The White Towers (4 page)

“Is there no peace in the Palkran Settlement tonight?” scowled Haleesa.

“Come, come quickly.” A round white face peered up from the darkness, flickering and strangely demonic in the wildly whipping flame of the fish-oil lantern. Miraculously, the flame did not extinguish, and the rain-soaked woman was beckoned across the cabin’s threshold and into the dry warmth by Haleesa’s wrinkled claw.

“Some problem?”

“Sweyn sent me to fetch the
Shamathe
. Gwynneth is having difficulty with her child. She is ready to deliver the babe… but cannot. You understand?”

Nodding, Haleesa pulled another, heavier, hooded shawl about her delicate shoulders, and gestured for the girl to lead the way through the storm.

The long hall was well lit and filled with warmth from a large fire-pit after the wildness of the storm-raped forest, and the young girl led a dripping Haleesa past roaring flames which the old woman fixed with a look of lingering despondency. And then they were through, into a room with a low cot and a scene dragged screaming from nightmare…

A man, Sweyn, stood to one side, his face drawn tight with weariness, his fingers rubbing the palms of his sweating hands in an unconscious display of fear. Two women were kneeling beside the low cot upon which writhed a beautiful woman with long dark hair. She was naked, her hair a waterfall of velvet across her milk-gorged breasts. Her legs were open, labia and inner thighs smeared with blood and amniotic fluid which had soaked the rough wool blankets beneath her.

Haleesa dropped her shawl. “Your first child, Gwynneth?”

The woman met the
Shamathe
’s gaze and held it, face contorted in pain. She nodded, her darting tongue licking at sweat-smeared lips.

A brave woman, thought Haleesa. She must be in great pain.

Her hands slid over Gwynneth’s distended belly, squeezing gently, feeling the curves and bulges within; then she dropped to her knees and her fingers probed inside Gwynneth’s vagina with the expert touch of a practised midwife.

“You have a restrictive pelvis,” observed Haleesa. She met Gwynneth’s gaze once more, and smiled warmly, her wrinkled, dark-skinned face beaming from under thick grey curls. “Don’t worry, lass, it will be all right. I will look after you.”

 

Two hours had passed, and Sweyn had left the room and was slumped by the fire, a bottle of pear brandy in his hands, his mouth a line holding the cage of his dry fear in place.

“The babe is coming,” whispered Haleesa.

Gwynneth screamed, back arching as she pushed with all her might. Violent contractions forced her to squirm and buck, to twist and writhe, like a cat-torn rabbit with a broken spine. From between Gwynneth’s thighs Haleesa witnessed a sudden sprout of bristly dark hair, and
instantly
she knew something was wrong.
Badly wrong
. A chill whisper scythed through her soul like a razor slicing icy flesh. The feeling came not due to her skills as a midwife, but more her experience – her
senses
and her
understanding
– as a
Shamathe
. A woman in tune with the earth and rocks and trees and mountains; a child of Nature.

Her hands dropped swiftly as the crown of the babe’s head forced free and she applied pressure to stop Gwynneth ejecting the babe too quickly and thereby ripping herself apart – and damaging the child in the process. Gwynneth’s quim stretched wide as the head appeared in full, and instantly Haleesa muttered the bitter tasting sour hissing words of
form illusion
…

The delivery was over in minutes, but instead of giving the babe to its mother, Haleesa cut the cord and wrapped the tiny pink wailing toddler in her shawl, close to her own breast. The old woman’s eyes narrowed, her breathing coming in ragged pants, and she muttered a variety of minor charms. Only then did she look up, to meet the questioning gaze from the woman lying prostrate and exhausted. Gwynneth was wrapped in a blanket, her face ashen with weariness, her friend clasping her hand tightly so that pink skin turned white under clenching knuckles.

“Can…” a confused pause. “Can I hold her?”

Haleesa considered refusing, but gathering her remaining strength she muttered a strengthening of
form illusion
and handed over the babe. The little girl gurgled happily and Gwynneth smiled down at her child, her eyes bright with the joy of a new life, the happiness of birth, the awe of creation. She fumbled with her breast as if to suckle the child, but Haleesa stepped forward and lifted the babe from Gwynneth’s startled arms.

“But… what?”

“This child is seriously ill. The laboured birth damaged her internally. I must take her for healing.”

Gwynneth’s face fell, and Haleesa forced the words from her unwilling mouth. “I will not play games with you, Gwynneth; the babe might die during the night. You must trust me, and let me do my work. I swear to you, I will give my life to save her.”

“Can… can I come with you?”

“Best I work alone.”

“But–”

Sweyn, who had stepped back into the room to witness the birth, whispered, “Shusht,” and, kneeling, took his wife in his arms. “It is the right of
Shamathe
. She will not harm the child…” But it was there, in Gwynneth’s eyes – the mistrust, the suspicion, and her gaze followed Haleesa’s retreating shawl as the old woman left the room and the hall, with the heavily swaddled babe; and disappeared into the storm.

“If she harms my baby, I will kill her,” spat Gwynneth, and tears rolled down her chalk ashen cheeks.

 

As Haleesa bent her head against the hammering rain, she allowed the illusion to fall and felt the reality of the babe beneath her shawl. Swallowing back revulsion, she cut left down a narrow track and under the broad-shouldered shelter of vast, towering, swaying pine trees. The Lords of the Forest. The rain was less offensive here, less aggressive; Haleesa halted by a wide trunk which had fallen years earlier and had been stripped of bark. Rummaging in her robes she produced the babe and laid it against the roughness of the trunk. It did not cry – in fact it made no sound. Its birth cries and subsequent gurgles had been a simple
word illusion
cast by Haleesa.

She met this newborn babe’s gaze and was shocked to see cognition there in the dark, iron-coloured eyes. She swallowed and allowed her own gaze to travel the ruined shell of the girl – although the child resembled no girl Haleesa had ever seen. Her head was topped with a ragged sprouting of wiry black hair. Her skin was mottled yellow, appearing almost scaled, and slick with a thick, oily substance. The nose was twisted and the teeth – for this newborn already had teeth – were tiny and pointed and glinted nastily from within ill-fitting lips. Like a fish, thought Haleesa as her eyes moved down, examining the spindly body and the arms and legs. There were no hands or feet, instead the arms and legs tapered to splintered points where jagged protrusions of bone shone with blood and were barely coated by the greasy, yellow skin. The babe’s orifices shone under the delicate forest light below a bulging obscene belly, and were bright with pus weeping from urethra and anus. A tongue darted out, licking at white, brittle lips. The babe waved the jagged stumps of her arms in the air and Haleesa took another step back.

Leave her, screamed the words in her mind.

Leave her to…

(ah)…
die.

But she could feel it – could feel the calling, feel the energies, feel the
mana
within the child. This little girl, this tiny, disfigured, horribly malformed child had been born
Shamathe
.

Like me, realised Haleesa, with a gradual rising horror.

Before she changed her mind, and forcing down rising nausea, Haleesa gathered the stinking babe in her arms. She could feel pus leaking through her shawl, burning against her skin, and she swallowed back her revulsion with a prayer of calm. She hurried through the night, oblivious to the threat of wolves or bears, until she reached the opening and her beckoning cabin at the foot of the cliff which reared up into sheer, black mountains above; ominous and foreboding; threatening, and yet strangely protective.

The rain was relenting as Haleesa slammed shut the door and threw three bolts across the slightly warped timbers. She laid the child on a thick wolfskin rug on the floor, and fetched a jug of goat’s milk. She held the babe’s head – the skin felt strange, like burned and greasy parchment – and allowed the babe to gulp greedily at the milk.

The girl was eager, and milk spilled down her yellowed skin: glistening jewels against a portrait of obscenity.

I should have told Gwynneth, thought Haleesa, suddenly.

Should have told her the babe was dead…

And as she lay down on her bed, burrowing under the heavy furs and blankets, she heard the babe make a single sound, the first sound the child had uttered since its painful, horrible birth.

The child sighed in utter contentment.

 

The following morning, soon after sunrise, as Haleesa was preparing a breakfast of porridge and honeyed bread, there came a knocking at her door. This, at least, she had been expecting.

She shuffled forward, opening the portal and staring stoically at the young face of Gwynneth. Haleesa did not smile – she forced her face into a look of neutrality. She took the girl by the hand and brought her inside, leaving a nervous Sweyn standing beside the two ponies.

“Is she all right? Tell me!”

“I have bad news,” said Haleesa, casting the word illusion. The babe cried out in the corner, in a small cot, as if in great pain.

“Tell me! Please!” A look of horror. Hands held to mouth.

“Prepare yourself, Gwynneth. Your child is seriously ill. She has a damaged heart, and I will have to keep her here for a while, to administer herbal remedies and keep a watchful eye in case she should suddenly stop breathing…”

“Oh no!”

“Be brave, child,” said Haleesa, her voice softening. “You are of the
Palkran
. Be strong.”

With these words, Gwynneth dried her eyes and stared at the babe. “Can I… can I hold her for a while?”

“Of course. Be gentle. Any sudden movement could kill her.”

Gwynneth nodded, and picked up the babe, cradling the smooth skin to her shawl and looking down into deep brown eyes. They blinked, staring back as if with sentience: a connection.

“Have you thought of a name?”

“Yes. I shall call her Lorna.”

“It is a pretty name. Now, come, put her to sleep, she needs much rest in this state.”

Laying the babe gently, Gwynneth stared hard at Haleesa. “How long will she have to stay here?”

Haleesa shrugged. “A few months, maybe as many as six. It depends on her condition. It is very serious, I promise you.” She placed a wrinkled claw on the girl’s shoulder. “She may die, Gwynneth. You must understand this. You must prepare for this eventuality.”

Nodding, tears wet on her cheeks, the girl left the warmth of the cabin and shivered in the strong fresh breeze. Haleesa followed her outside, breathing deep the scents of the forest. “If there’s anything we can do to help you…” said Sweyn.

Haleesa nodded. “Another time.” She watched the couple lead their ponies into the forest, picking a route between the towering trees. There were no paths leading to Haleesa’s cabin – and that was the way she wanted it to stay.

Returning, the old woman picked up the child and pulled a small basket onto her arm. One part of her deception had been truth, at least – that of medicine. Not for the child, but for herself. Constantly casting illusions was draining her of power… and as the wind bit into her skin she felt the weight of many, many years pressing down upon her, felt her aged body betraying her.

To be young again, she thought wearily.

To be radiant in the prime of youth!

She stepped under the shadow of the trees and everything fell away into silence. No birds chattered in these parts. No wind moved the massive, perfumed evergreens. This part of the Palkran lands was silent, untouched by any life.

Haleesa picked her way carefully between the trees. Rarely did she look down, but every time she did she saw the babe staring up at her with that disconcerting intelligent gaze. Not once did the child – Lorna – cry out. Not once did she whimper for her mother. Not once did she gurgle, or chuckle, or make any sound associated with a babe. She was as silent as–

Silent as a corpse, thought Haleesa.

The journey took an hour, much of it uphill across the lower flanks of the mountains, which were layered with not just pine and elm, but ash and oak, ancient and twisted. Eventually, she came to a narrow valley devoid of trees, and picked her way with care between the boulders which littered the rocky floor.

The wind howled, eerie, like hunting ghosts through the cleft in the mountain bulk. As usual, in this place, Haleesa felt as if she were being watched.

“Rock and earth, fire and ash,” she muttered, and placed Lorna down on a wide, flat stone veined with quartz. The babe followed Haleesa with her eyes as the old woman hobbled away, stooping to pick herbs, which she placed in the basket on her arm. Haleesa could feel the child’s gaze boring into her back and she rallied against the impulse to turn.

And all the while her thoughts returned to her own father, and her own blood, all those many years ago…

“You have the gift,” said her father, looking down into the eyes of a seven year-old Haleesa. “You are
Shamathe
; you carry the blood of the Shaman. Your
mana
runs powerful through your blood and you are connected to the land, to the soil, the rock, the water, the mountains, the trees, to all life…”