On Tollswitch Hill Stories from the Averraine Cycle Read online

  He pulled in another deep breath, and as he did, the world began to right itself. The shadows that had clung to its edges faded, and the sunlight seeped in and once more he disbelieved.

  But not for long.

  He became aware that Roisean had emerged from the cottage, and that the villagers were giving her a wide berth. A very wide berth.

  They didn’t seem frightened. At least, they didn’t seem more frightened than they’d already been, and their fear wasn’t directed at either Kenzie or Roisean. In fact, they seemed very much in awe of her, and respectful – far more respectful than of him. It was vaguely annoying.

  She said, again so softly he had to strain in order to catch the words, “Ask them to tell us how it began.”

  And again, he did not need to, because she might as well have shouted it, and bit by bit, the story came out of them, unwilling though they were to speak the words. The witch. Her man. The burials, in a place they’d thought would be safe.

  “We must go and look,” she said. She said it unwillingly. She said it the way she had said everything else so far, in a resigned tone, as if she’d known exactly what the answers would be before she’d asked. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he began to form not so much a picture of what she was, but an idea of that picture. It was more or less the most unnerving thing in a suddenly unnerving world.

  Kenzie wanted to say that looking at more graves was the one thing he particularly did not wish to do. He wanted to say that it was unlikely that a five-year-old burial site would answer any questions. He wanted, actually, to get on his horse and ride out into the dusk back to the next little hamlet, or even further, to forget he had ever heard of Toll and its tale of witches and ghosts and death.

  Since that was not possible, given his father’s instructions, and since he could not think of a single reasonable alternative, he merely nodded and suggested that this was a task best left until morning.

  Roisean gazed searchingly at him, and then, to his eternal relief, agreed.

  ***

  It was the blackest of nights, and yet he could still see the tree, a deep darkness against the deeper darkness. And something else, beyond the tree. Something of beauty, something silvery and fey…

  He could hear the soft whine of hempen rope against the uneven bark. He could smell the fear from his own body.

  He opened his eyes, only to see Roisean leaning over him, her eyes glittering like stars.

  He rose when she drew away, and he followed her outside, into the cold, leaving Galen still snoring in the corner. He felt that building excitement, the anticipation of pleasure, he thought he knew, now, why they were here, and he was glad, even if it was only because he was well-born, because she was very lovely.

  She walked on past the tithing barn which surprised him, but he followed her still, out along the path and past all the small houses and their chicken runs and sheep pens, and through the little stile-gate, along through the hayfield and into the long meadow, till they came the tree.

  And then suddenly he was in a kind of stone sanctuary, open to the sky, but walled, even so. Like a well, but above the ground, and the woman ahead of him turned suddenly, with a smile of welcome on her bloated corpse face, and she loosened the ties at the throat of her silken gown –

  He woke, with a start, on the hard ground of the ale-room in Toll, with the morning sunlight streaming through the doorway.

  The reeve seemed more resigned to their presence now; she unbent enough to add a dollup of plum jam to the bowl of porridge she served him, and even smiled a little when he thanked her as courteously as he might have thanked his own mother for a treat. But then she scuttled away, back into her kitchens, and although he dawdled as long as he could over his bowl, at long last he could not put it off any longer and he went out into the yard, where Roisean stood, patiently waiting for him.

  Galen didn’t like it. Kenzie couldn’t tell, anymore, if this was because of an inbred, peasant fear of the supernatural and the weird, or if Galen just did not like Roisean (he had muttered, the evening before, several slightly spiteful remarks about her high-handed ways), but he now came up with so many excuses as to why he should not accompany them to the field as well as an almost endless list of chores he needed to see to that, eventually, Kenzie lost his temper and ordered him to shut up and get a move on.

  This was unlike him. His mother had taught him to treat all people with a certain respect, especially when it came to servants, because, she said, everyone had a purpose and a job in life, and deserved to be honoured for it. She had been backed up in this philosophy by his father, who frequently pointed out that it was a great deal harder to lead people if they were disinclined to follow, and that nothing improved that inclination more than appreciation for their continued loyalty.

  His outburst, being so rare, had an effect. Galen did shut up, and he did follow them, out along the path through the village and up into the fields, although when they came to the long meadow and the oak tree, he remained uncharacteristically silent.

  There was little to see here. It was a big tree, and old, with its roots grown up out of the ground in huge twists of woodiness, and its shade had prevented even the smallest of shrubs from encroaching too near, but that seemed quite normal.

  “What did you see?”

  He almost jumped out of his skin. Not “What do you see?”

  No, that wasn’t what she’d said. How on earth did she know about his dream?

  Or was that his imagination? Galen coughed, meaningfully, and both he and the woman rounded on him.

  “You can see where they hung her from,” he said, a bit grumpily. They’d had to ask him, outright, several times, what he was on about before he would answer them. He was still nursing a grudge, thought Kenzie. Well, he’d apologize, later. And sincerely, too, because for the last five years, he’d spent more time with Galen than anyone else he could think of, and Galen had always been sympathetic and loyal, more than a servant, really. A friend, almost.

  But now he looked up and could see what the man meant. There was a mark on one sturdy old branch, only an inch or so wide, a long mark, where something had rubbed hard against the bark.

  It looked as if there had been a rope straining against it, certainly.

  But not as if it had been there for very long.

  Not for five years.

  They didn’t speak. They didn’t protest when Roisean began walking past the tree and towards the hill beyond. They followed her, reluctantly, but they did follow, almost as if they couldn’t help themselves.

  Just as the crest, she stopped. There was a circle of stones there, an irregular straggle of toothy projections, mottled and gray, and nothing seemed to grow here save withered grasses and the occasional dusty thistle-bush.

  He couldn’t see any trace of the graves from where he stood, but even as he began to step forward, he felt Roisean’s hand on his arm.

  “Not inside the circle.”

  He watched as she walked the full edge of the circle. At one point, she stopped, head tilted to one side, as she had stood yesterday on the road, as if hearing something no one else could, and she reached forward with one hand, almost, but not quite, touching one of the rocks.

  When she came back to where the two men stood, she looked worried. But she said nothing to them, only turned and began walking back the way they’d come, and after a moment, they followed her.

  ***

  “She knows more than she’s saying,” Galen said. “She needs to tell you what she knows, too. You’re the one that’s in charge.”

  “Am I?” Kenzie had spent a full hour coaxing Galen out of the sullens, and now he almost regretted it. Galen seemed to want him to take some kind of action, without seeming to grasp how dangerous that might be. Of course, Galen hadn’t spent three years studying his Theofrancia, and he seemed not to have figured out why Roisean knew so much about this. Kenzie might have enlightened him, but he was more preoccupied with other questions.

 
If the Holy Ones at Braide knew about this, then why was Roisean so reluctant to declare herself as the Mother’s representative and deal with the problem? Indeed, why had the Reverend Mother not sent word to his father that they were aware and prepared to handle it? And why did she seem to feel that he had some part in all this? She seemed to be waiting for him to do something or say something, and he could not, for the life of him, think what that something might be.

  Or why.

  ***

  He dreamed again, that night. Behind the vision of the trees, he could hear the sound of forlorn wailing, on and on, insistent and doleful, like an animal caught in a snare.

  At least this time he knew he was dreaming, and he woke before the woman turned back to him, but in spite of this, he was more frightened than before. He was shaking and sweating, and when he opened his eyes, he nearly cried out because there was Roisean, bending over him, looking concerned.

  But it wasn’t still the dream. He knew this because she whispered something to him, words that sounded like “Be at peace” or something like that, and touched his arm, and it was all too real, so that when she rose and headed towards the door, he followed her with no trepidation at all.

  Outside, he saw that the villagers had gathered already, standing together in a close clump, but they moved aside for Roisean, and he saw what their bodies had concealed.

  The reeve lay in the dusty yard, her mouth still open on a soundless scream, eyes wide and glaring and dead.

  “What the – ?” he said and stopped, because he didn’t have the words to encompass this.

  “The witch,” said the headman. He sounded tired and defeated.

  “This,” said Kenzie, to no one in particular, “has got to stop.”

  “Certainly,” said Roisean. “And you and I,” she paused, “You and I must go up to the hill and stop it.”

  He would have liked to say that this was madness. He would have liked to point out that he was in no way qualified to stop any of it, always supposing he knew what “it” was. He would have also liked to have added that she was free to go where she liked, but that he wasn’t bound to follow, but when he looked into her eyes, so fathomless and deeply green (how did anyone have eyes so green?) the words died a-borning, and he merely nodded, dry-mouthed and fearful, and unable to marshal a defense.

  And so, once a couple of the villagers had brought a hurdle and carried the reeve’s body into her home, and then dispersed back to their own places, still muttering about witches and curses and hauntings and evil, he followed Roisean back out into the fields and up the hill once more.

  It was very quiet. Even the night’s breeze had stilled, there was only the sound of their own breathing, and nothing whatever to be seen.

  “What is it,” Kenzie asked, finally, “What is it that you expect me to do? I am no holy one, to ward against these – these – whatever these things are.”

  Roisean shook her head.

  “You’ll know, when the time comes,” she said. “You have the knowledge. I am just a vessel here. But you dreamed, and dreamed true, and you know, deep within you, what you must do.”

  “H-How do you know what I dreamed?”

  “I dreamed it, too. I dreamed this not a month ago, and have dreamed it every night since. I dreamed you, my lord, and that is all that matters now.”

  He could have protested. He should have protested. He ought, he thought suddenly, to tell her how wrong she was, or simply to turn and walk away, back down into the village, but he found he could not do any of those things.

  And so he waited with her, in the moonlight, but for what, he did not know.

  It began as a sliver of greyish mist, rising up between the stones. It hovered near to the ground, at first, but it drew itself together, slowly, and rose up into the form of a woman, dark and cadaverous, in a glittering silk gown.

  She looked distinctly un-peasant-like.

  And Kenzie finally began to think about some of the things he could recall reading of. Not witches, and not ghosts, not exactly, according to Theofrancia, but those poor priestly souls who had once been caught in the backlash of an unbelievable surge of Power, and had by that force – not to mention the binding spells that had gone completely awry – been locked inexorably into now-dead wells of power.

  Terrible things, these creatures had become, mad and vengeful, but left to themselves, not particularly powerful anymore. They fed on violence and death, but their range was small, and they needed others to work through, so that as long as their places were shunned, they did little harm.

  He understood, now, just a little, what the villagers had done. They’d broken those bindings, just enough. They’d fed the creature imprisoned here with just enough of an unchained spirit of death to give her power, power to go beyond her circle, and with each subsequent death, she’d grown that power just a little more.

  Presumably, he thought, Roisean knew how to close that circle again, and presumably she needed his help, else why were they here?

  But just as he began to ask her what it was he should do, Roisean stepped into the circle.

  There was an unholy scream of triumph, as the incarnated priestess grasped Roisean’s arm with a yellowed, taloned hand. He saw how Roisean flinched, he saw the droplets of blood begin to form and he could have wept, because her faith in him, still plain on her face, was so incredibly, completely misplaced.

  He wasn’t a holy one – he’d told her that.

  He wasn’t some legendary free mage. He wasn’t even a minor Talent, like the midwife back at Issing, who could still the birthing pains for whole minutes at a time, so that long births didn’t exhaust young mothers.

  He was just a slightly bookish boy who was supposed to be learning how to lead and govern people. Apparently, this wasn’t a skill that was doing any good for anyone now.

  The Incarnate smiled at him.

  “Pretty boy,” it said. “Pretty boy, come and save her!”

  Her voice didn’t match that terrifying body. It was melodious and sweet, almost enchantingly so, and for a moment, he didn’t really grasp the sense of her words, and he began to take a step forward.

  “My lord – No!”

  Galen? What was Galen doing here?

  But there it was. Galen was there. He was white as a linen sheet on washday, and trembling, but he was there.

  The thing in the circle howled with rage. Roisean was struggling, pulling herself and her captor to the very edge of the stones. He could have stretched out his arm and touched her.

  “Kenzie, think. Think of what this thing fears!” Roisean gasped this out, straining, because the creature was pulling back, trying to drag her back towards the circle’s centre.

  He almost screamed in frustration. He had no idea what she meant. He had no idea what she wanted him to do.

  Not enter the circle, that was certain. He looked over at Galen, who, like Roisean, seemed to be quite sure he had the answer to this.

  Galen said, very softly, “It is nearly dawn.”

  Dawn. Theofrancia said a lot of things about the dawn. A powerful time.

  Kenzie pulled his wandering thoughts together. Now that he’d had time to consider it, now that he knew what this place was, he remembered that Theofrancia had described these wights in great detail. He’d delineated all the points of power, and their weaknesses.

  Memory. It was the only thing he had left, and it wasn’t going to do much good, because he hadn’t bothered to memorize anything useful.

  “The Septentrional Angle is always to be feared by these Apparitions of the Sanguinolent, for it is there that their bindings hold the greatest of their life-force collected. Only cross them here with the ladye bright, and you can bind them unto cold earth forever, an you have the Power.”

  Nice words. Why did those old writers have to speak in riddles, instead of telling you plainly what the answers were?

  Dawn. He thought probably if they got to full sunrise without freeing Roisean, that this would be all over,
and lost forever. He tried to think what else Theofrancia had said about these things.

  A shard of light was growing along the base of the hill, inching slowly upwards. There was just the tiniest crescent of the orange sun showing at the edge of the field below.

  Septentronial Angle. He looked along the edge of the circle and saw that one stone was paler than the rest, almost glowing white. He moved towards it.

  The thing moved, too. They were very close. If it reached out a little further, it could have touched him, grabbed at him, drawn him, too, into that place.

  But it dared not, he realized, because Roisean was pulling hard, pulling towards the edge of the stone circle, pulling that thing with her. The blood was welling up along her arm, pooling on her hand, it was going to drip onto the ground any moment now, and he had that hollow laughter of that thing ringing in his ears and he could not think what would happen if that blood ever touched the ground.

  If only he was a free mage or a holy one, and could summon that “ladye brighte”. He could just barely remember skimming over the description of the spell used to create light, and also how he’d smiled, because who believed that anyone, even a great Talent, could just summon light out of nothing?

  “Although,” said Galen, quite conversationally, “Actually, I think it is the sunlight, real or equipollent, that does the trick.”

  And then Kenzie, without really thinking, just moving now, saw that the Incarnate’s arm had come very close to the edge of the circle, was almost brushing against that invisible line. He reached out and grasped it and pulled, hard, tumbling backward into Galen and the tiny patch of sunshine that had opened up around them.

  All four of them fell into the light.

  ***

  Afterwards, for a little while, Kenzie thought that all of it was only a dream.

  He had hit his head on the ground so hard that he blacked out for a moment, and when he opened his eyes again, and his head had cleared, there were only the three of them, blinking in the clear, bright morning.