Witchwood and Seabound

by Ethan Proud

  “You haven’t even given Vahrun a chance,” Beatrice protested.

  “It takes more than bedding you to be mayor,” Jackson seethed.

  Vahrun raised an eyebrow, it might not make him mayor — but it had been enough for him to cast a spell on Beatrice.

  “I agree with Jackson, we have procedures and protocol to follow. The town needs to mourn before any decision is announced,” Will said though in a much calmer tone than the attorney.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Vahrun said congenially.

  Both Jackson and William looked up in surprise, none of them had heard him enter. Beatrice, however, beamed. Vahrun tried to not look at her.

  “This is Vahrun,” she said excitedly. “If you just give him a cha-”

  She never got to finish her sentence, Vahrun snapped his fingers and time froze. None of these governmental beings believed in the witchcraft and voodoo that Artemisia had practiced and thus they were susceptible to the most simple conjurings. They bore no stones of protection, amulets of banishment, or dispelling herbs. No wonder they could only travel the first plane, such mundane creatures would never survive a higher level of being. Vahrun began casting his spell; when time resumed its steady march onward, he would be the Mayor of Northgate.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Frantically, Mission pounded on Artemisia’s door. She didn’t answer or make any commotion from within to indicate that she would let him in. Mission glared angrily and shook the handle, but it was locked. Smoke curled from the chimney lazily and it reminded Mission of the smoldering ruins he had found of the Ramek Manor. He had found the remains of Swain by the stove but had found no trace of De’lune. In a panic, he had hunted the woods around the manor for any sign of her like a mushroom forager carefully scanning the forest floor.

  Mission heard a mewling and turned to see Volker. He sinuously moved between Mission’s feet and pawed at the door twice. He glared at the handle, stretched to reach it and mewed again. With a resigned harrumph, the cat wandered through the post-harvest garden, leaving tiny footprints through the dusting of snow. Mission followed him and saw Volker carefully leap into an open window and disappear into the house with a swish of his tail.

  Mission grumbled under his breath before he too went through the window. He grabbed the trim above the orifice and pulled himself up high enough that he was able to move both feet into the house and place them on the floor. He slunk the rest of his body in and looked around for Artemisia. She was sitting at the table, a mug of something steaming in her hand, and a heavy blanket draped over her small frame. Her eyes were red and rimmed with heavy, gray bags. Mission curled his lip in disgust, no doubt she pitied herself for the sheriff’s death. The younger Corax had heard every rumor the town of Northgate could muster, however no one dared utter a word of the witch’s involvement. Mission didn’t feel any sympathy for her, she should know better than to tangle with demons. Bringing them to the first plane was a recipe for disaster.

  “Where is De’lune?” Mission demanded angrily.

  “Either burnt in the fire, at an inn, or freezing to death in the woods,” Artemisia said, her voice scratchy and haggard.

  “She had no part in her family’s affairs,” Mission protested. “How can you be so cruel?”

  “She knew that they were werewolves and was complicit,” Artemisia answered.

  “And I’m sure that it wasn’t Hugh who slew the sheriff. Surely it was Vahrun, you lost control of him,” Mission accused her. Artemisia didn’t answer but stared into her drink. Mission continued, “That makes you complicit in the sheriff’s death.”

  “If anything, I murdered him,” Artemisia spat out. The look of self-loathing in her eyes was replaced by white, hot rage. “Now I am responsible for the deaths of three innocents. Ruckstead and both of your parents.”

  Mission knew the admission was supposed to hurt him as well, but he brushed it off. He knew Artemisia’s role in his parents’ death and also knew that they both would have willingly sacrificed themselves if it meant that he lived. She had done right by them. However, leaving De’lune to her devices was not moral or just. “Make that four now. If De’lune is dead, then her blood is on your hands.”

  Exasperated, Artemisia threw her hands in the air, knocking her mug onto the floor where it shattered.

  “The Rameks are a stain on this town. If the entire line is dead, then this world is a better place,” Artemisia hissed. Mission preferred her when she was moping.

  “Where is Vahrun?” Mission asked, and he felt his heart sink. There was no way that the demon would leave the first plane without retrieving his brother and dragging Mission across the planes with him. And both of his quarries were in the same room right now.

  “I don’t know,” Artemisia said, and she sounded wretched once again.

  “You know that he is going to come for me and your cat, right?” Mission said scathingly. “Have you even tried to stop him?”

  Artemisia vaguely gestured to the book open on the other side of the table. Mission snorted.

  “I never knew you to be weak like this,” Mission said and instantly knew he had made a mistake. Artemisia stood to her whole height and stared Mission down. He shrank before her and backed up against the kitchen stove.

  “You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the choices I had to make. You think I wanted to sacrifice your parents? Do not challenge me ever again,” Artemisia snarled, lacking any semblance of human tone.

  Mission tried to retreat further but the stove had little give, and he was backed into a corner. Artemisia took a predacious step forward before faltering and sitting back into her chair.

  “Get out of my house,” she said and pressed all eight fingers against her temples. Mission complied and exited the way he had come in.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  “But why am I here?” De’lune asked naively as the goddesses took her on a tour through the Temple of Mond.

  Mond and Detrita both laughed heartily.

  “Has a mortal ever been summoned by the gods and not asked a similar question?” Detrita asked in her lilting, melodic voice.

  “Never in my experience, though that doesn’t erase the question’s validity. Humans live but one lifetime and we live many. They have difficulty grasping the broader scope beyond a hundred years,” Mond said wisely.

  De’lune tried to decipher which was the elder goddess. What had come first, the moon or death? Was it possible that one had existed before the other? On what scale did death occur?

  De’lune’s existential reverie was cut short as Detrita responded to Mond’s line of thought.

  “Which is why they will never possess true wisdom. Their sense of self clouds their minds,” Detrita said as mushrooms and fungi bloomed in her wake. Carrion beetles scuttled eagerly after her. Their orange and black chitinous shells reflected the many lights of the heavens that touched their soldiered carapaces. The two stoats still followed loyally behind Detrita.

  “Now, Detrita, we must not insult our guest. She needs to feel welcome,” Mond chastised her.

  De’lune tried to decipher the power play at hand, with no luck. Detrita acted subservient to Mond for the moment, but the Goddess of Death and Decay emanated more power than the Goddess of the Moon did. Did Death find celestial beings as well as mortals? De’lune’s steps nearly faltered when she realized the implications. Gods and goddesses could meet their end just as mortals, though it may take a millennia more. Earlier they had discussed the gods that the demon Vahrun had killed. Detrita was the embodiment of death and therefore had a stronger hold over the realms than any other deity.

  “Detrita, do you have any worshippers? Any devout zealots?” De’lune asked before biting her tongue. “Of course, I mean no disrespect.”

  “No being ever disrespects the Goddess Detrita knowingly,” Mond cautioned.

  “It is quite all right,” Detrita said easily. “There are those who follow me into the afterlife and they are rewarded justly. They ar
e the wisest of their kin, regardless of the plane they call home. Death and decay find all beings eventually. I do not need prayers, flocks, or congregations, as all must meet me in the end.”

  De’lune said nothing and Mond laughed.

  “She is not as dire as she seems. Her brother, Messis, is the God of Green and the Harvest, and her sons Mycorr and Hizae give life to the very foods that lend their energy to humans. Indeed, her sons’ work can be observed on every plane of existence,” Mond explained.

  “The deities have children?” De’lune asked.

  “Indeed, we are prone to the same inclinations as you humans are,” Detrita answered. “Mycorr, Hizae, introduce yourselves.”

  It seemed as if the goddess had spoken to thin air, but behind her the two stoats shifted their shapes. They rose onto their hind legs and their paws shifted first as their toes and fingers elongated and then their faces shrank, though still retained their weaselly characteristics. Their bones popped and their hair fell out, replaced by kingly clothing of deep, coffee colors and hunter greens. Their garments were streaked with white filigree, like the roots of the fungi of their namesake. Or the fungi which earned its name from the godlings. Both Mycorr and Hizae had beady eyes and appeared to be no older than Mission. They bowed deeply, though the satire of the motion was obvious.

  “It is my pleasure to bring your attention to Detrita’s sons, Mycorr, Hizae. Without them, the ecosystems of your plane would lack life and never flourish,” Mond said eloquently.

  “The ‘whats’ of my plane?” De’lune asked quizzically.

  “I forget that the seventh plane is far beyond the first, forget I said anything,” Mond said and laughed easily.

  De’lune tried to forget what the goddess had said, but the word ecosystem was burned in her brain.

  The sons of Detrita shared her earthy skin and dark eyes, fungi sprouted from their pores and their soil was embedded in their nails. They didn’t appear dirty, but natural. They were the very essence of life and nature. Detrita’s children said no word of greeting before they reverted to their stoat forms.

  De’lune tried to process what she had just seen and heard. The Goddess of Death and Decay was intimately connected to the powers that brought life to the realms. Without Detrita, her sons, and brother, the gods and goddesses would have no one to rule over. No doubt the deities revered Detrita with the same respect that De’lune and her sisters of worship showed Mond.

  Shaking her head, the last remaining Ramek remembered her initial question.

  “Why am I here?” De’lune reiterated. They stopped at one last door, though every previous room had been the same expanse of marble columns, rubies and topaz.

  “To determine if you deserve true power,” Mond said, regarding her devotee with a side eye.

  “You called me here to test me?” De’lune said in shock. She had believed her goddess to be kind and doted on her loyal zealots.

  “We are all tested, some more than others. I would not have called you if I did not think you would pass,” Mond assured her as she pushed the final door open.

  De’lune could not have prepared herself for what was on the other side of the portal.

  ***

  Swain and Hugh were positioned on their knees, their hands bound behind their backs and their mouths gagged. After seeing both of their deaths, De’lune’s heart fluttered at the mere sight of her family. Their eyes begged her for release, but she knew that was not why the goddess Mond had called her.

  Guardedly, De’lune looked over at her deity. Mond’s porcelain features revealed nothing. Instead she withdrew a long dagger with a pearlescent blade and a bleached, leather handgrip from within her shift which moments before had been too fragile to conceal such a weapon.

  “You know what you need to do,” Mond assured her as she placed the weapon in De’lune’s hand. De’lune’s eyes widened, but she didn’t reject the blade.

  “What happens to them if their souls are destroyed here?” De’lune asked. Mond only looked at her with a dire expression. Detrita laughed behind the Goddess of the Moon.

  De’lune tightened her grip around the blade and remembered Mond’s words from earlier: Did they ever believe in you? No. Your father doted on your brother and largely ignored you. You waited on them like a servant girl. They needed to feel your power.

  The youngest Ramek nodded as she looked at the desperate eyes of her family. They had treated her like dirt, they had never allowed her to blossom into her own woman. She had been nothing to them.

  De’lune approached the prone figure of her brother and grasped him by the shoulder. He looked urgently into her eyes and found them blank. Hugh wriggled against his bonds and moaned against his gag, but it was all for naught. The blade easily split breastbone from rib and shredded his ethereal heart. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his soul split into a million pieces as it was rendered into nothingess.

  Turning to her father, De’lune’s heart hardened. Swain’s expression pleaded with her, but she was loyal only to the Goddess Mond. She leaned in close to him and whispered, “You should have believed in me, now you can feel my power.”

  She rammed the sacrificial dagger into his chest and he convulsed for several seconds as his soul dissipated into the interplanal spaces. She would never have to see her brother or father again. De’lune had risen in power and felt the goddess coursing through her. She felt the metallic tang of anxiety in her mouth and knew that she desired revenge above all. The witch Artemisia needed to pay.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Rifling through paperwork in his office, Attorney Jackson Stromville had a glassy look in his eyes. He couldn’t remember a time that Mayor Vahrun Quartersmith had not been the elected official of Northgate. In fact, he couldn’t remember a better mayor even if he searched the town annals. However, he also couldn’t remember a single ordinance that the mayor had passed.

  In the adjacent office, Treasurer William Maybury was having the same thoughts. Mayor Vahrun Quartersmith was no doubt adept at his job, perhaps even overqualified. The treasurer absentmindedly signed a few more documents and officially swore in the new mayor.

  Down the hall, just past the foyer, Beatrice Axel prepared additional official documents to accompany Mayor Vahrun’s signing in. Usually such an event would be publicized and released in the newspaper, but this was a tumultuous time and certain steps could be sidestepped. Beatrice believed that she was doing the right thing for the Town of Northgate, and her being smitten by the new mayor had nothing to do with her actions. Once she had completed the last document, she took it down the hall to Jackson and William. The spells that had been cast on the three of them differed, though none of them were capable of questioning their loyalty to the new Mayor of Northgate. Both Jackson and William believed that the mayor had been in office for at least three months, while Beatrice was aware that he had not even spent a single day on the job. All the same, they were dead set on Vahrun presiding over their town.

  ***

  Reclining in the desk chair, Vahrun kicked his feet up on the cluttered strewn surface. With one lazy foot, he kicked papers into the garbage bin. Just as many papers found their way down the gullet of the small, steel receptacle as scattered across the floor.

  Spying the ash tray on the center of the desk, Vahrun leaned forward, plucked a butt from the pile of ash and popped it into his mouth. He chewed it for a moment with a pensive expression before he spat it on the floor. He rang a bell on his desk and Beatrice came in a moment later.

  “Yes, master?” she asked. Vahrun raised an eyebrow and she continued, rather flustered, “I mean, mayor.”

  “Of course you did. Before the untimely deaths of Mayor Kerrick and Swain Ramek, did they happen to have a meeting?” Vahrun inquired as he picked up a pen off of the desk. He held it up between his index finger and thumb to twist it idly to examine its build. He had no inkling of its purpose. He let it fall to the desk and looked to Beatrice.

  “Yes, they di
d, as a matter of fact…” The secretary trailed off.

  “And what was the conclusion of their discussion?” Vahrun asked.

  “To arrest and hang the witch Artemisia,” Beatrice answered. Her eyes twinkled in anticipation of her master’s pleasure.

  Vahrun smiled and bared his teeth. A fitting end to the source of all his problems. Of course, he had to first find his brother and then steal Mission away to the fourth plane. His last act in this plane would end with a noose around Artemisia’s neck.

  “And since our late sheriff has since retired, who is the new authority of the law?” Vahrun asked, his feet still propped on the desk.

  “Deputy James Kerfield,” Beatrice answered and then reconsidered. “Sheriff James Kerfield. At least in the interim. No doubt the people will demand an election. But he comes from a good family and is a sensible young man.”

  “In the meantime, then, I will need documentation that Artemisia has been sentenced to be hung,” Vahrun said. Not being experienced in the public proceedings of humans, he was beginning to catch on. Beatrice, Jackson, and William all spoke in such a rigid manner.

  “There already is one, but the mayor had the only copy. It should be in his house or the sheriff’s office,” Beatrice answered.

  “Do you know where the mayor lives? I have already been to the sheriff’s office, but I will need a guide if I am to wander the town,” Vahrun asked and Beatrice’s eyes lit up.

  “Oh yes, I don’t have any appointments this afternoon,” she said and hurriedly darted from the office to gather her briefcase.

  Vahrun let his head collapse into his waiting hands and pressed his fingers against his temples. This woman would be the death of him.

  ***