The Last Witch

At no point did the commotion in the tent settle during the night. For everyone that came in with bandages or food or other supplies, there was an issue with a patient or one of the volunteers was switching out to curl up in the corner and nap for an hour. At some point, long after the sun had gone down and the noise beyond the tent had died, everything fell into an uneven lull. Asher’s skin had stopped itching, no longer begging his muscles to get up and move around or help. The only constant was the ache in his leg. His mind however, didn’t settle. 

Part of him thought about coming clean about what he did remember. If he was going to accept that it was all real - and it was harder to convince himself it wasn’t - then it would feel good to accept that these new rules were ones everyone would have to follow if they wanted to get anywhere. It would come out eventually if others were seeing the same strange things, or even had the same memories of the Underlands as he did, it would come out soon enough. It was better to come out with it and be honest. Yet, he was afraid. 

Now that he was around the regular crowd, he could feel the same fear threatening to bubble over. How much information could he give before he was considered to be just insane. Or worse, enough of a public threat to hang from the noose. It was what Norrah had said before that stuck in his mind now. “I will not see any of this explained away as “magic” just for the sake of closure.” He had said something so similar to Navarre. He could hear all the explanations in the world and still not believe half the things he had seen. If Norrah was as similar as he had been in mindset, there wasn’t anything he could say unless he had some kind of proof. 

Sleep wasn’t coming to him, though he hadn’t expected it to. Still, as he pulled himself up - mindful of the others sleeping around him - exhaustion pulled at him as though he had disturbed a full sleep. He moved slow, easing his foot over the edge of the cot and reaching for the cane he had left at his bedside. He had gotten up to his feet and shrugged his coat on when a voice grunted out from behind him. 

The doctor cleared his throat, then lifted himself from a chair at the back of the space. ‘I was hoping you would wait until morning.’

‘I need to relieve myself,’ Asher lied. 

The doctor shook his head. ‘The chamberpot is under your bed. Don’t try that.’

A cold chill ran down the length of Asher’s spine. 

‘I told those women not to push their favours,’ the doctor said. ‘I’m telling you now. Nothing good comes from going down this path.’

‘What path is that?’ Asher asked. ‘If you’re talking about the Black Scroll, I know.’

The doctor grunted. ‘You must be desperate if you’re willing to ignore murder in the name of sacrifice.’

Asher’s mind blanked. ‘What?’

‘They didn’t mention that part, did they?’ the doctor asked. ‘There was a third in their little group. Some madwoman called Hadley. They killed her.’

Asher blinked. It explained the guilt each of them seemed to hold. ‘Hadley?’ he echoed. 

The doctor nodded. ‘Hadley Derrian. This was about a year ago, but I won’t see them pull you down the same path. We still need you, Lieutenant.’

Asher almost said it. He wondered how much that argument would break down if he pointed out that Hadley was very much alive, but it still wasn’t the time to come out with the full story. He had no way to prove it outside of his own unreliable memories. ‘You’re worried I’ve sided with the monsters that attacked me.’

‘I’m worried that you’re going to start down a path you can’t turn back from.’

This again. ‘It’s too late for that,’ Asher said. He sighed. ‘Thank you for your concern, Doctor, but this is my job. I know what I’m doing.’

The doctor stared at him. They both stood for a long moment, watching each other, and Asher wondered if he was about to argue with a man willing to call for the guards or for a set of a shackles. When Tippy groaned and pulled herself into a sitting position, pulling the doctors attention away. Tippy turned to stare at him, her face blank. Asher could feel her eyes on him, even as he turned and hobbled out of the tent. 

The courtyard with its strange salty ground was bare as Asher made his way across. A few carts had been unhooked and left near the buildings, joined with crates and bags of various supplies. Asher noted a figure at the other end of the space, a lone constable patrolling the edge of the ash border. 

He made for the tent he saw the surveyors at before, testing the weight of his foot as he did to find a position that wasn’t agonising, and settling for that same constant dull ache that had become the norm. Peering into the tent revealed two figures inside, both of them asleep. One had curled up under a burlap sack, while the other sat up in a chair, her head lolled to the side. Asher eased the tent flap closed again, and made a note to check with them again in the morning. 

Another spirit caught his eye, hanging off a lantern of a nearby building. It looked like an overgrown vine that had broken out of the iron case. Grey-green shapes twisted out from the flickering light, blue leaves drifting in the wind. Asher approached it, trying to piece where the flame ended and the vine began, but they were perfectly fused together. One of the leaves snapped free of the vine, and Asher reached up to catch it before it could fall over the ash line. It turned to dust in his hand, the same flaky grit that came with everything else. A small pile now sat in his palm, and he considered brushing it away, then shoved it into the pocket of his coat. If it was the same stuff that bordered the salt, there might have been something there. He didn’t know what, but something. 

Slowly, not with any clear destination, he made his way around the edge of the circle. He didn’t know what he was looking for, or if it was anything in particular at all, but anything odder than the ring had to stand out. Asher noted the same mists turning into balls of light from before, and the same plants breaking through the gaps in the cobblestone that he had seen in Gershwin and Aria’s kitchen. 

Then there was Penn. 

The strange man looked the same way as the last times Asher had seen him, dressed in a ragged cloak with long, thick hair falling over his face. Now, even in the low light of the lanterns, he could make out smaller details. The fingers of his gloves had been cut off, and a flash of brown skin beneath the sleeve revealed the edges of a red scar. He wore no shoes, and his pants were folded up to his mid thigh. Nothing fit, and nothing was entirely in one piece either. A small tail had been tied at the back of his head, but so much had fallen away from it that it was almost completely hidden. 

Penn straightened, his head snapping around to stare at Asher. The flame behind his eyes flashed bright enough to make Asher flinch. Asher held up his one free hand. 

‘It’s just me,’ he said. 

Penn stared for a beat longer, then turned his head forward. Asher realised he was watching the spirits meet the ash line, his eyes following the lights as they sailed up into the air. 

‘I never got the chance to thank you,’ Asher said. 

Penn didn’t move. 

‘You saved my life, and everyone here,’ Asher said. ‘I mean it. Thank you.’

Penn said nothing. Instead, he dropped down into a crouch and placed his hand flat on the ground, letting the mist run over his palm. Asher eased forward. 

‘How did you know?’ Asher asked. ‘You knew it was going to happen... whatever it was. The Gate?’

‘I warned you,’ Penn said. 

‘I know. But how did you know?’

‘They told me.’ Penn raised his fingers, and the mist sifted between them. When a light broke out of it and rose into the air, he lashed his hand out and caught it. It didn’t turn to dust like the leaf had. Instead it held its original shape, warping as though trying to escape his grasp. 

‘The spirits?’ Asher asked. 

‘Yes.’

‘They talk to you?’

Penn gave a single nod. He lifted the ball of light up to his eye level, then blew on it, long and soft, before releasing it. The light sailed forward, crossing over the ash line, then puffed into nothing. Penn frowned. 

‘You said you’re not a witch,’ Asher pointed out. Though, the “alchemist” had called him something else. Warden. Gatekeeper, and a foreign word that he could remember. 

‘I am not a witch,’ Penn said. ‘You are the witch.’

Asher recoiled. ‘I’m not a witch.’

Penn growled, glancing Asher up and down. ‘Then leave.’

‘I just want to understand what happened,’ Asher said. ‘If we’re on the same side, maybe we can help each other.’

‘No.’

‘Can I at least ask you a few--’

‘No.’ Penn glowered, those impossible eyes flashing again. ‘I am not here to help.’

‘You saved my life,’ Asher pointed out. ‘I think that’s helpful.’

Another low growl rumbled deep in Penn’s throat. Asher held his hands up, this time balancing so he could lift his cane as well. He’d never considered another human being to be feral before, but the word was circling in his mind now. ‘Witch or not, you still know more than I do --’

‘I am not a witch.’

‘I know, you said that, but--’

‘I am a Nakati. They are not the same thing.’

Asher blinked. That wasn’t the same word the monsters had used. ‘I don’t know what that means,’ he said. ‘Is that how you talk to spirits?’

Penn nodded. 

‘And back in that place, in the Underlands--’

‘Le Torkani,’

‘Right, you were controlling the ground and the fire.’

‘I am a Nakati,’ Penn said. The words were surprisingly harsh and bitter. ‘I tell the spirits what to do. They tell me what to do. You’re the witch. Not me.’

‘I’m not a witch,’ Asher pressed. ‘I think the word was seir.’

‘That word is for children.’

Asher’s stomach turned at the notion. ‘Maybe you could explain this to me as though I’m a child.’

Penn stepped towards him, those amber eyes flickering fast and bright, then reached over and snatched Asher’s arm up. He ran a dirty nail along Asher’s palm, then brandished the dust that had collected. ‘Witch,’ he hissed.

No. This couldn’t be completely right, could it? If the dust meant he was a witch - if it was even possible to just become a witch - the weird dust couldn’t be the only proof of it. The dust seemed to come from the spirits, and if Gershwin couldn’t see them, couldn’t interact with them, then her confession of witchcraft meant nothing. Did that also mean the ground and the little boy and all the other bizarre things counted as being a witch, or were they just a product of witch craft?

Perhaps he was looking for a witch after all. Though he hated the thought that witchcraft could grow this powerful. 

‘I’m not a witch,’ he pressed. 

‘Then leave me alone.’

Penn released his hand and leapt over the ashen line, then prodded at the same line with his foot. The ground broke away, revealing the chasm beneath, and Asher inched back. ‘The Underlands, or Le Torkani, is that’s what’s down there?’

‘No.’

‘So what is it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You mean nothing is down there, or...’ Asher bit down on his lip as Penn glared at him again. Penn held out his arm then, splaying his fingers and stretching his palm flat towards the ground. He spoke under his breath in a strange, curling language that Asher couldn’t place, and the dirt between the cobblestones came loose, trailing down into the salt. The streams turned to ash once they crossed the imaginary border. Penn frowned. 

‘It’s not supposed to do that?’

‘No.’

‘And it was the same up in Valenda?’ Asher asked. When Penn raised an eyebrow in question, he added. ‘Up north. A whole city disappeared.’

Something behind Penn’s expression shifted, something far too similar to guilt or shame, but not quite either. Asher already knew this man was involved, but there was more here, and he needed to find a way to get him to stick around fast.

‘Look,’ he said. 

‘No,’ Penn growled. ‘Go away.’

‘But--’

‘I will throw you back in Le Torkani,’ Penn snapped. ‘Leave me alone.’

Asher sighed. Maybe there would be another chance later, but he was pushing his luck. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Thank you again, for all your help.’

Penn turned away, tracing the ashen line with his foot. Asher watched him wander away for a moment, hoping that maybe he would change his mind and turn back, but he didn’t. A Nakati. He would have to search for that word later, maybe in an old fairytale or legend, anything that could offer him a hint.