A Nameless Witch Part 12

"Yes?" My voice crackled from a dry throat, very witchly and entirely unintentional. I kept my back to him.

"I just wanted to thank you." I thought I sensed a nervous tone in his words, but I was no master of human behavior.

I turned my head enough to glimpse his fuzzy silhouette from the corner of my eye.

He cleared his throat. "These people are fortunate to have you."

I offered no reply "You've given them a chance."

"They always had a chance," I said. "My contribution merely lessens the likelihood of a ma.s.sacre. Victory shall be hard won still. Men will die, and they will likely die in vain."

His tone became somber. "Yes. I know."

Witches don't look at death itself as good or evil. Like any force of nature, it could be neither and both. But these people were under my charge, and I had no desire to see them throw away their lives as dinner for a horde of phantoms.

Wyst of the West said nothing. He turned and walked away. I did the same, allowing myself some small pride for maintaining a witchly demeanor.

Newt chuckled. He wanted me to ask what he found so amusing, but I wasn't interested. This didn't deter him. He chortled and snickered all the way back to the tent, and when I didn't ask why, he finally offered his opinion without solicitation.

"You should just bed and devour him and get it over with. It's going to happen sooner or later. Putting it off is just diverting your attention."

I didn't want to get into this argument. It wasn't that I dismissed his opinion. It was just something I didn't want to hear.

"It's more than infatuation," he continued. "I'm not saying normal impulses aren't involved, but I think there's more to it. Fish swim. Tigers hunt. Goblings eat. You seduce. It's your nature. It's what you're designed for."

I stared ahead and offered no comment.

"I would imagine you're very good at it. Carnal relations, I mean. And this White Knight can't have much experience. Your pa.s.sion alone would probably kill him. Then you could devour him, and we'd all be spared those embarra.s.sing scenes in the future. Not to mention your grumbling stomach."

It was true my stomach did grumble ever so slightly in Wyst of the West's presence. I'd hoped none had noticed. I hurried to my tent to get something to eat as quickly as my false limp allowed.

Newt kept his bill shut for the rest of the evening. He merely sat in the corner and chuckled in a galling manner. I would've scolded him, but I was too busy sating my appet.i.te. I devoured three rabbits and two pheasants whole. Fur, feathers, bones, organs, everything. I ate until I could eat no more, until I felt as if another bite would surely split my belly open. Yet my hunger remained, and all the pheasants and rabbit flesh in this world would never satisfy my appet.i.te. Only Wyst of the West could do that.

This was more than a smitten heart, more than even l.u.s.tful desire. This was my curse at work. I was not made for chast.i.ty. My instincts had chosen Wyst as my prey, but if we'd never met, they would have picked another. Temptation could only be avoided by absolute isolation, but I'd developed a taste, so to speak, for people. I'd have liked to believe I could find a village of lepers or ogres or ogre lepers to live among, but the same dilemma would present itself in time. Be they men, ogres, gnomes, kobolds, or any other such creature, I would find a target to seduce and consume. It was my nature.

And, suddenly, darkened misery seemed a very welcoming place indeed.

CHAPTER 11

I didn't want to didn't want to bother enchanting every sword in the fort when we'd be fortunate to find ten men of the correct nature. I had better uses for my time. I devised a simple but effective test for the soldiers and began administering it the next morning. The Captain lent me the kitchen for that purpose. bother enchanting every sword in the fort when we'd be fortunate to find ten men of the correct nature. I had better uses for my time. I devised a simple but effective test for the soldiers and began administering it the next morning. The Captain lent me the kitchen for that purpose.

Gwurm helped by managing the line, and Penelope busied herself by sweeping dust from one side of the kitchen to the other. Newt sat and watched. He found each test most amusing.

Gwurm let the two hundred and fourteenth soldier leave and let in the two hundred and fifteenth, a man of undistinguished features. They were all beginning to look alike. He stood before me. I held up a stone and spoke without looking at him.

"This rock is not real. It has only the substance your perceptions give it. Do you understand?"

There was a pause when I imagined he was nodding, but I couldn't say as I wasn't looking at him.

"Yes. I believe so," he said.

"Good." I tossed the stone between my hands. "Now I will throw this imaginary rock at you, and as you understand it is not real, it will not hurt you."

I c.o.c.ked my arm and hurled the rock. He didn't flinch. It struck him in the stomach, and he doubled over, gasping. This was expected as the rock was quite real.

Newt fell over in a fit of quacking hysterics. "Oh, that's great." He panted breathlessly. "That never gets old."

The soldier straightened. His face reddened and scowled. I understood his anger, but he'd pa.s.sed the test. The first to not recoil from my "imaginary" stone. It was perhaps cruel to pelt a man with a real rock but conjuring a phantom stone was a waste of magic when the genuine item worked as well.

"Your name, soldier?"

"Pyutr, ma'am."

I wrote it on my list of potential unbelievers. The list consisted solely of his name at the moment.

"You may go now"

Newt chuckled. "That was almost as good as the one you tagged in the groin." He collected the stone and returned it to me. "But my favorite was the soldier you hit in the shin who did all the swearing and the little dance." He hopped about in a reenactment, remarkably accurate given the differences between a man and a duck.

The next soldier appeared, and Newt sat eagerly.

"This rock is not real..." I began once again.

My familiar stifled a chortle. Tears ran down his watering eyes.

So it went the remainder of the morning. Soldiers came in. I gave my speech. I threw my rock. Newt heaved with laughter. The Captain was my last test. He failed. He sat and rubbed his bruised knee while checking the list.

He couldn't read it. My parents had neglected such education, and Ghastly Edna had never learned herself. The lore of witches is taught through doing, not reading. But writing was a useful skill, so I'd developed my own script of squiggles and symbols I found both lovely and practical. Though it always seemed to be evolving, growing more sophisticated over the years, I never had any trouble reading it. I think there was magic involved. I wasn't so much creating a new script as discovering an old one that never was.

The Captain handed over the list. "Will there be enough to do the job?"

"Thirteen," I said. "You'll be lucky if six are possessed of the skepticism required."

"And will six be enough?"

"I couldn't say."

"d.a.m.n it! I thought witches knew the future."

"Knowing what will be is not the same as knowing how it will come to pa.s.s."

The Captain sighed. He was a man very near the breaking point, and I pitied him. I was tempted to give him an answer and tell him I knew the future. Somewhere in my tomorrows lies either vengeance or death or both. But, of the brave men of Fort Stalwart, Ghastly Edna hadn't made mention.

"No one can catch tomorrow."

The Captain grinned. "Very true. And almost wise. Tell me, did they teach you such nearly enlightened yet vaguely mysterious phrases in witch's school or do you make them up as you go?"

"I little of both," I admitted.

"It must be tiring, speaking in riddles and circles."

"Sometimes."

Newt quacked, warning to be wary of sharing too much with the Captain. Part of the witchly ways is to maintain a veil of mystery. Witches should never be thought of as human, even if they usually are. Once I'd asked Ghastly Edna the reason for this tradition. "Because that is the way it has always been" had been her answer.

I'd admitted too much to the Captain already, but I couldn't see the harm. He'd likely be dead in a few days. This saddened me. He was a good man. Not handsome or dashing or especially competent, but good. I had no desire to see a good man wasted.

My mouth watered. He wouldn't have triggered such a response normally, but I was under tremendous stress. It made holding to a strict diet all the more difficult.

If the Captain noticed my grumbling stomach, he was polite enough not to mention it. I excused myself to begin my enchanting. Thirteen swords would require a few hours of work.

Newt once again spoke up without prompting. "If you're not going to eat the White Knight, you should pick someone else. One soldier won't be missed, and even if it didn't solve the problem, it should tide you over until the goblings get here."

My familiar made sense as he so often did. The demon in him knew how to make evil seem practical and necessary. It was true that one soldier would not be missed, that if his sacrifice served to give me strength to concentrate on more important matters, then it could be worth it.

This was a.s.suming that consuming a man I didn't truly desire would satisfy me. It seemed just as conceivable that it would only serve as an appetizer. Once I gave in to the impulse, I might find myself incapable of eating just one.

Wyst of the West could probably satisfy me for a long time. The Captain might appease my stomach for a month or two. I doubted an ordinary man could keep me full for three days. The only way to find out was to actually devour a man. Regardless of any moral dilemmas, now was not the time to study my cannibalistic urges.

On our way to the armory, Newt whispered temptations. "Oh, there's a nice, fat one. Bet he'd fill you up. Or how about that handsome, young specimen. Lots of lean muscle."

He shut up while I asked the weaponmaster for his thirteen finest swords. While he retrieved them, Newt murmured, "A tasty morsel, don't you think?"

I waved my broom in small circles over him while mumbling.

"What are you doing?"

I touched him lightly on the head, and all his feathers fell off in one instant molt. He was still gaping at the pile of white fluff when the weaponmaster returned. Gwurm took the bundled swords from the weaponmaster, who ogled bald Newt but didn't say anything.

Other soldiers lacked his control. They pointed and laughed at the featherless fowl. Gwurm merely smiled while Newt threw annoyed glances. It was a hard lesson for a duck that wanted to be terrifying, but it kept him quiet.

Gwurm dropped the bundle on the bench outside my tent. "If you won't be needing me for anything, I should be drilling with the men."

I wished him well and granted him leave. He cast one last amused smile in Newt's direction.

"That's a good look for you," said Gwurm. "Nothing scarier than an angry plucked duck. If you cut off your head, you'd be every cook's worst nightmare."

Rage flashed in Newt's eyes. He looked about to pounce upon the troll. I didn't know who would kill who in a fight, and I had no desire to find out just now.

"Newt, inside."

Muttering, he did as told.

Gwurm left for drills, and Penelope decided to go with him, merely looking for an excuse to visit the fort's dusty floors again. I had no objections. She just wanted to be helpful. I doubted the soldiers would appreciate their dust-free fort, but in times of trouble, we all must contribute what we can.

Newt poked his head out of the tent. "This isn't permanent, is it?"

The spell would only last until dusk, but I didn't tell him. I even suggested that perhaps Gwurm had a good point, and I was thinking of magically removing his head. Not only would it make him a more proper witch's duck, but his cast aside skull sounded like a tasty snack. He disappeared back inside with a disgruntled quack.

I laid out the swords on the ground before me. Thirteen was a nice witchly number. It was a quirk of magic that enchanting thirteen swords was easier than one or twelve or fourteen. Only the magic knew why this was, and it kept these reasons to itself. But magic, by its very nature, defies true understanding. It follows its own rules, and often ignores those rules when it feels like it.

I arranged the swords in a circle, blades outward. Then I sat in the ring's center and spent the next four hours with my head down, mumbling, and enchanting. Technically, witches do not enchant. We curse. It's a slight difference. I endowed the swords with the power to dispel illusions in the right hands, but as they were cursed, any man who called upon the magic would age a day for every phantom destroyed.

Cursing is tedious, uninteresting work. Most witch magic is not particularly flashy. It gets the job done without making a big show. Wizards love throwing up their hands, bellowing, and shooting sparks in the air. Or so Ghastly Edna had taught. It was their stock and trade. But witchly showmanship was mostly in the feigned madness, pointed hat, unflattering frocks, and raspy crackles.

Several hours of uninterrupted cursing later, I took a break. I opened my eyes. The swords shimmered with half-finished magic. It was coming along nicely, and I stood with a slight smile.

I turned and saw Wyst of the West sitting on the bench beside my tent. I had no idea how long he'd been there. It could've been hours. It was an old witch's trick to pay him no mind and act as if I'd known he was there all along and merely had yet to address him. I hobbled into the tent, right past him, and poured myself a bowl of boar's blood, kept warm and salty by magic. Newt glared but wasn't speaking to me. I didn't ask if he'd noticed how long the White Knight had been waiting.

I took a sip of blood, wiped my mouth, thought better of it, and took another drink without wiping it away. I let the red cover my upper lip and dribble down my chin. Just enough I reckoned to be unappealing without overdoing it. Then I stepped out of the tent, walked past Wyst of the West once again, and paced a slow circle around the thirteen half-cursed swords.

He had yet to say anything or even make a noise. I decided I'd been witchly enough.

"Do you plan on sitting there all day?" I tried to sound as if I didn't care, but truth be told, his presence unnerved me. Only Ghastly Edna's superior schooling prevented me from showing it.

"I've come for the test," he replied.

"There's no need."

He stood, looking very insulted. "You tested every man in the fort. I see no reason I should be an exception."

I chuckled. "I saw no reason to bother with a test that I'd already know you'd fail."

"What makes you think I'd fail? I understand well what you've told me about these goblings."

"Understand perhaps. But to understand is not always enough."

"Are you going to test me or not?" It was the first time I'd heard him sound even remotely cross.

Rather than argue the point, I agreed. I found a flat stone, explained its "imaginary" nature, and threw it right at his face. He didn't flinch. The stone stopped an inch from his nose. It hung there a moment, held by his protective aura, before falling to the ground.

"Now do you see? There's no way to know if you held your ground because you believed me or because you knew your magic would protect you."

He nudged the stone with his boot. "I see, but I also know that I believed you."

"Yes, I think you did, but sometimes understanding and belief aren't enough. You've spent too long hunting this horde. No matter how much you think you understand, no matter what your strength of will, some part of you will always think the goblings real."

He looked as if he might argue but thought better of it.

I asked, "And what do you need an enchanted sword for when you already possess a fine magic sword yourself?"