The Ragwitch Read online

  Then the Ragwitch screamed, a long, chilling scream that rose and fell with the rhythm of the surf. Deep inside the Ragwitch’s mind, Julia felt what it was like to deliver that scream—the exultation of freedom, the flexing of power, and worst of all…the expectation of an answer.

  At first, silence greeted the Ragwitch’s scream, the silence of an audience just before the applause. But the answering calls were not long in coming: the dull rumblings of vast creatures, woken far beneath the earth, and the shrill whistlings of other beings closer at hand.

  “You see, my little Julia,” whispered the Ragwitch, Her leathery lips barely moving. “My servants remember My power well—even in this shape, they recognize Me! They still come when I call. You will like them.”

  “No,” said Julia, defiantly. She was absolutely sure that the things that made those noises would not be likeable at all.

  “Yes,” murmured the Ragwitch. “You will like them. Eventually.”

  She turned to the cliff, and began to climb up towards the top. Julia noticed that there was some sort of path, or eroded staircase—whichever it was, the Ragwitch seemed to know every turn and rise, neatly avoiding places where the cliff had fallen away. Below them, the screams and cries diminished to be replaced by the sounds of movement: sounds of scraping claws, and footfalls that did not sound human.

  Locked within the Ragwitch’s mind, Julia kept trying to turn her head—a reflex to see those things behind her. But while she knew her head should turn, it could not: Julia’s eyes were only those of the Ragwitch, and they were intent on the path ahead.

  Eventually, the huge leathery form of the Ragwitch reached the top of the cliff, a flat expanse of low shrubs and grasses, ill-lit in the last red light of the sun. The Ragwitch set off purposefully, pausing only to thrust back some of the yellow stuffing that leaked from her side. Once again, She did not look back.

  Crossing this flat, monotonous terrain seemed to take hours, and Julia dozed—asleep without closing her eyes, which were the Ragwitch’s, and so, never shut. A dream-like pattern of images filled her mind: loping through this dull land, then hurrying towards a rocky spire, a tower of twisted, volcanic rock which sparkled even in the starlight. The Ragwitch went to the spire, and began to climb…tirelessly, hand over hand, up to the very pinnacle, up to the blackest part of the night sky.

  Julia woke up in slow stages, as though she were swimming up from the bottom of a deep pool. The Ragwitch was now sitting on some sort of throne carved out of the glassy rock. Runes of red gold ran along the arms, disappearing down the front of the throne.

  Then, the Ragwitch looked down—and Julia felt her mind twitch, trying to tell nonexistent hands to grab hold of something before she fell…for the throne was on the very peak of the spire she had thought was a waking dream. The throne rested hundreds of meters up, on the thin needle-point of the spire’s peak, with nothing else about it, no flat place nor protective railing.

  The Ragwitch looked up again, tilting Her head back, and Julia felt Her lips creaking back across the snail-flesh gums, the mouth opening to scream again. The Calling Scream, the Voice of Summoning, welled up from the recesses of the Ragwitch’s dark power, high on Her ancient throne that men had called the Spire.

  This time, Julia screamed as well, a thin, mental shriek that was swallowed up by the Ragwitch’s own great roar. But it was there—a sign of Julia’s resistance to her captor.

  As the Calling Scream died away, the moon’s first light crept across the ground. It slowly inched forward, crossing the sparkling rock of the Spire, to light up the ground before it: a sunken bowl of that same glassy, lifeless rock. But long ago the rock had been shaped into tiers of seats, which wound erratically around and around in a giant spiral, as though shaped by a drunken architect.

  Then the Ragwitch’s Calling Scream was answered from the Terrace-Hole below by bellows and screams, mad hyena-like laughter and shrill whistlings.

  “Now you see them,” whispered the Ragwitch, Her thoughts battering at the silent Julia. “Do you like them?”

  Julia didn’t answer, horrified at the sight of the creatures that thronged in the moonlight below. The Ragwitch smiled again, and looked down at a particular group of followers.

  Tall, sallow, humanoid in shape, they had patches of scale underlying their jaws and throats, and out-thrust upper jaws, with dog-like fangs made for rending flesh. Their arms were long and gibbon-like, ending in yellow-taloned hands. Their piggy, deep-set eyes looked up at the Ragwitch in adoration.

  “The Gwarulch,” muttered the Ragwitch. “Sneaking beasts—hungry for meat, but not too eager to fight for it. Except in My service.”

  Julia shuddered, feeling the Ragwitch’s thoughts of blood and killing. And not just thoughts, but memories too. Stark, frightening images of past slaughters, the Ragwitch triumphant, feasting…

  Julia screamed again, forcing the Ragwitch’s memories away. But still, she could not close her eyes, and the Ragwitch looked down upon more of Her creatures, awaiting orders in the Terrace-Hole below.

  “Angarling,” She told Julia, mentally pointing out a group of huge, pale white stones, roughly cut columns. Julia had taken them for statues, or part of the rock terraces. Through the Ragwitch’s eyes and memory, she now saw that on each of the huge stones was the weathered carving of an ancient face—full of sorrow and torment, anger and evil, all etched into the white stone.

  “Angarling!” shouted the Ragwitch, and the stones moved. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, they tramped to the base of the Spire. There they halted, and then came a great, welling boom which drowned out the cries of all the Ragwitch’s lesser servants.

  A dark shadow suddenly fell across the Ragwitch’s face, and Julia quivered, though no reflex of the Ragwitch moved. Her huge leathery head slowly tilted back, greasy yellow locks of dank hair falling around Her shoulders. Up above, a creature fluttered, its wings casting a shadow right across the throne.

  “The Meepers,” whispered the Ragwitch.

  It looks like a bat, thought Julia for an instant, but at the same time, she knew it did not. It had the wings and furry body of a bat, but the head was a fanged nightmare—a scaly mixture of piranha and serpent, with row upon row of gleaming teeth. And it was thirty times bigger than any bat, with wings that seemed wider than the sail on the yacht Julia had seen only the day before.

  The Meeper straightened its wings, and dropped past the Spire, falling away to the right. Others followed it, and the Ragwitch laughed as they hissed and bit at each other for their place in the line.

  Several hundred of the Meepers flew past in what seemed like several hours. Julia soon got more bored than frightened, and found that she could peer out of the corners of “her” eyes—perhaps even seeing things the Ragwitch could not. The creatures below disturbed her less now, and she began to count them—with a growing feeling of unease. She counted (or guessed at) over a thousand Gwarulch, at least a hundred of the statue-like Angarlings, and many hundreds of Meepers. And the thoughts of the Ragwitch were of fire and blood, death and destruction…Julia hastily tried to do sums in her head, barricading her mind against the memories—particularly the eating…

  “Gwarulch, Angarling and Meepers!” shouted the Ragwitch, Her voice sharp and malevolent, echoed everywhere by the black stone. “But where is Oroch? Who is Oroch to disdain Me, when I stand upon My Spire?”

  Down below, the Gwarulch shifted uneasily, muttering in their guttural language. Above, the Meepers flew in circles, angrily whistling at this Oroch who failed the Ragwitch. Only the Angarling were silent, white shapes impervious to any thoughts save the command of their Mistress.

  “Again, I say,” spat the Ragwitch, “Oroch! Your Mistress calls!”

  Inside the Spire, a rock cracked—and then another. Through the Ragwitch’s straw-stuffed feet, Julia felt the Spire shiver, and for a giddy second, was certain She would fall—that they would fall.

  Then the Spire steadied, and a single block of stone f
ell from halfway up, to smash unnoticed among the ranks of the silent Angarling. Julia watched, transfixed, as a hand emerged from the hole—a barely recognizable hand, wrapped in what looked like tar-cloth, or linen soaked in treacle.

  It was followed by another hand, and then a head, a faceless, cloth-wrapped head, that tilted back and forth like a broken toy. Then it steadied, and opened its mouth, a red, wet maw, stark and toothless against the black cloth.

  “Oroch was trapped, Mistress,” the thing moaned. “Locked in the Spire I built for you. But their work could not keep me when You called.”

  “Oroch,” said the Ragwitch with satisfaction. “Come to me.”

  The Ragwitch held out a single, three-fingered hand, in gross parody of a handshake. She flexed her fingers, and Julia felt a thrill run through them, a spark of sudden power. Quick as that spark, Oroch was there, holding Her fingers with both his tar-black, bandaged hands. His legs scrabbled for a second, then he relaxed, swinging slightly from side to side. Julia marveled at the Ragwitch’s strength, for Oroch was at least two meters tall, though thin and spindly.

  “Your power is not diminished, oh Mistress,” gasped Oroch, his red maw panting.

  “It is increased!” shouted the Ragwitch, suddenly throwing Oroch in the air and catching him as he hurtled back down. “Now that I have a body of undying cloth, it is increased!”

  4

  Gwarulch by Night/The Ragwitch Looks to the South

  THE AWE-GUH-AY-ER,” PAUL said once again, trying to match Aleyne’s pronunciation. The two of them sat at the prow of the River Daughter, which was rapidly making progress down that difficultly named river, aided by the current and the poling of Ennan and Amos, the brothers who owned the narrowboat.

  As Aleyne had expected, Paul had slept through two nights and a day, waking only that morning, rested if no less anxious. They had immediately embarked on the River Daughter, and the pair had spent the morning talking. Paul had spoken of his “adventures,” and of Julia and the Ragwitch; he’d also learnt that Aleyne was in fact Sir Aleyne, a Knight of the Court at Yendre—though from Aleyne’s description of what he did, he sounded more like a cross between a policeman and a park ranger, and he didn’t look at all like the knights in books or films. Aleyne had a particular love of the river Awgaer, and spent much of his time on its waters, or in the villages that shared the river banks with the wildfowl and water rats.

  “Perhaps you should just call it ‘the river,’” said Aleyne, laughing at Paul’s eighth attempt. “I hope you can do better with Rhysamarn—the Wise might refuse to see you if you can’t pronounce the name of their favorite mountain.”

  “Really?” asked Paul, who was often taken in by Julia’s jokes, but Aleyne was already laughing, his black mustache quivering with each chuckle.

  “No, lad—just my joke! But the Wise are strange, it’s true, and Rhysamarn is a strange mountain—or so they say.”

  “You’ve never been there?”

  “Well, I have almost been there,” replied Aleyne. “But I didn’t see the Wise. It was some years ago, when I was more foolish and rather vain. I thought to ask the Wise…well, I thought to gain some insight into procuring the love of a certain lady—a passing fancy, nothing more.”

  “What happened?” asked Paul eagerly, hoping that Aleyne (who was looking rather sheepish) wouldn’t avoid the question and trail off into a completely different story.

  “To tell the truth,” continued Aleyne, “I was halfway up the mountain when my horse brushed a tree and knocked down a wasps’ nest. The wasps chased me all the way down to the water trough at the Ascendant’s Inn, and my face was so stung I couldn’t go to Court for weeks—or see the lady.”

  “Perhaps you did see the Wise after all,” laughed Amos, who had been listening at the stern. Ennan laughed too, till both had to pole hard to keep the narrowboat straight within the current.

  “Maybe I did,” said Aleyne. “The lady in question did turn out to be rather different from what I had thought…”

  “Yes, but why are you taking me to this Rhysamarn place?” asked Paul. “Will the Wise find my sister, and take both of us back where we belong?”

  “As to the first,” answered Aleyne, “only the Wise could possibly know what has become of your sister—especially if she has become mixed up with…the One from the North.”

  Paul noticed that while Aleyne didn’t make the sign against witchcraft as often as old Malgar the Shepherd, he still did it occasionally—and he didn’t like using the Ragwitch’s name, now that he suspected She really did exist. “The One from the North” was the phrase he used to speak of the Ragwitch, or “Her,” with a hissing, audible capital “H.”

  “And for the second,” Aleyne continued, “I have never heard of such a place as yours, with its…carz and magics, so I suspect that if it does exist—and I believe you—the Wise will know of some way to get you back there.”

  “I hope so,” replied Paul sadly. Relaxing in this boat was all very well, and safely exciting, but it was still the world of the May Dancers, their forest…and the Ragwitch. Paul wished the Ragwitch had taken him, rather than Julia, so his sister would be the one who had to look for him. Still, from what Aleyne had hinted at, being with the Ragwitch wouldn’t be very nice at all—maybe even scarier than the forest…

  Paul slowly drifted off to sleep, one hand trailing over the side, occasionally brushing the water. Aleyne watched him, as he turned and mumbled about his sister Julia, and how life just wasn’t fair.

  When Paul awoke, it was early evening. The River Daughter was rocking gently, tied up against a jetty of old, greenish logs. Sitting up, Paul saw that the river was no longer narrow, but had widened into a majestic, slow-moving stretch of water at least a hundred meters wide. On either bank, open woodland sloped away from the river. To the west, yellow sunlight filtered down through the trees, the evening sun dipping down behind the upper parts of the wood. Paul watched sleepily as a bird flew up from the trees, crying plaintively as it rose higher into the greying sky.

  “Ornware’s Wood,” said Aleyne, who had been sitting on the wharf. “Not as old as the May Dancer’s forest, but much more pleasant. And the only creatures you should find here are hedge-pigs, deer, squirrels and suchlike.”

  “No kangaroos?” asked Paul, halfheartedly. From the sound of it, they were going to have to walk through this wood, and it was still much like the May Dancer’s forest, no matter what Aleyne said.

  “Kangaroos,” mused Aleyne (after Paul had described them). “No, I think there are none of those in Ornware’s Wood. But I have heard of animals like you describe, far to the south. Anyway, we must be going. There’s still an hour left of this half-light, and we will camp not too far away.”

  “O.K.,” replied Paul. “But where’s Ennan and Amos?”

  Aleyne looked at the empty boat for a second, then answered, “They’ve gone to pay their respects to a…man…who holds power over the next stretch of the river.”

  Paul wondered about Aleyne’s hesitation in describing the person the boatmen had gone to see. But Aleyne had already grabbed his pack, and the smaller one he’d made up for Paul—though it seemed heavy enough to its bearer.

  Half an hour later, it seemed even heavier, although the going was easy, and the wood pleasantly cool. Paul was glad when Aleyne finally stopped, and dropped his pack against a gnarled old oak. Paul thankfully followed suit, and sat down next to his temporarily eased burden.

  “We shall camp here,” said Aleyne. “There’s a small stream beyond that clump of trees. It drains into the river, and its water is clear and fresh. This will do very well; and from here it is a little less than a day to the Ascendant’s Inn at the foot of Rhysamarn.”

  Paul looked glumly around the camp site. He didn’t like camping, particularly when there was no shower and toilet building nearby, nor a caravan in case it rained. Julia, of course, loved camping, though she normally didn’t get the chance if Paul had anything to do with it.

/>   “Where’s our tent?” he asked Aleyne, as the latter opened up his pack, and took out a small iron pot.

  “Tent?” replied Aleyne, holding up the pot to the setting sun to look inside. “I have no tent—nor indeed, a horse to carry such a heavy thing, all poles and cloth! I’ve a wool cloak, same as you’ll find in your pack. Good greasy wool will keep the weather out.”

  “Oh,” said Paul, who hated the feel of wool, and didn’t like the sound of “greasy” wool. “Do you think it will rain?”

  Aleyne cast an eye up at the darkening sky, and said, “No clouds up there tonight. It might be cold, but it won’t rain.”

  Paul looked up, noticing how dark the sky was becoming. Night seemed very close—and of a threatening blackness. Paul shivered, and hastily opened his pack to find the wool cloak. Aleyne smiled, and putting the pot aside, began to gather sticks from a dead branch that had fallen nearby.

  A few hours later Paul sat by the crackling fire, drinking soup that Aleyne had made in the pot, from salt-dried beef and herbs he’d gathered in the forest. Paul dreamily watched the sparks creeping up the side of the little pot to suddenly launch themselves into the air with a snap and crackle. Warm and content, he wrapped himself in his woollen cloak, and fell asleep.

  Across the fire, Aleyne suddenly started, as if disturbed by a sudden thought. He stood up, listened, then rapidly doused the fire, smothering it in dirt. With the fire gone, the night was once again complete. Aleyne listened in the darkness for a while, then lay down between the roots of the old oak. He didn’t wrap himself in his cloak and kept his dagger close at hand. As he fell into a wary sleep, an old memory crept into Aleyne’s mind of a picture in his father’s house: a picture of a distant ancestor, standing fully armed and armored upon a battlefield, a dead North-Creature at his feet. Aleyne had always wondered why the artist had made him look more than a little afraid…

  Paul awoke in darkness to find Aleyne crouched at his side, barely visible in the starlight. He opened his mouth, but Aleyne quickly put his hand over it, before leaning forward to whisper, “Do not speak normally. We must be quiet.”