John blinked to a courtyard by a
sundial, a very clearly magical sundial. The dial itself was normal but
floating over it, at about head height, was a bright sphere that provided the
light for the dial. It all seemed a bit redundant as the real sun overhead was
tropical bright anyway. For a moment he
was dazzled but then he recovered himself and took a step back. A young woman
was staring at him in wonder.
‘I thought only Jac
could teleport’
John turned to look
at her. She was naked – now his eyes had focused properly he could see that
there was a large pool in the courtyard, and that clearly she had been
swimming. She was slim and dark. Her
long hair was tied up.
‘No, not just she’ he
said, ‘there are others like her; as you can see’
The woman picked up a
large towel and draped it around herself. She seemed interested but not the
slightest bit afraid. He could only suppose unexpected things were always
happening here.
‘Have you come to see
Jac?’ she asked, smiling welcomingly.
He nodded, wondering
who this person was: they had had no
news for so long. Grown-up daughter
seemed a reasonable first guess.
She turned to look at
the far end of the courtyard, where he could see an open door and shouted
‘darling!’, which seemed to answer his last question; this was clearly no
daughter. For a moment he felt like running away, but then he imagined
Gwyneth’s face once she knew that he had failed. This was his burden – whatever
pain was coming next he had to face .
A tall, big boned,
intensely black-haired woman walked through the door. At first she didn’t see
John because the model sun was in the way. ‘What is it?’ she asked, squinting
into the light. John took two steps to the left and revealed himself.
‘It’s me, Jac’ he
said, ‘unfortunately…’
Jacantha stared at
him for several seconds. Her frown was grim.
‘What the fuck are you
doing here, Ismay? We had an agreement’
The shorter, younger,
woman looked shocked. It didn’t appear to John as if this were a place where that word was employed very often. It
seemed that he was intruding on tranquillity. He forced himself to speak.
‘We are in dreadful peril. We need your help’
Jacantha marched up
to him, and for a second he feared that she was going to slap him. She laughed
a hyena laugh.
‘I thought you
loathed me – I thought that you all loathed me?’
He examined his former friend more closely. She
was twenty years older but in almost every respect exactly the same – her inner
fire still burnt strong and subtle and he still didn’t trust her at all. He had
already decided to tell the complete truth. It was the only way to deal with
someone who would happily lie even to herself.
‘I never loathed you,
Jac, but I hated what you did to Bron. You know that’
‘I just took what was
mine’
Anger began to fill
his head. He had heard this argument before and he knew that the moment was
gone, never to be salvaged , but it was still a monstrous wrong.
‘You stole Bron’s son;
how could you believe that he was your possession?’
‘He was my son too…
Unless you think that blood is all, and I know that you don’t. You had your
role…’
John sighed and shook
his head wearily, feeling the years drop away. They were still having this conversation;
how could that be?
‘Blood is not all –
but it means something; she bore the child…’
Jacantha folded her
arms and stood bolt upright as if to absorb an invisible blow.
‘You know what
happened. We fell out of love and so one of us had to keep the child. I decided
that I was best equipped for that role. Bron had too many other
responsibilities. It was a rational decision and I have never regretted it. ‘
If these words had
come out of any other mouth then a listener would suspect bravado or self-justification,
but not from her. He knew that she meant every word of it and that to argue
against her was doomed to failure. To
never know your guilt is to never feel it, so, my, aren’t you lucky, Jac.
He made himself move beyond this horrific nostalgia; the memory of an arrogance
so huge that it crushed everyone in its wake.
‘That’s not why I’m
here. We need you’
‘No chance’ she
snarled, ‘I only help those that I love. You can whistle for it’
John leant forward and
put his hand on her head. She was shocked and he was lucky. Her memory was
rusty – she had forgotten what this gesture might lead to. He spoke very softly and in Enchanter’s
Rhylic, the base language of witchcraft.
‘I invoke the coven call’
He drew the binding
spell out, the one that had lain dormant in her for so long; the one that bound
her to her coven forever or until she willed its dissolution. This was a call that she had to answer one
way or another.
She backed away; she was pale and trembling.
‘How dare you – you
have no right, you aren’t the coven leader…’ she stopped herself. ‘Oh yes, of
course you are. Lowest common denominator – typeset another George, print and
then business as usual. Is that really what the coven still needs – subtlety
but no spine?’
He knew that he had
to ignore this. This would only work if he focused on the call.
‘It’s a simple
decision. You left the coven but you have never repudiated it. If you do not
come now you will be lost to us forever. There will be no other call’
A look of astonishment
crept over her face. The colour flooded back. She shooed him away with a wave
of her extraordinarily long fingers.
‘You think that I
still care? After all this time, after the things that I have seen and done?
You must be touched!’
‘We need you – the
coven is unbalanced and under threat. We need your power. We need you to help
us confront and defeat our enemies’
‘You can’t just crawl
back here and expect me to…’
John cut across her.
‘We have very little
time – will you respond to our call? Yes or no?’
‘This is ridiculous.
I’m sorry that you have had a wasted journey – you should return as quickly as
you can, if what you’ve said about your great peril is really true’
John was beginning to
realise that Gwyneth had been right after all – it was extraordinary but Jacanatha
was going to say ‘yes’. He had given her so many chances to repudiate the coven,
but she had not. She seemed unable to say ‘no’ and he was very surprised. Every
second that passed made her acceptance more likely. He couldn’t grasp, why,
however. To him her mind was a deep conundrum.
‘We need you to come
now’ he said, ‘we have a collapsed array and most of our witches are
unconscious’
A look of slow pain
began to soften her features. She looked older and more fragile, but only by a
jot. She glanced across to where her lover was standing, uncomfortable and
bemused, then looked back at John.
‘Don’t do this to me,
I have a life here – I am rich and happy. George promised me that he would not invoke the call’
‘Well, I’m not
George, whatever else you might think of me and my abilities’
She smiled, sly and
angry. ‘This is Gwyn’s doing isn’t it; she always wanted me so much and now she
hates me with equal passion. She has never forgiven me for my two choices, but
she knows my limits. I look forward to telling her again just how cold, dry and
unlovable her heart is…’
‘You must try to
behave…’ he said, feebly, ‘that was so long ago’
She came closer and
glared into his eyes
‘I am what I am –
that’s all you get. You know that.’
John smiled crookedly.
‘You always make that
abundantly clear, Jac. Now come on, we must go immediately…’
‘I haven’t…’
He cut her short.
He’d had enough.
‘You’ve got five
minutes to say your goodbyes, then teleport to the Neman beacon’
He touched her hand,
and whispered the spell that passed on the beacon trace. This might well be the
biggest risk of his life, but they were at a dead end. He hoped with all his
heart that Celia was well, that she would survive and find a way back to them.
Jacantha was tactics, Celia was strategy.
He was just about to
blink away when a young man with bright red hair came wandering into the
courtyard. He was tall, broad and looked so like both his parents – her eyes
and nose, his smile, their ginger hair. John’s heart jolted but he had to carry
on. Well that’s one mystery solved he
thought, grief and joy mixing inside him. He left, before things got even
worse.
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