The Witch and Warlock MEGAPACK ®: 25 Tales of Magic-Users

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “What of the poison you feed these people, Lucian Leroi?” Aunt Jenny cried out from the other side of the fire.

  The crowd began to murmur angrily. “Be tolerant toward our elderly sister,” Lucian stilled them. “She may have done this in all innocence at first. I perceive that this one,” he held out his hand to Gladys, “repents having fetched those ‘medicines’ for her mother. Is that not so, my child?”

  Gladys’ opulent bosom began to heave. “I did it because they eased her pains, but I wasn’t the only one. Muriel was guilty, too.”

  Her sister shot her an angry look.

  “Both of you acted out of compassion,” he said gently. “Tell me, did you ever see the Indian woman making strange signs over her potions or uttering magical words?”

  “Oh no, never—that is, not until the rehearsal tonight,” Muriel exclaimed.

  “We-ell,” Gladys groped to please, “there was a faraway look in her eyes at times.”

  “What about the love potion you asked for, Glad?” Muriel had her revenge.

  “Ah, Gladys, even you?” Lucian asked sadly.

  Now the tears came. “I—I was desperate. I found Dana tending her goat—she asked him if he thought I should have it.”

  Sickened, I remembered Dana’s whimsical way with Caper.

  “And did he—this goat—answer?”

  “He seemed angry. He hit her with his head and she fell down and worshiped him.” Oh, Caper and his antics! If only Greg were here, he could tell how Caper knocked him down.

  “Worshiped him?” The minister reeled with horror.

  “She talked to him in a strange tongue…

  Scolded him in Winnebago, no doubt.

  “And did she give you the potion?”

  “No, she said what I desired was not to be—that y…

  Lucian stopped her mouth with his fingers. “That is enough, my child. Your secrets are your own. Praise the Lord; He protected you.

  “So,” he continued, “we have heard testimony that this woman dispensed magic potions and bowed down to a goatish god. Hear now what the Lord saith, ‘Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed… There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or daughter to pass through the fire.”

  “That’s Submit!” Elspeth screamed. “She put my son through the fire! There’s your witch! Why isn’t she with the accused?”

  Her question foundered as Homer Redd and Lester Jacobs, carrying shotguns, came up the path. “We went to the witch farm,” Homer reported, “but they must have had their sabbat somewhere else. We didn’t find them anywhere.”

  “Probably taken off somewhere with the baby,” Lester added.

  Charity came over to me. “I—I hope they find Cari, Mitti. I know I haven’t been very friendly…hate me if you wish…but don’t be too hard on Damon, please. He’s obsessed with the idea of restoring Peacehaven. He cares about nothing else—not even me. He says I’m weak and neurotic. I don’t think he ever really loved me. He thought he was marrying a fortune. I wish I didn’t love him, but I do. I shouldn’t go on like this—maybe I really am neurotic—I just wanted you to know I’m sorry.”

  But my anguish had turned to unrelenting rage. “Oh, yes, you’re sorry! You had no qualms about trying to steal Rowan from me or trying to drive me and my children from our home! I suppose you were in on those phone calls, too!”

  She lowered her eyes. “I didn’t make any. I didn’t like the idea, but Damon and the others insisted on them. Iris was most often your caller.”

  She was a miserable spectacle crouching there, the tears running down her cheeks, but her very passivity infuriated me. Why didn’t she scream at me, recount my shortcomings—anything to give me license to let loose my full wrath?

  “Charity!” I sneered. “What mockery your name!” I taunted, hoping to provoke a retort, but she remained mute, fueling the rage that boiled within me, building up a power that forced my lips open. “May God str—” the valve closed on my anger and choked the words back as Lucian took up his sermon again.

  “‘There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or daughter to pass through the fire or useth divination…or an enchanter or a witch…or a wizard or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.’

  “‘Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith, neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto.’ Did not this woman here lie down before her beast?”

  “That she did!” Gladys affirmed.

  “I don’t believe it!” Esther’s courage flared momentarily.

  “Are you her disciple, woman?” Lucian thundered.

  “I? Oh, no!” Her courage had flickered out. The girls had gone into spasms again—all but Rowan. “Stop it, Carol!” Esther shrieked, grabbing her daughter’s arm. At once the girl desisted and so did the others as, one by one, they touched the distraught woman.

  “Do you confess your guilt?” Lucian demanded.

  She fell to her knees, her hands covering her face. “I do,” she whispered, sobbing. So this is what Mary Esty meant by confessing witches who belied themselves to save their lives!

  “Praise the Lord!” the minister rejoiced. “We’ve snatched a soul from the brink of hell!”

  More steps on the path. One of Good’s men reported, “No sign of the baby. Irv’s gone for his dogs, and Scotty and the Cloyces are bringing Dr. Brun and Mother Carrier.”

  “My mother?” Damon exclaimed. “Why her? This is too much strain for her.”

  “Didn’t Lucian say anyone who’s trafficked with the Devil?” Tyler Bishop shouted.

  “But she’s my mother,” the doctor said through gritted teeth.

  “What difference does that make?” Bishop persisted. He would have said more, but the Cloyce brothers and Dr. Brun arrived, carrying Damon’s mother, who moaned as they laid her down next to Aunt Jenny. Dr. Brun knelt by her side and listened to her heart, felt her swollen ankles and turned to Damon.

  “Do you have any digitalis for IV injection, doctor?”

  “I have digoxin.” Damon took a hypodermic syringe and an ampoule of the medication from his bag; Dr. Brun administered the shot.

  “I want to move her out of the smoke,” Damon continued. “She’s having difficulty breathing.” Ignoring protests, the two doctors carried her over to the “sheep” side of the fire.

  “She was fine before we left the house,” Dr. Brun said. “I had just returned and knew nothing about the kidnapping until these fellows burst in with their guns and dragged us up here.”

  Mother Carrier was regaining consciousness and her chest rales had subsided. Elspeth confronted Dr. Brun. “So you’d just returned—from your coven, no doubt. What did you do with the baby?”

  Again she was thwarted, this time by the arrival of Scotty Buckley, loaded with boxes and the wicker boat frame. “We found these in the wizard’s room,” he told them, depositing Dr. Brun’s precious specimens in a jumble on the ground.

  Rosalind Bishop picked up the frame. “What’s this?”

  “That,” said Iris, “is part of a witch’s cradle, a device for meditation. The witch suspends himself in it. This one is broken.”

  “She’s lying. I’ve seen that before,” I spoke up. “It’s a boat frame. Dr. Brun found it…

  A warning flash in Dr. Brun’s eye stopped me from betraying the secret of the cave! Then the warning turned to agony as Lucian took the frame from Rosalind and tossed it into the fire.

  Elspeth ripped open another box. “There’s nothing in here but old bones!”

  “Into the flames with those, too!” Lucian ordered.

  One by one,
all of Dr. Brun’s painstakingly collected specimens went into the fire. I turned my head, unable to bear the hurt in his eyes.

  “You knew these were sorcerers’ devices, Submit,” Lucian rebuked me.

  He turned to another marker in his bible. “You have all seen the mark of the beast—or Devil—upon this Indian woman,” he reminded the crowd. “John says in Revelation: ‘And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast…these were…cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone!’”

  Something burst out of the bushes. People gasped and cringed, but it was Greg, his wig askew and the hem of his robe torn. He held up a tiny pink dress, ripped and bloodied. I felt myself sink to the ground. Damon lifted me and forced me to stand.

  “This was lying near the cave,” Greg panted.

  Lucian took the garment from Greg’s hand and raised it over his head in the firelight. When I saw the bloodstains, I sagged again. Damon pushed my head down between my knees until I was conscious once more and with consciousness came reason. Cariad hadn’t been wearing that dress today! She’d had on blue overalls—and Dana would have put a snowsuit on her. That dress had been missing from the outside line since the day Jonah had slipped the snapshot under my door.

  “Has anyone investigated the cave?” Lucian asked.

  “A couple of deputies had just finished when I got there,” Greg replied. “They found nothing.”

  “How come they didn’t see this?” Homer asked incredulously.

  “I don’t know.”

  But I thought I did. Someone had dropped it where Greg would find it! But did Jonah have cunning like that?

  I tried to tell them, tried to scream out that someone had planted this, but it was impossible to be heard over the frenzy that seized them—not only the girls this time, but the older women and some of the men—as well. They linked their arms and began to sway, like the witch shadows in the cave, intoning mesmerically in the night as Iris led them in their chant.

  Higher and higher rose their keening, their bodies contorted, their eyes rolling, as the Black Man of my dream read from his Black Book. “The hand of Satan is upon them,” Lucian shouted to Greg, who appeared to nod in agreement. “Who are those that afflict them?”

  A blast from Caleb’s shotgun brought the chant to an abrupt end. “What’s wrong, Caleb?” Lucian asked the hardware dealer, who was waving his gun and cursing.

  “Jim Willard’s disappeared. Sneaked out when I wasn’t looking.”

  “That’s a hell of a note,” Homer growled. “If you couldn’t keep an eye on ’em, why didn’t you ask for help?”

  “You were supposed to assist without being asked,” Caleb snapped back. “Did you think you’d gone off duty?”

  “I suppose no one knows when he escaped,” Tyler put in.

  Caleb pointed his gun at the prisoners. “I bet they know.”

  They sat there impassive; then Darcy chuckled. “You didn’t think we’d tell, did you? Besides, we’ve been enjoying your show.”

  “Silence, woman!” Lucian thundered. “Who among you afflicted these girls and these women?”

  There was no answer but the hissing of the dwindling flames. Andy Cloyce threw more wood on the fire to rebuild it. Hank had the gasoline jug ready to soak the boards, but the rotten wood caught by itself, so he put the almost full bottle out in the dark beyond the range of the fire.

  Now, out of the lull, came a slithering sound. My blood turned cold as I saw the girls squirming across the ground toward the accused.

  “Touch us! Heal us! Take back your devils!” they pleaded, pawing the prisoners, one after the other, but this time it did them no good. And on they came, circling the fire on their bellies until they faced me, their tongues lolling from their mouths, their long hair sweeping the ground. At a signal from Iris, Rowan sprang up and confronted me. “Why don’t you tell them the truth, Mother? Tell them what you are. You’re one of them, aren’t you? You wanted Cari dead, didn’t you? Am I next?” She whirled onto the others. “She killed my father! She cursed him and he died. She killed him; she killed him! Make her tell you what she did with Cari—make her tell you!”

  My hand flew to my throat at the horror of it. Hopelessly I saw their hands do likewise. Elspeth rushed at me, froth on her lips. “Didn’t I say so? She killed my boy! He left my house that morning, so handsome, so full of life.” Her eyes were mad in the firelight. “Make her confess!” She pointed to the two doors that had been taken down from the shack to use in the pressing scene. “Crush the truth out of her! Press her!”

  During her tirade some of the men had been fastening a rope to an overhanging branch of the oak tree and passing the noose around Dana’s neck…

  Now they advanced on me, carrying the doors. Dr. Brun sprang in front of me, but Caleb clipped him on the head with the gun stock and he went down heavily. I was thrown to the ground and dragged toward the prisoners. I struggled to free myself, screaming to Greg to help me, but the man standing tall above me, still in his judicial robe, his gavel raised, was not Gregory Towne. Then the heavy door hid his face from me entirely.

  It came, the first rock crashing down on the wood—not much more than a pebble—then a boulder, striking just above my ribs and sending pain racketing through my body—another—and another—then a shower of them, driving splinters into me. I thought of the woman Christ saved from stoning—oh, Jesus, help me! My lungs flattened with the weight—blood burst from a thousand places…

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Greg’s voice, and someone clawing at the rocks and trying to drag them away.

  “She may have had enough.” Lucian’s voice. “Rip away that loose board by her head and give her a chance to recant.”

  “She’s innocent!” Greg screamed, struggling futilely to break away from someone restraining him. “I swear she’s innocent. Kill me! I tell you this is murder!”

  “Not if it is ordained by God!” Lucian retorted. He leaned down and wiped my face with Cari’s dress. “Do you confess, my child? God can still forgive you.”

  I retched and turned my head away, seeing a figure in a goatish mask…

  He leaned down further and whispered in my ear, “Don’t you know me yet? Why must you always obstruct me?”

  I peered into his face—the many faces he’d worn throughout the ages. Memories came rushing into my disordered brain, phantasms which receded before I could sort them out…the man who would be God, sinking lower each time around… Phaeton in his chariot… Icarus on melting wings… Simon Magus plummeting from his tower… Samuel Parris playing God to the slaves and with his parishioners’ lives… Lucian on the chimney rock…

  Now he was on his knees beside me. “I can save you,” he repeated. “Only submit to me!” Then, in a voice audible to the rest, “Confess, Submit, if you would save yourself.”

  “We are waiting—Submit,” Lucian persisted.

  Submit—submit—submit! Through the pain glazing my eyes I could see their faces ringing me with hate. Their eyes were black slits in the firelight, but here and there I could pick them out… Tituba standing in Elspeth’s place… Master Thomas Putnam—Damon… Dorcas…

  “Don’t you know us, Submit?”

  “Yes, your name is Legion,” I moaned, “and you have entered into swine.”

  They clapped their hands and danced around. “You didn’t guess! You lost your chance. We are all Satan, didn’t you know?”

  They screeched their loathing as the vision faded. Lucian rose and silenced them. Holding his hands high, he cried, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!”

  As if triggered by his words, the gasoline jug, trailing a lighted wick, came hurtling out of the dark, splashing the small group around Dana with a million droplets. Flames fol
lowed in their wake. I was protected by the door, but the others’ clothes were ablaze, screams splitting the night. I saw Marion, his hair and beard alight, push Darcy onto free ground, rolling her over and over until the flames were extinguished. But by now he was a torch. Rhoda managed to get out of the fire, and Dr. Bran caught Darrell’s hand, pulling him to Rhoda’s side. They lay there beating their blazing garments. Then Dr. Bran dragged Aunt Jenny out of the flames and tried vainly to breathe life into her. Greg plunged into the fire, had to retreat to cast off his smoldering robe, then into the inferno again in an attempt to reach Dana, only to be driven back, then try again.

  Before the fire was fully upon her, Dana’s voice was heard above the shrieks and groans of the dying. “Maoona forgive them! As a sign, let the river be turned back from Peacehaven…

  A spasm of coughing racked her. Lifting up her bound hands, she cried: “Hay-nink-lra!”

  That was all. The flimsy platform had mercifully burned out from under her and the rope spared her the torture of the flames.

  At the moment her body stiffened with the jerk of the rope, the ground rocked beneath us. A deathly quiet descended on the people of Peacehaven, who clung to each other in horror. Not even in Salem had witches been burned! Then, in the silence, I heard the thin wail of a child. Quentin burst into the circle with Cariad in his arms!

  The door was lifted from me and Greg’s arms were around me, supporting me, for I knew I was hurt, yet I was divorced from the pain in this moment of joy and tragedy. Rowan had taken Cari from Quentin and was regarding me with a strange, unreadable expression. Cariad reached out her arms to me, but I hadn’t the strength to lift her. I could only touch her cheeks and her lips and her sturdy little body, assuring myself that she, at least, was unharmed.