Witchlanders (5 page)

Ryder slipped under the waves again. As he sank to the bottom, the white faces of the girls were like twin moons, receding and receding and receding.

CHAPTER 3
THE WHITE WITCH

“You had a nightscare.”

The room was dark. For a moment Ryder thought the small, cool hand on his face belonged to one of the eerie children in his dream. But it was just Pima.

“Go back to sleep, Sweetlamb,” he said, yawning. Instead she climbed on top of him, sharp knees poking his thigh. “Ow!” Pima landed on him with a thump. “Get off,” he said, laughing. “I have to pee.” Her breath was warm against his neck.

“I'm coming with you,” she whispered into his ear. “I'm going wherever you go.”

Ryder groaned. The hay in the mattress had shifted into lumps under his back, and his muscles were sore from picking.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he said. “Just the fields.” He pulled her to him and stroked her hair, finding sticks. Pima
had been running wild lately, but she didn't seem to mind. “You smell like barn. I'll make you sleep with Yellowhead and the goats if you don't take a bath.”

“I don't believe in washing,” she informed him. She wriggled out of his hug and sat up, straddling his chest. “You were singing in your sleep again. La, la, la!” She bounced on him, singing tunelessly. “Lolly, lolly, lolly la.”

“Shh! I do not sound like that. You'll wake the others.”

“Maba isn't here.”

Ryder looked over. Skyla was a lump swathed in blankets—but Mabis was gone.
She's started the picking,
Ryder told himself.
Or the milking
. But he knew he'd check the river first. Maybe she was walking on water.

Ryder sat up, adjusting Pima on his lap. “I guess I should get up too.”

Pima threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him tight. “I told you I'm coming with you.”

“Why don't you climb on Skyla instead?”

The lump of covers stirred. “No,” it croaked. “No climbing on Skyla.”

Ryder sighed. “If you come with me, you'll have to work. When I was little, Fa would give me a sack and send me through the fields to look for missed berries.”

Pima thought about this for a moment. Then she pulled a corner of Skyla's blanket over her head. “I can't do work,” she said. “I'm still asleep.”

He was pulling on his boots by the door of the cottage when Pima slipped around the red curtain and called out to him.

“Ry-der!” He looked over at her in the dim light. Her short nightgown showed her bare legs. “Are you sure you're not going away?” He could hear the worry in her voice.

“No, Lamb,” he said softly. “Of course not.”

“Maba says bad things are coming. She says . . . that we won't all be together much longer.”

Ryder gave a faint gasp. “She was wrong to say that,” he said sharply. “It's not true. Besides, she's . . . changed her mind now.”

He wanted to go back to Pima, swing her up into his arms, but she was already reassured. She gave him a wide grin, then popped back behind the curtain. A moment later, Ryder heard Skyla's voice:

“Pima! Get off me!”

Outside, the moon was still up. Ryder's breath came out in clouds. He trotted around the side of the cottage to the outhouse, crossing his arms in front of him to ward off the cold.
It won't be long,
he thought, and he glanced at the sky for any sign of the strange, low clouds that signaled the coming of the chilling day. Nothing yet. There had been years when the hicca froze in the fields, but so far, his luck was holding.

It wasn't until he came out of the outhouse and was
starting toward the river path that he noticed he wasn't alone. A person, silvery in the moonlight, was stirring the dying embers of the firecall with a long stick. At first he thought it was Mabis. Then he stopped.

It was a witch.

A mountain witch—it had to be!

Ryder had seen witches before. A few times a year they came down to the village shrine to lead prayers, and for the past two harvests he'd gone with Fa to take the tithe up to the coven. The witches did no farming themselves but relied on villagers to give them one-quarter of all the hicca farmed. As far as Ryder was concerned, they did little for it. He didn't intend to act impressed, or give this girl any more respect than she deserved.

She was about his age, fully as tall, and slender as a hicca stalk. When her eyes met his she froze, then smiled and continued to poke through the mounds of white ash and dimly glowing coals. She reminded him of a snowcat—a beautiful, dangerous thing from a cold, high place. But was she a witch after all? He noticed that she was wearing white—a quilted tunic and loose-fitting pants. It certainly looked like the traditional costume of witches, but he thought they always wore red.

“Are you from the coven?” Ryder asked. The girl looked surprised to be spoken to. She made a movement over her mouth, a gesture for quiet. “Well, are you?”

The girl frowned and ignored him. Yes, it must be a witch. Only one of
them
could be so arrogant. Briefly he considered just asking her to go away. He didn't like to think what Mabis would do when she found out her call had been answered. He knew he should probably make the traditional greeting, the witch's bow, but the idea of bowing to someone on his own land galled him.

The girl moved around the edge of the dying fire, intent on something she saw in the ashes. Suddenly she made a flicking motion with her stick, and a small, knoblike object leapt out of the pit in a spray of sparks.
It couldn't be the bone,
Ryder thought.

He bent to pick it up, but the witch touched him on the shoulder and shook her head. She unwrapped a white sash from around her waist and bound her hand to protect it from the heat. Ryder's eyes widened. The thing she picked up
was
Mabis's bone.

“That's my mother's,” he told her. She wrinkled her forehead. “You should give—”

The witch wouldn't let him finish. Her other hand darted forward, and with the tips of her fingers she gently squeezed his upper and lower lips together. For a moment Ryder was too surprised to move, and he could only stand there staring into the girl's face, feeling her touch on his lips. He couldn't quite tell in the dim light, but she seemed to be smiling at him.

Slowly she withdrew her fingers.

“I don't understand,” he snapped. “Am I not good enough to speak to you?”

The smile, if it had ever been there, left her face. She gave a little huffing sound and turned away.

“Wait!” said Ryder. “That's not your bone!” But the girl was moving quickly toward the stand of trees that separated the cottage from the rest of the farm. “It doesn't belong to you!”

At that moment, Ryder caught a glimpse of the prayer hill, just visible over the tops of the trees.

“Oh, Aata's blood,” he cursed under his breath.

Dawn was breaking. Silhouetted against the pink sky were three black shapes. Tents. Witch tents—without a doubt. The girl in white wasn't the only one to have come in answer to his mother's call.

Ryder went back to the cottage and found Mabis standing in the middle of the room, wearing her reds. Her crimson sleeves were pushed up to the elbows, and the ankles of her pants were wet. In one hand, stalks of uprooted maiden's woe dripped water onto the dirt floor.

“I can't believe you made me throw my bone into the fire,” she cried.

“What? Made you?”

“Did you see the tents? I should have known they'd come.”

A thick perfume entered Ryder's nose. The black
trumpets smelled spicy and pleasant, but underneath that first fresh scent there was another, more subtle aroma—the hint of something too sweet, like rotting fruit.

“The witches will want me to cast for them, I'm sure of it,” Mabis continued, her voice strained and nervous. “But how can I throw the bones without my anchor?”

“Where did you get that maiden's woe?” Ryder demanded. There were at least four open flowers in his mother's hand and one or two buds. “They can't have grown so quickly. I've been pulling them up!”

“I told you, Ryder,” she said. “It was my own will that kept me away.” The black trumpets scattered water as she gestured at him. “You don't think there would be something left in the ashes, do you? Something of my bone? You could get it for me.”

“Oh . . .” Ryder's mind raced. He should tell his mother about the white witch. But . . . they'd all be better off without that bone, wouldn't they? Without her continuing to believe the unbelievable? “I've just come from the fire. Your bone is gone.”

Mabis narrowed her eyes at him. He'd always found it difficult to keep secrets from his mother, but this time he met her gaze. After all, it was the truth.

“What's that on your mouth?”

Ryder wiped his lips with his fingers. It was ash from where the girl had touched him. “Uh . . .”

Just then there was a loud knock at the cottage door, and both of them jumped. The door opened, but it was not a witch.

“Dassen!” said Mabis. The village tavern keeper filled the doorway. He was all huge shoulders and red face and red hands rough from work. His eyes were shrewd, though. To Ryder, they seemed to take in everything, in spite of the dim morning light, including the bunch of maiden's woe in Mabis's hand.

“They want you to come,” he said to her. “And only you.”

CHAPTER 4
BARBIZA

Falpian wasn't alone. Strange girls were sleeping in his bed. On either side of him were bodies, sleeping bodies, their outlines distinct underneath the down quilts. He froze, eyes wide in the dark.

“Hello,” he whispered. “Is someone there?”

A narrow thread of light was visible between the curtains. He sat up silently, letting his eyes adjust. It wasn't a dream. He could smell these girls, he could hear them breathing. With his heart thumping in his ears, Falpian slowly reached out a hand and grabbed the end of a soft white coverlet. He yanked it back. . . .

Nothing. There was nothing there. The lump beside him was just a lump—and the others, too. Falpian patted down the covers with his hands, even put his head under the bed. What had made him think they were female? he wondered. But they had been. He could almost see their
faces—an older one and a younger one. Their odd names.
Sweetlamb.

Something huge and pale materialized from a shadowy corner, and Falpian yelped. A monstrous animal gave a leap, knocking him back onto the bed. It pinned him down, shaggy face looming over him. Falpian tried to move, but the thing was at least twice his weight. Long, oversize canines curved saberlike from its upper jaw. It barked, releasing a string of drool into Falpian's face.

“Yes, yes,” Falpian grunted. “I love you, too.”

Moments later he was stumbling into the kitchen and opening the heavy door to the outside. His dog, Bodread the Slayer, bounded out, tail wagging. Bo was happy at Stonehouse, Falpian thought—going wild, hunting for his own breakfast. He'd been the runt of the litter once, and he was still small for a dreadhound, though that was a bit hard to believe sometimes. When Falpian was a little boy, he'd begged Bron and his father not to drown the scrawny puppy, which was how he'd gotten a dreadhound in the first place. They were supposed to be magician's dogs—but by the time anyone realized that Falpian would never be a magician, he and Bo were inseparable.

The great gray beast looked back at him, then out toward the red mountains, as if he wanted Falpian to join him, as if there was something out there he wanted his master to be happy about too.

“You go on, Bo. Catch me a rabbit.”

He shut the door again and sat down, rubbing his eyes. In front of him on the table, the bronze scroll container lay open at one end, but the rolled parchment that had been inside was still unread. It sat next to the holder, its red wax seal unbroken.