The White Towers (3 page)

Salvond sent out quests. They emerged from his toes, growing through the soil, easing through tiny cracks in the brickwork and the old, porous foundations of the cottage. It took
hours.
Like roots, questing for water. Only these roots required a different currency; they sought knowledge. They quested into joists, then through the wood of the wide, warped, woodworm-infested floorboards. Finally, they oozed into the very wooden legs of the bed, pushing upwards into the down mattress and finally, into the–

Man.

Crowe tossed and turned beneath the sheets.

Images flickered in Salvond’s mind as he moved backwards through this man’s life, witnessing the fights and the stabbings, the money extortion for the Red Thumb Gangs in Zanne; the beatings and murders and the rapes. Salvond came to Crowe’s initiation into the Red Thumbs, and experienced how the hard, mercenary, ambitious young man had turned on his best friend, stabbing him with a black-bladed dagger, quite literally, in the back. Blood on his hands. Again, back through time.
Back.
An alcoholic father. A weary, worn, beaten down mother who also, finally, turned to the cheap and nasty gin. Running free as a wild child. Wild, and wicked, and unchecked.

Perfect, thought Salvond.

And gradually, over the next three hours, his quests withdrew, back into himself, carrying information and understanding. Salvond knew this man. He had experienced this man’s
life.
He knew what made him
tick.
Just like the clockwork of the Engineers.

As dawn was breaking, Salvond turned and hobbled into the bushes. He moved back to the ancient oak and, awkwardly, with great pain, managed to climb up into its branches and regain his former position.

Give it time, thought Salvond, and emitted a sigh like a heavy, creaking branch shifted by the wind.

 

Minutes flowed into hours flowed into days flowed into weeks. Slowly, with the passing of time, Crowe started to heal. He wasn’t aware of it at first, for his whole life had boiled down to a simple cycle of hot flesh, followed by applied cream and a soothing coolness. Within this cycle were also the herbs which Agathe and Grace crushed with pestle and mortar, and sprinkled into clear spring water. This, Crowe drank with increasing greed, as he realised the herbs’ painkilling qualities; and with the drug came a blissful floating on a river of warm honey… for a while. Then the pain would creep in at the edges again, and Crowe would find himself growing increasingly agitated as he waited for the old women to appear at his door, bearing soothing cream and that glass of water in trembling frail old hands. Every footstep became a torture, and he wanted to scream, “Give me the herbs, give me the fucking glass!”, but he did not, he lay there, suffering, grinding his teeth as bits of pain flared up and down his body and arms and legs and face and he felt like weeping, begging, dying.

Sometimes, the nights were the worst. He’d awake from some dream, in which he was still trapped in the burning house, with Dek and Ragorek outside, pointing at him, laughing as his hair caught fire and the flesh melted from his face. And once he had woken from such a torment, he’d lie in the cool stillness of the old cottage, listening to it, to the creak of its timbers, the occasional scamper of a mouse beneath floorboards, sometimes one of the old women would rise in the night and sit on their shared commode, and he’d listen to the tinkle of their piss in the wide stained ceramic pot.

Sometimes, he would strain against the bed as if straining against chains, for he was trapped by his injuries, shackled by his burns, and the pain would return and he knew he was hours from the magical, pain relieving herbs; and he knew it was going to be a long, torturous night.

Sometimes, he wished, truly wished, he had died in that fire.

Because at least, then, it would have been an instant release from this agony.

 

Crowe appreciated the simple pleasures in life. A
lack
of the intense and all-consuming pain. A cool glass of water. A bite of warm, soft, home-baked bread. Cold cream on his burns. A chilled flannel on his brow. Distant bird song in the hedgerows. A breeze from the open window. The taste of fresh milk. A soft egg melting on his tortured tongue. Soothing words from Agathe and Grace. Their confidence in his recovery.

 

Four weeks after Agathe and Grace had found him in the pool near their cottage, they helped him for the first time to the front door. His hands were wrapped in bandages and he held a hand-carved walking stick in each hand, sturdy ash, to help support his weakened legs. He hobbled forward, disjointed, hissing in pain, but then the daylight hit him, and the smells from the open woodland to the right, the river to the left. The ground was crisp with night frost, and a cool breeze wafted towards him.

Crowe stepped out, then almost fell, and Agathe caught his elbow. That contact made him gasp, but he ground his teeth and tottered out, like a babe taking steps for the first time. There was a rough sawn bench, about ten steps away, and Agathe helped him towards it. He slumped down, with a soaring sense of elation, of achievement, despite the ridiculousness of such a simple feat. Once, Crowe could run ten miles and fight a bare-knuckle boxing match at the end. Now, he was either a babe or an old man, depending on how you viewed his jerky, puppet movements.

“Well done,” said Agathe, sitting next to him.

“Thank you.” He looked at her then, looked at her for the first time since the two old women had struggled with his burned carcass from the pond. He looked into her grey eyes, which twinkled in their pouch of wrinkled skin. Her face was slightly jaundiced, wrinkled heavy across the forehead, flesh saggy under her chin. Her hair was white and gently curled, falling to her shoulders. Crowe placed her age at around late sixties. He smiled. The sunlight glittered from her white hair, turning it silver. She was beautiful.

“Thank you,” he said, simply. Then looked away, reddening. Or fancying he would redden, if his face hadn’t been burned pork and scorched kindling.

“My pleasure,” said Agathe, laying a hand on his shoulder. “We couldn’t let you die, young man. What kind of people would we be, then? What kind of evil would live in our hearts, to let a young innocent perish whilst we stood by and did naught?”

Crowe thought of the women he’d raped. He thought of the men he’d beaten, clubbing them to the ground with bloody fists. He thought of the men and women he’d held on the end of his dagger, hearing the delicate crunch as steel chewed through flesh, and tears filled eyes, and he felt the elation, the joy of killing somebody, of robbing their life. Shame filled him. Filled him deep.

“You are good women,” he said, eventually.

“Oh, nonsense. We just try to do what is right. Look!”

Crowe glanced up. A robin, soft, brown, with bright red breast, had landed on a branch. Its little head turned, watching them. Crowe realised it was the first time he had ever observed such a thing. Birds were not something that entered his lexicon, nor his consciousness. Whores, fighting, liquor. Yes. Red-breasted robins? Not a priority of observation. And yet here he sat, with an old woman resting her hand on his shoulder, filled with wonder at cool water and cooler air, watching the intelligent actions of a twitchy little robin.

You’ve gone fucking soft, he told himself.

And he grinned then, despite the way the motion cracked the blackened skin of his face. Suddenly, life felt good. Not
amazing
. But… do-able. He’d moved away from thoughts of suicide. A new hope filled him. It felt incredible.

“Come on, I’ll help you inside. I’ll make some tea, and Grace has baked soft scones. We have fresh blackberry jam. You’ll enjoy it. You’ll see.”

“Thank you,” he said again, and meant it from the bottom of his blackened, terrible heart.

 

Daylight was fading early, and sky-stacked clouds threatened snow. The back door to the cottage was half open, and a young deer had wandered in from the forest. It trusted Agathe and Grace, for they often left food out for the creature. A bowl was there, filled with fruit, wild flowers and nuts. The fawn’s nostrils twitched and it moved forward, checking around with care, before lowering its muzzle into the bowl and savouring the offering. No sound intruded on the scene, except the nearby stream running through its frozen channel. But the deer lifted its head and, suddenly, for no apparent reason, its ears pinned back against its skull and it bolted, zig-zagging as it disappeared through the trees.

Inside the kitchen, Agathe was standing, staring out of the window as tea brewed in a pot. She’d seen the deer arrive, but had not heard it depart. So when the cracking of a twig brought her from her day-dreaming, her reverie, she thought it was still the deer and a smile broadened her wrinkled face…

But the shadow that fell across the threshold to the kitchen was not the deer. It was a small, hunkered, twisted creature with skin like bark and dark eyes that glittered. It hobbled into the kitchen and stood, staring at Agathe. She gasped, hand coming to her mouth.

“You,” she hissed, in awe and terror.

“You know me, then?” said Salvond, voice a curious mixture of low and musical, and yet also cracked, degraded.

“I know what you are,” said Agathe, voice low and level, eyes fixed on the elf rat. “I know you are a scourge. Cast out. Filled with poison, with plague. Go on! Get out!”

“You are mistaken,” said Salvond, moving closer.

Agathe grabbed a bread knife from the table beside her, and slashed it in front of her. “I said stay back! You are diseased! Get out of my house! Grace! Grace!”

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Salvond, face cracking into a broken smile.

Agathe launched herself at the creature, knife plunging down. Despite his deformities, the elf rat side-stepped the attack, his own corrugated, twisted fingers lashing out and closing like powerful tree roots around Agathe’s throat. He squeezed. She gasped, and the knife clattered to the kitchen flags.

Salvond glanced left, down the corridor towards the front room where Crowe was sleeping. He squeezed harder, and Agathe’s legs went weak, collapsing at the knees – but still she remained in position as Salvond exerted pressure, held her there…

“Leave her be!” screamed Grace, hitting Salvond over the back of the head with a hefty log. But rather than collapse, or even shift, Salvond remained solid in place and turned slowly on Grace, who lifted the chunk of oak again, her intention to crack the elf rat’s skull clean open. His hand came up, and tendrils like tree roots flowed from a circular wound in his palm. They wrapped around Grace’s elderly face and she screamed, a scream which became quickly muffled. There were tiny crackling sounds as more strands snapped out, engulfing Grace’s whole head. They wrapped around her, quivering, questing, entombing her completely and then pushing into her mouth, into her ears, up her nose, pushing into her eye sockets past her writhing, rolling eyeballs; then with the slow, gentle, unbending pressure that can send tree roots through lime mortar, these invading strands eased forward into Grace’s skull. Her legs gave way suddenly, she sagged, held there, and then Salvond eased her to the floor and turned back to Agathe. She was purple, her own eyes rolling in disbelief and horror.

“I’m sorry, Old One,” soothed Salvond, almost in sorrow. “But it has to be this way.” Within the next minute Agathe, also, was dead.

Salvond straightened a little, his spine making crackling noises and the roots came back to him, wavering, quivering, and he closed his eyes for a moment as they were accepted back into his own body. Then he turned, and stared down the short corridor towards Crowe.

The elf rat limped across threadbare carpet. At the sound of his approach, Crowe’s eyes fluttered and opened, and his blackened, crisped, well-cooked face turned from frown to grimace…

“Who are you?” he said.

“My name is Salvond.”

“Where’s Agathe? And Grace?”

“They are… sleeping a while.”

Crowe started to struggle up, his movements weak and obviously causing him great pain. Reality came flooding over the dam of his security, and he realised, in a split second, how vulnerable he was. And as he looked into Salvond’s ancient dark eyes, a kind of understanding came to him. He stopped struggling and lay there, teeth bared, growling softly, burned fingers clenching and unclenching the blankets.

“You killed them?”

“Yes.” Salvond shuffled a little closer. He was within striking distance now. Crowe summoned up every ounce of strength and energy he had. This disgusting, terrible creature had murdered the two reasons Crowe was still alive; it had crushed their old beauty to shards. Something broke inside Crowe, and part of his old self came back. Part of his old bad self: distorted, crooked, cynical, hateful, merciless… something dead.

“You’ve come to kill me?” he snarled, finally, froth on his flecked lips, preparing to launch himself at the curiously disjointed monster.

“No, my dear boy,” said Salvond, bending over him, his hand reaching out. Tendrils started to squirm and spiral from the palm of his hand which caught Crowe’s attention and held him fascinated, hypnotised, in terror. “I’ve come to save you. And to learn from you. And to use you. You will become one of us. You will show me…
how
you humans work.”

The knocking came hard and fast, shaking the heavy door in its smooth teak frame. Grumbling, her wrinkled face squinting as she lit a lantern, Haleesa pulled a heavy robe around her ancient, stooped shoulders and padded barefoot across the hard soil floor.

The knocking came again, and mumbling, “Ha, it’s enough to wake the dead,” Haleesa threw open the portal to reveal the fury of the raging elements outside her thick-walled cabin. Rain slammed in diagonal sheets, and thunder rumbled distantly as the howl of the wind swept into the cabin, bringing the scent of the nearby forest.