Poison (9 page)

Poison was about to sit up when something heavy landed on her back and she shrieked.

“It's all right, it's all right,” Bram said hastily. “It's just the cat.”

Andersen had appeared as if from nowhere and obviously thought Poison would make a convenient cushion for jumping down from the skeletal balcony rail. Now it hopped daintily off her and allowed her to get up. Poison scowled at it. It returned her violet gaze amiably.

“Actually, you're just who I wanted to see,” she told the cat. “Can you do us a favour? Go find the dogs and lead them here. We have some bones for them.”

The cat blinked at her. She felt faintly ridiculous for talking to it as if it was a person. Then it turned and sloped away, heading down the stairs.

“See?” Bram said.

“I'll believe it when he comes back with the dogs,” Poison said. “We should get out of sight.”

The cat did come back. By that time, Poison and Bram were hidden behind the remaining pots that stood on the shelf above the stove, safely out of the dogs' reach. Andersen came yowling into the room, and behind him came the two enormous dogs, scrambling and barking as they chased after the elusive morsel. The cat scampered around the cauldron and disappeared from sight, and the dogs raced after it . . . emerging moments later with no sign of the cat. Puzzled, they nosed around the edge of the cauldron, investigating the shadows thrown by the fire; but Andersen had outwitted them, and was already sitting on the overhead balcony, washing its paw with its tongue. The dogs looked about for a short while before noticing the bones lying on the floor.

“That's it; nice juicy bones,” Poison murmured.

The broth that the bones had steeped in had left an odd stench that would have been overpowering to a dog's sensitive nose; but Peppercorn had said that the Bone Witch's hounds had no sense of smell. Poison watched, holding her breath, as they examined their finds; and then one of them pinned his catch down with his paws and began to gnaw. The other followed suit, and soon the two of them were chewing and cracking bones and lapping at the marrow within. The cat observed from above with an expression of haughty disgust.

It did not take long for Poison's concoction to take effect.

She had no idea what she had put in the cauldron, but whatever it was, she had given them a huge overdose. The dogs began twitching and spasming almost in unison: first their legs began to tremble and they began to trip whenever they tried to move; then their muscle control deserted them completely and they fell on their sides, wheezing while their legs flailed spastically about and their heads jerked back and forth. Their tongues lolled, and bloody foam bubbled through their teeth. Finally, they collapsed and lay still, their breath rasping in and out until it ceased entirely.

Bram and Poison looked on, dumbfounded and not a little sickened.

“I just wanted them to die,” Poison said. “They didn't have to make such a drama about it.”

Bram frowned. “At least it worked. Now what?”

She brushed her hair back from her face. “Now we take care of the Bone Witch.”

 

Night fell.

The mist was still as thick as ever, but a bright and massive moon shone through it, bigger and closer than Poison had ever seen. The house sank into darkness, but the moon cast hard, cold light through the windows and spread rhomboid patches of blue across the shadow. Where it penetrated the cauldron room, it mixed with the firelight and glittered in the wet wash of blood.

Somewhere upstairs, a door creaked. The Bone Witch was awake.

Poison and Bram stood in the corridor that ran from the balcony of the cauldron room past the door to Peppercorn's bedroom. Hearing the noise, they glanced at each other. Poison did not know whether to laugh or feel sick.

“You're certain this will work?” Bram asked for the tenth time.

“I told you, she's blind and deaf,” Poison said. “But she'll feel the vibrations if we make a lot of noise. And when she gets here, she only needs to smell us.”

Bram swallowed and nodded, cinching the skin of the dog tighter around his shoulders. Both of them wore the dog's hide like hooded cloaks, bloody shrouds that clung stickily to their hair and arms and cheeks. Both of them were plastered in smeared gore. Relieving the dead creatures of their skins had been an unpleasant task, and Bram was not greatly skilled at it. They had used a knife they found by the stove, though it was the size of a sabre and hard to handle. Peppercorn had appeared on the balcony while they were working below, having found Andersen at last; when she saw what they were doing, she gave a little squeak and fainted. Poison dragged her into the corner of the balcony and left her there. Better to have her out of the way; there was no knowing how she might react if she knew of their plan.

They could hear the Bone Witch creaking about above them now, and her voice drifted down in a sinister singsong.

“
Are you ready, my dear? Ready for Maeb's pot? Tender, juicy bones.
”

“We can still escape,” Bram reminded her. “It'll only be a short while till midnight. We can get out through the coal chute.”

“No,” Poison replied. “We should face her on our terms, not hers. If she catches us hiding, we'll all be for the pot.”

Bram listened uncertainly to the witch's cooing.

“Besides,” Poison added. “It's time somebody did something about her.”

Bram didn't reply to that.

“Come on,” she said, and together they readied themselves in front of the door at the end of the corridor. Poison went first; she threw herself shoulder-first against the closed door and bounced off it. Bram did the same, while Poison stamped her boots, and then they both launched themselves at the door again, making it rattle in its frame. It was an odd scene, neither of them speaking, simply clattering about and making as much din as possible.

“
Oh! Did my poor dears get shut downstairs? Mother's coming, my pets. Don't fret.
”

They backed off from the door as Maeb approached. Bram was scared out of his wits, his whiskers quivering; but Poison felt strangely unafraid now. She was tired of cringing from that rancid old hag. This time around, it would be different.

The door was pulled open, and there was the Bone Witch, eleven feet high and twisted as an ancient root. Bram almost fell over in his haste to stumble away, but Poison stood her ground. Maeb paused as soon as she opened the door, and took a sniff of the air with her enormous nose.

“
I smell blood!
” she screeched. “
And not man blood, either!
”

Poison took that as her cue to flee. Bram had already made a less than heroic retreat, and was several dozen feet away down the corridor.

“
Come back, my pets!
”
Maeb cried. “
Are you hurt? Has somebody hurt you?
” She came lunging after them, sniffing the air as she went. “
Come back!
”

Poison ran. Having the witch follow her was all part of the plan, but it was no less dangerous for that. Bram was already through the doorway and at the balcony, ushering her frantically. But Maeb had slowed to a halt. Poison looked back over her shoulder, feeling a crawling dread come upon her.

“
You're not my dogs,
”
Maeb hissed. “
I can feel your footsteps. You smell like them, but you're not them. Two legs! Two legs!
” She sniffed the air and howled suddenly: “
What have you done with my dogs?
”

Suddenly she thundered forward with a screech, her wrinkled face in an awful rictus of hate. Her speed took Poison by surprise, and she barely got out of the way of the enormous creature's grasping hands. As it was, she felt the bloodied dog-hide plucked from her back. Maeb screamed in horror as she dangled the skin of her pet in her hand, then flung it aside and came through the doorway, stamping on to the balcony, a monstrous fury upon her.

“
I'll grind your bones to powder and bake them in my bread!
”
she cried. “
I'll snap you up and crunch you down!
”

But as she raced into the room, she stepped on to the fresh slick of blood that had been splashed across the balcony. Her feet slid once, and her arms flailed, but she was going too fast to stop herself. With a shriek, she crashed into the balcony rail, which cracked under her weight with a splintering of bone and pitched her head-first into the cauldron. Boiling broth geysered over the side with a great sizzling hiss, and the fire was extinguished in a wash of searing water; then silence fell.

Poison and Bram, who had been pressed against the wall next to the door jamb, ventured to the edge of the balcony and peered over. All they could see of Maeb was the grimy soles of her shoes, poking out of the poisonous brown broth and resting against the lip of the cauldron. They were quite still.

“Hmm,” said Bram.

Poison laughed explosively, giddy with relief. “Will you take off that dogskin? You look ridiculous.”

Bram raised an eyebrow at her. She looked like she had bathed in blood. He shucked off the skin and threw it into the cauldron after the Bone Witch.

“What about her?” Bram said, tipping his head at Peppercorn, who was still out cold in the corner. Andersen was just curling up on her lap, taking advantage of her inactivity.

“What
about
her?” Poison replied. “She's not our concern. Let her do what she wants.”

Bram harrumphed and stroked his moustache, reddening what whiteness remained there. “That's not good enough, Poison,” he said. “Can't just leave her here.”

“Why not?” Poison challenged.

“It wouldn't be right,” he replied simply.

Poison sighed. She had no dislike for Pepper-corn, but she had the impression that the girl would be nothing but a hindrance and a liability to them. Still, one look at Bram told her that he would not be swayed on this. It piqued her unaccountably. She had felt somehow
special
when Bram had ventured into the house to save her; but now that Bram's kindness extended to Peppercorn as well, the feeling was spoiled a little.

“All right then,” she shrugged. She walked over to Peppercorn. Andersen reluctantly gave up his warm spot and circled around behind her, peering past her ankles at his unconscious owner. Poison gave her a shake.

“Wake up, Peppercorn,” she said. “Time to go.”

Peppercorn made a soft moan and opened her eyes. She took one look at the blood-drenched apparition before her, screamed, and fainted again.

Poison threw up her hands in exasperation. “If you want her, you'd better carry her,” she said to Bram.

But Bram was looking out of the window, for the moonlight had suddenly brightened. “The mist is clearing,” he said. “Midnight is coming. We should go.”

She gave Bram a long, penetrating stare. “Are you sure about this, Bram? Maybe, if you stay here, the house will go back to where it originally started.”

“Maybe it will,” Bram said. “And maybe it won't. It's phaerie magick. I don't much want to take the risk.”

Poison began to argue, but Bram raised one hide-gloved hand.

“I'm here now,” he said. “Can't pretend I'm happy about it, but I made my choice. I knew where I'd end up when I came in after you. Now let's not talk about it any more.”

And so it was that when the moon was at its zenith, Poison and Bram walked out of the front door of the house of the Bone Witch, with Peppercorn slung over Bram's broad shoulder and Andersen darting around between their feet. They pushed open the bone gate, and stepped beyond, and from that moment they were in the Realm of Phaerie.

 

It was just like the stories.

Poison could not resist a smile at seeing how perfectly her imagination had matched Fleet's tales to the land that surrounded her. Of course, he had never pretended to have set foot outside the Realm of Man – Poison would not have believed
that
for an instant, back in the days before she left Gull – but he professed to know people who had. And then there were his books, that he used to read to Poison until she began to borrow them and read them herself. Between one and the other, Poison had built up a picture in her mind of what this wondrous, fabulous,
dangerous
realm would look like. And it looked like this.

The vista was breathtaking. They stood on a small hill, but that hill sat on top of a bigger hill, so that they were high up above the surrounding countryside. The sky was an odd shade of burnished amber with hues of purple, and the sun seemed closer than Poison had ever remembered it, and unbearably bright to look upon. To the west, a river of purest turquoise wound its way through the grassy folds of the land, glittering in the morning light. North and east was a great forest, its trees a riot of reds, greens and yellows, as if all the seasons had come at once. In amongst these were swathes of blue and indigo, the leaves of trees that Poison had never seen before. Beyond the forest, mountains ridged the horizon, made ghostly by distance. South, the hills were broken by moraines and valleys into which the river plunged in spectacular waterfalls.

Bram glanced back at the crooked old house, a tiny blot on a hill many miles behind them. They had walked all night to get away from it, as if half-expecting the Bone Witch to come screeching out after them, and yet strangely neither of them was tired. He shifted Peppercorn's weight on his shoulder and harumphed, then raised a bushy eyebrow at Poison.

“Any idea where we're going? It'd be a fine thing to get to the Realm of Phaerie and then end up wandering aimlessly till we starve.”

Poison shrugged, then looked at Andersen. “Have you got any ideas, cat?”

Andersen narrowed his eyes and blinked sagely, then set off at a trot down the hillside, towards the forest.

“I swear that thing's not natural,” Bram murmured again.

Poison shrugged. “Better get used to it.
Natural
doesn't really apply here.”

They followed the cat down the hill. It did not seem particularly hurried, detouring now and then to sniff at an exotic flower or pounce on some unseen insect. Poison found herself luxuriating in the hot day, mesmerized by the beauty of the phaerie countryside. Everything seemed somehow sharper and brighter here, her senses tuned more finely than they were at home. She felt the rustle of the grass. She could see individual leaves stirring in the forest from a great way away, as if the clear air allowed her better focus over longer distance.

She was tempted to remark that this place didn't seem so bad, but she knew well enough that the moment she did so, something horrible would happen to them. How was it that life, like a story, had such a sense of comic timing?

They reached the edge of the forest, and there they found a small stream. They laid Peppercorn down and cleaned themselves of the blood of Maeb's dogs. Andersen groomed himself nearby. When they were done, they woke Peppercorn, who had been in a deep swoon so long that she had fallen asleep. Poison half-expected her to faint again when she saw that they were outside the house, but she had no more left in her, it seemed. As they dried in the sun, they carefully explained to her what had happened, leaving out the gory details and giving her only the facts. Maeb was gone, and she wouldn't be coming after them. Peppercorn was free (whether she wanted to be or not). They were in the Realm of Phaerie. They were on their way to visit the Phaerie Lord.

Peppercorn digested all this with something akin to shock on her face.

“You can still go back there, if you want,” Poison said, thinking that she should at least offer the option so that she didn't feel like a kidnapper.

Peppercorn shook her head, her blonde curls jiggling with the movement. That was all the response she gave. Poison made a face at Bram, indicating that she didn't quite know what to make of that; but when they were dry enough to go on into the forest, Peppercorn came with them without a word.

The forest was as beautiful from the inside as it had seemed from the hilltop. It seemed miraculously free from the mulch of dead vegetable matter that carpeted the floor of forests in the Realm of Man; in fact, not a leaf seemed out of place, not a twig that did not seem artfully positioned to enhance the beauty of the tree from which it sprouted. There was no blight here, none of the entropy that was part of the cycle of life in the Black Marshes. It was like a painting, like a vision: perfect.

Poison didn't trust the forest one inch.

“It's wonderful!” Peppercorn gushed, clasping her hands over her breastbone in awe.

“Aye, and likely as not those flowers would kill you if you sniffed them,” Bram said, echoing Poison's thoughts.

“Oh, don't be silly,” Peppercorn said, scowling at the older man's grumpiness.

“He's right,” Poison said, recalling what she had learned from Fleet. “Illusion is part of the phaerie way. Don't be lulled. This Realm is dangerous to us.”

Peppercorn turned her nose up primly at this advice, but Poison noted that she glanced around nervously thereafter.

The day wore on into afternoon and evening, and all day they saw not a single living thing other than themselves. Though the forest resounded with birdcalls and the cries of all manner of strange animals, they did not even see so much as an insect. They stopped to rest in a glade, eating food cold from Poison and Bram's packs, and though the branches above them stirred with the movement of birds and the branches nearby rustled, they never laid eyes on what was causing the disturbance. It was profoundly unsettling.

Bram was beginning to voice doubts that the cat knew where it was going, but it seemed very definite in the path it was taking, and Peppercorn assured them that Andersen knew his way about.

“It was when the house was in the Realm of Phaerie that he turned up,” she said. “I remember, because it was a bright day. It's always bright here during the day; brighter than the other Realm, anyway. I was looking out of the windows when he appeared. He must have wandered in from outside. Anyway, he saw I was lonely, so he stayed to be my friend. Isn't he sweet?”

She gathered up the cat – which mewled in surprise – and rubbed her cheek against him while lapsing into baby talk and gurgling. Andersen made a show of protest to maintain his dignity and then went limp and began to purr. Poison's expression was one of disbelief at Peppercorn's nauseating display.

“You mean he's a phaerie cat?” Bram asked, before Poison could make some sarcastic remark.

“I don't know,” she said, letting Andersen go. “But this is where he came from when he found me. I think he's been all over. He doesn't tell me that much.”

And so they walked, following Andersen's lead, never quite certain where the cat was taking them or if it was taking them anywhere at all. Since they had no idea where they were, one direction was as good as another.

Night had begun to cover the Realm when they came across the stranger.

They found him at the end of a narrow trail, arched with tree branches and edged with roots that seemed carefully arranged to look natural and yet did not have a scrap of soil or a spot of blight on them. The trail ran into a clearing, dominated by a small lake that flamed copper-red in the sunset. At one end of the lake was a small house that seemed to have grown out of the bank, a moulded blister of wattle and daub with a thatched roof of yellowed reeds like a lid. From the front of the house, a wooden jetty extended out across the water; and at the end of the jetty, a bizarre figure sat with a rod, fishing.

They observed him from a distance, as he had not seemed to notice them. He was a scrawny thing, with moist greenish skin like that of a frog. Two massive, bulbous eyes were set to either side of a nose that was little more than two slits in his face. His mouth was small, and disappeared into his neck in the absence of a chin. Long, knobbed fingers curled around the fishing rod. His thin legs hung over the lip of the jetty. Little else could be seen of him, for the rest of his body was engulfed in a great cloak of something like bearskin, but bristling with quills like that of a porcupine. His head seemed tiny in proportion to the size of the cloak.

“He seems sad,” Peppercorn commented sympathetically, and indeed, as they watched he gave a heavy sigh and continued to gaze morosely into the waters of the lake.

“He's a phaerie,” Bram rumbled. “You can't trust him.”

Poison wondered when they had all decided the stranger was male, since physically there was no way to tell in a creature so outlandish.

“Well, it's nearly night, and Andersen brought us here so I suppose he must know what he's doing,” Poison said. Andersen mewed in agreement, brushing round her legs happily. “Shall we go and introduce ourselves?”

“Just be careful, all of you,” Bram warned, his brows beetling together in a frown beneath his hat rim.

The stranger spotted them as they approached, but he made no move to acknowledge them. Instead, he turned back to his fishing and sighed again. They warily joined him on the jetty. Poison could see huge, rainbow-coloured fish swimming lazily in the water beneath, but none of them seemed remotely interested in the lure that bobbed in the water.

Bram coughed.

“Our heroes have arrived, then,” the stranger said, his voice a soft, bubbly murmur.

“Excuse me?” Poison queried.

The odd creature put down his rod in a little wooden cradle that rested next to him, and got up from the edge of the jetty. He looked them over with his vast, yellowish eyes.

“Hmm,” he said gloomily. “You don't seem a bad bunch.” He jostled past them and began to shuffle back towards his house. “At least you're not the typical muscle-bound warrior, beautiful sorceress and amusing thief sidekick. By the waters, did
that
become stale fast.”

Poison and Bram looked at each other in bewilderment. Then, as the stranger showed no sign of slowing, Poison caught up with him.

“Umm . . . hello? My name is Poison.”

He stopped, and looked her up and down again. “Good name,” he said, with feeling. “I'd have thought you were a Melisande, or an Arial.”

“Ugh,” Poison replied. “Why would you think that?”

“That's what your type are usually called. You're not a princess, are you?”

“I wouldn't want to be,” Poison replied. “Everyone wants to be a princess; it's boring.”

“Ah! So what do you want to be?”

“I want to be at the Phaerie Lord's palace, so I can ask him for my sister back.”

“So you think,” came the reply. “But I'll wager that's just the start.”

“The start of what?” Poison asked in exasperation.

“You've only just set out! Do you think the Phaerie Lord will just
give
you your sister back? No, there have to be tests, trials, a struggle; setbacks, twists, revelations. You have to
earn
your sister. You haven't met half the cast yet! Mark me, you've still a long way to go.”

Poison was utterly unable to fathom what this curious creature was talking about, so after a moment of vague confusion she shook her head and said: “Do you know how to get to the Phaerie Lord's palace or not?”

“Of course,” he sighed wearily. “Come inside and I'll tell you.” With that, he plodded into his house of dried mud and sticks, and the others followed.

Inside it was dark and cramped, with benches, a fireplace, a table and little else by way of furniture. A shallow pit filled with straw served as a bed. The roof was so low that Bram had to duck to fit inside, and Peppercorn bashed her elbow and squawked noisily as she came in. The stranger went to where the fire was already made, and with a flint and tinder he chipped sparks on to it until the blaze caught. It swelled up eagerly; whatever he had on it was evidently highly flammable. When the flames were strong enough for his satisfaction, he took a black pot and set it to boil.

“My name's Myrrk,” he said. “Isn't that uncannily appropriate for one as dismally gloomy as me? Funny how names can be so descriptive. You want tea? I'd offer you food, but I haven't caught anything today. In fact, I never catch anything any day. There's a whole lake out there full of nice plump fish, and I've never caught any of them, not in a hundred years.”

“A hundred years!” Peppercorn exclaimed.

“What do you eat, then?” Poison asked.

“Fish, when I can get it.”

“But you said you haven't caught any in a hundred years.”

Myrrk blinked. “Yes.”

“So you haven't eaten in a hundred years?”