Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (17 page)

The young girl from my first class brought a bowl of stew and a mug of weak tea.

“Thanks,” I said. “Want to sit with me?”

Without answering, she hurried on. I cursed myself for phrasing the question too subtly.

I tasted the stew. Dovriex might become a Master Chef someday. He had found a few tubers that resembled carrots and thickened the broth with ground grain. Then I recognized the flavor of bear. It was not easy for me to eat something I had known by name, even though I hadn’t learned its name until after its death. By evening my hunger might be sufficient to stifle my qualms. For now I wasn’t hungry.

I thought I would sit there and show that I did not feel excluded from the witches’ company. An old hound wandered out from the kitchen and passed by me. I gave him a chunk of the meat from my stew. He ate it and stayed near. Dogs are noble, discerning animals. I gave the selfless beast another morsel. He continued to sit near me.

Naiji, Talivane, Feschian, and a few others were speaking together at the far end of the table. Kivakali sat by Talivane, staring downward into her lap. The others ignored her. Perhaps there were worse things than sitting alone.

When Naiji glanced at me, I waggled my fingers at her. She continued talking to the others. I went outside. The hound chose to follow me. At the door I slipped it a few more pieces of bear meat. It continued to follow me. A truly fine dog.

Captain Feschian and the giant, Avarineo, were in my afternoon class. The rest were guards and seemingly ordinary folk, probably farmers or weavers before they came to join Talivane’s crusade to restore the Witches’ Empire.

Feschian said, “When will you begin?”

I looked over my students and saw who was missing. “When Lady Kivakali joins us.”

“She won’t.”

“Then I won’t begin.” I folded my arms.

“It’s Talivane’s wish that you teach.”

“It’s my wish to teach everyone. Everyone includes your master’s wife.”

“Perhaps the lady does not wish to study war.”

“Perhaps a ship’s cat does not wish to swim, yet that’s an art it should learn if it’s to go to sea.”

Feschian nodded. “I’ll speak with Lady Kivakali.”

“Thank you.”

We waited in silence for the captain’s return. I wondered if any of my students had yet to hear about Mondivinaw and Chifeo. The day had grown warmer, so I loosened my jacket. Naiji claimed the cold would return, but this weather felt like spring to me.

Kivakali walked beside Feschian. Her hair was bound in two braids, and she came barefoot, wearing only a sleeveless tunic and loose pants, both the color of sand. Her hair was tied back with a green ribbon.

“You’ve studied the Art?” I asked, indicating her headband.

She nodded, blushing. “My father hired a teacher, when I was younger.”

“Then you should have been prompt.”

“I didn’t, um, know I’d have time.” Which meant Talivane did not wish it, of course. Kivakali smiled almost flirtatiously at me and looked quickly away. I realized that our roles in Castle Gromandiel were very similar, both of us outsiders, neither of us witches, both of us bound by vows rather than love. I had my skills and my steel weapons to make the witch-folk treat me reasonably well. Kivakali had nothing.

The class went smoothly enough, excepting Avarineo’s occasional comment. His first was, “If we’re here to study art, where’s paper and charcoal?” That amused the giant sufficiently that he asked it twice. His second was, “Why should we learn to fight? When enemy comes, we’ll just say teacher’s name. They’ll run away with their noses covered, afraid of smelling farts.”

Shortly after that I asked him to serve me as my model. “Sure,” he said. “Teacher will draw me?” He guffawed.

Remembering the surprises Chifeo had given me, I told him to stand perfectly still while I demonstrated a few techniques. I kicked near his head a couple of times to warm up, and his long hair whipped nicely with the popping of air. He flinched when my heel stopped at the tip of his nose and stayed there long enough for him to focus on it. I punched and kicked at thirty vulnerable parts of his body in fifteen seconds or so, then quit. Avarineo stood like a wide-eyed statue for the entire exhibition. Afterward he said, “You may have a funny name, R-r-rifkin, but I will treat you as my friend now, for certain.” Then his eyes grew huge as he thought about what he had said. He added, “I planned to treat you as a friend all the time, just like Lady Naiji said. Of course. But now I plan to treat you
even more
as my friend. Much more as my friend. A whole lot—” I told him that I understood and appreciated this, which appeared to please him.

There were several in this class who might someday be Artists. The most promising was a girl of seven or eight, who did everything with an expression of perfect seriousness. Captain Feschian had obviously studied with some school before. Her technique was competent but uninspired, as if she had learned what she knew long ago and had practiced alone since then.

Kivakali seemed too self-conscious to show what she might really be able to do. She often confused the order of the moves when I told the class to practice specific combinations. I suspected that she had only stayed with her earlier teacher for a few months. At one point she apologized for being so awkward. All I could tell her was to concentrate less on how others saw her and more on what she was doing.

When the afternoon class ended, I went again in search of the dungeons. The first likely door that I tried was to a bath occupied by an older woman from the class I had just dismissed. Her subsequent instructions were useless for finding the dungeons but did much to increase my knowledge of the witches’ dialect.

The dungeons, when I found them, were damp and cold. The Gromandiels had done little to maintain them. The teak door’s leather hinges protested being opened. The stairs themselves were worn and moss-encrusted, ready to pitch a careless climber to a fatal fall. My torch, taken from the hall, barely burned in the stale, fetid air. Its light seemed to shine no more than a foot or two before me as I descended.

“Who goes there?” demanded a nervous guard. He jumped up from the low bench on which he had rested, or perhaps slept.

“Rifkin,” I said. “Rifkin Inquisitor.”

“What do you want?”

“Love, security, and the respect of those who know me.”

“I mean, what do you want here?”

“Oh. You should have said that.”

“I did!”

“So you did. I want to speak with your prisoners. Feschian said I might.”

“One of them’s in a coma and can’t be roused.”

“It must be contagious.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“He put himself into a death-trance,” the guard whispered confidingly. “They can do that, you know.”

“I’d heard.”

“You want to see the serving boy too?”

“No. Just the others.”

He nodded, then unlocked a door behind him. “Remember, I’ll be listening to everything you say.”

“I’m always best with an audience.”

The room beyond was larger than the guard’s chamber. It was also darker, danker, and a thousand times worse in odor. Three Spirits, all wearing their black assassin’s garb, were manacled to the walls. Their chains appeared to be shiny brass, the only new things in this part of Castle Gromandiel. One spirit lay slack on the mucky floor. The other two, fastened to different walls, turned their faces away from the torch in my hand.

“Greetings,” I said in Ladizhan. “Anyone feel like betraying the masters on Goon Isle?”

“Moon Isle!” said one, a young girl.

“You, eh? Excellent. To begin, who hired you?”

She turned away and said nothing.

I sighed. “That was short.” I turned to the other, a boy of Chifeo’s age with a wispy beard. “How about you? Will you talk?”

“No.”

“Hah! You just did.” When that clever ploy failed, I said, “I can offer you something.”

“What?”

“A quick death now. That’s more than the witches promise.”

“I’m not afraid of pain.”

“I heard your companion die last night. I hope he wasn’t afraid of pain either.”

“He wasn’t.”

“Good for him. The Gromandiels tortured him for hours. He wasn’t afraid of mutilation either?”

The Spirit closed his eyes.

“The Gromandiels are witches,” I said. “Of course, you knew that.”

“Of course.”

“And you’ve thought about what witches can do to make you talk, I suppose. Change you into something vile and strange...” I walked away and examined some of the scratchings on the wall. “Look here!” I improvised. “Oh, You can’t. Sorry. It seems someone started a poem. ”There once was a witch from the east, who was fond both of man and of beast—‘ That’s all. Maybe you’ll have time to finish it before the Gromandiels start on you. But I doubt it.“

I walked to the door, then turned back. “You may think I’m not being very understanding, but I am. See my sword?” I drew it halfway to show them the steel. “I’m as human as you are. I wouldn’t want those witches to toy with me. You’d think they’d let you die human, but I doubt they’ll even let you have that little bit of dignity. Back at Moon Isle, your fellows will probably say...” I walked up to the male. “What’s your name?”

He spat at me.

I jumped back. “Spittle, then. They’ll probably say, remember young Spittle? Died as a slug. Horrible thing, dying as a slug. Me, I’d take an honorable death any day. But not young Spittle. Maybe he wanted to be a slu—”

“Shut up!”

“Maybe Spittle wasn’t a real human at all. Maybe his mother had a thing for witches.”

The boy lunged at me as if he expected to tear his chains from the wall.

“It’s your choice,” I said. “Tell me who sent you, and die human. Or die as a mangled thing, knowing that word will travel through every holding of Spirit Dancers of your incompetence.”

“Why?”

I gave him a cruel grin. “Because I’ll tell everyone I meet of the young Spirit with the mole on his left cheek. I’ll tell how he gave away his entire band with his clumsiness, then begged pathetically to be spared.”

“It’ll be a lie!”

“True. So?”

“I can’t trust you.”

“I don’t blame you. But you know what the witches offer. Mutilation, transformation... They’ll learn more from you than I need to know, Spirit. They’ll learn all that I’d ask of you, and then they’ll learn everything that ever shamed you. Then they’ll laugh at you, toy with you—”

“What of her?” He indicated the girl, who listened with a sneer.

“She’ll tell no tales.”

“You’ll be quick?”

“Yes.”

“With her too?”

“Yes.”

The girl cried to him, “Don’t—”

“Lady Kivakali hired us.”

I nodded as though this did not surprise me, then turned to go-

“Wait! Our bargain!”

I shook my head.

His eyes widened. “But—”

“Lord Death may be your best friend, but I won’t send you to him.”

“You lied!”

“Yes.”

“You vile, dung-eating—” His face was contorted in rage and frustration.

“Call me an honorless bit of slime,” I suggested. “That’s what I feel like.”

I left him cursing in the dark.

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