Ali - Seven For a Secret

She knew the wolf was following her.

She marvelled in the capacity of her senses, hearing him faintly, aware of his intent concentration behind her. The night was alive with sensation. Snow squeaked under her boots, the cold nipped at her face and hands and a miasma of despair lay palpably across the whole town - it filled her with dizzy joy, it made her want to dance...

No. No dancing. Never again.

She led him through the crisp night - foolish, overconfident puppy - to the back slopes of the mountain. There, unseen from Kissingtown, the rock was fixed into ruts like a wave frozen at the moment it broke. It was oddly twisted and stretched. She saw him stop, puzzled, and look up. Ahhh. He is too much the animal after all. A pity, we were almost there. She glanced to her left, where her goal was: a sheer wall of ice tucked under an overhang where the thin winter sun never came. Then she braced herself, focusing her concentration and spoke a Word.

It had taken her decades to discover the Word, and many more years to learn how to pronounce it. If I had been only a little quicker, she thought, many things would have been different. But that language - of which she knew only a tiny fragment - was not a human language and speaking it was a terrible strain on body and mind. It was like sustaining a note. To command the dragon, she had to maintain the Word, for if she lost her control ... she shrugged off the shiver of apprehension she felt as unworthy of her, and under her feet the ground grew oddly spongy. The dragon woke.

The hide of the beast, seen close, was every colour and none, rather than white. Its camouflage was superb. Now half-stone, half-flesh, the solid folds of rock rippled slowly into muscle and the great eyes opened above her. The Word sang in the air around them, a high-pitched continuance, unearthly and unnerving.

The pain was almost more than she could bear. The dragon fought her as it had from the beginning, wanting back everything she had taken from it: the form she wore, its secret magics. But now it was more brutish. There was less intelligence in the struggle and more desperation. She was winning. She staggered backward, clutching at the hard-yet-yielding crags behind her, struggling for breath, the long silver strands of her hair tangling over her face. What was pain, after all, to one who had danced in the red-hot slippers and survived?

The whole side of the mountain shifted, morphing out of stone, unfurling immense wings to the night sky. The huge eyes blinked, and there was only blankness in them.

The wolf was not as stupid as he seemed. He froze, and then backed slowly away, obviously hoping he was too small to be noticed. He rubbed at his ears as if they hurt. Jerkily, with the sound of stone bursting, one taloned foot descended over the wolf.

She heard him yelp, like a dog in pain and terrified. The dragon lifted him up above her head and she saw him lying stunned in its hold. She kept the Word going, till it rose like a cloud. Now the magic was strong enough to sustain itself, and the beast would obey her commands. She released the completed spell, and breathed in desperately.

“Don’t ... kill him ... yet,” she gasped, seeing the claws curve in and down over the prone body. It stopped. “Bring him ... to me.”

Obediently, the dragon opened its talons and the wolf tumbled to the ground. She heard the breath go out of him as he landed, but he pulled himself to his feet. The dragon’s claws had torn a wound over his ribs. He kept one hand pressed against his side, but she could see the blood spreading up the ripped cloth of his white shirt. He watched her with a flat, animal wariness, and said, “Who are you?”

She wanted to laugh, breathlessly. She smiled instead, seductive, bewitching.

“Would you like to see? Would you like to understand everything?”

He actually appeared to be considering her question. He shrugged nervously and raised one eyebrow, rubbing again at the bones behind his ear.

“I’d rather go back to my wife,” he replied.

Her smile pulled at the edges.

“You can come with me or I will leave you here to the dragon. There are no other choices.” She extended a slender white arm, seeing his gaze flick up to the colossal shape behind him, pale against the night sky. It waited patiently, uncaring of his choice, surrounded by the singing of the Word.

“Since you put it that way,” he muttered and he took her hand. She licked her lips, swallowing the coppery taste of her own blood trickling over her tongue.

“When we have gone, you know what to do.”

The dragon swung its enormous head away from them and back toward the town. The muscles of its haunches coiled.

She led the wolf off toward the ice hidden under the overhang and touched the blue surface with one finger. This, at least, was a familiar magic; her instinctive power since she was a child. Like breathing, she hardly thought anymore how it should be done, and she could keep most of her concentration on commanding the dragon. The ice shimmered, seeming to become liquid. She pushed her hand through and went forward, pulling the wolf after her, feeling against her back the downdraft of the dragon’s wingbeats as it launched itself into the air.

The wolf struggled against her hold as they came through on the other side, gasping as his head broke the surface. She stepped smoothly out of the fall of fluid that poured into the pool at her feet and let the thick liquid sheet off her, back into the pool, leaving her dry.

“What’s this?” The wolf looked revolted when the shining fluid ran across his face and he shook vigorously, sending droplets in all directions.

“Don’t do that,” she hissed and struck him across the face to reinforce her words. “It’s quicksilver.” She watched him swallow his snarl and back away from her, his eyes flickering over his surroundings. He got out of the silvery pool, putting his back to the wall. She lifted the hem of her gaudy skirts, stepped out also, and watched him consideringly. She had gone to a great deal of trouble to get him here. Would it be worth it?

His hand was still pressed tightly against his ribs and his eyes - flick, flick, flick - took in his surroundings. Flick - they were in an immense dank cave, the fall of quicksilver they had come through, dropped into the deep pool that spread along one corner. Flick - the walls glowed with phosphorescence, but what glowed more than anything else was the gold. The cave was full of it. Piles of coins; vessels, vases, plates and drinking cups; statues, picture frames; necklaces, purses of gold net; a hoard, gathered haphazard, sprinkled with gems like currants in a cake. She had long grown used to it, but his eyes widened.

“Better hope Tony never sees this,” he said to himself, then he turned back to her, “I thought you couldn’t speak?”

She laughed, genuinely amused. “It’s an old trick but it never fails. Look a little exotic - be a mermaid, for instance, or a swan princess. Catch the eye. Don’t speak. Men are such idiots. They can’t resist a captive audience.”

She twirled girlishly, spreading the garish, striped skirts with her fingers. “Or you could steal a dragon’s human form. Do you like it?”

Already pale, he blanched, the pallor a startling contrast to his wayward dark hair. “Huff-puff, that’s monstrous!”

She stalked toward him. “I’m glad you understand, Puppy. The longer I keep separate its human and were-forms, the more it becomes mere beast. I will take all its magic, all its life, and dragons live so long that’s almost forever. Be careful what you say, or I may do it to you.” She was breathing into his face now, and she ran the tip of her finger down his jaw. He shuddered, but to her disappointment, he faced her squarely.

“No, you won’t”

“Why won’t I?”

Flick - his eyes went to the blood welling up around his fingers. His hand and shirt were slick with it. He shrugged painfully, a disarming grin on his face.

“Because you’d rather watch me bleed to death.”

She laughed. “There is that.”

“Who are you?” he said again, quietly, but she could see in his eyes he already knew.

“I was Snow White’s stepmother,” she said softly. “I was the Beautiful Queen, the Fairest of them All; I was the Swamp Witch; I am Death and Doom and Madness, the Thirteenth Fairy. And heroes cannot exist without me, Puppy.” She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Nor little pregnant heroines.”

This time the wolf did snarl, and bared his teeth.

“You leave Virginia alone!”

“Or what? What will you do, Puppy?” but she saw she had not even needed to taunt him; the effort of his anger had left him white and sweating. He fell back against the wall, more bright blood oozing from between his fingers to spill down his side.

Abruptly, she grew bored of toying with the wolf. She turned her back on him and went to the pool of quicksilver.

“Besides, she will do it all herself. Come, I’ll show you.”

She wanted to see the dragon execute her will, for the Word still pulled on her mind like a rope on an unbroken horse, but she also wanted to display her powers - it was a shame her only audience was a half-dead half-wolf. Only the first, she reminded herself.

“See, this is better even than my mirrors were: raw power, untamed by glass or dwarfish magic.” She dabbled her fingers across the cool, oily surface. It showed her reflection as clearly as her mirrors had done and it still surprised the witch to see herself so: a thin proud-faced woman, pale as bone, silver hair pouring in wild strands down her back.

“Show me,” she commanded. The ripples made by the viscous fall of quicksilver into the pool’s centre deepened; for a moment the whole pool churned, and then they smoothed out. The heavy grey colour thinned and cleared, and she saw ... Kissingtown, the dawn light just creeping over the horizon. No one was abroad in the ruined streets.

“Show me,” she repeated, turning her mind to the link between her and the dragon. It was pulled too taut, as if her hair were tied up too tight; a constant tug on part of her mind, her attention, her energy. Obediently, the image moved swiftly across the clouded sky and found the dragon, the silver tendrils around its opaque white eyes, at the end of its tail, along the soft pale wings, spread in the slipstream of its flight like the pennon on a knight’s lance. It was, she reflected, an elegant piece of destruction to loose against the ridiculously kitsch town below it. It was satisfying to have it destroy that coffin on the top of Snow White Hill. And it was a good test of my control. She ignored the niggling doubts at the back of her mind regarding that aspect of her plan as it flew over the straggling edges of the town. She gestured imperiously to the wolf. “I thought you wanted to see, Puppy.”

Distrust naked on his face, he stumbled to the poolside. At every halting step he winced. He leaned over the poolside and drew in his breath sharply when he saw the dragon.

“Cripes!”

The witch smiled. “Burn it,” she said, and in the lightening skies the dragon banked a sharp curve against the air. It dived, zooming down on the sleeping town, and flamed. She had picked its target very carefully. The Hotel roof exploded into fire.

“NO!” The wolf grabbed her arm with both hands, letting go of his side and leaving a long smear of sticky blood on her sleeve. It crossed her mind for the first time to fear him. His face was contorted with vicious ferocity and there was more strength than she had expected in his grip. I am glad he’s hurt, she thought. He would not be an easy captive to hold against his will, uninjured.

“Stop it! Virginia’s in there, and Tony and Wendell. Call the dragon back!”

She stared into his amber eyes, ignoring a faint shiver of unease, and tried to shake him off. He held on, but she saw the pain-lines around his eyes tighten as the movement caused fresh bleeding from his wound and their yellow light faded. She deliberately removed his bloody hands and he dropped his dark head, panting, holding his ribs again, and leaning his other hand on the poolside.

“I want them smoked out, Puppy. I want them all out in the open where I can see them burn.”

In the image, figures ran out of the doors of the hotel, coughing, wrapped in blankets; one was quite obviously pregnant, leaning on a taller figure. “Virginia,” the wolf whined pitifully.

“Show me the girl,” the witch commanded and the image moved away from the fire and the flaming dragon and narrowed to the people milling in the street. Her former pupil’s husband - what was his name, Tony? - was helping the girl, Virginia, away from the falling sparks and smouldering debris raining down on them. As she watched, he patted out some sparks that fell on the blanket she held tightly around herself. Tony looked scared, the mournful folds of his face taut with tension as he tried to drag his daughter away. She resisted his urgings, scowling up at the sky. The witch frowned. I need her to be much more distracted than this. Behind them, she saw the idiot king, stumbling around, struggling one-handed to jam on his head the helmet from the armour he was half-wearing, and the wild-eyed vintner who had shared their carriage over the passes.

The witch sent her will to the dragon through the bucking power that linked them, the Word singing still in the vaults of her mind. “Kill them, all except the girl,” she whispered.

Tony tried again to pull his daughter away from the Hotel, remonstrating loudly. The structure was quite obviously going to collapse when the dragon made its next pass; it had already banked and begun its second dive. Virginia wrenched her arm free, the blanket slipping away from her shoulders and then the witch saw the girl had something clenched in her other hand, which she held in a fist against her swollen belly.

By the witch’s will, the picture widened to show the dragon’s dive.

“Virginia, my creamy girl, get out of there,” the wolf yelled.

The witch saw Virginia’s lips move, shape a name - Wolf - and then the girl turned slowly, and her wide blue eyes stared straight at the witch, as if she knew she were being watched. The witch took an involuntary step back, her control slipped...

The dragon trumpeted, a shocking bellow. The shriek of the Word was momentarily drowned under the animal noise. It pulled up abruptly from its attacking dive and flamed; it appeared as if it were flying straight toward her, as if it was going to burst through the image.

“Cripes!”

“No! Obey me!” The witch felt her hold on the magic slip another notch. She took a deep breath, and sang out the Word again, eerie and high pitched, feeling a tingle in her limbs as the dragon fought to get back what she had stolen, and tasted the metallic tang of her blood in her mouth. I will not give this up, she thought fiercely. I will not go back to being dead-alive.

The dragon kept coming.

The image in the pool changed. Kissingtown faded from view, she saw herself, as she had earlier, angular face, silver hair, but it was not a reflection. She lay, arms outstretched, on the backs of five magpies, her head on the back of one, her hands and feet gracefully arranged on the others. They flew toward her, as the dragon had, wings beating strongly. It’s impossible that magpies could carry a woman in that fashion! she thought. And then she realised what she was seeing. Not herself.

The other Silver’s features were soft, as if she were asleep; her ice-white eyes were closed. She murmured, “You will never find it, you will never find my heart, and without it we will both die.”

The witch shrieked, triumph and fear apparent in the sound even to her own ears. The Word’s power to command was renewed; she felt it reassert itself over the beast. She hissed as she released the magic, “I control you already, dragon, and when I have your heart, your human form will be irrevocably mine, and I will make you stone for eternity.” She smashed her fist into the water and the image shattered. The pool went blank. She wiped her hand across her lips, still smeared with the dried brown of the wolf’s blood and it came away stained with fresh red.

“Huff-puff! So that’s it!” She had forgotten the wolf was there, and she whirled on her heel to face him, fury still hot in her. He was staring at her, and though he looked sick and weak she saw hope on his face for the first time. “The dragon hid it’s heart, and you can’t complete the spell! And that’s why you’ve had it tear Kissingtown apart. You’re looking for the thing it won’t destroy!”

“Be silent!” she yelled, “YOU are only of use to me as bait for your pathetic mate and alive or dead it makes no difference. In fact I can’t decide if I’d enjoy it more if she finds you dead or if I watch you die in her arms! ”

There was a sudden sound of many wings behind her.

She saw only a flash of black and white as she swivelled around to the pool, and then they were upon her. Magpies, exploding out of the quicksilver, mobbing around her head, pecking at her eyes, her face her hands. She screamed and flailed at them; all the while they uttered their coarse rat-a-tat. They’re trying to make me lose control of the Word, she thought frantically.

She felt her hand connect with something, and she grabbed at it; heard the rapid magpie warning as she realised she held one of them struggling in her hands, wings beating against her hold. She broke its neck, and flung the corpse to the floor, still twitching. The others screamed defiance, but sped away, out into the dark glinting depths of the hoard cave where she knew there was a small hole in the ceiling they could escape through. She wiped her face, her hand trembling; her hold on the Word, and thus the dragon, shaky but still firm.

She looked around. Where was the wolf? The chamber was empty. Cursing her stupidity, she ran into the dark, searching between piles of gold as high as her head till she found him. He had taken advantage of the distraction afforded by the magpies to try and find a way out, but she knew what he had found. The dragon had protected its hoard well using the magical quicksilver to bring its treasures here to this cave with no exit or entrance for anything bigger than a bat. He was propped up against the back wall of the cave, despair in every line of his body, his chest heaving. A thin line of morning sunlight fell across his face from the tiny opening to the outside world that she guessed he had scented out.

“Fool,” she said, enjoying his pain.

“Can’t blame me for trying,” he whispered, licking his dry lips. She watched him with interest as he began to shake. With a surprised sounding ‘oof’, he slid to his knees and crumpled to the floor, blood oozing slowly now from between his fingers. Darker now, not bright arterial red.

“Well,” the Swamp Witch observed critically, “your mate had better get here soon.” She put her hands under his arms and began to drag him back the way she had come. He did not have the strength to resist her. “You’re not going to last much longer.”