Two and Twenty Dark Tales (7 page)

But Amarind wasn’t a mouse anymore. She could be a predator too, even if her strength was only a fraction of the Witch’s. And she still had a knife strapped to her leg. She forced herself to meet the Witch’s eyes, and hold herself still.

She had never before defied the Witch in even the smallest of ways. Just the touch of anger in those black eyes made her feel she was about to die. But by now she was used to that feeling.

At last, the Witch looked away, and Amarind found that she could breathe again.

“I cannot speak of that one,” the Witch said flatly. “Nor should you. You were a mouse; now you are human again. You need to regain your place in the castle, do you not? I have spells that can help you with that.”

That was why Amarind was here. But it made her suspicious, that what she wanted should come to her so easily. Slowly, she shook her head.

“I need to know who did this to me,” she said.

“Why?”

Because someone had made her small and afraid and helpless, and she needed to do the same to whomever that person had been. Someone had killed her parents, had ended forever her sister’s laughter, and that someone must be punished.

None of which the Witch would understand. So Amarind said, “Because they might try again.”

The Witch was silent for a moment. “You don’t remember any of it?”

“No,” Amarind said.

“That can happen, with transformations.” The Witch’s voice was smooth and ice-sharp. “I could restore your memory. But it would require much power.”

And I would have to pay for it.
Amarind didn’t know what the Witch would want, but she knew enough to shudder. “No.”

“You cannot do it yourself, you know. Enchantments cannot be broken from the inside.”

There was a hint of bitterness in the Witch’s voice, and Amarind didn’t dare look at her. She turned and started for the door.

“As you wish.” The Witch’s tone didn’t change. “Leave the knife here, and I will use it to find out who changed you.”

On the threshold, Amarind stopped and turned around. The Witch was still smiling.

In the ten years she had labored here, the Witch had never offered her any sort of aid. And there was something… hungry… in her eyes.

She wanted the knife.

Where had the knife come from? Amarind was a princess, not trained in knives; she could as soon have wielded it effectively as shot an arrow. So it must have been used that night, by her attackers. Somehow—with magic, no doubt—she had taken it from them.

By her attackers…

Who hadn’t attacked only her.

Amarind’s stomach heaved.
The deathblood of a virgin princess.
Lily, so young and trusting. And the blade that had soaked up her blood was only a leather sheath away from Amarind’s calf.

She wanted to unstrap it and fling it away. But she met the Witch’s eyes, so vast and hungry, and felt like prey. The feeling was familiar; she had sensed it every time the Witch looked at her in this vast room with its silent clock. But until now, she had not recognized the feeling for what it was.

She remembered the cat’s breath wafting hotly over her body, and with the greatest effort, managed to meet the Witch’s eyes instead of turning and scrabbling away.

“No,” she said.

The Witch stood.

Physically, that was all she did, but suddenly Amarind felt smaller than when she had been a mouse. It was as if a vast darkness spread around the Witch, filling the room, squeezing against Amarind’s skin and snaking into her body. That darkness seeped around her heart, and suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

The Witch smiled, and Amarind knew that with one twitch of her finger, that darkness would squeeze her heart into a pulp. The Witch wouldn’t change expression, either, while she did it. She wouldn’t even blink as she watched Amarind die.

“No,” Amarind said. Barely a whisper, but the Witch heard.

After what seemed like forever, the darkness faded away, and the Witch sat down. She looked at Amarind, a single crease marring her forehead.

“How did you know?” she said.

Amarind shook her head, unable to speak.

The Witch blinked. “You didn’t know that I can’t take the knife?”

Amarind shook her head again.

The Witch’s eyes narrowed. “The terms of my confinement are… subtle. I cannot take, and I cannot call. In the hundreds of years I have been in this house, you are the only person who has ever managed to find me. I used to wonder why. I used to think that if you could do it, someone else could, and would. But now I wonder.” The tip of her tongue flicked out, quickly, to lick her lips. “That makes you important, my child, to those who wish to keep me caged.”

Amarind suspected that wasn’t a good thing.

“I’ll give you the knife,” she said. “But I have to bring it back to the castle first. I have to use it to find out who betrayed my family. Once I’ve done that, I’ll bring it back to you.”

The Witch sat perfectly still for a moment. Then she said, “Go, then.”

Amarind went.

***

Upon her return to the castle, Amarind went straight to the library and stood in front of the clock, her heart pounding.

How had the Witch known about the knife?

No, that was the wrong question. She had to ask another question first, a question she should have asked long ago: why did
she
know about the Witch? What did the Witch have to gain by teaching a princess magic?

The deathblood of a virgin princess.

Powerful enough to transform a human being into a mouse. Or to break a powerful enchantment and set a witch free?

Enchantments cannot be broken from the inside.

Amarind reached under her skirt and drew the knife. She held it up and looked at it, just as the door slammed open and the king strode in.

Amarind whirled, but made no effort to hide the knife. Cedric was wearing hunting clothes, brown and green, and a short brown cape. Clearly, her disappearance had worried the staff enough that they had called him in from the hunt.

Equally clearly, Cedric was not happy about that.

“Where have you been?” he snarled, after only a quick glance at the blade in her hand.

Amarind lowered the knife to her side, the way she had seen men do when they were about to fight. Cedric didn’t look the slightest bit wary, which was wise of him. Amarind had no idea how to use a knife in a fight. She suspected she wasn’t even holding it right.

Cedric scowled at her with a malicious arrogance meant to remind her where the power lay. She should have been frightened, perhaps. But the visit to the Witch had accomplished what those visits always did: to remind her how much greater and vaster the world was, how petty the powers and concerns wrapped around this mundane court.

Not that disdain would help her if Cedric decided to imprison or execute her. But it would make her feel better while he was yelling at her.

“I think,” she said, “you know where I’ve been.”

Cedric was silent for a moment. Then he reached behind him and pulled the library door shut.

“Now why,” he asked, “would you think that?”

“Because someone killed my sister and anointed this blade with her blood.” Amarind was gripping the knife hilt so hard her fingers hurt. “What did the Witch offer you, in exchange for her life? The kingship?”

“Of course,” Cedric said.

In the silence that followed, Amarind realized he never intended her to leave this room alive.

“She gave you what you needed to engineer the coup,” Amarind said steadily. “She probably told you how to arrange it. And in return…” She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but her fingers clenched even more tightly around the hilt.

“Yes. All that, and more.” He stepped toward her. “And all I had to do in return was bring her this knife.”

“Not quite all.” Amarind was amazed at how calm her voice emerged, when she felt like she was drowning in rage. “You had to make the knife first, didn’t you? Forge it by moonlight.” Her voice was not so calm anymore. “Anoint it with my sister’s blood.”

“It would have been your blood,” he said flatly, “if you had been where you were supposed to be.”

“You can’t bring her the knife,” Amarind said. “She’ll use it to set herself free. This is what she’s been after, all along…” And not just, she realized suddenly, since the coup. It was why she had allowed Amarind to find her, years ago. She had probably meant to make the knife herself, to kill Amarind when the time came and use her blood.

Enchantments cannot be broken from the inside.

In the hundreds of years I have been in this house, you are the only person who has ever managed to find me.

Amarind didn’t doubt the Witch was capable of doing anything to seize this chance. Even depending upon a powerless boy-king.

“You can’t,” Amarind said again, wildly. The king laughed at her silently, and she knew it would do no good, but she went on talking. “You don’t know what she is!”

“Yet you went to her, didn’t you? How many times have you done her bidding, in exchange for some magic in your pathetic little life? I would never have found her cottage on my own if I hadn’t followed you there, when you were too eager to be careful. Don’t dare judge
me
, Cousin.”

“I didn’t know what she would do,” Amarind whispered.

“And you still don’t know.” Cedric shrugged. “Besides, if I
don’t
give her that knife, my bargain with her will be forfeit. I’d imagine the consequences of that would be… unpleasant. So I’ll be taking it now.”

He advanced toward her. Amarind stepped back despite her best intentions, until her back was against the clock. She put her free hand to her side so that her fingers were brushing the polished wood. He didn’t look wary at
that
, either, which meant the Witch had told him little.

The knife trembled in her hand as she lifted it. Cedric laughed.

“You don’t have to worry,” he said. “She was quite annoyed when we couldn’t find the knife. I’m sure she’ll just kill you this time, rather than turn you into a rodent.”

“That would be preferable,” Amarind said sincerely. The memories swept over her again, the fear and the hunger and the constant, scrambling desperation. “But she didn’t turn me.”

Cedric lifted an eyebrow. “Then who did?”

Amarind stared at him steadily, and he actually stopped for a moment.

“
Me?
” Cedric’s lips twisted. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have that kind of power.”

“I know.”

He looked confused, and Amarind drew in her breath. No point in continuing to put off the inevitable. If it hadn’t been the Witch, and it hadn’t been Cedric, there was only one possibility left.

“But I do,” she said, and slashed the knife across her palm.

The pain was instant and terrible, but not bad enough to stop her. The hands on the grandfather clock began to move faster. She turned and slammed her hand against the clock, smearing her blood on the polished wood, crying out this time from the pain.

Her cry lasted only a moment before it contracted into a squeak.

She hadn’t been sure it would work, but suddenly she was small and fur-covered again, and the clock loomed over her. With the spell already set, a few drops of blood had been all it took to get it started again.

Cedric’s face towered far, far above her, distant and colorless. He said something, but she couldn’t understand it. The hands on the clock face were blurred and fading. But they were not gone, not yet; just as Cedric leaned down, the minute hand touched twelve. The chimes rang out, clear and cold.

The mouse turned and ran.

By the time Cedric’s hand swooped down on the spot where she had been, Amarind was already inside the clock, through a crack between the glass and the wooden frame. It was a little tight, but once her head was through, the rest of her body flattened and slid in effortlessly. Something huge and shiny came swinging at her, and she gathered herself and leapt.

Fortunately, the golden pendulum was scored with elegant designs, practically roads for a creature as tiny as she. Her tail lashed as she clung to one raised design while the pendulum swung across the clock, hung for one moment, then swung the other way. This time, she waited until the height of the swing, then dashed up and across the pendulum.

It swung down more sharply than she had expected and she almost fell, claws scrabbling and slipping. Then, with a final surge of effort, she reached the top. Her claws scraped wood, and she squirmed upward through another crack, into a mass of sharp, turning gears. She dashed through them, twisting and dodging, and emerged up onto the clock face.

She leapt and clung to the engraved number six, not seeing the second hand until it swept toward her like a knife. She leapt upward again, scrabbling at the designs at the interior of the clock face, feeling the magic pulsate all around her. The second hand touched her fur, and she inched backward, but there was nowhere to go.

The fifth chime rang. The hand slicing toward her vanished, a moment before it would have swept her off her precarious perch, and Time whirled around her.

Her memory was flung back to a time when she had been human, wearing her green gown, kneeling over her sister’s body. Lily’s face was turned away, her mass of light brown hair covering her face, and Amarind was glad of that.

She looked up at Cedric. He stood several yards away from her, his face white, holding the knife in his hand. In his shaking hand. He had probably never killed anyone before.

The deathblood of a royal virgin.

Impossible to tell how much Amarind had known, back then, of what the later Amarind had figured out. The Amarind in the green gown hadn’t been capable of figuring out much of anything, with her sister’s scream still ringing in her ears, her legs sore from running, her mind reeling from the horrors she had run through. She knew about the coup. She knew the knife in her cousin’s hand was covered with her sister’s blood.

That was all she needed to know.

She called upon the power of the clock. It wasn’t difficult. The Witch hadn’t told Cedric everything, and he was expecting a helpless princess. He didn’t even dodge the blast of wind from her outstretched hand, and he went down with a thud, hitting the end of the couch and then lying still on the floor.