A Nameless Witch

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.

21

That moment when the dawn sears away the night was always my least favorite part of the day, but I discovered that the world is a dimmer place when you're in love. The sun and its uncompromising brightness seemed more tolerable this morning.

The memory of my body against his rested somewhere in Wyst's mind. Once, he touched his forehead where I'd kissed him. He smiled, shook his head, and surely dismissed it as a curious dream. Even White Knights must have had those sorts of dreams. Accursed witches certainly did. Sometimes even when I was awake.

We broke camp and continued on our quest. Wyst and I said nothing for the morning. It was our habit to talk little during the day, and almost all of these exchanges were quest-related. His wound was healing nicely, judging by the ease of his movement. My mundane medicine and his enchantment allowed him to recover from injury far quicker than normal. I didn't offer comment on it.

Newt passed the morning by complaining. He had much to complain about, and the demon in him had no trouble letting everyone know how unhappy he was. I found it amusing that a creature without an ounce of compassion should expect sympathy, but it wasn't that strange. Demons do have empathy, even if only for themselves.

I was only too happy to listen to Newt's grievances. I'd found a degree of affection for his flaws as passing time often encourages. I think we'd all missed his grumblings. Even Wyst smiled as Newt vented.

'Where did you send me anyway?'

'It has no name. If it did, it could be found, and if it could be found, then it wouldn't be where lost things go.'

'You have no name,' Newt said. 'And you can be found.'

'Perhaps only because I allow it.'

He cast one of his customary dubious glances. I must admit, I'd missed them in his absence. 'Anyway, wherever it was, it smelled like wet kobold. And it was terribly cluttered with dreadful lighting. And things were always falling from the sky.'

Gwurm plucked his ear and moved it to the right side of his head to better hear Newt. 'What sort of things?'

'Rings. Grails. A ratty yellow fleece. There was a mountain of keys and coins and a field of boots, none a matching pair.'

'No troll ears?' Gwurm asked.

'Not that I noticed, but it was a very cluttered place. Especially for a place that has no name and can't be found.'

'Pity If you find yourself there again someday would you mind keeping an eye out for it?' Gwurm chuckled.

Newt bristled at the notion.

'Three trials left,' he remarked. 'Which one was that anyway? Combat, I imagine.'

'It might have been magic,' I replied. 'Chimera are magical. Or it might have been peril. Chimera are monsters. And it might have been strength, a test of physical might.'

Newt sighed. 'Don't you know?'

I merely looked onward enigmatically.

'Fine. Three trials left in any case. When is the next one?'

I kept staring into the distance.

'You don't know. Just admit it.'

'It doesn't really matter what I know and what I don't. Things will progress in their own way.'

'Meaning you don't know.'

I wasn't about to admit anything. No one but Newt expected me to, which was precisely why I didn't. I enjoyed tormenting my familiar as much as anyone. Well, perhaps not as much as Gwurm.

Several hours upstream, the River suggested we part company because it no longer knew anything about our quest except that traveling north seemed the right thing to do. Newt couldn't help but point out that we'd been going north before following the River, but quests were traditionally filled with detours. This annoyed him, but so many things did.

'Do you at least have some idea what this sorcerer is up to?' he asked.

I closed my eyes and lowered my head. 'I have seen a crush of phantasmal goblings sweeping across the world, cleansing it of all genuine flesh. And in its place, another world has been made. A world of shadows and glass. A perfect but hollow reproduction.'

'You make it sound as if it has already come to pass.'

'Perhaps it already has.' For the first time, I understood what Ghastly Edna had meant by the past that was yet to be. Time was neither now or later, then or after. Time simply was. Tomorrow was found by walking the hours, one minute at a time. None could know for certain what waited farther down the path, not even the magic. The only way to learn was to make the journey.

'But why would anyone want to do that? Destroy the world just to remake it?'

'Sorcery is illusion. It's potent, but never quite real. But in a world of phantoms, illusion is reality.'

'Madness,' Wyst said.