Dawn came, and with it grey skies and a chill drizzle drifting into my face. After about an hour I felt the mirror begin to move within its sheath. Agnes was trying to make contact, so I halted beneath the shelter of a large tree, lifted out the mirror and found the witch’s face staring back. It was a kindly face, with round cheeks and a plump chin, but one glance at her eyes told you that she was brave and not a woman to be trifled with.
Her name was Sowerbutts because she’d married a man from Whalley, leaving Roughlee, the Deane village, behind. Ten years later he died and she went home, but this time to live in a cottage on the outskirts of Roughlee. Although she liked to keep her distance from the clan, nevertheless she knew all their business. There wasn’t much that went on in Pendle that escaped Agnes and her mirror.
She gave me a brief smile of welcome, but I could see the warning in her eyes before she spoke. It would not be good news. I concentrated, staring hard at her lips to read what was being silently mouthed at me.
What follows you is a ‘kretch’. It was created by an alliance of witches, abhumans and mages specially to hunt you down and slay you. Its mother was a she-wolf, but its father was a daemon.
‘Can you name the daemon?’ I asked.
That knowledge was vital. I needed to know what powers it had. It would be wolf-like, but much would be determined by the gifts passed down from its father. My own clan, the Malkins, have also created kretches. The last one we named Tibb. We used it to try and counter the growing power of a seer from the Mouldheel clan. Kretches are usually created for a specific purpose. This one was supposed to kill me.
Agnes shook her head. I am sorry, she mouthed. Strong magic cloaks that information. But I will keep trying.
‘Yes, I’ll be grateful if you do that. But did you scry also? Did you see the outcome of my fight against this kretch?’
If you fight it soon, you will suffer a mortal wound. That much is certain, Agnes told me, her face grim.
‘And if I delay that fight?’
The outcome is less clear. But your chances of survival increase as time passes.
I thanked her, replaced the mirror in its sheath and set off again at a sprint, trying to stay ahead of the kretch. As I ran, I thought over what Agnes had said. The fact that it was a kretch made me determined to elude it for as long as possible. Such creatures had short life spans. It would age rapidly, so why face it in its prime? I had to keep the Fiend’s head out of his servants’ clutches. That was more important than my growing urge to turn and fight my enemy.
I did believe in the power of scrying, but it was not always accurate. In fact, sometimes – though rarely – it could be inaccurate.
I remember my first consultation with Martha Ribstalk. Rather than using a mirror, her chosen method of scrying was to peer into a steaming blood-tainted cauldron in which she boiled up thumb- and finger-bones to strip away the dead flesh. At that time she was the foremost practitioner of that dark art.
As arranged, I visited her one hour after midnight. She had already drunk the blood of an enemy and performed the necessary rituals.
‘Do you accept my money?’ I demanded.
She looked at me disdainfully but nodded, so I tossed three coins into the cauldron.
‘Be seated!’ she commanded sternly, pointing to the cold stone flags before the large bubbling pot. The air was thick with the smell of blood, and each breath I took increased the metallic taste on the back of my tongue.
I obeyed, sitting cross-legged and gazing up at her through the steam. She had remained standing beyond the cauldron, so that her body would be higher than mine, a tactic frequently employed by those who wish to dominate others.
But I was not cowed and met her gaze calmly. ‘What did you see?’ I asked steadily. ‘What is my future?’
She did not speak for a long time. It pleased her to keep me waiting. I think Martha was annoyed because I had asked a question rather than waiting to be told the outcome of her scrying.
‘You have chosen an enemy,’ she said at last. ‘The Fiend is the most powerful enemy any mortal could face. The outcome should be simple. Unless you allow it, the Fiend cannot be near you in life, but he will await your death, then seize your soul and subject it to everlasting torments. However, there is something else that I cannot see clearly. There is uncertainty – another force that may intervene; one which presents a faint glimmer of hope …’
She paused, stepped forward and peered into the steam. Once again there was a long pause. ‘There is someone … a child just born …’
‘Who is this child?’ I demanded.
‘I cannot see him clearly,’ Martha Ribstalk admitted. ‘Someone hides him from my sight. And as for you, even with his intervention, only one highly skilled with weapons could hope to survive – only one with the speed and ruthlessness of a witch assassin, only the greatest of all witch assassins – one even more deadly than Kernolde – could do that. Nothing less will do. So what hope have you?’ Martha mocked.
At that time Kernolde was the witch assassin of the Malkins, a fearsome woman of great strength and speed who had slain twenty-seven pretenders to her position – three each year, as this was the tenth year of her reign.
I rose to my feet and smiled down at Martha. ‘I will slay Kernolde and then take her place. I will become the witch assassin of the Malkins, the greatest of them all.’
Martha had laughed mockingly as I walked away, but I was perfectly serious. To defeat the Fiend I knew that I would have to develop my fighting skills and become the assassin of the Malkin clan. And then I would have to form an alliance with that unknown child.
Eventually I learned his name.
Tom Ward.
I hurried on, trying to pick up my pace. The drizzle had now become a torrential downpour, driving into my face and soaking me to the skin.
As I ran, I meditated on the art of scrying. Generally a witch uses a mirror, but some go into deep trances and glimpse the future through dreams. Some throw bones into the north wind and see how they land. It is also possible to cut open a dead animal and examine its entrails. But seeing into the future is uncertain, no matter what some scryers would have us believe. There is always the element of chance. Not everything can be foreseen – and a witch can never foretell her own death: another must scry it for her.
I disliked Martha Ribstalk, but she was good at her art and I consulted her many times after that first session. During our final meeting she predicted the time and manner of my death – she insisted that it would come about many years into the future, but I could not rely on that. Time has many paths: perhaps I have already taken one that made her prophecy void. If so, I know exactly what step that was.