The water was very uncomfortable, but I slid in, forcing myself to put up with it. However, other thoughts were already disturbing my concentration. I remembered Nunc’s greeting and was suddenly dismayed by his reference to purrai.
Purrai are human females, usually bred within the skleech pens of Valkarky – sometimes for slavery but mostly to be eaten. The term can also apply to human females such as the three sisters. That Nunc should keep purrai in this tower was of little surprise, but to offer them so promptly to a guest showed disrespect. This, in conjunction with his use of Baelic, suggested that he did indeed wish to trade.
Nunc’s next words immediately confirmed that I was right.
‘I offer you my three most prized purrai, but I require something of you in exchange – a trade. You must give your own purrai into my possession.’
‘With the utmost courtesy and respect, I must decline your generous offer,’ I told him. ‘I am bound by a promise I made. I must deliver my three purrai to their relatives in Pwodente.’
Nunc growled deep in his throat. ‘Any promise made to a human has no validity here – as High Mage I require your obedience in this matter. I need the youngest child this night at the feast of Talkus the Unborn. Such young tasty flesh will grace the occasion.’
‘Although I respect your position, Lord,’ I said, keeping my voice polite and deferential, ‘I owe you no personal allegiance. The purrai are my property and I have the natural right under Kobalos law to dispose of them as I think fit. So I am sorry, but must reject your offer to trade.’
It was true that I had to respect Nunc as a High Mage, but I was perfectly entitled to refuse his demand. There the matter should have ended, but no sooner had I spoken than I felt a sudden sharp pain in my left leg, close to the ankle. It was as if someone had pricked my flesh with the point of a blade and twisted.
Instinctively, I reached down and touched something that eluded my grasp and undulated quickly away through the water.
I cursed my own stupidity, realizing that I’d been bitten by some kind of water snake. The heat and the steam had dulled my senses; otherwise I would have become aware of the creature upon entering the anteroom. Had I raised my tail, I would have detected it for sure, but such an act was unthinkable; it would have been a serious breach of etiquette and a great insult to my host. I had never expected such treachery.
Fearing for my life, I turned and tried to clamber out of the pool.
But it was already too late. I slipped back into the water, aware that my body was rapidly becoming numb. It was already difficult to breathe and my chest was growing even tighter.
‘You are dying,’ said Nunc, his deep voice booming back from the walls. ‘You should have accepted my offer. Now your purrai are mine and I need give you nothing in return.’
Shuddering with pain, I fell into an intense darkness. I was not afraid to die, but I felt deep shame at having been bested so easily. I had made a mistake in underestimating Nunc. Skaiium had crept up on me almost without my noticing. I truly had grown soft. I was no longer fit to be a haizda mage.
NESSA
YOU MUST BE brave, Nessa, I told myself. If ever you needed courage, you need it now – for your own sake but most of all for your sisters’!
I had been locked in a small oblong room without a window. There was the stub of a candle impaled upon a rusty spike protruding from the wall, and by its flickering light I examined my surroundings.
My heart sank in dismay for, in truth, this was nothing more than a cell; there was no furniture – just a heap of dirty straw in the far corner.
I could see dark stains on the stone walls, as if some liquid had been splashed there, and I feared it might be blood. I shivered and looked more closely, and immediately felt heat radiating from the wall. At least I wouldn’t be cold. That was a small comfort.
A hole in the floor with a rusty metal lid served to meet the needs of bodily functions; and there was a pitcher of water but no food.
For a moment, as I took stock of my surroundings, I felt despair, but that was quickly replaced by anger.
Why should my life be over before it had properly begun?
The deep sorrow that I had experienced at the sudden death of my father had transformed itself into a permanent ache of loss. I loved him, but I was so angry. Had he not thought of my feelings? What had he said in his letter?
Had it ever proved necessary, I would have sacrificed myself for you. Now you must sacrifice yourself for your younger sisters.
How presumptuous of him to command me to sacrifice myself for my sisters! How easy it was for him to say that! That sacrifice had never been demanded of him. He was now dead and free of this awful world. My pain was only just starting. I would become a slave of these beasts. I would never have a family of my own – no husband and children for me.
I checked the door, but there was no handle on the inside and I’d heard the key turn in the lock. There was no way out of the cell. I began to cry softly, but it was not self-pity that replaced my anger; I wept for my sisters – poor Bryony would be terrified, confined in a cell like this alone.
How quickly we’d fallen from relative happiness to this state of misery. Our mother had died giving birth to Bryony, but since that sad day Father had done his very best, providing for us and bravely trading with the Kobalos beast – Slither, he called it – to keep it at bay. We’d had little contact with the nearby village and other farms, but enough to know of the beast’s reign of terror and to realize that we had been spared the fear and suffering that others in the neighbourhood had endured.
I thought I could hear Bryony crying out in the next cell, but when I placed my ear to the wall there was only silence.
I called out her name as loudly as I could – and then a second time. After each attempt I listened carefully with my ear against the wall. But there was no reply that I could hear.
After a while my candle guttered out, plunging me into darkness, and again I thought of Bryony. No doubt her candle would do the same and she’d be terrified. She had always been afraid of the dark.
Eventually I fell asleep, but was suddenly awoken by the sound of a key turning in the lock. The door groaned on its hinges and slowly opened, filling the cell with yellow light.
I fully expected to see Slither, and I tensed, preparing myself for whatever happened next. However, it was a young woman, who was standing in the open doorway brandishing a torch and beckoning me with her other arm.
She was the first human, apart from my sisters, that I had seen since leaving the farm. ‘Oh, thank you!’ I cried. ‘My sisters—’ But my smile of relief froze on my face when I saw the fierce expression in her eyes. She was not here as a friend.
Her bare arms were covered in scars. Some were a livid red and quite recent. Four other women stood behind her; two of them had multiple scars on their cheeks. Why should that be? Did they fight amongst themselves? I wondered. Three were carrying cudgels; the fourth brandished a whip. They were all quite young, but their eyes were full of anger, and their faces were very pale, as if they’d never seen sunlight.
I rose to my feet. The woman beckoned again and, when I hesitated, entered the cell, seized my forearm and dragged me roughly towards the door. I screamed out and tried to resist, but she was too strong.
Where were they taking me? I couldn’t allow myself to be separated from my sisters. ‘Susan! Bryony!’ I yelled.
Outside, both arms were twisted up behind my back and I was forced up the steep flight of stone steps until, right at the very top, we came to a doorway. The women thrust me through it violently, making me lose my balance and sprawl onto the floor, which was smooth and warm to the touch. It was clad with ornate tiles, each depicting some exotic creature that could only have come from the artist’s imagination. It was hot and humid within, the air full of steam, but ahead, as I got up onto my knees, I saw a huge bath sunk into the floor.
Once they’d pushed me inside, the women retreated back down the steps,
first locking the door behind them. I climbed to my feet and stood with trembling legs, wondering what was going to happen next. Why had I been brought here?
Peering through the steam, I saw a narrow bridge leading over the bath to the foot of a great rusty iron door on the other side. Then I heard someone cry out in pain. That door filled me with foreboding. What lay beyond it?
My trembling became more violent and my heart sank, for it had sounded like Susan. Surely it couldn’t be her? I hadn’t heard a thing from my room. But when the cry came again, I was certain. What was happening to her? Someone was hurting her. The women must have dragged her up here too.
But why, when the beast had promised to protect us? Father had always claimed that he was a creature of his word – that he believed in what he called ‘trade’ and always honoured what he had promised. If that was so, how could he allow this to happen? Or could it be that he had lied – that he was the one inflicting the pain?
I walked along the edge of the bath. Then I halted and, for the first time, noticed the black coat on the hook behind the door and, beneath it, resting against the wall, the belt and the sabre that had once belonged to my father. Was Slither now on the other side of that door, hurting Susan?
I had to do something. My eyes skittered hither and thither, along the length of the room, looking anywhere but at the door. All at once I saw something dark in the bath close to the wall on my left. What was it? It looked like some dark furry animal floating face-down in the water.
The creature looked far too small to be the beast who called himself Slither – it was hardly a quarter of his bulk – but I remembered that my father had once told me how, by using dark magic, a haizda mage could change his size. Peeping through the curtains when he visited our farm, I had also seen some evidence of this, for the beast had indeed seemed to vary in size from day to day. I also remembered the huge eye that I had glimpsed through the chink in the curtain when Slither had visited the house after my father’s death. I had assumed that it was the work of my own imagination, inspired by terror. But what if it really had been the beast? Could he really make himself that big? If so, he could surely also shrink.
But if this body was Slither’s, then who had done this to him? How had he come to drown in this bath? Suddenly I thought I saw the beast’s left foot twitch very slightly, and stepped closer.
Was he still alive? If he was, one part of me wanted to push him under the water and drown him. Nothing could please me more, and he was helpless now. I would never get a better chance than this to finish him off. But it wasn’t possible. We were in a dangerous place, inhabited by more of these beasts. Without his protection, all three of us would die here.
So, without further thought, I knelt close to the water and, leaning across, grasped him firmly by the scruff of the neck.
Even as I did so, I saw something moving very rapidly through the water towards my hand; instinctively I released my burden and withdrew. It was a small black snake with three vivid yellow spots on top of its head. I had seen snakes in the fields but never one as striking as this.
I watched it undulate away, moving more slowly now, but it was hard to see through the steam. Knowing that it might circle back at any moment, I wasted no time, and now gripped the beast with both hands – at the base of the neck and low on his back – entwining my fingers in his fur. ‘Come on!’ I said to myself. And I tensed and pulled upwards with all my strength.
The bath was full almost to the brim, but even so I found it difficult to haul the creature out of the water. I made one final effort, and managed to drag him up onto the side of the bath, where I knelt, trembling with exertion. Again the scream came from beyond the door, and this time I was quite sure that it was the cry of Susan in torment.
‘Please! Please!’ she cried out. ‘Don’t do that! It hurts so much. Help me! Please help me or I’ll die!’
My throat constricted in anguish. I couldn’t bear the thought of one of these creatures hurting her.
Slither had promised to protect us: he was bound by that promise – without him we were completely at the mercy of the other inhabitants of the tower. But when I looked down at the bedraggled body, it displayed no sign of life at all, and I was filled with utter despair. Again there came a cry of pain and terror from Susan. In response, filled with anger at the hopelessness of everything and the pain of my sister, I began to beat Slither’s body with my fists. As I did so, water oozed out of his mouth and formed a small brown puddle beside his head.
The colour of the liquid gave me an idea. I suddenly realized that there was, after all, one more thing that I could do, one final way in which he might possibly be revived.
Blood! Human blood! My father had once said that was the main source of Slither’s power.
Quickly, I got to my feet and went over to the door where the beast’s long black coat hung. There, I stooped and picked up the sabre that had once belonged to my father and carried it back to where the creature lay. Kneeling down, I turned him over.
My eyes swept upwards from his toes, noting with distaste the tangled forest of black fur. His mouth was open and his tongue lolled sideways over his teeth, hanging down almost as far as his left ear. The sight of him disgusted and repelled me.
Nervously, anticipating the pain, I positioned my arm just above Slither’s mouth and, taking the sabre, made a quick cut into my flesh. The blade had been sharpened and sliced into my inner arm more deeply than I had intended. There was a sharp pain and a stinging sensation. And then my blood was falling like dark rain into the open mouth of the beast.
IT WAS MY fifth sense, that of taste, which drew me up out of that dark pit into which I had fallen. My mouth was full of warm, sweet blood.
I choked and spluttered, but then managed to swallow, and the rich liquid slid down into my belly, restoring me to life. My olfactory sense returned next. The inviting odour of the blood of a human female filled my nostrils. She was very close and was full of the same delicious blood that, even now, was filling my mouth.
The next sense to return was touch. It began with pins and needles in my extremities, which quickly became a fire, so that it felt as if my whole body were burning. It was then that my aural senses suddenly functioned once more and, hearing someone weeping, I opened my eyes and stared up in amazement at the figure of Nessa, who was crouching over me, tears running down her face. I saw the sabre gripped in her right hand. My mind was sluggish, and for a moment I thought she meant to strike me with it.
I tried to bring up my arms to defend myself, but I was too weak and couldn’t even manage to roll away. But to my surprise she did not cut me. I lay there staring up at her, trying to make sense of what was happening.
Slowly I began to understand why she was holding the sword, finally linking its sharp edge to the blood falling towards me from the deep cut on her inner arm.
Then, as my memory returned, I recalled Nunc’s treachery . . . the bite of the water snake. I had died. Or so it had seemed. The blood was still falling into my mouth but there was less of it now. I swallowed again, then reached up, trying to seize Nessa’s arm so that I could draw it down to my mouth. I needed more blood, but moved too slowly, and with a look of disgust, she snatched her arm out of reach.
By now the blood had done its job and I managed to roll over and rise up onto my knees, shaking myself violently like a dog so that water droplets scattered in all directions. My mind was working faster now. I was beginning to think. Beginning to realize the enormity of what Nessa had done for me.
She had given me her blood. And that human blood had strengthened my shakamure magic, counteracted the effects of the snake bite and drawn me back from the edge of death. But why had she done it? And why was she here and not still locked in the cell?
‘My sister. Someone’s hurting my sister through there. Help her, please!’ Nessa begged, pointing to the door on the other side of the bridge. ‘You promised we’d be safe . . .’
I heard another sound then. It was
the distant whimper of a girl and it came from behind the door to Nunc’s private quarters.
‘She’s been taken in there!’ Nessa continued, her voice growing more frantic. ‘And where’s Bryony? Some awful women threw me in here and locked the door. I have just saved your life, so you owe me now! Help us, please!’
I stood shakily and raised my tail. With it I sensed Nunc and knew why Susan had cried out. He was drinking her blood. I was outraged that Nunc should flout Kobalos customs and avail himself of my property like this. But I was also filled with a sense of debt to Nessa. She was right: I owed her my life.
It was strange to acknowledge such a thing. A human female was nothing. Within the city of Valkarky she was just property. So why should I feel this way? What if it truly were skaiium, the softening of my predatory nature? Such a thing would indeed be terrible to bear.
I turned to face Nessa. I would kill Nunc and harden my nature again in the process. Nothing was more important.
‘Give me the blade!’ I commanded, simultaneously blowing myself up in size so that I was a head taller than the girl.
Weeping now, Nessa held it out towards me. Her hand was shaking, but I saw that the blood had almost ceased flowing from her left arm and was beginning to coagulate. Rather than taking the blade then and there, I turned my back on the girl and went to get my coat and boots.
I pulled the boots on first, lacing them up carefully, then fastened the straps across my shoulders and chest, checking that the short blades were correctly positioned in the two scabbards. Next I drew on my coat, realizing as I did so that the three keys had been removed. As I fastened all thirteen buttons, Susan cried out again from beyond the door.
‘Please – please hurry!’ begged Nessa.
But I knew that it was important to avoid undue haste. Despite my anger I must move with caution, choosing my moment and striking only when the occasion permitted. Nunc was alone with the girl, but there might be up to three score warriors quartered below the tower, ready to defend their High Mage.