Vashni returned with her riding bag. In the brighter firelight, Innowen saw he was no demon at all, and he sullenly chided himself for his fear. Beyond a doubt, though, Vashni was the largest man he had ever seen. Far bigger even than Drushen, who bulged with muscle from his wood-cutting. His garments, kilt and breastplate, greaves and arm braces, all glimmered with studs and rings of copper and bronze. The short, embroidered sleeves of a black linen tunic showed from under his armor. And that huge bronze sword still hung sheathed at his right hip.
He had seemed a demon in the storm, with lightning glimmering on all that metal. Innowen had never seen such armor before. Nor had he ever encountered a man he would have called beautiful. He dared to study Vashni's face. The features were perfect, though marked by a hardness that bordered on cruelty. His mouth was a thin cut above the chin, and his brows seemed to crag over deep-set dark eyes that glittered like splinters of black ice. But for the pair of braids, his hair was chopped close, and a short-trimmed beard colored his cheeks.
The Witch took the bag from his hand, opened it, and extracted a small wooden figurine. From a sheath at her belt she withdrew a small dagger and began to carve. The firelight rippled on the sharp copper blade as she worked, and Innowen leaned forward on the table to see better. But she turned, blocking his view, and quickly finished. She looked from the doll to Drushen, then touched it to his forehead and heart. With two quick motions, she stabbed the figurine's right arm, kissed its new wounds, and cast it into the fire.
The old man never made a sound. His eyes stayed closed in apparent sleep.
Innowen sagged against the wall, sure at last that his guardian would be all right. The Witch had said so, and he had watched her work some charm.
I love her, he thought again. He didn't understand, but he knew it without a doubt. Everything about her fascinated him. She was new and refreshing, and she made his world seem new as well. The cottage felt warmer, the furniture looked more elegant. The very woodgrain in the old walls seemed sharper and more vivid. He inhaled the air, and it tasted like the rarest essence. The snapping crackle of the flames made a music. The fire shimmered.
Her shadow! It danced upon the walls and the ceiling, going where it would, spinning and leaping whenever she moved, flitting around the cottage like an independent soul. The shadow glided delicately and with a strange quality, a kind of magical dance-for-two that only he seemed to witness. The Lady's every gesture embodied grace as she went about her healings, but her motions were brusque and purposeful.
Her shadow, though, was a piece of enchantment, blackness without darkness. One with the Witch, yet free, it elongated all her movements, drew them out and transformed them into pavanes and arabesques.
Innowen looked for his own shadow. It made barely a stain on the far wall, huddled on a low shadow-stool in a corner, all crouched down and formless. It didn't move, it didn't dance. It just sat there, two useless shadow-legs thrust out at funny angles.
Even his shadow was crippled.
A moan rose from the bed. Innowen glanced apprehensively toward Drushen, but the old man made no other sound. The Witch stood motionless at the bedside. Innowen swallowed. "Is he...?"
"Just sleeping," she answered, turning slowly to face him. She wore an expression of weariness as she drew herself erect. "He should awaken later in the day, and he'll be hungry. Feed him the broth that Vashni has prepared."
Innowen gazed toward the hearth. A kettle hung on an iron hook near the fire, and a rich aroma filled the cabin. He hadn't seen the big warrior prepare it. He'd been too involved in watching the Witch and her shadow, too wrapped up in his own thoughts.
Near Drushen's bed, a bowl of water sat on the floor. The Witch had used it to mix the poultice for his wound. Now she bent to pick it up, but as her fingers brushed the earthen rim, she froze. For a moment, she stood unmoving. Then her brow furrowed. She stooped closer and peered with keen interest at something in the water.
As if struck a blow, she suddenly recoiled. All color drained from her face. Her mouth opened slackly, and her eyes widened. Carefully, she picked up the bowl, cradling it in both hands, and stared into it again.
Innowen knew there was only water in the bowl. He didn't understand. What could she see in a bowl of water?
The vessel slipped through her fingers, and the thin pottery shattered. Water splattered the floor and the hem of her fine gown. The Witch didn't care. She whirled toward Innowen. With an effort, she composed her features into a semblance of calm. Slowly, she drew a long breath and knelt to meet him eye to eye.
"Do you know, my Innocent, why you cannot walk?"
Innowen hung his head, unable to meet her gaze for long. He looked, instead, at her shadow as it stretched across the floor, up the far wall, and back over the ceiling like a tenuous preening creature. He could talk to her shadow, if not to the Witch.
"Drushen said I was born this way." He swallowed hard again and trembled at her nearness. Yet the shadow on the wall encouraged him to speak, nodding its head as the flames danced in the hearth. "I never knew my parents. They left me on the road, exposed for the animals or the elements. Drushen found me and raised me, and we've been each others' only company ever since." Despite himself, a tiny smile creased his lips. "I can't do much to help around here, but I listen to his complaints and his stories, and we talk a lot."
The Witch of Shanalane touched his knee. It startled him, and he jerked, bumping his head on the wall. He couldn't avoid her gaze any longer. Her eyes burned into him, searing him, illuminating all his secrets. Was it her power, or was it his own fear? He didn't know, but he couldn't look away.
"Are you happy?" she asked, an odd question for one stranger to ask another.
Innowen stammered and blinked back the tears that threatened to come again. "I can't walk," he answered slowly. He tore his gaze away at last and sought her shadow. It flickered in time to the crackling fire, moving over the old rough wood with an eerie grace. "I can't dance."
A torrent of words burst from him, and his eyes flooded with tears. "I want to dance," he said bitterly. "Like your shadow there. Like the fire. Like the trees in the wind and the stars through the sky. Drushen dances sometimes, and the villagers in Shandisti dance when the harvest comes in. The animals, the birds, the grass and flowers—they all dance, they're all alive with motion." He pounded his fists against his unfeeling limbs. "But not me! Not Innowen!"
The outburst drained him. He sagged back against the wall and slipped sideways off his stool to the floor. He beat his legs once more, but weakly, ashamed of his tears and his infirmity, painfully aware of the beautiful woman before him and of his own unworthiness.
The door opened. Vashni peered around its edge. "We should leave now, Lady." He spared a glance toward Drushen's bed. "We've stayed too long already. The soldiers...."
The Witch waved her hand, and Vashni fell silent. Leaning close, she took Innowen's face between her fingers and turned him toward her, forcing him to meet her eyes once more. He couldn't bear them, especially after his unmanly display. Yet she gripped his chin and compelled him to look.
"My poor Innocent," she whispered. "I saw your pain. I saw it in the water where the past and future sometimes reveal themselves to me. I see it now in your aura, which glimmers with misery." She released him, and her hand settled on his chest, just over his heart. "I saw your fate in that bowl of water, my Innocent." Her face came next to his, and the warmth of her hand spread all through him. "You'll walk, yes, and you'll dance. You'll dance the world away."
An arcane glittering like the flashes of tiny lightning bolts filled the dark wells of her eyes. Innowen's tears surged forth once more, humiliating him, the droplets completely beyond his control. He became a child again, a weeping baby in need of succor, muddy and filth-splattered. He slid further down, his back against the wall, until he almost lay on the floor. The Witch watched him; that only made him cry more.
"I—I love you," he confessed through his sobs. With a boldnes
s born of shame, he reached up to touch her face, longing to brush his fingers over the milky paleness of her cheek. She was just beyond his reach, though, and he trembled as he drew his arm back. His tears continued, blurring his vision. "I don't understand, I don't know how, but I love you." He turned his face to the floor and covered it with one hand. "Help me," he muttered.
"I'll help you," the Witch answered, pulling his hand from his face. "I'll help you to walk, and you'll dance as no man has ever danced." She rose and went to the door. Vashni was no longer there. She called his name, and he appeared instantly.
"Carry our Innocent out into the rain," Innowen heard her whisper. "Strip away his rags and let the downpour cleanse him. Make him fit to look upon our god."
Vashni's eyes snapped wide, then he furrowed his brow. "Lady, Minarik's troops know our direction."
Again, the Witch stopped him with a curt gesture. "This is too important," she snapped. "The storm will slow them, and if anyone finds us before I finish, you'll have to deal with them. Now do as I tell you. Then wait by the horses and keep a sharp watch. Go!"
Vashni shook his head, frowning, but he picked up Innowen with his usual disdain. "Stop that blubbering," he grumbled, giving him a shake as he carried him through the door.
The shock of the rain and wind did what Vashni's threat could not. Innowen had become used to the cottage's warmth. The cold stung him. He hugged himself and barely protested when Vashni dropped him on the ground, seized the back of his tunic and ripped it free in one swift motion. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came.
The huge warrior loomed over him, and Innowen realized the giant was as soaked and miserable as he was. Raindrops pearled down his face, streamed from his lashes and chin, causing him to blink and wipe his face endlessly. "You want to shed that breech cloth, or do you need more help?" Vashni snapped.
Tremulously, Innowen unwound the breech cloth from his loins. He folded it self-consciously, watching as the dark warrior went to the Witch's horse, reached into another bag that was somehow hound to her riding pad, and lifted out a bundle of black velvet. Vashni's face seemed frozen in a perpetual grimace as he bore the burden back toward Innowen, slowly unwrapping it.
Innowen caught his breath. The velvet came free, exposing a strange wooden idol. Thick copper nails had been driven into it, perhaps a hundred, at all different angles. Innowen could discern no detailed features for the spikes that pierced its face and head. The gods of Ispor were many, but Innowen, who knew little of gods, had never seen its like. Its countenance sent a shiver up his spine.
Vashni set the idol on the ground and shot a glance toward the cottage. The door stood open, but all he could see was the Witch's shadow bent over that of the small table. It seemed to be writing something. He looked again at the weird god-figure and the copper spikes that impaled it, and dragged himself back a pace. The stern eyes of Vashni stopped him, and he sat up, trembling. The rain chilled his bare flesh; he hugged himself as much against his fear as for warmth.
The Witch appeared in the doorway, the glow from the fireplace lending her a soft aura as she hesitated on the threshold. Silhouetted in such light, it proved impossible to see her face, but Innowen felt her gaze fix on him.
She slammed her hand angrily on the door jamb. "Vashni," she shouted. "You fool! Not in the mud!" She disappeared inside again, only to return with the stool on which Innowen had sat. "Use this."
Vashni retrieved the idol from the mud with a muttered apology as the Witch placed the stool near Innowen's feet. Snatching up the scrap of Innowen's tunic, he wiped the idol clean of any filth before he positioned it carefully on the stool. That done, he went back to the bag on his mistress' horse to extract from it a mallet and a new copper nail. Under the Witch's watchful eye, he set these down on the stool with the same care and backed away.
The Witch opened her arms wide as if to embrace the storm. No longer did she hold the rain at bay with her magic. It drenched her, and her hair hung in thick ropes, and water rilled down her face and breasts and into her gown. She had not even donned her cloak. Her sodden garments clung to every rich curve of her body.
As she approached the idol, her lips moved in a soundless prayer or incantation. Giving no thought to her fine gown, she knelt in the mud. One hand reached out to grasp the mallet, and her voice rose a bit until Innowen could hear her words. They made no sense to him. She lifted her other hand in the air, and he saw that she clutched something.
A sudden flash of lightning revealed the piece of white cloth she gripped, perhaps a strip torn from Drushen's bedding. He remembered her shadow writing over his table. What had she scrawled on that scrap?
A powerful bolt ripped a jagged blue tear in the sky. Thunder boomed and echoed. A terrible shriek followed, chilling Innowen to the marrow of his bones, and he gave a little cry, too, out of startled fright. The Witch had made that sound. She threw back her head and howled again. The sky answered with more lightning and more thunder.
Suddenly, setting the mallet down and turning away from the idol, she glared at Innowen. Her eyes were two small heavens filled with their own wild tempests. They reflected the lightning flash as she came toward him.
Innowen stared, fascinated and terrified, and he began to shake with an uncontrollable trembling.
"You will walk," she said fiercely. "And you'll dance." The wind set her soaked garments to snapping, and the wet, tangled ropes of her hair blew back from her head and writhed like snakes in the gale. "How you'll dance!" she cried.
Terrified, Innowen looked from her to the idol, to the lightning crackling overhead, and back to the Witch. For an instant she was a monster, a horrible creature crouched over him, ready to devour. She was evil—a witch. All the villagers, all the people in the countryside, knew and feared her. She summoned storms.
Lightning exploded again, shattering the night. For a brief moment, a thousand shadows of the Witch stretched across the world, shadows that danced ephemerally before the returning waves of darkness washed them away.
Even so, he loved her. He did, with all his young heart. She had saved his guardian, and now she was saying that he would walk. She could make him walk! Witch or not, evil or not, he had to love her!
He swallowed his fear and met her potent gaze. "I want to!" he shouted over the thunder. "Make me walk! Do you have that much power?"
Her eyes burned. She leaned forward on all fours, her hands sinking into the mud on either side of him. "My god does," she answered darkly. She pointed back to the idol with a long, ivory finger that dripped with muck and slime. "He has all power."
The heavens fractured. Fiery lightning raced in all directions, turning the night into a cobalt lacework. Thunder rolled until the earth itself shook, and the trees bowed to the ground under a fearsome wind.
The Witch brought her face close to his, and in the flashes of lightning, Innowen saw nothing human. He screamed inwardly, but he refused to admit his fear. He loved her! Still, he recoiled from her until he lay flat on his back in the mud.
"He demands nothing of you," she said. Her warm breath caressed his lips, and the strange wild smell of her filled his senses as she stretched practically on top of him. "Only of me does he ask anything. The price is mine to pay." Her lips brushed ever so subtly against his. "At least for this moment."
Innowen could retreat no further. His breath came in short gasps. His senses roiled in confusion. For all his fear—and he could no longer deny he feared her—he desired her deeply! Her body pressed down upon him, hot and wonderful and frightening. He bit his lip and clenched his fingers in the soft mud.
"You will walk," she repeated, the words hissing between her perfect teeth, "and you will dance, and in time you, too, will pay a price." She pulled one hand from the mud and smeared it over his chest like a fine ointment. Her cold fingers drew small, teasing circles around his nipples and moved upward toward his throat. "But what is the value of a whole body, my Innocent?" she asked. "What would it be worth to be a comp
lete man?" She hesitated as if expecting a response, but before he could speak she set a finger to his lips. "Shhhhh, no need, when we both know the answer."
Whatever she was, whatever the villagers thought her, she knew his dearest dream. "Make me walk!" he uttered breathlessly, doubting her even as he wished fervently to believe. "I want to dance!"
"I will," she promised. She held up the strip of cloth in her hand. It was wet and muddy, but as she unrolled it, he could see strange writing. "This is my prayer," she said. "You will be healed and made whole." Her hand clamped on his right leg. Innowen could not feel her strength, but when she let go, his flesh showed livid white marks. "Have faith in my god, Innocent! Believe in Him!"
"I will!" Innowen shouted fervently.
She scrambled on her knees to her idol and picked up the mallet. Crumpling her prayer in one hand, she pressed it to the wooden body of her god. Next, she picked up the sharp copper spike, set it in place against the cloth, and drew back to drive it home.
The mallet struck, and the sky erupted. Thunder drowned out the sound of the impact as the nail ripped through the cloth and deep into the idol. Again, the Witch struck, and again the heavens cried with thunder. A third time she struck, and Innowen covered his ears.
Vashni appeared beside her suddenly with a small bit of burning wood from the fireplace. He cupped one hand around the flame to protect it from the storm as he knelt and passed it to his mistress. She looked over her shoulder at Innowen, then touched the brand to the edge of the cloth. Though it was soaked, it began to burn. The smoke rose even through the thick rain. Then it flared with blinding intensity, and all the nails in the idol's body began to gleam in the red heat.
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