Henry Szabranski

by Witch of the Weave (html)

  “But then she came back. And she was changed.”

  An old woman who had still been listening nearby leaned forward. “Meghra takes.” She made a circular gesture above the top of her head and nodded. “She feeds. Feeds on us, now.”

  A man beside the woman pulled her back, obviously unhappy she had spoken. He glared at me with such an intense mixture of fear and loathing I had to look away. When I glanced back up, he and the woman were gone.

  I asked, “Where she now, this Meghra?”

  Idran pointed back toward the pass again. “Stays in her cave, weaves her strange patterns. Until she hungers.” He stood. “No need to worry. She does not come to the village anymore.” He nodded at a weave pod nearby. “This yours tonight. You safe. Tomorrow we talk more.” He joined a huddle of villagers that looked like they were determined to strip the last remnants of meat from the roasted carcass.

  We squeezed through the round opening of the pod Idran had indicated. A straw mattress lay on the floor, surrounded by stacked empty baskets that stank of river meat. But it reminded me of the nests we sometimes built in the Motherman, cozy and private. Skink collapsed on the bed.

  “World is bigger than we thought.” Her voice was soft.

  “Too big.” I eyed the wide-open horizon from the doorway. Night had long fallen, and the stars and a sliver of moon glittered in the clear sky. I shivered. Despite the firepits and the shelter of the pod, the air here was cooler than in the tunnel. I bent down to investigate a pile of blankets in one of the baskets.

  “I have to meet her,” Skink said.

  “Who?” But I knew who.

  “This witch. Meghra.”

  “Why?” But I knew why.

  “She’s what I’ve been sensing in the weave, I’m sure of it. Or if not, she knows what it is. Perhaps she found the patternmakers.”

  “They’re just a story.”

  She arched her eyebrow. “Like the clevers? Like this land we stand on?”

  I knew from the determined set of her mouth there was nothing I could say to change her mind. And . . . probably she was right. So far we had been crossing the weave without aim; only to move away from the cliffs and the mist and to find enough to eat, surviving day to day. But now we had new purpose. Or at least Skink had, and I knew better than to argue. At the very least it seemed that this new tribe—with its intricately woven pods and penned livestock and plentiful food and water—were ready to tolerate us. Yet it seemed odd, the strange mixture of celebration and revulsion I had seen. Hushed whispers, furtive looks, children pointing. They seemed glad of our arrival, or at least curious, but many also seemed to turn away from us. Too soon, I guessed, to understand the internal politics of this tribe . . . and perhaps we would have treated strangers much the same, back in the Motherman . . . another pair of mouths to feed, a burden until we proved ourselves otherwise.

  I stared at Creeper, huddled obediently beside Skink. It munched on spare weave shards. Was it my imagination or had it grown? The creature’s knobbly thorax was bigger than my fist now.

  “You are a witch,” I said, as I threw Skink a blanket from the pile.

  She glanced at me sharply. “Been called worse.”

  Spurned by most of our own tribe, and abandoned as a child by her original one. She must have heard plenty of insults in her lifetime. I immediately regretted my words.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way . . . ”

  “What way?”

  “I meant, I wasn’t serious. I . . . I’m sorry.”

  She glared at me and snapped the blanket in the air before letting it settle over the mattress. Creeper bunched its legs as if it were about to launch itself at me.

  There was no room in the hut other than to sit or lie down beside Skink. I considered leaving but she patted the straw next to her. “Come on.”

  I watched the light of the fires dying outside through the weave of the blanket covering the entrance. Enjoying the warmth of Skink’s stiff body beside mine. Slowly, sensing her and myself relax.

  I tried not to think about how much a fool I was. Tried not to worry about Idran, and Meghra, and being at the mercy of total strangers. To think about the unyielding ground beneath me and the wide-open sky and blazing stars pinwheeling directly above. I would have to get used to leaving the weave behind, I knew that. Just . . . not quite yet, surely.

  Just as I was finally drifting off to sleep, Skink nudged me.

  “Hmm?”

  “They’re right, you know,” she whispered.

  Confused, half asleep, “’Bout what?”

  “I am a witch.”

  * * *

  We slept in, both of us, strangely comforted by the sounds of the village awakening around us: children playing, shouting, crying; animals barking and braying, chickens screeching, adults chiding. The sounds of family. The sounds of life, and of belonging.

  I didn’t know how I felt about becoming a member of another tribe. It’s not something I had ever thought of before. Would these villagers, with their painted skin and dour manners, even want us to join them? Or would they only usher us on? It seemed they had plenty to eat, and plenty room. Perhaps we would be welcome, once we got to know each other.

  Drowsing beside Skink, her hand inadvertently on mine, not wanting to move and wake her even though painful tingles spread through my arm from it being in one position too long, I felt a confusing mixture of contentment and melancholy. The world and the people we had known had been brutally stripped away, and yet here we still were, alive and together, survivors of it all. If only Ma and Da had been able to see us now.

  There was the sound of running footsteps and rapping on the side of the hut. A young boy’s sweaty face peered around the entrance blanket. “Breakfast?” He offered a pair of stacked bowls and made pouring motions with an earthenware jug trembling in his other hand. I took the bowls and held them as he poured a pale liquid from the jug. “Drink, drink,” he urged. “Is sweet.”

  I took a suspicious sip. Sweet and sour, fermented milk mixed with honey, perhaps. “Is good,” I said to the boy, who smiled in what seemed like relief. He ducked his head and quickly ran from the hut. I handed the other bowl to Skink, who stood and gulped its contents down.

  “Today we find out more about this Meghra,” she said.

  I sighed and finished off the last of the milk. Despite the initial sweetness, there was a bitter, chalky aftertaste and the inside of my mouth and my lips tingled. “Thought you might say that.” I stumbled suddenly, and looking down I saw I had almost trodden upon Creeper.

  “Skink, you need to stop feeding him,” I said. The weaver had grown bigger overnight. Its body was almost the size of my head, its legs as long as my forearm.

  “There’s something they’re not telling us,” Skink said, frowning. She swayed, unsteady on her feet. “I think,” she passed a hand over her eyes. “I think . . . ”

  “What?” I blinked. “What d’you think?” She seemed to blur before me.

  “Think they lied.”

  Her legs crumpled beneath her. I tried to catch her, but my arms seemed heavier and larger than the Motherman’s. I could not move, could not turn, even as the hut’s straw-covered floor tilted upward and slammed me in the face.

  I watched, an observer trapped in the cave of my own skull, as Creeper jumped upon Skink’s fallen body. She twitched but otherwise did not move, as its legs and feelers danced over her flesh.

  The hut’s entrance blanket was pulled aside. Light and then shadow spilled over us. A sandaled foot kicked Creeper into the corner, where it fell into one of the baskets, curled up as if dead.

  Unable to move, every moment sinking deeper into a sickly darkness, I was helpless as we were seized and dragged out of the hut.

  * * *

  “Why.”

  My lips and mouth, still numb, slowly returned to life.

  “Why.”

  Idran’s swirl-covered face hovered into view. Fat black flies circled his head. He avoided look
ing into my eyes as he checked my bonds were tight. (They were.)

  “Rather you than us, my unlucky friend.”

  The journey had been a blur of rough jolts and hard, ever-changing grips upon my body; chattering voices, half-snatched conversations—“Such a blessing”—“Andar will be relieved”—“Still think we should save one ’til later.” Bright sky and dark ground lurched before my eyes and only served to sicken me more. Eventually the movement and sound reached a crescendo and then retreated, and only then, when I could only hear a single set of crunching footsteps and the soughing of the rotten-smelling wind, did I manage to turn my head and look around me. Then I wished I hadn’t.

  I was tied upright to a thick pole or stave of some kind. Skink similarly bound a little ahead of me. We were outside the village, up the cinder slope toward the pass. Sharp-ridged, bare hills rose to either side.

  Around us, bodies piled carelessly in the dirt. Crows and worms rooted amongst the sticklike bones and leathery bags of skin. Teeth-lined gaping mouths, slitted nostrils and eyes. The tops of heads missing, sliced open, empty as old eggshells, lined by blowflies.

  The stench.

  “Meghra will come soon,” Idran said.

  I struggled to find words to express my rage and fear. Only a mewling, groaning sort of noise emerged.

  “Do not think too badly of us, stranger.” Idran remained impassive. “If we do not offer tribute, then twice as many are taken. If we run, we are hunted. We have no choice, as you see.”

  Skink squirmed in her ropes to look over her shoulder. “No worry, Percher.” Her words still slurred. “Not afraid. Me witch, too.”

  Idran gave a sad nod. “Maybe so. Who knows? If we could stop Meghra we would. But we cannot.”

  With a final vicious tightening of the knots around my wrist, he walked out of my field of vision and was gone.

  I shouted after him. Cursed him and his tribe. It was as futile as insulting the brainless dead at our feet.

  It did not stop me.

  Skink hung limp upon her post. Silent. Waiting.

  Only wisps of cloud scarred the brightening sky, but the earth was dark here, the rock-strewn soil densely packed, with little vegetation. I still found the sight and sensation of the flat, nonwoven surface fascinating and disturbing. Such binary distinction between ground and sky, with hardly any degree of ambiguity or complexity; you were either on the ground, or, with vastly greater difficulty, above or below it, nothing in between. No opportunity to burrow down, shimmy into crevices, find shelter. It made me queasy, thinking about how exposed I was, how far I would have to run to hide from any threat . . .

  The burn from my bound hands reminded me even that was no longer an option.

  Skink’s next words only deepened the sick feeling in my stomach.

  “She comes.”

  As one, the crows and flies swarming over the abandoned flesh of the dead rose into the sky and circled away.

  A dark sun rose over the crest of the ridge. At first I could not properly resolve its shape or understand its scale, as it writhed and lurched upon its many-jointed limbs toward us. Then I realized it was a face, a head, carried upon giant, insect-like legs that splayed from a trunk-like neck. As it crawled closer its size became clear: easily four times my height, more if you counted the huge mane of snakelike, writhing weave atop it. I frantically pulled and twisted my hands and feet, but Idran’s cursed bonds only cut deeper into my flesh.

  “What have we here? New treats?”

  To my surprise, the giantess’ voice was that of a frail old woman’s, and no louder. The strange dissonance between the scale of the body and the sound she made only terrified me more. A woven forelimb, like a giant crab’s claw, easily shoved aside the piled corpses. Meghra reared over Skink’s bound form. A huge mesh face peered down at her, all swiveling eyes and cavernous horror of a mouth, cackling, “Different, different, that’s what you are.”

  “Leave her alone!” I shouted.

  Meghra immediately shifted her attention to me. It was then, as she became my entire darkened world, that I realized her great mass was nothing more than a ghoulish mask, a giant intricate contraption within which the real Meghra lay buried, a hunched old woman deep in the chest of the giant puppet she wore like a costume around her.

  She cackled again, a gleeful, evil sound. “No, not you.”

  * * *

  I woke with such a pain throbbing in my shoulders and neck; the oblivion of death was preferable. There was no sign of Meghra, and no sign of Skink. The rope that had tied her to her stave had fallen to the ground, torn and bloodstained. Only the brain-scourged dead surrounded me.

  With growing despair I realized my own bonds remained intact, that I was still tied firmly to my pole. I must have passed out, or been hit by one of Meghra’s tentacles. Was she behind me? Was I about to be snatched—or worse, my head peeled open? I twisted and turned, ignoring the pain of moving my neck, but there was only the open sky above me. Eventually I dared to cry out—barely more than a croak, really—but there was no answer.

  I had been abandoned, rejected by Meghra. Skink hadn’t been so lucky.

  I dangled there for what seemed like an age, alternating between rage and despair. There was no answer to my increasingly desperate cries; only the mocking calls of the returning crows and the soughing of the wind. There was no sign of Idran or the villagers. The cowards.

  I spotted dark movement from the corner of my eye and for a moment I feared that Meghra had returned, or perhaps the crows had summoned enough courage to approach me . . . but it was a familiar mixture of jerky and smooth motion.

  “Hey, Creeper.”

  The weaver crawled over the piled bodies toward me, one limb not working quite right, but still capable of climbing. I was surprised by how glad I was to see this creature. A friendly, familiar presence despite its completely alien nature. The weaver reached my bound feet, and began to climb my legs. I had a sudden moment of doubt. How big and heavy it had grown. What was it doing?

  Strong, sharp legs gripped my knees, my thighs, pincers closed round my back—snick, snick. My numbed fingers immediately began to tingle as my hands came free. Snick, snick, my legs, too.

  I immediately stumbled down the mound of bodies, my feet catching bony ridges and squelching in unspeakable cavities. When I reached the bare ground I fell to my knees and retched up the remnants of that morning’s treacherous breakfast. The wide-open sky reeled above me, pressed me down into the hard, unrelenting wall of dirt beneath me. I felt crushed between the two. Insignificant, as helpless as an insect.

  Swallowing hard, I forced myself to my traitorous feet. Was that how Skink felt, all the time, feeling like the ground would rush up and punch her at any moment?

  How long was I out for—surely not long? But there was no sign of anyone on the saddleback ridge apart from Creeper and me. The cowardly villagers had at least the decency not to witness our fate.

  Where was Skink? Where had Meghra taken her?

  Was she even still alive?

  The panic and confusion that threatened to overwhelm me quickly faded. Right before my feet—clear tracks and furrows left in the dirt.

  Creeper was already leading the way.

  * * *

  There was a canyon-like depression just over the pass. Not really that far, though it felt it as I staggered beneath the glaring sky. Was it the residual effects of the poison the villagers had fed us that made my head swim so?

  Creeper skittered before me, surprisingly fast even with its damaged leg, eager to find its lost mistress.

  As we approached the canyon I slowed. My heart pounded. I thought I would be sick again as I crept toward the edge and leaned over, fearing I would peer down and find Skink with her skull already torn open. Expecting to see her, desperately hoping to see her, I was still shocked by what I saw.

  At the bottom of the long dried out, half-collapsed gorge, she was there. Upright, swaying, her arms outstretched before Meghra’s giant, h
ollow face. At first I thought Skink’s hair had grown hugely and billowed out from her head. But it was tendrils from the giantess that were swarming around her skull. Pushing deep into it. Skink’s eyes were shut, but I could see their lids trembling. As if she were dreaming.

  Floating up, Meghra’s manic cackle. “What’s in there? What pattern do you hide? Now let me in, child.”

  I didn’t stop to think. I ran shouting down the scree-littered slope toward her, no idea what I would do. Would it damage her if I simply tried to tear her free? I didn’t care. Anything to stop her brain being lifted out of her head.

  Meghra’s tentacles reared up before me. Before I knew what was happening they had curled around my arms and waist and tightened. My feet were lifted from the ground as if I were no more than a doll. From deep within Meghra’s complex, animated construct of weave, came the old woman’s voice, “There is nothing you can do! She’s mine now.”

  “No!” I shouted, even as the grip on me tightened and the breath was crushed out of me. Skink’s eyes flickered open, closed again. Maybe she could still hear me. “Fight her! I know you can!”

  Laughter from the old woman and a wordless groan from Skink. Her head lolled beneath the dark crown of tendrils and a suffocating wave of fear and despair swept over me. I was losing her, and my own life was in equal danger.

  “You’re stronger than her!” It had to be true. Everything we had been through together, Skink always smarter, always tougher than anyone I knew. “Remember! You moved the Motherman. You made the mountain walk! This—” I waved a temporarily free hand at the grinning giantess. “This is nothing!”

  Another moan. But this time Skink’s eyes fluttered open.

  “That’s it! Show her!”

  A skittering movement across the canyon floor. Creeper, limbs flailing at Meghra’s weave. I didn’t know what it could achieve, but it was at least trying to distract the witch.