The Witch of Glenaster (27 page)

We stared at each other for a
good while then, and I got a good look at the Witch of
Glenaster
.

She certainly looked young:
hardly more than thirty, it seemed, and fair of face, though her brow was lined
with care. Her skin was as rich and dark as treacle, and when she smiled, her
face became lit, as if from within, by a radiance that was an echo of the sun
itself. I looked at her and was no longer afraid; I looked at her and realized
I loved her. How could I have wanted this woman’s death? She wished me nothing
but love. I was full of joy, and I laughed. She laughed too.

“I’m glad to see you happy,”
she said, and sat down on the bed. Behind my head she had placed a pile of soft
pillows, and I sat up against them, and looked at her. The winter sun blazed
through the walls and roof of the tent, and somehow it seemed much warmer than
it ought to have been. I looked at the Witch of
Glenaster
,
and I went on looking.

“You came here to kill me,
Esther,” she said, and I felt a cruel shame at the thought. Yes, I
had
come
to kill her: why was that? What madness could have made me think of such a thing?
“Perhaps you still want to…?” I shook my head firmly: no. My cheeks prickled
with embarrassment. The Witch laughed. “You would not be the first. Many others
have tried. They hate me because they fear me. And they fear me because they do
not know me. Many have died because of this fear. Do you understand, Esther?” I
nodded. Of course. Of course I understood. “Good. Then you should know why it
is that I came here, and why so many men seek to make war against me.” Her
voice was heavy, full of the sadness of the ages. She caressed my cheek, and
told me her story.

“Many years ago – beyond the
count of any living now – my people lived in Sanctus, in the Far East, where
now the Lord Pike holds the land in fief for the emperor. Do you know the place?
It was very marshy then, before they drained the land, and made up of small
islands, separated by channels only a boatman who knew them well could navigate
without getting lost. So we were safe from our foes, and could protect our
friends, if there was need. It was like this for many centuries. But then, when
the emperors first came to
Ampar
, and one by one the
Old Kingdoms were overthrown or surrendered, our kings would not do homage to
the new rulers in the west, and refused to give over their throne. This made
the emperor angry, and he declared war; and because we were a proud people, we
met his challenge, and there was much blood spilled over the years that
followed: but we did not yield. And, surrounded by wood and marsh, we felt
ourselves well protected. But no hiding place is safe forever.

One of our own, a young man
called Broom, who had been unlucky in love and was full of hatred and
bitterness, went to the emperor’s camp, on the other side of the marshes, and
offered to show him the safe way across. And so we were betrayed: our villages
were burned, and our livestock slaughtered; our women raped, and even young
children put to the sword. The waters around our home grew foetid with blood.

Now my parents had built our
home on a tor overlooking the marshlands, that our people called the Sweet
Mountain, though it is hardly more than a hill; and when they saw the emperor’s
armies coming from afar, they put me in a boat, young as I was, younger than
you are now, and set me adrift on the river, towards the sea. I could not
understand what they were doing, and I shouted curses at them from my little
boat, for leaving me to my fate; and my mother’s face creased with her tears as
she and my father faded into the trees, and I saw them no more.

I was in that boat for seven
days and nights, with little in the way of provisions, and barely enough water;
and by the time I reached the sea I was weeping sorely for grief, for I knew my
parents must be dead, and they had saved my life, and I had parted with them on
bad terms. I drifted up the eastern shore, and would have died had not a
friendly wind blown me into a sheltered harbour, just south of
Calmir
. I crawled out of the boat, and collapsed on the
sand.

I rested that night in a cave
on the beach, listening to the sea’s roar; and I must have looked a sight then,
for my hair was all tangled and drenched in saltwater, and my dress was torn
and ruined. I suppose I wanted to die. But I did not. I awoke, and I started
walking; I walked and I walked, heading ever northward, through the heathland
and moors of
Calmir
; I sheltered in stables and
ruined cottages, I ate berries and roots; until finally I came to the great
fortress of
Azi
, greatest of the great magicians of
the old world…”

She paused for a moment, and
fixed me with her eye. Then she continued:

“I knocked on the great door,
as many times as I dared; but they would not let me in. Then I tried the other
gatehouses and doors; but still no answer. I was on the point of despairing,
and going about my way, when an old laundrywoman took pity on me, and let me in
through a servants’ entrance; and so I began a new life. The laundrywoman and
some of the other servants washed me, and fed me, and gave me new clothes; and
they took me on to work in the kitchens; and the hours were long, and I was
often weary, but I was warm, and dry, and I had shelter and food. And so I grew
to womanhood, and found that I was beautiful; and this was not something that
went unnoticed by the men there.

One day, as I was fetching
water from the well in one of the courtyards, I saw a man watching me, as he
leaned against a doorway; and I blushed, for I was not used to being stared at
in such a way. He asked me my name, and when I told him, he told me it was a
pretty name, and asked if I would walk with him back to the tower keep, where
he was billeted. I tried to demur, but he was quite insistent, and had such a
courteous manner, arranging for one of the other servants to carry my water for
me, so that I took him to be somebody of great importance; and he had such
smooth skin, and such long fingers, that I was curious to go with him, and hear
more about him.

He told me he had sailed from
the lands of the south, far beyond the Pale of the emperor, to seek
Azi
, for he had heard he was a man of great wisdom, and he
wished to learn from him. I cared little for
Azi
; I
only wanted to spend more time with this man, who had come from so far away to
seek out knowledge in our lands. But he told me little of who he was, only that
he had once been a great leader, a great prince of men, in his own country, but
was exiled because of his beliefs. ‘For some fear the power of Nature; but I do
not fear it, but think it should be embraced by all.’ And I did not know what
he meant; I simply enjoyed hearing him speak. He kept asking about me, and
where I was from, and what I was doing there; and I tried in my own way to
answer him; but I felt ashamed and embarrassed, and thought my own adventures a
meagre thing compared to his. But he was always curious, and would laugh at my
funny stories, and nod gravely when he heard of what had happened to my family.
‘You and I are not so very different, Erith,’ he said; ‘we have both been done
a great injustice by the emperor, and I think it is a grievous thing that
someone so young and beautiful as you are should have suffered so much
misfortune.’ And I was moved.

And so, over time, we fell in
love; and I learned that his name was
Lavant
, and
that he had come from the Forgotten Lands, away to the southeast; and he made
me rich promises, that one day he would return with me to his home, and that I
would live with him in a high castle overlooking the Blade, the great river
that cuts through the valleys and hills of that country. And we walked together
under the eaves of the orchard, and in the great herb gardens of
Calmir
, and talked lovers’ talk in the evening sunshine.

Then word came from the
south, that
the emperor was planning a war on
Calmir
, and on all in the service of
Azi
;
and I could not understand why, for it seemed to me that I had found happiness
and new life within those walls, and I could not see how anyone would wish to
raze them. And
Lavant
said that the emperor was
jealous of
Azi
, and feared his power, and so wanted
to rid himself of him.

At first all we heard were
rumours; but then came messages, increasingly urgent, of the great army that
was marching from the south to attack us. And
Azi
called for volunteers, to form a scouting party, and my love was one of the
first who promised to go. And I begged him not to.

But there was no dissuading
him. And on a morning when the wind was high in the east, and the air a cold
chill against the skin, five of them set out,
Lavant
and four others, and I watched until they were out of sight, taking the
southward road through the mountains.

Nearly a week passed. I was
almost delirious with worry; I could not eat, nor sleep, nor apply myself to my
work; and the housekeeper, knowing that the man I loved was with the scouting
party, took pity on me, and made sure I was given only the easiest tasks to do.

It was a grey Sunday morning
when we first heard news.

A single rider came galloping
to the gate, half-demented with fear, crying that the forces of hell were
behind him, and demanding to be allowed entry. When the guardsmen interrogated
him, they saw that he was a servant of
Azi
, a man
named Caleb Sorrow, who had been out on other errands when the scouting party
had departed. ‘They have taken them prisoner,’ was all he would say, and then
he wept like a child, and was dead within two days.

We knew soon enough what he had
been running from.

Two days later, the lookouts
saw, far off, a great host moving through the mountains, and their helms and
banners were those of the emperor’s men. And as they moved closer, the sky
seemed to darken, and we heard their noise, of shouting, and roaring, and I
have never heard such a sound, before or since. And when they came to the gates
of the fortress, they held aloft their trophies: the great wolves of
Calmir
, that
they had slaughtered cruelly on their stakes; but also, much worse, the heads
of
men
, borne high above them, bloody and terrible. And they set them in
the ground before the castle, and retreated out of sight.

But even when they had run to
fetch me; even when I saw it for myself, and knew; even when I felt his hair
beneath my hands, and had caressed his bloodied face, I did not believe it. ‘It
is not him – it is not him!’ was all I could say. And I fell into a swoon, from
which I did not awaken for several days.

When I did, half the castle was
on fire, and the men were working hard to put it out. I went up to the
battlements, and looked down upon the scene, as burning arrows fell blazing
through the darkness, and the guards on the walls poured boiling oil down upon
our attackers. Men screamed like women, and clutched at the air in their
death-agonies; and some tore at their garments in their grief, and threw
themselves into the flames, seeing that their hour had come.

But I was unmoved.

My love was dead, and my heart
was eclipsed by the blackness, and would never see the light again. I swore
revenge upon his killers, and upon all who came after them; I swore revenge for
the death of my parents also, and for the ravaging of our land; I swore revenge
for all that had befallen me, and for how my life had been destroyed. This
would now be my purpose. And I realized I was a girl no longer. And even as I
thought these things, I saw
Azi
for the first time,
in all the long years I had lived within his walls; and I saw a face full of
urgency and pity. ‘Come with me,’ he said. And I did so.

And he taught me all he could
during those weeks, as the siege continued, and the battle raged around us; and
I forgot everything but the need for vengeance, and that took up my every
waking moment. I watched as he moved about his apartments; I listened to his
words and his
spellcraft
; I followed the movement of
his hands as closely as I could; and so gradually I learned how to control such
awful power. ‘I should have taken an apprentice long ago,’ he said, ‘and now
time is much too short.’ And he could only teach me but a fraction of all that
he knew; but it was enough.

Finally, the great fortress of
Calmir
, that had withstood so much, fell; for all the
empire was against
Azi
, it seemed, and he could not
hold out any longer. And when the emperor’s men entered the city, they say
there was a bloodbath: old women impaled on spikes, and children butchered in
their beds. They showed no mercy, and razed the castle to the ground. But they
never found
Azi
. Some say he died by his own hand;
others that he simply stepped from this world into the next. Whatever happened,
he was gone. And so was I.

I escaped from the castle the
night before it fell, for I knew it was lost. And I resolved to make a new home
for myself, a long way away, and set about my work, of avenging myself upon the
people who had taken all that I had.

I started in the Broken
Islands.