The Cursed Towers (62 page)

Isabeau saw with dismay that the Mesmerd had darted easily past Feld's ineffectual staff and had flown swiftly up the stairs in pursuit of Ishbel and Bronwen. The Khan'cohban had seized his dagger again and was advancing on her, Isabeau backing away until she was stopped by a pillar. Her knees were shaking with terror and she gripped her sweaty palms together and tried to anticipate his attack. Lasair dashed forward, teeth bared, but the Khan'cohban smashed his fist into the horse's cheek, causing him to scream and dance away. Isabeau took this momentary break in the warrior's concentration to run back, sheltering behind another thick pillar.

"Maya!" she called. "Can ye transform the stallion back? Ye must try!"

"I do no' ken if I can!"

"Ye must try! Maya, try, for Ea's sake!"

"Will ye give me back my baby?"

"If ye do no' do something, we shall all die!" Isabeau screamed back. The Fairge clenched her hands into fists, her cheeks turning scarlet, her jaw clenched so tightly the muscles could be seen bunching up in her throat and cheeks. "I canna!" she grunted. "I canna!"

"Ye can!" Isabeau replied as another gray, winged creature darted at her out of the shadows. She only managed to evade it by falling flat on the floor, the Mes-merd's gray draperies brushing her as it flew over her. She was almost overcome with its swampy smell, covering her nose and mouth with her hands and scrambling to get out of the Khan'cohban's reach.

"Ye can!" she cried again, gathering fire into her hands and flinging a flaming ball at the Mesmerd. It darted away and the sphere of fire smashed into the wall and was extinguished. "Come on, Maya, ye ken ye can do it!"

Maya closed her eyes, pointed both hands at the rearing stallion, her fingers rigid, and said with a deep grunt of effort, "Change!"

The stallion did. His skin shivered and rippled, red hide, white flesh, red hide. His hooves stamped and spun, the sharp tattoo softening into the slap of bare feet. The great dark eyes glared blue, glazed over with shadows, glared blue through a tangle of red hair. The long, delicately boned nose flattened and shrunk into the face of a horned man, wild eyed and mad with confusion. Khan'-gharad neighed and shook his wild red mane and stamped his bare feet and tried to rear, only to fall in a tangle of naked limbs, his body no longer that of the great, strong, four-legged horse but of a man who no longer knew how to walk.

The Khan'cohban warrior smiled and bent to pick up his dagger. As it turned in his hand it glittered in the light. Isabeau shrieked and tried to twist it out of his grasp but he had too firm a grip on the shaft. Casually he turned and sent the
reil
whizzing toward her, then bent to seize Khan'gharad by his hair, forcing his head back to expose his throat to the dagger.

Isabeau was barely able to avoid her own throat being cut by the eight-pointed star, so swiftly did it fly. She fell back on to the floor and then the Mesmerd was upon her, its great clusters of shiny eyes and out-thrusting proboscis filling her vision. The stench of the swamp was in her throat, a strange giddiness like that of love or lust or intoxication filling her veins. Pulses hammering, senses swooning, she clenched her hands together and blue fire leapt from her fists, drilling through one of the Mes-merd's compound eyes. Its head exploded into dust, and she was enveloped in its soft gray draperies. Choking and coughing she fought her way free, the Mesmerd's body dissolving into a fine gray dust that stank of mud. She tried hard not to breathe in the odor, reeling away across the room to stand against a pillar, coughing and trying to shake her hair and clothes free of the all-pervading dust. Her vision was obscured by dancing lights and her ears roared. She tried desperately to shake away the darkness overwhelming her, peering down the hall, expecting to see her father fallen in a pool of blood and the Khan'cohban warrior advancing on her with bloody knife.

Instead she saw her father scrabbling on all fours, his eyes staring blue and mad through the tangled red hair and beard, trying to rear and buck as strange neighing sounds issued from his contorted mouth. The dagger lay on the floor.

Coughing, her hands pressed against her painful chest, Isabeau stared uncomprehendingly. There was no sign of the Khan'cohban warrior. She heard a loud croak and looked down. A toad was crouched against the pillar, its lustrous black eyes staring unblinkingly. She looked involuntarily at Maya. The Fairge smiled. She came down the hall, bent and picked up the toad. "He looks much nicer like this, does he no'?" she remarked. She raised it to her face and looked in its bright, jewel-like eyes. "If only your blay-gird mistress had been here too," she said, "ye could have both lived happily ever after together in the swamp. It would have given me as much satisfaction to turn her into a toad as it gave me to turn ye." She put it back down on the floor and it hopped a few steps away, hunching its square, ugly head down between its shoulders.

"Bronwen!" Isabeau cried and started for the stairs. Then she saw the old sorcerer lying on the steps, his hands clutched over the wound in his abdomen. "Feld!" she cried. "Oh, no, Feld!" His eyes were shut but he opened them at the sound of her voice and smiled feebly. "Ishbel?" he asked in a reedy voice. "Is Ishbel safe?"

Isabeau sent a pleading look back at Maya but the Fairge was already hurrying up the stairs. Isabeau knelt beside Feld, feeling for his pulse. Tears choked her. She could hardly breathe with grief and guilt and the taste of the swamp still in her mouth. "Oh, dearling Feld, are ye all right?"

"Aye, lassie, no' so bad," he answered and lifted his bloodstained hands for her to see. She bit her lip at the sight of his bruise-colored entrails pressing up out of the wound, pulsating slightly with every hoarse breath he took. She tore a strip from her shirt and bundled it into the wound, feeling an unfamiliar helplessness. "Ishbel and the babe?" he asked and she said reassuringly, "Maya has gone after them." His look of horror and the frantic scrabbling of his fingers suddenly made her realize that Feld still thought of Maya as the enemy, while she had, imperceptibly, come to think of the Fairge as something more like a friend and ally.

"Save them," Feld whispered, gripping Isabeau's arm with surprising strength. "Ye mun save them."

"But—"

"Nay, Isabeau, go! Do no' worry about me, I beg ye! Save Ishbel and the babe!" Isabeau did not stop to argue, nodding her head and stumbling up the stairs, dizzy and confused. She could feel her mother and Bronwen were at the Tower's height and so she kept running up the stairs, not bothering to search each floor. She saw Maya searching desperately through the corridors of the third floor and called to her to follow.

Isabeau reached the chamber at the top of the Tower and staggered through the doorway, black dots obscuring her vision. She saw that Ishbel had flown up to the tall, stained-glass windows that lined the walls and was struggling to escape through one mullioned pane. Hampered by the wailing baby, she had not been fast enough to escape the Mesmerd, who hovered just behind her, its claws grasping her skirt. Ishbel was trying to kick the Mesmerd in the face but it evaded her easily, its translucent wings whirring. It sensed Isabeau's arrival and leant forward, bending its head over Ishbel and breathing directly onto her face. She faltered, and her hold on the struggling baby weakened. With a cry, Bronwen fell. The Mesmerd swooped and caught her in its claws. Isabeau dared not try and shoot it down with her witch's fire, in fear of hurting the little girl. She could only watch helplessly as the Mesmerd darted away like a giant dragonfly, Bronwen kicking and struggling in its grasp. This image suddenly gave her an idea. She shut her eyes and concentrated on the heavy loops of filthy cobwebs strung across the high, domed ceiling. She felt a keen pleasure as the cobwebs dropped like a sticky, dirty net over the Mesmerd, entangling its wings so it could not fly.

With a strange hoarse sound it fell and Isabeau's fists flew to her mouth in dismay. Ishbel somersaulted down from the window ledge where she had been clinging and caught handfuls of the web, managing to slow its precipitous descent enough to stop the Mesmerd from slamming into the floor. It fell hard, nonetheless, and Isabeau dragged away the sticky mess from it with frantic hands. Luckily the little girl had been cushioned by its hard, segmented body and although she clung to Isabeau with both hands, sobbing, she seemed unhurt. Isabeau soothed her, watching apprehensively as the Mesmerd struggled to rise. She knew she should blast it to powder while it lay helpless at her feet, but she could not bring herself to destroy it so heartlessly.

Then Maya came up beside her, looking at the creature curiously. She bent over it and said coolly, "Do ye understand me?"

It gazed back expressionlessly. She said, "If we release ye from your bonds, will ye promise no' to try to take my daughter again? We wish ye to take that loathsome toad back to your mistress and give her this message from me. Tell her that stepping on a thistle may sting your foot, but stepping on a sea urchin will cause ye to die in agony. Can ye tell her that?"

Slowly it bowed its head, just once. Maya nodded to Isabeau, but the young witch refused to relinquish her hold on Bronwen to do the Fairge's bidding. Maya was forced, very reluctantly, to strip the filthy cobwebs from the Mesmerd's body herself.

"Ye will find the toad downstairs," Maya said, fastidiously wiping her hands on her skirt. "Go now, else this witch will blast ye to dust as she blasted your kin. Understand?" It stared back at her with glittering eyes and flew with some difficulty out the door and down the spiral staircase. Maya turned to Isabeau and held out her hands. "Give me my daughter." Isabeau cuddled Bronwen closer. "Ye canna have her!" she cried. At that moment Ishbel started forward, crying, "It is ye! Foul witch! Ye're the one that ensorcelled my beloved."

She flew at Maya, nails raking. The Fairge stepped back, raising her hands high as if to cast a spell of transformation. Isabeau thrust herself between them, keeping her mother back and shielding her from Maya with her own body.

"Stop it!" she cried. "Mam, it's all right. She's changed
dai-dein
back. He's a man again. He thinks he's still a horse but we can teach him again, I know we can."

"Khan'gharad? A man?" Ishbel faltered. Isabeau nodded and her mother turned and flew down the stairs without a word, swift as a snow goose.

Isabeau turned back to Maya, Bronwen still clinging to her, face buried in her neck. "Ye canna take your daughter," she said firmly. "Ye may stay here with me and learn to ken her again, but ye canna take her away. This is the only home she kens and I'm the closest thing to a mother she's ever had. Besides, ye will both die in the snows. Winter is coming and ye do no' ken the ways o' the mountains or where the hot mineral pools are. So do no' think ye can steal her and run away by transforming me into some horrible wee animal, for if ye do, both o' ye will die. Do ye understand?" Maya smiled at her warmly. "O' course I understand and indeed I canna think o' anything I want more than to stay with ye and my daughter, and get to ken and love ye both again. For we are friends, are we no'?"

"Nay," Isabeau said steadily. "Ye are the enemy o' my people and ye have done more evil than anyone I know. We are no' friends at all."

Maya's smile faded and she looked away wistfully. "Still, I canna think o' anything that would make me happier," she said gently. "I thank ye. Now, please, may I hold my daughter? I have longed to have her in my arms again."

Reluctantly Isabeau unclasped Bronwen's chubby arms from around her neck and gently, with soft reassurances, passed her to Maya. The Fairge cuddled her close, crooning to her, and jealousy struck through Isabeau like a knife. She said abruptly, "I must see what I can do for Feld, who is sore hurt, and for my father. Ye may sleep in the room across from mine. Remember what I said. Ye do no' ken the way through the mountain and there are many dangers. Frost giants and woolly bears, avalanches and evil ogres. Ye would both die if ye tried to escape."

"But I do no' want to escape," Maya said with a smile in her husky voice. She rested her cheek on Bronwen's dark, silky head. "I have what I came for."

THE WEAVER'S SHUTTLE FLIES

In the Mirror

Khan'gharad tossed back his wild, red hair and scrambled across the room on all fours. Porridge was smeared all over his face and ran in clumps and dribbles down his tangled, red beard. He was barefoot, dressed only in an old robe of Feld's that had not been buttoned up properly so it gaped in odd places. Isabeau stood by the table, holding a spoon dripping porridge all down her shirt. At her feet was a broken bowl. Bronwen was bouncing up and down in her chair, throwing her porridge around too, while Ishbel covered her face with her hands, sobbing.

"It's no use," she cried. "He will never learn to be like a man again! Look at him." Isabeau ignored her. She said gently but firmly, "Come,
dai-dein,
I shall no' let ye eat on all fours like an animal. I know ye are hungry but ye must learn to act like a man again. Watch what I do." She turned and sat down at the table, just as a globule of porridge from Bronwen's spoon hit her full in the face. "That's enough, Bronwen!" she snapped. "This is no' a game. Just because my father does no'

remember his manners does no' mean that ye can forget yours!" She wiped her face clean and took a deep breath, trying to control her temper. "Now watch,
dai-dein."
Slowly Isabeau ate from her bowl, exaggerating her movements. Her father neighed and tossed back his head and galloped across the room, thrusting his face into the oatmeal spilt on the floor.

"It's no use," Ishbel said again, her face wet with tears. "He has been a horse too long. He shall never—"

"Yes, he shall," Isabeau snapped. She got to her feet again and knelt by Khan'gharad's side, whickering in reassurance as he shied away from her hand. Gently she pulled him up to a standing position. "Try and remember,
dai-dein."

He stood, swaying slightly, his blue eyes so dilated from fear and confusion that the blue was almost blacked out. She encouraged him to take a step and then another, but then his courage failed and he fell onto his knees. Ishbel covered her face again, weeping, and Isabeau turned on her in exasperation.