‘This is a long board and no’ what I usually use,’ Khan’derin explained. ‘We really only use these boards in the spring, when we begin moving down to the summer pastures. It is a good thing ye are only a wee bit, like my great-grandmother.’
‘Isabeau would have loved to have known she had a great-grandmother,’ Meghan said as the dark mass of the forest sped towards them.
Soon they had to dismount and walk through the slushy snow, but they had descended the mountain in a matter of minutes rather than the day it would have taken them by foot. Khan’derin hid the sled under some bushes and led the way through the patchy snow at great speed. Looking back at Dragonclaw, Meghan was surprised to see that from this direction, she could see two sharp peaks, identical in size and shape. She realised that it must be the perspective which made the smaller peak—hidden behind the bulk of Dragonclaw from the south—appear the same size.
‘Legend says that the Red Sorcerers decided to settle in this valley because o’ the twin peaks,’ Khan’derin said over her shoulder. ‘That is another reason why ye call this land Tìrlethan, o’ course.’
‘Are twins common among your people?’
Khan’derin hesitated. ‘No, they’re very rare,’ she answered at last. ‘It is only the Firemaker who bears twins.’
‘Among my people, the birth o’ twin witches is considered the very best o’ luck,’ Meghan said. ‘It is so rare for those with true power to be born. Witches rarely marry and rarely have bairns. I believe use o’ the One Power makes ye infertile, and certainly your sexual impulses are sublimated into other forces. So for me, the discovery o’ another Isabeau is certainly wonderful news.’
‘I am no’ another Is’a’beau,’ Khan’derin said, pronouncing her twin’s name with an odd intonation. ‘My life has been very different.’
‘That’s true,’ Meghan said, as the dark branches of the forest closed over their heads. ‘I would fain Test ye though, if ye do no’ mind. I sense power in ye, though I canna tell its nature.’
‘We will soon be at the Towers,’ the girl answered, striding ahead, her white-clad form ghostlike in the gloom under the overhanging branches.
The forest was an almost impenetrable barrier of tangled trees and riotous thorn bushes, with no clear path through at all. Meghan doubted she would have been able to find her way through without Khan’derin, despite her woodcraft. Khan’derin lead her under branches and through thickets, clearing a way with the dexterous use of her curved knife and sharp-edged axe.
‘This forest sprang up after the Towers were deserted. Once they looked directly over the loch to the Cursed Peaks, but now all ye can see from most o’ the windows is the barrier o’ thorns,’ Khan’derin said. ‘If ye did no’ ken the Towers were here, ye could pass right by without noticing a thing.’
Meghan noticed that many of the thorny branches were budding. ‘Are they roses?’
Khan’derin nodded. ‘Later on this whole forest will be a mass o’ roses, white and red. When spring comes it is always bonny. It is hard then to remember this is the Cursed Valley.’
The thorny briars were now so thick that Khan’derin covered her face with a scarf and put her gloves back on. With only her blue eyes showing through a narrow slit between the fur of her cap and the scarf, she looked strangely sinister. Meghan followed her example, wrapping her grey plaid tighter about her and pulling it up over her head to try and protect her face from the vicious branches. It was futile; the thorns dug through the thick material of her clothes and seemed to wind around her ankles and wrists, as if preventing her from going any further.
‘The forest does no’ recognise ye,’ Khan’derin said, slashing at the entwining branches with her knife.
Meghan sent out her mind, calming and reassuring, and saw the long tendrils slither away. After that her passage was easier, and she concentrated on sending out encouraging thoughts.
When they finally arrived at the Towers, Meghan did not realise they were there. Khan’derin came to a halt and gestured with her hand. Meghan looked about but all she saw was a great mossy cliff, criss-crossed with thorny briars. Khan’derin laid her hand on the rock and, looking up, Meghan saw it towered above them, the forest pressed up close to its side. Suddenly she realised what seemed like weathering on the rock was in fact elaborate carvings of roses and thorns around a massive stone door. Khan’derin pulled a large, beautifully worked key out of an inner pocket, inserted it into what appeared a mere crevice in a rock wall, and turned it with a visible effort. There was a loud click, then Khan’derin put her shoulder to the door and pushed with all her weight, until at last the door began slowly to groan open.
Within was a great hall, as intricately decorated as the Hall of the Dragons had been. Dust lay thick on the floor, and cobwebs draped in spectacular forms from the towering ceiling. There were a few broken pieces of furniture, but otherwise the hall was empty, showing only echoing spaces between the carved pillars. It was very dark, and Meghan lit a witchlight at the end of her staff so she could see.
At one end of the hall was a spiral staircase, wide enough for seven people to walk abreast, and beautifully decorated with the now familiar device of roses and thorns. Khan’derin lead the way upwards, as silent as ever, and Meghan followed, eyes darting this way and that as she tried to take in as much as she could. The Tower was obviously round, the staircase spiralling up its centre. They passed two landings, which showed short corridors leading off in four directions. Each corridor had two doors on either side and ended at a tall window that once would have showed views to the north, south, east and west. She recognised the design, since the Tower where she had lived most of her life had been built to a similar design—the crossed circle, a symbol of great power.
On the third floor, Khan’derin left the staircase. Here, rather than the four short corridors identical in length and design that Meghan was used to, there were only three, with the one to the east a great hall set with high windows on either side. Looking out of the northern windows, Meghan realised with a start that the hall was built across the river, leading to another seemingly identical Tower. The water glimmered darkly beneath them, clogged with branches.
‘Look out the other side,’ Khan’derin said, and Meghan complied. She saw that the river flowed north from a small loch, rather like the one in her secret valley home. Once the Towers would have been reflected in its waters, but the loch was now overshadowed by the forest, the sunset sky barely visible through the overarching branches.
‘Which Tower is this?’ she asked, as they came to another spiral staircase and began climbing upwards.
‘I do no’ really ken,’ Khan’derin replied, frowning. ‘1 do no’ think one is o’ Roses and one o’ Thorns. I think they are both, but I’m no’ really sure.’
At last they reached the top floor, and Khan’derin opened a door on the eastern passage, standing back so Meghan could see inside. At first glance the room seemed full of strands of silver silk, shifting and glinting in the light from her staff. Closer examination showed a nest in the centre of the room, spun from the silken strands.
‘She sleeps,’ Khan’derin said, and slipped into the room, gathering the strands in her hands and patting them in place against the soft sides of the nest. ‘Do no’ worry, ye will no’ wake her.’
Meghan gathered her courage and stepped into the room. She had to push her way through the great swathes of silk, but soon was able to see into the large nest. Ishbel was sleeping within. Her frail face and form were gently cocooned in the great lengths of what Meghan now recognised as her hair, grown to impossible lengths and as silver as a cobweb shining in the sun. Tears started to her eyes, and she felt Khan’derin take her hand and lead her out to the hall.
‘Come visit my quarters and I will make ye tea,’ Isabeau’s twin said in her cool voice, and led Meghan to another room like the one Ishbel had been sleeping in, furnished roughly with a bed, a chest and a chair. With a wave of her hand Khan’derin lit the candles, as thic
k as Meghan’s forearm, and they each studied the other by its light.
‘The sleeping sorceress is someone close to ye?’ Khan’derin asked at last. It was the first question she had asked.
‘She was like a daughter to me, many years ago,’ Meghan said. ‘She was my apprentice. Until a few days ago I had no’ seen her for sixteen years. I had thought her dead.’
This one is a solemn little owl, Gitâ said, sitting up on his hind legs and observing the girl as he nibbled on a piece of bread.
Meghan ignored him, saying, ‘She is your mother, ye ken.’
‘Aye, I had thought as much. But why does she sleep? Eight seasons I have looked after her here, and only once has she woken.’
‘I do no’ ken why she sleeps. Ishbel’s magic was always strange and unknowable. I can only guess that her mind and body needed the healing spell o’ sleep. It was terrible, y’ken, the Day o’ Betrayal, the burning o’ all we loved. It came so unexpectedly.’
‘Did ye no’ have dreams to tell o’ its coming?’
‘I do no’ have the gift o’ prophecy,’ Meghan sighed. ‘I wish that I did, much might have been saved that is now lost. All the Towers were attacked, ye see, or at least the ones that were still standing after all this time.’
‘The Towers o’ Roses and Thorns were no’ attacked.’
‘No, but then we all thought they had disappeared long ago. And they are so deep in the mountains, so difficult to get to.’
‘Aye, Feld said it took him almost a year to get here.’
‘Feld?’ Meghan exclaimed. ‘There is a sorcerer here called Feld?’
‘Indeed. It is he who taught me to speak your language, and to read, and to use the One Power.’ Khan’derin waved her hand so the flame of the candle leapt higher, but Meghan was on her feet.
‘My auld friend Feld is here! Thank the Spinners! May I see him? Take me to him!’
They found the old sorcerer in the library on the sixth floor, a pair of glasses perched on the end of his beaky nose as he turned the pages of a book almost as large as himself. He looked up when Meghan came in, and began to laugh, a dusty-sounding chuckle that ended in dry coughs. ‘So, the rumours I heard are true! Ye did survive the Burning.’
‘Och, I’m a tough auld thing,’ Meghan said. ‘I canna believe my eyes! What are ye doing here?’
It took many hours to tell the story, for Feld was noted for his ability to get sidetracked, particularly when boasting about the great library of the Towers of Roses and Thorns, but at last Meghan had the details from him. Feld had barely managed to escape the Day of Betrayal—a sudden impulse to visit the flea markets in search of old manuscripts had meant he was away from the Tower of Two Moons when the Red Guards struck, and had seen the smoke and heard the screams on his way back. Always wily, the warlock had slipped away, cursing the Banrìgh, and frantic about his apprentice Khan’gharad and his other friends and colleagues. By stint of clever disguise and the help of some witch-friends he had escaped into the Whitelock Mountains where he wandered a long time, racked with grief and horror at the burning of his precious library and the execution of so many witches. At last some semblance of reason returned to him, and he remembered the tales of his apprentice, who had appeared at the Tower of Two Moons on the back of a dragon, the first human since Aedan Whitelock to cross his leg over a dragon’s back. Khan’gharad Dragon-Laird had told him the tale of how he had rescued the young dragon princess from a certain death and so earned the gratitude of the great queen-dragon. So Feld, who had devoted his life to dragon lore, had made the long and difficult journey through the mountains to Dragonclaw and there asked the dragons for sanctuary. He had lived at the Towers of Roses and Thorns for fifteen years, tending Ishbel as she slept and studying to his heart’s content.
‘I do no’ ken if they would have let me stay if they had no’ thought I could look after Ishbel, who turned up here in the days following the Burning. The twins were born at the Hall o’ Dragons, ye ken, and a strange birth it must have been, their mother out o’ her mind with grief and horror and the only attendants dragons.’
‘So she must have flown straight there. What a journey that must have been, heavily laden with unborn twins as she was. I wonder she could stay in the air!’
‘I think it was only the spirit that kept her alive, for truly, once the twins were born, she fell asleep, and asleep she stayed for all those years.’
‘So Ishbel has been asleep these past sixteen years?’
‘She stirred a few years ago when the comet passed over and our young Khan’derin arrived but did no’ wake until last week, when the Dragon-Star came again. I was with her, brushing her hair and washing her face as I always do, when suddenly she stirred and her eyes opened. Och, the surprise and joy! Fifteen years I have tended her, and all that time she slept as sweetly as ye could imagine.’
‘How … how was she when she woke?’
‘Och, it was terrible. I had forgotten, ye see, that those sixteen years she has been asleep were but a dream for her. All she remembered were the blood and the fire and the death, the terrible betrayal o’ the Rìgh whom we had served so faithfully. And o’ course, the death o’ Khan’gharad. That was the last thing she remembered, how her lover died.’
Meghan felt a great tide of ancient grief pour over her, and though she tried to fight it, tears began to slide down her wrinkled cheeks. She rested her forehead in her hand and struggled to control herself, but her grief had been stifled too long and the dam had finally burst.
After a while, she felt Feld’s frail hand patting her shoulder and heard him say awkwardly, ‘Come, come, ye are wetting my book, and indeed it is far too auld and rare to be wetted with salt tears. I ken what it is ye did, and how that must grieve your heart, but really, what could ye do? Ye saved Ishbel’s life and your own, and ye could have destroyed the Banrìgh, which indeed would have been a good thing, much as it pains my heart to say that the death o’ any living thing could be a good thing.’
‘The mother-dragon told me Khan’gharad is no’ dead,’ Meghan said, wiping her lined face impatiently.
‘Did she so? Well, dragons do no’ lie, though they can twist words in such a way that they might as well be telling an untruth. I canna see how he could have lived after ye opened a chasm at his very feet, but then the Banrìgh survived, did she no’, and her black-hearted servant with her. Stranger things have happened.’
‘Like finding ye alive, and Ishbel too, when I had given up all hope,’ Meghan said. ‘Ye can imagine how I felt when Ishbel turned up for Isabeau’s Testing, after sixteen years of silence!’
‘Indeed! So that is why she woke. She must’ve kent ye needed her. And I tried to stop her, the auld fool I am. One moment she was asleep, the next awake and looking about her with those great blue eyes o’ hers. I caught her in my arms and tried to hold her down, but she was too strong for me. A wee thing like Ishbel, too strong for me! Och, I am getting auld. She struggled and fought like an elven cat, and after she had won free, threw herself out the window o’ her room! I thought she must be mad in her grief, and the confusion o’ waking after so long, and trying to kill herself.
‘I was always a fool. Ishbel the Winged, to die by falling out a window! For light as a feather, she twirled and floated through the sky, and I watched her till she was beyond the Cursed Peaks, and out o’ sight. I could no’ rest till she returned, I fretted and fumed, and young Khan’derin celebrated her coming o’ age alone and no’ very happy, I am afraid. I felt I could no’ be easy until Ishbel was safe home again, though when she did return it was to sleep’s arms that she turned, no’ mine, and asleep she has been ever since.’ The old warlock sighed, and took off his glasses to rub them with the skirt of his robe.
Meghan and her old friend Feld talked long into the night, and he told her of some of the marvels of the Towers’ library. It had been gathered together by the great twin sorcerers, Faodhagan and Sorcha, and Feld claimed it had some texts from Alba, the Other World, which
they had brought with them in the Great Crossing. Written mainly in Latin, one of the sacred languages of the Other World, they were very difficult to read but Feld had persevered gamely.
‘The twins lived in harmony with the dragons, ye ken, riding their backs and building the Great Stairway for them. Faodhagan was a great artist and craftsman, far greater than anything we ken, and a great wielder o’ magic. It is he who built the dragons’ palace, and the Towers o’ Roses and Thorns, as well as many o’ the other Towers too. Books in this library tell o’ acts o’ magic that are almost beyond belief. I have barely started my work, even after fifteen years here.’
Suddenly Meghan felt so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, and she rested her head in her hands and her elbows on the table while Feld went on describing the treasures of his library. After a while she must have dropped off to sleep for she woke when he laid a hand on her shoulder, begging her forgiveness and leading her off to bed.
Her first night in a soft, warm bed for over a week did wonders for Meghan and she woke reinvigorated and almost happy. Although she and Feld had never been very close at the Tower of Two Moons, each preoccupied with their own concerns, it cheered her greatly to see a familiar face. It was also a comfort to know there was a great store of knowledge here that one day could help the witches reestablish the Towers, and perhaps even take them to greater heights of wisdom and understanding. The discovery of Khan’derin was also a wonder and a joy, for here perhaps was a power equal to Isabeau’s, and another young witch to fill the halls of learning both she and Feld dreamt of. Meghan washed her face and plaited her grey hair amidst dreams of a new Tower and a defeated Banrìgh.
There was a knock on the door, and Khan’derin came in bearing a tray with hot porridge and tea. She was wearing a loose white shirt, and her head was covered with a long-tailed white cap so Meghan could still not see her hair. The old witch smiled at her. ‘I am glad that I came,’ she said. ‘Indeed, ‘twas grand to find the lost Towers o’ Roses and Thorns intact still, and so rich in knowledge. So much has been lost. Feld tells me there are books here that came over in the Crossing!’