Hammer of the Witches

by Kai Wai Cheah

“Perks of the job.”

  “But it’s so… empty.”

  “Furniture wasn’t the top priority when we put the airship together. We’ll get around to it eventually.”

  She crossed her arms. “But there’s plenty of room for training, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not the gym?”

  “I don’t need the night crew watching us on the security cameras.”

  She took a step closer.

  “Ah. And what do you have in mind?”

  “This.”

  I held out my hand and unfurled the charagma of Sol Invictus. The mark filled the room with a gentle warmth.

  Smiling, she shook her head. “Should have known.”

  “Here’s the only place we can practice in peace.”

  “And just what kind of practice do you have in mind?”

  “You’ve had the charagma longer than me. What can be done with it? And what can’t?”

  “Beyond the fact that you can’t use it to manipulate the Void?” She tapped her chin. “You’re only limited by your imagination.”

  “Any special powers I need to be aware of?”

  “Hmm…”

  She closed her eyes. Her forehead birthed a new sun.

  “Extend the reach of your consciousness,” she said. “Let your mind expand past your body and encompass the entire airship. What do you feel?”

  I followed her lead, concentrating on my extrasensory perception. When tapping the Void, I could sense mass and density and gravity, perceive objects and empty spaces as though I were feeling them from afar.

  Now, in my mind’s eye, I saw patches of golden light. Heat penetrated my soul, warming me from the inside. There was a glowing pulsating mass above my head in the exact center of the C deck. Had to be the aetherium reactor. Scattered throughout the airship, I picked up smaller nuggets of warmth and light.

  “Is that… aetherium?” I asked.

  “Yes. Aetherium and ambrosia. You can sense it. Reach out to it. Manipulate it from a distance.”

  “That’s…”

  It wasn’t impossible. But the difficulty increased exponentially with range. Any aetherium beyond an arm’s length away was inaccessible to me. But that was before the covenant with Sol Invictus.

  I had a flask of ambrosia inside my drawer. I willed it to freeze, to become an inert hunk of crystal. I pulled out the flask and opened the cap. Sure enough, inside the container was an immobile lump of ambrosia. I upended the flask. Nothing flowed out.

  It should have taken a sustained burst of concentrated will. Instead, it was as easy and as natural as breathing.

  “That’s useful,” I said.

  She nodded. “If you focus harder, you can sense life.”

  “Is that how you spotted the giants in Rome?”

  “Yes.”

  “And just how do I…?”

  As soon as I framed the question, the answer popped into my head.

  “Never mind.”

  She chuckled, turning her face from me. “Try it.”

  I melted the ambrosia and focused. More shapes and colors flooded my mind: cool blues, vibrant reds, warm yellows, more. I looked in the direction of Pete’s cabin. I saw a man lying on his side a foot off the ground, his body shaded in vivid crimson and pumpkin and yellow. Keith was a deep blue with shades of black and a faint white aura.

  Eve was—

  I winced, looking away.

  “Oh, yes, don’t look at active covenanters directly with your second sight.”

  “You could have warned me,” I said.

  “Sorry,” she said, in a tone that suggested the opposite.

  Looking at her was like looking at a thousand-lumen flashlight with the naked eye. It was painful—blinding even—leaving a distorted afterimage in my material eyes. I blinked, hard and repeatedly, driving it out.

  In my mind I tried to piece together what I had seen. She stood tall and regal, wreathed in ethereal golden flames, as blinding as the Sun. That had to be the light of Sol Invictus. Her aether burned a luminous white, but it was dull and faded, nearly overshadowed by the presence of the god, and dark patches crept over her skull.

  She had spent a lot of her aether recently. Perhaps this was what a depleted soul looked like. I wondered how I looked in her gaze. Not much different, perhaps.

  “You covenanted with Sol Invictus and Hakem, didn’t you?” she asked. “I’m surprised you didn’t know all this already.”

  “They never told me.”

  Hakem’s voice floated into my mind: You never asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “He said I never asked.”

  She chuckled. “You’ve never tried to test your powers, have you?”

  “I never knew I could do something like what you did. This sort of thing isn’t exactly covered in manuals or training courses.”

  Do not limit yourself to what is written or taught by others, son of Adam. You are limited only by the laws of Creation and your own imagination.

  Out loud, I said, “Hakem, what else can I do?”

  Experiment. Better you find out by yourself your true potential than for others to tell you what you can or cannot do.

  “Riiiiiiiiight…”

  You are capable of more than you think you are. Seek and you shall find. But I will say this: an airship in mid-flight is not necessarily the safest of places to experiment with the Void.

  Hakem had a sense of humor. Who knew?

  “Sounds like you’re having an interesting conversation,” Eve said.

  “Hakem didn’t tell me what else I could do,” I said.

  “Neither did Sol Invictus. I had to figure it along the way and build on what I learned in school.”

  Science wasn’t complete, of course. It never could be. What science knew about aetherium today was far more comprehensive than a hundred years ago, and a century from now today’s textbooks will look like historical curios. I had seen Eve travel through time by producing a rotating black hole with the assistance of her god. Who knew what else she, or I, could do?

  “And if we hurt ourselves along the way?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t think they’ll try to stop us.”

  Hakem remained silent.

  “To us the failures, to the gods our glory,” I said.

  “You sure like playing the cynic, huh?”

  “It’s just the way things are.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “Well, what else can I expect from you?”

  “You disagree?”

  “The gods have their own agendas. As long as we are aligned with them, they’ll help us—if only to help themselves.”

  “Fair enough. Thanks for showing me something new.”

  “No problem.” She smiled a little. “So do you have any other activities planned?”

  “I did say I could teach you martial arts. You interested?”

  “Always.”

  “Great. Given our recent encounters, we should focus on using soulblades to slay giants.”

  “Keith and Bob are psions, too. Don’t you want them to join in?”

  “Keith’s martial art of choice is a bullet to the face. He doesn’t go hands-on if he isn’t controlling someone. As for Bob… I don’t know anything about him, and I don’t know how he’ll react if he knows we’re both covenanters.”

  “So it’s just you and me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Got a weapon?”

  “Here.”

  I reached into my memories and dredged up a design from the back of my head. Immaterial aether flowed from my soul and out into the world, condensing into a long cylindrical haft fifteen inches long. Rubber-like bumps grew along the lower half, improving my grip. The other end of the haft flattened into a rectangle. An axe head grew from the side and aligned with my knuckles. On the reverse, there was a slim, sleek spike.

  “This must be the tomahawk you mentioned,” she said.

  “Yup.”

  I ran the forward edge against my
forearm. My hair bowed before the blade, but did not part. The beard of the axe was blunt, and the rear spike too rounded. It had been over half a decade since I’d last used a tomahawk. Outside of some peculiar use cases, there simply wasn’t a need for one in my current profession.

  “Live blade,” I announced. “Step back.”

  She did.

  I spent a moment refining the design, sharpening the edges and adjusting the center of balance. This time the blade took off hair from my arm. I gave it a few test swings. Now it felt right in my hand, as though it were an organic extension of my body.

  “You’re planning to use that against the giants?” Eve asked.

  “That’s right.”

  She smiled. “A harsh weapon for a hard man.”

  “Seems to suit me, anyhow. I’ve shown you mine. Now show me yours.”

  She extended her right hand. Light pulsed down her arm, coalescing into a cross and elongating into a longsword. She hefted the weapon in both hands, aiming the point and edge safely at the deck.

  “You’re still going with a longsword?” I asked.

  She raised an eyebrow. “It’s not actually a longsword. It’s a hand-and-a-half sword. The blade is shorter than a longsword and more suitable for close quarters.”

  “Even if you’re up close and personal?”

  “Then I’ll do this.”

  She drew the sword to her hip with her right hand. Her left grasped the middle of the blade, her palm against the edge and her fingers on the fuller.

  “Half-swording,” I said.

  Her face lit up, obviously pleased. “Yes.”

  “What’s your response against a threat with body armor?”

  “Let me show you.”

  “Go ahead,” I said, taking a sidestep.

  She lunged. Dropping low, she thrust the sword high, the tip aimed at throat height.

  “Very nice, but that won’t strike the brain,” I said.

  “I’ll flash the tip to plasma on contact.”

  That would take the target’s head off. It was my backup plan in case the tomahawk didn’t bite deep enough.

  “What if the threat has full body armor, including neck protection?”

  She smiled and reversed her grip. Now she held the sword by its blade, pointing the hilt at me.

  “Watch.”

  The crossguard narrowed into twin spikes. The rounded pommel grew a pair of smaller spikes, no less sharp than the major ones.

  The design of her spikes was decidedly ahistorical, likely drawing inspiration from my tomahawk. Medieval swords had weaponized hilts for the express purpose of concussing knights in heavy plate. This one seemed better suited for defeating ballistic helmets.

  “You’ll give them the murder stroke,” I said.

  Eve nodded. “The Mordhau, yes. It seems you do know a bit of historical swordplay after all.”

  Just in case I had to cross swords with her. Not that I’d ever tell her that.

  “I try to know a bit about everything,” I said. “Interested in sparring?”

  “With live blades?”

  “Blunts, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  I flashed the tomahawk into a modified design. The edges rounded off. The spike ended in a rubber-like ball. I ran the edge against my palm, showing her that it would not draw blood.

  Her sword glowed. The tip, the edges, the crossguard and the pommel turned blunt. The blade now took on a dull sheen, as though robbed of its vitality, of its purpose. She tested the edge with her thumb and nodded.

  “How would you like to do this?” she asked.

  “Let’s take it slow,” I said. “It’s been a while since I used a tomahawk. Need to get warmed up.”

  We had different ideas of warming up. We compromised by doing both. Eve began with a series of yoga stretches and postures. She eased into and through them fluidly and gracefully; I had to concentrate just to avoid tipping over.

  Then came footwork drills. Nothing fancy, just remembering how to move from one spot to another, how to shift weight from one foot to another, how to orient and reorient towards different angles in rapid succession.

  When I was comfortable with moving with a tomahawk in hand, I worked my basic attacks, refamiliarizing myself with the weight and balance of the weapon, integrating motion and momentum and angles and energy into a single whole and, most of all, remembering not to stab or cut myself. Eve did the same, staying well away from me to accommodate her longer weapon.

  When we were loose and limber, I said, “Let’s do some technical sparring.”

  “And what is that?”

  “We keep at least two arms’ length from each other. No contact. But we use whatever techniques we want.”

  “Fine by me.” She cracked her neck. “It’s been a while since I practiced half-swording anyway.”

  Moving to the center of the room, we paced off and measured our distance. She brought her weapon to her hip. I chambered mine by my ear.

  And something poked into my scapula.

  I frowned and looked. She cocked her head, peeked out, and giggled.

  “Own goal,” she said.

  I had stabbed myself with the spike. I’d forgotten about that. Embarrassing in training, inconvenient in war. I held the tomahawk in front of me instead, crouching into a combative stance.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  It wasn’t combat, more like a conversation. I studied how she moved, and she, in turn, watched me. Her footwork was swift and linear, punctuated by rapid changes in levels and the odd diagonal step, the better to facilitate a barrage of thrusts. I answered with wide side steps and triangular footwork, refusing to meet her weapon with mine, instead flowing the tomahawk around her thrusts to snipe at her hand.

  She probed with a high thrust. I ducked under her sword, presenting the haft to guard against her blade and then sliding in to swipe at her fingers. When the tomahawk went down, I launched the rear spike up at her chin. She brought her sword in and voided the strike with a rear step. And the dance continued.

  Now and then I rolled the tomahawk in my hand, switching between the axe and the spike. I practiced my angles of attack, slashing and cutting diagonally and horizontally and vertically, adjusting my footwork and my body to accommodate the unfamiliar weapon. Sometimes I switched hands, perfecting the art of killing with either hand. I tagged myself in the back a few more times until I got the hang of resetting my chamber at my waist.

  Eve kept everything simple and straightforward. She didn’t switch sides like I did; there wasn’t any point with a two-handed weapon. But every so often, she stepped aside and flipped her sword about. With the point forward she practiced thrusts exclusively; with the sword reversed she went for hammer blows aimed at my skull.

  I held back, of course. A weapon, when reduced to its properties, tells you how it could be used. The curves could be employed for hooking and shearing, the head of the axe for short, sudden thrusts. Likewise, my art favored the use of the rest of the body, the live hand and the legs, to fill the gap between us whenever momentum carried my weapon away. But it didn’t make sense to use these concepts at this range. And, I had no doubt, Eve was holding out on me, too.

  But this was just training. Learning more about each other, our weapons, ourselves. Taking turns, we questioned the other’s open lines with footwork and angles, and together we wove a riddle that we each tried to answer in our own way. She had reach, but I had flexibility.

  By unspoken agreement, we ended the session. Over glasses of water we discussed footwork and angles, vectors and tactics. Our styles were distant cousins, but we had enough of a common vocabulary for fruitful discussion.

  “Shall we do some real sparring?” she suggested.

  “Of course,” I said. “But let’s throw in some rules.”

  “What kind of rules?”

  “Only head shots count. Torso hits don’t. A strike to the limb knocks it out, but the bout continues. KO if you take out two limbs.”<
br />
  “Training to fight giants in body armor, eh?”

  “Yup.”

  She nodded. “Very well. Best of five?”

  “Sure.”

  “We don’t have armor ourselves. We should change our weapons into something less dangerous.”

  “Fine by me.”

  I focused. The tomahawk transformed into pseudo-rubber. When I tested it on a table the axe bounced off but the haft remained firm. Eve elected to turn her sword into a nylon-like waster.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “Let’s do it.”

  At the middle of the room, we extended our arms and measured the distance. I was keenly aware of the length of her blade, over twice the length of my tomahawk. A decisive advantage, but one she gave up with her half-sword grip. Even so, her thrusts were faster than my swings.

  This would be... interesting.

  We spent a minute feeling each other out, getting used to the distance between us. She kept her tip pointed at me, preventing a sudden blitz. I kept my tomahawk high and forward, ready to exploit an opening. As she advanced, I circled around, aiming for her flank.

  With every step, I sneaked my rear foot forward bit by bit, gaining precious inches, disguising the motion with my circling.

  We probed each other, feeling our lines, disguising our intent. Now and then I switched directions, further masking my motions, letting her think I was playing a defensive game. I lowered my weapon from chest height to my waist, feigning carelessness or fatigue, tempting her.

  She took the bait and thrust high.

  I closed on my right and flicked the tomahawk to my left. The haft deflected her sword, clearing my line of attack. I lunged in, grabbed her left arm with my left hand, and reeled her in. She staggered, her balance lost, and I brought the spike down.

  And gently bopped her crown.

  “Touch,” I said.

  We reset, our weapons ready. I nodded, she nodded. She brought both hands to the hilt and cut high to my right.

  I stepped right, ready to deflect with the tomahawk. At the blade’s apogee her hips twisted, suddenly switching the direction of her cut. I turned the tomahawk to the sword, reinforcing my wrist with my left hand. Rubber met nylon. I pulled down—

  She twisted into me—

  I ducked and raised my elbow—

  Her crossguard caught my left arm.