Chapter 27: Chapter 27: The Witch

The next morning at dawn, Saoirse knocked on the turret door with Murtagh's breakfast. At Saoirse's bidding, Cook had toasted bannocks and added warmed ham to the plate. A large dollop of apple jelly completed the feast.

She held the tray out to him. “Thank you,” she said, “for saving my life.”

Murtagh lips curved in the rarest of smiles. It was a good thing that he didn't smile often, because his strange elfin smile, combined with his thin nose, and thinner hair, gave him a comical look, as if he should rather have been a court jester than a Master Seer of the first rank.

“Sit, sit,” she said, motioning with her chin to his chair.

“Oh, my.” He sat in his comfy chair, and she placed the tray on his lap. Quickly, she also fetched water from his pitcher and filled his cup.

As he spread jam on the steaming bread, he seemed almost embarrassed. No one, since he'd lost his family, had ever truly liked him—no one, except Naill.

Desperately, he filled the awkward silence. “Let's begin. I believe Turner,” he pointed, “is the best for technique. Please read the first chapter—on breathing.”

With a smile, she took down the book and, sitting at the writing desk, opened it and began . . .

“A seer must above all learn to control the magic which his body produces, magic which can bring headaches, vomiting, seizures, unconsciousness and even death.”

That afternoon, as the sun warmed the day, as Murtagh and Saoirse amicably practiced, often laughing together, a witch came to Castle Togair. Lord Togair was in the council room, heatedly negotiating grazing and water rights with Lord Rather, when a young guard, ashen-faced, burst through the door.

Trembling and pointing, the youth stammered out, “Aaaa . . . a witch.”

Togair froze. The scars on his back screamed in pain as if freshly burned. “No . . . ooo,” he whispered, his eyes opening wide with terror.

After a full minute—during which Togair didn't move—Lord Rather asked, “Aren't you going to do something?”

As if hit by lightning, Togair jumped from his chair and raced through the door with such haste the maps on the table flew up from his breeze. “Shut the gate!” he shouted. “Do not allow her to enter.” When he spotted the vile creature already in the courtyard, he commanded, “Out!”

She screeched more than spoke. “I've not come to speak with you.” The finger she pointed at Togair was so crooked it must have been violently broken and mended poorly. “I've come for the seer. It is my right.”

Her stink filled the courtyard. She reeked like a week-old corpse. Togair pressed an embroidered linen handkerchief against his nose and shouted, “Fetch Seer Murtagh!”

In the turret, Saoirse was attempting to cool the stones she had just rather abundantly heated in the fireplace. The small room was unbelievably hot. “Please hurry,” Murtagh whimpered. He stood in front of the window, sweating profusely. The magic was like strawberry jam on her tongue, or warm bread pudding flavored with a rare vanilla bean. She let it fill her mouth. Oh, no, too much; her head swam. She grabbed for the back of Murtagh's chair.

“Let it go!” he whispered.

Whooh . . . Twinkling colored stars filled the room. CRACK! POP! The stones in the fireplace shattered as they abruptly cooled. Murtagh shivered, his breath now fog.

Footsteps stomped up the stairs. “Seer Murtagh! Seer Murtagh! You are wanted in the courtyard!”

As Murtagh hastened to the door through the fog of sparkling, colored stars, the wonder of Saoirse's magic alighted on his skin. He spat the sweet taste of it out of his mouth and focused his mind clearing from it the fog of the magic.

BAM! BAM! BAM! The door shook. The guard's fists could have been battering rams. “Seer Murtagh! Seer Murtagh! Come! There's a witch!”

Murtagh looked at the room crowded with a thousand lights. “Saoirse,” he whispered, “Breathe it in!”

BAM! BAM!

“All right! I'm coming!” he shouted through the thick wood. Half in awe of the magic surrounding him, half digesting the word witch, he waded back through the magic to Saoirse, still groggy in a magic-drugged state. “Listen.” Her head wobbled on her neck. “Breath in the magic, Saoirse. Breathe it in.”

She dutifully compiled, holding the magic for a moment in puffed out cheeks, then releasing it into the room where it sparkled.

“Child, there's a witch.”

Saoirse opened troubled eyes. “The dragon.”

“Not yet. It's only a witch. But you can’t do magic, she’ll know.”

Eyes wide with shock she whispered, “It’s coming for me.”

The magic floating in the room, as if sensing her distress returned to her. Stars alighted in her hair, on her face; she was more beautiful than any living thing Murtagh had ever seen. She glowed with light. Rainbows danced on her cheeks. Gold and silver and green sparkled among the folds of her clothes. Blue stars found her eyes, turning the swirling grays a vibrant, deep cerulean.

“Saoirse, stay hidden. I must go. Lord Togair has summoned me.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Only one day. It's only been one day.”

“We don't know what this is about.”

“We don't know what it's about?” She began to pace. “Where there's a witch, there's a dragon. You taught me that before I could read!”

“That's a rumor. In fact, never has a witch been seen in the company of a dragon. Never. The guild took pains to record witch sightings.” He let her go to grab a book from the shelf. So hastily did he wrench it from its place that two more fell and then another. “It's here.” He fumbled through the pages. “I know it's here.” In triumph, he repeatedly poked the page with a rigid finger. “The witches only appeared about a thousand years ago. Before then, they were unknown.” He looked up, a bright smile on his face. “Therefore, it follows, a witch does not mean a dragon.”

“You know it's true!” she shouted.

Quickly, he pressed his hand against her mouth, only to have her jerk away.

“How many stories did you tell me?” she whispered her shout. “First comes the witch, then the dragon.”

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Murtagh cast anxious eyes to the door. “We don't know for certain what the witch wants.”

As he turned to go, she took hold of his arm, openly sobbing. “Yes, we do. She working with the dragon. The dragon's coming for me!”

His aura had long since gone solid white. Even the frayed gray edges, that spoke of disease, were brighter than the snow at noon on a clear winter's day. He placed a firm, but gentle hand on each of her shoulders, “Stay hidden. Call for Alyse to sit with you.” As he hastened down the stairs, the pain that had begun to plague him so often at night returned, pressing down on his chest. He rubbed his left arm. Why did it hurt so badly?

Saoirse's stomach churned. Her hands formed themselves into fists. She gulped in air, as if she'd been running for miles. She paced the short length of the room.

It's going to eat me. A dragon is going to eat me.

She leaned out the southern turret window, but she could see only a portion of the courtyard, now crowded with people. Frantic, she pushed aside Murtagh's writing desk, lifted the four floorboards and descended the ladder into the passageways. Taking off her boots, she ran along the outer wall of the castle, climbed down into the low tunnel that traversed the courtyard, and emerged behind the tack room in the stables. Sliding aside the peep hole cover and seeing no one, she unlatched the hidden door, and walked into the deserted stables.

Ugh . . . the witch reeked of death. Spit pooled in Saoirse’s mouth. She swallowed again and again to keep from throwing up.

“Speak!” Her father shouted in the courtyard.

Saoirse hastened down the row of stalls and climbed in the second stall from the barn door. Here the boards on the outside wall were poorly joined. She used a large crack between two as a peephole. The witch, her back to Saoirse, was no more than four feet tall and nearly bald. What little hair she had was filled with sticks and clumps of seaweed. A rat sat her shoulder, her belt was a live snake, her clothes made from the skin of a deer to which pieces of green, maggot-laden rotting meat still clung. She wore no shoes. She began to turn in a circle, revealing two weak, watery eyes peering out of a face covered with pus-spewing sores. As her eyes came to rest on the stables, on the crack between the boards, she stopped turning, looking directly at Saoirse.

The sixteen puckered scars on Saoirse's left forearm itched, then began to glow, each one a different color.

No, no.

She knows I'm here.

Saoirse shivered.

Murtagh hustled his old bones to place himself again in front of the witch, standing between her and Saoirse. “Speak!” he shouted. Unlike Togair, his voice wasn't edged with fear, but rather with disgust. “The smell of you is enough to bring the plague.”

Tilting her head, the witch looked around him, at the crack between the boards. Her voice half scream, half screech, she shouted, “Seer!”

Taking a deep breath, Saoirse again looked out at the witch.

“Know I speak the truth.” The witch's aura bubbled up around her, a deep, inky black, thick as tar and hot, scorching hot, as if the witch had a volcano for a heart. Shock stole Saoirse’s breath. Until that moment, until the witch spoke, the witch had had no aura. But everything had an aura—every living thing.

She can summon her own aura?

The witch's lips curled in a sneer. “I have come to prophesy.” She laughed, the sound causing chills of apprehension to run down Saoirse's back. “Not that it will help you,” she cackled. The witch lifted her hand, seeming to point at Murtagh, but in the stables Saoirse knew the old hag pointed at her. “Lord Togair,” the witch shouted, “your beautiful daughter is defiled.” The witch sadly shook her head.

“How dare you speak ill of my family.” Togair thundered. “I don't care to hear your prophesies! Get out!”

“Eeekkk.” The witch's piercing cry had the guards, the groomsman, Lord Togair, everyone stopping their ears. For six, long seconds, she screeched. At last, mercifully, she stopped and said in a quiet voice, “Listen, fool.”

Behind Murtagh, behind the witch and her inky, black aura, Togair’s aura spread like a cloud of blood.

Still pointing at Murtagh, the witch said, “In three days, he will die. It will happen like this. He will be outside. He will follow the old, wounded warrior. The door will be shut. The warrior will struggle to open it, and in that pause, that moment, from the skies an arrow will fall, piercing his heart. I have foreseen it.”

“Who will be killed? Who?” Murtagh asked.

The witch giggled. The happy sound, so joyful, like the laughter of a child, emerged from a mouth filled with rotting, black teeth. Abruptly, the giggling stopped, and she cried, “You are so blind.”

“Who? Tell us, witch!” Murtagh commanded. “Who will be killed?”

“The most important man in this castle.”

“Is that all?” Murtagh growled, taking a step toward the vile, heinous creature. Her head jerked up. Their eyes met, Murtagh's old, weary orbs steadfastly gazing into her coal black ones.

She nodded. “For now.”

“Then get out!” He pointed to the door. When Togair said nothing, Murtagh turned to him. “Perhaps, my lord, Shay and his men should follow her. We wouldn't want her stopping in the village.”

Lord Togair nodded, pointing with a flick of his wrist and the tilt of his head. Shay and twelve, none of them happy men, keeping a great space between themselves and the witch, followed the limping creature out of the castle, down the sea road and past the village. When she reached the forest, they didn't follow her in. For seven hours, until sunset, they stood guard, no one speaking. As the sun set, the men, sheepishly looking at each other, and murmuring—“getting dark” and “she's probably not coming back”—returned with haste to the castle, where the courtyard still reeked of her vile person.

As the witch hobbled through the castle gate, Saoirse stumbled into the tack room and through the hidden door. She fled down the dark passageways, uncaring if some maid or guard heard her running feet. When eventually she emerged in the turret, she threw up repeatedly into Murtagh's half-filled chamber pot.

Empty of food, she sat on the floor, leaning against the stone. With her vomiting, the sight blazed out of her, out of control. The bright gaudy green of a beetle aura crawled lazily across the floor. Soft fuzzy mold auras glowed around Murtagh's books. She rose, gazing out the turret window, at the sea.

Color and color sound rushed upon her. Yet, she did not push it back, did not restrain it. No, she pressed into the water, into the life beneath the waves. Greens, so many greens. Yellow-greens and blue-greens and brown-greens and red-greens, crawling, darting, drifting. The color sound, living music, encircled her. How easily she isolated melodies. One a pulsing rhythm she imagined must come from a fish with a huge tail, swishing downward, pushing the water. Another, a constant single note. Was it the color sound of a plant that lived floating upon the sea, or a sea snail sitting on rock? Surely snails had only one note.

I am dragon food.

The thought pushed its way into her brain, crashing into her like the waves hitting the rocks below. She let it come, let it all come, hurricanes of color and color sound, until she drowned and the colors stole even her breath.

 

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