'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.
11
I didn't want tobother 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.'
