I came down into the forest at dusk. All the leaves had fallen and lay on the ground, rotten and brown. The tower was twice the height of the tallest trees, like a black demon finger pointing up at the gray County sky. A girl had been seen waving from its solitary window, frantically beckoning for aid. I’d been told that the creature had seized her for its own and now held her as its plaything, imprisoning her within those dank stone walls.
First I made a fire and sat gazing into its flames while I gathered my courage. It would be better to wait for Henry Horrocks to arrive; two of us would have a far greater chance against the creature. But despite his assurances, I had no confidence that he would join me. His condition had been steadily worsening rather than improving. Besides, the creature would probably kill again this very night. It was my duty as a spook to deal with it before then; my duty to the people of the County.
Taking the whetstone from my bag, I sharpened the blade of my staff until my fingers could not touch its edge without yielding blood. Finally, just before midnight, I went to the tower and hammered out a challenge upon the wooden door with the base of my staff.
The creature came forth, brandishing a great club, and roared out in anger. It was a foul thing dressed in the skins of animals, reeking of blood. Almost seven feet tall, with a chest like a barrel, it was a truly formidable opponent. I am a spook and trained to deal with creatures of the dark, and I was strong then and in my prime, but my courage faltered as it attacked me with a terrible fury.
At first I retreated steadily, but I released the blade from its recess in my staff and waited for my chance to counterattack. Jabbing repeatedly at the beast to keep it at bay, I whirled to the left in a rapid spiral and drew it away from the tower into the trees. Twice that massive club smashed against tree trunks, missing my head by inches. Either blow would have shattered my skull like an eggshell.
But now it was my turn to attack. I whacked the creature hard on the side of the head, a blow that would have felled a village blacksmith, but it didn’t even stagger. Then I managed to spear it deeply in the right shoulder so that, within moments, blood started to run down its bare arm and splatter onto the grass. That brought it to a halt, and we faced each other warily.
As it bellowed in anger and prepared to attack again, I flicked my staff from my left hand to my right and drove it straight into the creature’s forehead with all my strength. The blade went in deep and, with a gasp and then a terrible groan, the abhuman fell, stone dead, at my feet.
I paused to catch my breath, looking down at the dead creature. I had no regrets about taking its life, for it would have killed again and again and would never have been sated.
It was then that the girl called out to me from the tower, her siren voice luring me up the stone steps. There, in the topmost room, I found her lying upon a bed of straw, bare-footed and bound fast with a long silver chain. With skin like milk and long fair hair, she was by far the prettiest woman that I had ever set eyes on. She told me that her name was Meg and pleaded to be released from the chain.Her voice was so persuasive that my reason fled and the world spun about me.
No sooner had I unbound her from the coils of the chain than she fastened her lips hard upon mine. And so sweet were her kisses that I almost swooned away in her arms. It was a night that was to change my life. My first night with Meg.
I awoke to see sunlight streaming through the window, and spied the toes of Meg’s shoes peeping out from under a chair in the corner of the room. They were pointy; pointy shoes. My heart sank within my chest. My master had warned me that pointy shoes were often a strong indication that the wearer might be a witch. Worse was to come, for as Meg dressed, I saw her back clearly for the first time, and my blood froze cold within my veins. She was one of the lamia witches, and the mark of the serpent was upon her. Fair of face though she was, her spine was covered with green and yellow scales.
“Witch!” I cried, reaching for the silver chain. “You’re a witch!”
“I harm nobody!” she cried. “Only those who wish me harm!”
“It’s in your nature to practice deceit,” I said angrily. “Once a witch, always a witch—your kind are not even human. . . .”
I threw the chain that had previously bound her, and the long hours I’d spent casting against the practice post in the Chipenden garden paid off. The chain dropped over her head and shoulders, binding her fast so that she could neither walk, speak, nor move her arms. Filled with anger at her deceit, I carried her, thus bound, back to Chipenden—where a terrible shock awaited me.
CHAPTER II
Harboring a Witch
TO my sorrow and dismay, I found Henry Horrocks dead and cold in his bed. He had been a good master and eventually my friend, and it grieved me sorely to lose him.
Leaving the witch safely bound, I buried my master at the edge of the local churchyard. Although a spook is not permitted to be interred in holy ground, no doubt some priest might have been persuaded to pray over his body, but Henry Horrocks had already told me that he didn’t want that. He had lived a blameless, hardworking life defending the County against the dark and felt capable of finding his own way through the mists of Limbo to the light.
That taken care of, it was time to deal with the witch. First I dug a pit for her in the eastern garden, then had the local mason and blacksmith construct its lid, a stone rim with thirteen iron bars. Once she was in the pit, I would drag the lid into position.
By now my anger had abated somewhat. I had left Meg chained to the side of the house, where she had been soaked to the skin by a heavy downpour of rain. She looked a pitiful sight, but despite her bedraggled appearance, her beauty still captivated me. My heart lurched with pity, and I had to harden my resolve.
When I released her from the chain, she struggled so fiercely that I barely overcame her and was forced to pull her by her long hair through the trees toward the pit, while she ranted and screamed fit to wake the dead. It was still raining hard and she slipped on the wet grass, but I carried on, dragging her along the ground, though her bare arms and legs were scratched by brambles. It was cruel, but it had to be done.
We reached the edge of the pit, but when I started to tip her over the edge, she clutched at my knees and began to sob pitifully.
“Please!” she cried. “Spare me. I can’t live like that—not trapped down there in the dark!”
“You’re a witch and that’s where you belong,” I told her. “Be grateful you’re not suffering a worse fate—”
“Oh, please, please, John, think again. Can I help it that I was born a witch? Despite that, I never hurt others unless they threaten me. Remember what we said to each other last night? How we felt? Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed at all. Please put your arms around me again and forget this foolishness.”
I stood there for a long time, full of anguish, about to topple over the edge myself—until, at last, I made a decision that changed my life.
She was a lamia witch, and such creatures have two forms. Meg appeared to be in the domestic, near-human shape rather than the feral one, in which form the creatures become savage killers. So perhaps she spoke the truth. Maybe she did only use her strength in self-defense.
There was hope for her, I thought. So why not give her a chance?
I helped her to her feet and wrapped my arms about her, and we both wept. My love for her was so sudden and all-consuming that my heart almost burst through my chest. How could I put her into the pit when I loved her better than my own soul? It was her eyes that captivated me: They were the most beautiful I’d ever seen—along with her voice, which was sweeter and more melodious than any siren song.
I begged her forgiveness, and then we turned together and, hand in hand, walked away from the pit, back toward the house that now belonged to me.
It was a fateful night, and sometimes, despite my faith in free will and my firm belief that, minute by minute, second by second, we shape our own futures, it does seem to me that some things are meant to be.
For had Henry Horrocks still been alive on my return, Meg would certainly have gone into a pit.
So I was captivated by Meg, and she became the love of my life. Beauty is a terrible thing: It binds a man tighter than a silver chain about a witch.
We lived happily together for almost a month in my Chipenden house, Meg and I. My fondest memories are of the times we sat together on the bench in the western garden, holding hands and watching the sun go down.
However, things soon started to go wrong. Unfortunately, Meg was very strong willed, and against my wishes she insisted on visiting the village shops. Her tongue was as sharp as a barber’s razor, and right from the start she began to have lively arguments with some of the village women. These disagreements had small beginnings: one woman pushed in front of Meg in a shop, as if she wasn’t there. Another called her an incomer, and she sensed hostility from all the women to an outsider who was certainly prettier than any of them. A few of these disputes quickly developed into bitter feuds. No doubt there was spite on both sides.
“Meg, let me do the shopping,” I suggested to her. “You’re drawing too much attention to yourself. If it wasn’t for me being a spook and you living at my house, they’d have already accused you of being a witch. You’ll end up in the dungeons at Caster Castle if you’re not careful!”
“I can take care of myself, John,” she replied, “as you well know. Would you want me to be confined to this house and garden just because some shrews in the village insist on making trouble? No, I must fight my own battles, and well you know it!”
Eventually, being a witch, Meg resorted to witchcraft against her enemies. She did no serious harm to the women. One suffered nasty boils all over her body; another exceptionally house-proud woman who worshipped cleanliness had recurring infestations of lice and a plague of cockroaches in her kitchen.
At first the accusations were little more than whispers. Then one woman spat at Meg in the street and received a good hard slap for her discourtesy. It would probably have stopped at that, but unfortunately she was the sister of the parish constable.
One morning the bell rang at the withy-trees crossroads, and I went down to investigate. Instead of the poor boggart-haunted farmer that I had been expecting, the stout red-faced parish constable was standing there, truncheon in his belt and hands on his hips.
“Mr. Gregory,” he said, his manner proud and pompous, “it has come to my attention that you are harboring a witch. The woman, known as Margery Skelton, has used witchcraft to hurt some good women of this parish. She has also been seen at midnight, under a full moon, gathering herbs and dancing naked by the pond at the edge of Homeslack Farm. I have come to arrest her, and demand that you bring her to this spot immediately!”
“Meg no longer lives with me!” I said. “She’s gone to Sunderland Point to sail for her homeland, Greece.”
It was a lie, of course, but what could I do? There was no way I was going to deliver Meg into his hands. The man would take her north to Caster—where, no doubt, she’d eventually hang.
I could see that the parish constable wasn’t satisfied, but there was little he could do about it immediately. Being a local, he knew not to enter my garden for fear of what he might find there. Generations of spooks had lived and worked at Chipenden, and the villagers believed the house and its surroundings were haunted by denizens of the dark. So he went away with his tail between his legs. I had to keep Meg away from the village from that day forth. It proved difficult and was the cause of many arguments between us, but there was worse to come.
Egged on by his sister, the constable went to Caster and made a formal complaint to the high sheriff there. Consequently, they sent a young constable with a warrant to arrest Meg. I was told about his imminent arrival by the village blacksmith, so I was ready. I needed to get Meg away as quickly as possible.
My former master had bequeathed another house to me. It lay on the edge of brooding Anglezarke Moor. I had visited it just once and found little about it to my taste. Now it could be put to good use. In the dead of night, very late in the autumn, Meg and I journeyed to Anglezarke and set up home there.
It was a bleak place, wet and windy, with the winter threatening long months of ice and snow. The house had no garden and was built in a ravine, right back against a sheer rocky crag that kept it in shadow for most of the day. It was big, with ten bedrooms, including an attic, and a deep cellar; but even though I lit fires in every room, it was cold and damp—not a place where I could safely store books. However, we made the best of it and were happy for a while. But then there was an unexpected development that made my life much more difficult.
Unbeknown to me, Meg had written to her sister, giving her our new address. When the reply arrived, she became agitated. I found her pacing up and down in the kitchen, the letter clutched to her chest.
“What ails you, woman?” I demanded.
“It’s my sister, Marcia,” she admitted at last. “Unless we help, she’ll be killed for sure. Can she come here to us?”
I groaned inside. Her sister? Another lamia witch!
“Where is she now?”
“Far to the north, beyond the boundaries of the County. She’s being hidden and protected, but it can’t go on for much longer or those who guard her will be in danger themselves. There’s a quisitor in the area, and he’s already growing suspicious. A thorough search is being carried out. Please say she can come here,” Meg begged. “Please do. She’s my only relative in the whole world.”
Quisitors worked for the Church, and hunted down and burned witches. I had no love for such men—they would burn a spook too if they got the chance. Often they were corrupt and colluded with jealous neighbors to burn women who were totally innocent of witchcraft. Afterward the quistitors confiscated their land and grew rich.
“She can come for a while until the danger is over,” I said, relenting at last. I was too much in love with Meg to deny her anything.
Meg wrote back, and later that week a reply came. Her sister was traveling to Anglezarke by coach. We were to meet her on the Bolton road at the foot of the moor.
“She’s coming by night,” Meg said. “It’ll be safer for her that way.”
CHAPTER III
Just a Pussycat
SO it was that just after midnight we waited, shivering, at the crossroads for the coach that would bring her sister to stay with us. There was still snow on the ground, but there had been no fresh falls for over three days, so I was reasonably confident that the road would be open. At last, in the distance, we saw the coach approaching, the breath of the team of six horses steaming in the cold night air.
I waited for Marcia to alight from the coach, but instead the driver and his mate jumped down and began to unfasten the ropes that bound something large to the back. They carried it toward us and laid it at our feet. It was a black coffin.
Without a word, the two men climbed back up onto the coach. Then the driver cracked his whip, brought the horses about, and off they went again, back the way they’d come. I felt cold inside. Colder than the air freezing my forehead and cheeks.
“Don’t tell me this is what I think it is,” I said softly.
“My sister is inside. How else could she have gotten here undetected?”
“She’s feral, isn’t she?”
Meg nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would never have allowed her to come here.”
Cursing under my breath, I helped Meg drag the coffin back up the slope toward the house. Beautiful though she was, Meg was extremely strong, and once back in the house she wasted no time in tearing off the lid with her bare hands.
I stood back, my staff at the ready. “Can you control her?” I asked.
“She’s just a pussycat.” Meg smiled, stepping back to allow Marcia to scuttle from the open coffin.
It was the first time I’d seen a lamia in the feral form. My master had described them to me, and I’d read entries from books in t
he Chipenden library, but nothing could have prepared me for the actual thing.
Marcia was far from human in shape: she balanced herself, as if ready to spring, on four thin limbs that ended in large hands. Each finger ended in a long claw. Her back was covered in green-and-yellow scales, and her hair was long and greasy, falling over her shoulders as far as the ground. Her face, which looked up at us each in turn, was like something out of a nightmare, with gaunt features and heavy-lidded eyes.
Marcia first took up residence in the attic, and this worked well enough for a week or so. A feral lamia can summon birds to her side, where they wait in thrall, unable to fly off, until she finally devours them. The attic had a big skylight, and I would hear the birds gathering on the roof, then their cries of terror as she pulled off their wings and, too late, they realized they were food for a lamia.
Then there were the rats. She could summon them, too. I would hear them squealing in excitement as they climbed up the drainpipes, finally using the same route as the birds and dropping through the skylight to scamper across the floorboards. Every evening I would hear Marcia scuttling about as she chased them, and Meg would look up from her weaving and give me a warm smile.
“She likes a juicy rat, that sister of mine. But the chase is as good as the eating!”
Every week Meg would bring Marcia raw meat from the butcher’s to supplement her diet. She looked after her sister well, regularly sweeping the attic floor clean of feathers and rat skins. I wasn’t happy, but what could I do? I didn’t want to lose Meg. And I reasoned that a feral lamia was better off safe in the attic of my house than roaming free and threatening the County.
The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Page 279