dhillon shuffled his feet. “That was unexpected.” His leg had healed, as had Viper’s after several hours during which she remained semi-conscious with fever.
A ticking clock debated the theory of infinity with itself in the silence of her room.
At length, Owain said, “Captain Ellis is in the anteroom.”
“The soldier who shared his aeir that I would recuperate?” She barely remembered being carried back to the Gherkin on a gurney by the queen’s soldiers, or her moments of lucidity when she had absorbed small portions of life-magic from Ellis, volunteers among unit, and Graeme to aid her recovery. “Why?”
“He says Queen Elizabeth summons you to Buckingham Palace.”
“As a prisoner?” Viper turned her back on her Foundling.
“No, as a guest.” Owain’s nose wrinkled from the fluff of soot that puffed into the air when Viper moved. The lustre of her silver-white hair was as lost to the filth of the Underground as was the fourth crystal. When she didn’t reply, Owain said, “Mistress, you should go. Though I dare say, a shower might be in order first.”
“What if Annys should attack me in there?” Viper asked, ashamed for feeling vulnerable.
Owain tried to assuage her fears. “Remember how Delta One mentioned that they had caught another old one? Maybe that means that they’ve caught Annys. We’ve heard nothing of her, no signs of the pox or any other unusual water related disturbances.”
“Perchance, you are correct, and it is time to begin anew.”
After Owain and Dhillon left, Viper stepped into the steaming shower stall, an anachronism in the Elizabethan-styled décor of her bathroom. The showerhead massaged her aching muscles as the last few days played out in her mind. Her original intent had been to destroy Annys, ending the centuries-long animosity between them. Viper had failed miserably. She envisaged Annys suffering at the hands of the Deltas. Mostly, Viper was pleased at the possibility. Yet, the tiniest part of her felt sad for her immortal kin, no matter Annys’ hatefulness. Tears flowed, unbidden, until Viper’s eyes burned. Her wound-up tension loosened and her vengefulness abated as she found peace for the first time since she had escaped Annys’ prison.
She stopped the shower, then stood naked in front of the gilded mirror, beautifully carved with Tudor roses. Viper almost expected to see a portrait of her Elizabeth staring back at her as the humidity on the glass cleared. A twinge of worry tainted the immortal’s calm. The nagging concern grew, increasing her body temperature and inadvertently drying the water on her skin.
The Mort Lake Glass had changed her. Viper’s improved strength and agility coupled with a wider depth of emotions. She had been made more of herself, but faced with this unknown power of human technology, both old and new, she felt less like of herself than ever before. She doubled over with anxiety, gripping the rim of the gold wash basin. Her vision narrowed. Sharp pangs riddled her chest and she couldn’t catch her breath. She felt faint and willed herself to stay upright with the loudest voice she could muster.
In reality, she barely whispered, “Stay on your feet. Stay on your feet.” The glyph on her breastbone shone ruby-red.
At length, someone knocked at the door. “Mistress?” Owain called - her faithful Foundling. “Are you alright? You’ve been in there for quite some time. I’m a bit concerned.”
Viper didn’t realize that her rapid descent into uncontrollable helplessness took hold of her for so long. She made a mental note to be mindful to the mortal passage of time.
“Yes, Owain,” she replied, throat parched. Viper was no longer convinced that she wanted to insert the remaining crystals into her body if her increased abilities came with such dramatic emotional weakness. “I did but loose myself in time,” she lied.
“Captain Ellis wonders if you’re ready,” Owain said without pressing her further about the delay. The immortal replied with few words. When she let go of the basin, the metal had melted under her palms.
Viper dressed herself in a long-sleeved dress with heavy, blue lacework that covered her arms, shoulders, and torso before it cascaded to her shins, interspersed with gores of iridescent, sheer fabric. The dress gave her an ethereal appearance, despite its awkward fit and too-long appearance of her limbs.
She met Owain and Graeme in the common anteroom. The kilted Scotsman had a black eye and a swollen upper lip. Her Foundling leaned on a striated rosewood cane topped with a rabbit’s head carved in white onyx. His fingers wrapped around the flattened ears. Both men wore their finery better than they did their battle scars. Viper walked to the lift where Captain Ellis saluted her. The gesture reminded her of when Elizabeth’s armoured knights on horseback raised their visors in greeting.
Owain asked. “Why the salute, Captain? My mistress isn’t one of your officers.”
“Out of respect, sir,” Ellis replied, his eyes lowered. He placed his
hands behind his stiff back. Viper saw a newly obtained, ragged scab above his left eyebrow. His olive green aeir floated over his torso, a brave shield. “And by way of an apology. Our first meeting was turbulent.”
“Brood not upon it, good Captain,” Viper waved her hand magnanimously. “You hath proven yourself loyal to your queen. Loyalty is a rare quality not shared by all humaines.” Ellis straightened as if she had adorned him with an award of honour. The immortal asked, “Clare and Dhillon?”
“Dhillon’s having a kip,” replied Owain. “He’s sleeping,” he clarified when Viper frowned.
“And the girl?”
“Clare said she felt too famished to join us.”
“Royalty is wasted upon the youth, hey?” Graeme chuckled. “Let’s go meet the queen.”
Queen Elizabeth was not, in fact, waiting for Viper when they arrived outside the Throne Room on the second floor of the queen’s residence.
“Her Majesty will be here shortly,” Captain Ellis said, withdrawing his hand from the communication device in his ear. “She’s addressing a problem within the Ministry of Defense. Buck Palace isn’t open to the public for tours this late in the day, so we’ll be undisturbed. This way.”
He escorted Viper, Owain and Graeme past mirrored, gold-framed doors into a spacious scarlet and gold room that would have made Viper’s Elizabeth green with envy. Viper rolled her eyes at the persistent ostentatiousness of royal pomp.
The larger portion of the vaulted ceiling held a diamond pattern decorated with gold-gilded Tudor rosettes and the heraldic crests of England’s Rulers. A giant cut-crystal chandelier with five tiers hung from the ceiling. Four miniature versions of the light fixture occupied lower positions in the corners. To Viper’s left, two additional chandeliers dangled on longer chains from a separate, domed ceiling over Queen Elizabeth’s Chairs of State. Each scarlet and gold throne bore the initials of the queen and her husband embroidered on the backrest, ER and P. Canopied curtains and a red carpeted dais set these Chairs of State apart from the other pairs of thrones in the room. Viper understood the purpose of the fanciful décor of this stage-like area. The platform held the Royal Presence, the place reserved for the queen and her invited companions, elevated above the masses.
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