The WorldMight

by Cyril L. C. Bussiere

  The day darkened as the path around Hob narrowed. His horse had broken lather a half hour earlier and now it did not respond much to his kicking it.

  “Damn you! You useless scab,” Hob shouted at it.

  The horse wheezed and bubbly spittle built at the bit in its mouth. It slowed some more and Hob kicked and whipped harder.

  A mile later, the path steepened. The horse slowed to a walk and sent Hob into a frenzy.

  “GO! You worthless shit!” he shouted, slashing at its neck with the reins.

  The horse let out a wet neigh, stumbled, and came crashing down to the ground. Hob fell away from the animal. He wobbled to his feet and turned to the horse. The animal lay shaking on its side. Its hooves trembled in the air and a wet gurgle unfolded in its snout. Hob walked to it and cursing like a madman kicked it until it went still.

  “Won’t anything ever go my way?” he screamed at the woods surrounding him.

  He gave one last kick to the dead horse and looked around the path. Now that he was standing still for the first time in hours he noticed the strange curvature of the tree trunks around him, the way the foliage smeared rather than swayed about. Even the path itself undulated before him and seemed to creep sideways as soon as he looked away. He rubbed his eyes only for them to start stinging badly. The hurt tore another curse from him and he swore under his breath that they, his own blood, the usurpers, would pay for all of it.

  Once the sting let up Hob focused back on his goal.

  “I ought to be close to the witch’s nest,” he thought.

  “She’ll come to you,” they had said, “when you draw near.”

  He vacillated forward, helping himself steady on tree trunks and enduring the pounding in his head and the hurts of his body, thoughts of revenge making the rounds in his head.

  A half a mile later, the path dead-ended and Hob arrived on a flat hillside opening. The moon shone bright above him and the breeze that wrapped itself along the edge of the forest raised swirls of dead leaves into the evening air. Rows of murky bushes swung at the round of the hill and beyond them tree tops spread into a gray blanket all the way to the dark bend of the horizon. Hob stood still, catching his breath, unsure of what to do next. Anger pumped hard in his veins and he found himself thinking that the witch should be right there, in front of him, because he so pleased.

  “Witch,” he shouted. “Show yourself.”

  His words trailed in the space before him and a gust of wind wrapped itself around them and swept them away. The crimson lining of his sight pulsated slightly. Bushes and trees splashed their gray foliage about and the moon light descended in wavy accents around him. He waited but nothing came. He clenched his fists against another rush of his stomach for his throat and set toward the bush line. Beyond the sharp taste of blood and the stink and burn of spirit in his mouth and nose, there was a quality to the air he could not place; an ethereal sensation that floated almost unnoticed. A few feet from the smear of shrubs, the hillside sloped down. In the distance, over the treetops, something seemed to move. Or did it? Hob stared at the dark landscape, the effort brightening the red edges of his vision. Were there shapes forming and dissipating somewhere before him, gray whirls over the gray expanse of the forest? He took another step forward and the atmosphere subtly changed around him. He could not say how it did, but there was no missing it.

  “Witch, come to me!” he called once more, his anger now tainted with unease.

  A few feet from him the brush moved. Lines of gray vegetation slid against one another. Or so he thought. For, an instant later, the scene in front of him looked like it had seconds before.

  “Witch,” he shouted, his voice stained by uncertainty. “I am Hobgard GrandJoy, heir to the throne of Alymphia. I order you, show yourself.”

  He took another few steps forward. The brush shivered and a path revealed itself amongst the shifting hedge of bush.

  “The witch has welcomed me,” he told himself smugly.

  The path was moist and steep, and twisted as it turned along the rows of bushes. Hob slipped to his knees and the harrowing pulsations behind his eyes redoubled.

  “I’ll turn them into pig fodder for what they put me through,” he thought, the picture of his family, distorted and grim flashing in his mind.

  At the foot of the hill, he entered the wildwood and the world turned darker. The forest smelled smoky and wet, with accents of earth and sulfur. A thick layer of dead leaves crunched noisily under his feet. Around him the trees swayed and creaked against the touch of air currents he could not feel and out of their soft rustling a path revealed itself. An irrational certainty took hold of Hob. The witch and his revenge awaited at the end of the trail that brought itself into existence before him. He rushed into the woods, carried by a blind exuberance. And with every branch that moved out of his way, with every root that rose to frame his path, his anger decreased and his aches lessened. A calm confidence filled him. He would have his revenge. That was beyond question now. To reach it he only had to follow the path laid out for him. The forest was opening a secret passage and its call pulled him ever onward. He walked in a trance-like state, single-mindedly pushing forward, oblivious to the howls of nearby wolves and the mysterious clicking and chirping sounds of the forest. A benevolent, mighty hand directed him and he followed its lead blindly.

  It was with a smile on his bloodied face that Hob arrived at a small clearing in what must have been the very middle of the woods. In its center was a large hut, of branches and earth, with live bough growing from its sides. Light filtered through the gaps between the branches and intermittently illuminated the fog that crept across the forest floor. The hut had a small door in its front barred by a stack of wood. A thin twine of shimmering smoke escaped from the roof and rose lazily above the tree tops.

  “The witch’s nest!” Hob rejoiced.

  “Witch!” he called out, “I am here.”

  The light seeping from cracks flickered in sequence and for an instant the fog in the clearing seemed to still. Then the wood-stack at the door slid sideways and the light pouring from the hut revealed a slouched silhouette at the threshold. Nothing moved for a few heartbeats and then the shadowed contour said ‘Curm’ before melting back into the light.

  Hob walked up to the hut and hesitated at the doorstep. The air coming from inside was heavy, nauseating even, and something dark titillated his senses. He looked around the clearing furtively. The woods were quiet. Maybe too quiet? But now was not the time to be afraid, he told himself. His revenge was a deal away. He would give the witch her due and his fate would be made right again. He brushed away the uncertainties poking at him and stepped in.

  The inside of the hut was uncomfortably smoky and he had to force himself not to cough. In the center of the hut, inside a ring of jagged stones, a small fire burned. Hanging from a branch scaffold, an old metal pot hovered above the flames and thick, greasy-looking volutes of smoke rose from the container and escaped through a hole in the ceiling.

  The witch was crouched by the pot and swirled the mixture it contained with a wooden utensil. Her long, unkempt hair fell over her face like a ragged waterfall and had what looked like white and green lichens in it. When he entered she did not look up and kept at her task. He walked a few paces to a makeshift table that stood against the wall to his right. The table was a mess. Strewn over it were sharpened stakes, wooden bowls with crushed powders in them, flat slits of wood that might have been plates, piles of mushrooms, some dried, some looking fresh, and a few yellowed animal skulls. Above the table, bunches of dried plants hung from the ceiling. Amongst those Hob spied strings of small bones strung together on vine. More kitchenware and tools, all poorly carved and twisted-looking to Hob, were strewn about the floor of the hut. Furthest from the door, against the back wall, was a bed of leaves and straw and next to it were piles of ragged pelts.

  As his eyes got accustomed to the light of the fire and the smokiness of the hut, Hob realized that the walls were cover
ed with dozens of dried-earth tablets. On closer inspection he saw that the mud slabs were covered with strange, child-like carvings of creatures and around the creatures countless small slanted lines had been aggressively etched. If not the carvings, the eerie lines felt familiar but he could not place them. Before he could think further on it the witch grunted. When Hob turned his attention to her, she was looking at him. Her face was surprisingly youthful. Not that she was young by any means, but he had expected her to be old and she was at most middle-aged. Her skin was pale under the grime covering it and her features were rough. Her nose was small and bent sideways, her forehead narrow and her mouth thick-lipped. Her eyes were set far apart and shone bright of the dancing flames of the fire. In them Hob saw a deranged glimmer. He could not have explained what it was precisely, but it disturbed him enough to justify branding her a witch. She gave another twirl to the pot and stood up. She was smaller than him and dressed in an assortment of pelts tied together with braided vines. She eyed him silently and he felt an unsettling feeling spread over his skin, as if oily hands that barely made contact with his skin crawled over him. Before the feeling took hold of him, she snorted at him with a twisting of her mouth and spoke. What came out of her mouth was more croaking than speech and it only distantly reminded Hob of words he knew.

  “Bo-ay, Wha gat?” she growled.

  When he did not answer, she said ‘Wha gat meh?’ with a wave of a hand from him to her; enough for Hob to understand what she wanted.

  “I am Prince Hobgard GrandJoy,” Hob said with as much confidence as he could muster. “Heir to the throne of Alymphia and you are to help me. Riches will be yours if you so do.”

  Hob thought he saw a spark of understanding in her eyes, or at least interest.

  “Prance?” she said, “fader yor Kang?”

  It seemed the witch understood him well enough. It was her speech that was broken and dribbled awfully accentuated out of her mouth.

  “Yes, my father is King Hedgard GrandJoy.”

  The witch’s head twitched sideways.

  “That got her attention!” Hob smiled to himself, “I might finally get the respect I deserve.”

  “Ma prance,” the witch said with a small bow of her head, “wha I dah ya?”

  “My sister,” Hob spat, his voice full of disdain, “that whore stole what is rightfully mine! I want her gone! Do this for me and you shall have enough coin to last you ten lifetimes.”

  The witch smiled, a grotesque stretching of her mouth that opened onto black and yellow teeth. She shook her head side to side a few times and let out a snort of a laugh.

  “Ya, ya, cain dough, cain dough!”

  She went to the table, grabbed one of the animal skulls and shook it at him.

  “Gown, gown! Sissa, gown!”

  She pointed at the eye sockets and repeatedly thrust her fingers through them.

  “Yes, witch, I want her gone.”

  The witch grinned at him again. Her eyes narrowed and she seemed to get caught in a dialogue with herself. Her eyes darted back and forth from Hob to the mud tablets on the walls. Each time she looked at one of the slates, her head tilted toward it as if it were talking to her. Waves of unpleasant emotions creased her features in quick successions. She twitched, winked, snorted, grimaced, looked at Hob for a bit, grinned and then started the cycle again. After an uncomfortable minute, she finally stopped and pointed a crooked finger at him.

  “How meuny blood, prance?” she said.

  “Blood?” Hob asked, confused.

  “Blood. Sista bis blood. Prance, how meuny blood?”

  Hob shook his head. He was beginning to feel claustrophobic. The air in the hut was too thick for him. It stuck to his tongue and throat and made his breathing difficult. He decided he did not like the witch. She was repulsive. She stank, looked disgusting and her mere presence made his skin crawl. The way she looked at him made him most uncomfortable. He wanted to be done and gone and her questions were starting to irritate him. Why couldn’t she just cast her spell so that he could get back where he belonged, in his castle? He had no time for this nonsense.

  “Yes,” he snapped, “one blood, witch, only one sister. Now rid me of her!”

  “I weel,” the witch replied with another disturbing grimace. “I weel.”

  She stared at him for a long second and her head twitched again toward one of the tablets. She looked at it briefly and then nodded repeatedly with a grin. She stepped to the table and started mixing some of the powders from the bowls. She grabbed a couple handfuls of leaves from one of the bunches hanging above the table, added a couple of mushrooms and happily crushed them with a stick. After a moment she turned to Hob. She had a small blade in her hand and it bothered him that he had not seen where she pulled it from.

  “Blood,” she said.

  She ran the dull side of the blade against her palm and then pointed at him and the bowl in succession.

  “You need some of my blood?” Hob asked.

  Eyes wide, the witch nodded vigorously. Hob did not like that idea but he surmised that it was a small thing to restore his fate onto its just path. He stepped up to the table and grabbed the small blade the witch handed him. He extended his hand over the bowl and set the blade against his palm. He hesitated for a second, apprehending the pain that was sure to follow. He pressed the edge down into his skin and was about to thrust the blade across his palm when the burn of the cut erupted in his side. He let out a gasp as heat radiated from his flank and confusion flashed across his face. He dropped the blade and stumbled backward as the warmth turned into a sharp pain. He tried to catch the edge of the table but was too late, and he collapsed heavily onto the ground. Pain rushed through him and caught his breath in his throat. He tried to sit up but his limbs seemed to have lost their rigidity and flayed uselessly against the floor of the hut. Half his face was pressed hard against the dirt ground and when he finally inhaled a jerky breath it was grainy and rough in his throat. The witch let out a mean snort and stepped toward him. From where he lay Hob could only see her pale, scabby legs running up into the recesses of her pelt dress. She deliberately kicked him in the stomach. The pain in his side tore at him and turned into something cold that frightened him beyond reason. She had stabbed him, he realized. Panic took him and he tried to sit up again, but his limbs refused to obey him. The witch squatted by him. There was a mean, exuberant light to her eyes. Her smile was voracious and almost scared him more than the sharp throbbing at his side.

  “You derd,” she said with a wringing of her features.

  She brought her face close to his. Her hair fell around it like dirty, old drapes and when she spoke the stink of her breath was atrocious. She smiled, her face twitched and she slapped his face a couple of times sending swirls of dirt in his eyes and mouth. Hob tried to cough but he could not. His breath was a thin, raspy sliver of air that barely reached his lungs. She twisted her face and brought it an inch from his. Her eyes were wild, the lines of her face, creased with dirt, wavered maniacally.

  “Your fader keel ma blood, prance!” she snarled.

  The witch’s features contorted into a monstrous mask, an insufferable muddle of anger and madness.

  “Uhl mah blood!” she screamed, and spit flew from her curled lips onto his cheek.

  She smacked his face with both hands like a child might bang on a drum. His head bounced hard against the ground. A dull pain exploded in his skull, and his vision scrambled and filled with bright lights.

  “Ah tuhk heesss blood!” he heard the witch screech.

  Hob found himself lacking the strength to try and contain the pain consuming him. He closed his eyes and, unrestrained, it roamed over him like a wild beast.

  After a while, it could have been minutes or hours, he could not say for sure, he felt something wet and warm against his cheek. When he opened his eyes the hut was smokier than before and had taken crimson accents. Something dark crept on the ground toward the witch’s feet a couple of yards away from hi
m. It took him a long moment to realize that he was looking at his own blood. He exhaled loudly to try to remove the dirt and the thick liquid from his mouth and nose, but it proved useless. His lungs burnt and he felt like he was slowly drowning. The witch said something he did not understand. She stepped toward him and bent over. She dipped her fingers into his blood, straightened up out of view, and stepped away. After that, she did not move for what felt like an eternity. Hob grew cold and faint.

  Eventually, he stopped feeling the pain at his flank. The throbbing in his head receded into a strained calmness and it somehow felt easier to breathe. The world before him faded quietly into blurred shapes. Maybe he would sleep, he thought. He closed his eyes and his thoughts slowly withdrew into an inconsequential background-drumming in the dark vastness of his consciousness. A reassuring quietness spread over him. He was about to relinquished himself to it when a loud thump tore him from its tranquil pull. His eyes flickered open. The witch’s face lay inches away from his. Her mouth was twisted at an unnatural angle and a red thread of saliva hung from her pouted lower lip. A thin line of blood ran from her nose down the side of her cheek. Her eyes were glassy and still and stared pointedly at something below his face.

  Hob looked at the witch for a second or so. Then he closed his eyes one last time and somewhere further than the fluttering line of his consciousness the face of his sister, tainted with regret, rippled in and out of existence.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Syndjya, Capital City of Alymphia.

  Year Hundred and Fifty of the New Age

  Fall Passing Festival.

  Aria brought her lips to Cassien’s and at once the narrow moonlit alley, the racket of the festival, and the uncertainties that had plagued him in the past few days melted away and his world shrank to the soft tension of her mouth. He pushed back against it, hesitant at first and then hungrily. The contour and tender texture of her lips, the way she tasted, her smell, and the warmth of her breath on his face filled him so completely that for an instant nothing else existed to him. His hands slid along the small of her back and pulled her to him. She let out a soft moan that tore at him savagely and an uncontrollable desire surged through him. For a second they breathed as one, pulling and grabbing at each other in an attempt to satiate the unquenchable need to be ever closer. They kissed, if ever so briefly, with the passion and tenderness of loves truer than time.