Darkwitch Rising by Sara Douglass

Noah—he knew that in this guise she was Eaving, but somehow he could only regard her as Noah, and knew that name was, in its own right, as magical as Eaving—smiled, pleased. “See this path,” she said. “Is it not particularly lovely?”

He looked down the path, studying it. It was made of well-packed gravel, and very long and straight. To either side grew small, immature trees and shrubs amongst the waist-high grass. Weyland thought it had the feel of both man and nature, and because of that had a prettiness that was particularly attractive.

“This path is what remains of a great driveway,” said Noah. She nodded to her left. “Beyond that hill lies a magnificent house. Once this was its drive. If we walked back for a half a mile we would come to padlocked and rusted iron gates that are five paces wide and eight tall. Some fifteen years ago the people who lived in the house decided to build themselves a new drive, a new approach to the house, and this new drive winds, manicured and tamed, some three or four miles to the west of us. This drive has been left to do as it willed.”

“Why show this to me?”

“Because this is a beautiful place to me, and because at the end of this drive, hidden among the grasses and trees, is a small gatehouse, gone to ruin—or gone back to the earth—as has this drive. I want to take you there.”

“Why?”

“To heal wounds.”

“What wounds?”

She put a hand on his chest. “We all have accumulated wounds, Weyland. All need to be healed.”

“Noah…Noah…”

“Come with me, Weyland.” Taking his hand once more, she led him down the overgrown driveway.

The gatehouse was a simple structure. Brick-walled and built on the octagonal, it had but one room, open to the elements now that the glass had been removed from its seven windows, and the door taken off to more useful purposes.

“See,” said Noah, halting with Weyland in the open doorway and looking at the leaves and dried grasses scattered over the tiled floor. “It has many walls, and many openings, but it is no labyrinth, no Game, no Idyll. It is a simple and good-hearted structure, with no traps, sitting warm and forgotten by mankind. This is a good place.”

“For what?”

“For healing my heart, and yours,” she said, and came to him, and kissed him, and drew him inside the gatehouse.

Later, as they lay entwined, Weyland thought he could perhaps feel the faintest of thrums vibrating through the tiles on the floor. Perhaps it was the worms, disturbed by his and Noah’s recent lovemaking. Perhaps it was just his imagination; perhaps just wanting.

And perhaps there was something beneath him that he could truly feel, lying here, on tile, above earth, a goddess in his arms. Either Noah, or perhaps his short trip into the Realm of the Faerie, had woken something hitherto unknown in him.

Already languid in the aftermath of lovemaking, Weyland relaxed even further, drifting into a semi-dreamlike state. Noah lay with her back pressed against his chest and belly, warm, her own chest gently rising and falling within the circle of his arms.

“Weyland,” she said, very softly.

“Hmmm?”

She turned within his arms. “Do you know,” she said, a note of wonder in her voice, “that you are the only man I have shared a bed and a house with who has ever treated me with even a modicum of respect and of friendship?” She paused, and when she resumed speaking laughter had replaced the wonder in her tone. “I speak, of course, of that time after you tore that damn imp from my body.”

He did not reply for a minute or two, and when he did his voice was heavy with regret. “I wish I had not done that. I wish…” I wish I had thought sooner that friendship and respect would win more from you than pain and terror.

“We all wish,” she said softly, “and yet all wishes ever achieve is to expose our sorrows.”

Again, a silence, then Weyland spoke.

“Do you know,” he said, the fingers of one hand very gently stroking her shoulder, “that you are the first woman I have ever liked? It is a strange feeling, this liking.”

Her mouth twitched. “I have made Asterion ‘like’,” she said. “I am a witch indeed!”

Twenty-three

Idol Lane, London

NOAH SPEAKS

There was a corner turned that day. I finally decided I could trust Weyland, and I finally decided I could trust myself. I had stepped down the right path, even if it was a strange, sometimes frightening, and totally unknowable one.

I learned also, however, that Weyland had hidden depths. That somehow he also had the Faerie in him, and that likely it had come from his strange father. A bull? Truly? Or had it been a god disguised as a bull, which would explain why Asterion’s mother had been so severely smitten? (I mean, a bull?) The heavens alone knew how much those impractical Aegean gods liked to cavort about in animal form, seducing women here and there.

I also decided, finally, that the Troy Game was, in all likelihood, far more malevolent than Asterion had ever been. We had all been trapped by it, deluded into thinking that it would defend us and be some great protective amulet from all manner of evil.

Instead, the Game was all manner of evil, and the land’s alliance with it had been a sad mistake, and one we might yet all live to regret.

Still further, I learned something more from that day, but it took a few weeks for the lesson to sink in.

I learned that going to Weyland, opening myself to him, had been no mistake. It had been something that I had needed to do.

It had been the right thing to do.

Three weeks after we had made love in the gatehouse in Petersham, I realised I was carrying his child. I realised not through any physical symptoms, but because, unlike my experience with Catling, I was able to communicate with the growing life within me. One day, a day so extraordinary I shall never forget it, the new soul reached out to me, and spoke.

A daughter.

I wept. I wept for joy, and for all the pain I knew I would cause to those I loved, because suddenly my path opened up before me with an intense clarity that left me reeling, and because, finally, I would have my daughter.

Not she who I had lost as Cornelia—I knew and accepted now that she would never come back to me—but a daughter conceived with a man I loved.

That shocked me. I think I must have loved Weyland for months, but had never dared admit it to myself.

Weyland, Weyland, what are we doing? Why can’t we stop? Why can’t we stop?

I was a goddess, I was Eaving, and I understood from the very depths of my soul that I did not ever conceive by accident or whim, but because it was something I wanted.

And I only ever wanted to conceive with a man I loved.

For the first time in three thousand years I felt at peace, and it was a wonderful place to be.

Two days after I realised I was pregnant I found my way out of the Idyll by myself for the first time. This had little to do with my approaching maternity, and everything to do with my growing skills in the way of the labyrinth.

Weyland watched me, a little concerned, but proud also. Pride—not satisfaction.

That made me happy, but I did not yet tell him of my pregnancy. For the time being I wanted to enjoy it for myself.

“Noah the mother,” I murmured to myself that evening.

Noah the destroyer, for that was the only way I could ever protect my daughter, and the land.

Part Eight

DARKWITCH RISING

London, 1939

Jack shook the king’s hand. “Why are you back?” George VI smiled sadly. “I loved Noah. Why else?”

Skelton looked about. “Is she here? Is she upstairs somewhere, cavorting with Weyland?”

The Lord of the Faerie took Skelton’s elbow, guiding him through double doors to their right, ignoring his question.

“We need your aid, Jack,” the Lord of the Faerie said. “Desperately.”

“We have a problem,” the king said, falling into step besides Skelton.

“And, naturally,” said Stella, now a step behind the men, her high heels striking sharply against the hard floor, “it involves Noah. When haven’t the entire world’s problems involved her?”

Skelton glanced over his shoulder at her. Stella sounded exasperated, but nothing more. Apparently her ancient hatred of Cornelia had vanished.

“Jack.” The Lord of the Faerie drew him to a halt inside the double doors. “How much loyalty do you owe the Troy Game?”

Skelton looked at the Faerie Lord carefully. “What do you need me to say, Coel?”