With only one arm and no way of freeing myself, I lay beneath the chimera and listened as Wyst battled the last one. There was a lot of grunting and shrieking, and this went on for some time. Finally, there was one last bubbling screech.
Then silence.
The beast atop me swayed. I thought it might still be alive, but then it rolled over. Wyst of the West knelt beside me. Multicolored blood coated his shirt. Sweat glimmered on his dark skin. He wrapped tender arms around me and leaned me against the chimera's corpse.
"Are you hurt?"
"Hurt, but not harmed," I replied. "How is Gwurm?"
"I'm fine, but I lost an eye. Watch for it."
Wyst fetched my legs, and by the way he was walking, I could see he was injured. His White Knight invulnerability must have failed him in some way. Some of the blood on his side was his own.
As I fished around the monster's slackened jaws to retrieve my arm, Wyst retrieved my sack. I reached in for some needle and thread to stitch myself together and instead found Newt. Like all lost things, he was in the last and most obvious place I looked.
O
ur first triat behind
us, and none of us being in traveling condition, we camped beside the chimera corpses. Only Newt had escaped injury, and that was only because he'd missed the battle. This annoyed him. He would have rather taken part and been killed than lose an opportunity to fight. He sulked as the rest of us tended our wounds.
My injuries were the least pressing. I'd stitched myself together and within a few hours, I was restored. I liked the way the thick thread felt around my neck, and I imagined I looked quite horrible. But such was my curse that my flesh rejected the intrusive stitching. I was disappointed when it fell out.
Gwurm wasn't hurt much either, but after he'd been reassembled, we'd discovered some missing parts. An ear and a finger were nowhere to be found. He was fortunate enough to have a surplus of fingers in his pouch, but there was no replacement ear. He accepted the loss with his usual good nature, noting that while two ears were better, one would do fine.
Both Penelope and Wyst of the West required my attentions. My broom was very much a living thing now, and her handle would mend itself in time, providing she got enough dust to eat. I merely bound her with some torn cloth so she would heal straight.
Wyst's wound was the most serious. He'd suffered a deep slash to his side by the chimera's tusks. If I'd been able to use magic, it would have been easily treated. But my magics slid off the White Knight, and I had to rely on mundane methods. I wrapped the wound in a poultice to prevent infection. That he had to remove his shirt for treatment proved less distracting than I'd expected. Ghastly Edna had trained me well. Wyst was not a man. He was a patient. Touching his firm flesh, running my fingers across his lean, muscled body meant nothing to me.
Well, perhaps it meant something. But I concentrated on the wound and finished the task without surrendering to carnal impulses. Only after, did I realize the heat built up within me, especially warm in my lips, breast, loins, and, oddly, ears. I limped to the other side of our small camp to clear my head, pretending to study the dead chimera.
Death had merely slowed their shape-shifting pace. The corpses assumed various deceased forms every ten minutes or so, each smaller than the last. I expected them to eventually become dead bugs, then things too small to be seen, then nothing altogether. It seemed a perfectly natural state of decay for such creatures. Presently, the corpses were that of a hare, a wolf with antlers, and a three-armed man.
Newt beheaded the hare with a kick. "They weren't so dangerous. None of you were killed."
"We're all very hard to kill," I replied.
There was truth to Newt's observation. The chimera, terrible monsters in their own right, had never been a serious threat. The sorcerer who'd sent them must have known that. Their purpose had been to delay us, perhaps even kill one of us with some luck, and to take our measure.
"How did they know where to find you anyway?" Newt asked.
"No doubt, the sorcerer told them."
"How did he know?"
"Most likely, the magic told him. Just as it tells me where to find him."
"I thought the magic was on our side."
"Magic doesn't take sides. It mostly watches and waits for something interesting to happen and sometimes, especially when witches and sorcerers find themselves at cross-purposes, it encourages the most interesting things."
"Sounds as if the magic should find itself a hobby."
"Perhaps that is what we are."
Dusk approached. Gwurm went gathering wood, and Newt went hunting for dinner. Though Wyst and I had been gradually drawing closer over our quest, I sat far from him this evening for reasons I couldn't fathom. I often acted in ways I didn't understand when it came to Wyst. I suspected this was normal, and a good witch doesn't need to understand everything. Nor does she expect to.
Wyst squirmed. His pain was obvious, try as he might to hide it. Every shallow breath carried a soft wheeze. Few would have noticed, but I knew Wyst as few did. His pain distressed me more than even being eaten alive by goblings.
Silence crept between us. For the first time in a long while, I felt uneasy with Wyst.
He pressed his fingers to his wound and winced.
"Don't do that," I said.
"It itches."
"It's supposed to."
His hand hovered over the bandage.
"Leave it alone."
He sneered.
It was nice to see the boy beneath the man beneath the White Knight. I smiled for reasons yet again not entirely clear to me.
Wyst scowled. "We can't all be fortunate enough to be accursed."
"Fortune can be fickle," I agreed. "Much like a White Knight's legendary invulnerability."
"A popular exaggeration," he said.
"So I gathered."
It was then that Wyst shared the limits of his enchanted invincibility. I was honored to be entrusted with the secret, but we'd shared many secrets. Our physical vulnerabilities seemed almost trivial beside secret desires and mortal admissions.
White Knights could be harmed in four ways: magic, drowning, honorable combat, and corruption. None of these were particularly easy. Greater magic can always overcome lesser magic, but magic greater than Wyst's enchantment was a very rare thing. While Wyst could suffocate, his enchantment allowed him to hold his breath for an hour. Honorable combat was a more general weakness. Even Wyst admitted he couldn't know what was honorable and what wasn't until he was actually harmed. Apparently, the chimera had met the magic's qualifications.
The idea of corruption was of special interest to me. A White Knight's virtue fueled his enchantment. When robbed of it, they were as vulnerable as any man. When captured, a White Knight was usually thrown into a dungeon for a month or a year or however long it took for him to fall to a moment of weakness. Even the most chaste soul would succumb to a piece of fresh fruit or a beautiful virgin's kiss. Then it was off to the chopping block or gallows. This method was far from fool proof. Often as not, the Knight lasted long enough to be rescued or escape.
"Wouldn't drowning be easier?" I asked.
"It would, but most assume that if you haven't drowned in ten minutes that you aren't going to." He lay on his back and breathed as little as possible. "And how exactly do undead witches meet death? Or do they?"
"I'm ageless. Not immortal."
I knew of four certain ways I might perish only through Ghastly Edna and her conversations with the magic. First, there was magic itself, but magic greater than my curse came only once every century or so. Fire, as both servant of life and death, could kill me. Except that as a witch, fire and I were very good friends. Only the most enraged flame posed any sort of danger. Being hacked into three or four pieces was perhaps the most effective, providing steps were taken to keep my parts from rejoining for long enough.
"How long?" asked Wyst.
"That largely depends on how many pieces, but a good month at the very least."
He squirmed uncomfortably. "And the last method?"
I hesitated to tell Wyst this. I'd always thought it impossible. Impossible is a concept embraced by mortals to keep their world safe. Yet some things are so unlikely that impossibility is not much of an exaggeration. But I trusted Wyst with my life. And my death.
"To have my heart pierced by someone I love."
There was another brief silence between us. Before either could end it, Gwurm came stomping into camp. He carried an impressive load of branches. Newt returned with a half-dozen squirrels for dinner. Wyst and I said nothing else to each other that evening. And when everyone had finally gone to sleep, I crept away and sat in the comforting dark just outside the campfire's light.
I watched Wyst from the shadows. His sleep was uneasy. His pain was minor, mere discomfort, but his every troublesome breath put a stitch in my side. I wanted to make him feel better. I also wanted to devour him one succulent morsel at a time. Only after he'd taken me in his arms, and I'd tasted his kiss and felt his warm skin against my own.
"You love him."
I was so intent on Wyst I hadn't even noticed Gwurm was awake. The troll sat beside me.
"I don't know," I said. "What is love?"
Gwurm chuckled. "Nobody really knows. It defies explanation in its complex simplicity. Like magic, I think."
The comparison made it easier to understand. Magic didn't require explanation, merely the understanding to know that it was there. So it was with countless other things in this world and beyond.
"I love him."
The admission was easier in the dark. And as Ghastly Edna had been my mother, Gwurm had become my brother. He took my slight hand in his own immense fingers.
I hadn't noticed Newt was awake too. "If the mistress could hear you now." He took a seat at my feet. "Witches and love, it's unnatural."
I ignored him, as I often did. Demons couldn't love. They didn't have the capacity to care about anyone but themselves. And I pitied him, and all demons, for it.
"You should kill him," Newt said. "If you do really love him."
It was typical demon reasoning to destroy a weakness be fore it destroys you. But I didn't want to kill Wyst of the West. He didn't frighten me. Neither did sorcerers. Or even love. Only one thing did.
My curse. And what it might make me do.
Wyst stirred on the edge of wakefulness. Deep inside, other things stirred in response. Especially my stomach.
20
D
eath curses are potent
things. Only the greatest wizards are capable of them, and there's little point in holding back when you're about to die. Though I'd known this and lived with my curse all my life, I'd never truly understood just how accursed I was until I knew love.
I wanted to kill Wyst, to devour and digest him so that he would always be a part of me. I wanted to gobble him down because I loved him. But for the very same reason, I would do anything to protect him. Especially from myself. The brief pleasure of consuming him, satisfying as it might be, would pale beside the terrible woe of slaying such a great man. But I could never be happy just knowing him. I needed his touch, his warmth. I needed his flesh in a way that I could never have. No matter which I chose, unhappiness would always be the end result. This was the terrible beauty of my curse. It was frustrating, but as a witch, I couldn't help but admire Nasty Larry's handiwork.
If I was to be unsatisfied either way, the practical course of action would be to have my way with Wyst of the West, devour him, and put aside this dilemma. There was risk involved. Wyst could kill me, but death was not so frightening a prospect. If I could have just one kiss before dying, and maybe a tiny nibble of ear, I could think of far worse fates.
I was troubled by another sleepless night. I sat in the shadows and watched Wyst of the West. Sometimes I felt like a woman content to look upon a slumbering lover. Sometimes I felt like a spider studying afly. Finally, I could resist my desire no longer.
I crept from the dark while the others slept and knelt beside him. My curse made me a shadow to the sleeping mind. I suppose it was an advantage meant to help spirit off slumbering children, but it worked just as well on men. I caressed his cheek with light fingers and ran a thumb across his lips. My fingers danced down his neck and across his chest.
I fell on my hands and held my face over his. Less than an inch but he couldn't sense me. He stirred. His soft, warm breath rose from parted lips. If I were to kiss him as he slept, Wyst would never know. Was one stolen kiss too much to ask? If no one saw it, if only I knew it ever happened, what could be the harm?
My heart quickened. My insides twisted into knots of hunger and nausea.
I couldn't fight my curse forever. If things kept as they were, I knew what must happen. Either for Wyst or myself. I didn't know which, and I decided not to think about it. The decision wouldn't be made this night. But my hunger couldn't be denied. Not entirely.
I lay beside him. I took his hand in mine and held it close to my breast. Even this didn't wake him. I pressed closer and imagined that we were both naked and spent from a night of passion. Not a very witchly imagining. More appropriate thoughts for a love-struck girl on the edge of womanhood. Yet this was what I was. Undead. Accursed. Ageless. And frighteningly innocent in so many ways.
Minutes of lying beside him were almost enough to sate my hunger. Almost. I rolled against him, pressing against him as much as I dared. A little more, in truth. I turned his dark face to mine. And I kissed him. A light brushing of my lips against his forehead. Even if it was a one-sided affair, it was my first kiss. Unless I counted Newt, and I didn't. A terrific warmth filled me. My mouth went dry. My fingers trembled. My stomach gurgled almost loud enough to wake Wyst. My desires were filled for the time being, and I returned to the comforting darkness.
Wyst half awoke a moment later. Though I was a shadow, there would be a soft memory left behind, easy to mistake for a hazy dream. He rolled on his wounded side, groaned, and went back to sleep.
"You can stop pretending," I said. "I know you saw."
Penelope floated beside me. She laid low at my feet.
"None of that now. I knew you were awake the whole time so you did nothing wrong."
She stood and tilted forward, then back.
"It was very nice."
Penelope prodded me gently.
I grinned. "Wondrous."
With a gleeful hop and twirl, she fell into my hand. I was glad she'd witnessed it. Having someone else see it gave the kiss reality, and I trusted in my broom's silence.
So I sat in the dark, grinning as a witch never should and waiting for the sun to rise.