The Witch Queen.

by Jan Siegel

PROLOGUE:

Enter First Witch.

The name of the island was aeeea, which, however you attempt to p.r.o.nounce it, sounds like a scream. It was a gold-green jigsaw fragment of land set far away from any other sh.o.r.e, laced with foam and compa.s.sed with the blue-shaded contours of the sea. Near at hand, the gold dulled to yellow: slivers of yellow sand along the coastline, dust-yellow roads, yellow earth and rock showing through the olive groves on the steep climb to the sky. The central crag was tall enough to hook the clouds; in ancient times the natives believed such clouds concealed the more questionable activities of their G.o.ds. Nowadays, the former fishermen and peasant farmers catered to the discerning tourist, telling stories of smugglers and shipwrecks, of nymphs and heroes, and of the famous enchantress who had once lived there in exile, snaring foolish travelers in the silken webs of her hair. aeeea was overlooked by the main vacation companies: only the specialists sent their customers to a location with little nightlife and no plate smashing in the quiet tavernas. Most of the more sumptuous villas were owned by wealthy mainlanders who wanted a bolt-hole far from the madding crowd of more commercial destinations.

The villa above Hekati Beach was one of these. More modern than most, it had seaward walls of tinted gla.s.s, black marble pillars, cubist furniture standing tiptoe on blood-colored Persian carpets. There was a courtyard, completely enclosed, where orchids jostled for breathing s.p.a.ce in the jungle air and the cold silver notes of falling water made the only music. At its heart the latest inc.u.mbent had planted a budding tree grown from a cutting-a thrusting, eager sapling, whiplash-slender, already putting forth leaves shaped like those of an oak but larger and veined with a sap that was red. The house was reputedly the property of a shipping magnate, a billionaire so reclusive that no one knew his name or had ever seen his face, but he would loan or rent it to friends, colleagues, strangers, unsocial lessees who wanted to bathe on a private beach far from the prying eyes of native peasant or vulgar tourist. The latest tenant had been there since the spring, cared for by an ancient crone who seemed to the local trades-people to be willfully deaf and all but dumb, selecting her purchases with grunts and hearing neither greeting nor question. Her back was hunched, and between many wrinkles the slits of her eyes appeared to have no whites, only the beady black gleam of iris and pupil. The few who had glimpsed the mistress declared she was as young as her servant was old, and as beautiful as the hag was ugly, yet she too was aloof even by the standards of the house. They said she did not lie in the sun, fearing perhaps to blemish the pallor of her perfect skin, but swam in the waters of the cove by moonlight, naked but for the dark veil of her hair. In the neighboring village the men speculated, talking in whispers over the last metaxa of a G.o.ddess beyond compare, and the women said she must be disfigured or diseased. She had a pet even stranger than her servant, a huge sphinx cat hairless as a baby, its skin piebald, grayish-white marked with bruise-black patches. It had been seen hunting on the mountain slopes above her garden; someone claimed to have watched it kill a snake.

Behind the gla.s.s walls of her house, the woman heard the villagers' stories, though her servant never spoke, and smiled to herself, a sweet, secret smile that showed no teeth. She still bathed by night, secure in the power of the moon, and by day she stayed in a darkened room, lighting a cold fire on the cold marble hearth, and gazing, gazing into the smoke. Sometimes she sat in the courtyard, where little sun found its way through the vine-trellised canopy. No cicadas strummed here, though the slopes beyond throbbed with their gypsy sawing; no bee buzzed, or not for long. The hungry orchids snapped up all insect life in their spotted mouths. There was no sound but the water. The woman would sit among the carnivorous plants, dressed in a thin red garment spotted like an orchid, with the black ripples of her hair falling around her shoulders. Watching the tree. The cat came to her there and rubbed its bald flank against her limbs, purring. Will it fruit, Nehemet? she would murmur. It grows, but will it fruit? And if it does, what fruit will it bear? And she would touch the leaves with her pale fingertips-leaves that trembled at that contact, not after but before, as though in antic.i.p.ation.

For Panioti, son of the woman who owned the village general store and gift shop, there came a night when the last metaxa was a drink too much. He was handsome as only a child of the sun can be, high of cheekbone and brown of skin, with the gloss of youth on him like velvet down and the idle a.s.surance of absolute beauty. In the summer, he minded the shop for his mother and made love to all the prettiest visitors; in the off-season, he went to college in Athens, took life seriously, studied to be an engineer. "I do not believe in the loveliness of this unknown siren," he maintained over the second to last drink, "or she would not hide herself. A beautiful woman puts on her smallest bikini and shows off her body on the beach. Has anyone seen her?" But none of those present had. "There you are. I won't take her charms on trust; like any rumor, they will have grown in the telling. I want proof. I want to see her with my own eyes, swimming naked in the moonlight. Then Then I will believe her a G.o.ddess." I will believe her a G.o.ddess."

"Why don't you?" said one of his companions. "Hide in the olive grove down by the rocks. See for yourself."

"He would never dare," said another. "Bet you five thousand drachma."

By the last drink, the bet was on.

The cove was inaccessible save by the path down from the house, so the following evening Panioti swam around the headland, coming ash.o.r.e on the rocks in order to leave no footprints, and concealed himself among the olive trees at the base of the slope. He carried in a waterproof case a camera, the kind that would take pictures in the dark without need of a flash, and a bottle of beer. He sat under the leaves in the fading sunset, leopard spotted with shadow, drinking the beer slowly, slowly, to make it last. The dark had come down before the bottle was empty, and he thrust it upright into the sandy soil. He waited, impatient with the crawling hours, held to his vigil only by the thought of his friends' scorn if he were to return too soon. At long last his wrist.w.a.tch showed the hands drawing toward midnight. Now Now she will come, he thought, or I shall leave. But I do not think she will come. she will come, he thought, or I shall leave. But I do not think she will come.

He first saw her as a white movement on the path, her form apparently wreathed in a glittering mist, her dark hair fading into darkness. She seemed to glide over the uneven ground with a motion that was smooth and altogether silent; he almost fancied her feet did not touch the earth. The hair p.r.i.c.kled on his neck. For a moment he could have believed her a pagan spirit, a creature of another kind whose flesh and substance were not of this world. Then as she descended to the beach he realized the mist effect was a loose, transparent garment that she unfastened and shed on the sand; her body glowed in the moonlight, slender and shapely as an alabaster nymph, a cold, perfect thing. She raised her arms to the sky as if in greeting to some forgotten deity, then she walked out into the water. The sea was calm and all but waveless: it took her with barely a ripple. He saw her head for a while as a black nodule silhouetted against the sea glimmer, then it dipped and vanished. Belatedly, he remembered the camera, extracting it from its case, waiting for her to reemerge. He half wondered if she would show in a photograph or if, like some supernatural being, she would leave no imprint on celluloid. He moved forward, lying along the rocks, poised and ready; but the swimmer did not return. She was gone so long his breath shortened in fear and he put the camera aside, braced to plunge in in a search he knew would be hopeless.

She reappeared quite suddenly, within yards of the rocks where he lay. He thought her eyes were wide open, staring through the night with the same dilated gaze with which she must have pierced the darkness undersea. She began to swim toward the sh.o.r.e-toward him him-with a sleek, invisible stroke. Then abruptly she rose from the water; the sea streamed from her limbs; her black hair clung wetly to b.r.e.a.s.t.s, shoulders, back. For the first time, he saw her face, dim in the moonglow but not dim enough-he looked into eyes deep as the abyss and bright with a l.u.s.ter that was not of the moon; he saw the lips parted as if in hunger . . . He tried to move, to flee, forgetful of the camera, of the bet, of his manly pride; but his legs were rooted. The whisper of her voice seemed to reach into his soul.

"Do I look fair to you, peasant?" She swept back her hair, thrusting her b.r.e.a.s.t.s toward him, pale hemispheres surmounted by nipples that jutted like thorns. "Look your fill. Tell me, did you feel bold coming here? Did you feel daring-sneaking among the rocks to gawp, and ogle, and boast to your friends? What will you say to them when you return-if you return? That you have seen Venus Infernalis, Aphrodite risen from a watery grave, reborn from the spume of the sea G.o.d's ecstasy? What will you say?" you return? That you have seen Venus Infernalis, Aphrodite risen from a watery grave, reborn from the spume of the sea G.o.d's ecstasy? What will you say?"

Closer she came and closer; his spirit recoiled, but his muscles were locked and his body shuddered.

"Nothing," he managed. "I will say nothing. I swear."

"I know you will say nothing." She was gentle now, touching a cold finger to his face. "Do you know the fate of those who spy on the G.o.ddess? One was struck blind, another transformed into a stag and torn to pieces by his own dogs. But you have no dog, and the blind can still see with the eyes of the mind. So I will blank your mind and put your soul in your eyes. You came here to see me, to behold the mystery of my beauty. I will give you your heart's desire. Your eyes will be enchanted, lidless and sleepless, fixed on me forever. Does that sound good to you?" Her hands slid across his cheeks, cupped around his sockets. His skin shrank from the contact.

"Please," he mumbled, and "No . . ." but her mouth smiled and her fingers probed unheeding.

In a velvet sky the moon pulled a wisp of cloud over her face, hiding her gaze from what followed.

The next morning a rumor circulated through the village that the woman and her servant had left in the small hours, taking the hairless cat and uprooting plants from the courtyard. The taxi driver who had driven them to the airport confirmed it, though his tip had been so generous he had gotten drunk for a week and was consequently confused. For some reason, the house was not occupied again. The owner left it untenanted and uncared for, the bloodred carpets faded, and only the orchids thrived.

They found Panioti two days later, borne on the sea currents some way from Hekati. He had not drowned and there was no visible injury on his body, save where his eyeb.a.l.l.s had been plucked out. But that was not a story they told the tourists.

Part One

Succor

I.

It was New Year's Eve 2000. Under the eaves of the Wrokewood, the ancient house of Wrokeby normally brooded in silence, a haphazard sprawl of huddled rooms, writhen staircases, arthritic beams, and creaking floors, its thick walls attacked from without by monstrous creepers and gnawed from within by mice, beetles, and dry rot. English Heritage had no mandate here: shadows prowled the empty corridors, drafts fingered the drapes, water demons gurgled in the plumbing. The Fitzherberts who originally built the house had, through the vicissitudes of history, subsequently knocked it down, razed it, burnt it, and built it up again, constructing the priest's hole, burrowing the secret pa.s.sages, and locking unwanted wives and lunatic relatives in the more inaccessible attics until the family expired of inbreeding and ownership pa.s.sed to a private trust. Now it was leased to members of the nouveau riche, who enjoyed decrying its many inconveniences and complained formally only when the domestic staff fell through the moldering floorboards and threatened to sue. The latest tenant was one Kaspar Walgrim, an investment banker with a self-made reputation for cast-iron judgment and stainless steel integrity. He liked to mention the house in pa.s.sing to colleagues and clients, but he rarely got around to visiting it. Until tonight. Tonight, Wrokeby was having a ball.

Lights had invaded the unoccupied rooms and furtive corridors: cl.u.s.ters of candles, fairy stars set in flower trumpets, globes that spun and flashed. The shadows were confused, shredded into tissue-thin layers and dancing a tarantella across floor and walls; the glancing illumination showed costumes historical and fantastical, fantastical-historical, and merely erotic wandering the unhallowed halls. Music blared and thumped from various sources: Abba in the ballroom, Queen in the gallery, grunge in the stables. The Norman church tower that was the oldest part of the building had been hung with red lanterns, and stray guests sat on the twisting stair smoking, snorting, and pill popping, until some of them could actually see the headless ghost of William Fitzherbert watching them in horror from under his own arm. Spiders that had lurked undisturbed for generations scuttled into hiding. In the kitchen, a poltergeist worked among the drinks, adding unexpected ingredients, but no one noticed.

Suddenly, all over the house-all over the country-the music stopped. Midnight struck. Those who were still conscious laughed and wept and kissed and hugged with more than their customary exuberance: it was, after all, the second millennium, and mere survival was something worth celebrating. The unsteady throng caroled "Auld Lang Syne," a ballad written expressly to be sung by inebriates. Some revelers removed masks, others removed clothing (not necessarily their own). One hapless youth threw up over the bal.u.s.trade of the gallery in the misguided belief that he was vomiting into the moat. There was no moat. In the dining hall, a beauty with long black hair and in a trailing gown of tattered chiffon refused to unmask, telling her light-hearted molester: "I am Morgause, queen of air and darkness. Who are you to look upon the unknown enchantment of my face?"

"More-gauze?" hazarded her admirer, touching the chiffon.

"Sister of Morgan Le Fay," said a celebrated literary critic, thinly disguised under the scaly features and curling horns of a low-grade demon. "Mother-according to some-of the traitor Mordred. I think the lady has been reading T. H. White."

"Who was he?" asked a tall blonde in a leather corselette, sporting short spiked hair and long spiked heels. Behind a mask of scarlet feathers her eyes gleamed black. She did not listen to the answer; instead, her lips moved on words that the demon critic could not quite hear.

After a brief tussle, Morgause lost her visor and a couple of hairpieces, revealing a flushed Dana Walgrim, daughter of their host. She lunged at her molester, stumbled over her dress, and crashed to the floor; they heard the thud of her head hitting the parquet. There was a moment when the conversation stopped dead. Then people rushed forward and said the things people usually do under the circ.u.mstances: "Lift her head-No, don't move her-She's not badly hurt-There's no blood-Give her air-Get some water-Give her brandy brandy-She'll come around." She did not come around. Someone went to look for her brother; someone else called an ambulance. "No point," said Lucas Walgrim, arriving on the scene with the slightly blank expression of a person who has gone from very drunk to very sober in a matter of seconds. "We'll take her ourselves. My car's in the drive."

"You'll lose your license," said a nervous pirate.

"I'll be careful."

He scooped Dana into his arms; helpful hands supported her head and hitched up the long folds of her dress. As they went out the literary critic opined, turning back to the spike-haired blonde, "Drugs. And they only let her out of rehab three months ago."

But the blonde had vanished.

In a small room some distance from the action, Kaspar Walgrim was oblivious to his daughter's misfortune. One or two people had gone to search for him, thinking that news of the accident might be of interest, although father and child were barely on speaking terms. But they could not find him. The room where Walgrim sat was reached through the back of a wardrobe in the main bedchamber, the yielding panels revealing not a secret country of snow and magic, but an office equipped by a previous owner with an obsolete computer on the desk and books jacketed thickly with dust. Beside the computer lay a pristine sheet of paper headed Tenancy Agreement Tenancy Agreement. Words wrote themselves in strangely spiky italics across the page. Kaspar Walgrim was not watching. His flannel-gray eyes had misted over like a windshield in cold weather. He was handsome in a chilly, bankeresque fashion, with an adamantine jaw and a mouth like the slit in a money box, but his present rigidity of expression was unnatural, the stony blankness of a zombie. The angled desk lamp illumined his face from below, underwriting browbone and cheekbone and cupping his eyes in pouches of light. At his hand stood a gla.s.s filled with a red liquid that was not wine. Behind him, a solitary voice dripped words into his ears as smoothly as honey from a spoon. A hand with supple fingers and nails like silver claws crept along his shoulder. "I like this place," said the voice. "It will suit me. You will be happy to rent it to me . . . for nothing. For grat.i.tude. For succor. Per siequor. Escri ne luthor. Per siequor. Escri ne luthor. You will be happy . . ." You will be happy . . ."

"I will be happy."

"It is well. You will remember how I healed your spirit, in grat.i.tude, as in a dream, a vision. You will remember sensation, pleasure, peace." The hand slid down across his chest; the man gave a deep groan that might have been ecstasy. "Do you remember?"

"I remember."

"Finish your drink."

Kaspar Walgrim drank. The liquid in his gla.s.s held the light as if it were trapped there.

The spiked blond hair was screwed into a ball on the desk. The knife-blade heels prowled to and fro, stabbing the floorboards. The bird mask seemed to blend with the face of its wearer, transforming her into some exotic raptor, unhuman and predatory.

When he was told, Kaspar Walgrim signed the paper.

The year was barely an hour old when a cab pulled up outside a house in Pimlico. This was smart Pimlico, the part that likes to pretend it is tonier than it is. The house was cream-colored Georgian in a square of the same, which surrounded a garden that fenced off would-be trespa.s.sers with genteel railings. Two young women got out of the taxi, fumbling for their respective wallets. One found hers and paid the fare; the other scattered the contents of her handbag on the pavement and bent down to retrieve them, s.n.a.t.c.hing at a stray tampon. The girl who paid was slender and not very tall, perhaps five foot five: the streetlamp glowed on the auburn lowlights in her short designer haircut. Her coat hung open to reveal a minimalist figure, gray chiffoned and silver frosted for the occasion. Her features might have been described as elfin if it had not been for a glossy coating of makeup and an immaculate veneer of self-a.s.surance. She looked exquisitely groomed, successful, competent-she had booked the taxi, one of the few available, three months in advance and had negotiated both fare and tip at the time. Her name was Fern Capel.

She was a witch.

Her companion gave up on the tampon, which had rolled into the gutter, collected her other belongings, and straightened up. She had a lot of heavy dark hair that had started the evening piled on her head but was now beginning to escape from bondage, a wayward wrap, and a dress patterned in sequined flowers that was slightly the wrong shape for the body inside. Her face was in a state of nature save for a little blusher and some lipstick, most of which had been smudged off. For all that she had an elusive attraction that her friend lacked, an air of warmth and vulnerability. The deep-set eyes were soft behind concealing lashes and the faintly tragic mouth suggested a temperament too often p.r.o.ne to both sympathy and empathy. In fact, Gaynor Mobberley was not long out of her latest disastrous relationship, this time with a neurotic flautist who had trashed her flat when she attempted to end the affair. She had been staying with Fern ever since.

They went indoors and up the stairs to the second-floor apartment. "It was a good party," Gaynor hazarded, extricating the few remaining pins and an overburdened b.u.t.terfly clip from her hair.

"No, it wasn't," said Fern. "It was dire. The food was quiche and the champagne was blanc de blanc. We only went for the view of the fireworks. Like all the other guests. What were you discussing so intimately with our host?"

"He and Vanessa are having problems," said Gaynor unhappily. "He wants to buy me lunch and tell me all about it."

"You attract men with hang-ups like a blocked drain attracts flies," Fern said brutally. "So what did you say?"

Gaynor fluffed. "I couldn't think of an excuse to get out of it."

"You don't need an excuse. Just say no. Like the antidrug campaign." Fern pressed the b.u.t.ton on her answering machine, which was flashing to indicate a message.

A male voice invaded the room on a wave of background noise. "Hi, sis. Just ringing to wish you a Happy New Year. I think we're in Ulan Bator, but I'm not quite sure: the fermented mare's milk tends to cloud my geography. Anyway, we're in a yurt somewhere and a wizened rustic is strumming his souzouki . . ."

"Bouzouki," murmured Fern. "Which is Greek, not Mongolian. Idiot." What music they could hear was pure disco, Eastern Eurostyle.

"Shine jiliin bayar hurgeye, as they say over here," her brother concluded. "Be seeing you." Bleep Bleep.

"Shin jillian what?" echoed Gaynor. what?" echoed Gaynor.

"G.o.d knows," said Fern. "He's probably showing off. Still," she added rather too pointedly, "he hasn't any hang-ups."

"I know," said Gaynor, reminded uncomfortably of her abortive non-affair with Fern's younger brother. "That's what scared me. It gave me nothing to hold on to. Anyhow, he's obviously airbrushed me from his memory. You said you told him I was staying here, but . . . well, he didn't even mention my name."

"He doesn't have to," Fern responded. "He wouldn't normally bother to phone just to wish me Happy New Year. I suspect he called for your benefit, not mine."

"We never even slept together," Gaynor said. "Just one kiss . . ."

"Exactly," said Fern. "You're the one that got away. A career angler like Will could never get over that. You couldn't have done better if you'd tried." Gaynor flushed. "I'm sorry," Fern resumed. "I know you weren't trying. Look . . . there's a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in the fridge. Let's have our own celebration."

They discarded coats and wraps, kicked off their shoes. Fern deposited her jewelry on a low table, took a couple of gla.s.ses from a cabinet, and fetched the champagne. After a cautious interval, the cork gave a satisfactory pop. "Happy New Year." Fern curled up in a big armchair, tucking her legs under her.

Gaynor, on the sofa, sat knees together, feet apart. "Happy New Century. It's got to be better than the old one."

"It doesn't start quite yet," her friend pointed out. "Two thousand and one is the first year of the century. This is the in-between year, the millennium year. The year everything can change."

"Will it?" asked Gaynor. "Can you see see?"

"I'm a witch, not a seeress. Everything can change any year. Any day day. Dates aren't magical-I think. All the same . . ." Her expression altered, hardening to alertness. She set down her gla.s.s. "There's something here. Now. Something . . . that doesn't belong." Her skin p.r.i.c.kled with an unearthly static. The striation of green in her eyes seemed to intensify until they shone with a feline brilliance between the shadow-painted lids. Her gaze was fixed on the shelving at the far end of the room, where a vase rocked slightly on its base for no visible reason. Without looking, she reached for the switch on the table lamp. There was a click, and the room was in semidarkness. In the corner beside the vase there seemed to be a nucleus of shadow deeper than those around it. The light had concealed it, but in the gloom it had substance and the suggestion of a shape. A very small shape, hunch-shouldered and shrinking from the witch's stare. The glow of the streetlamps filtering through the curtains tinted the dark with a faint orange glimmer, and as Gaynor's vision adjusted, it appeared to her that the shape was trembling, though that might have been the uncertainty of its materialization. It began to fade, but Fern moved her hand with a Command hardly louder than a whisper, soft strange words that seemed to travel through the air like a zephyr of power. "Vissari! Inbar fia.s.se . . ." "Vissari! Inbar fia.s.se . . ." The shadow condensed, petrifying into solidity. Fern pressed the light switch. The shadow condensed, petrifying into solidity. Fern pressed the light switch.

And there it was, a being perhaps three feet high a.s.sembled at random from a collection of mismatched body parts. Overlong arms enwrapped it, the stumpy legs were crooked, mottled fragments of clothing hung like rags of skin from its sides. Slanting eyes, indigo-black from edge to edge, peered between sheltering fingers. A narrow crest of hair bristled on the top of its head and its ears were tufted like those of a lynx. It was a monster in miniature, an aberration, ludicrously out of place in the civilized interior.

Neither girl looked particularly shocked to see it.

"A goblin," said Fern, "but not resident. And I didn't ask anyone to advertise."

"How could it come in uninvited?" asked Gaynor. "I thought that was against the Ultimate Laws."

"Some creatures are too simple or too small for such laws. Like c.o.c.kroaches, they go everywhere. Still . . . this is a witch's flat. Even a c.o.c.kroach should be more careful." She addressed the intruder directly. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

The goblin mumbled inaudibly.

"Louder," said Fern. "Intona!" "Intona!"

"Not a house-goblin house-goblin," the creature said with evident contempt. "I'm a burglar."

"What have you stolen?" asked Fern.

"Nothing," the goblin admitted. "Yet."

"You know who I am?"

Mumble.

"Good," said Fern. "So you came here to steal something specific, from me. I expect you thought I would be out much later on Millennium New Year's Eve. Who sent you?"

Warty lids flickered briefly over the watchful eyes. "No one."

"Was it Az- Was it the Old Spirit?" said Gaynor.

"He wouldn't use an ordinary goblin," said Fern. "He thinks they're beneath him." She lifted her hand, pointing at the intruder with forked fingers, murmuring words too soft to be heard. A tiny gleam of light played about her fingertips, like the sparkle in a champagne gla.s.s. "Who sent you?" "Who sent you?"

The goblin held its breath, flinched, squeezed its eyes tight shut, and then opened them very wide. "The queen!" it squeaked. "I steal for the queen! Not for G.o.ds or demons! I'm a royal royal burglar, I am! I-" burglar, I am! I-"

"Mabb," said Fern, relaxing slowly. "I see. I suppose she . . . Of course, I know what she wants. Tell her it isn't here, and it's not mine anyway. It's held in trust, tell her, a sacred trust. It's not a thing to be stolen or bartered. Say I know she will understand this, because she is a true queen who appreciates the value of honor."

"Who's Mabb?" asked Gaynor sotto voce sotto voce.

"The queen of the goblins," whispered Fern. "Not much fairy in her, so I hear."

"Does she appreciate the value of honor?" she appreciate the value of honor?"

"I doubt it, but I'm told she responds to flattery. We'll see." She raised her voice again. "What's your name?"

The goblin pondered the question, evidently considering whether it was safe to answer. "Some call me Skuldunder," he conceded eventually.