The Skull of the World by Kate Forsyth
All their hair and clothes were whipped about crazily. They had trouble retaining their grip on each other’s hands. The heavens were torn apart by thunder. It boomed through their heads, threatening to explode their eardrums, resonating through every chamber of their bodies. The deck of the ship pitched so wildly they had to cling tightly to each other’s hands to avoid breaking the circle. Still Lachlan stood, a figure carved of black marble and silver, his face exultant in the blazing radiance of the Lodestar.
Then suddenly silence fell, an immense stillness. They released their aching fingers, flexed them, breathed for what seemed like the first time in minutes, looked about with wide amazed eyes, feeling as drained and empty as if they had been without sleep for days.
The Royal Stag was pitching wildly in a riotous sea, all its sails flapping. The sky overhead was low and heavy with clouds. Rain thundered down upon the tossing waves, thick as fog. The Royal Stag was bathed in sunlight, however, all its masts and sails lit up with golden light. On either side the other five ships of the royal fleet sailed, illuminated with the same warm burnished light.
Spinning off towards the west was a great black vortex of cloud and water, many thousands of feet high. Scattered behind it was the whole fleet of pirate ships, broken and smashed. Some had been thrown onto the rocks where they rested, their masts and spars split and fallen. Others had overturned and were half sunk in the water, or floating in a tangle of sails and ropes. Others had completely disappeared.
None of the circle spoke. They were too drained, too exhausted, too overwhelmed by the sight of the spinning whirlwind, the destroyed fleet. The crew of the Royal Stag were leaping about, throwing their caps in the air, beating each other on the back, shouting in amazement and triumph. They could hear the wild hoorays from the other ships as well, and see the same joyous capers.
Captain Tobias stumbled forward, his stern face transfigured. He fell to his knees before Lachlan, seizing his hand. ‘My liege!’ he cried. ‘Ye did it! I be sorry I doubted.’
One by one all the sailors fell to their knees too. ‘The Rìgh!’ they shouted. ‘Eà bless our Rìgh!’
The faraway look on Lachlan’s face faded. He stirred, looked down at the captain, smiling rather oddly. ‘Do ye think we can recover the ships?’ he asked. ‘Indeed, I hate to see my Ship Tax being wrecked upon the rocks like that.’
A few days later the royal fleet was tacking to and fro among the islands of the Bay of Deception when the lookout suddenly cried out, ‘Craft ahoy! On the starboard side, sir!’
‘What kind o’ craft, porridge-head?’ Arvin the Just, the first mate, shouted back.
There was a short silence then the lookout said with rather an odd note in his voice, ‘I couldna say, sir.’
Curious as ever, Finn shimmied up the ropes and into the topcastle, her familiar, a tiny black elven cat, bounding along behind her. She seized the far-seeing glass and held it to her eye for a long moment. Very faintly she heard Lachlan cry, ‘Well, what is it, Cat?’
She leant over, putting both hands to her mouth and shouting, ‘The oddest thing I’ve ever seen, Your Highness. Best come and see for yourself.’
Lachlan spread his wings and flew up to join her, making Finn groan with envy. What she would not give to be able to soar up like a bird, instead of having to climb up all that great height of rope and mast!
Lachlan stared through the eyeglass for a very long time.
‘It looked like a sleigh o’ some sort,’ Finn said at last. ‘Pulled by enormous otters.’
‘It be Isabeau,’ Lachlan replied shortly and passed the far-seeing glass back to the lookout boy, who took it with a shy bob of his head and a reverent, ‘Thank ye, sir, I mean, Your Highness.’
Lachlan spread his wings and flew back down to the deck, leaving Finn and the elven cat to make their own slow way down. By the time Finn reached the deck again, all were leaning over the side staring at the strange craft gliding towards them.
It was a long sleigh with high curved sides, all painted with delicate colours and brushed with gilt. Drawing it at great speed through the water was a team of sea-otters, barking with excitement, their great dark eyes alive with intelligence. Holding the reins was a very thin, gaunt Isabeau, her skin badly sunburnt and peeling in places. She was dressed only in a ragged shirt and breeches, one arm bound up in bloodstained bandages. Clustering around her were three young children, the two boys dressed in filthy, torn nightshirts, the little girl in what could only be described as rags.
‘Cuckoo!’ Elfrida cried, bursting into tears. ‘It’s my wee Cuckoo!’
‘Donncan!’ Iseult called and took flight off the ship deck, soaring over the waves with her arms held out. ‘My babe!’
Donncan spread his golden wings and flew to meet her, mother and son embracing joyfully midair, the waves tossing about just below them. Lachlan flew with strong beats of his great black wings to join them, catching his son up and hugging him close. ‘Och, my wee lad! We have been so afraid …’
‘Aunty Beau saved us,’ Donncan replied cheerfully.
Iseult shot her husband a fierce look. ‘I kenned she would,’ she answered and hugged Donncan to her again, almost causing them all to fall into the sea below. Lachlan turned and flew to the sleigh, his weight almost causing it to capsize as he landed with a thump. He bent and raised Isabeau up, embracing her fiercely.
‘Thank ye!’ he cried. ‘With all o’ my heart I thank ye!’
Meghan stood in the cool grey hush of dawn, her lined face very serious. Isabeau stood beside her, wearing a wreath of flowers on her head and carrying a bouquet of herbs and sacred twigs in her hand.
Close beside her stood the little cluricaun Brun, dressed in a brown velvet doublet and brocade breeches tied with velvet ribbons. Round his neck hung a fine chain hung with keys, rings, buttons and a silver christening spoon. As he danced about with excited anticipation, he chimed like sleigh bells.
Gathered all round Rhyssmadill’s great square were a crowd of men and women, all dressed in their finest clothes. There was much jesting and laughing, particularly from the group clustered around Dide.
The young jongleur was dressed all in green, from the long feather stuck in his cap down to his knee-high boots. A crowd of laughing girls were tying leafy branches on to his arms and legs. Isabeau could not help smiling at Dide’s antics and, noticing her, the jongleur swept off his hat, bowed and blew her a kiss.
Meghan held up her hand and silence fell over the crowd. They all turned to the east, watching as light began to spill over the violet curve of the horizon. Bells rang out joyously, and Brun raised his silver flute to his mouth and played a haunting tune. Meghan flung out her arms dramatically. The bonfire in the centre of the palace square burst into flame and everyone clapped and cheered riotously.
Isabeau passed Meghan the bouquet and she flung it into the bonfire. Then Dide ran forward and thrust the torches he held in either hand into the bonfire. They kindled quickly and he spun them and threw them up into the air, catching them with great dexterity. The laughing men and women crowded forward, thrusting the brands they carried into the fire, then formed a procession behind Dide as he danced down the tree-lined avenue towards the city, singing joyously:
‘Rise up, bonny lassies, in your gowns o’ green,
‘For summer is a-coming in today,
‘Ye’re as fair a lady as any I’ve seen,
‘In the merry morn o’ May.’
At his heels, Brun the cluricaun leapt and frolicked madly, the bells on his toes ringing. Isabeau smiled at Meghan. ‘Dide makes a good Green Man.’
‘Aye, that he does, with his bonny face and merry heart.’ The old sorceress looked at her closely. ‘Ye do no’ wish to join the procession?’
‘Och, time enough for dancing,’ Isabeau replied. ‘Is it no’ a Fair Day all day and evening? Besides, I have no’ seen ye in months. I ken ye wish to climb the tower and watch the bonfires being kindled. I thought I’d climb with ye.’
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Isabeau smiled and put her hand up to stroke Buba, who was huddled upon her shoulder, her sleepy head nestled in to Isabeau’s neck. ‘She will no’ leave me for an instant, no’ even to snooze-hooh. She is afraid I will fly away and leave her again.’
The two witches walked back into the palace and began the long climb up to the tower heights. Isabeau was content to climb slowly, for she had not yet recovered her vitality after the past arduous few weeks. Once again she was forbidden from working sorcery or from studying too hard, and for once she was happy to accept her teachers’ restrictions. It had been a week since the Royal Stag had berthed in the shelter of the Berhtfane and in that time she had done little but sleep, cuddle her elf-owl, walk in Rhyssmadill’s beautiful gardens and play with the children.
In contrast, Lachlan had been very busy, arranging for the retrieval of the pirate ships, sending his instructions to his army still holding martial rule in Tìrsoilleir, and reading out in court a public proclamation charging Sukey Nursemaid with treason, sedition and kidnapping. She had been arrested in Lucescere a week after Isabeau’s desperate flight away from the Shining City and was now held there awaiting her trial. If found guilty, as she surely would be, the pretty young nursemaid would be executed. Although the hurt of Sukey’s betrayal ran deep, Isabeau could feel only misery that the life of her first friend at Rhyssmadill was to be so tragically wasted.
Meghan had only arrived back in Rhyssmadill the night before and so this was the first chance she and Isabeau had had to talk since the kidnapping of the little prionnsachan. The old sorceress was very eager to hear Isabeau’s story and was full of questions and exclamations that greatly slowed their progress. They had only reached the sixth floor by the time Isabeau was describing the last confrontation with Margrit, and she stopped to show her guardian the carved turquoise ring she now wore on the thumb of her right hand. A large square ring of vivid blue, it was set in an ornate silver casing and had been carved with lagu, the rune for water.
‘See, if ye press just here, the ring swings sideways, allowing ye to tip out the poison. Is it no’ ingenious?’
Meghan gave a little shudder. ‘Just the sort o’ thing the Thistle would do too, poison one’s enemies instead o’ facing them cleanly and boldly. But tell me, how in Eà’s green blood did ye ever manage to switch the glasses without her noticing? Margrit would no’ easily be hoodwinked.’
‘Nay,’ Isabeau replied, ‘and she was watching my every move, as I was watching hers, all the while being as sweet to each other as ye could imagine. So I had no time to swap the glasses. Instead, I swapped the wine in the glasses. I had to evaporate both liquids, move them through the air without mingling them, and then transform them back into liquid, all in the blink o’ an eyelash. It was a tricky manoeuvre indeed and Gwilym says a sign o’ true Skill in the Element o’ Water. He says I deserve to wear the ring, even though I have no’ actually sat the Test o’ Water yet.’
‘I’m no’ surprised,’ Meghan said, visibly impressed. ‘To move wine from two glasses simultaneously is sorceress level! I am no’ sure I could do it myself without mingling the wine together.’
‘But if I’d mingled them, both o’ us would’ve died,’ Isabeau pointed out. ‘Needs must when the devil drives, as Elfrida would say.’
‘Well, look at ye with a ring on every right finger,’ Meghan said. ‘And ye no’ yet twenty-four.’
Isabeau looked at her bare left hand. ‘I just want to wear my dragoneye ring,’ she said. ‘Now that I have won all my elemental rings, when can I sit my sorceress test?’
‘Patience, Mistress Impatience,’ Meghan said shortly, stopping once more to catch her breath. Isabeau grinned and winked at Gitâ, hanging to the Keybearer’s long white plait. She never changes, she chittered to the little donbeag who chittered back, would you want her to?
‘I may be getting auld but I’m no’ deaf,’ Meghan said austerely. ‘Must ye talk about me in front o’ me as if I were some doddering auld fool?’
Maybe she’s getting crankier, Isabeau chittered.
Gitâ replied, No, she was always as disagreeable as a bear with a sore head.
Meghan scowled. Isabeau smiled at her, slid her hand under her arm and helped her up the last few steps. For once Meghan accepted her help and they came into the tower room together.
The sun was just raising its bright face above the dark ocean, a ruffled skirt of crimson and gold spreading out across the water. The land behind them was still sunk in shadows, so both Meghan and Isabeau could clearly see the bright spots of bonfires leaping on every hilltop, as far as the eye could see. Down in the city the procession of torches wound its way through the streets and plazas, and Isabeau could see similar ribbons of flame winding through the villages on the other side of the river. She pointed them out to Meghan, saying, ‘Is it no’ grand to think the Beltane fires are being lit on every hill in the whole country, for the first time in my entire lifetime.’
Meghan said gruffly, ‘Everywhere but in Carraig.’
Isabeau sobered. ‘Aye, everywhere but in Carraig. They’ll have to do something about that now, willna they?’
Meghan nodded. ‘Aye. We lop off the head o’ one enemy and there’s a host o’ others needing our attention. In truth, I am growing tired o’ the harlequin-hydra o’ this war.’
‘We all are, I think,’ Isabeau answered, troubled by the note of fatigue in the Keybearer’s voice. ‘Lachlan and Iseult both seem weary and preoccupied, do ye no’ think? Still, we are at peace with Tìrsoilleir now, and the pirates have been vanquished and the Thistle is dead. Gradually all our enemies have been dealt with.’
‘All but the Fairgean,’ Meghan said.
Isabeau nodded, her face very grave. Every night Isabeau dreamt of webbed hands reaching up out of a dark pit to drag her down, dreamt of wet black hair streaming out like seaweed. The nightmares darkened all Isabeau’s days with a shadow of foreboding that no feasting fire could drive away.
Meghan saw how sombre Isabeau’s face had grown and laid her hand on her arm, saying, with a return of her usual briskness, ‘Come, it is May Day and time to be celebrating! We shall worry about the Fairgean another day.’
Yes, Isabeau thought. At least for this day we can be at peace and rejoice. We shall worry about the Fairgean tomorrow.
Far below, in the briny darkness of the sea-caves that riddled the rock upon which Rhyssmadill was built, the Fairgean warriors floated. They could see nothing, for no light penetrated the sea-caves, but the Fairgean warriors did not mind. They were used to darkness. They were used to waiting. They had crawled through the cramped subterranean passages under the cover of the night and there, deep in the sea-caves, they drifted, grasping their tridents, waiting for the dark again. When the tide once again began to rise at the setting of the sun, they would swim silently through the darkness to the well from which the humans drew their water. Up the ladder they would climb and out into the very heart of the fortress, a thousand Fairgean warriors driven by a thirst for revenge that a thousand defeats had not quenched. For months the king and the priestesses had been plotting and preparing, eavesdropping and spying, waiting for a time when as many humans as possible would be gathered in this one place, unprepared and unsuspecting.
‘The waves of Jor’s wrath roll slow,’ the king said with a predatory smile, ‘but to sand the rocks are always ground.’
Aedan MacCuinn: the first Rìgh, High King of Eileanan. Called Aedan Whitelock, he was directly descended from Cuinn Lionheart (see First Coven). In 710 he united the warring lands of Eileanan into one country, all except for Tìrsoilleir and Arran, which remained independent.
Aedan’s Pact: Aedan MacCuinn, first Rìgh of Eileanan, drew up a Pact Of Peace between all inhabitants of the island, agreeing to live in peace and not to interfere in each other’s culture, but to work together for amity and prosperity. The Fairgean refused to sign and so wer
ahdayeh: the art of fighting.
Ahearn Horse-laird: One of the First Coven of Witches.
Aislinna the Dreamer: One of the First Coven of Witches.
Alasdair MacFaghan: baby son of Khan’gharad Dragon-laird and Ishbel the Winged, twin brother of Heloïse and younger brother of Iseult and Isabeau.
Arkening the Dreamwalker: sorceress who was rescued from the death-fire in the Sgàilean Mountains and became one of the new Council of Witches.
Arran: south-east land of Eileanan, consisting mainly of salt lakes and marshes. Ruled by MacFóghnans, descendants of Fóghnan, one of the First Coven of Witches.
Aslinn: deeply forested land ruled by the MacAislins, descendants of Aislinna, one of the First Coven of Witches.
autumn equinox: when the night reaches the same length as the day.
Awl: Anti-Witchcraft League, set up by Maya the Ensorcellor following the Day of Reckoning.
banprionnsa: princess or duchess.
banrìgh: queen.
Bay of Deception: large gulf of water to the south of Eileanan, so called because of its deceptive peace and beauty which covers many reefs and sandbanks.
Beltane: May Day; the first day of summer.
Berhtfane: sea loch in Clachan.
Berhtilde the Bright Warrior-Maid: one of the First Coven of Witches.
berhtildes: the female warriors of Tìrsoilleir, named after the country’s founder (see First Coven). Cut off left breast to make wielding a bow easier.
blaygird: evil, awful.
Blèssem: The Blessed Fields. Rich farmland lying south of Rionnagan, ruled by the MacThanach clan.
blizzard-owls: giant white owls that inhabit the snowy mountain regions. Sorcha the Murderess had a blizzard-owl as her familiar.
Blue Guards: The Yeomen of the Guard, the Rìgh’s own elite company of soldiers. They act as his personal bodyguard, both on the battlefield and in peacetime.