Hilda - The Challenge

by Paul Kater

  "And now they are the same sweet, Babsy baby..." The two witches laughed, William feeling a bit out of place at that moment.

  In front of him were an ink pot and a stack of paper. He had asked for that, as he wanted to write down a few things that he had thought of. He held the quill in his hand, grinning at the exchange between the two witches.

  "Willy, what's that?" Baba Yaga pointed a boney finger with a long finger nail at his hand.

  "Hand. Quill. Why?"

  "Why are hand and quill together?", the ugly witch asked.

  "Because I want to write, perhaps?" William had a suspicion what would come next.

  "And while you are magical, why do you write the ordinary way?"

  He carefully put down the quill. "Because that is the way I have been writing most of my life, Babs."

  "Yes, I see. But that life is behind you now, Willy, so grow up and write like a wizard. No touching the quill, no dipping the quill into the ink. It's easy. Even I can do that." Baba Yaga's laughter bounced around the hut again.

  Hilda proved to be little help to him too at that moment, as she turned her chair and sat looking at him, her face straight and her eyes flashing blue.

  "I don't believe this," said William as he reached for the quill again that moved out of his reached.

  "Write like a wizard, William," said Baba Yaga, who made the feather float in front of him.

  William drew in a lot of air and let it out very audibly. "Witches," he said. He held out a hand, made his wand appear and started writing with that.

  A deadly silence fell in the hut as the two witches stared at the man writing.

  "What...", was all Baba Yaga could bring up.

  "And he always does things like that," Hilda said, a blissful smile on her face. "You never know what he will do next. Isn't that sweet?"

  "It would drive me wild," Baba Yaga said, turning her tea into something a lot more potent and downing that in one go.

  "Yes. That happens too," Hilda agreed, "but the fact that he manages that time and again... I really admire that."

  "Do you, now?" William looked to the side, at his witch. He winked. Then he looked at his wand, used magic to clean the tip and made it vanish. "Just for that little revelation I will make a fool of myself and try to write like a wizard."

  Baba Yaga filled her teacup again, with the same potent drink. "The man is insane. And the woman is not far behind him."

  William grinned and looked at the quill that still danced in front of his face. Gently he took control of it and sensed how Baba Yaga let him do so. The quill was very light, it trembled as he moved it.

  Hilda looked at him, as he slowly brought the feather down to the paper and started scraping the tip over it. "You need ink, sweet man," she said.

  "Yes, it looks that way. So how do I do that, when it is so simple that even Babs can do it?" He was stumped.

  Hilda grinned. "You make ink at the tip, that's all."

  "Oh. Right." William stared at the tip of the quill. Then he looked at the witch next to him. "I now fully understand your problem with the engine of my truck."

  Baba Yaga frowned, she was obviously missing a few large chunks of the puzzle, but Hilda almost fell from her chair laughing. "Finally!", she yelled out.

  The Russian witch shook her head. "She's not behind him anymore. She passed him. She's gone."

  Hilda calmed down a bit and then explained to Babs that William had asked her to fix something in his vehicle. "And I don't know how that works, so I can't fix it. And now he discovers that he does not know how to make ink since he doesn't know what goes in it."

  baba Yaga laughed. "He comes to his senses. Good. That is important. He would be only half a wizard without that insight. But still he is insane to me."

  The two witches explained to William how he could make ink. The fact that they all shared magic made that a lot simpler than actually having to work on the ingredients.

  After ruining three sheets of paper with large blots of ink, he sighed and said: "Maybe I have to train this some more. This is micro-magic."

  Babs looked at Hilda and shook her head. She didn't even need to say it anymore. "You go and work on this outside, Willy, while us girls talk serious things. I don't need you messing up my fine table with a small river of ink. Please?"

  That probably was the best thing. William took his paper outside and grinned as he heard laughter thunder through the house. "Serious things. Yeah, right."

  They spent the evening sitting around a big fire that floated in the middle of the room. William was stunned by the abilities of Baba Yaga. She was not a looker, but in the category of doer she was amazing.

  The two witches were telling stories of things they had seen in their lives, and things they had done. There were plenty of tales about dragons, and the way the two witches talked about them made William curious about those beasts, but at the same time he wished that the first one he saw would be in a safe distance.

  Hilda then told Babs about how they had travelled to king Herald's kingdom and the whacky way in which they had brought Bilgar back.

  "You did what? You built a carrying thing on two brooms? And that worked?" The wrinkly witch sounded seriously impressed.

  "Yes. Well, I had to convince Bilgar to lie still a few times-"

  "Hahahaha," Hilda laughed, "you should have seen that. He punched him and Bilgar went bluh..." Hilda threw herself back in the chair, sprawled out, her tongue hanging from her mouth for a moment. "It was so funny to see!"

  "Don't tell me that Willy now already has such control over flying a broom that he pulled that off," said Babs.

  "No, I did not," William said. "Hilda took over the flying while I silenced Bilgar."

  "Silenced. I like that." Babs grinned. "I really like that."

  The chatting went on until late in the night, and finally they all went to sleep...

  Morning came. Hilda slowly woke up. Very slowly. With her eyes closed, she reached for William. She could not find him. "William?", she whispered, but that did not bring him back to her either. She leaned up on an elbow, brushed most of her hair to the side and looked at the empty spot."William?" A frown was on her face for a moment. Then she was awake enough to sense him, through the mysterious link. He was outside. Practicing his hands-free writing and not making too much ink.

  Hilda smiled. "Good boy. But bad boy for leaving me alone, too." She got out of bed and walked to the window in the main room, from where she saw William. He sat on one of the flattened skulls, the paper and the quill floating in front of him, both objects wobbling tremendously.

  "Hold the paper, dumb person, that is so much easier," Hilda mumbled.

  William remained a dumb person for a while longer. Then he seemed to understand. But even with the paper steady on his knees, the writing was not working out.

  Hilda slipped into her housecoat and walked out to where William was sitting.

  "I'm trying," he said as he saw her approach. "And good morning."

  Hilda kissed his cheek. "Good morning. I should slap you for leaving me alone."

  "Will that help me write better?", William asked her.

  She stared at him. And laughed. And then said: "Please, never change, no matter how dumb I find you. I love it when you make me laugh with these remarks."

  He grinned, the quill still wobbling in front of him. "As you see, I am wasting paper."

  Hilda examined the stack of paper in his lap and saw that he spoke the truth. "I can't believe that this is so difficult for you. It is just like writing with your hand, just without using your hand."

  William stared at the witch the way she had stared at the paper. "Just like writing with your hand..." He turned his attention back to the quill, took a fresh sheet of paper and set himself to writing. Like usual, just without his hand. The quill lowered to the paper and started moving. At first it was shaky, as if a drunk spider was trying a waltz on the wrong music, but after a few lines of rubbish, the writing became more stable, and a
t the end of the sheet of paper it was actually legible.

  "Did you manage that just because of what I said?" Hilda was amazed.

  "Yes. Once you said that, it dawned on me that I should feed my feeling of the movement to the magic that goes to the quill. And then it is - uhm - well, not exactly easy, but at least it works."

  "Yes. That works. And now you got the trick down, I demand satisfaction. I am cold and you will have to come in with me and see if you can make me warm again." She held out her hand, which William gladly took, and they went inside. As the door of their room closed, the owner of the hut muttered something about impetuous youths.

  48. Books and magic

  Thoroughly warmed up, Hilda stretched herself, putting one of her arms over William's face. "Oh, I feel good now. I could do with more, but I'm afraid that Babs would not appreciate that."

  "Hmmffmm," replied William.

  "What was that, sweet man?" The wicked witch leaned on an elbow and looked at him.

  "I tried to say that I think you are right."

  "Yes, she is!", a voice came from the other side of the door, "and you'd better get your lazy parts out of the bed because there is food and beverage waiting." Baba Yaga stomped off extra loudly, muttering about young folk making lots of noise in the middle of the night, straining all four legs of her hut. She did go on for a while longer, but Hilda and William did not understand that.

  They did get their lazy parts out of the bed and into some clothes, after which they presented themselves for breakfast.

  "You two are terrible," said the ugly witch, "it's a good thing I am deaf or I would have been awake all night."

  Hilda screamed for laughter, William was entirely puzzled by the contradiction in her words. He let himself be pulled to the table by Hilda.

  After breakfast, Hilda and William collected their things. "We may have to come by again, before our challenge," Hilda said, "we should be very aware of the forest."

  "I wouldn't bother," Baba Yaga said. "It changes itself, so there's little point in coming over. It even confuses me at times. The only thing relatively stable is this here, where I live."

  William frowned. This was relatively stable. Okay.

  "Well, kids, have a nice flight home, do give me a yell when you got there okay?"

  The three exchanged hugs and then Hilda and William mounted their brooms and headed for home.

  The house was glad to see them, once the chains were gone. "You have missed some company," it reported.

  "Oh, really? Who wanted to see us?"

  "Hmmm. See would be the least of your problems," said the house. "It was a small regiment of soldiers that wanted to take you away."

  "Soldiers?" William was surprised that someone would send soldiers to capture a witch.

  "Magical soldiers, William," Hilda enlightened him, sensing his confusion. "Herald has friendly ties with Ringeholm and Oxfern, both of whom have legions of soldier-magicians. And when a horde of those march through Lorn, there are not many in that kingdom stupid enough to try and stop them."

  "I see..." William boggled at the idea of a legion of soldier-magicians. Even a dozen would be bad.

  "The good news is that they left without shooting too many arrows in me," the house proclaimed further. "There probably was not enough visible of me, thanks to the chains."

  "This is something you must remember, William. The house was glad it was chained up! There's a first!" Hilda laughed, pulled six arrows from the wood, and they went inside.

  Each arrow carried the same message. Lamador was shocked about the invitation to the challenge, as this could not be taken serious. But he accepted.

  "I wonder why they shot six arrows with the same message," said William as he magicked up two glasses of wine.

  "Uhm, sweet man, isn't it a bit early for that?", Hilda asked. She did take the glass with the diluted wine though, before he had the option to make it go away.

  William took his glass and toasted with her's. "We'll decide about that after drinking, I'd say. The fact that Lamador accepted our challenge means something."

  "Oh? And what does it mean?", asked Hilda after taking a good sip.

  "I'll let you know when I find out, okay?" William took a healthy swig from his wine also.

  "Well, at least he takes us serious," said Hilda. "I'll talk to Babs and let her know we've arrived."

  William raised her glass to her and sat down at the table, opening his valued precious book. It made him relax, looking at the scribbly writing and the pictures. As he paged through the book, there was something wrong. No, not wrong, he corrected himself. Different. He just wasn't sure what it was.

  Hilda returned to the table. "What are you looking at?"

  "Not sure, it just looks as if it tried to make sense to me."

  Hilda picked up his wine-glass and put it out of his reach. "I'm afraid, William, that this was indeed too early for you. When you came here first you said you could only read one out of every twenty or so pages, and now that page starts making sense to you? I mean, I can read this because I am a witch. I am magical."

  They looked at each other.

  "Oh... suck an elf... you are becoming more and more magical too..."

  William nodded. He held out his hand and his wine-glass floated to it. "I'll drink to that, Hilda."

  They spent the remainder of the morning going through the book. William managed to decypher one of the spells that were in it. It was a simple one, to recolour flowers, but Hilda was amazed that the book salesman turned wizard could actually read it.

  "Gimme," she said then, pulling the book towards her. Quickly she paged through it, until she reached a page that was almost at the end of the book. "Can you see what this says?" She pushed the book under his nose again.

  William scratched his nose. "Well, that looks like an S... That could be a T..." It was obvious that the page Hilda had selected was still a few steps too high.

  "Too bad. I really would love to know what is written there," Hilda pouted, "I can't read that either."

  "Which means?" William looked at Hilda and touched her hand for a moment.

  "Means that we both don't know," she grinned. "But who knows, maybe the book keeps it up to make more sense to you. And when you can read it, you can tell me."

  "Sorry, sweetwitch, but somewhere in that, there seems to be a flaw in your logic. You've been able to read a lot of this since the first time you saw the book, while I could merely read the nursery rhymes and look at the pictures. And now you tell me that I may be able to read things that you can't?"

  "Sure." Hilda saw his wondering face not getting any less wondered. "Okay, listen carefully. You are making the big mistake again. You talk about logic. Now logic is a wonderful thing, but do not try to substitute that for magic. Magic is an entirely different beast. It compares to logic like a brick does to a blackbird." Hilda frowned at that comparison, but as William did not seem to mind, it was fine with her. "I'm a witch. A wicked witch, born and raised. You are... uhm... well, you are not born and raised a witch. I do things, you do things. And magic assists us in doing what we do, and enables us to make us do it as well as we can."

  "Oh. I see. I didn't know that," said William.

  "Neither did I," said Hilda in response, "I just made that up, but it sounds pretty convincing, doesn't it?"

  William looked into her eyes. There was no red, no blue. Just black eyes. He had no clue if she was joking, being serious or anything else.

  "Remember that I am a wicked witch, William. It is inside me." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Now someone has to go do the rounds. Do you want to come with me, or do you want to stay here and spend time with your book?"

  He knew she was asking that without wickedness. "I'm coming with you."

  She smiled, blue sparks in her eyes.

  In the days that followed, they worked on their plans concerning their challenge. William convinced Hilda that it would be a sign of fair play to write up the guidelines for their cha
llenge and send those to Lamador.

  "But why? That way he can prepare himself!" Hilda shook her head. "If ever I heard a stupid thing, it's called fair play. He doesn't do that either."

  "Hilda, you are just wicked. You need to learn about some other techniques."

  "Do they involve magic, flying or sex?"

  "No."

  "Sorry William, but why should I bother then?"

  "Because perhaps we want to win this challenge and unsettle our friend Lamador?"

  "Hmmf. Really no...?" She looked at him, her face a question mark.

  "Before and after, okay?"

  "Yes! Let's start with the before!"

  "Hilda..."

  They started with the before.

  Inbetween the before and the after, Hilda lay on William, a happy smile on her face. "So what are these techniques you were blabbing about? I warn you, make it interesting or I will fall asleep on you and you will have to lie still until I wake up again."

  William could think of a worse fate, but tried to tell Hilda a thing or two about bending the rules. He had written the rules for their contest in such a way that for an untrained reader of writing by an ordinary, the whole thing looked simple and unambiguous. But, he explained, there were little things here and there that could also be interpreted in another way. "I put that on paper quite flexibly," he said.

  Hilda frowned and tried to find a hole in his reasoning. "I don't really get this. You were not lying when you wrote the paper, right? Still, now you tell me that the paper isn't exactly telling the truth?"

  "It is telling two truths. One for the people who expect nothing but the obvious truth, one for us. And we can take advantage of that."

  "I hope you are not going to tell me everything in detail, because then I will fall asleep on you." In preparation, the wicked witch closed her eyes and tightened her hold on William's arms.

  "I won't. Just trust me on this one."

  Hilda nodded. She wiggled herself into a slightly more comfortable position, did her kitten purr, and relaxed. The wicked witch was quickly bored that day, William decided.