A Nameless Witch

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

Death 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