by K.N. Lee
One of the men started joking as the door swung open,“And it’s back to shoveling we g-” That was as far as he got.
A cloud of white ash floated out of the ovens, covering the soldiers in an obscuring layer.
Coughing, they wiped it away. And then more ash blew, harder and faster than the first. Again, the soldiers were covered in the ashes of the dead.
“Kubonera,” Mathilde whispered, making a sweeping motion over her head.
A dust devil swirled above her fingers, growing taller and wider by the second. Air spun throughout the interior of the room, picking up speed as it gusted. The men at the door stood with mouths agape, shocked at the appearance of a storm in the ashes of the contained fire.
Nothing should have caused such an odd air current. Nothing except one angry witch.
“What fresh hell is that?” one of the men hollered, holding tight to his broom, dustpan, and brush—like they were shields. Two others with buckets ready, dropped the heavy metal and began to back away.
Mathilde held Captain’s hand, keeping their link strong as she motioned in a wave towards the door.
A wall of bone ash howled out of the oven’s interior.
It flew at the startled soldiers on clean-up duty. Hands flung out in front of their face, someone tried to close the oven door. Unfortunately, the man didn’t manage to get the metal more than half-way closed before the wall of ash, thick and caking covered his mouth and face.
“Rain,” Mathilde asked the dried air.
Rain where there was not even a drop of water.
The oven consumed it all.
Immediately, two of the soldiers clutched at their throats, choking on the dust that filled their airways, They didn’t even have time to register their own deaths before the Rain spellwork stole every drop of water out of their lungs, blood, and mouths.
Like mummies, their skin sunk and cracked. Their eyes shrunk into tiny raisins as they all fell down. Before the soldiers hit the ground, their bodies turned to ashes themselves.
All that was left was a pile of very surprised bones and their discarded uniforms.
A rush of clean clear air came streaming in one corner of the door at Mathilde’s request. The winds that surrounded her and the Captain were powerful. Ash made the wall impossible to see thorough.
“Even though your greater spell appears to have gone wrong, this is really quite amazing. Terrifying, but beautiful,” Captain commented on the howling winds that spun the world around thir every step into an obscuring, choking cloud.
He stayed by her side as Mathilde walked free of the oven’s final embrace.
When they had cleared the pathway out of the locked room, Mathilde pushed the winds outward, enlarging the circle of their protection.
“Kubonera,” she asked the magic. “Wind. Move farther away from my core, please. We can’t see.” The calm in the eye of the ash storm grew wider, allowing Mathilde to see the nearest buildings. Captain looked around, ready to fight. All their enemies had fled or died.
He advised Mathilde, “We need to get to the trains. If there are some left, distance is our best chance to escape. Time and these mountains might be all that we can put in between our lives and those of Yaga and her pet vidartans.”
He was right.
Maybe.
Fighting against her enemy now was hopeless. “Yaga has most of my family,” Mathilde admitted their defeat. “She has outmaneuvered me. Using the love we once shared, she binds my hands.”
Captain nodded. “Truth hurts. But enough truth shines a light on new plans, changing the strategy but not the goal.
“Time is all that stops her from killing you.” he said. “Untrained or inexperienced, she has the priests. With you out of the way, Yaga will control all the ancient magic. Twisted or not, she will hold every magician. Do you want the world’s future in her hands? What kind of world will that be?”
Under the crone’s false magic, the majestic country would falter and fall apart. In her bones, Mathilde knew that future was almost decided. “Malice doesn’t make beauty. Only truth and light can do that,” she said, “Hatred doesn’t build a civilization, it only unites a mob.”
“As long as Fritz is safe, it doesn’t matter what happens to me. He is the future.” She demanded that he listen. That was what mattered.
Not my life.
Captain looked at her for a few moments. And then he said, “I will stay by your side until the end, regardless.”
Mathilde was silent, thinking. Then, reaching down, she picked up one of the brooms dropped by the cleaners. The smooth wood of its handle felt right. Like it belonged in her hand. Like it was waiting for her.
A broken pottery handle, a broom, and the ash of her enemies: those are my weapons. My only defense. “H--V--N help us all,” she prayed.
“Find,” she asked the magic, “Find my family.”
Then, she waited for the spell work to travel to the witch’s house near the cleansing rooms. Every magic holder could be clearly seen, even through the ash cloud. Edgar, Ethan, and the Yaga woman all clustered close together. The light that was untrained Tomas floated nearby.
Through the spellcast, she saw all of them.
That was not the problem. Mathilde shook with fear when she realized the situation. “We’ve failed,” she groaned.
She did not expect the brilliant lights of a thousand vidaya to still be there, clustered around the train.
Yaga had cut the connection thread between her heart and Fritz’s. But she could still see him there. Waiting.
Waiting for me. She knew it. She knew her little brother could not summon enough courage to leave her and to try magic completely alone. He was too little. He did the best he could. But if he hasn’t left….
“She’ll kill him!” Mathilde gasped at the thought. Turning to Captain, the danger of the moment was crystal clear.
“Who?” Captain asked, confused.
“My brother! Fritz is still at the train station. All the vidayans are.” Bitter words left her mouth. “We have to stop her. They have to leave!”
“If the trains don’t leave soon, she will come for the remaining vidaya. She is distracted right now with the Geisprom. But that’ll pass. Then, the Yaga witch will take them back. She’ll not allow these last people to escape her power. She will take every one of them to the grave.”
Mathilde knew. She could feel the sharpening of Death’s scythe right over their vulnerable heads. Gulping back tears, Mathilde spoke the simple and horrid fact: “In an hour, maybe less, she will take Fritz away.
“My little brother—the best of us with the last of the free vidayans. She must be stopped!” Turning to him, she declared, “Worth the sacrifice, right Captain?”
Mathilde couldn’t contact Fritz.
Frantically, she tried. Calling the magic, she thought of his smile, of the hope that brimmed around his beautiful face… Mathilde concentrated on those specific memories.
But the vidartan magic could not find him. The Yaga crone had done something. Cutting Mathilde off from the one that she loved most. Isolating Mathilde from any outside help. She was too far away. No one could stop the crazy old witch. Mathilde felt sick.
She couldn’t save the last true vidartan priest.
“Unless we run…”
Behind the wall of spinning bone fragments, she turned to the captain.
“We have to try,” she stated the desire of her heart, “I have to. He’s waiting for me. If we can get to the train station, it will be alright. We will be free, Captain. Finally. Really free.”
“I know,” he replied, his eagle eyes searching every shadow for the attack that was surely coming. “Save them if you can. The vidaya need a hero.”
Mathilde shook her head at the nonsense. “I’m no hero,” she muttered crossly, “We have to get that train away from Gelshiesen. After all, we are their Achiezeer.”
As soon as she said those words, Mathilde realized it was the simple, absolute fact. They b
oth knew it was true.
“Maybe that was why the earth spell didn’t work?” Mathilde asked as they started to run toward the train station, on the other side of the camp. “Maybe we are the answer. Certainly, no golem can stop her.”
Captain was slightly less optimistic, “Well, we’ll at least slow her down.”
The wall of ash lessened with each step they took away from the ovens. Trailing behind them, every building was covered in white.
Mathilde nearly tripped, but the broomstick stopped her stumble.
“Be careful,” he said.
“Be light,” she called back. “And fast, like a cat.”
He grinned as they ran.
At least he doesn’t hate me, Mathilde smiled as she jumped and dodged bits of broken buildings. Moving forward with no regrets.
White wall of howling winds in front and behind them, a devastated camp all around—Mathilde and her Captain made a mad dash for the last train out of Gelshiesen.
20
The Cost of Freedom
They almost made it, too.
Close enough that Mathilde could see the thick shrubbery lining the front of the camp. The hedge stood twenty feet tall, blocking the public from any sight of the true Gelshiesen. Close enough that Mathilde could see the train tracks as they came down the distant mountains toward the lie that was the ‘resort.’
Crouching behind one of the initial buildings, Mathilde’s fingers found Captain’s for a brief second. His touch steadied her confidence. Her heartbeat slowed as their bond strengthened them both. Still, her mind raced.
Then, the swirling winds of ash finally dispersed, leaving them in the middle of a tornado that whistled as it spun past.
Soon, it too was gone.
And with the wind’s ceasing, dark shadows grew from all around.
“You?” she sneered when Mathilde stepped out from behind the rubble-strewn wall.
“You,” Mathilde replied to the crone. Adversaries. Forever. That line was set in stone.
After that, the old woman didn’t speak to Mathilde. Instead, she whispered to the darkness that filled her shriveled heart.
All wind stopped, even the slightest breeze.
Between them, the air went still with death and poison. Behind the Yaga witch stood Ethan and Edgar with the wax-covered Geisprom clutched in their shaking hands. The look in their eyes was dull and dark, as pitch-black as the hatred that flowed out of the old crone. Exactly like that.
An unreasoning hatred. Murder filled their stares.
They did not lift a hand to strike down the crone. They did not lift a hand to help their once-sister. Instead, the two men watched as witches dueled.
A storm of black rain fell across the dirt between Mathilde and the Yaga. The ground smoked wherever it landed.
First, Mathilde called the wind. “Kubonera,” she pointed at the oncoming storm. Vidartan magic rushed from her free hand, repelling the biting rain, pushing back the drops of nastiness that ate the earth. As the spell rebounded, the Yaga witch’s smile grew.
With a flick of her wrist, the crone stopped the wind again. “Is that all you have?”
“Vahagn,” Mathilde cried out to the fire. Elemental, true.
“Vahagn,” she spoke with a certainty that came from seeing things as they really were, stripped of lies.
“Emet,” the words filled the air between them and stripped away all illusion. The true fire burned away the surface of all of it. All the lies fell to dust.
All around them, the world rippled and changed.
When the magic settled, the buildings were mere shacks. The dog soldiers that surrounded the square were mostly armed with sticks and mops. Every lie exposed for all the world to see.
In the center of it all, stood the old woman—revealed as a creature of the foulest magic. Once a woman, perhaps, but not much longer. She held onto the form, but only by spellwork. She was hatred. More than that, she was something so wretched there were no good words to describe the depths of her depravity.
Mathilde felt the pull of her consuming, greedy power. It would be so easy to slip down that path. One that was so hopeless that only the foolish dared walk down it. And now everyone could see that above both Ethan and Edgar hung a tarred mess of clouded tendrils, strangling their light.
“Hadeshma!” Mathilde cried as the ancient crone sent some screaming black lighting directly at Mathilde’s feet.
Mathilde didn’t try to stop it. She wasn’t fighting for her own life. She had bigger worries.
“Hadeshma,” she summoned the magic that had filled generations of vidartan priests, that tingled through her blood and the blood of her fathers. Asking for mercy where none was given, she aimed for the slimy clouds that hovered above her brothers’ heads.
“Dispel. Break,” she insisted.
But the storm clouds of hate that hung over Ethan and Edgar’s minds only grew stronger, eating the hope and light she had sent to shatter the spell.
Now the hex over them loomed heavier, darkening their shadows into monsters.
And the looks on their faces mirrored the change. Outright disgust and aggression seeped from their faces now. Their cold gazes threatened to slash her to ribbons if she took one step nearer.
In front of her, the strike of the Yaga witch crackled as her black lightning spell struck Mathilde’s feet. Rocking the ground, ripping the foundation of solid earth out from under her shoes.
Captain grabbed her arms to stop her fall.
Stunned, Mathilde’s mind reacted slowly to the threats around her. She was frightened by the power of the hex on her family and by the destruction of the black lightning.
The crone did not stop either.
Using every trick she knew, the Yaga woman sent curtains of magic hurtling toward Mathilde and Captain. Where they stood, alone against the evil.
Another bolt was summoned.
And another and another.
Black lightning rained down, forking through the sky between the witches, striking over and over at her balance.
“Ebrah!” Mathilde cried, “Feather,” she called, grabbing on to Captain’s shoulder, with one hand and the broom that lay nearby. Trying to catch her balance, Mathilde intended to use it as a crutch.
That wasn’t what the magic wanted.
As soon as she whispered that word, the spell lifted her up off the ground. The broom shook, like it was filled with a hummingbird’s heart.
“Hold on!” Mathilde cried, as the broom zoomed forward, pulling her up and away from three lightning strikes that would have struck her dead. The blast struck the ground where she had just stood. Distorted magic cratered the earth with the precision of a bomb.
Mathilde could feel the soul-polluting crackle of electricity strike where they had stood moments before. The sheer power of the spell was shocking.
We barely escaped!
As vidartan magic lifted Mathilde and Captain from the earth, the concussion of the crone’s power, pushed them even higher.
Black lightning followed their trail, arcing ever closer.
For a second, Mathilde looked to the trains—to the depot where Fritz waited.
Just that one second, she looked away from the crone. That was when a bolt hit the back of the broom and sent Captain flying.
Mathilde held on to the handle just long enough to push the broom’s flight down toward the ruined buildings. Frustrated, Mathilde scolded herself for the mess.
She didn’t scream as the crone brought her crashing down.
She didn’t cry until the sound of her leg breaking in half seared through her body, along with the pain. The bone ripped her skin open, jutting out of her thigh.
Blood seeped across the beautiful blue vidartan dress. That was all she could think about, through the pain: the ruined ancient dress.
The ruined vidaya.
I’ve ruined everything. What a terrible mess I’ve made of it all. There had been a tiny chance that she could change the future. That was gon
e. All hope died as she lay on the ground.
Shock set in.
Shaking, she held on to the one thing she could watch: blood spreading across a blue field of embroidery. Ruining a magical dress—that was what captured her stunned mind while Mathilde’s brothers and all of her people were rounded up and thrown back into slavery.
Mathilde shivered, her body grew heavy and filled with a dreadful chill.
“Captain?” She whispered. “Cap-tain,” her words slurred as she drowned in the agony. “I need you.”
A face leaned near, frightful and delighted.
“That’s a pity,” The yaga witch cackled. “You really had a chance there for a bit. It was the whole flying broomstick thing that did you in. Really, they are a flimsy way to travel, don’t you think? Vidartans used to ride dragons. Now those, well, they were much more resistance to fire.”
Her ugly face leaned in closer. Wrinkles, warts, and one enlarged eye seeping blackness from her empty heart. Mathilde’s vision filled with the stuff of nightmares.
“Well?” The crone asked someone nearby, “it appears we can’t burn her. So we will cut her into pieces. That way we will be certain.”
Turning back to where Mathilde lay, injured in the rubble, Yaga nodded like they really were friends, “It’s probably for the best, dear. You don’t feel much now, do you? Are you sleepy? Soon, you will feel nothing at all. Though I’ll keep some of this blood. Power must be collected and controlled, you know. Power is only meant to serve the strongest.
“And now,” the witch grunted, “...they will all serve me.” Her wicked laughter emerged, filling the air with the stuff of nightmares. Bitter and rough, it mimicked the sound of a murder of crows cawing.
Somewhere nearby the earth shook, deep and shuddering.
Mathilde barely felt anything at all.
Her thoughts started to fade into a black when she first heard the whispers.
“Is that you, Captain?” she tried to ask. But her mouth didn’t work right. The once-blue dress was almost entirely purple, all the way down to her feet.
Low, almost rock on rock, the whispered words were impossible to understand. But not the feeling behind them, not the stubborn joy. Louder and faster, the words came—still slow by human speech measurement, but clearer each time.