To make things worse, the path had suddenly narrowed and become slippery. It was barely higher than the lake now, and in places dipped down so that our pointy shoes were splashing through shallow water.
At any moment I expected Morwena to surge up and attack, but after a tense few moments the path widened out again. Suddenly there were cobbles underfoot, and where my left shoulder and arm had been almost scraping the wall, now it seemed to have receded. There was space to our left, but how much? And if it was veering away from the lake, where did this path lead?
The mist was still thick, so I held my left hand out in front of me to stop myself from blundering into the wall. But as we left the lake, my fear of the water witch slowly abated.
The attack took us by surprise. There wasn’t even the faintest warning.
Morwena had not been lurking in the lake. Although she was an entity that rarely ventured far from water, she was waiting for us on dry land.
She appeared out of the mist, standing directly before me. Clawed, webbed feet gripped the cobbles; her skirt and smock were covered in mud and green slime. Her mouth was open, revealing four large yellow fangs, and her fleshless nose was a sharp triangular bone.
All those things I noted in less than a heartbeat. But then one terrible aspect of her captured my full attention.
Her blood-filled eye was staring directly at me. The bone that pinned it had been removed.
I had got my wish: I was now her target.
I WAS PARALYSED – rooted to the spot. That red, blood-filled eye seemed to grow and grow. I was scared, but one part of me was detached because I had faith in Thorne. It was better this way; better that Morwena had turned her attention on me, if I wanted to avoid using my magic.
But suddenly I was aware that Morwena was not alone. There were other water witches moving up to her side and attacking Thorne, who was now being driven back by the ferocity of that onslaught of fangs and claws.
Morwena took a step towards me, her arms outstretched, ready to rend the flesh from my bones. I was no longer detached; I was terrified. More and more water witches surged past me to attack Thorne. Even her great skill and courage would surely not enable her to defeat so many quickly enough to return and save me.
The foul breath of the powerful witch was in my face now, her fangs ready to bite. I could not think. My mind was paralysed like my body. I could not summon up any will. Even if I’d wanted to, it was now too late to use my magic. For me it was over. I had intended to surrender my life for Tom so that he could use my death to destroy the Fiend for ever. Now I would die for nothing. Everything that I had done from the moment I was born had been in vain.
Then something happened that I could make no sense of . . .
Something was emerging from Morwena’s open mouth.
At first I thought it was some kind of tongue – maybe an aspect of a water witch that I’d never seen before. It was sharp and ridged. It was also covered in blood.
Blood poured from Morwena’s mouth, cascading down her chin, and I saw that her blood-eye was no longer looking at me. Both eyes were closed and she screamed in agony.
Finding that I was now able to move, I quickly stepped backwards, out of her reach. She twisted away and, in that moment, I realized what had happened to her.
A huge skelt had scuttled up onto her back and had transfixed her with its bone-tube, driving it into the back of her neck so that it had emerged from her mouth. As Morwena staggered and fell forward onto her face, the skelt removed its bone-tube and stabbed it into her again, right between the shoulder blades. Immediately the translucent tube turned a bright red as it sucked the blood from her body.
Other witches screamed in anger and ran to her aid, but immediately they had problems of their own. There were more skelts scuttling across the ground, each targeting a water witch.
The mist was lifting, the visibility improving by the second – had it been created by the dark magic of Morwena? It seemed likely. Another skelt scuttled towards me, its thin multi-jointed legs a blur. It moved so fast that I barely had time to react. It passed by less than an arm’s length away, but didn’t so much as look at me; all its attention was on the slimy witches, who were desperately trying to flee.
‘Alice!’
I turned and saw Thorne running towards me, her blades red with blood. Several of the witches were on the ground, each under attack by a skelt.
Thorne pointed towards the stone wall, and I saw a small archway which the mist had hidden from our sight. We ran through it, and found ourselves in a large oval antechamber with three narrow passageways leading from it.
Which one led to the throne room? I wondered. Maybe none of them, but anywhere seemed safer than near the water’s edge.
‘I’ll try sniffing them in turn,’ I told Thorne.
Long-sniffing could sometimes warn of danger. At least I could avoid choosing a passageway that held a direct threat to us. But before I could start, something moved into the chamber behind us.
It was a skelt.
Thorne readied her blades and moved between me and the deadly creature. For a moment it halted and stared at us – perhaps it was already bloated with the blood of the witches and needed no more sustenance – but then, suddenly, it scuttled towards the entrance of the left-hand passageway. There it paused and looked back at us, before disappearing from view.
Was it going back the way it had come? If so, others might follow it at any moment, and some of them might still be hungry.
But something very strange happened: the skelt slowly backed out of the passageway until its large red eyes were staring at us once more, then re-entered the passageway. We didn’t move. I watched the entrance to the chamber in case more skelts came in; Thorne watched the passage the lone skelt had taken.
It was then that the creature backed out into the chamber for the second time. Once more it regarded us with its red eyes – they were exactly the same colour as the rubies in the hero swords.
It was strange that the image of a skelt should adorn the hilts of those weapons. I wondered what the connection between them was. Would the Dolorous dagger, the blade I had come to retrieve, be fashioned in a similar way?
‘I think it wants us to follow . . .’ I said slowly, trying to make sense of its strange behaviour.
‘Why would a skelt do that?’ Thorne challenged. ‘If we were to follow, the others might follow us, and then we’d be trapped between them.’
‘It might want to lead us to the throne room.’
‘Why should it help us?’
‘Not all creatures of the dark are on the side of the Fiend, are they? They didn’t attack us just now. They killed the water witches and left us alone.’
Thorne looked doubtful. ‘True, but those skelts in the hot domain weren’t exactly friendly. The ones that came out of that boiling lake would have drained our blood for sure if they had caught us.’
‘Maybe they were just exceptionally hungry. Perhaps the skelts are different here in the Fiend’s domain? Maybe they are divided amongst themselves, just like we witches are? Some are for the Fiend and some against him. Ain’t it worth taking a chance? As you keep reminding me, I’m running out of time.’
Without even waiting for Thorne’s reply, I strode across and entered the passageway. Moments later, I heard her pointy shoes clicking along behind me. We walked in silence for several minutes. At one point the passageway grew very dark and I pulled the candle stub from my pocket and ignited it with a wish. It was a minor use of magic – better than being unable to see danger ahead. I couldn’t hear the skelt ahead of us, but it had to be there.
We emerged into a vast, cavernous space. I held up the candle, but its light was feeble – like a solitary firefly trying to illuminate a dark forest at midnight. At first I could make no sense of what I was seeing. The room was huge, longer than it was wide, and I looked up, suddenly aware of something else.
Curtains seemed to be hanging from the arched wooden beams far above.
I realized that finally, after our long search, we had reached the throne room. There was no doubt: the whole purpose of this space was to provide an approach to that throne. There was a path leading towards it, but rather than being covered in marble or carpet, it was formed of grass and flowers.
There was a multitude of flowers with pale yellow petals, which I recognized as primroses. There were daisies too, and buttercups, and blooms I didn’t recognize, all filling the air with a pleasant scent. It seemed strange – more appropriate to Pan’s domain than that of the Fiend. I wondered if things were changing here because of the Fiend’s absence. But then I heard the drone of insects and I shuddered, thinking of Beelzebub. Listening more closely, I decided that these sounded more like the gnats and midges of a sleepy summer evening than the bloated bluebottles that had filled my nose and mouth.
No doubt many terrified prisoners had been dragged to this place to suffer the Fiend’s cruel wrath, but I’d certainly never been here before.
I began to walk along the grassy path. It was soft and yielding underfoot, with a real spring to it. Directly ahead, I could see the throne itself. It was veiled, partly obscured by those diaphanous curtains that reached almost to the ground. At first I thought it was no more than a dozen paces away. But then I realized my mistake: it was at least ten times further than that.
I remembered that the Fiend could shift in size. After Old Gregory’s battle against the witches on Pendle Hill, the Fiend had tried to destroy Tom, who’d taken refuge in the attic of his brother’s farm; that room had been protected by his mam’s magic and the Fiend had been unable to break into it. But afterwards a dark scar had appeared on the southern slope of Hangman’s Hill, marking the route he had taken to attack the farm. In the fast fury of his passing he had felled a huge swathe of trees, showing just how large he had been.
When I encountered the Fiend, he had been perhaps three times the size of a man. But those flattened trees and the size of this throne gave an indication of how truly dreadful he could be. The being who sat here in his fearsome majesty had been big enough to fit a human in his mouth; he’d been much taller than the tallest County tree.
I continued walking forward cautiously, Thorne just behind me. I kept telling myself to be brave. After all, there was no way the Fiend could be here now. His head was still in the sack carried by Grimalkin. He was trapped in that dead flesh.
When I reached the first of the curtains, I came to a halt and my knees began to tremble. I saw now what it actually was.
It was a web.
‘What sort of spider could have made so many huge hanging webs such as these?’ I wondered.
It was Thorne who spoke his name.
‘It’s Raknid.’
RAKNID AND I had met once before, long ago, and his name brought another flood of terrible memories from my time with Lizzie. It had happened the month before she found the leather egg and we encountered Betsy Gammon.
It was at the Testing.
‘Well, girl,’ Lizzie had said to me one morning. ‘Got something for you to look forward to. In a week’s time, on Lammas Night, you’re for the Testing!’
Lammas was one of the four main witch sabbaths – the occasions when the most powerful magic was performed and the Pendle clans were at their most dangerous.
I didn’t like the look on Lizzie’s face. I knew that every girl trained as a witch had to undergo some sort of ritual called the Testing. But the details were never discussed; nothing was passed on from witch to witch.
‘But I’m not a Malkin, I’m a Deane!’ I protested. ‘My mother was a Malkin but my father was a Deane. I’m Alice Deane, so I don’t need to be tested.’
Lizzie gave me a strange smile. ‘You’re with me and being trained by me, so that makes you a Malkin – you’d better get used to it, girl.’
Now, years later, I know why Lizzie smiled so strangely. It turned out later that it was she who was my mother, and I’d been fathered by the Fiend – the Devil himself. But I didn’t know that then, so I fell silent. Lizzie often gave weird little smiles – all I was concerned with was the test. Part of me didn’t want to know what the Testing involved, but it was always better to be prepared for the worst.
‘What will I be tested for?’ I asked.
‘Two things, girl. First off to see what type of witchcraft would best suit you – bone magic, blood magic or familiar magic. Next to find out how strong a witch you’re likely to become.’
My mouth was really dry now, but I forced myself to ask the next question. ‘How do they test you? What do they do?’
Lizzie smirked. She was probably enjoying the look of fear on my face. ‘Best you just wait and see. You’ll find out on the night, girl. But in the meantime, there are three things you have to do in order to prepare for the Testing. From now on, don’t wash. You need a full week of dirt to cake your body so that you’ll be ready.’
‘Why do I need to be dirty?’ I asked.
‘Dirt and dark magic go together – I thought you knew that. The dirtier the skin, the darker and stronger the magic!
‘Secondly, don’t eat any meat – not even gravy or soup with a trace of meat in it. And thirdly, think hard about what you’d like to work with as a witch – blood, bone or a familiar. Because that’s one thing you’ll have to declare.’
I didn’t sleep the night before the Testing. I was dreading it, and my stomach was in twisty, tormenting knots. Some folk talk about having butterflies when they feel nervous. With me it was more like big fanged snakes and worms were writhing inside me, biting my insides.
I rose at dawn, but that meant I had the whole day to get through before the Testing at dusk. I really wanted to wash, but Lizzie had forbidden it, and I was mucky from head to toe, my hair caked with dirt. I kept scratching my itchy head, but that only seemed to make it worse.
Deanes didn’t usually go near Malkin Tower. If they got in, they’d most likely never come out alive. There were terrifying stories about bloodstained chambers far beneath it, where the Malkins tortured their enemies before throwing them into deep dank dungeons to starve to death.
The day passed, and soon we were walking through Crow Wood, and that dreadful dark stone tower was directly ahead. It was a scary place, all right, at least three times taller than the treetops. It reminded me of a castle tower because of the battlements on top, and the narrow pointy windows. It also had a wide moat with a drawbridge. But the big wooden door to the tower was closed. It was studded with rusty iron – a metal that witches could not bear to touch.
Lizzie walked onto the drawbridge and I followed reluctantly at her heels. Someone waved down to her from the battlements – probably one of the witches from her coven; a moment later we heard heavy bolts being drawn back, and then the door began to swing slowly open, grinding on its hinges. We stepped inside, and the door closed behind us. I stood there, eyes stinging from the smoke that filled the big gloomy room where the coven lived. I recognized some of their faces because I’d passed them in the village street. But some were complete strangers, and I wondered if they ever left the tower.
By now my mouth was dry, my heart beating against my ribs fit to burst. Terrible things happened in this tower. I feared that they might happen to me.
In the corners of the room there were fires with cooking pots – and heaps of bones. Some of these looked like animal bones, but others could easily have been human. There was also the stink of unwashed bodies and cooking fat; sacks and crumpled dirty sheets lay piled on the floor against the curve of the wall: obviously the witches’ beds. In the middle of the room was another fire with a large cauldron bubbling away over it.
The coven stared at me curiously. The witches were dressed in long dark gowns that looked none too clean and their faces were streaked with dirt and grease. They stank of stale sweat and animal fat. Lizzie was right: dirt and dark magic really did go together. But there was one tall woman who stood out from the rest; one who looked clean and bright-eyed. Her body wa
s crisscrossed with leather straps, and fastened to them were sheaths, holding blades. One weapon wasn’t visible but everybody knew about it . . . She wore it in a special sheath under her left arm: it was a pair of pointy scissors, which she used to snip off the thumbs of her enemies.
I had never seen her before, but I knew that this witch wasn’t a member of the coven of thirteen. She had to be Grimalkin, the assassin of the Malkin clan. Our eyes locked and she smiled: I saw that behind her black-painted lips, her teeth had been filed to sharp points.
Lizzie seized me by the arm and dragged me towards the far wall, where a big woman with long white hair stood staring at us. I knew her by reputation. It was Maggie Malkin, the leader of the clan.
She scowled at me and took my left arm just above the elbow, squeezing it so hard that I yelped with pain.
‘Skinny little thing, ain’t she?’ Maggie said. ‘Not much meat on them twiggy bones. Have you told her what happens if she fails the test?’
Lizzie gave me an evil smile. ‘I thought it best to save that pleasure for you, Maggie. I wouldn’t want to steal your thunder!’
It was the first time I’d seen Lizzie being so ingratiating. It made me realize that, as a group, these witches were really powerful: she was nervous of them, no matter what she said about them in private.
With an appreciative nod towards Lizzie, Maggie dragged me towards the big pot in the centre of the room. Next to it was a wooden table with several small boxes on it, along with three wooden cups, each covered with a red cloth. Additionally, beside the table stood what looked like a very big box with a black silk cloth laid over it. Maybe it was a chest of drawers? I wondered what was inside it.
I tried a sly sniff to see if I could get some hint of what it might be, but I got nothing back. No doubt the coven had collaborated to create a powerful spell to stop nosy people like me.
Two other girls were waiting in the room, looking just as scared as I felt, and Maggie released my arm and pushed me next to them. I knew them by sight, although we’d never spoken. I’d lived with my mam and dad in the Deane village of Roughlee, whereas they were Malkins and came from Goldshaw Booth. The taller girl was called Marsha, the shorter one Gloria.