Witch Bane

by Tim Marquitz

  The screams of the griffins and soldiers long left behind, he found a crevice buried by overgrown foliage, and crawled inside. The world outside his haven dimmed to a muffled silence as he curled up on the moist ground and felt the weight of his emotions crash down on top of him. Alone at last, the battle behind him, he mourned for his father.

  He cried until sleep could be denied no longer.

  Thirty-Six

  Emerald watched as her mother was struck down, collapsing like an empty sack at the feet of Shade. For all her anger, for all her disgust and fear of the woman and her cruelty, seeing her die was like a physical blow. Emerald crumpled to her knees, staring at the horror of it, her breath gasping from her lungs. She clutched to her stomach as Victor set a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Emerald, but it truly is for the best.”

  She grabbed at his hand and he enveloped hers in his, pulling her to her feet. He drew her close to embrace her, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the sight before her, twisting about to keep it in her line of vision.

  The assassin, who had so casually ended her mother’s life, pulled away her mask. Emerald was glad for Victor’s support, his strength keeping her from falling once more when she realized it wasn’t Shade who had slain her mother, but the general’s son; the warlock. She stared as he stood over her body a moment longer, speaking to Elizabeth, before he fled, the Red Guard at his heels, having seen what he’d done.

  Though she didn’t want to believe it, she immediately thought of what Elizabeth had said about her mother having slain the previous White Witch, Darius’ wife; Sebastian’s mother. A chill settled over her, and she tried to burrow into Victor’s side to find warmth, at last tearing her eyes from the horror. If what the resistance witch had said was true, her mother was nothing more than a common murderer and had deserved to die as she had; at the hands of the son of the woman she’d slain.

  “Is it true?” she asked.

  “Is what true?”

  She turned to meet Victor’s gaze. “Is it true my mother murdered the White Witch before her, the warlock’s mother?”

  He shrugged. “Only Deborah would know the truth of it, Emerald.” He started forward toward the field, dragging her along with him. “That no longer matters, now. Mynistiria has moved on to a new era.”

  She resisted, wanting no part of seeing her dead mother any closer. “I—”

  “You must be seen, Emerald. By the laws of ascension, you are the new White Witch. The Guard must know they have a duty to you, and that there is still order amidst the Council’s representatives.”

  She said nothing, her throat thick with emotion. Emerald had never wanted this. Victor led her onto the field, his bellowing voice calling out for the Red Guard to attend. Slowly they took heed, ceasing their chase to gather about. Muttered voices drifted through the gathered crowd, the distant sounds of battle still sounding deep within the forest where the last of the resistance had fled. Soon, the army had gathered. It was a sea of red that bled into the green of the surrounding trees.

  “The White Witch is dead!” Victor called out, his voice silencing the whispers. “As it has always been, the daughter of the White is first in line to the throne of Corilea, and the seat of the High Council of Mynistiria.” He paused a moment, letting his words echo through the ranks. “I give you, Emerald Altus, the daughter of Deborah Altus, the new White Witch. Show your obeisance!”

  As one, the whole of the army dropped to their knees, the sound of their obedience deafening. Heads bowed, they chanted allegiance to Emerald, their fists held in the air. Their voices drowned out the distant battle, its sound vibrating the ground beneath Emerald’s feet.

  “Arise, Red Guard,” Victor told them after a few moments.

  The soldiers returned to their feet with a roar, all eyes on Emerald. Victor leaned in and whispered in her ear to let him do what was necessary. She nodded, wanting no part of the throne or its responsibility.

  “The Lord of the Hunt speaks for me,” Emerald told the assembled force.

  “By word of the White Witch, take Elizabeth Bourne into custody.” Victor pointed to the woman who lay alongside Deborah, barely more alive than the corpse beside her. “Treat her kindly. I want no harm to come to her for we would have her face the consequences of her crimes against the throne.” The soldiers complied immediately. “Collect Deborah’s body as well, so that we might give her an honorable funeral and send her ashes to the sky.”

  “What of Sebastian?” Emerald asked in a whisper.

  Victor smiled and spoke to the soldiers, “Find the assassin who dared to slay our witch, and bring me his head. Deborah would have liked, no doubt, to have seen it mounted upon the walls of Corilea.”

  The mass of soldiers roared and stormed into the woods, those not attending to the body of her mother or to Elizabeth. Emerald watched as the men scattered to seek out Sebastian, only then realizing Victor had stopped them from doing so immediately after her death. She turned to face him, meeting his eyes.

  “You would let him escape?” she asked, her surprise tinting her voice.

  He drew closer, grinning behind his beard. “Fate is a cruel mistress that returns only what one has amassed in life, child. The boy has made much possible in your life…in our lives,” he corrected, gesturing toward her stomach. “Such kindnesses should be remembered when the consequences are due.”

  She turned to look at her mother, the soldiers having wrapped her in a crimson cloak for travel back to Corilea. It hardly seemed real, her body unrecognizable behind the cloth the men carted off toward the transports that waited in the distant clearing. They carried Elizabeth as well, an armed escort marching alongside her as though the battered witch still posed a threat; if she ever truly did. The cries of her suffering fluttered on the air.

  Victor drew up behind Emerald. “Come, let us return to Corilea. I would think you and the child would relish some of the comforts left behind so long ago.” As light as a breeze, his hand stroked her back, and was gone.

  She nodded, unable to speak, the whole of her world torn asunder and rebuilt in such a fleeting span of time. She knew not what the future held as she stood there, so far from the city of her birth, but she could hardly imagine greater terrors than those she’d already faced. She turned to look at Victor, pulling his hand to hers. If she had nothing else in the ashes of the old world, she had him and their son. It was enough for her.

  Thirty-Seven

  Lights swirled in the darkness. Sebastian watched as glowing dots glistened before him, whirling in ever faster circles until they collided with a brilliant flash, coalescing into form. He squinted and looked away to let his eyes adjust, looking back, at last, to see what the light had become.

  He saw his mother, as he’d always pictured her, wreathed in an ethereal shimmer. Her long, dark hair flowed around her happy face, her eyes shining like stars beneath. She smiled down upon him and he felt the warmth of it. Sebastian could see his own features in hers, the narrow line of her cheeks and the gentle curve of his nose, and he wondered how much of that was the real her, having never truly seen her beyond the moment of his birth, and how much he imagined. Did it really matter?

  To her side stood his father, Darius, and he, too, smiled at Sebastian. The leathered lines of his face had been replaced by smooth, tanned skin, the hands of time unwound. He looked as he had when Sebastian was but a child; proud, regal, and fearsome. There was a sense of vitality present Sebastian hadn’t realized had faded, though somehow he knew it had. His father’s face showed none of the worry Sebastian always attached to it. He always wondered if his father regretted the choices he made. Looking at the man’s face now, and remembering how it had been, Sebastian began to believe he had. He had gone to his grave, weathered and worn, and for the first time, Sebastian could recognize how weary he truly was.

  Sebastian looked upon them as their visages shifted and danced before his eyes, their forms appearing to flow as if a gentle breeze he co
uld not feel whispered at them. He reached out with a tentative hand, fearful he might scatter their ephemeral light were he to touch them. They seemed so far away, Sebastian unable to stand and go to their side. He felt mired to the earth, as though tendrils of green and brown clutched to him, keeping him from approaching.

  Sebastian struggled against the restraints as his parents smiled on, bathing him in their light. He could feel the moist earth clinging to him, spilling over his flesh as if it sought a way inside his very being. It was cold, a chill creeping along his extremities at its touch.

  His mother whispered something but he couldn’t hear her words, the whitewash of silence whipping them away before they could reach his ears. He yearned to hear her voice, the sound of it buried in the primordial depths of his memory, unrecognizable amidst the fog of his birth.

  A great rumble split the sky and the forms of his parents wavered under its pressure. Sebastian cried out, his own voice lost in the tumultuous space between them. His father gave a shallow bow, his smile growing wider as he stared intently at Sebastian. He could feel them fading, taking their love with them.

  Sebastian’s breath caught cold in his lungs, and he could taste the gritty earth that threatened to pull him under. The glimmers of Darius and Alise began to dim, their visages becoming blurred as the world beyond them brightened. They flickered, slowly becoming translucent. Sebastian pleaded for them to remain. They appeared as panes of glass, the light at their backs filtering through their forms in radiant streams, reflecting sorrow into his eyes.

  He fought against the cold hands that tugged at him, the wet air that pressed against his lips, trying to drown him. Soon his parents would be gone, torn from him once more. He felt his heart sputter, and heard the grinding dirge of stone upon stone, the vault of the sepulcher drawing shut. Cold, the weight of his loneliness was like an anchor upon his back, dragging him into the morbid depths of his soul. He reached out one last time as the lights of his parents broke apart, returning to their elemental forms and scattering headlong into the void.

  They were gone, and he knew he would never see them again. Bound to the earth and kept from following the lights, which teased him and faded away, just out of his reach, Sebastian gave in and let the ground swallow him whole. He opened his mouth and drew in a deep breath of the darkness that washed over him, filling his lungs with its shadow.

  If he could not go with them, he would find his own path there.

  Thirty-Eight

  Sebastian woke with a start. He didn’t know how long he’d slept; only that he had awakened cold and wet, with a mouthful of mud. The rain had come at some point during his slumber and had flooded his hideaway, sending him scrambling back into the woods, coughing the gritty wetness from his lungs.

  Lightning danced in the sky above and something in him stirred, though he knew not what it was. He could see the brilliant shimmers through the canopy, its leaves weighted down by the incessant downpour. Though he’d woken to a breath of water, the rain was cleansing as it washed over him.

  He peeled Shade’s stolen garb away and cast it into the crevice, needing it no longer. It had served its purpose. Naked, with only his sword in his hand, he left the assassin’s identity behind, likely to be washed away before the sun rose in the morning. He felt rested in body, though his heart still carried the burden of his father’s death.

  With nowhere he needed to be, for his revenge upon the witches was complete, Sebastian found himself headed back to where Darius had died. The torrential storm clearing the path of Red Guard and likely sending them scurrying for cover, he encountered no one on his way. After what seemed a lifetime of trudging through the mud and cloying humus with bare feet, he found the place where the Lord had struck his father down.

  Darius’ body lay as it had then, face to the earth, undisturbed, with only the blood rinsed away by the rain. Save for the puckered black line of ruined flesh that ran along his spine, he looked as though he were only sleeping, cleansed as he was. There was a peace that seemed to linger about him.

  Sebastian stumbled over to his father and fell down beside him. Sebastian turned him over and pulled him into his arms, the stiffness of death nearly gone from the old man’s limbs. He was pale, with a tint of blue, and cold to the touch, as he lay heavy on Sebastian. Decay had yet to set in, the rain having washed away the scent of what little had started. Sebastian could smell only wet hair and the leafy scent of the foliage that surrounded him.

  He clutched to his father and the tears returned, joining those of the heavens that streamed cold down his cheeks.

  “They’re dead, father…the witches who killed mother are dead. We killed them all,” he whispered through panted breaths he could barely catch. Though he couldn’t be certain of the Green Witch, he believed she could not have survived her wounds, the quicksilver fast in its fury. Besides, his father would know the truth of it and what had been done to avenge Alise.

  Their mission had ended.

  The thought was like opening a grave, the dust of what had been cast to the wind. Everything Sebastian had ever known, had trained for, lived for, was gone now; his purpose ended. His father had raised him to be a weapon of revenge, the sword of retribution for the wrong visited upon his mother. Now that the witches were dead, there was nothing left.

  He could hear his father’s voice in his head: Get used to it, boy. This is what warriors do. It was no comfort.

  Sebastian thought of the Lord and a simmering fire of anger warmed in his gut as he imagined striking the man down. Thoughts of Emerald followed soon after, and he wondered if he truly could kill Victor, leaving the girl alone in the world, stealing the father from their unborn child. He’d already killed her mother, as Deborah had his. Emerald would suffer already for his vengeance, as would the boy, who would one day grow to be a warlock. They were a kindred spirit, he and the child. He felt it in his heart their paths would cross, and the boy would know what he’d done. One of them would die that day, blood spilled for no cause that made any sense.

  Sebastian shook his head, wiping away his tears. He had no future he could see clearly, no direction. He was lost.

  He stood, drawing his father’s body into his arms. For the moment, there was nothing for him to do but honor his father’s memory and to give him a proper funeral.

  Darius cradled against him, Sebastian set his feet upon the path to the waste lands. It was where his father had taken him after Sebastian was born and his mother was slain; he felt it only right that it should be where he laid his father to rest. For Sebastian, it had been the only home he’d ever known.

  If there was to be peace for Darius’ spirit, he would find it there.

  Thirty-Nine

  Emerald sat within her quarters, what had once been her mother’s, and stared out the great window before her. Winter had seemingly come overnight, flurries of crystalline snowflakes dancing beyond the glass, twisting and swirling in the breeze. The panes frosted by the frigid temperatures outside, she could feel only the warmth of the fire that crackled in the hearth, and the heat coming from the bundle swathed and set in her lap.

  She looked down at the tiny baby that slept so quiet, its eyes squeezed tight against the waking world. His tiny nose twitched like a mouse’s, and Emerald felt a smile tugging at her lips. Despite her adventure, her son had been born in Corilea, where he belonged, and not even the Council had dared to defy his birth.

  “Valerius,” she spoke his name in a whisper. He whimpered quiet in his slumber, as though he knew he’d been spoken to, and went silent once more, burrowing deeper in to the blanket that eclipsed him.

  Emerald pulled him to her breast, feeling the life of him, his heartbeat thrumming against hers. He shifted into her, as if to be closer, while he continued to sleep, a tiny smile brightening his lips. Emerald let her gaze drift from her soft, pink son, back to the storm that flailed furious outside. Her smile fell away.

  As the current White Witch, her word had become law across the whole of Myn
istiria. Through Victor, using him as her mouthpiece and letting his conscious dictate the rest, she had undone much of what her mother had set in motion before her.

  Warlocks were no longer to be hunted, and children would no longer to be bled in the hunt for immortality. There had been much resistance from the remaining Council members who had grown fat upon the idea of eternal life. Though they’d capitulated at last, learning the extent her mother had gone to provide them with their succor, they gave in more out of fear of Victor than out of respect for Emerald’s decree or even the horror of the act. She was certain there would come a time when they acted against her, having tasted the fruit of eternal life.

  She had made many enemies on her return; far more than she’d made friends. It hadn’t been much of a surprise, her life among them before she became the White, a lesson in political corruption. Emerald knew who and what they were, her fellow council members by no choice of either. She knew the bad blood would surface soon enough.

  She sighed. She hadn’t wanted any of this. All she’d desired was to have her son in peace, to have Victor, and to live safe and happy beyond the petty politics of Corilea and the High Council. Instead, here she sat, mired in all the things she hated far deeper than she could ever have imagined. As the White Witch, a position she had never intended to press her claim for, she was in the center of it all, the target of the populace and the witches, and every creed in between.

  While her acts of kindness had endeared her to the majority of the people outside the great city’s walls, the rot and ruin left to her by her mother had been widespread and would be difficult to cut loose. Emerald worked to restore the realm to its past beauty, but the land had been scarred by fury and distrust, the blood of Deborah’s cruelty staining it deeply. There was much Emerald could not accomplish in this lifetime, let alone the next.