A Nameless Witch (9 page)

Hands would have made this easier. I guess Newt was used to his lack of them, but they truly were practical tools. I lunged at the gobling and nipped off a bit of finger. The creature let go and retreated. I hastily swallowed the finger, gripped the corpse by its arm, and hauled it out of the dark and into the light, where the goblings would not follow.

Then I sat and caught my breath. Goblings tasted very good. It was no mystery why they devoured each other. I was tempted to go back and grab another for a snack. Instead, I bit off the big toe of the one I had and chewed it slowly. I wondered how humans tasted in comparison. An instinct told me they were even better. And Wyst of the West would surely have a flavor beyond lesser men, but this was perhaps an assumption of my growing affection.

A voice interrupted my musings. "A duck eating a gobling. There's a sight I'd never thought to see."

A gray fox sat on a flat stone. She smiled. Foxes usually did.

"I have demon in my flesh," I replied.

"Yes, and a witch in your mind."

I didn't know I looked surprised, but I must have.

She smiled wider. "Oh, I've seen one or two witches in borrowed bodies before. One even borrowed mine once."

"You're very observant, I can see."

"Well, I am a fox. A very clever fox at that, if I say so myself."

I sat on my gobling. "Not that I doubt you, but what would a very clever fox be doing around here when every other living thing has the good sense to be elsewhere?"

"I never said I had good sense. I merely claimed to be clever, but the problem with being clever is that I get bored easily. So when the goblings came along, I began a game. Every night, they rise from their burrows and scour the woods for every morsel, and I do my best to avoid finding myself in their stomachs."

"A dangerous game."

"As all the very best games are. And why, I must ask, should a witch's mind in a demon duck's body dare risk herself for a gobling corpse. Surely, they aren't that delicious."

"You're very curious," I replied.

The fox smiled again. Rather, she smiled differently than before. "A hazard of being too clever, I'm afraid."

I explained how I needed a specimen to study that I might discover if magic was indeed involved in this horde of goblings.

She stopped smiling and playfully swished her tail. "I am no witch, merely a fox, and I can tell there is magic in this." She walked over and sniffed the corpse. "For one, this is not a true gobling. None of them are."

"How so?"

"I couldn't say. I'm not that clever, but they are not genuine flesh and blood. Can't you tell?"

"No, but I'm no fox, just a witch." I kicked the corpse. It felt solid. Yet it was already stiffening and stone cold but minutes after its death. These were surely signs something was amiss.

I remembered the wolf's remark on Ghastly Edna's killers. They had been men who were not men. Was there a connection, or were creatures of false flesh more common than my sheltered existence had led me to believe? I didn't know, but it was certainly noteworthy. Perhaps my vengeance was not so far away as Newt suspected.

I thanked the fox for her help. She wandered off to get some sleep before the evening games began, and I flew back to the fort, my dead gobling clamped in my bill.

10

A
fter returning Newt and
myself to our proper bodies, I examined my dead gobling inside my tent. A cursory inspection showed something unnatural at work. The corpse was decaying remarkably quickly only hours after death, and my sensitive nose detected none of the stench of rot the undead in me so relished. In fact, the corpse smelled hardly at all. I leaned close and sniffed it up and down. There was an odor of dirt, moss, and a dozen faint aromas this gobling would have collected from the forest. Of the gobling itself, there was nothing. Though it looked real and felt real and tasted real enough, it didn't seem to exist at all in smell. Such an anomaly could only be magic.

Newt watched but had other interests. "What's it like to fly?"

"It's nice," I answered while running my fingers across the goblings square face.

"Nice?"

"As a form of travel, it is very convenient. Although I think I prefer walking."

"You're not just saying that, are you? Just to make me not feel bad about not being able to."

"Not at all."

"Because I've always been led to believe that flying is wonderful."

I flipped the gobling on its stomach and prodded it along its spine. "Flying is like most talents. Everyone who can't do it assumes it must be greater than it is, and everyone who can knows it for what it is."

"You're talking in circles," he said.

"I know."

"I wish you wouldn't. It's confusing sometimes."

"It's meant to be."

"So is flying good or not?"

"It's good, but I prefer having hands to wings."

"They're very practical, I grant you."

I flipped the gobling back over and tore open its belly. I stuck my hands wrist deep into the cold innards. They were already dried and shriveled.

Newt hopped on the table and watched as I yanked the goblings insides out. Again, there was no odor and barely any fluids. I catalogued the various organs as I spread them before me. Everything seemed in order.

I dipped a finger in the brackish slime leaking from the gobling and licked it. I offered Newt a lick for a second opinion.

"Not bad. Kind of bland."

"Exactly. But when it was fresh, it tasted delicious. So unless gobling meat turns in a matter of hours, this fellow is gradually fading away, one sense at a time."

"Yes, so?"

"That means something. Something important."

"What?"

"I don't know."

I hunched over the gobling and stared at it. Its one half-opened, orange eye stared back, defying me to glean its secrets.

Newt abruptly brought up a new subject. "I made some observations about your body while I was in it. Would you like to hear them?"

I didn't reply, engrossed in contemplation of the gutted corpse.

Newt took this as a sign to keep talking. "For one thing, you're much stronger than you let on. I bet you could break a man's neck."

Only half listening, I replied, "At the proper angle, most easily, but a good witch doesn't resort to brute tactics."

"And another thing, I was studying your naked body earlier."

I frowned.

"Don't worry. I was inside. No one could see me."

I was too intent on the gobling to bother with a lecture.

"And I started thinking," Newt said. "If this is a curse, why should you be so beautiful? At first, I thought a mistake had been made. Then I remembered our mistress saying once or twice that magic doesn't make mistakes."

As did I, and my attention shifted more to my familiar than the corpse.

"That is right, isn't it?" asked Newt.

"Yes. Magic lacks only the will to act on its own," I said. "That's where witches and wizards and the like come in. Through us, it finds purpose."

"You offer suggestions, and the magic acts upon those suggestions. Usually exactly as requested of it, since it isn't very creative on its own. But sometimes, just sometimes, it does come up with an idea it likes better."

"You're saying my curse made me beautiful on purpose."

His head bobbed up and down. "If mistakes are impossible, then I'd have to believe so. And if you were intentionally made as beautiful as you are, then I asked myself to what end?"

"I trust you came up with a theory."

"You're not a horrible beast meant to be skulking around in graveyards. You're a seductive predator, a ghoul wrapped in soft flesh that might draw men into your arms where they might find death in your loving embrace."

My carnal desires were closely linked to my appetite. Almost inseparable. In my undead mind, a good man and a good meal were one and the same. This bothered me. I didn't

know why. I'd already resigned myself to never indulge in those twin pleasures of the flesh. But having Newt link them so closely and so logically made me realize how cursed I was.

Newt meant it as a compliment. He looked at me differently now. It was a quiet awe, a newfound respect. I was a perfectly designed predator, even if I didn't want to be.

Rather than dwell upon it, I returned to my study of the gobling. I hastily stuffed the guts back inside, ran my fingers along the split torso, searing the flesh closed with magic. I held up the little, green body. Its vacant orange eyes rolled back in its head. Its black tongue hung from open lips.

"Well, my little friend, you seem dead, but I'm guessing you were never truly alive. Let's find out, shall we?"

I channeled my power for raising the dead into the gobling. There was no soul in the meat. There shouldn't have been, but I suspected the creature had never possessed one. If that was so, then any semblance of life or death was questionable at best. I ignored the absent soul and willed the gobling animate.

The creature jerked to life. As it was badly damaged and decayed, there wasn't much energy. It flailed its arms and legs limply. It flapped its wings. It gnashed its teeth and hissed barely audibly.

Newt hopped back.

I held the gobling down on the table. Even if the little beast wasn't real, I didn't want it to suffer. I picked up a dagger and put it to my forehead. I took a moment to put some magic in the blade and drove it into the goblings back. It popped like a soap bubble. Nothing was left behind.

"How did you do that?" Newt asked.

"Quite easily." I laid the dagger aside and smiled. "I unbe-lieved it."

I didn't bother with further explanations. I saved that for the Captain and Wyst of the West. This discovery could be of great use to the soldiers of Fort Stalwart, providing they could understand it.

The tent flapped open. I reached for my hat.

"It's just me." Sunrise stepped inside. Penelope, who had been guarding the tent, hovered in beside her. "I wanted to say good-bye before leaving. I assume you'll be staying."

"It is my duty to aid to the defense of these people from this sort of threat."

"Yes. Your duty."

She smiled wryly, and I guessed her thoughts. They were my own as well. It was an inevitable speculation that this gobling horde was merely a convenient excuse. That my true reason for staying stemmed from my growing affection for Wyst of the West. I denied the notion, but even I couldn't comfortably dismiss it. Even if it was true, I would still be of help against this menace.

"I trust the evacuation is going smoothly," I said.

"As smooth as could be expected. No one is happy about it, but none want to be here when the goblings arrive. The Captain has issued instructions that we should travel north and keep traveling unless we hear otherwise."

"A sound suggestion."

An awkward quiet filled the tent. I liked Sunrise very much. She was my friend and my mentor on the strange ways of the living. Now we were parting, and good sense told me this might be the very last time I ever saw her. I thought perhaps I wanted to hug her. But my upbringing left me uncomfortable with such close contact. I couldn't even remember ever touching my parents, and I'd only hugged Ghastly Edna once. And that was only after she'd been killed and surely a permissible exception.

I decided this was not and trusted she would understand. "Safe journey to you, Sunrise."

"Good fortune to you, witch. And to you, Newt, Penelope."

My broom dipped in a bow, and Newt nodded to Sunrise. She left my tent, and I began sorting through the various ingredients for the Captain's tonic.

I KNEW THE CAPTAIN would have difficulty understanding what I had to tell, but understand he must if the men of Fort Stalwart were to stand a chance against the horde. I spent an hour tuning my presentation before finally limping off to speak with him.

The town-to-be was still, nearly empty. Where there had been dozens of lights, there was a lake of dark and quiet, deserted constructions. The stragglers skulked along the settlement like shadows, piling their possessions into wagons. I'd never truly lived among the humans, yet I felt sadder for their absence.

At the fort proper, I informed a soldier that I would need to speak with the Captain and would be waiting in his office. I unlocked the door with magic and found a seat. Newt sat at my feet, and we waited. Penelope entertained herself by sweeping the dusty floor. She'd collected most of it in a corner when the Captain finally arrived. He was not alone. Wyst of the West entered after him.

Newt gurgled, but he didn't vomit. His tolerance for the White Knight's purity was growing.

I lowered my head, pressing my chin to my chest and keeping my eyes low.

Penelope kept joyfully sweeping.

"I trust this is important," the Captain said.

I raised my head and glimpsed Wyst of the West. In a brief moment of fantasy, I imagined myself pouncing upon him to nuzzle and gnaw his face. I smiled slightly, despite myself. He smiled back, and I averted my eyes to the Captain.

I reached into a loose sleeve and removed a small clay vial. "A tonic of ill-taste. Pour it into the men's stew, and they'll taste horrible for days. Horrible enough to deter even a gob-ling's appetite."

"Thank you. Is that it?"

"No. I've made a discovery about the horde. A discovery that could be of great help."

The Captain looked skeptical, but he almost always did.

Wyst of the West finally spoke. "Something involving magic, I presume."

"Sorcery, to be exact," I replied while very deliberately not looking at him.

Ghastly Edna had taught me as much as she could about the other schools of magic. There were many, and all had their province. Wizards practiced the art of incantation, manipulating the world through words. Thaumaturgists mastered magic through science while shamans viewed it as a primeval force to be called upon through blood offerings and fireside dances. Witches held no solid opinion of magic but were wise enough to know that this in itself was an opinion. And sorcerers pursued the art of crafting illusions. There were countless other followers of the secret ways, and they were all right in their philosophy because magic generally acts as expected.

"I've dealt with sorcerers before," said Wyst of the West. "They're not dangerous. All smoke and bluster."

"Mostly," I agreed, "but even smoke has substance."

I reached into my sleeve and removed a small lizard. I dangled the reptile by its tail. Its skin shifted from yellow to black to green to other random colors.

"I've never seen a lizard like that," the Captain said.

"That's because it does not exist save through my will and magic." I placed it on the table, where it skittered in small aimless circles.

The Captain tried to touch it, but it passed through his hand. "Incredible. It looks so real."

"It's nothing. Any sorcerer's apprentice could do better, but it took a master to create a phantasmal horde of goblings."

I allowed the Captain and Wyst of the West a moment to absorb the information.

"The goblings aren't real?" the Captain asked.

"That's impossible. I've seen the damage they've done myself. Their rampage hasn't been illusion. Just ask the good people they've terrorized. Look at the land they're ravaged."

Wyst frowned. His lower lip stuck out, and I wanted so very badly to run my forked tongue across it.

"How can something not real cause any damage?" said the Captain.

This would be the most difficult part, to teach these men that real and unreal, just as dead and undead, were merely a matter of degrees. Organizing my thoughts was difficult with Wyst of the West so close. Fortunately, I'd prepared in advance.

"I didn't say their rampage was imaginary. Merely that they are, in essence, no more real than this lizard I have made. Which I shall now unmake." I snapped my fingers, and the lizard vanished.

The Captain's eyes lit up. "You can unmake the horde?"

"This lizard was a weak illusion. The goblings are much stronger. So strong that even reality has been fooled into accepting them as true."

"So they are real."

"As real as a dream."

The Captain sighed. "I'm getting a headache."

"They are a dream," I explained, "but it is a dream shared by the world. And when every man, every beast, every tree, and every rock shares in the same illusion, then a dream can become reality. To a point."