A Princess of the Chameln (19 page)

“Venn,” she said, “you can't go in there . . .”

“I will,” said Aidris. “I have been in worse places. Wait here and watch and fetch the captain if I do not return by the time the sun is over the third poplar tree. Fetch the captain and Niall of Kerrick, he knows about such things.”

“Take a weapon,” said Ortwen, “a staff!”

“No!” said Mother Mora. “Go in peace. Don't eat or drink anything while you're there. Bring nothing away with you . . . except the two fellas, that is.”

Aidris went to the center of the bridge and drew out her grandmother's scrying stone. It had a sparkle of life round the frame.

“Keep me safe from harm,” she said. “See where I go.”

She let the blue stone hang down on the front of her tunic and strode boldly over the bridge into the meadow again. She could see the marks in the tangled grass where she had walked the first time. She walked on, and there was the willow wand that Ortwen had thrown. She plucked it up out of the soft ground and called aloud, as she had done before, “Sergeant Wray! Kern Simmen! Come out!”

Then there was that same windy clatter inside the mill, and the sails moved a notch, no more. Aidris looked back over her shoulder and found that the bridge had gone. There was only a shimmering veil in the air, like the sun dazzling on dewdrops. She thought, I am in another world, like the world of the scrying stone.

She took a few more steps towards the mill and saw the rank grasses flattened, the wind-wave rolling towards her over the grass. She braced herself, spreading her arms wide, and when the wave broke over her it was warm, a wave of warm air that stung and prickled. It drew up her hair into points and struck sparks from her belt buckle.

“Let me pass!” she cried. “I come in peace!”

There was a familiar sound, but in that place it made her jump. A horse nickered and came trotting eagerly round the side of the mill. She saw at once that it was no wraith, no nightmare, but a dainty live roan, a thoroughbred of the Athron stock, which had come from the high plateau of Mel'Nir.

“Wheesht,” she said gently. “Come up then . . .”

She held out a hand and the tame, lovely creature came to her, tossing her mane.

“Who brought
you
here?” whispered Aidris.

She brought out of her pocket a piece of carrot that she had been saving for Telavel. She thought of the old woman's words about eating and drinking in a magic place. Did it apply to horses? This one had surely been eating the grass. It was a little lonely and nervous, waiting for its mistress or master, but neither bewitched nor wildly afraid. The mare's bridle was of patterned leather, elaborately scalloped; the saddle and girth were picked out with gold.

“What can you tell me?” she said to the mare. “Who left you here and went into the mill?”

Aidris looked at the doorway of the mill nearest her, a gaping black hole with grass growing over the threshold. She stroked the roan mare's warm neck one last time, turned away and laid her hand on the scrying stone.

“I will go in!” she said.

She pushed through the tall stalks of fennel and nightshade and crossed the threshold. She saw nothing at first; the place smelled dry, hot and old. Then as her sight cleared, she saw the ancient structure towering up all around her, an immense empty shell with only broken beams and a gaping pit at her feet to show where the machinery of the mill had once stood. There was a stairway that clung to the wall and rooms or the remains of rooms, with the flooring ripped away. Sunlight came in through gaps and chinks in the timberwork.

Aidris found she was stifling; there was a sudden reek of boiled hide and bones, a whiff of the knacker's yard. She became aware of a movement in the pit at her feet; it was full of liquid, a sea of hot foulness, boiling up. She tried to call the sergeant again, and her voice was stifled in her chest. She ran left to the stairway, the ground slippery under her feet. The first few steps were of stone. She looked back and saw a black tide bubble up out of the pit and follow her on the stairs. She could look down into a thick, oozy blackness, very hot, with green-skinned bubbles that rose and burst slowly, giving off a vile stink.

She climbed on the wooden stairs now, and for a moment her perception altered. She was high on the other wall of the mill, she was a spider in its web, an owl in one of the old owl nests, watching a kedran in a white and green tunic climb the zigzag stair that clung to the mill wall. Still the kedran climbed, and she, Aidris, felt a very cold and unearthly fear. She felt the presence of the fetch, the thing that lived in the old mill. It was like a seed beginning to grow, a flame springing up in the ashes of a fire. While she was divided from her own body, the fetch might come between, and she would remain cast out, a lost thing, howling upon the wind.

She made a great effort and was on the stairs again crying out loudly, “Sergeant Wray!”

The mill took her voice and broke it into a score of echoes; she came to the first landing of the stair. She could look down now and see that the pit was dry and full of weeds, with a lighter patch, perhaps an old sack, off in a corner. The mill creaked and groaned through all its timbers. There was a tumbling and thundering, the sound of voices shouting, the grinding of stone on stone, all the sounds of the mill in its heyday. Then, as these sounds faded, she caught a faint, groaning cry from above, in the dome of the mill where the flooring was almost intact.

Once again something brushed at her mind as if trying to be known.

“Fetch,” she said aloud, “spirit, let me bring them out. Give them back. You cannot harm me!”

A terrible screaming cry rang out at her very elbow, and she pressed back against the wall. Then she went on, step by step, past the second landing. She could look across to a hoist platform on the opposite wall, and it seemed that a man stood or hung there, she could make out his pale face and dark clothes. Still she went on and the last flight of steps was very dark, leading up to the room in the dome, which was filled with light.

Then the darkness gathered itself together into a heap, a shapeless clump of black in which there burned two points of light. The fetch reared up before her on the stair, but she mastered her fear because she had sensed its nature. It was less than human; it was a poor half-made thing.

“Let me pass!” she ordered.

She made a light movement with the peeled willow wand, which she still carried. The black shape bowed down, flowing away over the side of the stairs into nothingness. She ran up the last few steps into the dome of the mill.

There were three small windows letting in the light, and under the central one was a grey-haired, heavyset man collapsed like a sack of meal, his head bloody. Sergeant Wray. She ran to him, chafed his cold hands. He opened his eyes and gave her a dazed look.

“Sergeant!”

“Kedran?” he whispered.

“Come,” she said. “We must go out!”

He raised slow hands to his aching head, licked dry lips.

“Schnapps . . . in m'poke . . .”

She felt in his pouch and there was a leather bottle. She gave him a taste, no more, then damped his kerchief and wiped his face.

“Holy Mother of us all,” he whispered, “this is a fearful place. Venn is it? Venn, how came you here?”

“Can you walk?” she asked. “We must go out.”

“The other fellow,” he said. “Yonder. Some young fool from the city . . .”

She saw that a youngish man lay in shadow under the window on her right, the western window. She went across to him, avoiding a gaping hole in the floor. He was richly dressed, about thirty years old, with fine, pinched features and long, curled, perfumed silky hair, chestnut-brown, falling over his face. She lifted up a jeweled badge, a stag's head, that hung round his neck, and saw among his rings a signet with the same device and another with the monogram T. M. Terril Menvir, Prince Terril of Varda, younger brother of Prince Flor, who was expected that day: a cousin then, but not of the kind who rescued
her
in dreams. She did not understand his presence in the old mill; she slapped his royal face with a certain good will.

“Highness!”

His eyes were dark, they made him almost handsome; he smiled at her dreamily, then came wide awake.

“Highness, we must go out. The place is bewitched.”

“Worked too well,” he murmured. “Worked like a charm.”

Prince Terril began to laugh, then choked.

“The place is deadly,” he said. “How came you here, green-eyes? Who are you?”

“Kedran Venn of Kerrick Hall,” she said. “We must go out!”

“It . . . it will not let us!”

“It is quiet now,” she said.

“You are a witch, Kedran!”

He snatched at the blue scrying-stone, then drew back his hand as if it had burned his fingers.

“I may be,” said Aidris grimly. “What were you doing in the mill, Highness?”

“Oh it was a stupid trick, nothing more. Did Fantjoy send you in, my man?”

“No,” she said, “we missed the signal flag at the hall. Come . . .”

“Look out of the window, Venn,” he said. “Look out of all the windows!”

He laughed unsteadily. She stood up to help him to his feet and looked out of the western window. She saw, in place of the bright countryside and the bridge where the kedran company were posted, a desolate place that she hardly knew. Yet there
was
a bridge. The season was autumn still. Garth was a shrunken brown village. There among a few bright autumn trees was a plain old house of sand-colored stone with no avenue, no barracks, none of the larger outbuildings. Four riders came over the bridge: an old man, a dark man and a woman with tawny hair. The fourth man was familiar, he had a look of Niall of Kerrick. Their horses were strange; the old man had a tall roan, the others rode shaggy, spotted coastal ponies.

Aidris tore herself away from the strange scene and helped Prince Terril to his feet. He staggered a little and then stood pressed against the wall.

“We were . . . three . . .” he murmured.

Aidris felt her heart miss a beat.

“Sergeant,” she said, “
where is Simmen?”

Then Sergeant Wray gave a cry of pain.

“O Goddess!” he said, gasping. “O Simmen, boy . . . I remember . . .”

He had clambered up onto his hands and knees, and now he crawled towards the hole in the flooring. Aidris went forward and so did the prince. They looked far down into the pit, and Aidris could see the young soldier lying spread-eagled, on his back.

“He ran mad,” sobbed Wray. “I was half-stunned, I could not hold him. He ran mad . . . he went through . . .”

“What happened?” demanded Aidris. “Prince, what magic have you worked in this place?”

“A simple spell of binding,” said Terril. “Fantjoy had it from some damned mountebank. Worked passing well in Varda, in the gardens.”

Aidris was still mystified.

“What was your plan?”

Prince Terril frowned and shook back his lovelocks.

“A jape,” he said. “A trick to be played on my brother, Flor, and that smooth-faced model of a prince, Ross of Eildon. It was a good plan. This mill overlooks the crossroads. We cast our circle from here, at moonrise, naming the concurrence of the victims . . . then zim-zala-bim, the princes meet when the sun is high and vanish from sight. They are held in the charmed circle until we release them, together with whatever is closest to them in the way of toadies, horses, whores . . .”

“You burst in upon us!” cried Sergeant Wray. “Prince or whatever you may be . . . you have done this thing, brought down this curse. We were up here, minding our business, sweating it out a little in this spooky place with a few uncanny sounds. Then in comes this fine young gentleman making passes, muttering spells. We were all overwhelmed: dark shapes, terrible noises, a rushing wind. I was flung against the wall; the very boards and timbers of the place rose up and fought with us. Then poor young Simmen. . . .”

Aidris bent down to comfort him and eased him back to the wall under the southern window. She looked out and saw the bright autumn day, the banners at the crossroads, men and women at the roadside, where the procession would pass. Something in the way these watchers behaved nagged at her. She could not see the sun. Once again she forced herself to look away.

“The charm rebounded on the mill,” she said. “I do not understand the full working. You chose a bad spot for your jape, Prince Terril. The mill is bewitched; it has a fetch; your clumsy magic waked it into life. You are vanished away and held here inside a charmed circle. Do you have the word of power to release the spell?”

“Why, of course,” said the prince eagerly.

“Hush!” said Aidris. “Do not speak it on any account until we are free. Do you have it written?”

“Here somewhere,” said Terril, fumbling in his velvet sleeve. “It is only in runes though . . . I have learned of the sound.”

“I can read it,” said Aidris, taking the scrap of parchment from his hand.

“A witch indeed,” said Terril with a wan smile, fixing her with his dark eyes. “A green-eyed witch maiden, among the kedran of Kerrick Hall . . .”

He turned to Sergeant Wray.

“Sergeant,” he said, “I will pay for this foolishness all my life long, I think. I will also pay my debt to the young kern's family. If we come out, please try to forgive me.”

“Well said, at least,” growled the Sergeant. “But Venn, how
do
we come out?”

“I have tamed the fetch,” said Aidris. “You must follow me.”

“But Simmen?” he whispered. “He is gone for sure. How will we bring
him
out?”

“Wait!” she ordered.

She went to the dark place where the stairs went down and struck the topmost stair with her willow wand. There was a furry movement of the darkness where the fetch waited. She felt a thrill of power because it would do her bidding; she understood the temptation of the fetch.