Songs of the Dying Earth

Caulk hesitated at last, but it was too late. The song had already reached out and snared him in silver webs of sound. He snatched at a dagger but his hand fell uselessly to his side. The sea-hag began to whistle, louder and louder, until the noise wove itself into the echoes of the instrument and Caulk dropped to the floor.

The sea-hag rose and poked him with a long toe.

“Well, well, well,” she said. “A witch-chaser, eh? From Almery, by the fashion of your hat.” She licked white lips. “I think a tea party is called for.”

Caulk Lay enveloped in coils of writhing noise. It made it difficult to think. He was still cursing himself at having fallen for the sea-hag’s lure.

The sea-hag herself stood a little distance away, in the company of her sisters. There were three of them, all cast from a similar mould, though one had hair the colour of willow leaves, and the eyes of another were a whiteless jade. They murmured and smiled and whispered behind their long hands whenever they looked in Caulk’s direction. But mostly they were occupied with admiring his daggers.

The tea set sat on a nearby table, next to the curious instrument. Caulk could see lamplight through the thin china cups, which were embellished with roses. He strained at the bonds of sound, but they were as tight as ropes and his struggles only constrained him further. The sea-hags gave little glinting laughs.

“Not long now,” one of them said. She bent and drew a fingernail down Caulk’s cheek. He felt a trickle of wetness in its wake, followed by the familiar tang of iron.

“We want you to choose,” another sea-hag said. “Which one of us is the fairest? Whoever you choose shall take the longest knife.”

Death, to touch the daggers of a witch-chaser. They’d have to be cleansed, if he got out of here. Caulk took a long breath, storing it up.

“Shall we?” the willow-haired hag simpered. The sisters sat down at the table, arranging their tattered garments with fastidious care. The black-haired hag poured tea, which descended in a steaming dark stream into the cups. It did not look like tea, thought Caulk, squinting up from the floor. It didn’t smell like it, either. He took another breath, judging the moment. The sound writhed around him, holding him fast.

“So,” the black-haired hag said, taking a bite of a small mossy cake. “Which one of us, then?”

Caulk clamped his mouth shut and glared at her.

“Oh,” green-hair whispered, “he doesn’t want to play!”

“We’ll make him play!” Black-hair rose, taking one of Caulk’s daggers, thin as a pin, from its holster. Caulk sucked in another breath.

“Speak!”

Caulk did not speak. He thought he had it now. He pursed his lips and whistled, emitting a high-pitched stream of sound. He heard it mesh with the bonds that held him, throwing them outward. The sea-hags screamed, clapping their hands to their ears. Caulk took a frantic breath and whistled louder, feeling his face grow redder with the effort, but the bonds held, and held…He felt the break a second before it happened, sensing the shift in tone which signified that the sound-web was about to snap. Then it shattered. In an instant Caulk was on his feet, snatching at the dagger as thin as a pin with his left hand, and a dagger as white as bone with his right. Two sea-hags went down in a rush of greenish blood over the tea cups, struck through the throat. That left the willow-haired woman, whom Caulk killed with the black dagger, up under the ribs. She cursed him as she died, but Caulk laughed and whistled it away.

Gasping, he lent on the wall to get his breath back. The stone felt rough and wet beneath his hand. At the end of the chamber, a little arched window looked out onto darkness. Caulk peered through it and saw the glint of the heaving sea far below. Salt water is always a power: Caulk, with a remaining scrap of a spell, called up an arch of foam and cleansed the daggers. The bodies of the sea-hags were already rotting down into kelp and slime.

His head clearing somewhat, he remembered the instructions given to him by the owl-killer.

They frequent a tarn called Llantow, to the north, between two hills, not far from the coast. I cannot provide you with a map. You will have to watch the hair.