"Well, if they're real enough to kill and ravage I fail to see how knowing any of this will help."
Wyst of the West agreed. "Yes, witch. You said this would be of help, didn't you?"
He looked into my eyes, and I didn't turn away this time. I had to smile, but I hoped it came across as vague and mysterious rather than beguiled by his dark eyes.
"Yes, the magic of the horde
is
potent, but there
is
a flaw. Even a shared dream is still just a dream. And dreams, like any illusion, can be dispelled by strong enough doubt and, in this case, a little magic. I can place just a drop of enchantment on your men's weapons. Enough that the slightest cut will unmake the dream."
Again, the Captain's eyes lit up, but he was ready to be disappointed this time. "But?"
"The men must know in their hearts, without any doubt, that what they find is but an army of phantoms to call upon the magic."
"An army of phantoms that are nonetheless real enough to devour them alive," the Captain said.
"There will be men. Those lacking enough imagination to even truly believe a shared dream. Others with too much that they suspect the whole world just a dream. Such men, properly armed, will be the horde's undoing. If there are enough of them."
"And exactly how many will be enough?" the Captain dared ask.
"More than you will have," I replied honestly, "but as the goblings are as close to real as phantoms can be, they can also be fought and killed without magic. Those few capable of unbelieving the horde will simply be more efficient. If you're fortunate, the unbelievers shall be enough to turn the tide."
"You don't sound very confident."
I could make no promises, and I let the men know it with a somber face. The Captain was not as enlightened as I'd hoped, but now was a good time to make a traditional witchly exit without saying another word, leaving my audience both a little wiser and a little more befuddled.
Wyst of the West stood between me and the door. He stepped aside as I passed close. I thought him repulsed by my mask of ugliness, but he kept looking me in the eye. Repelled people never did that. Then again, rarely did I look in someone's eyes, but I couldn't stop myself. Sunrise had been right. Those eyes, those ears, those shoulders, that dark, delicious flesh, and that pure, brave soul. Those were my reasons for being here.
Those reasons nearly spoiled my departure, but I found the will to turn from that pleasing face. I walked out the door, very proud of myself for making it with my witchly dignity intact. I paused outside to gasp and shudder free of the tingles left within me.
Only then did I realize I'd forgotten my limp and my hunch. Such mistakes were unforgivable, but they paled beside the absence of my familiar and my broom. They were supposed to follow me out of the office. Now I faced a dilemma. Either go back and retrieve them, thus destroying whatever shreds remained of my dramatic exit, or return to my tent without them. The door opened while I debated. Newt walked out. Penelope floated behind him.
"Sorry," he said. "I was so busy holding down my dinner, I didn't notice you leave."
Penelope jiggled an apology of her own. The Captain's dusty floors were certainly a terrible distraction for the poor dear. It was her broomly nature.
I forgave them. I'd suffered my own diversions in Wyst's presence. Penelope drifted into my hand, and Newt took his place at my side. I hunched deeper and dragged my leg as if raising it off the ground would cause it to snap off.
I made it only eight sluggish steps before the White Knight's voice called to me. "Hold, witch."
A desire to run seized me. I didn't know which direction. Away seemed wrong. Toward him seemed wrong too.
"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 massacre. 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 passion alone would probably kill him. Then you could devour him, and we'd all be spared those embarrassing 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 appetite. 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 appetite. Only Wyst of the West could do that.
This was more than a smitten heart, more than even lustful desire. This was my curse at work. I was not made for chastity. 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.
I
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.
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 cocked 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 passed 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."
"Damn it! I thought witches knew the future."
"Knowing what will be is not the same as knowing how it will come to pass."
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 assuming 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?"
He adjusted the weapon on his hip. "The enchantments on my weapon only serve to give courage to the men who fight by my side and keep the blade ever sharp and rust-free. But for phantom goblings, it has no special powers."
"I'm certain it will serve you well enough when the time comes."
Wyst drew his enchanted weapon. Sensitive as I was to light and capable of perceiving the powerful magic blazing on the blade, I winced. Such potent enchantments were the stuff of legend, the product of years of master enchanters. Anyone who looked upon the unsheathed weapon would feel either invincible by the White Knight's side or stricken with sickly fear if standing against him. My eyes adjusted to the brightness just as he returned the weapon to its scabbard.
"That is a great power you carry," I remarked.
"A great power for great good."
"Or great tragedy," I whispered.
He heard anyway. "What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing."
There was no hiding the anger in his voice this time. "Stop talking riddles, and speak plainly!"
I allowed myself a long glance at his pleasing face. His eyebrows were furrowed, and he glared. I should have thrown a half-wise, half-mad chuckle at him and gone back to my sword cursing. It would have been the witchly thing to do. As I so often did in the White Knight's presence, I fumbled my witchfulness.
I limped close to him, keeping my head stooped and one squinted eye aimed at his chin. "Without your magic, you couldn't convince a handful of men to stand against the gobling horde. When the time comes, many will die."
"They are soldiers. It
is their
duty."
I allowed myself a chuckle. He was trying to convince himself more than me.
"True, that is," I agreed. "But that does not change the fact that most would have abandoned their duty without your influence."
"Those without honor."