The White Towers (14 page)

“I feel ugly,” said Lorna, suddenly.

Haleesa said nothing. “Does it still pain you to walk?”

“A little,” nodded Lorna.

“It will be too far for you,” said Haleesa, laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder. The flesh felt soft and warm under Haleesa’s wrinkled fingers. The illusion was a good one. Perfect, in fact.

“I will survive.”

Haleesa took a deep breath, and looked into the intelligent, deep brown eyes before her. “Listen to me, girl. I believe it is a bad idea for you to go to the Palkran Settlement. It will only end in tears.”

“Their tears, or my tears?” Lorna cocked her head.

Haleesa shrugged. “I give only advice, child. You take it, or leave it.”

Lorna smiled, and placed her own hand on Haleesa’s shoulder this time. The old woman felt the gentle squeeze of fingers and again, marvelled at the depth of the illusion. Not only an illusion of light, but a manipulative illusion of the mind.

“I will make my own way in this,” said Lorna, gently.

 

Snow was falling as an exhausted Lorna walked slowly – uneasily – into the Palkran Settlement. Despite the illusion of a perfect body, she still felt great pain in her stumps when she walked for any great distance, and the nagging made the young girl frown as she cast her gaze about.

The few people in the street ignored her as she trudged through the snow, and she finally passed a long row of huts and arrived at the one which had been pointed out by Haleesa years earlier, from the hilltop. Many hours they had spent, seated on that hilltop watching the bustle of activity below. Haleesa had shown Lorna other things, her father, his brother, other people of the village whom Haleesa had delivered in birth or helped, over the years, with their illnesses and their medical problems.

Now, the faces swam before the young girl and she reached the hut and knocked with her pointed stump. The door opened revealing Gwynneth, a young child in her arms, her slim figure accentuated by long flowing skirts.

There was a moment of silence.

“I have come home,” said Lorna, softly.

Tears ran suddenly down Gwynneth’s face as realisation kicked her in the heart, and she stepped out into the snow, hugging the child before her. She brought Lorna inside, seated her on a chair, and added more fuel to the fire.

“I thought you near dead!” said Gwynneth at last, drying her eyes.

“I was very weak. I have been for a long time. But now… I am better.”

“Really? Did Haleesa not accompany you?”

“No.”

“You walked all the way through the forest alone?”

“Yes. I am careful, mother. I am safe.”

With these words, Gwynneth began to cry once more and she hugged the young boy in her arms tightly to her breast as his wide eyes fixed on his older sister: ogling, spit dribbling down his chin.

“Where is… my sister?” asked Lorna, after a few moments of comfortable silence.

“Out with Sweyn… your father. They are buying bread and vegetables from a trader whose wagon is stuck in the snow. He is selling food cheap – most would be rotten if he waited until the wagon was freed by thaw. He will be
amazed
by this event! By you!”

“Before…” she took a deep breath, “before they come,” said Lorna softly, “I must show you something.”

Gwynneth nodded, her face frowning with a spark of confusion.

“Show me something? Like what?”

“Do you think me pretty, mother?”

Gwynneth nodded, as she could see the structure of Sweyn’s face in the girl’s unblemished features.

“I was not born this way. I was born different. But I need to show you. I must show you, for this shell is just an illusion. You are my mother. I need you to know the truth.”

“Truth? Illusion? Shell? What do you mean, child?” whispered Gwynneth.

“I will appear fearful to you, mother, but you must see me for who I am. The reality. Only then will I know if you truly love me…”

Lorna breathed deeply, and the illusion fell away.

Gwynneth screamed at the yellow-skinned monster before her, and her young boy snuggled against her breast in an attempt to burrow beneath the shawls, disturbed by this intrusion of sound and increased heart rate.

“This is how I look,” said Lorna, sadly. “This is how you created me. How you gave birth to me. How I was
cursed.
”

“No!” screamed Gwynneth. “Never! You are no child of mine! Get out, get out of my house!”

The door opened at that moment, revealing Sweyn and the blonde-haired six year-old close behind. The large man’s arms were laden with loaves as his eyes fell on Lorna and his face showed a sudden shock and disbelief as realisation bit deep.

Gwynneth was sobbing.

Sweyn leapt into action, dropping his burden of bread and leaping at Lorna, his fist flying, knocking the deformed girl to the ground. His boots thudded with sickening cracks, and taking up a wide pick-handle from the corner of the hut he beat at the stricken figure before him as a sobbing, wailing Gwynneth backed into the gloom of the hut.

“Get out, you monster!” snarled Sweyn.

Lorna crawled to her knees. Blood glistened against her yellow skin. She pointed at him accusingly with a shard of arm bone. “Why do you beat me, father?” she enquired, voice perfectly calm and serene.

“What? Get out, you disgusting creature; get out of my home!” he roared.

Lorna smiled, sadly. “I am what you made me.”

The pick-handle whistled, striking Lorna a vicious blow across the forehead and knocking her to the earth. Stooping, despite his loathe to touch the devil, Sweyn grabbed the ragged, blood-stained clothing and dragged Lorna out into the snow.

“What do we do now?” wailed Gwynneth. “Oh, Sweyn, what do we do? Is it really our Lorna?”

Sweyn stared at the unconscious creature before him, where blood soaked in and stained the snow.

“No,” he said at last. “This is a dark devil, a demon come to taunt us with memories of our past misery. I will carry it up onto the hill and burn it, so that its evil will no more be spread to good, honest people.”

“Shall I tell the Council?”

“Shusht, woman. The Council could do no good… you can see as well as I that this beast is evil. A shape-changer. A devil! Take Suza indoors and I will finish this business.”

Gwynneth ushered the blonde-haired child inside and passed out an oil-filled lantern to Sweyn. The door squeaked shut and he was left in the fire-flickering darkness with the creature of darkness. He reached down, hoisted the slim and lightweight being to his shoulder and set off away from the village, his trail marked by a passing circle of lantern amber as he followed a narrow track across the fields and up towards the sacrificial altar sitting squat and ugly atop Grey Hill.

Sweyn’s mind was in turmoil…

It is a devil, he thought. A demon of the forest.

It must be burned, destroyed, with nothing left to haunt us.

But what

what if

what if it really is our daughter?

No!
screamed his brain. I could never sire something so hideous… so deformed.

He halted, panting under his burden, despite the lack of any real weight. The thing moaned a little and, cursing, Sweyn pushed on. Snow began falling, heavily this time, and he was cold and shivering as he reached the hilltop. He dumped the moaning figure of the deformed girl on the wide stone slab and, without waiting, undid the stopper in the base of the lantern, allowing thick oil to splash across Lorna’s clothing. Then, stepping back, he smashed the lantern against Lorna’s head and skipped away as flames engulfed the creature, yellow demons dancing through the cloth and flesh and Sweyn, face heavy with sweat and a sudden fear, turned and sprinted down the hillside, away from the burning horror struggling to rise on the altar of ancient stone.

 

Snow fell.

The Palkran Settlement sat under the weight of darkness. A few people had seen the small fire atop Grey Hill, but none had gone to investigate. Instead, they huddled in the warmth of their homes, and pondered, and slept.

The lonely howl of a wolf drifted through the downfall.

There came a gentle padding of paws.

Followed by a knocking. Raw knuckles on rough-sawn planks.

Sweyn, who had not been able to sleep and was shivering from the cold, pulled on his boots and opened the door to his cabin. Outside stood a vision from recent nightmare… the burned child, naked and terribly scarred by flame, stood with smoking hair and a grim smile touching her forlorn face. Around her sat three huge wolves, their pale yellow eyes fixed on Sweyn.

With a yelp, the man turned to run – but was picked from the floor and hurled across the inside of the cabin with such force that his skull smashed open against the wall, leaving a trail of blood, brain and bone shards smeared indelibly against rough timbers. Sweyn’s corpse slumped to the hearth with a sigh of escaping death-air.

Gwynneth screamed.

And Lorna spoke a word of True Power.

Gwynneth’s hair and clothes ignited, flames searing up to catch the roof of the cabin. She ran, screaming, towards the door, which thumped shut, and in seconds the whole cabin was ablaze. Other tribesmen rushed from their huts at the sounds of screaming, but the wolves leapt amongst them, tearing at throats and faces and the villagers fled away in panic leaving Lorna and the blazing cabin and the fall of snow completely alone.

Several of the men, having gathered weapons, returned with grim faces and a conviction of duty and honour. Lorna turned her gaze on them. Her lips whispered and lightning crackled in the heavens above, smashing down to pulp the armed men into smears of grease against the ice. Lorna, eyes glowing in the blaze of the roaring cabin, threw wide her arms and yet more fire demons sprang up in other, nearby cabins. The fires quickly spread, dancing from roof to roof, and flames roared and the remaining villagers fled out into the darkness toward deep snow-fields, deeply afraid of the fury-filled demon and its pitiless, attacking wolves.

Lorna turned back to Sweyn and Gwynneth’s cabin; but instead of her fury abating, it increased. They had tried to murder her. She disgusted them. Her eyes glowed with an orange light and she strode between the flaming cabins. A child darted left, and one of the wolves leapt upon the little boy, fangs tearing at his throat and head. Tiny fists grappled with the beast but ceased to struggle after three or four heartbeats.

Lorna reached the edge of the Palkran Settlement, her frame a small dark hole against the roaring flames that had swept through every home and sent huge columns of black smoke billowing upwards, cutting through the fresh fallen snow.

She gazed down into the field where most of the tribes-people had gathered, and she felt their cold, and their loathing; their fear, and their hatred. Cold blue eyes hating the unknown. Petty people, she thought. With such limited understanding and emotion.

Her hand raised, and the people started to shiver, breaths pluming, turning blue and purple, becoming rigid with ice.

Lorna’s eyes closed. She felt the power within herself, but more: within every living thing around her. Within every rock and tree and flake of snow; within every river and mound of earth and flower and living cell.

The energy of the
elements
.

The power of the Equiem.

Lorna whispered a word, then looked once more at the tribes-people. They were still huddled together in a huge, chilled mass; but as Lorna hobbled closer on her stumps she could see the rimes of ice crystallised on lips, could distinguish the glint of ice in hair and beard, could see the blue-tinge of fresh frozen skin. She moved towards a large man, and touched him with the point of her stump. He shattered, revealing frozen organs and bones and intestine. Lorna wrinkled her nose and turned back to the three wolves, which sat: obedient, patient, waiting.

“Now it is time to visit Haleesa,” she said.

 

The fire had gone out in the cabin’s hearth, and the cabin and the world inside nestled in complete and utter darkness. With wolves padding behind her, Lorna walked wearily to the cabin door and pushed it open. Despite her exhaustion, she was wary. She expected violence. Some form of attack.

Instead, Haleesa was seated, facing the door, tears running down her ancient, wrinkled face.

“What have you done, dear child?” she whispered.

“They tried to murder me,” said Lorna, bluntly.

“Ahh.” A deep sigh. “You abused your powers, and you abused the energies of the
Shamathe
.”

“Yes.”

They stared at one another for a long time.

“You must leave here,” said Haleesa, gently, and with care. “You must leave
me
.”

“But,
mother
…”

“I am not your mother. You killed her. Destroyed her. Burned her alive. You have in you a seed of evil, child; and I fear you like I have never feared anything in this world.”

Lorna nodded, and turned, her back to Haleesa. But she did not move, and for a long, terrible moment Haleesa thought she was going to feel the wrath and hate of the frighteningly powerful young girl.

Instead, Lorna spoke.

“Let me leave you one gift,” said Lorna, her words so soft that they went almost unheard over the moaning of the wind in the trees, the ice in the skies.

Lorna walked away, the three wolves at her heels, and she disappeared into the forest.

Haleesa frowned, and stood. The movement was fluid, and she turned, wondering at the release of pain in her arthritic hip. Has she healed me, thought the old
Shamathe
. Has she removed my terrible pain?

She knelt, adding twigs and a few logs to the almost extinguished fire. Soon, she had blown flames into life and watched the flickering demon devouring the wood. And then she noticed her hand – the skin was smooth, white, unblemished. She gasped, her hands coming up to her face to feel that all the wrinkles had gone. Haleesa rushed to a cupboard on the wall and pulled free a polished bronze pan – and gazed at her distorted reflection, and could see that her youth had returned.