First Witch's Tale

Afterward

Chapter Eight

Cemburu smiled at me.

I felt utter terror threatening to overwhelm me as his face stretched in inhuman directions. His eyes pulsed in tune with his heartbeat, pulsing with a diabolical power. The thing was inside him, I realised numbly; it was possessing him. He stretched, as if he was slowly getting used to his new body. I swallowed hard as he ran his hands down his body, resting them on his erect member. I saw no mercy in the burning red eyes. He was going to kill me, after he had had his fun. And at that point I feared I would be begging for death. Cemburu was gone. The thing had taken his place.

My nerve broke and I ran, heading into the woods. Magic crackled behind me as the thing started to follow me. I could feel it, a burning presence at the back of my mind, like feeling the sun shining on my back. I cursed Cemburu under my breath as I tried to pick up speed, to reach the castle before the thing caught up with me, but I had the feeling it was useless. The woodland paths were twisting around me, threatening to turn me around and send me walking straight back into its clutches. What the hell had Cemburu been doing? What the hell had he summoned? The thing was powerful, so powerful its mere presence poisoned the air. I hoped Bernard and the other senior magicians could handle it, but I was afraid they couldn’t. It was just too powerful. And yet …

I heard laughter echoing through the trees. The path twisted again and I found myself walking straight towards the thing. Cemburu’s body was glowing with an eerie light, the bloodlines steaming as the thing steered him onwards. I yelped as a hand, stretching in inhuman directions, reached for me, then jumped and fled back into the woods. It was one of the Awful Folk, I was sure. Nothing else could control the land around it. I dared not go back to the castle while it was on the prowl, even if it let me. I didn’t think the other magicians had any way to deal with it. Back home, we knew to avoid the mounds. It was a tacit admittance that walking into their territory meant we might never be seen again. And yet Cemburu had been and gone many times.

It let him go, I thought, as the path twisted again. I was suddenly running on the spot. No matter how hard I ran, I made no progress. I felt the thing behind me, felt its fingers brushing my rear, and forced myself to run harder. The world seemed to twist a third time. I was somehow falling to the ground, as if I had just run over a cliff. It let him go so he could cause trouble elsewhere.

My mind raced. It was not in me to give up. There had to be a way out. I tried to recall what I had seen and come up with a plan. The magic had followed the blood, hadn’t it? Perhaps if I got the blood off Cemburu’s body the thing would be dislodged and sent back to wherever it found it. Perhaps … I couldn’t think of a way to do it. My body ached, a grim reminder that I would tire and eventually fall. The thing didn’t seem to have any sense it could tire. Cemburu hadn’t been the fittest person in the world, but the thing could drive him on until he dropped dead. Or … I recalled the old tales, the ones rarely told to children, about men who’d been hag-ridden. It was possible he could be driven on forever.

I heard something rustling in the undergrowth, a moment before a swarm of rodents rushed at me. It wasn’t uncommon, in a heavy rainstorm, but here … I barely had a second to realise I was under attack before they started swarming me, teeth nibbling at my clothes. I grabbed for the nearest tree and scrambled up as fast as I could, kicking out at the more persistent rodents as they tried to bite me. I thanked all the gods I had worn my regular clothes, rather than school robes. They were tough enough to provide some protection. And yet, some of the rats were still clinging on. I gasped in pain as one of them bit its way into my skin. I could feel the blood welling up and dripping to the ground.

The thing laughed as I grabbed the rodent and yanked it free. It struggled in my hand, but I was a past master at holding small animals so they could neither escape nor bite me. I could feel the laughter hanging in the air, a cold unpleasant sound that made it clear the thing was toying with me. It didn’t have to hunt me down in a hurry. It was just enjoying itself, flexing its power before it went onwards. And yet … I scrambled from tree as the thing came into view. It was hard to be sure, because it was still hard look at it directly, but I had the impression that Cemburu’s body was starting to break down. The thing was expending impossible levels of magic. Was it drawing on Cemburu’s body to power its magic? Or … what was I missing?

A wild thought shot through me as the thing stopped beneath the first tree. It used blood to transfer magic. Cemburu had use his own blood as part of the summoning rite. And now it was in the position to pick up my blood and use it … I tried not to panic as I realised what it could do. Curse me, control me, ride my blood into my body … I wondered, suddenly, if it would take any better care of my body than it had of Cemburu’s. It could possess me and walk straight into the castle, with no one any the wiser. I shuddered to think what it could do inside the school. If no one knew it was wearing my face, it could get close to one of the tutors and then … they wouldn’t recognise the threat. How could they? I was a very junior student. I was no threat to them. But if the thing wore my face …

I briefly considered suicide. I could jump from a high tree and hit the ground hard enough to kill me, but that would be the end. I didn’t like the idea of killing myself. And besides, the thing had enough control over the trees to twist the world around me and make sure I didn’t actually die. My blood seemed to grow warm, just for a moment, a disconcerting feeling that felt worse than my father’s belt. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t so much painful as fundamentally wrong. I could barely focus my mind as the heat grew stronger. I realised, numbly, that the thing was trying to possess me. I could feel it forcing its way into me. It whispered seductive sweet nothings into my mind, promises of everything I could ever want if I surrendered and let it take control. Perhaps I would have believed it, if I hadn’t seen what it had done to Cemburu. It might keep its promises, perhaps, but not in the way I wanted.

The old stories echoed through my head. There was always a sting in the tail.

GET OUT, I thought as hard as I could. I was screaming inside, but it felt like a whisper. My mouth refused to work. I could feel the creature pressing down on me. It was huge and strong and I was so tiny and weak. The thought weakened my resolution. I forced myself to scream again. GET OUT.

My hands jerked. I lost my grip on the tree branch and fell. The presence in my mind drew back sharply as I plummeted to the ground. I had a moment to realise it was scared before I caught hold of another branch and slowed my fall, just enough to land roughly but safely. I nearly let go of the rat. The thing hovered at the back of my mind, yet made no attempt to take advantage of my pain. I wondered if it was nervous about entering a suffering mind. Perhaps it wasn’t used to human pain. Or at least to being on the receiving end.

The air shifted as the thing started to walk towards me. I forced myself to stagger away, feeling its presence pushing back into my mind. It couldn’t see me, I thought, but it could certainly feel me. My blood was all it needed to find me. It would lead the thing to me effortlessly. I was in no state to do anything. My legs might not be broken, or I wouldn’t have been able to walk at all, but they ached so badly I knew they wouldn’t last long. It was painful to move. And yet … a desperate plan rushed through my mind. If it worked …

This is dangerous, part of my mind whispered. I was going to take one hell of a chance - and break a number of rules while I was at it. Bernard would probably expel me if he realised what I had done. And yet, what choice did I have? My thoughts mocked me. Letting it possess me would be even more dangerous.

I gritted my teeth as I drew the knife and cut the rat’s skin, allowing our blood to merge. I let my instincts steer the magic as I reached out carefully, touching the thing’s presence. It was knocking at the door, making all kinds of promises - it struck me, suddenly, that I was hearing whatever I want to hear. No wonder it had seduced Cemburu so easily. It hadn’t so much as made him an offer as let him make the offer to himself. And he had been so tempted he hadn’t stopped to think about the downside. If I hadn’t seen what the thing had done to him …

My heart raced as I opened, very slightly, the door to my mind. The thing rushed forward, passing through the bloodline like a young man desperate to get close to a woman before she changed her mind, and slid straight into the rat. The poor creature’s eyes turned red. I felt the thing’s rage bubbling and boiling as it realised it had been tricked, drawing on the fragments of magic from my blood to cast a spell aimed at me. I could feel the spell taking shape, a nightmarish vision of my body twisting and turning and morphing permanently into a rat. The sight scared me so deeply I didn’t hesitate. I snapped the rat’s neck effortlessly. The thing howled one final time, its presence battering against my mind, then vanished. I felt the rat’s body crumble into dust. It was over.

I heard a thump behind me. I turned slowly, and staggered back to Cemburu. Was he dead? Part of me thought it would be a good thing if he was. He had summoned the thing and treated it as a tutor, using it for lessons in magic … unaware, I realised glumly, that it had been using him too. The rest of me hoped he was still alive. He had bitten off more than he could chew, true, and he had tried not to kill me even though killing me was the only thing he could do to save himself. I wanted to take him back to the castle and let the staff pass judgement on him. Who knew? Perhaps they’d think he had learnt his lesson.

He was lying on the ground, whimpering. I reached out carefully with my senses, just to make sure the thing was truly gone, and then knelt beside him and patted his arm awkwardly. He looked up at me, then down at himself, then flushed bright red. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking. I inspected his body grimly, noting just how thin he looked. Cemburu never been overweight - I couldn’t name a single magician in the school who was - but now he looked like a serf girl who had been sent out to die. His bones were clearly visible in his chest. I suspected he was lucky he hadn’t died like the rat.

But then, if the thing had managed to possess me, it could have used him as an ally, I thought. Cemburu didn’t have the nerve to stand up to the thing. He could have gone places my body could not.

“Janis,” Cemburu managed. His voice sounded weak, a pale shadow of its former self. My cousin had broken his leg and he hasn’t sounded so weak. “I …”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I didn’t want to hear apologies, if apologies were what he was going to offer. “Worry about what you’re going to tell the staff.”

It was not easy to get back to the school. I felt tired and drained, my legs aching painfully, and Cemburu could barely walk. We leaned on each other as we staggered through the woods and out into the grounds. I was grateful there were so few students in the school. It made it easier for us to get back without being noticed. Bernard met us as we it crossed the wardline. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. We were both tainted with wild and dark magic.

“It was all my fault,” Cemburu said. I was surprised he was throwing himself on his sword for me. But then, he probably couldn’t hope to get away with a lie. “She saved my life.”

“Then you had better work to repay her,” Bernard said. “Come with me.”

He walked us up to his office, then told me to wait in a side room as he interrogated Cemburu. It felt like hours before he summoned me and asked me hundreds of questions about just what had happened and why. It was a painful process and it left me feeling more than a little insulted, although I supposed he didn’t know my word was good. I asked him a handful of questions of my own, but he refused to be drawn on most of them. The precise nature of the thing was one of them. He got very tight-lipped when I asked him what it had been, and chose only to say that it had been incredibly dangerous and I had been very lucky to survive. I had the feeling he thought I knew more than I did about the thing, but I didn’t. He dismissed me, eventually, with congratulations - and a warning to keep my mouth shut.

I did, until now.

I returned to classes. Cemburu rejoined us, two weeks later. Quite what Bernard had said to him was never disclosed, at least not to me, although I had the impression that his possession was deemed sufficient punishment for his foolishness. Cemburu was a changed man. We didn’t become friends, not really, but we did learn to work together when the school faced other threats in the next two years. It was difficult, yet we managed.

Me? I was the first witch in Whitehall, but I was not the last.

Let that be my legacy.

Afterward

At this point, the scroll ends.

It is not clear what happened to Janis after this. What few records we have of Early Whitehall suggests the school was attacked, frequently, until it managed to carve out a niche for itself as part of the newborn Empire. If she followed the same path as her peers - most of whom have left no trace on the historical record - she would have graduated a few years after the events depicted in the scroll, and then gone on to serve the school in some capacity. It is possible she was the first housemother, supervising the new female students, but we have no clue one way or the other. There are references to a female staff member a few years after the scroll who could have been Janis, yet we may never know.

There is some evidence to suggest that there were, at one point, other scrolls. It is unlikely that this is the only scroll Janis ever produced, given that there are hints she graduated school and survived for quite some time afterwards. It is, however, impossible to be sure. Our records are just too garbled. There are faint references to a Janis two hundred years later, but it seems unlikely that is the same person. We are forced to assess the scroll based on what she tells us and little else. It is not an easy task.

The idea that a woman could not study magic, and not match her male counterparts, seems strange and alien to us now. Generations of mixed-sex education have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that women are not inherently inferior to men when it comes to using and developing magic. Many popular spells were developed by female magicians; many female magicians have served as everything from healers to alchemists, enchanters and combat sorcerers. Indeed, given the importance of weaving new magical potential into long-established bloodlines, the idea of ignoring half the candidates because they were born female is just absurd.

And yet, it took longer than one might expect for women to start studying formal magic.

It is difficult to understand why, without a solid grounding in early spellcasting. In mundane terms, the early spells inflicted considerable damage upon their casters. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the raw magic damaged the magician’s body and mind, resulting – eventually - in madness and death. This often resulted in outright sterility, to the point that it was relatively rare for the early magicians to have children. Males got low sperm counts; females, unfortunately, were rendered almost completely sterile. It was not until formal magic was introduced, with the magic toned down to limit the damage as much as possible, that both men and women were able to study magic freely.

It was true, also, that witches tended to be feared. The average villager of those times would tolerate, rather than like, the village witch; it was not unknown, particular in the days of the magical purge, for the witch to be driven out of the village or forced to live at some distance from the town itself. This may seem absurd today, when a lynch mob could be turned into toads with the wave of a witch’s hands, but the spells for human transfiguration had yet to be developed. Indeed, most girls who showed signs of magic were quietly advised to leave the village, pointed towards Whitehall or a distant witch, or simply murdered. The risk of them losing control of their powers was simply too great. Our heroine, assuming she existed at all, was very lucky. Her father would have been quite within his rights to kill her and his community would certainly have expected him to do so.

If this document is genuine, it represents the first major insight we have into the period of early magical schooling. It shows us a fascinating glimpse of early Whitehall and how the commune’s practices slowly morphed into the system of education we still use today. It also introduces us to someone who should be entered into the historical record, and honoured for her contributions to the school.

It is unclear, of course, if it is genuine. It is quite possible that the scroll was written considerably later, then concealed within the school for reasons unknown. There were certainly times within the history of the school where the tunnels might have been opened and then resealed, although we have little hard information. If that is the case, the document would have passed many magical checks and verifications spells without raising suspicions.

That said, the document is not written in High Speech or the cruder forms of Low Speech. The scroll is written in one of, if not the, oldest known languages, a formal script that eventually evolved into Imperial Script and eventually both High and Low Speech. It is astonishingly difficult for anyone in this day and age to write so fluently in the script and indeed, a great deal of information has been lost - up to and including what the contemporaries actually called the script. Many a fake document has been discovered by the forger carelessly referring to the script as Old Script, the term developed by the History Guild several centuries later; it goes without saying, I think, that Old Script was not the original name. The writer clearly learnt to read and write late in life, as there are random errors within the text that would be extremely difficult to fake. Old Script was more tolerant of errors than the later High Speech, and none of the contemporaries would have any difficulty reading the scroll; indeed, the lack of any more recent flourishes is solid proof the scroll is what it claims to be.

It is worth noting, also, that my female colleagues insist there is something decidedly feminine about the writing. This is something that would be unapparent in any document written in High Speech, where the writing is designed to be largely sexless and rhetorical flourishes are strongly discouraged. This is often blamed for the lack of riveting documents and texts produced between the First Emperor and the Empire’s fall, centuries later. It is unlikely that anyone who wrote during that period would be able to escape the conventions of the time.

Set against this, however, there are the references to magics that literally do not exist. The Lay of Lord Alfred makes many references to impossible feats, from strange creatures at his beck and call to the ancient magician plucking the moon out of the sky, and it is far from alone in attributing wondrous powers to individuals who may never have existed at all, but this document is different. The thing might be one of the Awful Folk, as Janis speculated, or it might have been made up of whole cloth. There is certainly nothing like it active today.

It is quite possible, of course, that certain spells and magical rites were lost over the years, particularly after the disaster that destroyed a number of noted magical bloodlines, but is very rare for magical knowledge be lost completely. That said, magic was far less understood in those days and the combination of that lack of understanding and entities dwelling within nearby high-magic zones might easily have created tales of magic and powers beyond human comprehension.

This is not unknown in other fields. Castle Corte appeared to showcase a whole new method of construction, but attempts to duplicate it proved futile. It was not until several failed attempts that the builders realised the original design had only worked because the castle rested on very solid ground indeed. The early magicians could have had the same problem.

My personal belief is that the scroll is genuine. There are too many details that ring true from the point of view of the founders, but not today. The tendency to view the past through a modern-day lens makes it difficult to understand the limitations facing the founders, their apprentices and students, and everyone else caught up in great events.

But I could be wrong.

Historian Titus, History Guild