I tried to call out to Thorne and tell her what must be done, but I was unable to speak. I was trapped deep within my body, forced to endure the pain, which was increasing all the time.
I wasn’t going to remain lying here in agony while my body slowly lost its grip on life. There was a way to escape it. I could float out of my body to meet my death. I had some skill in the arts of shamanistic magic.
Most Pendle witches are deeply conservative in their habits: at an early age they are tested by their clan to determine which type of dark magic – blood or bone or familiar – they have an aptitude for. They would never think to range beyond those options. But I am different. My mind is flexible and open to other alternatives. I am willing and eager to learn new things.
This may be because during my life as a witch assassin I have travelled widely and have encountered other cultures and ways of utilizing the dark. One such encounter was with a Romanian witch who was living in the northeast of the County. It was she who taught me something of shamanism.
Of course, you could spend a lifetime learning its secrets and practising its craft. I had but a few months to devote to it, so I concentrated on just one aspect of its repertoire – the skill of projecting the soul from the body.
Such a procedure is not without risks. One practitioner, a mage, projected his soul into the dark and was devoured by a daemon. You may also be unable to find your way back to your body. For that reason I had used it only rarely, and with great caution.
But what did it matter now? I was dying. The mists of Limbo would close about me soon enough, whether I left my body or not. At least I would be able to see again – after a fashion.
The process usually involves a few key words muttered in a particular cadence, but equally important is the will to escape.
I had lost control of my body and couldn’t even move my lips to speak the words of the spell. As it was, my will, driven by desperation, proved sufficient. Moments later I was floating just a few feet above the bed upon which my body lay. Thorne was sitting in a chair, her head in her hands, the leather sack within her reach. A candle flickered on the small table beside her.
I looked down at my weary face, mouth open to suck in rapid shallow breaths. I had never thought it would end this way. It didn’t seem right. Grimalkin was never meant to die in a warm bed – she should have met her end in battle, as a warrior. But on reflection I realized that I had. The kretch had killed me. That scratch from its poisoned talon had been the moment of my defeat – the beginning of my death.
I floated away and passed through the closed door. I was nothing more than a small glowing orb of light, invisible to most people. The strongest of witches and spooks might be able to glimpse me, but only in a very dark place. Even candlelight made me almost totally invisible.
However, I could see clearly, even in the dark – though only one colour was visible. Everything was a shade of green, and living things glowed, lit by the life-force within them. The front room of Agnes’s cottage was exactly as I remembered it: cosy, clean but cluttered. The walls were lined with shelves full of books or rows of jars containing ointments, dried herbs and withered roots. First and foremost Agnes was a healer.
She was sitting on a stool by the fire in the small front room, reading a book. I drifted closer and read the title on the spine: Antidotes to Deadly Poisons.
So she had listened to Thorne and hadn’t given up on me yet. Even though my enemies had created a kretch specially designed to kill me, it did not necessarily mean that they had concocted a totally new poison. The creature itself would have used up much of their strength and resources, at great cost to themselves. It had been endowed with many means with which to kill me, and poison was just one; they might simply have selected one of the most deadly. If Agnes could determine which one it was, I might still have a chance.
I floated on, passing through the wall of the cottage with ease. Ahead lay the huge long mass of Pendle Hill. I sped on swiftly. I might die at any moment but I had to keep my hopes up. There was something that I could do now that, were I to recover, might help me to keep the Fiend’s head safe.
I had decided to visit Malkin Tower and see what the situation was there – where exactly the two lamias resided. I flew towards Crow Wood and was soon swooping low over the treetops, invisible to the fierce carrion crows that roosted below on their leafy branches.
A bright green half-moon cast its sickly light upon the tower. It was a grim fortification, surrounded by a moat, topped by battlements and protected by a huge iron-studded door. It had once been the home of the Malkin coven, but now the two feral lamias dwelt there. Before the war and the enemy occupation, I had been instructed by the coven to kill them and retake the tower. I had refused, telling them that the lamias were too strong and that the attempt would lead to my certain death.
One of the coven had twisted her face into a sneer. ‘I never thought the day would come when Grimalkin would consider an enemy too strong!’ she’d jibed.
In retaliation, I broke her arm and glared at each of the other witches in turn. They were afraid of me, and they quickly cast down their eyes.
But I had lied. Fully armed and fit, I felt confident that I could defeat the lamias – especially if I could engineer a fight with them one at a time and in a place of my choosing. However, for now it suited my purposes to have them inhabiting the tower. For within lay the chests owned by my ally, Thomas Ward, one of which contained knowledge and artefacts belonging to his mother: these might one day aid us in our struggle against the Fiend and his servants. With the lamias as guardians, the chest and its contents were safe.
Had I been approaching clothed in flesh, I would have used the tunnel that led to the dungeons far below the tower, and climbed up into it that way. Meeting a hostile lamia in a confined space would have been to my advantage. The two guardian lamias could fly, and it would not be wise to meet them in the open.
Shortly after the coven had completed the ritual to raise the Fiend, I had taken part in the battle fought atop Pendle Hill. We were attacked by a rabble from Downham village and would have made short work of them – but the intervention of the lamias was decisive. Despite the accuracy of my blades, they persisted in their attack. My knives found their targets half a dozen times, but the lamias’ scales were a better defence than the toughest armour. Many witches had died that night.
As I approached the moat, I felt a tug as if I were being pulled back towards my body. Never had I travelled so far from it. The thin invisible cord that bound me to it could snap and bring about my death immediately. That had always been my fear. Maybe this was why some shamans failed to find their way back and died: they had gone too far and snapped the cord … But did it matter now? I was close to death anyway. Unless Agnes found a cure, little time remained to me.