The Ragwitch (13 page)

“Sevaun,” interrupted Quigin, pointing over her shoulder. “Do you know what those things are?”

Both Paul and Sevaun leapt around at once, creating a swirl of bubbles that made it impossible to see anything. Then, as the bubbles cleared, they saw three dark, finned shapes hurtling through the water towards them.

“Sharks!” cried Paul, fearfully, but Sevaun laughed and stepped forward, saying, “They’re dolphins, silly! Dolphins are friendly!”

“Dolphins!” exclaimed Quigin. “I’ve read about dolphins. But I haven’t got up to underwater animals yet. How do you say hello in dolphin?”

Quigin found out almost immediately, as the dolphins arrived, turned in a foaming circle around the children, and back-arched through the water, their bottle-noses split with cheery smiles. Paul smiled too, mostly with relief that they weren’t sharks.

After the first excited meeting was over, the dolphins seemed eager to make Paul and his friends do something. Eventually, with quite a bit of gentle
prodding from the dolphins, Quigin said, “I think they want us to hang onto them. Perhaps they’re going to take us south.”

“Maybe,” said Sevaun. “Dolphins are the special servants of the Water Lord. Perhaps he sent them to help us. After all, it is the Festival Day.”

“The Water Lord,” whispered Paul, and then more loudly, “I need to see the Water Lord. I hope they take us to him.”

“I don’t,” said Sevaun. “The Water Lord can be very nasty in person. Even Waterwitches don’t go and see him…”

“But I have to,” said Paul, trying to convince himself that he did. “I have to,” he said again, going over to the nearest dolphin. Gripping it tightly around the fin, his cheek pressed against the smooth grey skin, he whispered, “Take me to the Water Lord, please, Dolphin.”

The dolphin rolled its clever, kind eyes back towards Paul, clapped its long mouth together a couple of times, and took off.

Quigin looked after the departing dolphin, tucked Leasel in, held onto his own dolphin, and was following within seconds. Sevaun hesitated, looking back towards the land, her small face set in a frown that was holding back tears. Then she climbed astride the last dolphin, hung onto the fin like a saddlebow, and was away after the others. Away from the shallow coastal waters, and into the deeper, darker sea.

After an hour of speeding through, and sometimes above, the water (where the children had to hold their breath and the dolphins took in air), Paul’s dolphin arrived above a great, dark hole in the ocean floor, and slowly began to circle.

Looking down, Paul saw that the seabed had cracked apart to make a huge canyon, its edges lined with waving green weed. What little light was left from the surface went only a short distance into this great black trench in the sea. But as Paul watched, he saw a single spark of light approaching from below, like someone carrying a torch up a flight of darkened stairs. It took a very long time to get closer, and only then did Paul realize the canyon must be hundreds of meters deep.

Quigin and Sevaun arrived while the light was still coming up, but no one said anything. They all just looked at the tiny speck of brilliance emerging from the vast expanse of darkness.

Then, quite suddenly, there was a shape around the light, a shape that made Paul shudder. For the light was on a stem that grew out of a fantastically ugly fish, fat and bloated, with blunted spikes sticking out all around it, and two huge goggly eyes that shifted back and forth on stems. And it was coming straight for Paul.

Close up, it was even nastier than it looked approaching, and it had an out-thrust lower jaw that kept grinding forward and back very unpleasantly. It stopped a few meters away from Paul, who
had crept around to the other side of his dolphin.

Then the dolphin gave a little flip, and Paul lost his hold. For a second of absolute panic, he thought he was going to sink into the great hole below and be lost forever. Then his madly threshing hands caught hold of something, and he grasped it like a drowning man grabbing a life jacket—and realized he had grabbed the light-stalk fish. It clapped its jaws once, and started to swim strongly downwards. Too frightened to let go, Paul went with it.

Looking back, he saw his friends being whisked away by the dolphins. Quigin pushed away from his, and tried to swim down towards Paul, but his dolphin came back and nudged him upwards again. The last Paul saw of Quigin was his favorite mulberry hat, sinking down ahead of him and being lost in the blackness; Paul almost expected to see Leasel going after it, as the hare had done so many times before.

But within a few short minutes, he couldn’t even see his friends—just the faint glow of the surface, far above. Around him, the fish’s lantern cast a dull light for about an arm’s length, and within that small area, Paul could see quite clearly, though there was a total absence of color. Beyond that, there was just an enormity of blackness.

M
IRRAN WAS STILL
weak after the golden wand’s transformation, so he and Julia walked slowly along the gully. He told her a little more about the North-Queen, and the war that followed, but avoided saying any more about Anhyvar—except to say that the Magic she had hoped to find to end the war had only made it fiercer and more horrible, by making her into the North-Queen.

In return, Julia told him all she could remember of what Lyssa had said about the end of the North-Queen’s reign—how the Magi and the Wild Magic had cast Her out, and She had taken the form of a rag doll to survive. And over many hundreds of years, the Kingdom had recovered, and forgotten the North-Queen, and what had been learned of the Ragwitch became a thing for scary tales and a
blame for bad luck.

Mirran had listened carefully, particularly to what Julia knew about affairs after his defeat in Yendre, and supposed death. Then he asked her about the Ragwitch, and what She had done since Her return.

The color faded from Julia’s face, and she leaned against the side of the gully as she thought of the answer. She didn’t want to remember the people of Bevallan, fleeing from the Gwarulch and unstoppable Angarling, only to meet the Meepers swooping in from the sky. Or the Glazed men and women, “survivors” of the Namyr Gorge, all pale as death, with their halting movements. But she told Mirran, and he listened as if such things were no surprise to him—and in fact, he had seen far worse, when the North-Queen was at the height of Her power.

“You have endured great evil,” said Mirran, when Julia had finished. “Few would have the courage to keep going. Many grown men and women would have given up before now.”

“To be completely absorbed by Her?” asked Julia, shuddering. She could think of nothing worse than being a part of that loathsome leathery monster, and Her vicious, ugly thoughts. “And I had…have Lyssa to help me.”

“Yes,” said Mirran thoughtfully. “The aid of one of Alnwere’s rowans is worth a great deal.”

They walked in silence after that, for an hour or
more, till the stream suddenly dried up altogether, and the gully led out into an open plain of red and blowing dust. The sun hung low in the sky, and its red glare made the land ahead look like a sea of drying blood. Mirran stared in horror, and mumbled something Julia didn’t hear.

She turned to ask him what he’d said when her question was drowned by a chilling howl that burst out behind them, echoing down the gully and onto the plain. It was a sound Julia knew well, though she had only heard it through the dulled ears of the Ragwitch. A hunting Gwarulch had found their trail—and Gwarulch never hunted alone.

“Gwarulch!” cried Mirran. “And I am unarmed. But if they are just memories…”

“Lyssa said they’d be real to me,” said Julia, fighting back the urge to run, screaming. “Real and dangerous.”

“Then,” answered Mirran, taking her hand, “we must run!”

Even as he spoke, he was running, with Julia dragging along behind, the red dust blowing up around their feet like smoke blazing a clear trail for their pursuers. Behind them came the howl of the Gwarulch, and a sound that Julia hadn’t heard before—screaming and wild laughing, like that of a hysterical crowd. Mirran heard it too, and coughed out, “Glazed-Folk.”

Julia grimaced, remembering the Glazed-Folk at the Namyr Gorge. She glanced behind to see if
they were catching up, but there was nothing visible beyond the red dust. Then Mirran suddenly faltered, staggered for a few steps, and fell down. Julia stopped, and turned back, but he waved her on, gasping: “
Run
—run on! My legs are still too weak.”

“No,” said Julia firmly. “I won’t leave you for them. I’ve still got my wand.”

Mirran opened his mouth as if to say something, but only a rasping wheeze came out, and his head bent backwards toward the dust. Julia moved closer to him, the wand held ready in both hands.

Just like softball, she thought for a second, as she realized she was holding the wand like a bat. She swung it a few times, and tried to imagine the Gwarulch as a softball she was going to hit for a home run.

The baying and screaming was much louder, but even so, Julia was unprepared when the Gwarulch and Glazed-Men burst through the veil of red dust. There were six or seven Gwarulch, loping along easily, all looking much larger and more vicious than they did through the eyes of the Ragwitch. And the Glazed-Folk were more inhuman, with their red-rimmed eyes and gibbering, laughing, loose-jawed mouths. Their hands gripped weapons of rusted steel, and they were staring at Julia. The Gwarulch licked their lips.

Julia looked back at them, hefted her wand, and tried to think of them like the Ragwitch did—as
rather weak and puny servants, useful, but not particularly valuable nor trustworthy. Julia found it surprisingly easy to think like the Ragwitch, and vicious amusement rose in her like an exhilarating wave. These were her creatures, for Julia to treat as she pleased. Without thinking, Julia straightened up to her full height, and hissed, “How dare you come against me?”

Her voice had the sinister, powerful tone of the Ragwitch. Shocked at herself, Julia almost apologized to the approaching horde of monsters. But they had stopped, suddenly unsure of themselves. Who was this girl with a wand, who spoke like their Mistress, the North-Queen?

Cowardly at the best of times, they were afraid to approach further. Once again, Julia felt a triumphant, sneering sort of voice rise up in her. Kill one or two, it whispered, and rule the others. You will find Anhyvar more easily, with servants to help you. Slash them with the wand, burn them with golden fire…

“No!” shrieked Julia, in her own, distressed voice—breaking the spell of fear that had held the Gwarulch. They sprang forward, talons grasping and teeth bared, with the Glazed-Folk close behind.

Julia met the first one with a full swing of the wand, and golden sparks flung the Gwarulch back, blackened and burning with golden flames, while the sound of drums thrummed in the air above
Julia’s head. The next Gwarulch, too slow to twist aside, met the same fate, but not before a talon-edge had ripped a tear down Julia’s arm.

Then, within another second, it was all over. Without warning, the sky ripped with lightning for a second, turned black, and filled the stars and scudding clouds. A new moon hung on the horizon, and there was no sign of the Gwarulch or Glazed-Men. Julia could only see five or ten meters in the moonlight, but the whole area seemed to be different. A memory change had struck again.

With an inaudible sigh, Julia collapsed onto the ground, holding up her bleeding arm. She felt sick, and for a few seconds her stomach churned and bile burned the back of her throat. Then she remembered Mirran—had he been lost in the memory change?

But there was coughing coming from somewhere on her right, and she could just see Mirran sitting up in the moonlight, not far away. With a hand clasped over the cut in her arm, she crawled over to his side.

He stood up, coughing a little, and cleaned Julia’s cut with one of her socks, and bound it with the other, while she sobbed with the pain and horror of it all. When the bandaging was finished, Julia took a few deep, short breaths and said, “I thought you’d gone with the memory change.”

“No,” said Mirran quietly. “I am a prisoner, not one of Her memories—though I came close to being
slain by them. You were very brave, child. I…I hoped for a daughter once. Perhaps she would have been like you.”

Julia didn’t answer, and when Mirran looked closely, he saw that she was asleep or unconscious. But her breathing was steady, and pulse strong, so he gently folded her hands under her head, before getting up to walk around. He could smell salt and that meant they were near the sea. Perhaps near Sleye, where Anhyvar had lost whatever made her human, and called the Angarling from the sea.

He looked back at Julia, a small dim shape on the ground, and wondered that she could sleep, cut and all. But then he had always been able to sleep when he was a boy, despite cuts, cares and bruises. There had been no nightmares then, he thought wistfully—awake or asleep. Still thinking of his childhood, he also lay down, and fell into a kind of half-sleep to dream of better days.

Deeper and deeper went the light-stalk fish, as Paul hung on with a grip of deathly fear. He was afraid of where the fish was going, but even more afraid to let go, in case he sank all the way to the bottom. If there
was
a bottom to the endless abyss of black, all-enclosing water.

Vaguely he knew that he was far deeper than scuba divers ever went, and that he should have been crushed by water pressure or got the bends (whatever they were). But the water-breathing
spell seemed to take care of that—at least Paul didn’t feel any different, except that there were dull booming sounds in his ears, like the echo of faraway drums.

Then he realized that he actually could hear drums, or at least some bass vibrations through the water. And there was a dim shape looming ahead of him, just a touch lighter than the dark water.

The fish clapped its jaws again, and wriggled a little to change direction—towards the lighter shape. As they approached, Paul realized that the water was no longer dark and the shape ahead was some sort of vast doorway in the canyon wall—a doorway closed with great strands of weed, with a bright light shining out between the little gaps and holes in the curtain of weed.

Seeing the light, Paul’s fears lessened, and he remembered how the Master of Air had really been quite kind, despite his awesome presence. Perhaps the Water Lord would be the same…He closed his eyes for a minute to reinforce that hope. For some reason life seemed a little more hopeful when Paul closed his eyes and counted up to sixty.

He’d just reached forty-five when the first weed brushed past his face, a cold, slimy shock that made his eyes snap open. The fish was going straight through the curtain of weed, and great slimy tendrils kept brushing over Paul, leaving dark-brown stains and pieces of rotten vegetation behind.

The only good thing about it, thought Paul, removing some slime from his face, was that it was getting lighter and lighter. Obviously there was some sort of enormous lantern beyond the weeds—something like an underwater lighthouse.

But it was far more spectacular than that. As the fish burst through the last layer of weed, Paul cried out and covered his eyes with weed-slimed hands. For they had emerged into an enormous underground cavern of shining emerald-green water. And it was lit, not by a single light, but by thousands of luminescent fishes, octopi, squids, strange creatures, and glowing weed—a swimming galaxy of brilliant stars.

As Paul’s eyes slowly adjusted, he realized that the light-stalk fish was taking him to the very center of the cavern, where the most luminous creatures of all shed their light around a sphere of black and troubled water—the only dark part of the entire amazing cavern.

As Paul approached, he felt his fish begin to shudder, and soon he was shuddering too. A deep vibration of sheer power seemed to emanate from the sphere of black water, a power that beat at Paul’s temples, scaring him, and at the same time, filling him with some of its strength. He felt like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and just bit his lip instead.

It was only when the salty tang of blood trickled into his mouth that Paul realized he really had bitten his lip—quite deeply. And with pain came
the realization that the fish he was hanging onto was a dead weight in the water. It was no longer swimming. And that the black watery sphere before them had begun to slowly spin, green water foaming into it like an unblocked drain. A whirlpool that was going to suck the light-stalk fish in…and Paul with it.

Immediately, Paul pushed away from the fish, and tried to swim out of the vortex of the whirlpool. Arms and legs thrashing wildly, he forgot every aspect of the swimming style he’d learnt over so many cold mornings at the pool. He was still floundering when the main swirl of the whirlpool caught his legs, twirled him about, and swept him into darkness.

It was almost instantly calm within the black sphere, and as the currents became still, so did Paul. He trod water steadily, just to keep his place, and looked around.

It wasn’t as dark as the abyss outside the cavern—obviously some of the sea-creatures’ light filtered in. It was more a sort of grey, thought Paul, like on a moonlit night. That reminded him of the Master of Air, and the great bird that had been so fearsome at first sight. Perhaps this black whirlpool was just the Water Lord being fearsome to start off with. Paul hoped so.

Thinking that it might only be some sort of test made Paul feel a little better, so he started to swim about. He trusted the dolphins, at any rate, and
was sure they wouldn’t have brought him to the abyss if it was going to be really horrible.

Then he saw something coming down towards him, a rope of luminous weed being let down from somewhere far out of sight above. It stopped a meter or so above Paul’s head, and he noticed a loop in the end like a handhold, just the right size for him to grab.

Paul hesitated for a second, then reached out to grab the loop. It was instantly snatched out of his hand, and the rope flicked up about five meters. Puzzled, Paul watched it go, then swam after it. He didn’t have to go far, because the rope came back down, stopping about the same distance away from him as before.

Once again, Paul grabbed the loop, only to have it snatched away. This happened several times. Finally, Paul swam up to it very slowly, got very close, and lunged at it with both hands.

With a triumphant cry, he got a firm hold on it, only to find himself suddenly bound tight, as folds of rope fell down from above and wrapped themselves around him. The rope snapped tight, and started dragging Paul upwards at high speed, the water foaming past him like the jet from a tap.

Seconds later, Paul burst from the black depths into green-lit brilliance, and was pulled sideways by the ropes, zigzagging across the cavern to a cave carved out of the wall, lined with the gleaming sides of cowrie shells, all green and mottled in
colors never seen above the sea. In the middle of this cowrie-paved cave, his legs firmly planted on the back of a giant turtle, a man-like figure was pulling in the rope hand over hand. Paul stared at him, but couldn’t quite make sense of what he saw.