by Adam Bennett
The closest bedside table was cluttered with romance novels, Lindt balls, hand moisturiser, and dirty cups. If Liam could knock something off that might wake Ella up, but the only thing he had any chance of moving was a bobby pin with little plastic cherries on it. He sighed. She would never hear that falling on the floor.
An old grey cat called Agatha sauntered into the bedroom. Like all cats, Agatha could see ghosts and wasn’t spooked by Liam. Liam’s face brightened as an ingenious idea occurred to him. With his arms out wide, he shooed the cat in the direction of the bed, and she jumped up and landed not so gracefully on Ella’s legs. Like a marionette, Ella jerked to an upright position then tipped back.
“Ella, there’s someone outside,” Liam said in a rush.
“It’s probably just Mr Foster,” she said, patting Agatha on the head. “He sometimes walks his dog really late.” Her unfocused blue-grey eyes began to close.
“It’s not Mr Foster.”
“Are you sure?” Ella said, laying her head back on the pillow.
“Very sure. Mr Foster has a normal head; the man outside has huge ram’s horns sticking out of his.”
Ella sat up at once and turned on her white table lamp. Stumbling around, she put on her satin dressing gown and tried to smooth her long dark brown hair. Someone knocked on the front door.
“Who is it?” Ella called out, scuttling in her slippers towards the door.
“My name’s Kyros,” a booming voice replied. “My friend Axel said I should come see you.”
Axel was a regular customer of Ella’s. He was afflicted with a curse that left him covered in oozing boils. Ella hadn’t been able to undo the curse, but she prepared a stinky ointment for Axel each time the boils reappeared that eased most of the discomfort. After a quick glance at Liam, Ella swung open the door. Before them stood a shaggy satyr as tall as the door with the torso of a wrestler. His furry legs bent backwards and ended in hooves, and although his face was humanlike the ram’s horns and bright yellow eyes were glaringly not.
“Sorry for turning up at this late hour,” he said in a Barry White rumble. “I’m just at my wit’s end. I really need your help.”
“Ah, okay, come in,” Ella said, stepping back.
Once they were seated in the lounge room, Kyros proceeded to explain how his girlfriend, Phaedra, was driving him crazy. They had been together two years, but she still didn’t trust him and was jealous all the time. Phaedra was beautiful, but insecure and possessive.
“Um, can’t you just tell her that you don’t want to see her anymore?” asked Ella once he’d finished.
“I tried that. Phaedra tied me to the bed and didn’t set me free for four days. She’s a little unstable.”
“Well, I could give you a love potion.” The satyr looked horrified. “One that would stop your girlfriend from loving you,” Ella added. “Sort of a reverse love potion really.”
“That sounds perfect.”
Ella returned a minute later with a tiny bottle of purple liquid—her Lost Love potion.
“Well, that was interesting,” said Liam after Kyros left. “Perhaps you should put trading hours up on the door or something.”
Ella laughed. “My bed is calling to me. Goodnight Liam.”
Liam was prevented from replying by a loud banging on the front door.
“It must be Kyros. Perhaps he forgot something,” said Ella, heading into the entryway.
“Wait!” said Liam, zooming past her and sticking his head through the wooden door. “Don’t open the door!” he yelled as he drew his head back.
They stared at each other as the violent pounding continued. Ella had magical protections on her home, so Liam knew it was unlikely the woman he had seen could break down the door or enter the house.
In a husky voice she called out, “Open up you man stealing slut!”
Ella’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth, but no words came out. Then in a wavery voice, she said, “I think you have the wrong house.”
“I followed Kyros. I know he was here.”
“Oh, right, well... Phaedra is it? You seem to have the wrong end of the stick.”
“I don’t have a stick—I have a cat.” Ella’s face fell. “If you want it to stay alive you’d better come out here.” The cat yowled.
“Damn it,” Ella said.
“No,” pleaded Liam, getting between Ella and the door even though he was as easy to pass through as fog.
“I can’t let someone hurt Agatha.”
Liam hated people walking through him, so he zipped out of the way just before Ella opened the door. With her shoulders pulled back, she stepped out onto the porch. On the stone path that led to the house stood Phaedra, her vivid green eyes locked on Ella. Kyros had failed to mention that she was a naiad—an ancient water nymph. Her long wavy brown hair was full of reeds and pond scum, and her slender fingers and toes were webbed.
Phaedra threw the cat away from her. With a cry Agatha disappeared into some lavender bushes.
“Kyros is mine! You can’t have him,” Phaedra said, glaring at Ella.
“I don’t want him,” replied Ella, stopping at the porch steps.
“If you don’t want him why are you entertaining him in your home, whore?”
“I may have made him a cup of tea, but I did not entertain him in the way you mean.”
Water began to trickle all over Phaedra, moving across her face and bare limbs in little snaking squiggles.
“Liar!” she said.
Suddenly Ella choked on a mouthful of river water. Coughing, she spewed it up.
Liam flapped his arms like an agitated seagull and cried, “Come on! Quick. Get back inside.”
“No, it’s ok,” said Ella straightening up and wiping her mouth. “I can handle this.”
Phaedra looked around confused. “Who are you talking to?”
“Just a ghost.”
“Nice,” muttered Liam. “I don’t even get an introduction.”
“Please, just listen to me,” said Ella, walking down the steps. “Kyros heard of me from one of his friends and he just wanted my help—”
“Why would Kyros need help from a human?” said Phaedra, narrowing her eerie eyes. “I won’t listen to your nonsense.”
Ella doubled up and choked again on river water. This time she spat out a couple of tiny tadpoles. Looking grossed out, she yelled, “That’s it!”
Her nostrils flared before she raised her arms and blasted the Naiad with a targeted wave of energy. Phaedra flew backwards and hit the trunk of a jacaranda tree, sliding to the ground.
“Witch! Now I understand,” Phaedra said, leering. “You lured him in with your magic. You are too plain and insipid to attract a man like Kyros without magic.” She leapt to her feet with the agility of a ninja and said in a steely voice, “Undo the spell at once or I will drown you where you stand.”
“There is no spell. I gave him a love potion.”
Liam groaned and shook his head.
“Ha! At last you confess.”
“No. I mean… he asked me to give him one. That’s why he came here.”
Phaedra glared at Ella with her hands on her slender hips. “Kyros doesn’t need a love potion. He has my love already. You have a lying serpent tongue, witch.”
A frog the size of a grape jumped off Phaedra’s head and disappeared into the darkness.
“I’m sorry. I’m not good at giving relationship advice. I think you should speak to Kyros. He intends to use a love potion on you… to stop you from loving him.”
“What?”
“Have you forgotten what Kyros said? She’s unstable,” hissed Liam, floating next to Ella.
Ignoring him, Ella continued, “I’m sure Kyros… ah, cares for you, but you see, you’re a little intense, and he’s finding your continuous mistrust difficult to deal with.”
Phaedra took a deep breath. Water started trickling all over her again, a clear warning that she was about to lose it. This time Ella got hit by a
wave of murky water and fell down on the grass beside the path.
“Gah,” she spluttered, pulling a face.
Ella’s white weatherboard house previously belonged to her grandma, and the cottage garden at the front was exactly as it had been when her grandma was alive. The garden was a riot of colour, filled higgledy piggledy with flowers, birdbaths, and smiling gnomes. Although not to Ella’s taste, she wasn’t ready to change it yet. Kneeling on the wet grass, Ella gazed at the gnomes. In a strong voice, she recited a spell, and then smiled a little smile. Suddenly, all the gnomes came to life and launched themselves at the naiad with whoops of glee. They knocked her to the ground, and eight of them held her down as she kicked and writhed, while a gnome holding a fishing rod jumped on her back a few times, giggling.
“I’m sorry about the gnomes, but I need you to listen. I’ve done nothing except sell Kyros a love potion. How it’s used is entirely up to him. If you don’t want the love potion used on yourself then I suggest you have a heart to heart with him as soon as possible.”
Ella tried to appear dignified with her long wet hair dripping down her back and smelly river water gluing her dressing gown and nighty to her body. “I’m going back inside now, and I want you gone,” she said and turned on her heel.
Liam followed Ella like a pale shadow. Before entering the house, he had to take one last look at the gnomes. Laughing and boisterous, they returned to their original places in the flowerbeds before turning back to terracotta. A bearded gnome with a banjo winked at Liam, and his round face stayed that way.
Bruised and pouting, Phaedra climbed into a bright green hatchback parked on the street. Liam watched her with interest from the bay window. He imagined she was impatient to confront Kyros and would refuse any food or drink the satyr offered her. It wouldn’t make any difference, though. Ella’s Lost Love potion wasn’t ingested; it merely had to touch the skin.
Smiling to himself, Liam sat down in one of the wingback chairs and his skinny bottom and thighs disappeared into the velvety cushion. He flipped through ‘You’re Dead’ until he found the chapter he wanted titled ‘How to Do Something Tangible When You’re Intangible.’ If another nutjob turned up in the middle of the night, or there was a fire or some other calamity Ella managed to sleep through, Liam vowed he would be capable of rousing his friend with a well-aimed Lindt ball.
Amat Victoria
Blake Jessop
The Zenatan war witch spins forward as though there were no corpses over which to trip or blood to make her footing unsure. The air outside the Holy City rings with grating steel and screams.
The Knight is invincible; a metal giant with a black cross on his breast. Entire ranks of dark-skinned Zenatan infantry fall as he swings his massive spear in wicked arcs.
The Witch is dressed in close-fitting cotton stained at every extremity in red. She grips a tiny hourglass on a leather cord. As the spear tip scythes toward her throat she twists her left hand and snaps backward in time, dancing beyond the steel’s reach.
The Knight’s retinue rushes to surround her. They might as well try to corner the wind. She bolts through them with jagged grace, blinking away from every killing blow. The Teutons fall like red petals dropping from a rose.
For a moment the Knight and the Witch face each other alone. Battle crashes around them like a frothing crimson sea. The giant brandishes his spear and runes pulse and glow like embers all over the armour. The Witch, absurdly delicate and small, blinks forward to meet him.
She scales a mound of Teuton corpses like a dancing spider, and the Knight slashes the spear backhanded to catch her at the crest. She disappears before the blow lands, flickers forward to mount his armour as though there were no space between them, as though the leap took no time at all. She perches atop the armour like a hawk. The Knight drops his spear and grabs her with one massive gauntlet. She braces her knees against his chest like a mountain climber and levels her sabre, aiming for the slit in his visor. He stares up the blade at her, fearless, and she sees brutal spikes on his raised fist, as slick with blood as though he had eviscerated a god.
Before they can find out whose war magic is more terrible, a barrage of trumpets sound, echoing off the walls of the city and cutting through the screams. Poised to kill one another, they stop, and listen. The Knight relaxes his fist and the Witch hops lightly back to the blood sodden earth. The ground feels wet and muddy under her bare feet.
The trumpets call the battle to a shuddering halt. When the echoes die, nothing beats but their hearts and waves against the shore. The dead are a carpet of flesh and metal, mute and uncountable.
***
When the chronicles are written, they will record the last battle outside the walls of the Holy City of Ninive as the moment war became a fool’s errand. That the earth outside the city could soak up no more blood without the foundations giving way. What had been fields of maize were trampled flat, and the earth below turned into sticky red clay. Ninive became the city of crows, come to feast of the carpet of bodies like horde of cackling locusts.
The historians will agree on one thing: that the wise rulers agreed to finish their war with champions rather than armies. That when the alignment ossified power in the hands of whoever stood victorious, both nations would abide by the result.
The monument at the centre of the holy city will proclaim either Amat Victoria Teutones or Amat Victoria Zenati. Victory loves the victor. The idea is so chivalrous that the scribes will waste seas of ink on it. Few will bother to record the red poppies that carpet the dark earth outside the city or the wings of carrion birds flashing in morning light.
Like most histories of war, the scholars begin writing before the decisive battle is fought. They all predict the outcome, but none divine the result.
***
At the eastern gate of the city, under a lavish Zenatan pavilion, the Witch meditates on the convergence of the planets. She is a prophetess, and the slow alignment of the planets has been giving her nightmares for months. Dying doesn’t scare her, particularly; she has made peace with her God, but that isn’t all she sees. War only has as much meaning as its ending, and as much as she prays for a Zenatan victory, she hasn’t foreseen a finish to the bloodshed, no matter how hard she looks.
She is among the most senior of the Furusiyya witches, and the most far sighted, so there is no surprise when she is summoned before her Sultan.
“Are you well, Daya?” He uses her private name. “Are the planets robbing you of sleep?”
“I can still see,” she replies, answering both the question he asked out loud and the one he didn’t. Her apprehension makes him smile.
“Indeed, and you fought in the front line outside the city, so I can conceal nothing from you. We and the Teutons have both advanced our magics to the extent that war is futile. There is no way to win the war for Ninive before the convergence without losing so much of our strength that there will be no more Zenatan Caliphate to claim that victory.”
“Sultan,” Daya says, taken aback by his candour. Far enough back that she’s at a loss for words. A rare problem, for her mind is as quick as her feet. She feels her heart race, and slows her breathing to calm it.
“The Teuton Emperor and I have come to an agreement. The bloodshed will end. Well, almost end. We both want control of the Holy City; it is a font of magic, a wellspring, and whoever controls it after the convergence will gain immeasurable power, make advances in sorcery that we can scarcely imagine. We must control Ninive, and we have no way to take it.”
The Witch closes her eyes and remains silent. Behind her eyelids, people die and building burn and the sky fills with a strange green light. Cities rise and fall, and at the centre of every one is a monument to war, a statue proclaiming victory.
“You will choose champions to fight rather than armies, and when the planets align, the victor will turn to stone. You wish to trade one death for a hundred thousand.”
“You see clearly, prophetess. You know who I have chosen, a
nd what I need you to do,” the Sultan says. Daya opens her clear, violet eyes, and even he finds them unsettling.
***
At the western gate of the city, under austere tents, the Teuton army licks its wounds. The camp is desolate, and most of the tents are empty. Two knights stand by their armour, until a page comes with news. The boy reads the first few lines of the parchment aloud, then hands it to the taller of the two. He reads, then laughs, and tells his old friend what their leaders have decided.
“That’s the agreement they made?” Ulrich, a knight captain and the Reichsgraf of Falkenbach, spits.
“It is,” his friend replies. Wolfram always was bigger, stronger. Any man can be taught to fight, but some are prodigies. “Like something from a storybook. Two champions deciding the fate of empires. You couldn’t write a better tale!”
“You couldn’t survive it either,” Ulrich replies, “the geomancers say anyone standing at the centre of the city risks being petrified when the convergence comes. That’s how strong its magic is. Whoever wins this theatrical farce will die just as surely as the loser.”
“What do you mean, whoever wins? We’ll win, of course,” Wolfram says, “Do you know how many of us they killed?”
“Yesterday? Almost twenty thousand,” Ulrich replies acidly.
“No, no. Not the infantry. Not the horsemen. Us. The knights of the Saksa Ordenis. How many of us did they kill?”
“Not one,” Ulrich admits, “but this is no way to fight a war.”
“You’ve always had too much of a soft spot for the lower-born, old friend, but for once I agree. Our Emperor and that dog the Zenatans call a sultan have come up with something better than war.”