by Pedro Urvi
They camped beside a great fallen oak and made a fire for the night. Weapons at hand, they rested around the fire in silence. But the hours went by and nothing happened, and the three companions began to relax.
“Do you think she’ll appear?” Ikai asked Isaz.
“You can never tell. There’s no telling what she’ll do. But remember what I told you: she kills whoever she wants.”
“Hah! If she tries that, I’ll gut her,” Albana said.
“I doubt it… many people have tried to hunt her, destroy her, but they always fail and when their bodies appear they’re headless… and bloodless…”
“I just want to talk to her,” Ikai said, looking at Albana as he spoke. “Nobody’s going to kill anybody.
She smiled. “If she appears. Or if she hasn’t left for somewhere a bit less gloomy.”
“They say the Witch has been by this lake for more than a thousand years. I doubt very much whether she’ll have left it.”
The three relapsed into silence, waiting, watching the peaceful lake.
Ikai wondered whether a little conversation would help relax them. “Tell us about yourself, Isaz,” he asked. “Are you from near here?”
“From Three Rivers, a village about four days’ journey to the south.”
“Three Rivers? Funny name for a village,” Albana said, so sarcastically that Ikai choked. “Let me guess, they built the village where three rivers meet, and their great minds couldn’t come up with anything better.”
Isaz smiled broadly. “That’s exactly it.”
Albana rolled her eyes. “So tell us, how did a tracker and hunter from Three Rivers end up in The Shelter with us?”
“It’s not something I like to talk about… but as it’s you… I’ll tell you. I had to flee Three Rivers. I killed the Proxy.”
Ikai looked up in surprise. Albana’s eyes opened wide.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I was a tracker and hunter of Three Rivers, so I had permission from Proxy Axpen to carry weapons, go hunting and get fresh meat for the village. There were three of us hunters, and we spent a lot of time away, in the forest and mountains. My sister ran our parents’ farm. May they rest in peace! They died of the fever when we were little kids. As the eldest brother, I’d always taken care of her and been in charge. My sister Lurie was well known, not only in Three Rivers but also in the villages around for her delicate beauty. Nobody believed we were siblings, seeing how unattractive I am.”
Albana giggled. “True enough.”
“Many were the young men, and the not-so-young too, who tried to gain my sister’s affection, since she wasn’t married and was already older than the customary age for it. For some reason she resisted the idea or perhaps she didn’t find a man to win her heart. Among all her suitors there was one, Karm, who was well-known as an admirer of my sister. He tried everything: gallantry, gifts, romantic walks, promises of riches and love, everything… but Lurie wasn’t convinced. There was something in him she didn’t quite like. One market morning, in the main square and in front of the whole village, Karm, dressed in his best clothes and bringing all manner of gifts, asked her to marry him. Lurie, very tactfully, refused. I was away hunting and didn’t see it happened. When I came back I was met with the news that the Proxy had put my sister in prison as she was accused of collaborating with the rebel movement. I went to see the Proxy, as I was sure that wasn’t true. I demanded to know who had made the accusation and what proof they had. Proxy Axpen showed me the evidence: in Lurie’s bedroom chest they’d found rebel writings, rolled in a parchment with a red hand on the back. I knew that couldn’t belong to my sister. She couldn’t read or write. She was a peasant. But Axpen wouldn’t listen to me. The evidence would make him look good before the Regent and the Enforcers. I begged him to let my sister go, she was innocent, for Oxatsi’s sake! I even confessed to the crime myself so that the punishment would fall on me and he’d let Lurie go. But Axpen had already reported the matter, and it wouldn’t have looked good to start confusing things. The next morning the Enforcers appeared. One Eye-of-the-Gods with a dozen Executors. They dragged my sister out and took her to the main square. They assembled the whole village and sentenced her to death. I leapt forward to rescue her, but the Executors beat me almost to death. They executed my sister in front of my very eyes. I saw her die just before I passed out.”
“That’s horrible!” Ikai said.
“Those heartless bloody Enforcers and Proxies!” Albana cried.
“I spent three weeks unable to move,” Isaz went on. “When I finally got enough strength back, I slipped into Proxy Axpen’s mansion. I put a knife to his throat and made him confess the name of my sister’s accuser. Karm, it was Karm! he said, a moment before I slit his throat.” He bowed his head in silence.
“I’m deeply sorry for what happened to you, Isaz,” Ikai said. “It’s truly horrible.”
Albana’s black eyes gleamed with hatred. “Did you take revenge on that vermin Karm? I’d have taken his eyes out and cut off his arms and legs. And I’d have savored every moment.”
“No, I didn’t have that satisfaction. The coward fled. I couldn’t lay my hands on him. Once I became a Pariah, pursued by the Guard, I couldn’t go on searching any longer. Shortly afterwards they called in the Hunters. If I’d stayed, they’d have caught me and killed me. That’s why I went looking for the chance to join the rebellion, which I know is ironic after what had happened, but it was all the same to me by then, and I ended up as a guide for one of the refugee groups.”
“Revenge isn’t the best way,” Ikai said.
“Nonsense,” said Albana. “Revenge is the only thing that’ll give you any peace, any relief for your soul. As long as that jackal lives, you’ll never find peace. Believe me, I speak from experience. One day I’ll have mine. I’ll kill the one who robbed me of what I most loved in this world, however impossible it might seem, however powerful that creature might be. I’ll have my revenge!”
Her determination made Ikai’s blood freeze. Albana was talking about her mother’s death, and the object of her wrath was the terrible and all-powerful God Asu.
“Maybe one day…” Isaz said.
“You should heed the young panther,” said a cavernous voice coming from the lake. “Her words are full of truth.”
Instantly the three companions turned. In the center of the lake, against the background of night and in the midst of a reddish mist, a figure was hovering suspended three feet above the water. She was thin, dressed in a brown robe with curious green runes, and her head was hooded. Her face was hidden under a mask. Long silver hair fell to her feet. Ikai’s blood froze at the sight of her.
“The Witch of the Lake!” cried Isaz. The terror in his voice infected Ikai, who nearly dropped the arrow he was nocking.
Albana drew her long daggers like lightning, crouched like a cat before her prey, and looked defiantly at the apparition.
The Witch laughed, a deep, cavernous laughter from the beyond. “Your weapons can do nothing against me, in my lake, my domains.” She swirled about herself in the air, and the silver surface of the lake turned crimson. Ikai looked up at Father Girlai and saw that he was the color of blood.
It must be the reflection of the lake, he thought. She can’t have turned the moon red. That’s impossible. He was wondering how much power must be needed to manage a feat like that.
“Come on, young tiger. Let your arrow fly if you so wish.”
Ikai realized she meant him. In his terror Isaz had not even fitted an arrow to his bow.
“No… we don’t wish to do you any harm,” Ikai said. His voice quavered.
The Witch laughed again, and stretched out her arms in the form of a cross. The crimson mist began to move forward until it surrounded the group. It did not touch them, yet it left them no way of escape.
“I’ve come to see you,” Ikai said. “I need your help,”
“You come to ask something of me, of course,” she sai
d, and swirled in the air again. Her brown robe with its green trimmings whirled in the night and the mask flashed intermittently, as in some dance in a nightmare. There were leather gloves on her hand and moccasins on her feet. The color of her skin was indistinguishable.
Albana whispered: “Don’t touch that fog. It’s poisonous. It’ll kill us.”
“Very perceptive, this young panther. I like that. It’s been a long, long time since anybody interesting visited me.”
“Will you help us, then?” Ikai asked.
“That depends on whether I’m interested in whatever it is you’re going to ask me and whether you’re willing to pay the price I demand for it. It will be a high price, and once it’s agreed on, you won’t be able to back out, my young tiger.”
“I’ll do whatever you ask me.”
The Witch laughed. “You all believe you can do what I ask, and yet unfortunately very few actually can. And what is it you want from me? You’re not the kind that seeks riches, glory and power. This old Witch can read it in your eyes. Love, perhaps? Help, to save someone? A miraculous healing…?”
Ikai was astonished. How could she know?
“Don’t be so surprised, young tiger. This Witch is as old as the centuries. She’s seen and lived a lot, and she can read men like an open book.”
Albana put her mouth to Ikai’s ear. “Beware,” she whispered, so softly he barely heard her. “I feel Power, a lot of Power coming from her.”
The Witch swirled in the air several times, laughing, but this time she turned head over heels.
“The panther can feel my Power,” she said as she stopped still. “That’s interesting, and now I know why. I know what the panther is and what she’s hiding. She’s no mere human, she’s a lot more than that…”
When he saw the Witch’s interest in Albana, Ikai tensed. “I’ve come in search of a cure,” he said, trying to draw her attention back to him.
She raised her hand to her breasts. “Who for? There’s no sickness in any of you.”
“For my mother. She’s suffering from a sickness of the blood, and she’s dying.”
“Blood… you’re in luck, young tiger, that’s precisely my specialty.” She began to laugh in such a macabre manner that the hair on the back of his neck prickled.
“Blood, yes. I’ve been studying blood for many years, more than a thousand by now… it allows me to go on living… after so long…”
“The rumors are true,” murmured Isaz. “She drinks the blood of men and animals, and babies!” His neck was hunched between his shoulders.
The Witch laughed. “Of course they’re true.” She laughed again. “Even if they’re not very accurate.”
Albana put her hand to her neck and activated her disc of the Shadows.
“That won’t be necessary, my little hybrid… I see you wish to protect the young tiger, even at the risk of putting your own life in danger.” With a gloved finger she caused a thread of fog come menacingly close to Albana’s face. “But I assure you I’m not going to do him any harm, for now…”
Ikai saw that the fog was a finger’s-breadth away from Albana’s eye. “Stay still,” he said to her.
She glanced aside at him, and her shoulders drooped.
“Very well. Now we know the young panther has Power and strong feelings towards the young tiger, let’s see if I can fulfill the request which has been made to me.”
Ikai and Albana exchanged glances.
“I need the patient’s blood,” said the Witch.
From his jerkin Ikai brought out a sealed flask which Idana had prepared for him with some of Solma’s blood. He showed it to the Witch.
“Leave it on the ground.”
From the crimson mist came a red translucent hand which grasped the flask and bore it to the Witch. In a single movement she opened it and drank the blood as if it were a rare elixir.
“Hmm… strange… poisoned blood… poisoned by the blood itself. Very strange.”
“Can you save her?”
“I can indeed.”
Ikai sighed with relief. There’s hope! She’ll be saved!
“But the price will be high: one you might not be able to pay.”
“I’ll pay. Ask me what you will.”
Albana held him by the wrist. “Please don’t sacrifice your life,” she whispered.
“Before I set the price,” the Witch went on, “I need one more test.”
“What is it?”
“I want your blood.”
Albana tugged his arm hard. “No!”
He paid no attention to her attempts to stop him. “If you want my blood, you shall have it.”
“Very well, so be it.”
From the Witch’s chest there emerged a crystalline sphere, the size of an apple, which advanced through the mist towards Ikai. As it moved it grew until by the time it stopped in front of him it had reached the size of a person.
“Don’t do it,” Albana muttered. “I have a bad feeling.”
But Ikai was determined. He was going to save his mother, and nothing would stop him. If he had to die for it, he would.
“Rest easy,” the Witch said. “Nothing will happen to you,”
The sphere rose with Ikai inside it. Isaz took a step back and almost touched the fog. Albana pulled him to safety.
The sphere transported Ikai through the fog over the lake, to the Witch. It was something unreal, like a dream, or rather a nightmare.
“Hold out your right arm,” the Witch said, “but don’t move. If you leave the sphere, the mist will reach you and you’ll die.”
Ikai shivered at the threat and warily stretched out his arm. He tried to make out the Witch’s face, but the mask in the form of a tree, together with her clothes, did not allow him to see anything of her. The roots covered her mouth, the trunk her nose, and the branches the eyes. It must have had some meaning he was not aware of. But what most startled him was the long white hair which fell to her feet.
The Witch held him by the wrist with a gloved hand, and with the other made a cut in his forearm. He did not see any weapon, but he felt an icy touch. Blood started to flow from the cut, and from out of the air the Witch produced a bowl made of ice to hold it. When she had enough she let go of him and turned in the air so that her back was towards him. Throwing back her mask, she drank the blood.
Once again the sepulchral laughter echoed across the lake. The Witch replaced her mask, then faced Ikai, who was clutching his cut.
“After a thousand years, you still surprise me. Your presence in itself, my young tiger, seemed extraordinary, but I wasn’t expecting your blood to be so exceptional.”
Ikai stared at her, not understanding.
“I know you don’t understand, but never fear, I’ll grant you what you wish.”
He nodded. “Thank you. And the price I have to pay?”
“The price has changed. Now I have a personal interest in you.”
“Because of my blood? So, what is the price?”
“The price is this: one day I shall call you, and that day you will leave everything and everyone and do whatever I order you to. Whatever I may wish.”
“No! Don’t accept!” cried Albana. “She might order you to take the life of a loved one, or your own. It’s a trap!”
Ikai thought about it and a chill ran down his spine. I have no option, I have to accept, he thought resignedly.
“I accept.”
“Your arm,” the Witch said.
Ikai held it out.
The Witch held his wrist again. With her other hand she made a gesture, and he felt another icy touch on the wound.
“Very well,” said the Witch. “The deal is sealed,”
The sphere transported Ikai back to his companions and vanished.
“Are you all right?” Albana asked.
When he looked at his arm he saw a tattoo on the wound, a tree like the Witch’s mask. He looked at Albana, searching for an explanation, but she shrugged and shook her head.
> “When the tree of life awakens on your arm, the moment will have come.”
He nodded. “And the medicine for my mother?”
The Witch made a circling movement with her arms and intoned a chant. The reddish fog turned white.
And descended on them.
Ikai woke up in terrible pain. His body hurt terribly, and his head felt still worse, as if he had been given a hundred blows with a blacksmith’s hammer. It was hard to open his eyes and focus. It was daylight, and the lake was absolutely calm. Albana and Isaz were asleep beside him. What on earth’s happened? Was it a nightmare? he thought, and looked down at his forearm. The tattoo of the tree was there. It wasn’t a nightmare! He rose, horrified, and noticed something tugging at his neck. At his chest he found a small jar with strange runes on it hanging from his neck.
The potion to heal Solma!
Chapter 18
Two Guards came into Proxy Ambuk’s stable and searched the ground floor, among the horses. Buried in the hay, her hands tied, Kyra tried hard not to sneeze. Her nose was very itchy, but if she sneezed she would be lost. She controlled herself, closed her eyes and clenched her jaw furiously. She endured until the two Guards went out to continue their search in the nearby woods.
Karm clambered down from under the eaves and after fishing her out, cut the cords that tied her.
“Come on, quick!” he said. “We’ve got to get away!”
“I’m not going anywhere with you two!”
“I realize you don’t trust us, but we just saved you from the Hunters.”
“Who are you?” she asked, although finding herself free she felt a little more at ease.
“We’re two bloody fugitive slaves! Pariahs!” Honus said angrily from above. “We escaped from the crystal mines.”
Karm gave him a look which said let me do the talking, and Honus’ reply was to wrinkle his nose.
