Witch Clan: Matriarchs by John Stormm (best beach reads of all time TXT) 📖

tower. Emma had taken off her mother’s clan medallion and wound its chain tightly around the top of Leona’s staff, fastened it in place and inscribed the Rune of Opening in its top. It was still daylight when they broke out from under the forest canopy to a clearing on the panoramic cliffside. Off to their immediate left was the eldritch black tower. As if to punctuate the introduction, a bolt of jagged ebon lightning struck a series of rods at the tower’s pointed peak. Behir would benefit from that strike.

Leona bravely set off for the door of the tower as Emma watched from the shelter of the trees. Her granddaughter had traced the rune, Kano, just as she had been instructed and the door opened to her. Relieved that this part of the plan had been accomplished, she raced back down the forest trail to set a trap for Behir. The longer it took him to get there, the more time she had to prepare every kind of obstruction she could craft. For something this dire, every little bit might help.


The Trojan Horse Gambit

Determined that she would do her level best to help rescue her little cousin, Leona put on a brave face and considered what she might say as she used the tip of her staff to mark the Rune of Opening on the door plate. The walls before her looked as though they were made of polished obsidian blocks and she could see her own reflection standing there with her staff in hand. The door opened soundlessly before her. A little surprised that it was so easy to gain entrance, she stepped inside and gawked at the large circular room. Her first sight was a series of black iron bars that came down in a ten foot circle from the upper recesses to the middle of the room in front of her. Johnny was sitting on a bench within sipping a half empty bottle of grape Nehi Soda. Something didn’t look right about his eyes. They were so dark.

"Johnny," she called to him. "Are you okay, Cousin?"

But he showed no sign of having heard her as he replaced the cap on his soda and placed the bottle under his cot. Noting the strange silvery glyphs encircling his cell, she assumed it was enchanted somehow. There also didn't appear to be any kind of door to this cell. It was a series of long bars that were spaced about five inches apart the whole way around running from the floor to the unseen ceiling. It occurred to her that she had forgotten something. She had not seen the Vough. Looking around the room, she examined tables full of bottles and beakers, shelves full of books and scrolls in an unknown script, a fireplace with a cauldron hanging on a pothook, and a panel of levers with strange markings above them. The closest lever had a glyph marked above it that resembled a cage. That had to be the release mechanism to free her cousin.

She pulled the lever all the way down and a panel opened in the wall to her right with yet another lever inside. The cell remained the same, except that Johnny looked so forlorn in there. As if in answer a cold rush entered the room from above and the cell darkened considerably. The glyphs on the floor turned jet black until they blended in with the ebon stone tiles. The tower had taken another hit and Behir would be getting stronger. She had to get her cousin out of that cell.

Reaching into the wall panel, she tried to pull the release lever, but it wouldn’t budge. She tugged at it with both hands and bracing her feet against the wall and the lever started to move. From somewhere in the panel recesses a black leather strap encircled her wrists and cinched itself tight. A strong cord popped out of a wall seam and tightened, pulling her hands over her head and lifting her off of her feet by nearly a foot. Across the room, a bookcase slid aside and a tall, pale blond woman in a long and filthy green dress stepped out from behind it.

“A human witchling,” the Vough said cackling delightedly. “It’s not hard to guess what you came here for. What do you want with the Sidhe brat?”

“He’s only half Sidhe,” she protested. “and he’s my cousin. My grandma sent me to look for him.”

“Well, you’ve found him, I’d say.” The mad fae woman clapped her hands. “Not that it will do you much good. As long as the wretch calls out of himself, he calls the lightning for me to empower my Behir.”

“His eyes don’t look right,” she said. “Please let him out. I think he might be sick.”

“Sick?” the Vough shrieked with glee. “There won’t be much of him left by the time your grandmother arrives to claim him. That kind of power consumes and his despair calls a lot of it down on the Sidhe devil. Why should you care? It‘s not like he‘s human, you know.”

“He’s human enough,” Leona objected. “He’s still my cousin. You let him out of there.”

“Okay,” the Vough said craftily. “But only for a moment. I want to show you something.”

As Leona hung suspended over the floor, the fae woman hefted a stout piece of lumber with a large nail sticking out of one end. It was so strange to see those painfully elongated features wrap those long thin fingers around that beam and heft it in one hand. The woman was obviously much stronger than she looked. With the other hand she reached for the lever at the far end of the panel and pulled it halfway. Three consecutive bars raised up and out of sight on the cell and Johnny stood and looked out the opening. An uncertain smile lit his face when he recognized her. He walked to the opening as if he was not sure of what he was seeing.

“Leona?” he asked. “Is Grandma here too?”

As he took a single step out of his cell, the beam with the nail in it hit him squarely in the forehead, throwing his little body the full length of his cell into the bars and he slumped to the floor between the cot and the bench. There was blood trickling down his face, between his eyes. Leona screamed in rage at the mad woman and kicked to try and get free of her bonds. The Vough laughed raucously and moved the far lever back to the up position and the bars returned to their place.

“You think that was a sweet little boy?” the Vough snapped at her. “That would kill a human child, but not that little monster, no.”

“You are the monster,” Leona growled savagely. “And when Grandma gets here, she’ll toss you off that cliff like dumping so much garbage. You crazy old bat.” She struggled to get free but the leather cinch that held her wrists together tightened and cut off the circulation in her hands.

“Now that it’s seen you hanging there, child,” the Vough rasped nastily, “the Sidhe devil will be all the more frantic to call for help, and the lightning will pummel my collecting rods. While he’s asleep, I’ll go topside and set up even more of them. My Behir will have the power of a god to wreak our vengeance on them all.”

The mad woman crossed the room and vanished behind the moving bookcase. Johnny was beginning to stir in his cell. Even the Vough could not have suspected he might recover this soon. Leona couldn’t let him awaken and call more lightning. Grandma had to face the creature his calls would empower. It was time to play her Trojan Horse gambit.

“Gregory, we need you now,” she called over her shoulder.

In her daypack, the piskie stirred and struggled to climb out the narrow pack opening they had left for him to negotiate. As he climbed on to her shoulder, she pointed her chin at Johnny and said his name. Taking her cue, the piskie flitted between the bars easily. Leona hoped Johnny could communicate with a piskie as well as he had with pixies. He was moaning now, and the piskie stood on his chest and looked into her cousin’s deep black eyes as they opened. Leona could only watch the exchange between her Sidhe cousin and the piskie.

There was certainly some kind of animated discussion taking place. Johnny staggered to his feet and picked up Gregory and held him close to his bloody forehead.

“We’ll save you, Leona,” he shouted as he all but danced and set the piskie down on the bench gently.

Gregory drew his thorn and brandished it as Johnny cocked his head to one side and considered his new friend. Going over to his cot, he reached under his pillow and pulled out a tiny toy sword and handed it hilt first to the little titan. Gregory tucked his pitiful thorn away and accepted the new treasure as a knight accepting a commission. Johnny pointed in the direction of where he had last seen Leona and the piskie buzzed between the bars like an angry hornet. Johnny danced a merry jig and packed his daypack as if he was preparing to leave.

Leona watched in awe as the mighty little mite sawed away at the cord that held her suspended with a sharpened steel sword. In only a moment, she fell to the floor and ran for the far lever which she