Part V: Power of the Greenwitch

Jane, Tethys sang, and the whole sea sang with her. Jane, my daughter, my bright, brave fool.

...fooooool, echoed the sea.

Jane could taste it: salt and death and fury, and very little else. Help us! she pleaded.

Oh, no, Tethys said.

...no, no, no...

That is not why you came to me, Jane. The goddess' voice held all the irresistible pressures of the deeps. You came because you were always meant to be mine. Did you never wonder? Never sense the truth of it? The fear that kept you so far from your truest place, locked ever to the pulsing tides and not the deeps? Were you not stirred by the Greenwitch, again and again and again? Each and every time she woke? You were promised to me, Jane.

...promised, promised, promised…

Will? Jane tried, then Will! again, but her words went nowhere. But you said you'd be with me! she thought, almost despairing. He'd promised her he would.

So she decided she'd believe him, whether she could sense him there with her or not.

Tethys! she sang back at the sea, Tethys, please, I have a daughter of my own!

The ocean waters heaved, tumbling Jane's senses.

She is nothing to me, Tethys said.

Is she not? It was love of her that sent me to you. Human love, Tethys. Without it, none of us would worship you at all. If we did not love, did not care… who then would beg compassion of the Sea?

ARROGANT MORTAL. WHO BEGS IT OF ME NOW?

Tethys did have a point, Jane supposed. You are timeless, great Tethys, she pleaded. You are timeless, but we mortals are not. We do not see with your vision, even when we doom ourselves. You are a power of change and permanence, Tethys, a tide that will break us all down eventually. Your time will come again. You know it will.

It will come now, if I wish it, Tethys hissed. That, too, has been promised me.

Another piece of the puzzle slid into place. Rowe's work in Trewissick harbour? Had he needed Tethys as an ally, or had he been pre-empting her own quest? Jane decided on the former, if only because it was the only hope she had.

He's an agent of the Dark, Tethys. He's using you!

Using me? Using me! Foolish child, you know not of what you speak. You it is who are used. Used, and endangered, then abandoned and forgotten!

Will hasn't left me, Jane insisted.

Your 'Will' has betrayed you. The Light has betrayed you. I can show you, if you wish it.

He did what he had-

Perhaps I will show you, whether you wish it or not, Tethys interrupted.

And suddenly, Jane remembered.

She remembered all of it.

If she still lived, if she still had a body, Jane would have wept.

He used you, Tethys wheedled. They all used you. He's using you still.

I know, Jane agreed. But I still chose to do this. And I'd choose it again.

Why?

Because I am the Greenwitch, Tethys, she sang, and she knew it to be true. I bring you my life, and the life of the land. I bring you my life, and the life of the sky. I bring you my life, and the life of the sea. I bring you my life, and the fire of the stars.

The ocean trembled. They were deep, now. Very, very deep.

I gave you life, Tethys answered. It was always mine to take.

My life is yours, and freely given, Jane sang. I wish you joy of it, Tethys, for as long as the oceans last. For unless you help us now, there will never come another.

Had the goddess understood her warning? Jane could only hope.

Yes, Tethys said. You are mine, Jane. My Greenwitch. You always were.

And all the force of the ocean took hold of her, until only the Greenwitch was left.

From Penare to Trenarren, the sea raged against the land. The sandbanks shifted, rock pools were scoured, and stones torn from cliffs and walls alike. Bitter spray filled the air, promising a lingering toll for less hardy plants. And beside a dilapidated breakwater, a mile or more north of the standing stones where she'd been born, a ragged figure bearing a heavy burden fought his way free of the sea.

Stay with me! the Greenwitch demanded. She softened the sand around his feet, wove clinging currents that tugged and pulled. No mere human could deny her will, not here. Here, where abject fishermen cast their lines from the silent thrust of rocks, and the iron tracks of the old railway rotted back to bloody sand. She'd killed this harbour out of spite, she remembered, silted it up years and years ago.

"I'm here, Jane," the man said, somehow staggering free of her strength. "Come back to me."

She drew the waters up and flung them against him: a reminder that she was a daughter of Tethys, who came at no-one's demand. But as the waves receded again, he stood there still, unmoved, clutching the body of a woman to his chest.

"Remember, Greenwitch!" he cried hoarsely.

But she remembered everything. She remembered all the secrets of the sea, all the ways of ocean things, the power and darkness and sheer creative fury of the magic of the wild.

She also remembered a child. A girl child, on the cusp of becoming. A girl who saw deeply in the depths, who loved the sea, and feared it. She had faced darkness, this girl, had chosen a path of stubborn courage throughout. She was all the innocent wisdom and kindness of youth, a heart that could encompass and calm the storm.

She remembered another child. A child of her own. And other children, other people, to whom she owed a duty of care.

Something shifted inside her. The seawater in her lungs blazed into fiery heat, burning through her chest and limbs, then up, up, up into the sky above.

"Will?"

"I'm here," he murmured.

She clung on to him tightly, hollow and emptied of magic. Or was she? Eyes closed, she reached. And there it was, spiralling all around her, in the harsh breath of the wind and the salt in the air. The thrumming potential of the sea, breaking and echoing against the land, from sandy coast to darkest depths, intertwined with the bright-rooted life of birds and trees and the creatures of the tides. She held all of it, she realised. She could do anything.

Except… there was another power at work, too. She could feel it, beyond the harbour to the west, where the mist was at its thickest. Nanskilly Gardens. The Maenventon Stone. Which wasn't a stone at all, not any longer.

Jane pulled away from Will, and started towards the village. "It's calling me," she whispered. "The Well, it's calling."

"I know," he said. "You're one of the Powers of the Wild Magic, now. It will draw you in, whether you wish it or not."

Absently, she reached up to touch the tangled crown that was still woven into her hair. Distrust flared in her heart. The Well wasn't the only power she could sense. He'd masked it well, Will had, but there was no mistaking the blazing of the Light behind his eyes. And all that mattered to the Light was to keep the Dark in check - oh, they claimed to care for the world and all of its innocents, but only to a point. And the Wild Magic? The Light cared nothing for her at all. So why should she hold herself back? The Well was calling her, calling her to power. All the Wild Magic was called, to a Rising that would last an eternity!

"Jane? Jane, you have to listen, you have to stop!"

Jane left him behind. The Old One was alone, and weak. He couldn't stop her if he tried.

The storm that had once held them back now carried her on. Jane moved as the sea moves, and the wind: as a rippling in the leaves, salt on the air, shifting patterns in the rain. Nanskilly lay above and beneath her, lost in truth now. Verdant growth spread unchecked across the landscape, haunted by beast and bird, and by creatures stranger still. Caught in amongst them, Jane could sense the souls of frantic, harried mortals, swept out of any semblance of their familiar world. And everywhere around her, there were birds.

She watched them for a while. They seemed almost unaware of her...almost, but not quite, as if they were waiting for something, watching her in turn. Finches, sparrows, rooks and gulls, perched silent in the trees or tracing twisting spirals in the air. Ahhh… not a spell that had any hold on her, but they were working something nonetheless.

Jane followed the currents to the heart of the storm. Maenventon. The stone had changed since she'd seen it last. It was still an eight-foot ring of rock, ridged and twisting and never quite circular, but the script was clearer now. The old spells shone fish-scale bright, sparking rainbows into the air, while the Latin counter-work lay dark and still, fogged by tendrils of power snaking in from the familiar figure that knelt slumped to one side. There were other forces at work, too, though they were still concealed from her vision. In the heart of the stone, what had once been a simple mud-filled void was now an unreflecting expanse, deep and gleaming with stars.

The Well.

Slivers of her mortal knowledge rose to prominence in Jane's mind: the folk-legends of changelings and healing associated with passage through a holed stone. But who might have passed through it? And how many times?

Jane approached the stone on foot, passing through the outer wards as if they were nothing more than air. Rowe was the man on the ground, looking much the worse for wear. He'd made a conduit of himself, a weak thieving of power bled from beach and bird and bough, but whether he survived his working or not scarcely mattered any more. The Wild Magic was alive in this place now.

Leaving Rowe behind her, Jane crossed through the final layers of warding that surrounded the stone. They welcomed her through, clinging to her skin like a promise. And suddenly, she saw what had previously been concealed from her sight: Aderyn and Nick, alive and whole. A delighted smile broke across her face. They were even better than alive! Somehow - and Jane decided she'd figure that part out later - the pair of them had not only passed through the stone at least the once, but had also managed to wrest control of its magic away from Rowe. Everything would be somuch simpler for her now! It would still take careful guidance on her part to ensure that the forces she unleashed didn't permit the slightest breach in time, but Nick and Addie had unwittingly laid the groundwork for that, too. She opened her mouth to address them, but it was Addie who spoke first.

"Hello, Greenwitch," she said without taking her eyes off the stone. "You're early."

"Early?" Of all the things that Addie might have said to her at this juncture, Jane would never have expected that.

"Where is he, Jane?" Addie asked. On the far side of the stone, Nick's face look pained.

"Who?"

"The Old One, of course. The man who betrayed you to the sea." She turned, a hard smile on her face. There was a raven on her shoulder, Jane saw, and the still body of a blackbird at her feet. "I will see he pays for that, Jane."

"You mean Will? Will doesn't matter any more." What did matter was taking control of the situation before Addie lost her grip. It really wouldn't do for the Wild Magic to come into its ascendance only to immediately face the full might of the Dark, unchecked by its erstwhile foe. Whatever instinctive knowledge Addie had drawn upon had clearly served her well, but no mere human could hope to control what was to come. She moved closer to the stone, the Wild Magic coursing through her like a flood.

Addie scowled. "He would have been useful, Jane. Where did you say you last saw him?"

"I left him in Pentewan. Why?"

The other woman's tone softened. "Just look at what he did to you, Jane. Look what the Light did to you! You're a tool, nothing more than that. Where is he? Where are you hiding him?"

"I told you. He doesn't matter. All that matters now is the Well." Jane raised her arms, summoning the magic in. It was every sensation imaginable, faceted by every last aspect of nature. It flooded into her, strengthening her with every breath and every step she took. "I know what to do with it," she murmured, her spirit thundering inside her with all the fury of the sea.

But as much as she took in, there was something still held back. Jane pulled harder, trying to loosen the knots that held the magic fast, a net of icy starlight that had its source in the woman standing before her and the birds that waited without, and in the seven interwoven strands of darkness that now rose as one from out of the Well.

"Come," Addie whispered, holding her hands cupped before her. Power spilled out from them like water. "I have what you need, Greenwitch."

The net closed.

The Well was cold and dark. Or maybe it was simply herself that was blind, and frozen.

"I never intended this for you, Jane."

Addie's voice, Jane thought. It was as cold and dark as everything else.

"This was to be the Old One's role. You were supposed to live." Addie chuckled. "Well, after a fashion. Much as you are now, in fact. Oh, what a Greenwitch I'd have made of you!"

Jane struggled against the darkness as much as she could, a sense of dull horror in her heart, her mind growing numb. Within the Well, the Wild Magic was a silent, implacable force - aspectless, and Wild no longer. And it wasn't alone, either - Jane could sense the echoes of other magics, of other powers and times, drawn closer by every passage Aderyn had made.

It had been her from the start, Jane realised. "How could you do this?"

"You shouldn't think I'm angry with you. I'll have plenty of other opportunities once I've finished here, and the Dark returns to this world."

"Will!" Jane gasped out.

"He won't elude us long, and my masters will be glad to find another use for him." A wheedling note entered her voice, offering a hope that Jane found herself clinging to despite herself. "We could use him now, if you prefer. You could help me shape the world anew."

It wasn't enough of an offer, and Aderyn seemed to know it. "How else can you keep Agnes safe, Jane? Stop holding back!"

Addie was right, Jane decided. She did need Will, after all.

They emerged from the well into chaos. The sky was a tumult of leaves and magic, drifting feathers, and rain. Eight spirals of power lashed all around them, directionless and raging. The Well was no longer still, but as wild as the sea. All the power of Tethys was a part of it now.

But amidst the disorder, there was one patch of calm. On the far side of the stone, where Nick had been standing frozen and witless by the force of Aderyn's work, a second figure could now also be seen, silhouetted against a brightness that almost hurt to look at. The Old One, no less alone than before, but anything but weak. The strength inside him was staggering.

He'd lied to her. He could have reached the stone alone with ease.

"You used me," she murmured, Aderyn's will forcing her closer. In the distance, the great trees lining the slopes of the hill were simultaneously crumbling away to dust, and shrinking back to saplings.

Will raised his head, and held out his hands. "No," he said. "I trusted you."

Jane seized hold of his wrists, wrapping the Wild Magic tight around him. The salt of her tears was sweet on her lips. "I'm sorry!"

"I'm not." He whispered a word in the language she had only recently come to know.

All of a sudden the net of darkness that constrained her was gone, and doing as Aderyn commanded was once again a choice instead of a necessity. Power flooded into her - Will's power, the Light's power.

Will smiled. "You remember what I showed you?"

Jane did.

Images blazed in her mind, the shapes of the wards and protections that would save them all. It would be enough, she hoped, to hold the Dark back. And then, using everything she had, she sent the Wild Magic back through the Maenventon Stone and shattered it.

The site was a wound of fallen trees, churned mud and stone against the hillside. Jane knelt beside Addie's battered body, wondering if she'd ever truly known her friend at all.

"Come on, Professor," the police constable said. "She's at peace now, and in good hands. Coroners'll be gentle with her."

Jane shook her head, too numb not to answer honestly. "I don't know."

"Paramedics want to check you over, too. Bruises like that, it's best to be sure."

Taking hold of his proffered arm, Jane staggered stiffly back to her feet, then across the slope towards the ambulance waiting on the track. "Nick's okay, right?" she asked the female paramedic.

"Oh, 'e's fine," she said. "Don't remember much, but there's nothing else the mat-"

The paramedic froze, mid word, as Will stepped into view. Jane glanced across at the policeman - he, too, was standing stock-still, caught in the act of picking his nose.

"How are you, Jane?" Will said.

She honestly wasn't sure. "I don't know. Heart-sore, and tired. I don't know what to make of any of it."

"Maybe that's for the best. You should take some time off. Go on sabbatical, maybe."

"Maybe I will," she said, then sighed. "Poor Nick. I'm sure Abdul will be happy to take him on, but he'll be miserable for months after losing what we thought we'd found here."

"Less of a problem than you'd suspect," Will said, spreading his fingers in front of the paramedic's face. "None of them will remember anything untoward."

A new thought occurred to her then. "Am I to forget it all too? Again?"

"Not this time," he murmured. "Besides, even if I wanted to do that, I'm not sure I could. You're still the Greenwitch, Jane."

Jane laughed, immeasurably reassured by his fallibility. "There's not the slightest drop of magic left in me, Will!"

"Maybe not," he agreed, "but there's a lot of you in the magic. Listen!"

Eyes closed, she did. And beneath the susurration of the wind, the mechanical humming of the ambulance engine, the rooks in the distance and a blackbird singing from a tree nearby, Jane realised she could also hear the sea: deep, timeless and eternal.

"-ter with him," the paramedic finished, jarring Jane out of her thoughts.

Blinking stupidly, she looked around for Will, but he was nowhere to be seen.

She could still hear the sea, though.

She was certain she always would.