That was certainly true and the Spook didn't bother to comment further. At last the cries faded and finally ceased altogether. And I knew that, hidden by darkness, the witches would be taking the blood and bones they needed for their rituals. I knew Alice well enough to be confident that she would play no part in that.
We lay at anchor until daylight, when the blood -spattered witches rejoined the Celeste and retreated to their refuge in the hold once more. I noted the contrast between Mab and Alice. The former was gloating, clearly revelling in what had just taken place; Alice stood with her arms folded and looked sick at heart.
CHAPTER
9
WHAT I AM
We sailed north, tacking against the wind, with the coast of Greece now always visible on our starboard bow. I could see that this was a very different land to the one I was used to. There was some greenery, yes, with clumps of pine and oak and the odd cypress tree spearing the sky, but it wasn't the lush grassland of the County, with its high rainfall and damp westerly winds. This was a hot, arid country, a desiccated wilderness, the sun burning our heads and necks, the hills parched brown.
We were within less than an hour of the port of Igoumenitsa, but the sea and its denizens hadn't finished with us yet. The first I knew of the danger was a distant sound, high and shrill, audible even above the pounding of the waves against the rocky shore. The Spook and Arkwright stared at each other, eyes widening. At that moment the Celeste lurched, hurling us to the deck as the prow began to veer to starboard. We scrambled to our feet as she came about, until, to my astonishment, we were pointing directly towards the coast and a wall of jagged rocks.
'Sirens!' Arkwright cried.
I'd read about sirens in the Spook's Bestiary. They were creatures of the sea, females who used their strange, melodious cries to lure sailors onto the rocks and destroy their vessels. They then dragged the drowning sailors into the depths and fed upon their flesh at leisure. A seventh son of a seventh son had a degree of immunity to their calls but an ordinary sailor could easily be enthralled by their hypnotic voices.
I followed the two spooks forward to the wheel. The cries of the sirens were much louder now, filled with a shrill intensity that set my teeth on edge. I felt the urge to answer their call, but I fought hard against it and gradually it diminished. Most of the crew were in the prow, staring towards the source of that powerful siren song. The captain was at the helm, his eyes bulging, the muscles of his bare arms knotted, as he aimed the ship directly towards the black rocks that awaited us like the huge fangs of a ravenous beast. He gripped the wheel like a madman, his eyes fixed upon the awaiting shore.
I could see the sirens now, sprawled there on the rocks. Beautiful women with bright eyes, golden hair and skin, their allure very powerful, but as I concentrated, trying to slow my breathing, their appearance began to change and I saw them for what they really were. They still had the bodies of women, but their hair was long and green like tangled seaweed, and their faces were monstrous, with huge fangs sprouting from grotesquely swollen lips. But I realized that the captain and crew had been separated from their wives for long weeks; and without the immunity possessed by spooks, they could only see the illusion.
Arkwright seized the captain by the shoulders and tried to drag him away from the wheel. During my training I'd wrestled with Arkwright and fought him staff against staff so I knew to my cost that he was extremely strong – but even so he couldn't manage to prise the man away. As the Spook went to his aid, some of the sailors left the prow and started to come towards us brandishing cudgels, their intention clear. They were desperate to answer the sirens' call, and aware that we were trying to prevent them.
'Stand back!' cried the Spook, stepping forward to swing his staff in an arc. But the crew kept coming, their eyes glittering insanely. They were in thrall to the sirens' song and would do anything to obey their summons. The Spook struck the wrist of the nearest sailor, sending the cudgel flying from his hand. The man gave a howl of pain and stepped back a pace.
I moved forward to stand at John Gregory's side, holding my staff diagonally across me in a defensive position. Neither the Spook nor I had released our retractable blades. We were facing the crew of the Celeste, after all, and didn't want to do anyone any permanent damage. It was for that reason too that Arkwright was still wrestling with the helmsman rather than cracking his skull to bring him to his knees.
Suddenly Mam was at Arkwright's side; I glanced back to see her roll something in the palm of her hand and insert it into the left ear of Captain Baines.
Arkwright twisted the captain's head and she did the same to his other ear.
'Now release him!' she cried, shouting above the roar of the waves pounding the rocks, which were dangerously close now.
Whatever Mam had done, the change in the captain was sudden and dramatic. He gave a cry of fear, his eyes filled with loathing as the sirens on the rocks now appeared to him in their true shapes, and he began to spin the wheel. In response the boat came slowly about and began to veer away from the sirens. At that moment the crew rushed us, but the Spook and I used our staffs to good effect, bringing two of them down hard on the deck. The next moment Arkwright was at our side, pointing his staff towards them, clearly prepared to use it if necessary. But by then the sirens' cries were already beginning to fade as we sailed down the coast in the opposite direction, the wind now to our rear, driving the Celeste fast across the water.
I watched the crews' faces as the allure of the sirens began to weaken and they could be seen in their true shapes. By now the hideous creatures were hissing with anger, showing their fangs as they began to slip off the jagged rocks into the sea.
'I put wax in the captain's ears,' Mam explained. 'If you can't hear the siren song, then it has no power. It's a simple but effective method and has been used many times by my people. Sirens are always a risk on our shores but I thought this stretch of coastline was safe. The power of the dark is certainly increasing.'
Within a few minutes the siren cries could be heard no more. Once the captain had pulled the wax plugs from his ears, Mam explained to the bewildered crew of the Celeste what had happened. The ship was brought about and we continued our journey northwards, this time keeping considerably more distance between ourselves and that dangerous shore. We'd not even landed in Greece yet, but already the pirates and sirens had threatened our survival.
We landed at the port of Igoumenitsa late in the morning.
While our provisions were unloaded, we all stayed on board, as if reluctant to leave the safety of the ship. An alien land awaited us, the hot, spice-laden air heavy with the promise of unknown danger.
Then, late in the afternoon, I saw a cloud of dust on the road that led towards the port itself, soon followed by a dozen fierce-looking men on horseback who galloped towards the quay. All wore brown robes and had swords at their hips; they were bearded, their faces crisscrossed with scars. Behind them came a wagon covered with black canvas.
The riders halted in a line facing the ship and waited silently. Mam came up from her cabin, hooded and veiled, and stood on the deck looking down at them. After a while she turned to me.
'These are my friends, son. It's a dangerous land, this, and enemies may try to intercept us at any time. We'll need these people if the maenads attack. Come and meet them . . .'
So saying, she led me down the gangplank towards the waiting horsemen. As we approached, they leaped from their horses and ran forward, eager smiles on their faces, to form a circle around her.
Mam turned her back to the sun and lifted aside her veil, then spoke rapidly, her voice warm. I tried to work out what she was saying. It sounded similar to Greek, but I could only catch the odd word. Then she put her left hand on my right shoulder and said 'O yios,' which means 'son'. And then, a moment later, 'Exi,' which she repeated. I think she'd just told them I was a seventh son of a seventh son and that I belonged to her.
Whatever she'd said, all their eyes were now fixed o
n me, and once again their faces were lit with smiles.
'This is Seilenos,' Mam said, pointing to a tall blackhaired man in the centre of the group. 'A good friend and a very brave man. His courage is matched only by his love of food and good wine! He's the nearest thing we have in my country to a County spook. He's an expert on lamia witches and fire elementals, which should prove very useful if we manage to get into the Ord.'
She spoke to him rapidly – again I couldn't follow the words – and Seilenos nodded at me.
'I've told him that your life is just as important as my own and asked him to do all he can to ensure your safety at all times,' Mam explained.
'What language is it, Mam?' I asked. 'It's like Greek, but I can hardly understand any of it. They talk so quickly.'
'You'll understand most people we encounter without too much trouble, but these people are from the border. It's a dialect from what southerners refer to as "the barbarous north".'
'It is all right,' said Seilenos, stepping forward and beaming widely. 'I speak some of your words, yes? Your good mother tell me you are an apprentice enemy of dark. I teach you as well. I know this land and its dangers.'
'Thanks,' I told him with a smile. 'I'd be grateful for anything that may help.'
'Anyway, son,' Mam said, 'we won't begin our journey east until tomorrow now. We'll spend one more night on the Celeste. It'll be safer that way. Best not to set off until we're good and ready. But in the meantime I want to show you something and I've things to explain. We're going on a little journey, but we should be back here well before nightfall. We'll ride in this . . .'
She led the way over to the wagon with the black canvas top. The grinning driver climbed down and opened the door for her. I was surprised how cool it was inside. I'd have liked to look out of the window, but it was a small sacrifice to have Mam safe from that burning sun.
Accompanied by Mam's warrior friends, we headed south for about an hour. After a while our pace slowed and we seemed to be climbing. We travelled in silence, not saying a word to one another for the whole journey. I wanted to ask questions but there was something in Mam's manner that made me hold back. I sensed that she wanted me to wait until we had arrived at our destination.
When we stopped, I followed Mam out, blinking in the bright sunshine.
We were on a rocky hillside; the sparkling blue sea was now far away in the distance. Before us stood a large white-painted house with a walled garden. The paint was flaking from the walls and the shuttered windows also needed a lick of paint. The horsemen didn't dismount but waited patiently as Mam led me towards the front door.
She inserted a key into the lock, turned it and opened the door. It yielded with a groan and a creak. It was as if nobody had entered this place for years. I followed Mam into the gloom. Once inside, she lifted her veil and led me through the house. As I followed, I caught a movement to my left. At first I thought it was a rat, but it was a small green lizard, which ran up the wall and onto the ceiling. Mam used a key to open the back door, and after she'd lowered her veil again, we walked out into the walled garden.
It was an astonishing oasis of greenery. Although overgrown and neglected, it was a delight to the eye. A spring bubbled from an ornate stone fountain at its centre and that water gave sustenance to a mass of grasses, shrubs and small trees.
'See that, Tom?' Mam said, pointing at a small gnarled tree close to the fountain. 'That's an olive. Such trees live to a great age and the olives they bear provide a nutritious oil. That one is well over two hundred years old.'
I smiled and nodded, but a wave of homesickness washed over me. The tree Mam had indicated was small – nothing compared to the great oaks, ashes and sycamores of the County.
'Let's sit in the shade,' she suggested, and I followed her to a bench set against the wall, out of the sun. Once seated she raised her veil again. 'Your dad told you about this house and garden, didn't he?' she asked.
For a moment I was puzzled. Then I remembered, and smiled. 'Is this your house, Mam? The one where you stayed with Dad after he'd rescued you from the rock?'
Not long before he died, Dad had told me the story of how he met Mam. He was originally a sailor, and while ashore in Greece, he'd found her bound naked to a rock with a silver chain. He'd protected her from the sun – otherwise she'd have died. Then he'd released her from the rock and they'd stayed together in this house before returning to the County to be married. The silver chain that had constrained her was the one I now used to bind malevolent witches.
She nodded. 'Yes, it's my house – I wanted you to see it, but I really brought you here so that we could be alone together without any chance of being disturbed. You see, there's something else you need to know, son,' she continued. 'We might not get a chance to talk alone again . . . This is very hard for me . . . but I need to tell you what I am.'
'What you are, Mam?' I said, my heart hammering in my chest. I'd waited a long time to find this out, but now, with the truth finally about to be revealed, I was scared.
Mam took a deep breath and it was a long time before she spoke. 'I'm not human, Tom. I never was—'
'It doesn't matter, Mam. I know what you are. I worked it out ages ago. You're a lamia witch, like your sisters. One of the vaengir; those who fly. But you've been "domestic" for a long time. And you're benign . . .'
'Well, I suppose I expected you to put two and two together and come up with that, but unfortunately you're mistaken. I only wish you were right—'
'Then you must be a hybrid,' I interrupted.
'No, Tom, I'm not a hybrid. What I am is far worse than anything you can possibly have imagined—'
Mam halted and turned to face me, her eyes glistening with tears. My heart pounded even faster. I couldn't imagine what she was going to say. Whatever it was, it had to be bad.
'You see, son,' she continued, 'I am Lamia. The very first . . .'
I caught my breath, my head spinning. I'd heard her words but they didn't make any sense. 'What do you mean, Mam? I know you're a lamia. You're domestic and benign—'
'Listen carefully to what I'm saying, son. I am the Lamia. The mother of them all . . .'
My chest began to hurt as what Mam had just told me began to sink in. 'No, Mam! No! That can't be true!' I exclaimed, remembering what had been written in the Spook's Bestiary. That Lamia's first children had been killed by the goddess Hera and that her revenge had been terrible. She'd killed children. Then young men. Taken lives beyond counting.
'I can tell by your face that you know what I've done. You know my crimes, don't you? All I can say in mitigation is that I was driven mad by the loss of my own children. I murdered innocents, and for that I can never forgive myself. But I turned to the light at last and have spent my long life trying to compensate in some way for what I did.'
'But you can't be Lamia, Mam! It says in the Spook's Bestiary that she was killed by three of her own children, the first lamia witches. They tore her to pieces and fed her to a herd of wild boar. So you can't be her. She's dead.'
'Don't believe everything you read in books, son,' Mam said. 'Much history is passed down by word of mouth and only written up many years later, when the truth has been distorted and embellished. It's certainly true that I later gave birth to triplets, the first lamia witches. It is also true that we quarrelled. But we never fought physically. Although their words cut me to the quick, they never raised a finger against me. It pained me, but our family couldn't stay together. They are dead now, but their feral children live on to infest the land of Greece and make its mountain passes more dangerous than anywhere else on earth. That is the truth.'
A thought struck me. 'But you have feral lamia sisters, Mam. And Lamia didn't have sisters. She was the first. The very first lamia. As you said, the mother of them all—'
'I call them sisters, Tom, and that's what they are to me because we were companions and joint enemies of the Ordeen and the Fiend for many years, long before I journeyed to the County with your dad. But they
are really my descendants; children of my children's children many times removed. In spirit, though, they are my sisters. That's how I see them.'