Garth Nix - The Ragwitch

At first, silence greeted the Ragwitch’s scream, the silence of an audience just before the applause. But the answering calls were not long in coming: the dull rumblings of vast creatures, woken far beneath the earth, and the shrill whistlings of other beings closer to hand.

“You see, My little Julia,” whispered the Ragwitch, Her leathery lips barely moving. “My servants remember My power well–even in this shape, they recognise Me! They still come when I call. You will like them.”

“No,” said Julia defiantly. She was absolutely sure that the things that made those noises would not be likeable at all.

“Yes,” murmured the Ragwitch. “You will like them. Eventually.”

She turned to the cliff and began to climb up towards the top. Julia noticed that there was some sort of path or eroded staircase—whichever it was, the Ragwitch seemed to know every turn and rise, neatly avoiding places where the cliff had fallen away. Below them, the screams and cries diminished to be replaced by the sounds of movement: sounds of scraping claws and footfalls that did not sound human.

Locked within the Ragwitch’s mind, Julia kept trying to turn her head–a reflex to see those things behind her. But while she knew her head should turn, it could not: Julia’s eyes were only those of the Ragwitch, and they were intent on the path ahead.

Eventually, the huge leathery form of the Ragwitch reached the top of the cliff, a flat expanse of low shrubs and grasses, ill-lit in the last red light of the sun. The Ragwitch set off purposefully, pausing only to thrust back some of the yellow stuffing that leaked from Her side. Once again, She did not look back.

Crossing this flat, monotonous terrain seemed to take hours and Julia dozed–asleep without closing her eyes, which were the Ragwitch’s, and so never shut. A dream-like pattern of images filled her mind: loping through this dull land, then hurrying towards a rocky spire, a tower of twisted, volcanic rock which sparkled even in the starlight. The Ragwitch went to the spire and began to climb…tirelessly, hand over hand, up to the very pinnacle, up to the blackest part of the night sky.

Julia woke up in slow stages, as though she were swimming up from the bottom of a deep pool. The Ragwitch was now sitting on some sort of throne carved out of the glassy rock. Runes of red gold ran along the arms, disappearing down the front of the throne.

Then the Ragwitch looked down–and Julia felt her mind twitch, trying to tell non-existent hands to grab hold of something before she fell…for the throne was on the very peak of the spire she had thought was a waking dream. The throne rested hundreds of metres up, on the thin needlepoint of the spire’s peak, with nothing else about it, no flat place nor protective railing.

The Ragwitch looked up again, tilting Her head back, and Julia felt Her lips creaking back across the snail-flesh gums, the mouth opening to scream again. The Calling Scream, the Voice of Summoning, welled up from the recesses of the Ragwitch’s dark power, high on Her ancient throne that men had called the Spire.

This time, Julia screamed as well, a thin, mental shriek that was swallowed up by the Ragwitch’s own great roar. But it was there–a sign of Julia’s resistance to her captor.

As the Calling Scream died away, the moon’s first light crept across the ground. It slowly inched forward, crossing the sparkling rock of the Spire, to light up the ground before it: a sunken bowl of that same glassy, lifeless rock. But long ago the rock had been shaped into tiers of seats, which wound erratically around and around in a giant spiral, as though shaped by a drunken architect.

Then the Ragwitch’s Calling Scream was answered from the Terrace-Hole below by bellows and screams, mad hyena-like laughter and shrill whistlings.

“Now you see them,” whispered the Ragwitch, Her thoughts battering at the silent Julia. “Do you like them?”

Julia didn’t answer, horrified at the sight of the creatures that thronged in the moonlight below. The Ragwitch smiled again and looked down at a particular group of followers.

Tall, sallow, humanoid in shape, they had patches of scale underlying their jaws and throats, and out-thrust upper jaws, with dog-like fangs made for rending flesh. Their arms were long and gibbon-like, ending in yellow-taloned hands. Their piggy, deep-set eyes looked up at the Ragwitch in adoration.

“The Gwarulch,” muttered the Ragwitch. “Sneaking beasts–hungry for meat, but not too eager to fight for it. Except in My service.

Julia shuddered, feeling the Ragwitch’s thoughts of blood and killing. And not just thoughts, but memories too. Stark, frightening images of past slaughters, the Ragwitch triumphant, feasting…

Julia screamed again, forcing the Ragwitch’s memories away. But still she could not close her eyes, and the Ragwitch looked down upon more of Her creatures, awaiting orders in the Terrace-Hole below.

“Angarling,” She told Julia, mentally pointing out a group of huge, pale white stones, roughly cut columns. Julia had taken them for statues or part of the rock terraces. Through the Ragwitch’s eyes and memory, she now saw that on each of the huge stones was the weathered carving of an ancient face–full of sorrow and torment, anger and evil, all etched into the white stone.

“Angarling!” shouted the Ragwitch, and the stones moved. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, they tramped to the base of the Spire. There they halted, and then came a great, welling boom which drowned out the cries of all the Ragwitch’s lesser servants.

A dark shadow suddenly fell across the Ragwitch’s face and Julia quivered, though no reflex of the Ragwitch moved. Her huge leathery head slowly tilted back, greasy yellow locks of dank hair falling around Her shoulders. Up above, a creature fluttered, its wings casting a shadow right across the throne.

“The Meepers,” whispered the Ragwitch.

It looks like a bat, thought Julia for an instant, but at the same time, she knew it did not. It had the wings and furry body of a bat, but the head was a fanged nightmare–a scaly mixture of piranha and serpent, with row upon row of gleaming teeth. And it was thirty times bigger than any bat, with wings that seemed wider than the sail on the yacht Julia had seen only the day before.

The Meeper straightened its wings and dropped past the Spire, falling away to the right. Others followed it, and the Ragwitch laughed as they hissed and bit at each other for their place in the line.

Several hundred of the Meepers flew past in what seemed like several hours. Julia soon got more bored than frightened, and found that she could peer out of the corners of “her” eyes–perhaps even seeing things the Ragwitch could not. The creatures below disturbed her less now, and she began to count them–with a growing feeling of unease. She counted (or guessed at) over a thousand Gwarulch, at least a hundred of the statue-like Angarling and many hundreds of Meepers. And the thoughts of the Ragwitch were of fire and blood, death and destruction…Julia hastily tried to do sums in her head, barricading her mind against the memories–particularly the eating…

“Gwarulch, Angarling and Meepers!” shouted the Ragwitch, Her voice sharp and malevolent, echoed everywhere by the black stone. “But where is Oroch? Who is Oroch to disdain Me when I stand upon My Spire?”

Down below, the Gwarulch shifted uneasily, muttering in their guttural language. Above, the Meepers flew in circles, angrily whistling at this Oroch who failed the Ragwitch. Only the Angarling were silent, white shapes impervious to any thoughts save the command of their Mistress.

“Again, I say,” spat the Ragwitch, “Oroch! Your Mistress calls!”

Inside the Spire, a rock cracked–and then another. Through the Ragwitch’s straw-stuffed feet, Julia felt the Spire shiver, and for a giddy second was certain She would fall–that they would fall.