Bewitched

by Mark Jay Harris

  Behind the witches and their familiars, Samantha could see a red glowing ring about five feet in height. It stood balanced on an edge, pulsing and flickering. Unlike a neon tube or light bulb, the glow that radiated from the clear stone reminded Samantha more of blood pumping through an artery than neon gasses illuminated by electricity.

  She struggled with her invisible bonds, only to stop when it occurred to her they hadn’t gagged her. They didn’t know she was a naricaster. They had tied the witches’ hands so that they couldn’t cast spells. But they had forgotten about those who could cast spells by facial movements; they were rare, almost unheard of. It hadn’t occurred to them that she could still work magic even while her limbs were held in place.

  Julander gestured over at the bound students. “The Key has woken up.”

  “About time, Sahwin—or should I call you Samantha?” said the well-dressed man. He looked down on her with imperious eyes. “We found your secret entrance. One day you’ll have to tell me how you stumbled across it. No one here knew about it.” He nodded back at the other witches. “But, no harm. We have you now. I believe you are acquainted with everyone.” He gestured toward the three warlocks and the witch. “With the exception of me.”

  The well-dressed warlock looked over at Serena and smiled. “Glad you could join us. As Samantha’s familiar you’re not going to want to miss the big show. Although I must say, I’m surprised at how liberally she allows you human form.”

  He kicked Mike, who groaned and started to come around. Andrea, now fully awake, looked up at the man with a mixture of hatred and fear.

  “My name is Bhantu. I lead the Northern Coven. Were you taught about me?”

  Samantha nodded. “I know who you are.”

  “Then you know that Ghohol was unable to destroy me. He was forced to exile me and my forces to the north. But that’s all going to change. Once I get the Grimoire, I am going to overthrow Ghohol and create a single world-wide coven, which I will reign over. We’ll then enslave mankind and rule the entire world.” He looked down on his captives who were awake and glaring at him.

  Samantha set her jaw. “I will never get the Grimoire for you.”

  “Oh, is that so? You will. That’s not the question. The question is whether the Warder will survive while you’re getting it for me.”

  Samantha bit her tongue a little longer, but it was taking all her self-control not to hurl a spell at him right now.

  “Why am I the only one who can get the Grimoire?”

  The four warlocks chuckled at her confusion.

  “That was puzzling to us as well,” Bhantu explained. “Molock cast a spell to protect the Grimoire. The only one who can pass through the rings must be able to answer the riddle: When is three thousand less than a score? You my dear are the only one capable of answering the riddle and passing through the rings. You were born more than three thousand years ago. Yet, in real-time, you’re only seventeen years of age. You are the answer to the riddle, and only you can retrieve the Grimoire.”

  Samantha could stand it no more. This narcissistic warlock needed to be brought down. She wanted to see him squirm. After what he’d done to Darren, she was ready to kill him, if only she’d known a spell that would do it. Extreme pain would have to suffice. “Dolens valde!” she cried and twitched her nose, casting the spell at him.

  Unexpectedly, Samantha was stabbed through the back by a long blade of fire. The pain was so tremendous she screamed in unexpected pain. Her friends looked at her in horror, fearing that Bhantu had cursed her for her belligerence.

  “Stop it!” Serena bellowed.

  “Quit it!” Mike yelled.

  The witches standing over them looked surprised before breaking out into smug laughter. Samantha squirmed within her confinement, turning red in her anguish.

  Serena shuffled from side to side, doing her best to free herself, wiggling and pulling at her invisible restraints. “Stop it! She’ll get the Grimoire for you. Just stop hurting her!”

  “If I ever get out of here,” Mike threatened in a low voice. He jerked from side to side, grimacing at the possibility of getting free.

  “Oh, this is delicious.” Bhantu chuckled. “You foolish child.” He walked over to Samantha and waved his arm above her head. “Abrogare.”

  Samantha’s pain vanished. She stopped screaming, her eyes wet with tears and her forehead damp with sweat. She was lying on the ground, breathing hard, trying to regain herself.

  “Did we forget to tell you about the Tergiversatio?” From under his shirt, he pulled out an amulet hung by a gold chain. A bright green stone, the center of which was black as night, was incased by a reflective frame that looked to be half steel, half glass.

  “The Tergiversatio is a little trinket we found since we’ve been down here: a very powerful amulet.” He chuckled again. “It reflects the spell cast on the wearer back at the caster. Whatever that painful spell was you cast at me, it fell on you. Apparently, you’re not too fond of me, judging by your reaction. In any case it became my spell to control after that, so only I could release you from your pain. I could have let it continue. It’s a good thing you didn’t cast your spell at your school administrator. He loves a good show.”

  Bhantu hovered over Samantha and set her back up against the wall next to her friends. His large forefinger came down on her nose. “I must say, I hadn’t expected you to be a naricaster. That might have been fatal had I not been wearing this thing.” He shook the chain about his neck. “If you had been less kind than I, and not released me from the pain, I probably would have released you all. I must never underestimate you. There is definitely a reason you were selected for this task.”

  Bhantu waved his arm at her. “Consurgio!” Samantha levitated to her feet.

  “Here is what’s going to happen. You are going to retrieve that book for me, or the screams you heard from the Warder will be coming from all your friends.”

  Samantha glared at him, hating him and resenting that there was no way to defy his order.

  “I’m going to release you. You will pass through the rings and bring me the book. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “And, do you believe me?”

  She nodded resignedly.

  “Abrogare,” Bhantu commanded.

  Samantha nearly fell onto the floor as she regained control over her body. She glanced back at her friends. Mike looked cold and dangerous, but his eyes were full of understanding for the situation they’d put her in.

  “Be prepared for anything when I get back,” she telepathically told her brave familiar. Serena subtly nodded in acknowledgement.

  Andrea looked scared and perhaps on the edge of shock. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Don’t worry,” Samantha told her. “This isn’t over yet.” Andrea seemed to appreciate her words but still looked like a frightened animal.

  “If you would be so kind?” Bhantu extended his arm toward the opening of the first ring.

  Samantha hadn’t noticed the second ring from her position on the ground. A red ring was six inches apart from a green ring. Both had a living, breathing quality about them that unsettled her.

  Swallowing hard, she looked through the first ring. There was nothing but the Grimoire across the room. Holding her breath, she slipped her foot through the first ring, expecting to come out on the other side. Instead as soon as she had completely stepped inside the circumference of the first ring, everything around her completely disappeared.

  ***

  When the stone had smashed Darren’s hand, he hadn’t known anything could hurt so badly. He’d been sick before, and he’d hurt himself in various ways growing up, but this was something completely foreign to his understanding, and he wanted it to stop.

  He knew he was screaming, but it seemed to be happening outside of himself. The blinding white pain that pierced him was so acute he thought he might lose his mind. Julander hadn’t just broken his hand; he’d crushed it. It was ruined. Somewhere in the back of
Darren’s mind floated the thought that he would never play college or professional basketball.

  But the pain was all there was. At first, it was the shock of the all-encompassing onset of agony. It was like jumping into ice-cold water; the moment you surface you can’t breathe, so you simply throw your limbs in front of you and do the best you can. Next came the onslaught of thoughts attempting to make sense of the brutality. But they fought against the pain that had the loudest voice in his head. Finally, he found himself trying to reason with the pain, explain how it was too much. It was beyond his ability to manage. Soon, he was certain he’d become delusional. He even thought he’d heard someone call out his name.

  Later, however, pain itself took on a persona. It looked just like Julander. Darren begged for it to stop; he cried and pled his case; he promised to give him whatever was in his power to give, but to no avail. The Julander-pain-thing was merciless. With each writhing expression of hate on the thing’s face, a fresh wave of agony passed over Darren, as if the Julander image was striking him again and again with the stone.

  After what seemed an impossibly long period, he was better able to collect his thoughts and tried to focus on them, drive them into a direction—any direction that was beyond the here and now where the pain was insufferable.

  He pictured Samantha and the kiss they’d shared. He tried to get it to stick in his mind. It was a momentary diversion, but it was difficult to make it last long enough. He needed something bigger, more complex.

  His thoughts returned to those of anger. He remembered Ethan, how he had just talked with him. It had felt so real, and Mr. Whitmore had been so convincing as his brother. The thought of Ethan being alive again was like the opposite of the pain he was now enduring. It was the purest joy. But it had never happened! There was no joy!

  The depiction was too cruel. They had gone too far in doing that to him. He remembered his hate of earlier, when he’d bruised his hands as proof of his resolve to bring them down. Now those bruises were nothing compared to the conviction his new wounds had given him. Those despicable beings didn’t deserve destruction! They were evil wrapped in flesh. He now understood exactly how Atavus felt about witches. Samantha had said their evil surpassed any consideration of mercy. He should strike and not let them tell lies and twist the truth. Like his grandfather, he would never trust a witch! He would destroy them. He would be a true Pessum Ire.

  Anger began to burn upward from his stomach. It gave him a fixed point on which to concentrate. These thoughts contained the complexity necessary to drive the pain from his mind.

  The more he thought about destroying them, the better he felt. Exhilaration rushed throughout his whole being, increasing his heart rate and energizing his body. He’d get them. He’d burn holes through them all. Their destruction was all that remained of the universe.

  The pleasant warmth that had been filling him during his mental tirade grew stronger still. He barely felt the pain at all. There must have been an amazing amount of endorphins in his system because he was feeling terrific. He bolted up right, smiling. He pulled his hands free of the paste that clung to them. Looking down at his wrists he saw that the iron manacles had melted away from him. It was pooled and dripping on the rock, steam rising from it.

  After closer examination, he realized the glow he’d experienced inside had manifest itself through his hands as well. They were alight with power, glowing like incandescent bulbs so bright they left reverse images of darkness when he looked away from them. Scrutinizing his glowing hands, he wondered if he should be afraid, but there was no fear in what he saw and felt. They were his hands, and they had become tools, tools he could use to bring to pass the goals he’d set during his fevered dreams.

  Another wonder as he stared at the broken and crushed hand was that it was no longer injured. It was completely repaired. He flexed it within the bright glow, and there was no pain whatsoever. It looked as if it had never been harmed. He grinned, thinking about what he must look like right now. This was it. This was the power of the Pessum Ire.

  This was Warder’s Fire!

  He pointed toward the chains that bound his legs and a bar of light so bright it reminded him of a welder’s torch shot out from his hand and incinerated the iron links. All that was left was black ash and a bit of gray putty that smoked and smelled like sulfur and battery acid.

  Jumping up from the slab of stone, he marched over to the door and vaporized it with intense heat, the same intensity he planned on using when he engulfed this whole cavern in flames. Stepping toward the burned away door, his mind full of destruction, he suddenly dropped to his knees. This was unexpected.

  How had he ended up here? His head was swimming and his vision tunneled. Next he knew, he was propped on his arms, then his head dropped to the floor. He could feel the coolness of the stones beneath his cheek. What was happening? His hands were just barely glowing, a soft shade of pink that faded to nothing as he watched. Had he used it up? Was this another spell of the witches, another game? Were they playing with his mind? Had they made him believe he’d discovered his power only to rip it away from him? Would he wake up in a minute back on the slab with Julander and the rest laughing over him?

  The coolness of the stones was so inviting, and he was so tired. Just a moment’s rest on the floor was all he needed. Yes, just a moment to recharge his...what? What was he thinking about? What was going...

  ***

  Everything had winked out. The stone room was gone, the witches and their familiars, the rings, and even the Grimoire disappeared. Instead of finding herself on the other side of the glowing rings, Samantha found herself in a cozy little sitting room with plush carpets on the floor, a cheery fire crackling in an ornately carved fireplace. The walls were tan and smooth, and outside the windows, it was a beautiful summer day—obviously not March in Utah.

  In the corner by the fireplace was a rocker and sitting in it an old man wearing curious black robes trimmed in sliver. He was bald with a sharp gray beard pointing off his chin. Wrinkles creased his eyes, but there was a twinkle in them which off-set his obvious age.

  Placing a finger in the spot where he’d been reading, the old man looked up from the large ratty book, pulled his glasses down, and squinted over them at her.

  “Ah,” he breathed quietly. “That took a long time.”

  ***

  “Where’d she go?” Julander looked through the rings, but saw only the unreachable book on the other side of the room.

  “Hmm,” considered Bhantu. “I wonder.”

  “You wonder what?” Ms. Vanderhoff asked, looking from students to warlocks. “You know something?”

  “Not necessarily, but I do suspect something. I want each of you to prepare to suck the air out of the cocoons they’re being held in.” He motioned to the bound students. “When she returns with the Grimoire, there could be trouble. We need to be ready to react. With lives on the line, she’ll be slower to make her move, and we may need that advantage.”

  ***

  “Where am I? And, who are you?” Samantha spluttered.

  “Quite a shock not to find yourself on the other side of those rings I imagine. Sorry about that, but I have my own way of doing things.” He shut the book and set it on a table in the center of the rug. He waved his hand over the table, and a tea set appeared.

  “An ex-nihilo spell,” he explained. “Which is a misnomer, but either way, you probably don’t know what I’m going on about. So much magic has been lost through the ages.” He motioned for her to sit, but there was no chair where he indicated. “Sit,” he said.

  When Samantha looked again, a chair was there. She sat down and gazed across the table at him.

  “Ex-nihilo,” he explained. “Something out of nothing. Even back in my day, some of the greatest professors of religion believed God created the world and the heavens that way: ex-nihilo.” He poured the tea into cups and chuckled. “Knowledge is perhaps more slippery than magic.”

  Samantha reached
forward and took her cup of tea, as did the old man.

  “Curious who I am?”

  Over her cup she looked back at him. “Moloch.”

  He grinned back at her. “Very good, Sahwin.” The twinkle in his eyes as he revealed he knew her name made Samantha instantly like this old sorcerer.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, referring to the tea.

  “Yes,” she replied. “It’s actually quite good. What is it?”

  “I don’t think the weed exists anymore. We used to call it Tchoclo. It brews with that naturally sweet taste right out of the leaves.”

  “Moloch, how are you still alive?” Samantha couldn’t help but ask.

  “Alive?” He smiled back at her question. “Well, that’s an interesting turn of phrase for what I am. Perhaps you’re right. It’s hard to fathom any longer. In any case, you should have a good idea how I did it if anyone does.”

  “A Catadromus?”

  “A form of a Catadromus, yes. So much has been lost, as I said. There are many types of spells. I exist in a state of Catadromy, which is a fancy way of saying I’m alive for as long as I choose to be—on the condition I never leave the parallel confines of this universe I’ve created.”

  “Meaning this room?”

  “I do indeed. Imagine life in prison, with no parole, and you never die. It changes your idea of cruel and unusual punishment, doesn’t it?” He grabbed a biscuit from the table and started munching on it. “But, it isn’t precisely a prison either. I’ve been pulling on the threads of life outside this cavern for centuries now. It is definitely time for it to come to an end.” He smiled wistfully over his cup at her.

  “Perhaps I should explain. To begin with, the time you spend in here will take very little time on the outside, perhaps a minute, and that’s if I talk slowly. Another thing you should know is that, the Grimoire is not on the other side of the room through those rings. No.” He reached down and picked up the old volume he’d been reading. “It’s right here.”