“Good.” She turned half-a-glance at Dapplegrim. “And don’t you be getting ideas, neither. I’m not easily trampled, nor bitten. My skin is tough. But. Now… as I said: who are you lot? You break into me nursery. Me idiot boggart-men are chasing you. And them’s all riled up. But you didn’t raise a finger against the wee bairns when you could have. That is the only reason you’re alive now, if you understand me.”
They variously nodded and said, “Yes.”
“Are you night-folk then? Two of you have the look of night creatures: the horse and the owl. But two of you don’t. Are servants of our gloridious lady, herself The Queen of Night? Or do you serve the betrayer and wretch, the Pale Queen of Remorseless Day?” She moved as she spoke, circling them; looming over them; a menacing shadow-made thing, eyes bright, tongue red and flashing as she spoke. “Are you that? Or are you this?”
“Really? That so?” She cast a look at Dapplegrim again. “Who’d have thought it? He looks night-born, through and through. And you smell day-born, through and through. Who do you serve then?”
“No one. Everyone. The greater peace.”
The boggart-mother considered this. Her wolfish face wrinkled up into a thoughtful scowl. “That’s truth, if I’ve still a nose for what truth smells like. Hmm. So what’re you up to then? Sneak-thieving about like… like… sneaks. Do not lie to me. I will know it.”
They all exchanged glances. The boy felt as if his heart were beating in his throat.
“You can scent truthfulness I think, old woman of the mountains,” said Caewen. “You’ve implied as much.”
“Oh, I can at that.”
Caewen breathed a sigh. “Very well then. One of the Witchling-Princes of Sorthe–Athairdrost–has found part of an Old Great Spell. We mean to take it from him and stop him finding the rest of it. We are travelling north to find him. We do not want a world-making spell in the hands of a Sorthe princeling. And the longer he has it, the greater the chance that someone else might realise this, and take it from him.”
“Ahh,” said the she-boggart. “Someone else. The Winter King”
“Yes.”
“Bah,” spat the huge sorceress. She moved into the light. For the first time they could see that she was covered in puckered blue-grey tattoos, all swirling in arcane lines. “No doubt the King in the Winter Halls already knows about the broken spell. But you can’t do nothing with half a spell. Let the snivelling little prince keep his ornament. He’ll never find the other half.”
“Never is a big word,” said Dapplegrim.
“Maybe,” agreed the she-boggart, her tone more considered. “Maybe. But the other half is most probably destroyed anyway. You’re chasing fog-bogeys.”
“It’s not. It’s lost to knowledge, true, but it is not destroyed. The spell could be put back together if the other half can be found.”
“Indeed? That so? How’re you so sure?”
“The ghost of the Seer of the Great Grey Mountain.”
“Ahh. She is dead? That is sad. I visited her in years gone by. She was not a bad one, that. How did she die?”
“The princes men, we think.”
“Hmmmm. Hmmm and hmmm. Truthfulness, still. I’m starting to like you. The seeress had potent sight for visions when alive. In death, she might well see everything.”
“Yes,” said Caewen
“And her shade assured you that the other half of the broken spell is still in existence?”
“Yes.”
“An uncast Old Great Spell? Bless me with bats and shadows. I thought all of them were cast off and done with at the dawn of the world. No one’s cast an Old Great Spell since the age of bone and flint. Ah. And so I see then. That scrawny boy-prince Athairdrost no doubt thinks he’s the one to do it, eh? Cast the spell. Make something new in the world. Make himself into a god, even. But if his masters gets wind of the other half. That’ll be bad for the princeling. And worse for the rest of us poor wretches.” She squatted down and made very nearly the sort of noise an elderly woman with old bones does, though this ancient woman was hairy and bestial, and had glowing yellow-red eyes, and fangs, and she looked as if she’d spent her life whelping monsters and conjuring storms. “Don’t much care for Athairdrost. And now, to make it worse, we’ve the King of Winters kicking about too. When the Winter King cometh and the armies of night are called together again by the horns of silver and jet… hmmmm. Hmmgmn. You know, I suppose it would put a slight thorn in things, if Athairdrost were… inconvenienced? It might slow down this nonsense with war and fighting. A little, at least. Hmmmm.” She made odd rumbling noises, far in the back of her throat.
“You don’t want a war?” asked the boy suddenly, before he could catch himself.
“You’re a fine, brave young one to be asking such big questions. Wars are big things. Nasty things. You ever been in a war?”
The boy was too startled by her to answer, but he tried to shake his head, and not tremble too much under her gaze.
“Children slaughtered. Bad things done to mothers and daughters. Loot. Fire. Death. Soldiers go to war because they think they’ll get something out of it. Something that someone else has. War is really just a big murder and theft brawl. There’s nothing heroic about it. Leastways, not if you’re the attacker.” She continued, “But you are right. Much as my sons are all dolts, they are my sons. “A long sigh. “And we boggarts have always had it awful bad in the old wars. And we’ll get it awful bad in any new war. Our beauteous lady, Queen of Night, she has other children she values more. Always thought us a bit too ugly, a bit too savage, is the way I reckon it. Well maybe she shouldn’t have gone and made us this way then, eh? She wants soldiers and hunters and raiders, it’s all well and good. Soon as the fighting’s done, we’re off to live in caves again, fending after our-own-selves. I can’t say as I much want to see me sons go off and dress up in iron, and get themselves gutted, or shot through the eye with an arrow by some fearsome knight of the south. Terrible things when you get down to it, wars. Terrible things.” She was speaking with a force now. “We could be living happily. Hunting whatever we’re hungry for. Lazing in the moonlight. Singing songs about the ancestors. But no, instead boggart young-bloods will get old glory-tales into their heads, and off to war they’ll go. Right near none of them never come back.” She fell quiet for a long time now, studying each of the group in turn. The noises of pursuit had long since silenced, the boy realised. Their pursuers must be nearby, but they were holding back–waiting–for what? A decision? A signal, one way or the other?
Silence stretched. Barely anyone seemed to dare to breath.
Breaking the silence, the she-boggart said, “Bless my grey and withered heart, an Old Great Spell. Uncast. A piece of the world not yet made. A bit of land and sea not yet dreamt, nor seen. Living creatures and trees waiting to be born.” She shuffled where she was, moving her shoulders. “Now, of course I’d be happy to get my claws on such a thing, but as for Athairdrost. No.” She shuffled. “You: lady-witch.” She narrowed an eye and asked, suspiciously, “You’re not planning on creating some kith of boggart-eating monsters? You plan no harm for me and my own?”
“No,” said Caewen. “I intend no harm for any of the boggart-breed, nor anyone else if I can help it. I’m not planning to cast the spell. If anything, we may yet try and destroy it.”
“Truth,” said the she-boggart matter-of-factly. After one more resigned snort she added, “You may go.” A wave of a hand, and the ivy peeled away letting the grey light of the late day into the space, filtering over everything and bringing a touch of gold dust to the surfaces of the ruined stone blocks and the glossy ivy leaves. The sorceress boggart squinted against the light and said, “Quickly, before I have a mind to change me mind.”
“Thank you…” said Caewen.
The old witch of the mountains waved a clawed hand at her, dismissive. “Don’t thank me. Repay me. Inconvenience that bastard princeling. Put a stick in the wagon spokes of war. As I said, I’ve no great love for that one. Nasty, pimply upstart. And no great love for fighting. You do that, and we’ll call ourselves even then, shall we?”
Caewen nodded.