A Nameless Witch

Yog was too busy beating out his smoking eyebrows to apologize.

Next came Gok the shape-changer. His attempt went smoother than his companions. In a flash, he transformed into a vicious wild boar. It had wicked tusks and crimson eyes and sharp hooves. Unfortunately, it was barely the size of a large rat. While Doz the Mighty berated Gok, Gok grunted in an effort to grow larger. He expanded to twice his size, belched, then shrank to half his previous volume.

'My turn,' Vop the worm-talker announced. He stepped forward with bold determination.

'Step back, Vop.'

The snail-talking elf backed away. Gok the shape-changer, who seemed trapped in his tiny boar form, retreated to the back of the group.

'I guess it's up to me.' Doz the Mighty released his spear. It floated forward and hovered before Gwurm. 'Now you'll know fear, fools. How will you fight a weapon that has no wielder?'

The spear danced about, jabbing at the troll without actually attempting to stab him.

'Now grovel before me, and I may spare your lives.'

Gwurm grabbed the spear in one thick hand. The weapon twisted and trembled in his unbreakable grip.

'That's not fair! You can't do that! Let it go!'

Gwurm released it. The spear hopped back and shook angrily. It traced intricate patterns in the air with its point.

Penelope jumped from my hand and faced the spear. The broom caressed the spear up and down with her bristles. Doz's spear shivered, bowed to Penelope, and floated aside. She returned to my side.

'Stupid spear.' Doz the Mighty folded his arms across his chest. 'But there is one left. The last and most deadly of our band. That's right, Sof. Strike! Strike now!'

No strike came.

'Sof! What are you waiting for?'

Still, no strike came.

'Damn it, where's Sof?'

The elves offered a collective shrug.

'Who saw him last?'

They exchanged whispers.

Vop the worm-speaker said, 'Uh, thinking on it, I've never seen Sof.'

'Me neither,' Rof the rock-sneezer said.

'Me either,' Yog the fire-spitter added.

Gok the shape-changer, still a boar, snorted his agreement.

Doz the Mighty shook his head slowly. 'Well, this is just embarrassing.'

A sneeze came from the back.

'I did it! I did it!' Rof squealed with his elf voice.

The sky darkened. A shrill screech filled the air, and a monstrous red bird swooped from the sky.

'Aha!' Doz the Mighty thrust his hands high. 'Now you shall see the grave errors of your ways!'

The roc swept from the sky, snatched up the band of elves, and soared away, quickly disappearing into the horizon. Only Doz's spear was left behind.

'Can we pass?' Gwurm asked.

A disembodied voice spoke. 'Sure. Go ahead.'

We bid Sof the Invisible and the spear a good morning and went on our way.

17

Though Wyst and i could go days without saying much of anything, we did exchange a few words over the course of our quest. Nothing of much importance from a questing perspective, merely polite salutations of 'Good morning' and 'Good night' with the occasional observation about the weather or scenery or some such other trifle. Though words were a wondrous invention, both tremendously practical and inexhaustible in supply, there was no need to waste them. The silence was contagious, afflicting both Newt and Gwurm. My broom and Wyst's horse were the only ones not noticeably affected.

The truth was, I wasn't at all comfortable speaking to Wyst for very long. I didn't trust my discipline. One unwitchly slip of the tongue could reveal too much of my growing affection for him, which was difficult enough to hide without saying anything. Too often I caught myself smiling at him or staring at the graceful sway of his full shoulders. Fantasies, both carnal and cannibal, fell into my mind without warning, and each seemed harder to dispel than the last. None of these symptoms truly surprised me, but I was startled by the suddenness of their severity.

I couldn't read Wyst's mind, but I caught him smiling at me as often as he caught me. I suspected, like my own smiles, there were many more times when I didn't catch him. Often his eyes seemed to wander, however briefly, up and down my body. Almost as if he could see the shapely form beneath my wrinkled gowns. Each passing day, I was less and less willing to dismiss these signs as products of my own desires. This led to an odd dilemma.

Did Wyst see through my witchly disguise, or did he prefer his women plump and haggish? The latter notion meant that my curse might deny me the very man I desired. Such irony as repulsive beauty was not beyond possibility where a potent death curse was at play. And somewhere in the hell where long-dead, mad wizards might dwell, Nasty Larry was probably enjoying a good chuckle between tortured shrieks.

Such dilemmas aside, it was inevitable that Wyst and I would find ourselves in deeper conversation.

Bread was all Wyst ever ate. He lived upon two thin pieces a day. One in the morning when he awoke and one in the evening before he went to sleep. The meager diet and his personal enchantments sustained him very well. Even when he retired for the evening, he never seemed truly tired. And his body was the perfect balance between lean grace and masculine strength. At least, I thought so, and I'd spent enough hours studying it despite my efforts not to.

It was one of these moments of unwitchly indulgence that began a chat I'd been laboring to avoid. I was watching Wyst partake of his evening meal, wondering at what thoughts might be dancing behind his deep, dark eyes. I lost myself in the wondering and hadn't even realized he'd noticed my staring until it was far too late to pass it away as a casual glance.

He smiled from across the campfire. 'Would you like some?' He held up a piece of dry, unappealing bread that I quickly accepted to cover my staring.

Newt gaped. He no doubt found the notion of eating anything without blood even more repellent than I. His bill dropped, and his eyes crossed.

Ghastly Edna had subsisted mostly on bread and rabbit and wild berries, but all I'd ever eaten was meat. Even as a newborn, I'd had a good set of teeth. The kind of sharp, snapping fangs that discourage a mother from drawing her undead child to her breast.

I sniffed the bread. It had hardly any scent, and nothing that put me in mind of dinner. But I felt I must, so I took a very small bite, chewed the morsel once, and forced myself to swallow. It couldn't hurt me, but it wasn't something I wanted to do again.

Newt's tongue dangled from the side of his bill.

I gulped down some raw pheasant to keep myself from gagging.

'It's ...' I struggled to find a word that was both truthful, yet not too harsh.

Wyst found it for me. 'Bland yet edible.'

I nodded.

He grinned. 'I wasn't always a White Knight. I remember what food tastes like. Vaguely.'

Though I knew Wyst to be a mortal man, the admittance struck me. I'd gotten the impression that White Knights were much like witches. Much of their trade involved acting odd. Not a witchly strangeness, but a chaste peculiarity. For to deny one's self the simple pleasures of the flesh was certainly unusual.

Such lapses of character were unavoidable after spending enough time with someone. As a professional courtesy, I should have ignored it, but I couldn't stop myself from searching for the mortal man.

'Do you miss it?'