CHAPTER 10
The queens crossed the threshold together. Though neither spoke, each was equally disgusted with the cleanliness. The hovel was as grubby inside as the exterior suggested.
Bones of man and animal littered the floor in numerous piles. A large wooden table, occupying the centre of the room, was burdened with a banquet of food. Each dish was in varying stages of decomposition.
Lachesis closed the front door and scuttled in front of the guests. With outstretched arms she blocked their path before they ventured far. It had been many years since The Nexus sisters last received visitors; though not so many Lachesis had forgotten how sneaky they could be.
Her face was moulded from dark, leathery skin. A crooked mug framed with a dishevelled crown of course, white hair. Across her cheeks and forehead she was heavily tattooed with runes and symbols. The malevolent markings only furthered the abundantly-sinister appearance she already depicted.
One could have easily mistake her hunched-back and toothless grin as signs of fragility. Though to believe that thought would prove fatal to even the most powerful of witches.
“Morta! Clotho! We have callers!” Lachesis caterwauled. She grinned and rubbed her hands together.
In the corner of the room, quite hidden by the velvety shadows, something large moved. The unrest triggered a tremendous vibration, so violent the entire hovel shook. From the darkness a breathless voice greeted them. “It's so good to see old friends. Please, come closer. My eyes have grown dim and I cannot see you.”
“Give it a rest, Clotho. No one falls for that ruse anymore,” Lachesis cut in. She shook her head, halting Natura who had begun to obey the beckoning wheeze. “Take a seat, Your Grace. Help yourself to some grub,” she offered. Her smile exposed toothless, blackened gums.
Natura grudgingly took a seat and did her best to not breath. The stench rising from the rancid feast was worse than one of her sister’s howlers.
Lachesis poured out two cups of steaming black-gloop. Natura nodded her thanks as the teacup was thrust into her hands. She sniffed the vapours and immediately paled. She twirled her wand and a flurry of sugar melted into the dark slop.
As she stirred the mixture she glanced down and grimaced. Scooping the spoon, she lifted a large clump of black fur from the tea. Revolted, Natura placed the lump of hair onto the table. Much to her horror and surprise the clump sprouted six legs and scuttled away. She abandoned the cup next on the table and decided she wasn’t thirsty anyway.
At the edge of the room a curtain of finger bones rattled and parted. Morta emerged through the dark entry with a smile on her face. “Oh my, what do we have here? Is this royalty, at our table? Mother would be so proud of the company we keep,” she mocked.
Morta was the third and youngest Nexus sister. In tales of old she was named, The Nightmare Witch. Famously earning herself the, rather menacing, title after she was caught draining the life force from sleeping children.
Morta was by far the most dangerous of the demonic-trio. She was both charming and attractive; a deadly-concoction in an eternal entity sustained on the souls of her victims.
She was slim and graceful, a seductress with each gesture. Her skin was as bleached as bone, devoid of colour to the point of translucency. Morta shone in the gloom, far brighter than Nocturna’s own pallid-hue.
Her youthful appearance was alarming in such an ancient creature. To the uninitiated she looked to be little more than a teenager, a young maiden at most. Beautiful but not without flaw, Morta was marred by one blemish; an aspect not easily overlooked. Her eyes were sewn shut, cruelly affixed with brutish-crosses of black thread.
As Morta strode into the room Natura felt herself recoil. She fought the urge to scream, instead swallowing the terror welling up from her gut. Behind the youthful witch her shadow loomed; a monstrosity, the site of which no amount of happy thoughts could hope to diminish. The tormented, demonic shape faded as she took a seat opposite the two queens.
“Welcome,” Morta said in a babyish voice. It was disturbingly sweet, innocent almost. Natura shuddered. “Well? Come on, out with it. Why are you here?”
“A Ryder has emerged. But I sense something is wrong. The girl isn’t behaving like she ought to. I fear Fate’s weave has been altered,” Nocturna alleged. Her tone was shrill and urgent.
“Not easily are the threads tweaked,” Clotho wheezed.
“My sister is quite right. Your worry is unlikely to be more than a figment of ego,” Morta trounced. She raised a finger to silence further questions. “Nevertheless, such possibilities must not be ignored. Very well, my sisters and I will descry for you. We shall transcribe Fate’s web, but first there is the question of payment.”
“What would you have us pay?” Natura inquired, her voice trembling. She was not at all comfortable around such dark, malevolent women.
“Such a special reading will require an exceptional gift,” Lachesis croaked. She appeared next to her sister, her face cracked with a wicked grin.
“A child, for a child,” Clotho suggested, breathlessly.
“Oh yes!” Lachesis agreed, clapping her gnarled-hands excitedly.
“My sisters have decided on a price, Your Graces,” Morta laughed. “The cost is the soul of a firstborn, a child of your making.”
Natura shook her head. She would not let them take her only daughter's soul. She would forfeit her crown before she’d agree to that.
Nocturna sneered at Natura’s rejection. Admittedly it was not the most desirable of choices. Of course she didn’t want her son to be devoured by these hags either. Still, there was a reasonable chance they would choose Natura's child over hers. A pure soul was always more attractive than a tainted one.
“On one condition,” Nocturna said, ignoring Natura’s frantic pleas. “The soul won’t be harvested before their natural time.”
“Agreed!” Morta laughed. She smiled and spat into her palm. Nocturna reluctantly did the same. The two witches shook hands and the deal was done.
“Now then, let us see about your Ryder,” Morta began. She turned to Lachesis. “Stoke the fire…”
The wizened, old crone's eyes widened with excitement. She scurried over to a panel on the wall which housed three, silver buttons. She pressed the first and light immediately flooded the dark corner Clotho hid in. Natura gasped, the sight of the middle sister was not something one could prepare for.
Clotho resembled a giant baby, an obese and monstrous infant. Her stomach was a gargantuan mound of rippling flesh. Her arms and legs, layered with swags of slimy-skin, were fastened to the walls with huge, iron shackles.
Atop her enormous torso, above the cascading tyres of lard that encircled the gargantuan abdomen, was her head. A pair of hungry, coal-black eyes blinked in the light. The peering orbs were only just visible amidst boil-covered sacks of fat which hung from her face. The dangling lumps parted around Clotho’s mouth; a lipless, teeth-lined hole.
Lachesis cackled as she pressed the middle button. A hatch, hidden in the rafters above Clotho, retracted and a wide funnel descended.
Clotho grew excited and she tipped her head backwards. Her tongue, black and necrotic, hungrily licked her cheeks. It lashed around like an eel fished from the water. Flailing desperately as it waited for the third button to be pressed. Lachesis obliged the tongue's desire. She pressed the silver disk until it clicked.
A rumbling, from deep in the bowels of the house, sounded out. It grew louder and louder as something flowed through a network of pipes which ultimately lead to the funnel.
“Feast, my sister. Feast,” Morta shouted over the din. She raised her arms above her as a torrent of crimson liquid, peppered with chunks of foul meat, flowed from the funnel and into Clotho's ravenous mouth.
The gargantuan baby suckled as if she were starving. She gorged on the putrid-gloop, all the while squealing with delight.
Morta drifted closer to her sister’s stomach. The bulge began to shudder and quake. Like a death-bound whale, stranded on a lonely shore, the expanse of flesh heaved and convulsed.
Placing her hands on the writhing membrane, Morta moved her eyeless face close to the sweat-drenched bulk. She listened to the violent-gurgling echoing from the belly’s depths.
All of a sudden, Morta took a step backwards. Faces began to appear in the undulating flab. She watched and listened as they whispered to her, sharing secrets only she could hear. Morta turned and looked at the queens.
“She is The Ryder. The heir has returned,” Morta announced in an unholy voice. Her child-like tone was replaced with one which resembled a thousand voices speaking in unison. “She came to this world through The Webway. The girl is armed with relics, rope and orb…”
“We already know she’s here,” Nocturna pointed out. She was growing impatient. “What can be done to stop her?”
Morta glowered over her shoulder. She curled her lip upward and exposed clenched teeth, snarling her displeasure at the disturbance.
“The child is afraid, doubtful of her heritage...” she paused for a moment, as if hearing something she had not expected. “That can't be!”
Morta pulled away from the quivering stomach, as the faces continued to whisper. She turned her attention to the deep crevasse which housed her sister's naval. Without warning Morta plunged her hand, elbow and then shoulder inside.
Lachesis watched avidly as Morta withdrew her arm. The appendage was drenched in fetid, green slime. Long strings of the rancid secretions began to slide off and trickle towards the ground, like wax escaping from a burning candle.
Morta pinched one of the strings and passed its length between her fingers, inspecting the nodules as she did so. She repeated the process with several more twines until one particular formation enthralled her. She paused again and then she laughed.
“The Ryder is mundaine.”
“She can’t be!” Nocturna sputtered. It sounded too good to be true.
“The girl is empty... She has no hope, she does not believe in magic,” Morta continued. “She mistrusts, The Lion. To her mind Darkfern is a place to escape, not conquer. All she desires is a home, her mother…”
“Oh. The poor thing must be ever so scared,” Natura supposed. She instantly regretted voicing her thoughts as the other witches in the room looked at her with revulsion.
“The girl has fled from the lion. She means to shirk her responsibility,” Morta elaborated. “In body and in spirit, the last Ryder walks alone.”
“When last we came to you, your reading foretold of seven Ryders. This girl is number six, yet you call her the last,” Nocturna remarked. Clearly she intended to get her money’s worth from this meeting.
Morta scraped the secretions from her arm and cast the goo to the floor in three angry flicks. “I do not make mistakes. Neither do I divulge beyond the contract’s limit. Heed my word, this girl is the last of her blood.”
“So, she isn’t a threat then?” Natura questioned. “If the girl is mundaine she doesn’t have any magic, right?”
Morta shook her head. “This child carries the power of Nova within her blood, only her mind is mundaine. If she is taught to believe in her gift, to shed her mundaine ego, then I foresee only one destiny. The Grey Queen shall retake her throne. Darkfern will be forever hers…”
“Nova can’t come back,” Natura blurted. “She’s dead.”
“My sister speaks the truth,” Nocturna added. “Our sister is dust.”
Lachesis cackled. “Interesting questions, Your Graces. Perhaps you’d like to negotiate another bond?”
Morta swooned for a brief moment. She grasped the table for support. Lachesis rushed to her side to give aid, guiding her to an empty seat as the light illuminating Clotho vanished.
“Right, Majesties. Time you two left. Come on, that's your lot. Find the girl and kill her before she becomes a witch or else you’ve had it. Understood?” Lachesis barked in her gruff croak. She ushered them towards the door. “Come back any time. Oh and we will be collecting our, payment in due course,” she said, adding a fiendish grin as the two royals were abruptly ejected onto the stoop.
Lachesis slammed the shack door closed with a final departing grunt. Several slates, from the already hole-riddled roof, broke away and dispersed into the blackness.
Natura and Nocturna summoned their mab and quickly traversed the thirteen columns. Both were exceedingly happy to be away from the shack. However, a thousand questions now plagued their minds; as was often the case when a reading of this nature was executed.
“I don’t get it. How can she be the last when there hasn’t been a sixth?” Natura asked finally.
“I do not know.”
“Why wasn’t she taught to believe in herself? Who is she? What was Nova thinking sending a mundaine to fight us?” Natura pondered allowed. Suddenly she issued a loud, dramatic gasp. “What if she has sent two girls?”
“What do you mean two?” Nocturna interjected.
“What if one has no magic, she makes a very loud entrance to get our attention, a red-herring so to speak.”
“Whilst the other trained-one sneaks in unnoticed,” Nocturna finished. “That’s quite brilliant! You’re not as stupid as you look.”
“Oh thank you.”
“Then again, looks can be deceptive,” Nocturna whispered, under her breath.
“So what do we do now?” Natura questioned as she clambered back up onto her snail-carriage.
“Let us concentrate our efforts on the girl we know of, she should prove the easiest to curtail. We must both send out our spies. Find the girl and make a deal with her, send her home for the relics. Are we agreed?” Nocturna finished sounding doubtful of her sister's comprehension.
“Yes, I think so. I will find the curly-haired girl and help her get home,” Natura shouted as her snails began to pull away.
Nocturna shook her head. It was obvious she would have to take care of this Ryder along with the other; if the other even existed.
She had waited for this day to come. Five hundred years spent waiting for the sixth heir to emerge. Now she had two to contend with. These girls would meet the same end as their ancestors, an end that would come with the fatal swoop of Nocturna's wand.