The Ragwitch Page 8

  Angry thoughts swarmed through the Ragwitch’s mind, lightly touching Julia as they swarmed past like molten butterflies. Each carried memories of pain and hatred, and an intense, biting cold. Then they were gone, and the Ragwitch’s private thoughts once again drew back, away from the small section of Her mind that Julia shared.

  A few minutes passed while the Ragwitch stood completely still within the ring of Angarling. A few of the guard Gwarulch sneaked back, but they took care to keep still and silent, echoing their Mistress’ mood. Julia took the opportunity to peer about, but she could see very little through the gaps between each Angarling, and there was still a lot of smoke. They seemed to be in some sort of square bordered by houses, most of which were either blackened ruins, or were still burning. All except one house, a timber, two-storey building of green panels between exposed black beams. It stood unharmed, between two other burning houses—and it wasn’t even singed.

  The Ragwitch moved Her head, and Julia had the uncomfortable feeling of having her eyeballs move involuntarily—except they weren’t really hers, she thought sadly, so it was only an imaginary discomfort. At first, Julia couldn’t see what the Ragwitch had turned to look at, then Oroch emerged from the smoke. He was still wrapped in tar-black bandages, but now he wore a blue silk shirt, still bloodied from its previous owner. Six Gwarulch formed a ring around him, peering into the smoke with their harsh red eyes, looking for anyone foolish enough to attack the Ragwitch’s most trusted servant.

  “So, Oroch!” snapped the Ragwitch, before he was even past the Angarling. “The Art is dead and forgotten in Bevallan! Then how do you explain that?”

  Oroch followed Her outstretched arm, and saw the green house standing intact amidst blackened ruin. His wet, red mouth gaped several times, and then he squeaked, “Perhaps just luck, Mistress? A simple coincidence, to have avoided the fire…”

  The Ragwitch hissed, exposing her shark-like teeth, and Oroch fell silent, cringing. She towered over him, and slowly reached out a puffy, three-fingered hand. Clumsily, She gripped the end of one of Oroch’s bandages.

  “Three failures I allow you, Oroch,” She whispered, Her voice full of menace. “And then we shall see what lies beneath these bandages I placed upon you so long ago. That house is protected by the Rune of Lys, and the Rune of Yrsal, and the Rune of Carral. And they are fresh-painted, Oroch, and that is your first failure. Two more, and…” Cruelly, She started to draw the end of the bandage off. Oroch whimpered, and She let go, turning towards the black-beamed house of green. “Lys, Yrsal and Carral,” whispered the Ragwitch, her wormlike tongue flicking out with each word. “But that is only three of four, and none to keep out Me!”

  She laughed at that, and Oroch chuckled. The Gwarulch picked up Her mood, and grinned, exposing their yellow, dog-like canines thrusting out of white-flecked gums. Julia listened to Her cackling, and felt a sudden bond with whoever might be in the green and black house. I hope they get away, she thought, with an urgency she hadn’t felt before, even for herself. Oh please, let them get away!

  “Forward,” said the Ragwitch, and the Angarling tromped ahead, carven faces set towards the house. The Ragwitch let them advance until they stood just outside the lower windows, and then halted them with a wave of Her puffy arm. Inside the house, a shutter banged, and the Ragwitch laughed again, striding forward to the heavy, oaken door. She reached out to the handle, and the iron flared like a giant sparkler at a fireworks display. Inside, a clear, high voice said, “Lys!,” a woman’s voice, or perhaps a girl’s, with a note of command and urgency.

  The handle spat white sparks even higher as the woman inside spoke, but the Ragwitch merely reached forward, and the light dimmed and the sparks went out. With a slight flick, the Ragwitch forced the door open, and compressing Her limp body through the doorway, stepped inside.

  “Yrsal,” said the voice, more urgently, this time, and both Julia and the Ragwitch instantly saw the speaker. Just past the front door, she stood in the hallway. Tall and slight, her white hair hung down past her waist, over a green robe. Julia saw her face, old and kind, with sea green eyes that somehow saw Julia, and not just the Ragwitch.

  But the Ragwitch saw only the old woman’s meager trappings of power: a silver knife, a stalk of rowan, and knowledge of only three scant runes.

  “Yrsal,” said the old woman again, in a commanding tone, holding the silver knife up against her chest. A little light ran along the blade, but the Ragwitch raised an arm, and the blade dimmed, and tarnished, turning black before the woman’s eyes.

  “Carral,” said the woman, softly, dropping the knife, and drawing the sprig of rowan. “Carral,” she said again, blowing gently on the sprig, and placing it on the floor. It lay there for a second, then shivered, and began to throw out green shoots. Julia watched amazed at the sprig’s sudden growth and the Ragwitch’s inaction.

  Inside a minute, the sprig was a full-grown rowan tree, and the old woman seemed to relax behind its protection. The Ragwitch watched, unmoved, as the old woman stepped back and admired her handiwork.

  “Pass that, if you can, monster!” called out the woman cheerfully. “You might have got everyone else, but Rowan will fix you!”

  The Ragwitch bowed Her head, and for a fragment of a second, Julia thought She might be beaten. Then, Julia felt the Ragwitch laughing inside, as She reached forward and touched the rowan tree.

  “On the contrary,” hissed the Ragwitch, suddenly snapping up to her full height. “I shall have you, Half-Witch!”

  The rowan tree shriveled at Her touch, and the old woman screamed as the Ragwitch loomed above her, and slammed her down onto the floor. She tried to squirm away, but the Ragwitch bent down, pinning her with one outstretched hand, as her toothy maw bent closer and closer towards the helpless victim.

  As she fainted, Julia caught the partial image of the old woman’s left hand reaching up to touch a tiny silver acorn to the Ragwitch’s side. Then it and everything else vanished into a panicked blackness.

  7

  A Friend of Beasts/Lyssa

  PAUL LOOKED BACK up at Rhysamarn again, unsure of how he’d gone so far in such a short time. He’d only left Tanboule a few hours ago, but he was already past the grey shale and the heather, and was once more looking down on green fields neatly separated by low stone walls. Directly below him, a road stretched from right to left, cut into the broken ground where the foothills of Rhysamarn flattened out into the valley.

  There were quite a few sheep about (they were black and scrawny, unlike the merinos Paul was used to), but there was no sign of any people—or of any kind of house or village. The valley grew wider to the east (or what Paul thought was east), so he cut across in that direction, walking easily down the hill to the road.

  Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t really a road, but more of a well-travelled track. Paul noticed wheelmarks in the yellow clay, and for an instant, thought of cars. But the tracks were treadless, and very narrow. Still, they were tracks, and a sign of other people, so Paul kept heading east, feeling reasonably cheerful. Tanboule had said nothing to ease his mind, but at least he now had a definite purpose, even if it did sound a little bit mad.

  Paul laughed to himself, imagining asking a passerby for the Earth Lady’s address, or directions to the Water Lord’s house. He was still giggling a little when a voice suddenly addressed him from behind.

  “Hey! Boy! Have you seen a hare go past?”

  Paul turned around slowly, expecting to see whoever had spoken, but the road was empty, and there was no one over in the fields, or up on the hill.

  “I said, have you seen a hare?” asked the voice again, from the sound of it, not too far away. At the same time, a dark shadow fell across Paul, and he shivered, instinctively looking up to face whatever new horror might be there.

  “Well, have you seen a hare?” asked the voice, a little angrily—and this time, Paul could see the speaker. About ten meters above, a huge balloon drifted silently along, the bright yellow
lozenges painted on its sides brilliant in the sunlight.

  A wicker basket swung below it, suspended by a complicated tracery of ropes and wires. In the basket, a rather short man was hanging over the side, calling to Paul. “Have…you…seen…a…hare!” shouted the man. “You know, like a rabbit, but with longer ears!”

  Paul looked around quickly, but couldn’t see anything. “No, I haven’t seen a hare!” he shouted. “Where’s it supposed to be?”

  “She!” shouted the man. “It’s a she! And she’s supposed to be…oh, never mind! I’ll come down.”

  Paul watched as the man leaned back into the basket and vanished from sight. He was expecting a loud hiss of escaping air or gas to make the balloon sink, but there wasn’t a sound. Instead, the balloon silently rose up several meters, and started to steadily climb into the sky, accompanied by a loud outbreak of what sounded like the man cursing and swearing.

  The balloon started to head east, so Paul followed it, since it was heading in his direction anyway. It went up and down rather erratically, before finally coming down to land, several hundred meters up the road. The short man immediately got out, and began fastening ropes to the stone wall, an ancient stump and anything else nearby that looked solid. Obviously, he’d had to land like this before, as the balloon started to rise again, till the anchor ropes were at full stretch, and the basket was a meter or so above the ground.

  Closer to, Paul saw that the short man was in fact, more of an older boy than a man—though muscular and solidly built, he was rather short, though still taller than Paul. He wore an odd assortment of clothing, including several brilliantly colored shirts, all of which seemed in bad repair. A mulberry-colored hat rested shapelessly on top of his windswept, sandy-colored hair, and he looked and acted like the most disorganized person Paul had ever met.

  “Hello!” he cried, as Paul ran over to help him with an escaping rope. He favored Paul with an uneven smile before letting out a cry of dismay, and rushing over to yet another anchor-rope that had somehow come undone.

  “Know anything about knots?” he called out to Paul, who was quietly retying the nearest rope, which had just pulled out of the most complicated and useless knot he’d ever seen.

  “I know a couple,” replied Paul, dashing over to help retie the main anchor-line, which had suddenly relinquished its hold on the old stump. The balloonist rushed past to tie up another rope, and Paul took a closer look at him. He seemed human enough, and Tanboule had said that he would meet someone who could help him. But Tanboule had also said that there would always be some humans who would serve Her…

  Then the balloonist tripped, and fell swearing amidst a tangled skein of ropes. Paul looked at him vainly trying to free himself, and decided that anyone who could swear with such color and variety must be all right.

  “I’m Paul,” he said quietly, helping untangle the other boy. He felt a slight qualm in doing so—the balloonist was at least two or three years older than Paul, and at school, if a younger kid helped an older one after an accident, the younger often ended up with a belt around the head—after all, someone had to be blamed for the accident. But the balloonist merely dusted himself off, and said, “Thank you. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Quigin, a Friend of Beasts.”

  He made an elaborate sort of bow, complete with many waves of his hat, but this was lost on Paul, who was looking around for some beasts. He half expected to see a griffon wheeling in from the sun, or perhaps a pair of wolves loping through the fields—but the sky was a clear, vacant blue, and there was nothing in the fields, save sheep.

  “A Friend of Beasts?” asked Paul, hesitantly. “I’m not quite sure…”

  “Well, Friend of a Beast, at the moment,” interrupted Quigin. “Leasel. She’s a hare. But I have almost finished my apprenticeship, and then I’ll have more time to make friends…with beasts.”

  “What are you an apprentice of?” asked Paul, thinking of electricians and plumbers—or whatever equivalents they might have in this rather backward kingdom.

  “I told you,” replied Quigin, surprised. “I’m an Apprentice Friend of Beasts. Don’t you believe me?”

  Paul started to say that he did believe him, but Quigin just kept on talking. “Look—I’ll just find Leasel, and that’ll prove it!”

  “Fine,” replied Paul. He was starting to think that this strange boy probably couldn’t help him anyway, but after cabbage-planting wise men, he wasn’t so sure. In any case, Quigin ignored him, and started walking along beside the nearest stone wall, calling out, “Leasel! Leasel!”

  After he’d called several times to no effect, Quigin came back and sat down on the wall. Paul sat down next to him, and said, “Excuse me…but…what was your hare doing down here, while you were up in the balloon?”

  “Having lunch,” replied Quigin, rather sharply. Then he sighed, and added, “I still haven’t quite got the knack of that balloon thing yet. So instead of landing, I lowered Leasel on a piece of rope, so she could get something to eat. But the first thing she chewed was the rope, and then she just ran off into the weeds, somewhere along this wall.”

  “Well, surely she’ll come back,” said Paul.

  “Yes. I suppose so,” said Quigin. “Master Cagael’s Friends never run off!”

  “Are they hares too?” asked Paul, just to be polite. But Quigin didn’t seem too pleased with this question, only grunting before reluctantly answering. “No. He’s got eagles and dogs and otters and all manner of beasts. I’m the only Friend of Beasts whose Friend is a stupid hare.”

  He looked at Paul with an angry glare, and then suddenly jumped to his feet. Paul leapt back nervously, but Quigin ran off down the wall to dive at something that was lurking in the weeds. There was a scuffle for a second, then he stood up with a silver-grey hare, held securely by its two long, aristocratic ears.

  “Leasel?” asked Paul.

  The other boy nodded, but didn’t answer. Instead, he held the hare up to his eyes, until their noses were almost touching. The hare seemed to be trying to look away, but slowly her eyes focused on Quigin’s, and he began to whisper in a voice so low Paul couldn’t even catch the language, let alone the words.

  After a few seconds, Quigin put the hare down, and released her ears. Paul expected her to dash off like any disturbed animal, but she quietly began nibbling on a large, nasty-looking weed.

  “She was sorry for being troublesome,” said Quigin. “So she’ll probably behave for a few hours with any luck. Now, with Leasel out of the way, all I have to do is get back to Sasterisk. You wouldn’t know anything about balloons would you?”

  “No,” said Paul, surprised that anyone would ask him if he knew anything about balloons. Mostly people just assumed that he didn’t know anything about anything.

  “Never mind,” said Quigin, cheerfully. He sat down on the wall, and started to scratch Leasel behind the ears, while Paul wondered if he should continue walking along the road. He was just about to get up and go, when Quigin jumped up again, and slapped himself on the side of the head.

  “Paul! You said your name’s Paul!”

  “Yes,” replied Paul, wondering why Quigin was looking at him in such a strange way—almost as if he was trying to remember where he’d seen him last.

  “You’re certain your name is Paul?” asked Quigin again, almost fearfully. When Paul nodded, he sighed, and sat down again, scratching his head.

  “Is my name important?” asked Paul anxiously. He’d read stories where people had their heads chopped off because the natives hadn’t liked their names. But that was always when they spoke different languages…

  “Paul,” said Quigin, out into the air, as if he was talking to himself. “He was very exact. He said Paul several times, and even spelled it out for me. Paul as in ‘shawl,’ except with a ‘p.’”

  “Who said this?” asked Paul, rather nervously. “What are you talking about?”

  “The man who lent me the balloon,” replied Quigin, vaguely pointing towards the
great yellow-lozenged balloon and the wicker basket below it. “Master Thruan. He’s a friend of my Master, and a great traveller and storyteller.”

  “But what did he say about me?” asked Paul.

  “Well,” said Quigin slowly. “I didn’t believe him at the time, but he told me that I could borrow his balloon. I’d always wanted to ride in a balloon, so I jumped at the chance…and Master Cagael didn’t mind giving me the day off…”

  “Yes, yes,” interrupted Paul. “But what did this Thruan tell you about me? Did he mention the Elementals?”

  “No,” replied Quigin. “He said that if I should meet a boy named Paul, I was to take him wherever he wanted in the balloon—no matter how long it might take! And Master Cagael agreed! But I thought it was only a joke…”

  “This Master Thruan,” said Paul. “What does he do?”

  “He doesn’t do anything that I know of,” said Quigin. “Leastwise, he doesn’t work like normal folk. He travels mostly—though not always by balloon.”

  “Oh,” replied Paul, disappointed. “He’s not a Wizard then?”

  Quigin raised one eyebrow, and paused, before replying. “I didn’t say that,” he said. “Though there’s few enough of that sort round these days. Mind you, my old Gran always said there was something a bit sorcerous about Master Thruan. And if he weren’t up to his ears in Magic, how would he know I’d meet you?”

  “Well,” said Paul hesitantly. “If he said you were to take me anywhere, I’d like to go and see this Master Thruan.”

  “That’s one place I can’t take you,” said Quigin. “He’s gone—and he never tells anyone when he’ll be back, or where he’s going. I suppose we could try looking for him…”

  “I suppose so,” answered Paul, doubtfully. Master Thruan seemed like a good person to talk to about the Elementals, and where Paul might find them. But if it took too long to find Thruan, it might be too late for Julia—and everyone.