Because that is not who you are.
The shock brought her head upright with such speed that for a moment the room turned dark and she thought she might faint. It had not been a sound, that voice, yet so clear and distinct that it had been like a someone heard in a dream. And as in a dream there was an edge of familiarity, as if this also was a voice she should recognise. ‘Who are you?’ she whispered, her heart pounding. ‘Do I know you?’
We have never spoken before, Tabitha. Yet once you knew me . . .
The voice trailed off, becoming fainter. ‘Please!’ she whispered desperately, ‘No riddles! Tell me who you are! How do I know you?’
The voice was fading, hardly a whisper itself. Too hard . . . this world . . . try again . . . and then, little more than a breath: Courage. . . .
She had need of that last in the days that followed. Every session with Doctor Milson began the same way, sitting across from him in the semi dark, the ceiling light extinguished, while he assembled the little wire pyramid with a crystal the size of her thumb hung from its apex. At first the crystal would be dark, almost black, and then it would begin to glow, holding her eyes in some mysterious fashion so that try as she might she could not look away. Then he would begin, the nasal voice soft, insinuating. Tell me about your childhood, Magda. You are twelve, tell me what happened when you were twelve. Without her willing it a picture would form, of the spirit journey she had taken in the Time of Testing, all alone in the mountains far from the Sanctuary. She remembered the effort it had taken to keep her back straight and her head up as she had been warned, approaching the cave of the Windlords, knowing that she would be killed instantly if they sensed fear or weakness of will. Then, just as she stepped over the threshold, there was that instant of dislocation, of change, and she was dressed in dirty threadbare garments instead of the silk tunic and hood of her novitiate, and the soaring arches of the cave became the interior of a ruined tenement, and there was an unshaven hulk of a man trying to lure her inside with a bar of half melted chocolate, and she would cry out in fear, in denial, and run and run . . . You are seven, Magda, you have brought home something to show your mother, what is it? She was walking down the austere flagstone corridor to Mother’s weaving room, and there, bathed in the golden sunlight streaming through the great windows was Mother working some intricate design on the tall standing loom. She half stopped, unwilling to interrupt her, but Mother saw her at the door and turned with a welcoming smile, putting the shuttle to one side. Shutting her lips tight on the answering grin that threatened to burst forth, she held out the parchment she had been given, with the seal of the Autarch at the bottom, the parchment that confirmed her selection as novice to the Sisterhood of the Magi. She remembered the tears of joy in her mother’s eyes as with a lurch the walls of the filthy kitchen rose around her, filled with the droning of flies and the stink of rotting food and unwashed plates, and her mother sobbing drunkenly over the crayon drawing she had brought home from school, the crudely executed stick figures showing a happy, smiling family with the bright yellow sun shedding its rays over a neat little house with carefully drawn flowers growing in front. And reaching out to her mother, not understanding, touching the shoulder of the nightdress she was wearing even though it was late afternoon, and her mother suddenly screaming at her, the spittle flying between the gaps in her missing teeth, her face contorted into a witch’s mask as she shouted for her to go, to just go away, calling her a cruel little shit . . .
After the second session, trembling and shaking, she told herself that she would rather die than go to another, but when the orderly came to fetch her it was the brute Simpson, who dislodged her desperate hold on the bed frame without seeming to notice it. She tried to pry his fingers loose from her wrist with her free hand, and he looked down, his face expressionless, but in his eyes she saw a ravening animal that looked back at her, begging for a chance to be unleashed, lusting for pain and blood and torture, and she shrank back appalled, allowing herself to be dragged unceremoniously down the corridor as before and deposited like a sack of dirty laundry in the chair in front of the desk. As the Doctor sat frowning in concentration, adjusting his apparatus, she grasped the arms of the chair, willing herself to flee, to run, and without looking up he said, ‘I wouldn’t advise that, Magda. George is right outside the door, and I really would prefer him not being in here and restraining you. He’s such a brute sometimes; poor boy had a wretched childhood, what can you do? So much cosier when it is just us two, don’t you think?’
She thought then that it was the crystal hanging in its little wire frame which was the source of his power over her, and decided that she would just look away from it, but somehow as soon as the glow began it drew her eyes inexorably, and then the quiet nasal voice would start again, searching out and transforming her memories. He seemed to have an uncanny intuition for the really significant moments in her life, the ones that defined her as a person, and always it was Magda this and Magda that until finally she screamed at him in desperation, ‘Why must you call me by that stupid name? That is not my name, that has never been my name!’
His grotesquely magnified eyes had blinked behind the thick lenses, and he merely nodded. ‘I realise that, my dear, but we don’t know what your name actually is, do we? Not yet, at any rate.’ He picked up her file and scanned the first page, nodding judiciously. ‘Hmm. Yess. It appears that “Magda” was the name given you by my colleague when you were admitted. He felt, and I am inclined to agree, that the name you gave, “Tabitha” was one which only served to reinforce your delusional frame of reference.’
She was totally bewildered. ‘What has my name got to do with anything?’
So he had showed her a scene from what he explained was a sort of play, highly popular, which appeared on something he called TeeVee, and he brought out a little grey box with a square crystal lens for one face, which lit up and showed a scene where a silly young woman with an improbable hair style was pretending to perform simple domestic cantrips and spells to the accompaniment of gales of laughter from an invisible audience. The name of the character in the drama, the Doctor informed her, was Tabitha, and doubtless she had seen the show as a child and borrowed the name when she became convinced that she had magical powers. ‘So for the moment,’ he had concluded, ‘we’ll stick to “Magda”, shall we? A nice ordinary name for a nice ordinary woman.’ The patronising tone in which he said this was almost as bad as seeing her mother transformed into a drunken harridan, and back in her room she lay shivering and hugging herself under the inadequate blanket, certain she could feel her mind beginning to crumble.
It was that night, in the darkest hour, when even the sounds from the more vociferous patients ceased that the voice came again.
Tabitha.
Tears leaked out of her closed eyelids and she put her hands tightly over her ears, but it made no difference, for out of the roaring in her head the voice came again.
You must listen, Tabitha, you are in deadly danger.
‘Go away, please,’ she moaned under her breath, ‘I’m imagining you.’
The voice hardened and she sensed anger. You were not so craven when you stood at the entrance to the Halls of the Windlords. None had ever entered so boldly as you.
The image shot through her consciousness like a lightning bolt. Filled with a sudden desperation she sat up, dropping her hands. ‘You know about that?’ she whispered incredulously.
I was there.
‘But how can that be?’ she said half to herself, ‘unless . . .’
The wind tore at your robes yet you entered in like a vision of the Goddess. Even as the Oldest rose from within his coils you did not flinch, but met his gaze steadily, though his least breath would have annihilated you where you stood. It was then that I decided you would be my Rider, you and none other.
As if the words were strokes of an artist’s brush the scene grew in her mind, and she saw again the polished rock floor of the cavern, and the great humped shapes of the
Windlords ranged about her, the terrible gaze of the greatest of them all bearing down on her, and feeling a calm exultation that nothing could shatter, knowing that even if she died in the next moment she had reached a pinnacle to be proud of. ‘Ixator,’ she breathed, then: ‘But how can this be? The Windlords seldom speak to humans, I was told, but only among themselves do they converse, and their language is older than the stars.’
Seldom is not never, came the reply, and the voice held a trace of amusement. Yet it is true that we find it wearisome to fit our thoughts into the words of your race, creatures of a passing moment as you are. Yet the need is great, and the Adversary threatens more than just yourself. It is his intention to make himself a great ruler over all who now oppose him.
With the word came another flash of recognition. The Adversary! That was it! That was what she had come to tell those Royal fools in the council chamber! That they need not pay tribute, that the Sisterhood could and would protect them! ‘Who is this Adversary?’ she whispered, feeling a surge of power and purpose for the first time since finding herself in this place.
The answer was like being thrown into the ice bath they used for hysterical patients. You have met him, Tabitha. He is here.
‘The Doctor?’ she breathed, staring at nothingness.
Even so. He seeks to bend you to his will, to break your mind so that you will become his creature, even as that abomination who serves him.
An image of Doctor Milson sprang into her mind. That fussy little man with his bulging fish eyes and ill fitting garments? He, a great wizard?
Do not be deceived Tabitha, came the voice as if hearing her thoughts, he is not as he appears here in this world. In his own form he is great and terrible, a mighty wizard of dark powers. With you as his slave there would be nothing he could not accomplish!
In a frenzy she beat on the bed clothes with her futile wrinkled fists. ‘How can I fight him! My power is gone! He invades my mind with his sorcery!
Yet there is hope. If I can find the portal by which he entered, I can . . .
‘Hey! Ya wanna keep it down in there? There’s people tryin’ ta sleep!’ The hoarse whisper was accompanied by a sharp thud as if her door had been kicked. She realised with a pang of dread that in her passion her voice had risen to the point of audibility. Hands over her mouth she crouched down in the bedclothes, prepared to dive under the blankets should the door be unlocked. The voice was that of one of the night staff, whom she knew hated to be bothered by their putatively sleeping charges. There was a silence, and then the shuffling footsteps moved on down the hall.
The voice when it came again held a hint of pity which brought hot tears to her eyes. For now, I send you but a token, Tabitha. Hide it well, and keep courage as best you can!
Then it was gone, she could feel the emptiness in the air. Into the silence that followed came a tiny ‘pop’ as if a very small vessel had been uncorked, and before her astonished gaze a greenish blue object appeared out of the air and began to drift downward to the mattress. It was smaller than her palm, leaf shaped, but fell more swiftly than a leaf would, glistening like metal. It was not until she held it in her two hands that she realised what it was, and then the tears came, tears of thankfulness and release, that fell upon her open palms and sparkled in the dim light that was never turned off. Even though she had never seen one separate from its owner, she knew that what she held was a thing not of this world, a single discarded scale from Ixator’s mighty chest.
For the rest of the night she held the precious token close to her cheek, imagining gliding through a storm cloud on the back of its owner. However when morning finally came, she was faced with a dilemma. Rooms were searched for contraband, thoroughly and often. Even so much as a borrowed pen could mean a week in isolation. As the time for her session with Doctor Milson approached she reached a state of near panic, for cudgel her brain as she might she could think of no hiding place in the bare five-by-nine chamber that would not be penetrated in even a casual search. In the end she simply cupped the scale in the palm of her hand and closed her fingers over it.
Again she faced the dangling crystal in the half light, and again the nasal insinuating voice came as she was irresistibly drawn to stare into the glowing heart of it: ‘Now you are fourteen, Magda, and this is an important day for you. What are you doing?’ She was dressed in her best tunic and boots, and Mother had taken a long time braiding her hair into an intricate knot that the wind would be unable to unravel. Mother was a little nervous, she could tell, because she kept repeating, over and over that it made no difference, many novices were not chosen as Riders and went on to be great Practitioners of the Art, and as often she assured Mother not to worry, for she knew she would be chosen, and by whom.
Finally Mother had finished and took her by the shoulders and asked how she could be so sure. ‘I just know,’ she had replied. ‘It will be Ixator. Ixator will choose me.’ She remembered how Mother’s dark golden eyes had opened wide as she said, ‘But Tabitha, no one has ridden Lord Ixator for the last two centuries!’
Then she was standing in the open arena at the very top of the mountain, and all around her was a sheer drop into nothingness and the wind tugged at her, trying to push her over, but she braced her bare legs and stood firm, and the sky was such a deep blue that it was almost black and she half fancied she could see stars, but she had no time to look, for there was movement in the sky, a small dot that rapidly expanded until his broad wings shut out the sky, and with a thunderclap that brought his tremendous length nearly upright he arrested his forward motion and settled in to land. It was Ixator, just as she had dreamed it, and he arched his skinny back so that she could see every vertebrae and hissed at her, and she held out the piece of fried fish she had saved from her lunch. He watched suspiciously, and she took one step nearer, then two, and then in a flash he had captured the morsel and was down eating it and she extended her hand again telling herself that they were friends now, really friends. She had been bringing the feral tomcat bits to eat for a week now, and surely he would let her pet him, just this once, and she had almost touched the ragged edge of his ear when his mumbling growl suddenly rose and a paw flashed and she stumbled back, blood welling from a long slice in her finger while the scabby old tom she had named Ixator fled to the end of the alley fence and disappeared. . . .
‘So you see, Magda, all of these magical things you think you remember, they are not real, are they? You see that what actually happened was not magical at all, not even very nice, so it was no wonder you made up these stories, growing up in that dirty slum with an alcoholic mother and no friends, but it is time to face reality, Magda . . .’
‘Stop it!’ she shouted suddenly, unable to bear any more. ‘Stop calling me by that ridiculous name!’
‘Then why don’t you tell me your name, your real name, you must have one, is it Mary, or Bethany, or . . .’
‘Tabitha, you disgusting little man!’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks and wetting the collar of her gown but she was beyond caring. ‘Tabitha! It has always been Tabitha!’
‘No, no,’ Dr Milson’s voice was as even and unhurried as always but she saw by the gleam in his goggling eyes that he felt he was winning. ‘Tabitha is your magical name, isn’t it. Just like the beautiful young witch on the television. Because there was nothing magical about you was there? You lived alone in that filthy flat after your mother died for years, and one day the loneliness and the isolation were too much to bear and you wandered out into the street and . . .’
‘No magic? No magic?’ she was screaming now, not caring, even though in part of her mind she wondered why Simpson did not come, her throat raw, tearing, holding out her hand with the glistening scale cupped in the palm. ‘Look at this! You’ve never seen anything like this have you? Look, damn you!’
The Doctor made a great show of adjusting his glasses as he peered at the hand she had thrust at him, and then a look of distaste contracted his features. ‘Well, I don’t make a habit of p
awing through the garbage, Magda. Where in heaven’s name did you get a hold of that, whatever it is?’
She looked down at what she held involuntarily. ‘That is because it is,’ she started to say and then stopped, appalled. What she was holding in her hand was a colourful mixture of green and blue, yes, mainly because of the mould that sprouted from the surface of what looked like a very old and rotten slice of cooked potato. The smell assaulted her nostrils and with a cry of disgust she flung the object from her, which then landed with a liquid smack in the middle of the desk, adhering to the surface of one of the files scattered there. Frantically she scrubbed her palm on the side of her already spotted and filthy gown, hardly aware that the giant Simpson had entered and was roughly bearing her away.
When she had gone, Doctor Milson sat for a moment staring at the object on the surface of the file folder, his face expressionless in contemplation. Then he picked up a small pager-like object and pressed its button. When Simpson entered wordlessly he tapped a forefinger against his lower lip for a moment before he said, ‘George, bring Miss Magda here tonight around seven, would you? I think we had better schedule her for evening sessions as well from now on. There may not be much time.’ Then, as the big man turned to go he said, ‘Oh and George . . . make sure she has nothing in her hands, would you? There’s a good fellow.’
Alone in her room she moaned, rocking back and forth in her distress as she crouched on the bed where Simpson had deposited her. What did it mean? Was she really mad? All her memories—delusions? The voice that she had believed was the voice of Ixator—had she imagined it only? Wild eyed she looked around the tiny room, at the peeling paint and the scars from previous occupants on the walls, the cracked and warped floor-covering . . . Was this really all her life had become? This—or the chaos of the city outside with her as a penniless mendicant, without even a name she could call her own, scorned and despised by all?
The Girl with the Peacock Harp Page 18