Darkwitch Rising (43 page)

Neither spoke. Both were still so paralysed by the horror of what they had witnessed they were literally incapable of speaking about it. Their minds could hardly process the events of the day.

There was only one thing they were sure of, one thing they had learned from this day, and that was that to run from this house was death. Neither doubted that Weyland would hunt them down…and now that they had seen what he could do when fully enraged…

Elizabeth and Frances had ever been in Weyland’s power. Now they were so terrified of him, so sure that he was the Devil himself, they were virtually incapable of independent thought or action.

During all of this Catling sat in her corner, her eyes following Elizabeth and Frances as they worked, but not moving or speaking.

As always, she had not lifted a finger to help.

The night closed in. High in his Idyll, Weyland could not see it so much as feel it.

But the gathering darkness was not the worst thing he could feel.

The entire building in which he sat throbbed with pain. It ran upwards like fiery rivulets defying gravity, sharp and agonising, pulsating with every
beat of Noah’s heart, searing deep into every fibre of Weyland’s being.

Damn her!

He sat in the room he used for his bedchamber, on the floor, back against the wall, knees drawn up. He sank his face into his hands, his fingers clenched into his hair, and groaned.

Damn her!

The night drew on, and grew colder.

The pain continued to slither up through the beams of the house, slicing into Weyland’s bones.

The very soil beneath the house seemed to tremble, as if it wept.

A moan drifted up through the house, and Weyland knew it was not either of the women, but the land itself.

Weyland’s hands grew whiter where they gripped his hair.

Finally, cursing, he rose to his feet, stiff and sore from his long hours sitting on the floor. He marched through the Idyll and into the vestibule, where the imps sat cross-legged on the floor, rolling dice and picking their noses.

“Stay here,” Weyland said, and walked through the doorway into the house, slamming the door behind him.

Frances gave an incoherent cry of pure fear as he strode into the kitchen, retreating as far as possible against the back wall of the room.

Weyland sent her a look of seething ill will, then looked at Elizabeth.

She sat at the table, looking gaunt and wretched. She’d been resting her face in her hands, elbows on the table, and she merely raised her face and looked at Weyland as he entered.

Weyland shifted his gaze to where Jane and Noah
lay. They were completely still, the blankets that covered them dark and heavy with their blood.

Weyland’s jaw visibly clenched, then he jerked his eyes back to Elizabeth. “Come here,” he said.

She tensed, her eyes almost starting from her head, but to her credit she did as he asked. Rising from the table, she walked stiffly to where Weyland stood.

He jerked his head at Noah and Jane. “I will need your help,” he said.

Elizabeth gave a small nod. “Anything,” she said.

Weyland’s eyes grew harder. “
Anything
?”

“Anything for Noah and for Jane,” said Elizabeth. “Not for you.”

Weyland had lived many scores of lives, but nothing anyone had said to him had hurt so much as that simple statement from Elizabeth. He remembered how she’d wounded him long ago, when he’d made love to her, and she’d spoken plain, unadorned words that had sent him reeling away. How had she this power, this simple girl? Where had she this majesty?

“For Noah and for Jane, then,” he said softly, “if not for me.”

And he turned to the women.

Elizabeth drew a deep breath, picked up the lamp, and followed a step behind him.

The girls had stripped Noah and Jane naked, although both wore a bandage wrapped about their abdomens and hips. Between them Elizabeth and Weyland rolled Noah over onto her stomach, then Weyland ripped the bandage apart.

He stopped for a moment, motionless, staring at the wound. It was the size of a plate, stretching from hip to hip and almost to her waist. All the skin had gone, the bones of her spine and part of her pelvis lay bare, and blood vessels continuously seeped blood.

By rights she should not have been alive.

Weyland raised his head and looked at Elizabeth.

She raised an eyebrow.

Weyland held her stare a moment, then he sighed, and laid his hands upon Noah’s back.

They met on a hilltop, amid an infinite vista of hilltops. The grass was warm beneath their feet, the gentle breeze mild, and yet, even so, the tears on her cheek felt like ice
.

The very soil of the Faerie was moaning in grief
.

“
Why?” she said. “Why heal me? This is a greater torment than anything else you have done
.”

A muscle flinched in his cheek, and he turned away, pretending to study the forested hills which rolled away from him
.

She wrapped her arms about herself. “This must be a trick. You are the Minotaur. You do not ‘heal’
.”

He whipped back to her. “And why not? Am I such a blackhearted beast that I cannot aid
?”

“
You are a destroyer, nothing more. And if this man who stands before me is real…then you cannot be the Minotaur. A simple problem. Either you are the Minotaur, who has nothing for a heart save black ice, or you are an impostor, who pretends to be the Minotaur for his own purposes
.”

He came very close to her. “A simple problem, eh? Have I no ability to change? To
feel?
Tell me, are you still that shrieking harpy of a girl you once were, shallower even than the rivers of happiness that run through Idol Lane, or have you grown into something else
?”

She was silent, and her eyes dropped away from his
.

“
And if you can grow,” he said, “why not me
?”

There was a long silence, Weyland staring at Noah, she looking at the ground. About them the warm breeze wafted, gentle and caressing
.

Eventually, Noah looked up and spoke words that were part prophecy, part bewilderment. “Weyland, Weyland, what are we doing? How can we stop? How can we stop
?”

A
s she lay on the floor of the kitchen through that long night of the 29th, Jane dreamed that she stood in the fields outside the Tower of London.

Ariadne was not here now. But the fact that Jane
was
here made her realise something that had niggled at her while she and Noah had talked with Ariadne. The ancient witch had used vast power to pull Noah and Jane to her—her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth.

Jane stood in Tower Fields and frowned: Ariadne had used her power as Mistress of the Labyrinth to pull Noah and herself to this spot. Jane knew there was something about this fact she should grasp, but just before she actually managed it, she heard a soft footfall behind her.

She whipped about, sure it must be Weyland.

But it was a man, tall and brown-skinned, dark hair shifting slightly in the breeze, dressed only in a pair of leather breeches and wearing a crown of twigs and red berries on his head.

Jane knew who he was instantly, although she had never, in any of her lives, met him. Still, she had once been MagaLlan, and
she knew who he was
.

The Lord of the Faerie.

A vicious chill swept through Jane.

Was he here to murder her? What
other
reason? She took a half step away, then halted as he spoke.

“I thought you were Noah,” he said. “I felt…I wanted…I thought you were Noah. It was why I came.”

Pain swept through Jane. She’d suffered terribly at Weyland’s hands, but nothing he had done to her, not even when the imp had torn itself free of her body, had wounded her this deeply.

Everyone always wanted Noah, never her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Then his head tilted slightly. “Ah. You are Jane, yes? Weyland’s sister?”

“You well know who I
am
.”

He smiled. “Always the same Genvissa.”

She frowned. Why speak of her as if he knew her?

He walked towards her. “Don’t you know me?”

He was upon her before Jane saw through the aura of power that encased him and recognised his features. “Coel!”

She would have spun away—now she was more certain than ever that he would murder her—but he seized her arm. The instant his flesh touched hers his face softened, and she saw real sorrow in his eyes. “Oh, gods…Weyland hurt you, as well as Noah. Tell me, Jane. Are you still alive?”

“Are you sure you are not asking if Noah lives?”

“I ask for both of you.”

“I live. She lives. Barely.”

His face relaxed. “That pleases me.”

“That Noah lives, surely, but not that I—”

“I am pleased also that you live.”

“I cannot believe
that
.”

His hand moved from her arm to her shoulder, and then to the back of her neck. “I have had my revenge on you, Jane. We are even.” Then he looked about. “What are these fields to you? Why stand here in your extremity, gazing at the Tower?”

“I do not wish to speak of it to you.”

She thought he might object, but he didn’t.

“I felt a great need to come here. Why, Jane, do you think?”

“I don’t know.” His hand was very warm on the back of her neck, and she wished he’d move it.

“The Faerie sent me here,” he said.
The Faerie, the power that underlay everything connected with the magical creatures of the land
. “I thought it was to meet with Noah. I had
hoped—
”

He laughed as he saw the expression on her face. “But I have found you instead. It is not my day for luck, eh?”

She felt like spitting at him, and then, to her amazement, realised he was teasing her. She gave a small, unconvincing smile.

The hand at the back of her neck moved about the side of her face, to her forehead, sweeping back the wing of hair away from her sores.

“Ah, Jane. I am sorry.”

His fingers slid over her poxed cheekbones, and she wished she had the strength to turn aside her face.

“The Faerie sent me to meet you,” he said. “
Why
?”

“To murder me? What else?”

The fingers were still working on her cheeks, then they slid back to her forehead.

“This disease has deep claws,” he said.

She gave a nod.

Then suddenly she gave a yelp, and sprang back from his hand.

He laughed merrily. “Not any more!” he said.

Jane had halted a pace or two away from him, staring. Slowly she reached up her hands to her face, and felt her forehead.

Her sores had closed over. Her brow was not quite smooth, for there were ridges and lines where the sores had closed…but it
was
healed.

Indeed, Jane felt well. Every bit of pain that had plagued her—not merely that which Weyland had visited on her over the past day, but
every
ache—had gone.

She opened her mouth, and then closed it, unable for the moment to comprehend what had just happened.

Suddenly there came the sound of beating wings. Jane flinched, and the Lord of the Faerie lifted his face. “Look,” he said, and Jane reluctantly lifted her own face.

A magpie, all deep blues and blacks, hovered above them and, as they watched, slowly descended until it sat on Jane’s shoulder. She tensed, but before she could move the Lord of the Faerie held out his hand.

The magpie jumped from Jane’s shoulder to his fingers, trilled a short phrase of some melodious, magical song, and then flew away.

Within a moment it had vanished.

“Aha,” said the Lord of the Faerie. “
Now
I know why the Faerie sent me here. Well, well, Jane. Here’s a turnabout for you and me.”

“What do you mean?”

He answered with his own question. “Will you be coming back to the fields?”

She blinked at him, still disorientated by all that had occurred over the past few minutes.

“Yes,” he said, “I can feel that you shall return. This place pulls you for some reason. Well, when next you come, meet me by the scaffold.” He pointed to a spot at the northern extremity of Tower Fields. There several man-high posts stuck up from the grass, half rotted with age. A scaffold had once stood there, not used in generations.

“But—” she said.

“Meet me by the scaffold, Jane.” There was power and authority in his voice, and so she merely nodded.

In the next instant he was gone, and her dream fading.

Jane roused very slowly from unconsciousness. She fought it because of the pain she knew would assail her the instant she came to her senses, and because of the further pain she was sure Weyland would inflict on her the moment he realised she was conscious.

She could not believe that what had happened in dream would follow her into waking.

But when Jane could fight it no longer, and when she
did
wake, it was to find that not only was there little pain, there was
less
pain than she had had to endure every day for the past several years. The constant ache of her legs and spine was gone. Her abdomen, torn apart by her imp, was merely aching slightly.

Gods
, she thought, her eyes still closed,
the Lord of the Faerie
did
heal
me!

She could hardly comprehend it. Healed. Left without pain and the terrible humiliation of those sores. Jane had never thought to be healed of her pox. A life free of the pox had not once entered into her wildest wishes and hopes.

But it was not just the pox that had been healed. By rights Jane knew she should be dead—no one, surely, could have survived the terrible torture of that imp’s exit. At the very least she should be assailed with agony.

But…nothing, save for those few aches and cramps.