The Witch Queen

by Jan Siegel

  “Took offense? I don’t understand.”

  “She’s Morgus—the real Morgus. She left the world a thousand or so years ago, but she didn’t die, she was merely waiting—and now she’s back. She wants power—control—revenge. She may be using your father in some way. She has a skill and a Gift far beyond mine. I’m just a beginner.”

  “Why should she want revenge on Dana?”

  “She doesn’t,” Fern said. “Dana was an extra. Morgus is made of psychoses: she would steal a soul to torment, merely for an act of lèse-majesté. I am the object of her vengeance. When she took my spirit, I was to be her connection to the world of today. But I escaped, and betrayed her, and burned her in spellfire. She should have died, but her magic was too strong. She was reborn from the River of Death and returned without me, and now she cannot be killed by normal means, if at all.”

  “If this is true—“ his face was cool, noncommittal, afraid of credulity, “—how could you know so much? How could you see Dana?”

  “You came to me: remember? This is the truth you sought. As for how, I drew the magic circle: I wanted to call up certain spirits for questioning. I tried summoning your sister. The circle works in two ways: it can compel anyone in the vicinity to enter, and—if you have the power—it can open up a channel to another place. Dana appeared in the circle, but she was still imprisoned elsewhere. She has to be at Wrokeby.”

  “So we go there, and find her.”

  “No.”

  His mouth stiff, he sat back in the chair, turning and turning the whiskey tumbler in restless hands. “Explain to me why not. I am not afraid of witches.”

  “You should be. We’re not talking old women in pointy hats. Morgus is mad—nearly all of the most Gifted go mad, sooner or later. She wants to rule Britain—she still thinks of it as Logrèz, Arthur’s kingdom which she tried to dominate through the son of their incest.”

  “Arthur never existed,” Luc pointed out. “All the historians agree on that.”

  “They weren’t there. Someone existed whom the legends call Arthur, whatever his original name. Myths grow from truth. Historians know only facts, and facts can lie.”

  “And you?” Luc asked. “Are you Gifted enough to go mad?”

  “That’s my second-worst nightmare,” Fern said somberly.

  “What’s your worst?”

  Unexpectedly, she managed a smile. “That I won’t live long enough to find out.”

  Later, he took her to dinner in the darkest corner of a nearby restaurant, where discreet waiters served food, poured wine, and left them alone. She talked at greater length about Morgus, and the circle, though she said nothing about the goblins and gave few details on Moonspittle or where he lived. They progressed from steak to sorbet, from wine to brandy, and gradually the conversation relaxed into an exchange of life stories. “My parents had to get married,” Luc explained. “It was a shotgun wedding: Dad was eighteen when he got my mother pregnant. I don’t ever remember him being very interested in his home life; it was all work. My mother must have been unhappy because of his neglect. She would be all over us one minute, and ignore us the next. A lot of that was the drink, of course. Dana—Dana was always very dependent on me. She didn’t have anyone else.”

  “What happened to your mother?” Fern asked.

  “Car crash when I was nineteen. She was drunk.” His expression went rigid. “I never saw my father cry.”

  “Did you cry?”

  “No. Maybe I was a stoic. Maybe I’m just coldhearted. Like my father.”

  “Careful. Your Oedipus complex is showing.” He flicked her a grin. “My mother died when I was ten,” Fern volunteered. “I cried when Daddy told me she was sick because I knew she would die, though he didn’t say so. But I didn’t cry after. I froze up inside. Sometimes your emotions do that. It’s a form of self-preservation. If I had let go, I would have cried myself to death.”

  “Do you cry much?” he asked curiously, studying her face in the poor light, all smooth planes and clear-cut features. It was not a face made for tears.

  “Sometimes,” she said. He was clearly waiting for more, and the brandy had loosened her tongue, so she went on: “I cry in La Traviata, and Gone With the Wind, and whenever I hear Jacqueline du Pré playing Elgar. And I cried for first love, and the drowning of a city, and the loss of childhood.”

  “I dream of drowning,” he remarked. “That’s my worst nightmare. Didn’t you say the dreams of the Gifted are significant? Assuming you and that nurse are both right, and I am Gifted. Perhaps I’m foreseeing my own death.”

  “Tell me your dreams,” she said.

  “I can’t remember most of them in detail,” he answered. “I wake, and there’s an impression of something—a bad taste in my mind—but that’s all. You know the feeling. But after my mother died, I dreamed I had actually drowned—I was lying on the seabed, and crabs and crayfish were picking my bones, and a mermaid came to stare at me, not the Hans Christian Andersen kind but a creature with a corpse’s pallor and eyes like a fish, no depth. She was in my dream the other night, too.”

  “Can you recall any of that one?” There was an odd note in Fern’s voice, but he did not hear it.

  “Too well. I was a sailor on an old-fashioned sailboat in a hurricane. I remember thinking how idiotic it was to be there—how we were all going to die—and then I realized somehow that I was the captain, it was my fault, I had chosen to set out. The mast was struck by lightning, and there was this hideous shriek, long drawn out, like a call, and then I was in the sea and she was there again. The mermaid. She put her arms around me and dragged me down, and I was breathing water and dying, slowly . . .” He shrugged, trying to disown the memory, or shake it off. “It was probably symbolic. A guilt trip—fear of the womb—woman—fish—sex. Whatever. Analyze if you like, but . . . Tread softly, for you tread upon my nightmares.”

  There was a pause that felt as if it might be endless. “No,” said Fern at last. “I don’t think it was symbolic. The dreams of the Gifted often involve memories, but not always your own. I believe . . . you dreamed your way into someone else’s mind, someone long dead . . . but I don’t know why.” And she repeated, as if in anger or pain: “I don’t know why!”

  “Whose death did I dream?” he demanded. “Do you know that?”

  But Fern did not answer.

  They left the restaurant in silence, and in silence walked back to his flat. Belatedly, Fern realized where she was going. “I’ll get a taxi—”

  Luc pulled out his mobile. “My call. There’s a cab company I always use. They’ll put it on my account.”

  “I’d rather not—”

  He ignored her protest. There was a sudden embarrassment between them, though Fern was rarely embarrassed and Luc never. When they reached the mews he said: “The cab’ll be ten or fifteen minutes. Come inside and wait.”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  He waited with her, close yet separate, not touching, barely speaking. His dreams, her doubts, the shadow of the otherworld came between them like an invisible wall. Only when the cab drew up at the entrance to the mews did he seize her shoulders and kiss her, swift and short, hard mouth on soft. Then he let her go without a word.

  He said neither hello nor good-bye, she thought in the cab home, and she trembled, but not with desire.

  It was after one when Fern reached Pimlico, and the ivy had gone from the door. In the drawing room, she switched on the light and looked around expectantly. The goblin was sitting on an armchair, having helped himself to an unidentifiable drink, possibly sherry. He evidently felt there was no further need for concealment: his feet were on the coffee table and he flourished his glass in her direction by way of greeting. His hat brim was tilted rakishly over one eye; the other gleamed purple-black in the lamplight. A multifingered hand waved her toward another chair.

  “Make yourself at home,” Fern said coolly, and noted with mild satisfaction a faltering of his impudence.

  “We’r
e friends now, aren’t we?” Skuldunder asked anxiously. “Allies?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I had to wait a long time,” he offered in mitigation. “Anyway, I’m the ambassador of the queen. I should be made welcome.”

  “You’re a burglar; I’m a witch,” said Fern. “Drink uninvited at your peril. You never know what may be lurking in bottle and cupboard.”

  “I couldn’t see anything.” The goblin’s confidence was ebbing rapidly.

  “Of course not. Do you think I am an amateur?”

  “It was labeled Toe Peep . . .”

  “Tio Pepe,” said Fern after a moment’s reflection. “I might have known. I keep that for burglars: there’s an attraction charm on it.” The goblin set the glass down, eyeing it uncertainly. Fern relented. “Drink it with my blessing. It won’t harm you—this time. I have news for your queen, though it is not good. The witch we spoke of is indeed dangerous, more dangerous even than we feared. I have learned her identity—through the power of the circle I saw her face-to-face. She is Morgus, who dwelt for years uncounted beneath the Eternal Tree, and has returned to the modern world with all her ancient grudges intact and her ambition sharpened to megalomania. I will defeat her, but I need the aid of your people.”

  “Megalo-what?” Skuldunder was frowning, his small face screwed into a caricature of bewilderment.

  “Lust for power,” Fern translated. “Tell the queen, it is time for witchkind and goblinkind to work together. Mabb knows how Morgus treated the denizens of Wrokeby, both ghost and goblin; she will destroy wantonly any creature that offends her, werefolk or menfolk, small or large. The threat is to us all. This young sapling that she nurses could well be a sprig of the Eternal Tree, perhaps planted now in the true soil of this world, its power subject to her. Who knows what fruit it may bear? We must act now. Tell the queen.”

  “A goblin cannot confront a witch!” Skuldunder protested, his voice squeaky with sudden panic.

  “I am glad you realize that,” Fern murmured without undue emphasis. “I would not ask it of her. But goblin powers are those of skulking and hiding, of sneaking and spying. I want certain people followed—contacts of Morgus, but ordinary humans. I want to know where they go, what they do, who they meet. This is goblin work. If I write down a list of names and addresses, can Mabb arrange this?” She knew the goblins would make unreliable, if unobtrusive, detectives, unlikely to adhere to the task in hand, but she had to use whatever troops were available. In addition, she wanted to cement her alliance with Mabb, if only because it was the one alliance she had.

  “The queen will require more gifts,” said Skuldunder, swallowing audibly.

  “Of course. I will fetch them.” She really must buy some more makeup, she thought to herself. Her supply was becoming depleted. “There will be some now, and more later. Wait here.”

  When she had fetched the gifts, Fern lingered over the list. Principally, she wanted Kaspar Walgrim followed, a discreet vigil maintained by Dana’s bedside in the clinic, and a watch kept on Wrokeby, though she knew it would have to be from a safe distance. With some hesitation, she added the name of Lucas Walgrim and his mews address, telling herself it was for his own protection. Needing to trust him—somehow fearing that need—she reassured herself that he would never know. Skuldunder took the list, his finger tracing the words as he read it through.

  “It is for the queen,” Fern reminded him. “If she agrees, ask her to send me a sign.”

  “There will be a token beside your door by midnight tomorrow—”

  “No. Other tenants use that door; it might be dislodged, or removed on purpose. Leave it in here, on the table.” Skuldunder nodded and took a careless mouthful of sherry; then fixed it with a suspicious glare.

  “You’ll have to leave now,” said Fern, glancing at the clock. “I must get some sleep. Tell your queen I honor her, and my goodwill goes with her and all her folk.”

  When he had gone she went to bed, but she slept fitfully, torn between waking thought and intrusive dream. She pictured Luc’s rare smile, with the tooth missing in his lower jaw, and tried to superimpose it on another face, half-forgotten, blurred with the passage of too much time. That other smile lacked a tooth—she remembered it now—but whether it was the same, whether it was chance, whether it was important, she didn’t know. She strove to match feature to feature, present to past, but memory was rusty, and she told herself sternly that as Luc was drawn to her, by necessity if nothing more, so his Gift might show him her most intimate history. If you truly love, Ragginbone had told her, you may meet again—Someday. They say the spirit returns, life after life, until the unknown pattern is completed, and it can finally move on. But who are They, who say so much, and so often, and how do They know? The mind is confined within one body, one life, but might the spirit remember? And has Someday come at last?

  Fool, cried her thought, despising the reasoning that went beyond reason. Sentimental fool! You tried so hard to be rational and cool, but within its shell of ice your heart stayed sixteen. What you call true love is only a wisp of a dream—a romantic fancy—a shadow. You cannot even picture his face . . .

  She had lapsed into slumber without realizing it, and now she found herself in a high place, high as the Dark Tower, though the panorama beneath was of folded hills and checkered fields and the jagged blue lumps of mountains wrapped in the mist of distance. From the pinnacle where she sat even the greatest of them looked no bigger than boulders. A road or path came twisting toward her, climbing the impossible scarp from the remoteness below. Some way down it she made out a moving speck: the figure of a man. She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes, desperate to see him clearly; but a voice at her back said: “I am here.” And there was the dragon charmer, Ruvindra LaiÏ, whom she had known only through magic and death. In that knowing she had loved him, as one may love the tiger for its stripes, the serpent for its hug: there had been a bond between them that had seemed, in that hour, deeper than romance. His eyes were ice-blue in a face of ebony—a face she thought she could never forget. But he changed and shrank, becoming an apple rotting on the Eternal Tree, and down among the roots she heard a scrabbling of hands, and she knew Morgus was buried there and must be digging her way out. She ran down into the Underworld, but the caves became the alleyways of Atlantis, and Rafarl Dev took her by the hand. They were running together, up winding stairs and over sun-scorched roofs. In a minute he would turn, and look at her, and then she would know. She would know the truth. And sure enough he turned, and smiled, and her heart gave a great leap—

  She woke up. That instant of dazzling insight vanished with the dream. A second longer, and she might have been sure. But there was no surety, and the dream was gone beyond recall. When she slept again she was sitting with Luc in a wine bar, playing chess. The white queen was Morgus, wearing a dress that glittered when she moved. The black queen was herself, in a sheath that clung courtesy of Lycra, and a dark lipstick that drew her mouth into pointed curves. She was on the chessboard, with the squares stretching away forever, and Morgus was before her, and the next move was hers. The black knight protected her, and she knew he must be Luc, but once again there was a voice behind her, and turning she saw Luc was the king. “I was your knight before,” he said, “and you threw me away to win the game. But now I am the king, and it is your turn to be sacrificed.” She began to run away across the endless squares, and there was the Dark Tower, and the scarlet-clad guards, and the door was open. She struggled to resist, but her feet carried her forward; she screamed—No! No!—and woke again, and lay on her back in the pallor of morning twilight, until the alarm told her it was time to get up.

  That night in Yorkshire, Mrs. Wicklow left around six. She had done a little cleaning and a lot of puttering, since Robin Capel, Fern’s father, had spent the weekend there with his long-term partner, Abby. After they had gone Lougarry came padding into the kitchen, an expectant glint in her eye. Mrs. Wicklow was lavish with leftovers. Lougarry received a terse
welcome and a plate of steak-and-kidney pie. “I’ll leave t’ back door on t’ latch, shall I?” the housekeeper said. Long association with the Capels and their assorted friends had had its effect: when she talked to herself she guessed there was someone listening, and she trusted the she-wolf to mind the house in her absence. As it grew darker Lougarry went to the kitchen door and stood for some time staring out into the dusk. A barn owl, ghost faced and silent, swooped down from the moor and circled the building, apparently hunting field mice. But Lougarry knew there were no barn owls in the vicinity. The last time an owl had haunted Dale House was two years before: a raptor from the upper branches of the Eternal Tree, ageless and grown to gigantic size. But such birds were magical, cunning beyond nature, and able to adapt to any scale of normality. The visitor perched awhile on a gable, and cruised past the empty windows, before skimming the hillside and disappearing from view. The night closed in, and stars peered between the clouds. Far into the small hours Lougarry kept her vigil, the fur bristling on her nape, knowing with the instinct of her kind that she was watched in her turn.

  A gaggle of magpies came the next day, picking at the grass for insects. When she looked at them sideways, the wolf thought they were overlarge and banded with blue, but when she gazed at them directly they seemed quite ordinary. She counted nine of them, the witch’s number; they hung around all afternoon, chattering in the bird language that is all nonsense and noise. She wished she could inform Ragginbone, but although she could speak mind-to-mind with the few humans she was close to, she needed to be in their presence or near at hand; London was much too distant. One or two of the birds hopped near the open door, but Lougarry’s unwinking stare deflected them, and the lift of a lip showed fangs that could tear them in half. They left late, streaming into the sunset, and the shadow of the hill grew long and dark, creeping over the house. Lougarry shut the door, slotting the latch into place with her nose. She hadn’t eaten all day, but although the house was unoccupied she did not want to leave it to hunt for a meal. She settled down for the night by the stove, her chin on her paws.