Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful (22 page)

She scraped her knees scuttling away from the dusty cupboard, her scrub brush forgotten, her eyes narrowed in revulsion.

“He would have hurt you,” I wheedled, tears rolling down my cheeks, but she would hear no excuse.

“He was right. You are a witch!” My daughter began climbing the rungs to the second floor, and by the time I reached the bottom, her young muscles had already ascended the second ladder.

“I’m not!
I’m not!
” I screamed.

Faster than I could follow, she was into her room with the trap door slammed shut. Her feet stomped across the floor, in harmony with her desperate, screaming sobs. I felt her pain in my heart and when glass crashed and tinkled, it somehow felt right.

The trapdoor wouldn’t open. I pounded on it for long minutes. Sunshine watched me from behind the legs of the harpsichord, wary of this sudden, loud insanity. In a fury, I descended to the kitchen and snatched the hatchet we used to fit especially large pieces of bramble or driftwood into the kitchen hearth.

The trapdoor was solid, but with relentless chopping, it finally splintered away. I climbed the ladder to see that my daughter had thrown her footstool through the window that depicted a charming castle.

She stared at the hole, her blank, blue eyes swimming red with burst capillaries. Her tongue protruded as dark and swollen as a dead mudskipper, and her soiled dress fluttered in the breeze from the broken window.

My daughter, my sweet Rapunzel, had thrown her hair over the rafter, then braided it tightly around her neck and jumped off one of the hammock braces.

I made that hole in the side of the tower, but I don’t think I’ll fill it with a door. I think I’ll let the winter storms in. There’s plenty of room in here now, even for the sea.

I moved the green-eyed boy’s body, to the stand of stunted trees where I long ago buried my daughter’s parents. Rapunzel also sleeps with them, though the necklace that clinks while I make my breakfast is made of her bones. Polished with sand and tears, they look magnificent and feel terrible when I wear them with my woven scarf.

It’s lustrous as silk, curls at the ends like pumpkin tendrils, and glints like sunlight caressing the sea.

T.A. Pratt’s Marla Mason is a modern-day, ass-kicking sorceress who doesn’t wear a leather catsuit, doesn’t suffer from low self-esteem, doesn’t wallow in angst, and is almost always absolutely certain she’s right . . . even when she’s dead wrong. She’s featured in four novels published by Bantam Spectra, a fifth reader-supported novel, a serialized online novella, and several short stories. In this new story, written especially for this anthology, Marla’s adventure is enhanced by the author’s appreciation of Fritz Leiber and others . . . but mentioning Leiber allows a chance to bring up
Conjure Wife,
his 1943 novel based on the premise that all women are practicing witches, a secret kept well-guarded from the husbands they magically assist and protect. The story is told from the point of view of Norman Saylor, a highly rational college professor who discovers his wife, Tansy, is practicing witchcraft. Having spent his career debunking such primitive superstitions, Saylor assumes she is neurotic and convinces her to cease her silliness. Bad things, naturally, start happening. Although it must now be read with the understanding that the book reflects its times,
Conjure Wife
remains a classic of dark fantasy and a must-read of witchcraft fiction. (Already used as the basis for three films, a new movie version was announced in December 2008, but has been “in development” ever since.)

Ill Met in Ulthar

T.A. Pratt

“His name is Roderick Barrow,” Dr. Husch said. “He’s what we call ‘exothermically delusional.’ ”

Marla Mason, twenty-two years old and by her own reckoning the deadliest mercenary sorcerer on the east coast, propped her feet up on the doctor’s desk. “Good thing he’s locked up in the nut hutch, then.”

Dr. Husch made a small moue of distaste and shoved Marla’s boots off the desk. The doctor looked like a sculpture of a classical nymph that had been brought to life, her hair bound up in a tight bun, and the whole dressed in an impeccably tailored gray suit: lushness tightly contained. “Alas, that’s where the ‘exothermic’ part comes in—his delusions are becoming more and more . . . aggressive.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I’ll show you.” Dr. Husch rose from her desk and led Marla out of the room, down a hospital-clean hallway—which made sense, as they were in a hospital, of sorts. The Blackwing Institute didn’t treat diseases of the body, but it contained the diseased in mind—specifically wielders of magic who became a danger to themselves, and others, and occasionally reality. The Institute was funded by prominent sorcerers, who recognized madness as an occupational hazard, and knew they might find themselves in need of treatment some day too.

The corridor was lined with iron doors, some acid-etched with runes of calming or containment. Dr. Husch stopped about halfway down the passage and slid aside a metal panel covering a square eye-level window in one of the barred doors. Light flared out, like someone had lit a strip of magnesium, and Dr. Husch wordlessly handed Marla a pair of sunglasses. Squinting and cursing, Marla pulled on the shades, then looked into the room.

A shape writhed in the air, sinuous and sparking, like a boa constrictor made of lightning instead of flesh. The serpent hovered in the air, and as its jaws snapped open and shut, Marla tried to count its fangs; she gave up after a dozen. The only part of the serpent that
wasn’t
made of pure white light was its eyes—they were black pits of absence, but strangely aware. The serpent noticed them, and smashed itself against the door, sparks showering up around it. Marla jumped back, drawing her magical cloak around her. The cloak showed its white side, now, and protected her with healing magics, but with a thought she could reverse it, and make the bruise-purple inner lining switch to the outside. When clothed in the purple, Marla was possessed by vicious battle magics that made her essentially unstoppable—though at the cost of losing some self-control. There were those who said Marla was an amateur, and that only the cloak made her dangerous. The people stupid enough to say that in Marla’s presence got their asses kicked, but only after she removed the cloak first, just to prove them wrong. But she was glad to have the cloak on now; there was no such thing as an unfair advantage when you were dealing with flying electric hover-snakes.

Dr. Husch slid the panel over the window shut as the beast continued battering against the door. “Don’t worry, it can’t get out. The interior of the room is lined with rubber, reinforced by magic. We used to keep a paranoid electrothaumaturge locked up there. There are no electrical outlets or light fixtures, either—when we found the creature in Barrow’s room, it had smashed the light bulbs, and was suckling at the outlets like a hamster at a water bottle.”

Marla took off the glasses and rubbed her eyes. “What is that thing?”

“Barrow calls it an arc-drake. They live in the haunted mountains called the Lightning Peaks, north of the Sea of Surcease, a vast lake of liquid suffering.”

“You sound like the trailer for a bad fantasy movie,” Marla said.

“Appropriate, as Barrow was a fantasy writer. Though he wasn’t a particularly bad one, especially by the standards of his time. He was a pulp writer, mostly, published alongside the likes of Clifford Simak, Doc Smith, Sprague de Camp, Marsham Craswell—did you ever read much science fiction and fantasy, Marla?”

“Not really. I was too busy smoking and having sex with boys. I was always more interested in this world than in imaginary ones.”

Husch sniffed. “As a sorcerer, you should be ashamed. Magic is the act of imposing your will on reality. But without
imagination,
what good is even the strongest will? So what if you can do anything, if you can’t think of anything interesting to
do
?”

“I manage to keep myself entertained,” Marla said. “But I gotta say, I’m getting a little bored right now. So this Barrow, what, wrote about the arc-drakes in a fantasy story, and then somehow brought one to life?”

“Oh, it’s so much worse than that,” Dr. Husch said.

“We have won through, Lector,” Barrow muttered, his eyelids twitching rapidly. “Though our allies and retainers fell, you and I have reached this cursed plain, and now we need only—”

Dr. Husch thumbed off the intercom switch, and Barrow’s voice cut off abruptly. Marla leaned against the window, taking in the view on the other side. Barrow’s room was small, furnished with a hospital bed and not much else, but it didn’t lack for items of interest: A pile of weirdly ridged skulls heaped in one corner. What looked like a lion pelt draped over a chair. Scorch marks on one wall and part of the ceiling. Barrow himself was a white-haired old gent with a wild beard, dressed in a hospital gown, lips moving as he muttered, hands occasionally clenching and unclenching.

“He’s been like this for, oh, twenty years,” Dr. Husch said. “He suffered a nervous breakdown thirty years ago, was comatose for a decade, and then . . . he began to speak. Since then, he doesn’t eat, drink, or eliminate waste, and he doesn’t age—as best I can tell, he’s sustained by psychic energy. That’s when his regular family doctor made some inquiries and had him transferred here, since we’re better able to care for . . . unusual cases.”

“So he wasn’t a sorcerer? Just a writer?”

“As far as we know, he was unaware of his own latent psychic abilities, though the uncontrollable power of his mind may have caused his breakdown. His chronic alcoholism might also have been a factor.”

“What’s he babbling about?”

“That’s dialogue,” Dr. Husch said. “He seems to be inhabiting an epic fantasy story of his own creation. The only glimpse we
used
to have of that story was the bits of dialogue spoken by his—narrator? Character? Avatar? Barrow is playing the part,
living
the part, of a mighty hero, on a quest to win a great mystical treasure. Delusions of grandeur. But recently he’s been . . . 
exothermically
delusional. His hallucinations are starting to break through to this world. The skulls of slain goblins, the skinned hide of a manticore—those apports were certainly of clinical interest. But when a
live
arc-drake appeared in his room yesterday . . . I grew more concerned. His dialogue indicates that the goal of his quest is to win a magical Key that will allow him to move between worlds at will.”

Marla whistled. “So you think he’s in a
real
place?”

Dr. Husch shook her head. “I think he’s in an imaginary place, which his psychically powerful mind is
making
real. And if he completes his quest, and breaches the division between reality and the contents of his own mind . . . ” Dr. Husch shrugged. “Giants. Demons. Monsters. All of them could come pouring through my Institute. What if the triple suns of his fantasy world appeared in
our
sky? The gravitational consequences alone would be unfathomable.”

“Gotcha,” Marla said. “So you want me to kill him?”

“I am a
doctor,
” Husch said severely. “I want to
cure
him. Bring him back to reality.”

“I’m not much good at talk therapy,” Marla said. “I’m more of a punch-therapy girl.”

“My orderlies are capable of checking Mr. Barrow’s vital signs,” Husch said, choosing to ignore Marla. “As you may know, they are not human, but homunculi, artificial beings of limited intelligence.”

“I bet the poor bastards don’t even make minimum wage,” Marla said.

“The sorcerers who fund the Institute don’t pay me enough to hire employees,” Husch said. “So I have to grow them in the basement, in vats. But they get all the lavender seeds and earthworms they can eat. At any rate, the orderlies can go into the room and check on Barrow, being mindless, but no
human
can go near him, not safely. Anyone who enters that room—who comes into contact with the author’s psychic field—is pulled
into
Barrow’s delusional world. His brother visited once, and we had to bury the poor man out back. Barrow attempts to incorporate anyone who enters his world into his storyline, and let’s just say he enjoys slaying the villains they become.”

Marla stared at her. “So you want me to go in that room, and get sucked into his fantasy world, and . . . cure him? Like, make him realize his world is imaginary?”

Husch shook her head. “I doubt you could convince him. He’s been the hero of that world for
years.
It’s more real to him than this world ever was. No, I want you to go into his fantasy world, and make sure his quest
fails.
I want you to be a villain he can’t defeat. One theme recurs constantly in his speech—his
destiny.
He is destined to win the Key of Totality, it seems. His fate has been ordained. He’s been chosen by the gods. He thinks he’s invincible, unstoppable, and
right.
If you defeat him, I think it might be the shock his system needs—a failure, after years of nothing but success, could force him to question his awful certainty. If you can jostle him out of his comfortable place in that world, I might be able to reach him, and bring him back to
this
reality.”

“Huh,” Marla said. “Why
me,
though? Why not one of the bigtime psychics?”

“I only know of one psychic more powerful than Barrow,” Husch said. “And
she’s
comatose, too, mentally traumatized and locked up in another room at the Institute. I don’t need a psychic, I need a
pragmatist,
a tactician, a fighter—someone who never backs down, never gives up, and never stops. You have a reputation among the sorcerers who fund this Institute. They say you are a formidable operative, and you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘failure.’ ”

“Yeah, I must’ve skipped school the day they taught us that one. It probably doesn’t hurt that I’m an independent operator, and nobody will get too upset if you have to bury
me
out back, too, huh?”