The Witch Hunters, Book 1: The Prophet of Ash

“Martin, what was that all about?”

Martin paused on the steps leading out onto the now bustling street outside the Cathedral. “Nothing,” he replied, looking about the crowd. He turned to his father and grinned. “I was just getting us some more business.”

“What did you say to the Legate, when you spoke in the High Script, I mean?”

“Just things I knew he wanted to hear, papa. Hahn likes being told how important he is. One of Bader’s clan used to work with him when he was a witch hunter. Bader says Hahn couldn’t get enough of people telling him how brave he was when he rode into town looking for witches.”

“Did he ever find any?” Kurt asked as they descended the stone steps, passing the tiered ranks of graves on either side reserved for the high clergy and their hunters.

“I don’t think so,” Martin replied, shrugging. “At least, Bader never mentioned it, and you’d think that’d be something he’d mention.”

“So how’d he get that scar?”

“The one on his face? I think Bader said it was a bandit, or some bandit’s mistress. Hahn couldn’t find any witches to hunt, just like the rest of them, and decided to start hunting bandits and criminals instead.”

They reached the cart and were greeted by the farm hand they left to watch over it.

“Let’s get to the market,” said Martin. “Time is money, and the church stole enough of that from us already.”

Kurt stared at his boy, horrified. He wanted to say something, but it took him until they had mounted the cart and were off to the market to get over the shock. "Stop saying such things where people can overhear you!"

*

After two hours being warned against the perils of hell, the wealthier citizens of Gozer seemed eager for trivialities and luxury. Many came to the Grand Market in search of these, and found them among the stalls and performers that waited in loosely kept avenues patrolled by the city watch. Waiting among the silk merchants and wine merchants and hawkers of other, more ostentatious fare, sat the Bauer Orchards stall. In their usual place, Kurt Bauer and his son sold jams and preserves of every possible flavour with fruits grown locally. A few more exotic varieties were among their wares, sourced not from their fields, but delivered by ship and then cart from the port of Osten, just north of Gozer.

Kurt was not up to the task of selling his family’s wares that day, feeling himself giving in, bit by bit, to the growing sense of apathy and uselessness that had been plaguing him all morning. It wasn’t as if his services were required. Martin had things well under control. The elder Bauer watched the younger at the front of the stall with their employees, smiling as he offered salutations and bargains to familiar customers and free samples spread on thin slivers of bread to people who were interested but uncertain of the price. There was little doubt in Kurt’s mind that Sabine would be proud of their boy, then. He did not dwell on what she might think of him, standing in the background while their boy earned the money needed to keep their business and their home. He knew that he should be doing more, that he should be the one at the front of the generously laid stall. Martin should be playing, or perhaps only beginning to learn how his family made their money. But he was such a natural at this, and had slid so easily into Kurt's role. Guilty as he felt, leaving his son to do the heavy lifting, Kurt was reluctant now to take that authority from him.

“Papa, are you alright?”

Kurt blinked and looked hastily around. When had he sat down? He felt his son squeeze his hand, drawing his gaze back down to the boy.

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

“What about the stall?” Kurt asked.

“It’s okay, we’re making a profit now,” Martin replied with a smile. “The boys can look after everything for a couple of hours.”

Martin led him out the back of the stall, reminding Jethro, one of the older farmhands, to be sure to check in on their horses at the stable soon. With that, the son led the father into the Great Market for a little shopping.

“Is there anything we need?” Kurt asked.

“Bader’s taking care of that,” said Martin, a satisfied smile spreading across his lips. “There’s no need to worry, papa.”

Kurt wasn’t worried. He didn’t feel anything just then. He had no idea what he should be doing, be it making empty conversation or leading his boy from stall to stall, looking for anything nice he might buy to treat his son. He felt certain that he should be doing something, but the what of the matter eluded him, or perhaps he was just too tired and indifferent to see it. He was quiet for the most part as his son led them past old, familiar stalls filled with friendly faces and small talk. Martin politely perused the latest wares as Kurt nodded his head like he were a puppet held up by cheap strings. Martin’s grip on his wrist grew a little tighter after some length of time, a tell-tale sign of growing frustration. Kurt wanted to feel apologetic, but he didn’t care.

“Papa, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Kurt lied, suddenly finding some ugly pottery very interesting.

“No you’re not. Is something wrong? Are you angry at me?”

For just a single second, Kurt felt human again. “No, Martin. Of course not! I could never be angry with you!”

The boy looked up at him, uncertain.

“I’m not Martin, I swear.” This was said with a squeeze of the shoulder, while the muscles of Kurt’s face tightened into a smile. If Martin had never been born Sabine would still be here. It was a thought that came unbidden, many times before. Just like all those times before, Kurt wanted to hate himself for thinking it.

Martin smiled up at him and squeezed his hand lovingly back. They walked on, moving out of the familiar places to the stalls set up on the periphery of the market. The stalls became less defined by counters and neat little fences and more defined by the barrels, chests, carts, and other containers of merchandise the merchant had available. As a general rule, the smaller or poorer traders took spaces here, where they need not pay a rental fee for the accommodations Kurt and those like him were accustomed to.

“Have you ever thought about marrying again?” Martin asked him suddenly. He caught Kurt completely off guard, for the only reaction this provoked was a silent stare from his father. “Mum would forgive you,” the boy went on, his grip faltering just then. “She’d want you to be happy.”

“You never knew her,” Kurt said at last, frightened at the tone his voice had taken.

Martin looked away. They walked on a little further, the atmosphere now poisonous, hands no longer clasped.

Their aimless walk eventually took them out to the fringes of the vast market space within the Capital. Weekdays, this vast market district belonged to the city watch and the Royal Army, who drilled here. The cobblestones beneath their booted feet were flat and worn from unquantifiable numbers of soldiers that had marched and turned and rode over this ground for centuries. Sturmwatch was a relatively young country, born from the ashes of the cataclysm that had claimed the Elves, but Gozer was an ancient city. It had stood, falling into decline and being returned to glory, for millennia. It was as old as mankind, or at least that is what Martin’s tutors told him. Kurt had been very interested in history, once.

The music was louder here, played with a pace denizens of the Great City were unused to. The smells of the food vendors grew sharper, more exotic. Arched caravans, populated by swarthy humans and runners, as the wolfmen of the west were known, appeared to be everywhere. Kurt was certain they should not be here, yet he did not have the energy to say so to Martin. His son plunged them fearlessly onward into the exotic smells and fabrics and individuals. His eyes began to indifferently pass over wares now on unrolled blankets and dirty oily cloths. Shifty traders offered smiles and, sometimes, fantasies fulfilled in the caravan where their women waited. Martin began to grow uncomfortable. Kurt began to slow, and have thoughts he knew he should have been ashamed of.

It caught his eye then, glinting under the afternoon sun on a dirty blue rag, on the edge of a row of trinkets.

“You like?” asked the seller, a dark furred runner with a bright scar across the left side of his face.

“Can I see it?”

Clawed hands that were missing a finger lifted it up and placed it into his hand. It was a little smaller, Kurt thought, but the likeness was incredible. “Where did you get this?”

The runner glanced expertly from side to side, before leaning conspiratorially forward. “From Niah,” he whispered quickly, breathlessly. “One of the great cities of the Elves!”

“That’s impossible,” Martin said then, cutting in. “No one can reach the cities. Everyone that gets too near to them goes mad.”

“I have been there,” the runner growled, puffing his broad, painted chest up proudly. “My pack-mates and I dared to go where neither pale man, nor scaled man, nor horned, would! We ranged closer than any, and not all of my brothers and sisters survived the journey. We saw monsters. Some of us saw too much, and suffered for it. But I came back, to tell the tale, and with such proof as you now hold in your hands.”

“And how much might this proof cost?” Martin asked.

Kurt held it up to the sun. The lines in the polished stone glinted like silver, some when you held the stone one way, and the others when you held it differently. For an instant, Kurt wasn't holding it, Sabine was. It came back so suddenly, with such intensity, that he gasped. She had played with it in her hands constantly. It had dangled at the hollow of her throat, hanging between them after the first time they had made love. The same shade of grey had been in her eyes. This had been part of who she was, until the day she lost it. Trembling fingers eclipsed it as Kurt shut his eyes, the memories pounding him like the tide. His face burned with the threat of tears.

“That’s too much,” he thought he heard Martin say.

“It’s more than fair, young master. It was made by the Elves, and carried from one of their greatest holdings.”

“It’s a deal,” Kurt whispered in the dark, where she was smiling and running her fingertips along his face.

“What?! Papa he’s all but robbing you!”

“I don’t care. I am buying this.”

Martin’s hand was over his wrist again. Kurt felt the squeeze, opened his wet eyes to meet the gaze of the stone grey ones looking up at him.

“Why do you care about this?” His boy asked.

“Your mother had one just like it.”