The Sorceress (29 page)

“Madame,”
de Ayala said urgently.
“We need to get you off the island.”

“I know,” Perenelle said, lips curling in disgust as her foot sank up to the ankle in stinking fishy mud. “I’m working on it. Did you see any Nereids?”

“There were a dozen sunning themselves on the seaward rocks, and I saw another two around by the landing dock. I saw no sign of their father, Nereus, though I know he must be close by.”
Wisps of the ghost streamed away as he wrapped his arms tightly around his body.
“They cannot come ashore … but he can. And will.”

Perenelle took a dozen squelching steps down the corridor. She glanced back at the ghost, surprised. “I did not know that.”

“The Nereids have women’s bodies but the tails of fish. Nereus has legs of a sort. He sometimes comes ashore in lonely fishing villages to … to eat, or he’ll creep aboard a boat at night and snatch an unwary sailor.”

Perenelle stopped and peered down the corridor. The far end of the tunnel sloped down into the sea, and she had a sudden image of the Old Man of the Sea crawling up the tunnel toward her. Shaking her head, dismissing the image, she snapped her fingers and created an inch-long candlelike white flame that floated just above the center of her forehead. Like the light on a miner’s helmet, it cast a yellow-white beam ahead of her. Perenelle turned back to de Ayala. “Will you stand watch for me, warn me if anyone, or anything, is coming?”

“Of course.”
The ghost folded in the middle, attempting to bow without legs.
“But why are you here, madame? There is nothing down here but the Crow Goddess.”

Perenelle’s smile lit up the gloom. “That’s who I’ve come to see.”

“Have you come to gloat?” The Morrigan’s voice was a hoarse, almost masculine rasp.

“No,” Perenelle said truthfully. Standing in the middle of the doorway, she crossed her arms over her chest and peered into the cell. “I’ve come down here to talk to you.”

Areop-Enap had spun a beautiful circular orb web in the
center of the underground cell. The threads were about the thickness of Perenelle’s little finger, and they shimmered liquid silver in the light from the tongue of fire bobbing above her head. Directly in the center of the web, arms outstretched, black-feathered cloak spread out around her, lay the Crow Goddess. It looked as if she were simply perching in midair and could swoop down at any moment.

“You do not look well,” Perenelle said a moment later. In the soft light, Perenelle could see that the creature’s alabaster skin had taken on a greenish hue. Her black leather suit had dried and cracked in long splits that exposed the goddess’s pale skin. The silver studs set into her jerkin were stained and blackened, and the heavy leather belt around her waist was dripping with moisture, the round shields set into it tarnished the same green color as her face.

The Morrigan smiled and licked her black lips with the tip of her tongue. “And you have aged in the hours since we last spoke. We will die together, you and I.”

Perenelle moved her hand and the tongue of flame floated closer to the Morrigan. The Crow Goddess tried to twist her head to one side, but it was held fast by the sticky silver web. Reflections appeared in her jet-black eyes, giving them the appearance of having pupils. There was the hint of bone beneath the flesh of her face.

“You look ill,” Perenelle said. “You might go before me.”

“The Symbols of Binding are poisoning me,” the Morrigan snapped, “but no doubt you knew that.”

Perenelle twisted to look at the curling square glyph she had painted onto the head of the nearest spear. “I did not. I
know they kept Areop-Enap trapped in here, but she seemed otherwise unharmed.”

“Areop-Enap is an Elder. I am Next Generation. How did you discover the Symbols?” the Morrigan asked, and gave a deep hacking cough. “Many of the Elders and most of the Next Generation believe that the Symbols of Binding and the Words of Power are nothing more than legend.”

“I did not discover them. It was your friend Dee who used them to trap Areop-Enap in this same cell,” the Sorceress said.

The Morrigan’s dark lips twisted in disgust. “Dee? Dee knew those ancient Words?” She fell silent and then slowly shook her head.

“You do not believe me?” Perenelle asked.

“Oh no, on the contrary. I do believe you. I think I know the English Magician better than anyone else alive, yet the more I discover, the less I realize I know. He never gave me any indication that he had this ancient knowledge,” she finished.

“And now you’re wondering who taught him,” Perenelle said shrewdly. “Areop-Enap said that there was someone with Dee—an Elder, she thought, but so powerful that even the Old Spider could not see them. They must have been protected by an intricate spell of concealment. No doubt it was Dee’s masters.”

“No one knows Dee’s Elder master.”

Perenelle blinked in surprise. “Not even you?”

The Morrigan’s long white teeth pressed against her black lips. “Not me. No one knows, and those who are curious—Elder,
Next Generation or humani—disappear. It is one of the great secrets … though the bigger secret is why his masters continue to protect him and keep him alive, despite his many disasters. For centuries he has failed to capture you and your husband.” She coughed a quick gurgling laugh. “The Elders are neither kind nor generous, and certainly not forgiving. I’ve known humani to be reduced to dust for failing to bow deeply enough to them.”

“Do you know what Dee intends to do with all the creatures on this island?”

The Morrigan regarded her silently.

Perenelle smiled. “Does it matter if I know … especially if we are both to die soon?”

The Crow Goddess tried to nod, but her head was stuck fast. “Dee was instructed to collect the creatures, but I am sure he does not know what the Elders intend to do with them.”

“But you do,” Perenelle guessed.

“I have seen something like this happen before, a long time ago even as you humani measure time. It is an army of sorts,” the Crow Goddess said tiredly. “When the time is right, it will be loosed upon the city.”

Perenelle gasped. She had a sudden image of the skies above San Francisco filled with ravenous vampires, the sewers crawling with boggarts and trolls, peists in the bay, Windigo and cluricauns in the streets. “There would be carnage.”

“That is the idea,” the Morrigan whispered. “How do you think the humani would react if they saw monsters of myth and legend in the streets and skies?”

“With terror, disbelief.” Perenelle took a deep shuddering breath. “Civilization would fall.”

“It has fallen before,” the Morrigan said dismissively.

“And risen,” Perenelle said quickly.

“It will not rise again. I have heard rumors that there are similar collections—armies, zoos, menageries, call them what you will—on every continent. I would imagine they will be loosed on the world on the same day. The humani armies will waste themselves and their weapons against the creatures … and then, when they are exhausted and weakened, those you call the Dark Elders will return to the earth.” The Crow Goddess laughed, then broke into a quick racking cough. “Well, that is the plan. Of course, this cannot happen if Dee does not get the last two pages of the Codex. Without the Final Summoning, the Shadowrealms cannot be drawn into alignment.” She coughed again. “I wonder what Dee’s master has in store for him if he fails? Something cruel, no doubt,” she added almost gleefully.

“But I thought he was your friend?” Perenelle said, surprised again. “You’ve worked with him down through the centuries.”

“Never by choice,” the Morrigan snapped. “I am commanded to do Dee’s bidding by those Elders he serves.” She attempted to turn in the sticky web, but the strands tightened, holding her closer. “And see where it has led me.” A glistening black tear gathered at the corner of her eye and then rolled down her cheek. “I will die here today, poisoned by the Symbols of Binding, and I will never see the sky again.”

Perenelle watched the black tear drip off the Morrigan’s
chin. The moment it left her flesh, it turned into a snow-white feather, which floated gently to the ground. “Perhaps Dee will send someone to rescue you.”

“I doubt that.” The Crow Goddess coughed. “If I die it would be nothing more than an inconvenience. Dee would get a new servant from his Elder master and I would be forgotten.”

“It seems we have both been betrayed by the Magician,” Perenelle whispered. She watched another black tear fall from the Crow Goddess’s face and curl into a white feather the moment it dripped off her chin. “Morrigan … I wish … I wish I could help you,” Perenelle admitted, “but I’m not sure I can trust you.”

“Of course you cannot trust me,” the Morrigan retorted. “Free me now and I will destroy you. That is my nature.” Her pale flesh had darkened to a deep blue-green, and tiny spots had popped up on her forehead and across her cheeks. She started to thrash about on the web, black feathers ripping from her cloak to join the small pile of white feathers on the ground below her feet. “It is time to die ….” Her eyes opened wide, black and empty, and then slowly, slowly, slowly, curls of red and yellow spiraled across the blackness, turning it a pale orange. Taking a great heaving breath, she closed her eyes and lay still.

“Morrigan?” Perenelle whispered.

The creature did not move.

“Morrigan?” Perenelle asked again. Even though this creature had been her enemy for generations, she felt stricken, appalled that she had stood there and allowed a legend to die.

Abruptly, the Morrigan’s eyes snapped open. No longer black, they were now bright red, the color of fresh blood.

“Morrigan …?” Perenelle took a step back.

The voice that came out of the Crow Goddess’s lips was subtly different from her usual voice. Traces of an Irish or Scottish accent were clearly audible. “The Morrigan is sleeping now …. I am the Badb.”

The creature’s eyes slowly closed, then blinked open. Now they were a brilliant yellow.

“And I am Macha.” The Celtic accent was even stronger, and the voice was deeper, harsher.

The creature’s eyes closed again, and when they opened once more, one eye was a deep lustrous red, the other a bright yellow. Two voices rolled from the same mouth, slightly out of sync.

“And we are the Morrigan’s sisters.” The red and yellow eyes turned to look down at the Sorceress. “Let us talk.”

thought you were both dead,” Perenelle Flamel said. She knew she should be frightened, but all she felt was relief. And curiosity.

The dancing tongue of flame floating above her head shed a warm yellow light over the dark figure of the Crow Goddess stuck to the enormous web. In the blistered green-skinned face, one red and one yellow eye looked down over the Sorceress and when the black lips moved, the two voices spoke as one. “Sleeping, perhaps. But not dead.”

Perenelle nodded; it wasn’t an unusual idea. She’d grown up in a world of ghosts, she saw the dead every day and spoke to them often, and yet she knew that the voices coming from the Morrigan’s mouth were not those of spirits. This was something different. She tried to remember what she knew about the Crow Goddess. The creature was Next Generation, born after the sinking of Danu Talis. She had settled in the
lands that would one day be called Ireland and Britain and had quickly come to be worshipped by the Celts as a goddess of war, death and slaughter. Like many of the Elders and Next Generation, she was a triune goddess: she had three aspects. Some Elders visibly altered with the passage of time—Hekate was cursed to physically change from a young girl to an old woman during the course of each day. Others changed with the phases of the moon or the seasons, while still other triune goddesses were simply different aspects of the same person. But from what she remembered, the Macha, the Badb and the Morrigan were three different creatures with different personalities … all of them savage and deadly.

“When Nicholas and I were in Ireland back in the nineteenth century, an old wise woman told me that the Morrigan had somehow killed you both.”

“Not quite.” For an instant both eyes turned red and the creature spoke with a single voice. “We were never three; we were always one.”