Isak lay down on his huge bed and looked up at the painted beams on the ceiling, thick bands of red that ran the length of the room. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his thoughts, but it didn’t take long for his fingers to start twitching in irritation at the stillness. With a sigh he sat up again.
‘Perhaps I can do this without being asleep,’ he said out loud. ‘How about it, spirit?’
Lamentable wretch,
spat Aryn Bwr in reply,
blind and ignorant creature!
‘Fine, be like that,’ Isak said, determined not to let himself get wound up by the dead king’s insults. ‘It can’t be so difficult - she said we shared a connection, so I’ll find her if she wants me to.’
He sat cross-legged and, running his fingers around the Crystal Skull as if he were stroking a woman’s cheek, pulled it loose from Eolis. It was warm to the touch, and so silky-smooth he could hardly feel the surface. Isak had discovered from his tentative experiments that the Skull responded better when it was in contact with the flesh that had had its colour burned from it by his God’s lightning. He had wondered about asking Dermeness Chirialt, the mage who’d helped him make Carel’s sword, but decided he probably didn’t want to know the answer. He was afraid of finding out something fundamental had changed, that his mortal flesh had been replaced by something else, something less than human. Isak had never expected frailty to possess its own attractions.
Isak raised the Skull and watched it slowly return to shape. The line of the jaw came first, then the dome, followed swiftly by the angled planes of the cheeks. For a brief moment it was a disconcerting blind face before the sockets sank down. Once the Skull was solid again, Isak cupped it in his hands. It looked oddly bifurcated, bright white on one side and a dull pink on the other.
He raised it to his chest and touched it to the scar there. Burned into his skin on his first night in the palace, the runic form of her name was his closest link to Xeliath. That would be the path he’d follow.
The witch of Llehden waited on a rolling plain of shivering wheat. It was a place of bland nothingness. A handful of trees stood nearby, but there was nothing beyond. Xeliath had not seen the need to go further than that. There was no sunlight, nor sound, and the plain was an uncomfortable, disconcerting place to pass an hour. For someone inextricably woven into the fabric of the Land, the witch felt it a terrible loss to be in this slate-sky place of dead memories. She pulled her shawl tighter as the breeze picked up. It felt like the ghostly wind was able to draw the warmth from the living, despite knowing that the cold wasn’t real.
Xeliath was a little way off, delighting in her restored grace and making the most of her time in these dreams, turning cart-wheels, letting her skirts fall about shamefully, swinging from the branches of the trees. She knew well that soon she would have to return to her twisted and damaged true body, but until then she sang with pleasure at the sensation of strong limbs being once again fully under her control. At this moment she was hanging upside-down with her legs wrapped around a bough, crooning softly to herself in the strange language of her people.
‘Are you sure he heard you?’
‘I’m sure.’ Xeliath didn’t turn her head. Her soft chestnut hair hung loose and free. It still struck the witch as strange that the girl’s hair was almost exactly the same shade as her skin. It seemed unnatural somehow, in some ways as disturbing as an albino’s lack of colour. It made Xeliath’s eyes even more striking. A curl of a smile on her lips could be electrifying. Though the girl was normally all youthful innocence, she possessed the arresting presence of a white-eye. ‘The Gods have chosen this one well,’ murmured the witch. As Isak’s queen, Xeliath would have been able to bewitch men with a glance; those who didn’t find themselves hanging off Isak’s every word would tremble when his lady spared them the briefest of moments.
Xeliath stretched out her arms as far as they could go, turning her wrists in circles. The witch blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, Isak was standing directly in front of the brown-skinned girl.
Xeliath squealed with delight and wrapped her arms around the massive scarlet- and gold-clad apparition. Isak started, he’d appeared just a few inches from Xeliath’s face, and was immediately grabbed, but his struggles ceased almost at once as the girl locked lips with his. Her slender fingers gripped a handful of his thick black hair to hold him close.
His passion reflected hers and the massive white-eye lost no time in swinging Xeliath down from the branch and enveloping her in his arms.
‘Where’s a bucket of water when I need one?’ wondered the witch aloud. Isak jumped and tore himself from Xeliath’s arms. Eolis was half drawn before he recognised the speaker.
‘You! What are you doing here?’
‘Waiting for your raging hormones to calm down.’
‘Well, if I’d known there was a queue . . .’ He smirked.
The witch had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of a reaction, but Xeliath was quick to take offence, and though significantly smaller than Isak, the Yeetatchen girl showed no hesitation in reaching up and jabbing him hard.
The witch managed not to smile at Isak’s yelp. The flash of anger faded quickly when he turned back to Xeliath.
The witch made a note of that small detail, tucking it away in a corner of her mind. She would decide later if it was worrying. Xeliath’s charms held Isak in thrall, as they would any other man, but she was cut off from a real life. Outside her excursions into dreams, she was nothing more than an imprisoned, frustrated child. The only thing she might be able to control in her life was Isak . . . the witch wondered if he were the one who would end up determining the course of history.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts. ‘We brought you here for a reason,’ she said. ‘There are matters that need your attention.’
‘Matters that need my attention?’ Isak took a step towards her. ‘I’ll tell you what needs my attention: the largest nation in the Land. My investiture ceremony, so that I am legally recognised, and the trial of a daemon-worshipping traitor, and once I’ve got those out of the way, I have a war to prepare for. You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel like sorting out anyone else’s problems, especially when ordered to by someone I’ve hardly met -I don’t even know your name.’
‘Her name?’ Xeliath walked around him and stood next to the witch, her eyes flashing. ‘Don’t you know anything about witches? They give up their names when they stop being apprentices. To give you her name would be as dangerous as you handing cuttings of your hair to any passing mage. As for giving you orders -she’s trying to warn you, that’s all. She’s an ally. You might at least let her finish speaking before you bite her head off.’
‘How do I know she’s an ally?’ Isak said, a little grumpily. He felt like he was being ganged up on.
‘You need proof?’ the witch cut in. ‘If I were an enemy, do you think you would so easily have left my domain bearing those gifts from the Knights of the Temples? To be a witch is to be able to feel the heartbeat of the very Land itself, to be part of the patterns and rhythms that bind it. It does not tell me the future, but I can sense something of what that pattern might result in -just as I can sense when there is something wrong in that pattern. ’ She shuddered. ‘What I feel right now is a danger to us all, and it grows with every day. I know this because of what I am, because of what I have sacrificed to become what I am.’
She broke off. There was no easy way to explain what it meant to be a witch. The scent of warm earth and blood, the wind through the trees, the touch of sun and shade upon the skin: these things explained her as much as anything. The people of Llehden knew that. They treated her like a local Aspect, with fearful respect, understanding that she was nothing like them. At times she lived like a noblewoman, with children bringing food and clothes for her, sent to her to see and to know their local witch, to understand what a witch was, as their parents had done, and their parents’ parents. They grew up knowing the witch was beyond normal cares, yet still she cared for them. Like the animals of the forest, the deer and the wolves, she watched over the people who were part of Llehden’s fabric. If the Coldhand folk stole a baby, it was she who would stride off into the night to fetch it back, no matter what the cost. She would face down vengeful spectres and ease difficult births, whichever way they had to go. In some ways she was more similar to Isak than the young man would ever realise; in others, more opposite than seemed possible for allies.
‘What is this danger?’ Isak asked quietly. Xeliath’s words had calmed him, and the witch’s words too had had some effect. He remained silent for a minute, then asked, ‘Don’t you think I have enough troubles to be dealing with?’
‘The danger is not just to you but to us all.’
‘But I’m the one you want to do something about it?’
‘You have been given your gifts for a reason. Such blessings are not random. Whether you choose to be deaf to it or not, your destiny is calling.’ The witch sighed. She could see her manner grated on him, and was reminded briefly of the King of Narkang. King Emin, like white-eyes, had a natural ability to stir emotion in others. Isak and Emin both had a majestic presence that demanded obedience from -or roused antipathy in -those around them. That the witch was obviously immune was clearly nagging at Isak, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.
‘My destiny is calling?’ Isak said. ‘There are quite a few opinions about my destiny, and none of them agree.’
‘Your opinion is the only one that matters,’ the witch said. ’You have broken away from whatever plan any God or daemon had for you, and now all that remains is to find out whether you have the strength to accept the burden of your remarkable abilities.’
Isak looked away from her, silent.
‘And your hand?’ she asked.
Isak instinctively glanced down, sliding the hand slightly into his sleeve. ‘The side-effect of a spell,’ he muttered. ‘I hadn’t realised there would be a price.’
The witch raised her eyebrows. ‘There is a price to everything; even in the unnatural world, as any mage will tell you. The only question is what that price is, and for whom it is worth paying that price.’
‘You want me to judge people’s worth?’ Isak asked in surprise.
‘Absolutely not; help those you can and leave judgment to the Gods.’
‘And that’s why you called me here,’ Isak guessed.
The witch nodded. ‘I have felt a shadow over the Land, a shadow that gathers over a city to your south.’ She saw a bank of wind roll over the wheat behind Isak, as though her words had caused a shiver in Xeliath’s mind. They felt nothing, though. The breeze itself passed as if it did not exist.
‘Scree?’ Isak said, surprised. ‘That’s where Emin -the King of Narkang -has gone.’
‘How do you know that?’ Xeliath demanded, breaking her silence. She walked back to Isak’s side and took his hand in hers.
The witch watched, thinking for a moment that the girl really was afraid, but as Xeliath ran her fingers down the inside of Isak’s massive palm it was clear that she was just making the most of her restored senses.
‘One of his agents told me,’ Isak admitted. ‘I think Emin wanted me to hold off a full-scale assault until he’s found whatever he’s hunting there.’
‘Do not march your army into Scree at all; there is a scent of madness and pain hanging over that city. Invasion would only worsen it. The shadow hanging over the city—’
‘Shadow?’ Isak interrupted sharply. ‘What sort of shadow?’
‘I know only that I sense a darkness there.’ The witch frowned. ‘Does it mean anything to you?’
Isak looked uncomfortable as both women looked at him. After a moment he admitted, ‘It’s probably nothing, but—Well, I’m sure there’s been a shadow watching me in the past. And King Emin is preparing to wage war against some shadow-daemon he calls Azaer. Do you recognise the name?’
They both shook their heads. The witch had heard little enough of Azaer, and if the boy already considered the shadow an enemy, there was nothing more for her to tell him.
‘Maybe the shadow
is
watching me, especially since I was sent to Narkang to forge links between our two nations.’ He stopped and leaned closer to Xeliath. The girl was not the only one to find comfort in their contact, it appeared.
‘What would you have me do?’ he asked eventually. ‘Going to Narkang with only a bodyguard when I was Krann was one thing, but I’m the Lord of the Farlan now. King Emin might be able to manage that, but I’m a little more conspicuous. You might need to find someone else to fight your battles this time -or maybe go yourself.’
‘I am.’
That tripped the great lump
, the witch thought with a twitch of satisfaction.
‘You’re going to Scree? Alone?’
‘Not entirely. I have a travelling companion. He is also somewhat conspicuous, but the journey is long and I will need a guardian.’
Isak shifted his feet, keeping eye contact, as if he could see some extra truth in her eyes.
The witch saw he was curious, both about her companion, and about what exactly was going on in Scree. She let the questions bubble in his head, then pressed her point. ‘The shadow over Scree brings a convergence. It draws King Emin in, as it has Siala, and I fear many others.’
And if I had any choice you would be kept far away from that place, but I think it’s gone too far
, she thought to herself
. It may be that our only chance to stop it is to meet power with power. If that doesn’t work, we must hope that at least it will make you understand the gravity of the situation.
‘What is it that you fear?’ Isak said softly.
The witch hesitated. ‘They are men and women of power in Scree, these mercenaries, mages, lords and warriors. The White Circle will have no choice but to recruit mercenaries to protect the city, unnatural mercenaries, like those that call themselves Raylin, after a long-dead Elven warrior cult. The name flatters them, but they are monstrously powerful warriors, with all manner of magical abilities, and they’re innately drawn to violence. If they are left to run unchecked, they will fuel the destruction.’