8 Gone is the Witch

by Dana E. Donovan

  He crossed the room and liberated two decorative broadswords off the wall. He then handed one to me, kept one for himself and gave the bayonet to Jerome.

  “What the...” I struggled to hold the sword up with both hands. “You expect me to carry this? It weighs a ton.”

  “You don’t have to use it. It’s just to make us look official.”

  “Official? Tony, you’re wearing a bathrobe and slippers. How official do you think that looks?”

  “Okay, first of all, they’re moccasins. Secondly, this isn’t a bathrobe; it’s the traditional garment of local professional merchants and businessmen.”

  “You look like a monk.”

  “What’s wrong with that? I’ll have you know that the monk’s robe was the inspiration for the original Jedi robe.”

  “Jedi? Ha! Beam me up, Scotty.”

  “That was Star Trek.”

  “Oh. Did they wear robes in Star Trek?”

  “No.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “What case?”

  “My case for leaving the damn swords.”

  “We might need them.”

  “Yes and they might get us killed.”

  “How are they going to get us killed?”

  “Look. What’s the first thing a cop does when a suspect won’t drop his weapon?”

  “We shoot him.”

  “Again, I rest my case.”

  “Fine. No swords.” He took one last look out the window. “Okay, two of the guards just walked off. Now’s a good time to go.”

  He hopped out the window, helped Leona down from the sill, then Jerome and lastly me. When we turned around to head out, we discovered a most bizarre thing. No longer were we out front of the castle by the main gate; instead, we were out back looking at the stables.

  “What the f...” Tony gave me the same look Carlos gives him when stuck with the bill down at the Percolator.

  “Wait. I know this,” I said. “Don’t tell me. Starts with an F. Four letters. Fuck? I felt a tug on my hand and looked down.

  “Jerome no fuck now! Fuck later.”

  I yanked my hand away and swatted him on the head. “No! You little perv!”

  Leona covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. I smiled back at her, pulled on my shirttail and straightened my shoulders. “You’ll have to excuse lizard breath here,” I said. “We’re still working on his manners.”

  Tony said, “Screw manners. What the hell just happened?”

  I took a guess. “Contravista.”

  “What?”

  “Sure. The window at the back of the structure overlooks a view out front. We saw it at the bar on our first day here. Remember?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “Man, this place is––”

  “Fucked. I know.”

  “I was going to say bizarre.”

  “Oh no you weren’t. You were just dying to say fuck.”

  “Fuck!” Jerome cried. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  “See what you started. Come on. Let’s move.”

  We scurried across the back of the castle along the right side, keeping close to the wall and down low. After turning the corner out front, Tony and I assumed a rigid posture. We took Leona by the arms as if she were our prisoner and marched her straight up to the gate. Two very large guards operating the checkpoint there dutifully stopped us.

  “Who goes?”

  “Wow,” I said, “a two word sentence. You must be the smart one.”

  “Who goes?” he repeated.

  “Oh, I get it. That’s all you know. Hey, it’s a tough language. Give it time.”

  The two leveled their spears. Tony stepped forward. “Lord Lowell asked us to take the prisoner to the forest to prepare her for the Decussate Day ceremony.”

  I put my hand to the side of my mouth. “Told us.”

  He did the same. “What?”

  “Lord Lowell told us. He wouldn’t ask us.”

  “Oh. Right.” He squared his shoulders to the guards. “Lord Lowell told us to take the prisoner to the forest and––”

  “We heard you.” The guard made a stabbing gesture with his spear. “Who goes?”

  “Oops, see.” I dismissed him with a wave. “You almost had me there, Tonto. Thought you had a real vocabulary.”

  Tony said, “He’s pointing at Jerome.”

  “Oh. He’s our sacrificial driget. Can’t prepare a Decussate Day bride without sacrificing a driget or two. That’s what I always say.”

  I saw the first guard give the second one a look, obviously questioning the validity of our story. The second one shook his head.

  I let in to him. “What do you mean no, Jackass? Do you want me to go back in there and tell Lord Lowell that you won’t let his bride get ready? Do you? Because I will, Buster. Just try me.”

  “Easy,” Tony whispered. “Don’t overdo it.”

  “No, Tony. I mean it. This shit for brains is too dumb to know his ass from his elbow. If he––”

  “Enough!” The guards raised their spears chest high and started towards us.

  “Great.” Tony led us backwards in equal measure. “Now you did it. You pissed them off.”

  “Sorry. I was playing good cop bad cop.”

  “Yeah, well next time leave the good cop bad cop routine to Carlos and me.”

  “Speaking of Carlos,” I gave a subtle nod towards the gate. “Isn’t that him?”

  The gates opened. The guards shouldered their weapons, turned and saluted.

  With their attention diverted, Tony leaned over and whispered, “Why would you think that’s Carlos?”

  “The academy ring.”

  He looked again just as Carlos entered. “You’re right, it’s him. What the hell is he doing?”

  I have to say, in my wildest dreams, I never thought Carlos had the balls to try to pull off such a crazy stunt. It was so incredibly preposterous, brazen and imaginative, so cockamamie and foolish, it just had to work.

  I turned to Tony, the smile on my face was busting my cheeks. “He should definitely earn the Big Kahonnas badge for this one.”

  “If he doesn’t, he can have mine.”

  Apparently, Carlos had found the dead soldier that Tony and I tossed over the wall earlier. Recognizing it was a high-ranking officer, he hatched a bold and daring plan.

  He told us later how he had stripped off the officer’s uniform before severing the poor bastard’s head. He then propped the head up on the end of a stick, slid the stick down the front into his pants and pulled the uniform up over his face.

  Believing he looked enough like an officer, he strolled onto the compound proud as a peacock and ordered the others to let us pass.

  Surprisingly, they did. The four of us ran out of there as fast as we could. We met up with Ursula on the other side of the drawbridge and waited there for Carlos.

  “What the hell is taking him?” asked Tony. “I thought he was right behind us.”

  “He was,” I said. “But look at him now. I think he’s giving them orders.”

  In his effort to play up the role as best he could, Carlos decided he should act authoritatively. He barked out commands ordering the guards up in the tower to switch places with the men walking the battlements. He then told the blacksmiths stoking the fires to dowse their flames because they were making too much smoke.

  “And don’t use water!” I heard him yell. When someone asked him what they should use, he shouted out, “Pee on it!”

  Finally, and this is what happens when you let the brobble seed go to your head, he ordered the gatekeepers to secure the gate and drawbridge and then burn the place down.

  “The enemy is coming,” he told them. “We must not let the fortress fall into their hands.”

  He then began calmly backing out through the gates. He was only about halfway across the drawbridge when the head fell off the stick and rolled into the mote. The soldiers at the gates didn’t see it fall, but they heard the splash.

  When they t
urned and looked, they saw the headless officer backing down the planks as if nothing happened.

  Their immediate response was to reopen the gates, which they did. When Ursula saw them approaching, she hurried out onto the drawbridge and splayed her hands in the air.

  “Cease thee heathens and lay ye weapons down,” she commanded. “Lest I chop thy heads and strike thee dead where ye be.” She pointed at Carlos. “Walk thee this way to the sound of my voice and know what blood doth spill doth spare the blood of thine own kind.”

  The guards quickly dropped their weapons and backed away. I stepped out onto the drawbridge with Ursula and offered up my own two cents worth.

  “Better do as she says, assholes. She’s a powerful witch. You see what she did to your superior. She can do it to you, too, in a blink. So just keep on backing up. Close the gates and raise the drawbridge.”

  “Wait till we be off,” Ursula added.

  “Yes, of course. I thought that was implied.”

  After escorting Carlos off the drawbridge, I hollered back, “And don’t forget to burn the place down, or we’ll be back to do it for you!”

  Ursula raised her fist in the air and shook it. “Heed thy word lest it be forgotten. The wrath of vengeance shall befall thee!”

  She started to turn away, but then whipped back and added, “Assholes!”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Heavy plumes of thick black smoke rolled off the horizon as we cleared the second hill beyond the fortress. We weren’t any closer to home than when we first arrived at the ES, yet just knowing Doctor Lowell was dead and Leona was in our company, gave our journey a sense of accomplishment. I know Leona felt it. Though the rest of us, dirty, hungry, and tired, had nothing much to smile about, she could barely contain hers.

  “Leona,” I said, “you seem happy.”

  We had stopped at a quiet stream to soak our feet and quench our thirst, though not necessarily in that order. Jerome lay on his side, under a sprawling broad-leaf shrub, blending in so well it took me a minute to realize he was even there.

  “Oh, but I am happy,” Leona replied. “I have not had so much happy for a very long time.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She regarded me with a curious stare. “Because of my incarnation.”

  “Your what, dear?”

  Tony said, “I think she means incarceration.”

  “Ah, sí. Gracias. For mi incarceration. Perhaps for a witch, a year is not so much time, but for me...” She let it go at that.

  I looked at Tony. I knew he and I were thinking the same thing. He said to her, “Leona, just how long do you believe Doctor Lowell held you there in that fortress?”

  She rolled her eyes softly and offered a simple shrug. “I do not know, but a long time is for sure.”

  “Guess.”

  “I think maybe for one year and some months.”

  “How do you know? I mean because none of us seem to have a grip of the whole time space thing here.”

  She looked at Ursula and me. “You know.”

  “I know?” I said, pointing to myself. “How would I know?”

  Her eyes moved to Tony and Carlos, but only for a moment before finding comfort again in mine.

  “Because of that time.”

  “What time?”

  Ursula said, “Methinks she speaks of that time when a woman’s friend doth visit.”

  “Ooh. That time. I get it.”

  Carlos asked, “You had visitors at the castle?”

  “Carlos.” Tony gave him a look to shut him down.

  “Leona.” I took her hand. “Let me get this straight. By counting your periods, you estimate you’ve been up in that room for over a year?”

  “Sí, and some months.”

  “Oh, you poor thing. It’s only been a few days since––”

  “Lilith.” Tony pitched that same tone at me that he used on Carlos. If I hadn’t been so damn tired, I’d have pitched something back at him. But, I was, so I let it drop. He said to Leona, “I have another question.”

  She smiled timidly. “Sí?”

  “How did Doctor Lowell get you here?”

  “Here?”

  “To the Eighth Sphere. You do know that’s where you are, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “How did he do it? Do you know?”

  “Sí, he told me.”

  “And?”

  “The doctor discovered… how you say, rasgón?”

  “Rasgón?”

  Carlos said, “She means rip, or tear.”

  “Sí, a tear, un rasgón en la tela del universo.”

  “A tear in the universe.”

  “Exactamente! This tear, it is a hole, no? It is left after from when you sent him here.”

  “Leftover,” I said. “That’s what I told them. Leftover energy from the vortex.” I looked at Ursula. “Isn’t that what I said?”

  She nodded eagerly. “Aye, thou did say it to be sure.”

  Tony came back, “We understand all that, Leona. What I want to know is how did you both get through the vortex without the help of a witch’s key or a witch’s ladder?”

  “Ah, sí, through the mirror.”

  “Mirror?”

  “I knew it!” I said, slapping my knee. “The mirror upstairs in the workshop. I told you it wasn’t there before.”

  “Yes, keen observation, Lilith.”

  “Are you mocking me?”

  “Shush, please. I want to hear this.”

  “Now you’re shushing me? Are you serious?”

  “Lilith. Please?”

  “Fine.” I put my hand out and splayed my fingers. “You can talk to the hand when you’re ready for real answers.”

  Tony ignored me. “Leona, tell us how he used it.”

  “He captured the window,” she answered.

  “What window?”

  “The one with Travis Webber’s thought-form. He makes for the reflection to show in the mirror and he steps into it.”

  “Amazing.” Tony turned to me. “What do you think of that, Lilith?”

  “What? Now you want to hear what I think? Too bad. I don’t have an opinion on the matter.”

  “Okay, then don’t––”

  “Fine. Stop whining. I’ll tell you. You don’t have to beg.”

  “I wasn’t beg––”

  “Here’s exactly what happened. Obviously, there’s still a fair amount of residual energy left on the window from when I conjured up Travis’ thought form some years ago. That energy must act like a magnet for the convergence points of the old vortex.

  “Somehow, after Doctor Lowell found his way there from here, he must have figured out how to fashion a viable portal using the mirror as a focus point.”

  “Guess that explains it. Sure wish we had that mirror now.”

  “Which reminds me, ol` mighty portal hunter. I thought you told us those things were everywhere.”

  “The portals? They are.”

  “Where?”

  “Well, you can’t expect me to find them all.”

  “Can I expect you to find just one?”

  “I’ve been looking.”

  “Do you need help? Tell us what to look for. Maybe with all of us chipping in we can find one.”

  “Yeah,” said Carlos. “This place is getting old. I’d really like to get back home.”

  “The way I’ve found portals before was by kicking up some dust, literally. If you throw enough of it around, eventually you’ll see it disappear. That’s when you know it fell into a portal.”

  “Be it like the rock I threw into the chasm and found Yammer’s portal?” Ursula asked.

  “Exactly,” said Tony. “Only dust covers a larger area, increasing the odds of locating them, especially the smaller ones.”

  “What’s to prevent one of us from stumbling into a portal and disappearing?” asked Carlos.

  Things got silent then. Leave it to Carlos to ask the most important question of all. The ram
ifications of such an incident suddenly became abundantly clear. We learned from experience that a portal will take you anywhere in the ES your mind can imagine. The problem is that no two people will imagine the same thing.

  “Look,” I said. “We’re going to need a plan. In case one of us does trip into a portal, we should have a designated rendezvous point.”

  “Good idea.” Tony clapped his hands and wrung them together. “We all remember the first rope bridge we came to.”

  “Where we met Jerome,” said Carlos.

  “That’s right. It’s not far from town. There may be a portal near there. If we picture that place, we ought to come out somewhere close to it.”

  “There’s just one problem,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Leona has never been there.”

  Tony turned to Leona. She appeared frightened at the prospect of traveling via unfamiliar means to unfamiliar places. He cupped her hands gently. “It’s okay, Leona. We’ll never leave you.”

  “Promesa?”

  “Of course.” He turned to the rest of us. “Look, new plan. Listen up everyone. If one of us falls into a portal, the thing to do is get right back in it and think yourself back to where you were when you fell in. Once he or she gets back, we’ll all go through it together, just as we did before. Okay?”

  Carlos said, “What if you can’t get back into it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like the one that dumped us into the river near the castle. We couldn’t get back into that one.”

  “Then you find another and you get your ass back as soon as you can. ¿Entienda, amigo?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  I think Tony had more to add. At the very least, he had something sharper to dish out if Carlos had tried a sarcastic comeback. Though Carlos usually doesn’t take crap from anyone, he has learned over the years when it’s best to let Tony have the last word. Me, I never let him have the last word, but then that’s just how I roll.

  We picked up and headed out immediately after that, thus avoiding the awkward silence that usually follows such confrontations. Of course, Tony is probably the only one who would have minded it. The rest of us were so dog-tired, we wouldn’t have had much to say anyway.

  We elected to follow the riverbank downstream. When I say elected, of course, I mean Tony decided. His logic was that towns and settlements always establish themselves along waterways. My logic about malodyte base camps held much the same. I just didn’t share that with the others.