Warlock of Muscovy by Brien Feathers

Author:Brien Feathers [Brien Feathers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brien Feathers
Published: 2023-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

eleven

Veil

Muscovy nights were long late in the fall and close to the Veil. The sky was still dark when Auntie’s broom landed after hours of flight. Muscovy was far wider from east to west than it was from north to south and the Veil was in the eastern hemisphere.

“Get yourself in much trouble, girl?” Auntie asked, pulling her hood down and dissipating the miraj of the morphing faces. She’d aged. With her face sunken, her elongated nose looked even longer and her pointy jaw even sharper, but the grey hair she wore in a bun was as thick as ever.

The Veil was a wall of shimmer in the moonlight, the dark forest just beyond it visible but unreachable. Auntie Ekaterina, the broom in her hand, knocked on an oak tree three times. Ancient with sprawling branches, the tree looked like an open hand reaching to the heavens.

“We seek passage through the Veil, Gatekeeper,” said Auntie.

The moon was round and the constellation bright with the glimmer falling onto the lake nearby as an owl hooted on the branch of the old tree. The bird had two sets of eyes, one below the other, and its feathers were tattered and falling off the flesh as if it had been boiled.

Marina recoiled in disgust. “What’s wrong with the owl?”

“Who seeks it?” the oak tree asked, breathing into life, and the branches twisted as two yellow eyes opened in the dark bark.

“Ekaterina, the elder of the Wisdom Covenant, and Princess Marina.”

“I must taste blood.” A hole opened in the tree and a wooden tongue rolled out, drops of sap glistening atop it like dew.

Auntie twisted the ring on her middle finger, which had a pricking needle when the jewel opened. She pricked her finger and wiped the blood on the wooden tongue. The oak closed its mouth, tasting it.

“You may pass,” it said. “The blood of the other.” It opened its mouth again.

“Gatekeeper, I command you, let us pass,” said Auntie. The Gatekeeper wouldn’t let a mundane pass, not without the tsar’s permission.

“You vouch for her, then?” asked the tree.

“So I do.”

“High Witch of Wisdom you are, elder Ekaterina. These lands obey thee.”

“Without the tsar’s permission? How brazen?” Marina remarked as she followed her auntie through the doorway, an arch through the shimmer.

The gateway closed behind them.

“‘Tis still my lands, girl.”

Back to the court she was where everyone called her ‘girl’ despite the girl having a name.

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