A Nameless Witch

25

Wyst handled his humbtingencounter very poorly. It didn't show in an obvious way. Anyone else would've seen only a brooding, determined champion, but I felt his sullen annoyance with his own powerlessness. He stared straight ahead, eyes squinted into slits, lips pursed tightly, jaw throbbing. All subtle signs. But to my eyes, his moping was impossible to miss. I would've reassured him, but he was right. He was no threat to Soulless Gustav.

A Sorcerer Incarnate need not fear an army of White Knights. I wasn't certain he should even fear me. Soulless Gustav wasn't invulnerable. Nor did his terrible madness have much chance of spreading across the whole world. Magic did rather enjoy the world, and the magic was stronger than Soulless Gustav, Incarnate or not. I assumed even now, fate was preparing for another to confront the sorcerer should I meet the horrible death Ghastly Edna had prophesied. And another should my successor do the same. Destiny was constantly setting designs in motion, most of which would never achieve fruition. Fate was an energetic child with a short attention span.

"What I don't understand," remarked Gwurm, "is that if this is all Soulless Gustav's illusion, then why doesn't he just turn it all to quicksand or a volcano or something like that and kill us right now?"

"Don't give him any ideas," Newt said.

"It isn't as simple as that," I replied. "The sorcery that crafted this is powerful, but such a creation is delicate by its very nature. Right now, it is a flea on the dragon of reality. As long as the flea remains unnoticed, it can slowly sap the dragon's strength. Should its sting be felt, it will be crushed with casual impunity.

"Every bit of sorcery takes that chance. Soulless Gustav is a great sorcerer. He has created a phantom realm most could never comprehend. But his world is a bloated, hungry parasite, and I imagine a tremendous amount of his magic is spent whispering lullabies in the dragon's ear. It would only take one mistake, one phantom too many at the wrong moment, to wake reality and bring all his plans to a crushing end. His power is at its most dangerous here, but it is also at its most vulnerable."

"It can't be both," Newt said.

"Magic thrives on contradiction."

"Like accursed beauty, for example."

His observation didn't bother me as much as I would've expected. I didn't want to be beautiful, but I found I didn't mind as I once had.

Newt balked. "I don't believe it. He didn't act like a man with a lot to fear."

"That's because he doesn't have a lot to fear. We are only a small threat."

Wyst of the West exhaled sharply

"That's comforting to know," said Newt.

"The truth is rarely comforting. If it were, lies would not be as well received as they usually are."

"So why didn't you just do us a favor and lie?"

"Witches often don't tell the whole truth, but we don't lie."

"Maybe you should think about making an exception."

"Very well. Soulless Gustav is an overrated sorcerer. His power pales beside my own. Even now, he is surely trembling in his iron tower, assuming he has one, and contemplating throwing himself on a sword." I stroked Newt's neck with my thumb. "Feel better?"

"Not really."

"Actually, I do," replied Gwurm. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

The landscape in Soulless Gustav's kingdom slowly began to change. I imagined sorcerers, like witches, were never in complete control of their magic, and everything around us was merely Soulless Gustav's will given substance. Steadily, the world grew more menacing. The grass yellowed. Twisted, sinister grimaces appeared in trees. Heaving, gray clouds darkened the sky. A chill wind swept across the plains. I was gratefol for the dark and the cold, but there was no mistaking Soulless Gustav's hostility reflected in his creation. I thought some time on whether this hostility was founded in genuine fear or mere offense that we'd dared to disturb his empty empire. I didn't decide which.

The road came to a sudden end. It grew dark as dusk. We traveled onward, and the fields thickened. When the grass reached Gwurm's shoulder, I sensed the approach of our third trial. It wasn't found in an omen, but in good judgment. Soulless Gustav wouldn't tolerate our presence for long. We were an affront to his power just by being here.

"I don't like this," said Wyst. "Perhaps we should turn back and find an easier route."

"There is no easier route," I explained. "There is only one way to Soulless Gustav, and that is the way he has given us."

The sharp blades scraped my legs. It was fortunate that trolls possessed thick skin as Gwurm didn't seem to notice. Wyst's horse trotted on with only an annoyed snort. The field reached my shoulder atop Gwurm's back and was soon over my head. If Soulless Gustav was intending to separate us then we would be separated. But as we emerged from the grass, I knew this wasn't his plan. The fields ended without warning into a circle of bare earth.

On the opposite end, figures broke through the grass. I recognized them immediately for they were us. They were akin to the shadows that had tried to steal my reality, but Soulless Gus­tav wasn't resorting to the same trick as before. Magic dislikes repetition as I was certain any self-respecting sorcerer did.

We stopped, and our doubles halted. They were exactly like us in formation and stance, every nuance of movement. But they were gray, lifeless duplicates, possessed of lusterless color and a certain lack of detail. I noticed it in Wyst's pleasing face and its absence in his copy. The features were still there: the chewy lips, the nibblesome ears, the bitable nose. But they were somehow not the same. It had much to do with his expressions or the lack of them. All the doubles wore blank faces. Even Penelope's copy carried its bristles in a limp, languid manner.

Wyst drew his sword. His duplicate did the same. I climbed from Gwurm's shoulders as my double descended from his double.

"What manner of sorcery is this?" asked Wyst.

I closed my eyes and listened to the magic. It whispered ever so softly, despite Soulless Gustav's desire to suppress it. We were to be given a fighting chance.

"Effigies. They've been sent to be killed by us."

"Now isn't the time for riddles," said Newt.

"No riddles. They're reflections of sorcery, but we are also reflections of them. If they die, we die."

"You're saying we can't kill them?"

"We certainly can, but we'll be taking our own lives."

"This is a cowardly assault." Wyst jumped from his horse. His double reproduced the move exactly, yet somehow lacking the grace. "Come out and face us, sorcerer! Unless you are afraid!"

Despite Wyst's heartfelt valor. Soulless Gustav didn't materialize to meet the challenge.

We stood there for some time. We watched our effigies. They, in turn, watched us.

"Maybe we can get around them," suggested Gwurm, but this idea was quickly put aside. The effigies matched us move for move, as perfect as a mirror. They couldn't be outmaneuvered. As long as we didn't advance, neither did they, and it gave us time to think on the problem.

"What if we just maim them?" asked Newt. "Would we be maimed in return?"

"They will not be maimed. Injuries which we could survive will kill them. They're made to die."

"I've got it," said Gwurm. "If we don't attack them, they won't attack us. Right?"

I shook my head. "They have been sent to be killed."

"How are we supposed to defeat foes made to be de­feated?" asked Newt.

"We let them defeat us?" theorized Gwurm.

Again, I shook my head. "They will kill us if they can."

"Can't you do something with your magic?" Newt said. "Like make them just disappear."

"Such sorcery is beyond simple unmaking."

A perceptible tension rose in my companions except for Gwurm, who accepted the situation with his usual pragmatism. The troll could've been a splendid witch. Wyst dealt with his stress as he always did: silent, steely resolve. Newt, however, wasn't about to allow his annoyance to go unspoken.

"Well, this is just unfair."

The observation seemed absurd coming from a demon, yet it was perfectly understandable. To demons, anything they dislike is unfair. He'd made similar remarks about such diverse injustices as not being able to fly and not being allowed to slay any mortal that struck him wrong. Which was every mortal. Like all these perceived inequities, he was mistaken. I wanted to kill Soulless Gustav. He wanted to kill me. There were no rules beyond that, and even if I found myself confronted with an apparently unbeatable trial, I couldn't fault him for that.

Out of frustration and boredom, Newt and Gwurm experimented with our effigies. My familiar did a silly dance just to watch his duplicate do the same. The troll exchanged his feet and hands and walked around upside-down. They taunted the effigies with crossed eyes and stuck out tongues. The faces were the only element not copied, remaining blank. Wyst did nothing. He just stood there, weapon in hand, jaw clenched, and full of heroic determination and a pinch of moping.

Newt snarled. "I don't really walk like that, do I?"

"Not quite," Gwurm replied. "There's an impalpable oddity that the effigy can't quite duplicate."

The duck sat. "So if they kill us, we die, but if we kill them, we die. I'm out of ideas."

"Not every problem can be solved through violence."

He turned up his bill. "Most can. It's the rare dilemma that can't find resolution with a quick disemboweling."

"If you'd care to go and disembowel yourself," suggested Gwurm, "go right ahead. We'll just stand here and watch."

"I don't see you coming up with any solutions."

Gwurm shrugged. "Alas, I'm mostly a problem basher my­self."

Newt grinned smugly, finding vindication in Gwurm's admission.

Soulless Gustav may have finally come up with a trial to end my quest. I pondered if death by effigy qualified as horrible. I didn't think so, but there was an undeniable awfolness to the paradox the sorcerer had put us in. We could either sit here forever or go and meet our deaths.

"You're the witch," said Newt. "You're supposed to handle obstacles of this sort. Don't you have any ideas?"

"Perhaps I do. Stay here."

"Where are you going?" asked Newt and Wyst simultaneously.

"To have a talk with myself."

I walked forward, and my effigy moved to meet me in the center of our arena. When she got closer, I observed a flatness in her. She seemed not quite three-dimensional, and when we came within scant feet, I noticed a shiny quality, almost as if she were made of colored glass.

Penelope slipped from my hand. She angled a threatening tilt at her duplicate.

I greeted my effigy with a slight smile. "Hello."

She remained expressionless. "You should never have come. You should have left Fort Stalwart to die." She didn't possess my voice. Hers was a dry monotone, neither high nor deep, and lacking anything in the way of character.

"Is that me or Soulless Gustav speaking?" I asked.

"You. Or rather the you that finds reflection in me."

"If you are me in any fashion, then you know I couldn't do that."

"I am more you than even Soulless Gustav intended." And she smiled though only for a moment.

It made perfect sense. The sorcerer's power was at its most dangerous but also its most vulnerable. My effigy was so well constructed that it carried some of my own magic. Once again, his false world was tainted with reality.

"But I was still made to kill or be killed," she said, "and I must do what I was made for."

"That, I know. But I also expect that as my effigy, you know how I can destroy you."

"I do, but why do you think I would tell you?"

"Because witches don't lie, and I think you are enough my duplicate that you don't either."

She looked into the angry sky in a slight display of independent movement. "But we often don't tell the whole truth."

"Yes, but it is a witch's trade to offer wisdom."

"Even to her enemies?"

"Especially to her enemies."

We shared a chuckle, even if hers was a lifeless, empty chortle.

"The answer is obvious," she said.

"Most answers are."

"You know the solution already."

"I expect I do since you do. But your counsel would be appreciated."

"And if I should trick you?" she asked.

"Then I would perish with pride for what could be a greater accomplishment for any witch than to be tricked by herself?"

She smiled. "But yours is to be a horrible death."

"One doesn't necessarily exclude the other."

We turned away from one another.

"We are made to die, and we die easily." My effigy arched an eyebrow. I assume she did, since I did. "Beneath the right hands."

Penelope returned to my hand. "Thank you."

"No need for that. You have only yourself to thank. And Soulless Gustav for being perhaps too great a sorcerer."

I returned to my companions, and she, to hers.

"Well?" asked Newt.

"I think I told myself what we must do."

"You think? You aren't certain?"

"Certainty is for death and fools."

I'd used the line before, but I felt it appropriate to the situation and worth repeating. Then I explained what we were to do.

Newt was skeptical. "That's it? That's all?"

"Yes."

"But we'll still be killing them."

"No. We'll be destroying them. We may be reflections of one another, but we are true while the effigies are false. Even in this land of glass and shadow, the magic knows the difference."

"And if you're wrong?"

"We die."

A flutter filled my chest. I didn't fear death, but I wasn't ready to face my end quite yet. I glided to Wyst's side. He was so intent on the effigies, he didn't notice. I reached up and put a palm against his dark face. And I kissed him. On the cheek. As close to his lips as I dared.

Newt gasped.

Wyst pulled away from me. Only a step. He placed fingers where I'd kissed him. He didn't smile, but he didn't frown either.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because I might be wrong."

I almost apologized, but I didn't regret it. Neither did Wyst, I thought. Though the mark on his forehead dimmed momentarily, his chastity remained intact. The kiss hadn't damaged his virtue. White Knights lived by a strict code, but even his enchantment couldn't fault him for a kiss he hadn't asked for.

I led my companions forward, and we stood before our effigies. We drew close, but we didn't touch. The first contact between us would free our doubles to move on their own and begin a battle we couldn't win.

Newt lowered his head and eyed his double. "How are we going to test this theory of yours?"

My reply was a swift, hard kick to his rear. The effigies duplicated the maneuver among themselves. Newt popped into the air and landed on his back. His effigy exploded in a puff of feathers.

Newt, the true Newt, remained whole, though with bruises to his bottom and ego.

It had worked. The effigies were intentionally fragile phantoms, but they could only be killed by the hands of their originals. Yet they could be undone by turning the sorcery that had created them against itself. The pile of feathers around an agape bill was proof of that.

"Are you mad?" Newt growled. "What if you'd been wrong? You could've killed me."

"You are my familiar. It's your duty to die for me."

"That's true, but it's supposed to be a bloody, violent death. Not demise by booting."

"That's not your choice to make."

"I'd prefer it."

"I'll see what I can do."

Their weakness exposed, the effigies were simple to undo. The could only mimic whatever actions we performed, and they expired easily. The only curiosity was that each passed in its unique fashion.

Penelope smacked Gwurm between the eyes barely hard enough to be felt. The troll's effigy's head caved in like a hollow rind and its entire body shriveled into a wrinkled skin. Wyst nicked his horse along the shoulder. The effigy dissolved into a watery gray puddle with bits of fur floating atop. I bent Penelope with light force. My double snapped her broom and shattered the effigy into crystalline shards.

The last two, Wyst and mine, were to destroy themselves together. Wyst put his sword to my belly in preparation.

I turned to my effigy. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. This is what I was made for, and though my existence was brief, at least I knew its purpose."

Wyst drove his blade through my abdomen at the same moment I struck a hard slap across his cheek. His duplicate's head popped off. The decapitated body fell over, leaking a putrid white puss from the neck, and with a wide, unwitchly grin, my effigy dissolved into nothing.

"I still don't understand how that was different from killing them," said Newt.

"You don't need to understand. Would you mind, Wyst?"

He pulled his sword from my stomach. A foot higher and an inch to the right, he would've pierced my heart. But the hole in my belly, even delivered by the man I loved, was a minor ache to my undead flesh.

Wyst wiggled his jaw. He'd known my slap was coming, and I suppose that made it honorable. Honorable enough to leave a small discoloration on his cheek.

"You're bleeding," he said.

"It's nothing." The wound would close on its own, but I could see it distressed him. I pressed my hand to the hole and seared it shut. It made him feel better, and I enjoyed the stench of burning flesh.

His enchanted sword repelled tarnishes, but a few smudges of dark syrup were left behind. "Allow me." I wiped the blade with the loose hem of my skirt. The garment was already covered with mysterious stains, but I was always looking to freshen them. It gave me an excuse to get close to Wyst again. He didn't move away.

"I hope I didn't strike you too hard."

He rubbed the bruise and smiled. It was an open, honest smile. The first real grin I'd seen upon his face. I turned from his eyes and glanced at the blade. It was clean, and I polished the gleaming steel.

"Thank you." He returned the weapon to its sheath.

I caressed his bruise with the back of my fingers. Then he leaned in and graced my cheek with a soft kiss. I hadn't expected it, but I was witch enough to hide my surprise.

"What was that for?"

"For being right."

He squeezed my hand, and for a moment, we weren't a witch and a knight. The obstacles between us, my curse, his chastity, were almost forgotten.

"My good Knight, perhaps you are not so mad after all." Our destroyed effigies were gone, replaced by a red cloud cast in Soulless Gustav's shape.

Wyst let go of my hand and drew his sword.

"Oh, let's not bother with all that again," said Soulless Gustav

Wyst of the West slashed the cloud without effect. He didn't seem surprised, but he was too much a White Knight not to try. He put away his sword and stepped aside.

Soulless Gustav billowed toward me. "That was very good. Defeating my effigies and corrupting a White Knight. You are a credit to witches everywhere."

"I can't take all the credit. I was taug,ht well."

"I see now that I'll have to deal with you myself." He waved. The grass parted. "Follow this path, and you'll find a cottage where you can spend the night. Enjoy it with my compliments. For tomorrow, I'll put an end to your troublesome, accursed life."

"Thank you for your hospitality."

"Mortal enemies need not be impolite. Civility is what separates us from the animals." He shot into the sky and away.

"I'm offended by that remark," Newt said.

"You aren't really an animal," commented Gwurm.

"I'm animal enough."

"Maybe, but you aren't all that civil either."

Newt almost said something rude but reconsidered. I wondered how long his new manners might last.

"No one asked you anyway, you big, loathsome oaf."

Longer than I'd expected.