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CHAPTER TWELVE

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THE THREE WITCHES FLEW NORTH OF WORMSET, over a patch of everautumn trees between Birch Lake’s sandy coast and the rocky summit of Wormhill. Rain trickled away from the arcelium jacket and robes, slipping off in the same manner as duck feathers. Their brooms sailed close to the tops of pale pink fleshgroves and Keziah nearly collided into Levidia as she and Daire banked left, toward Sunglare.

Keziah had never been. Sunglare was an artifact-filled temple, noted for its pillars and high walls made from puffy white animal stone, or anstone. Watched over by selected scholars who wore dark yellow robes of the archivist role, every original scroll or recovered ryup was sent to the temple for utmost safekeeping. Perhaps she could one day see a scarf of storm or a ceres armshield with her own eyes. But to even touch most Mendac artifacts, witches were required years of steady experience and exposure to the higher magic. But the New Spell wouldn’t allow for such meditations—the hungry curse seemed to be eating time as she pondered.

“We’re headed past Sunglare, to the protected pine circle.” Levidia announced. “The saplings’ sanctuary.”

Now it all made sense. Since the Hollow was founded, saplings emerged from beneath a particular set of gargantu trees on the northern edge of the Hollow. They were the translucent offspring of the Root’s essence, formless clear, golden-brown or blue viscous beings that traveled by rolling over themselves. They made no growls or purrs, had no visible organs, and acted as if they were absent-minded small children. Most saplings could be held in the palm of your hand, feasting on body oils and happy to be inspected. They were great from removing a pesky blight from garden soil or a wart on your foot. At her garden at House Echni, Keziah loved to toss a few in the soil, like skipping stones across a pond, watch the saplings soak into the dirt and begin munching away at the ghastly white fuzz.

“How many pitiful creatures will I be eating today?” Keziah asked.

“The saplings are not food. They are the best medicine the Root can offer to warriors.” Levidia said, looking down from her broom and shooting through a clearing in the canopy.

The runner and Keziah followed. Her ears popped and a tear formed at the corner of her eye. Hidden from the dull gray of morning rain, the sanctuary opened from the tightly packed pines. No witches present but several torches were lit and the ground was disturbed. The air smelled of honey and freshly-picked mint. Upon landing on soft earth, Levidia withdrew her silver whistle necklace.  

Keziah and Daire dismissed their brooms and when the scholar blew sharply, Keziah could now hear the stinging high-pitched notes flutter in the back of her throat—another enhanced sense, courtesy of the dagger ritual. She tried clearing her throat with a cough and looked down, watching the carpet of pine needles rise into a bulbous two-humped shape as large as a cow. She stepped back, holding her excitement as the green and brown pinefall slipped off without a sound and the amorphous sapling took a breath. Daire smiled at her and pushed her closer to the sleepy thing.

If a snail could be five feet tall, robin egg-blue and rendered transparent like a frozen waterfall, that would be the best description Keziah could give to a human outsider. Brilliant speckles of ruby red littered the sapling’s inner structure, moving in clusters across the syrupy nature of the body. There were no distinct features like a head or appendages—instead, the two humps on top moved in tandem, like internal water wheels squishing against each other. Despite their name, the docile creatures were not sticky and most objects, from feathers to pebbles, were instead repelled by the sap, like opposite ends of magnetized rock.  

Keziah glided her hand over the sapling’s side, the glass-like sap twinkling. “So how does this work? I’m definitely not eating you.”

“You’ll submerge yourself in the Orf saplings. Not this one, Callus is a special girl. The brown ones at the small pool. Close your eyes, let them enter your lungs and blink three times. Then I’ll revive you and we see if you can kick my ass.” Daire said, every word laced with a devious smile.

 “Actually, Daire…” Levidia said, walking up to the blue sapling and caressing the space in between the two humps. “We will be using Callus today. Same principle.”

Daire turned her nose up, clearing her throat. But before she spoke, she glanced at the sapling with a growing smile. She and the creature were talking to each other. Daire giggled, becoming relaxed at the sight of four blinking jelly circles molding onto the outer skin. The runner smiled and gave a scratch above the mock eyes. But the look in her eyes read something close to jealousy. “She’s the oldest sapling in the Hollow. So many witches have passed their knowledge down. Fifteen hundred years of witches’ combined strengths, all filtered through one body and mind. Callus even contains essence of Wormhill’s first scholars. I don’t think it’s wise to make her Keziah’s first absorption.”

“I agree. But there’s no time to waste. Enter through here.” Levidia commanded, stretching a large slice of transparent skin like a pulled back curtain.  

The sapling did not seem perturbed. Absent-minded almost.

“Does the sapling… enjoy that?” Keziah asked with a grimace.

Levidia patted the jelly body like it was an obedient horse with her other hand. The sapling rustled. “Here’s a good way to see it—the sap is so sticky, even memories are pulled in, retained for all time. Saplings communicate through absorption with the same elements as the passengers that break down meals in your belly. These acidic components drain the toxic afterbirth of most spells from the soil but allow the sapling to feast on the memories for years. It’s like food for them. They ingest their own waste, a perfect self-fueling machine. That process creates the perfect building material for first wands. So much magic diluted to its basic form as saplings shed old skin. Unlike us, they have no body functions that allow for pain.”

“How old is she?”

“This batch of Callus is over fifty years old. But the essence inside wanes every three years.” Daire said, nuzzling the sapling’s eye. “The runners transport her and the others to Trelstark, since they’re made of hard water. The older niads sing to them, dress them up, and prepare for integration into the ground vents. She dies, joins with the Root, and is reborn as sap to be collected the autumn after.”

 “Yes, yes. The history lesson can come later. Now… into the sap, Adams.”

“How much past knowledge are we talking about? Fifteen hundred years of fighting skill in two minutes? That doesn’t sound ideal.”

“Desperate times, desperate measures.”

They all stood in silence for a moment, even Callus seemed frozen. Keziah was not moving. Daire’s blushed face said unsure. Levidia seemed angry. The scholar finally scrunched her face and released the jellied slice, sinking back into the sapling’s ever-rolling form.

“What is the problem? You are well aware that every waking moment being burned away will start costing us lives. Why do you still cower? You are being blessed with the skills and more, importantly, the training of the world’s greatest warriors. What have you to fear?” she asked.

“I can’t see myself chopping off heads or turning a monster to ash. I don’t think I’ve ever broken a bone. Not even a bloody nose!”

Unusually calm, the scholar gave Callus a nuzzle between the two humps and dusted off her gloves. “Alright, Adams. Let’s take a walk.”

The forager nodded, fighting back tears, and left Callus with Daire, who had begun sharing a handful of tea leaves with the sapling. Daire didn’t speak, only flashing a smile and a quick nod down to Keziah’s wand. Keziah responded with a nod of her own and rushed ahead to catch the scholar.

She followed Levidia through the brush outside the pine circle, still within the boundary membrane but the morning light dampened by an arched ceiling of rose thorns. Dead leaves made much of the mushy floor, cold to the touch. Keziah’s breakfast rumbled from within. What now? Am I going to get beaten up? A pummeling by the runners to initiate me?

“Show me the wand.” Levidia asked as they came to a stop in the center of the thorned enclosure.

Keziah slipped Moonscar from her thigh holster and held it up in the low light. “Here she is.”

“Hm…” Levidia responded with a smile, offering a hand to inspect it. Her glowing golden eyes shimmered. “May I? I would love to see it up close. I love the texture.”

Keziah smiled. Just the tiniest bit of admiration, I see. She placed Moonscar in Levidia’s hands, the wand nearly blending in to her icy skin. Levidia held it gently and rubbed down the raised scar marks, hand-widdled for nearly two weeks. The scholar nodded. The student smiled again. Levidia then snapped it in half and tossed the pieces far off into opposite ends of the woods. Keziah’s mouth dropped.

“You won’t be needing that anymore. It’s best to just break up and move on.”

The forager was speechless, her hands posed to argue but continuing to walk up the path all the same. Levidia sensed the befuddlement anyhow, turning her head like a bird and twisting around. She began walking backwards with ease, crossing her arms and waiting for a response.

“Well then?”

“I… I just don’t understand the reason. Was that meant to symbolic? Letting go of my past and finding a purpose is key to all this, correct? I spent so long on her. I-I…?”

Levidia did not answer, backwalking in silence. From her belt, she pulled out a quartz vial, sealed with a red wax top.

“Drink this before we leave the thorns.”

Keziah looked up at the intertwined vine ceiling of muddy brown and blood red, skinny green thorns baring down like the pincers of a toxic snake. She took the quartz vial and watched the silver fluid wave about inside. Keziah placed her thumb on the large wax seal, marked with a sigil of House Echni—a triangular witch hat formation with three shooting star streaks—and pressed into the soft seal to break it. Unwelcome metallic, long-fermented vapors greeted her.

“It’s an elixir. Made by your own House. Familiar with those?” Levidia asked.

Somewhat… Keziah thought, but it all felt foggy. Like so much lately.

“Much like the Tend of Root, elixirs help you form new organs to better control your magic. In this case, a replacement for the wand.”

“You gave me no choice. But it’s fine. Do I at least get to make my own carvings?” Keziah said, holding her breath while gulping down the entire potion.

It had a fishy taste. Before the elixir could vanish down her throat, the back of her head started to tingle. Her wrist jolted to the right and she let out an unexpressive “Ow.”

“Hm. I was going to explain more but you seem to understand the need for haste. You’d best have a seat.” Levidia urged.

Keziah handed her the empty vial and planted herself on a dried-out white birch log. She was tense, from head to toe. She looked up at the thorns, focusing on the dark red petals beneath the brush of spikes. Her right thumb sunk into the now-soft part of her hand. Her arm twitched. A long bone chipped and splintered. Internal blood began to pool around the small of her wrist, fading her skin intensely purple as the elixir’s effect radiated down her shaking arm. She regretted not grabbing a clay glob for a mouth guard. Miniscule walls of tissue and rippling muscle tore like a stack of wet scroll paper. The bundled thread of body fibers cried out but she couldn’t scream. It wasn’t even painful anymore. It was a loss. Pure and simple.

Her thumb rose unexpectedly and jutted to the side with a pop!, the loose off-white bone squeezing through the open slit—the top end shaved off into… a wand tip. It slid up to her palm, primed in the action position and shimmered like a newborn squid trying to hide in shallow water. It was the entire radius bone by the looks of it. She flexed her arm, surprised to feel fresh muscles tense for the first time beneath the skin, bonding to a coal-hot replacement bone searing itself in place. The pain felt… good. It was hers.

The bone wand had weight to it, like a bag of stones. She couldn’t twiddle it between her fingers when she was bored like Moonscar but for the first time, she understood how a wand could be a weapon. It took strength to launch a spell from the core of your being and into a conduit dead object. But perhaps with a wand crafted from your own blood and bone… control was all but guaranteed.

“Let’s return to Callus. Prime time to bond while the first wand is fresh.”

The short walk back ended with a greeting gust of cold morning breeze, wisps of goldmist blowing by as unlucky leaves were shredded to pure essence passing through the membrane. Daire and Callus remained where they were, the runner carving a silly face into the sapling’s jellied side to pass the time.

“So, did you know about this?” Keziah asked, unveiling the bone wand in her hand.

Daire looked up from the sapling’s side with an excited squeal. “Ahh! Finally! I can’t tell you what a secret that was to keep! Isn’t it amazing?” She approached the wand as if it were a newborn, running a finger down the side and nodding sincerely. “Good bones, witch.”

Keziah smiled and took a deep breath, staring inside the sea-like interior of Callus. She turned to the scholar, “How can you keep something like this a secret? I never heard so much as a rumor about… real wands.”

“How many witches would choose the elixir if they knew what it entailed? Not many. A crisis, like the New Spell, necessitates withholding information for the wellbeing of others. Mendacs must embark on their own journeys, Adams. Tell me now, would you rather retrieve your carved wand and toss your own blood and bone gift in a case?”

Of course the answer inside her head was a blistering, nearly tearful ‘no’. Her new wand was a part of her after all. Levidia must have heard the panicked thoughts, nodding shortly after. The scholar returned to her curtain pulling on Callus, clearing her throat. “Do I need to go over the basics again?”

Keziah shook her head. “I think I understand now.”

Levidia waited, an eyebrow raised. “Take off your jacket and your holster. Hold the wand close to your heart. And don’t let go, no matter what.”

Keziah removed her top jacket, rolled up her sleeves, and took a deep breath, unstrapping the leg holster.

“Let’s do this, Callus.”

 . . .. . .

THE JOURNEY WAS NOT PLEASANT, but the insides of Callus were warm, felt like a cozy blanket and shaded Keziah’s vision pale blue. While she was only submerged for a minute or so, echoes of conversations between elders and grunts fighting in mock combat wedged themselves to life before her, starting as voices but fading into people moving on a fuzzy field. That minute drifted into an absent eternity. She felt herself land on a soft hillside, in a Hollow long ago—fewer trees, bees buzzing, a nice summer day. A doama. A gang of watchful grunts sat before a three-witch duel, each taking turns casting a frost or fire spell from each corner until one submitted, staying within the domains of the triangular sigil drawn in chalk beneath their feet. The training trifecta of the Lowfields, near Silkstring Hall. Such arcane practices were not allowed anymore, Almanac Graves had once said. But these girls were using the dark arts as a game, seemingly to stifle off boredom.

It was odd, Keziah thought. They didn’t look like warriors, like Daire and Levidia implied. But she heard the names of the trifecta combatants, the small crowd cheering on—Jillsa, Tomru, Katherine. Legendary warriors who protected the Hollow during the Second Age, working under the Root Mother of the day to secure the borders some seven-hundred years earlier. But even they had been children too. Fools, even. How did she know this?

The memories of old warriors didn’t flow into the mind how Keziah expected. She half-expected a steady stream of whispers allowing her to steadily understand swift broom swipes or quickdraw spells. Instead, she felt the burn in her arms after a series of broom slices, the head throb of being knocked back by an icy wind blast, all the missteps and mistakes had by Jillsa, Tomru, and Katherine. How long had she been watching them? Taking from their pain like a leech? Certainly hours had passed.

In this ghostly form, Keziah realized that time was in the eye of the beholder. The longer she watched Tomru spin around as if on lily pads, Katherine grin after delivering a solid hit, and Jillsa kneel to regain her strength, Keziah felt the heat of a Needlebriar invasion swelter in the same location. Fires of the future swarmed amongst the playing witches, their forms vanishing as years passed in an instant. The Lowfields aged, their golden light fading. The honeybees turned to embers as the sky darkened.

But she still felt the presence of the three legendary witches, their souls older and full of fear. Keziah watched them drop from their brooms, almost exactly where the training trifecta had been years earlier. Jillsa was now tall, a confident runner with the cap’s ears reared back like an angry dog. Tomru was bleeding from her neck, toppling into the ash-covered grains from exhaustion. And Katherine emerged from behind Keziah’s invisible form, screaming as a black hooded female fought her in aerial combat, their brooms shredding the ground. Jillsa revealed her wand, glistening in scarlet sap before delivering a quick blast of frost to the hooded attacker. The figure’s arms and legs were revealed beneath the flapping black robes—skin as pale and dead as the moon. A Needlebriar.

The blast separated the Needlebriar from Katherine, now sporting three long gashes across her face as she came to her feet. Tomru and Jillsa joined their sister on opposite ends of the invader, writhing on the ground and hissing. They took their positions, same as the training trifecta. The following barrage of attacks and wand blasts was a gory, spectacular realization of their mock games. Keziah watched in silence, focused on the locked eyes of the three warriors as the Hollow burned around them. A flock of Needlebriars in broomflight soared overhead, a screeching sound close to the Banshees. The warriors continued to assault the kneeling invader, unable to gain her footing as her hood was burnt off by a plume spray.

The forager looked away as the invader’s screams were muffled by a wave of magma-hot magic. When Keziah turned around, she almost screamed herself, greeted by the pale blue embrace of Callus.

 . . .. . .

KEZIAH FLOPPED HER WAY OUT of Callus moments later, gasping for air and flicking sap away. She was happy to see excess bits of Callus flaking off like dandelion seeds, leaving her dry and unsappy.

“Ah… now that is a Moonscar.” Levidia said.

Levidia pointed to her leg, where the holster had been, and Keziah’s eyes drifted to the end of her radius bone, now covered in a fine resin coating of swirled speckled-blue blown glass. Only, the wand was holstered. Sealed into her leg, through the tan pants and the little hole she wanted sewn up. She slowly pulled the long see-through silver weapon from her thigh flesh, without pain or blood.

“Saplings have the best material for first wands?” Keziah said, gaining her breath and admiring the wand in the light.

“Isn’t discovery better than being told the answer?” Levidia said with a loosened smile, sealing Callus’ wound with a sizzling fire spell that danced along her gloved fingertips. “You have to admit it is much more fun.”

“Mystery she cannot hide…” Keziah said, reminiscing on the old Mendac song from the niads’ chorus.

Callus’ twin humps rolled in a happy garble. Daire gave her a pat and cracked her neck in a sort of glee as they parted. The sapling began shifting her way out of the forest circle, into the sanctuary fields as the sun reached its peak. The translucent creatures loved the warm sunshine.

“So,” Keziah said. “That wasn’t what I expected. I was watching Jillsa and Katherine train. The Jillsa and Katherine. But they were much younger than the etchings show them. Even Tomru was there. I can’t remember if they spoke at all, but I felt every movement they made. Every mistake. And then, there was something else-.”

“Another name for that is muscle memory.” Levidia responded, approaching Keziah as the fiery training trifecta execution from years later started to fade. “Their instincts will be your own. Any error you could possibly encounter has been executed before. Now, at most, what could you accomplish with your carved wand?”

“I can set up a small boundary for the lightning domes. Sometimes I can lift heavy branches, but I get a headache pretty quickly.”

“Well, you can do more than lift heavy things now.” Daire laughed, withdrawing her own wand from her forearm, silver under resin like her own.

In a flash, Daire whipped the wand behind her head in a convoluted crane position. “Tectra!”

A blue spark emitted from the end and three brooms away, an oak log split in half, bark bits flying. The slice was perfectly vertical, like it was done with the finest of axes. Keziah gave a bright smile. She had seen the Tectra spell in action at the Trelstark training camp, a favorite of the silent close-knit crew of scholars that haunted the grounds last spring.

“Pilari!” Daire shouted, floating above their heads like a puppet yanked by its strings. She flipped once, twice, and flourished with another spell before hitting the ground. “Trunsmo!”

A bright green flame sparked at the end of Daire’s wand. One of the split logs wobbled, flipped upright, and crunched inward, forming into the shape of a wooden spoon. The spoon spun around, raising higher and higher, drifting toward Keziah with a hawk’s intention. The forager snatched it from the air and looked at the dipped end, lined with the same tree bark as the log piece.

Keziah was impressed. A childish part of her was excited to try the spells for herself. Magic thrived with one’s creativity. She had always thought of herself as a rather dull blade, simply looking to others and mirroring their handiwork and mannerisms to fit in as best she could. But now, she wondered if all she needed was the proper sharpening.

“Can you turn me into a spoon?” she joked, playfully chucking the spoon at a bowing, impressed-with-herself Daire.

“Trunsmo spells can only interact with dead things, like the log. You would be talking about the Tal Corpus—which has been banned for many generations. It has been wiped clean from our well of collected talents. You wouldn’t survive the experience anyhow.”

“Ouch.” Keziah murmured.

“Perhaps a high witch could. But the stress alone would change her. She’d never be able to put herself back together. Not completely.” the scholar added.

The two witches stared in silence while Daire holstered her wand.

“Do you always say your spells? Seems like that would give the enemy an advantage.” Keziah said.

“You have to wake them up. Eventually, it’ll come as second nature, nothing more than a twitch of the eye or a shoulder shrug. But for now, they respond best to your voice. We can’t keep spells awake indefinitely, they burn too much energy when not in use.”

It made sense, but Keziah was a good whisperer.

“I have a strange question.” Keziah said, inspecting her flawless thigh. Not a scab bump and sore feeling to be found.

“I expect those to continue. What is it?” the scholar responded.

“Why don’t I feel anything from this? The wand doesn’t even leave a mark.”

Levidia explained, spinning her wand around with her fingers. “You may be powered by magic but the body is simply a collection of countless individual matter— every piece of you, down to the smallest goldmist flake can be picked apart like grains of sand, with the other bits not even noticing. I could moot through your stomach and scoop out the grains and ale if I wanted.”

“After all, the wand is a part of you to begin with.” Daire said.

“Ready?” Levidia asked.

Keziah smiled, withdrawing her wand. “Trunsmo!”

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

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HAVING UNDERGONE THE DAGGER RITUAL and the sparrow’s communion, Keziah should have expected strange dreams during the night. She considered the thought right before her body went limp and her mind drifted off the deerskin sheets, into deep sleep.

Naturally, she dreamt of Mismra…

In the gardens of House Echni yet on the shores of Birch Lake, the dream took place at sunset in the fall. Keziah was alone at first, walking along her tilled field of snapping netchifiers and mudclaws, only now they looked just as Daire described, a child’s hand. Rows of baby hands and wiggling in the dirt, flicking away crickets and fly larvae. She wasn’t disturbed by this. Instead, she wished she had more to plant.

Keziah could smell the damp earth, waiting for a frost to finish its gradual collapse into critter food. The trees were silent, like they weren’t trees at all. Every leaf still, yet the wind was something fierce. A distant scream echoed over her shoulder and she turned, her vision turning hot-white like she was staring at the sun. It was Mismra.

Knee-deep in the black waters of Birch Lake, Mismra smiled at Keziah, one of her hands covering her eyes. Her small frame was huddled, her skin mottled and flaky. Gone were the rosy cheeks and loose-limbed spirit. Keziah asked what was wrong, the niad’s legs shaking and making angry ripples on the surface. Pieces of chalky skin rattled off in chunks, melting in the water. Her figure shrank into the growing dark of night and she brought the other hand to her head, rocking back and forth. “Hi, Keziah. I missed you today.”

“I missed you. I can’t believe you’re gone. Yesterday, I thought everything was going to end up differently. I don’t know how to-.”

“I have the worst headache today. Can you take a walk with me?” Mismra interrupted with a wide smile, her eyes still covered.

“I’m sorry. Of course. Where do you want to go?” Keziah asked. She began looking around for a good quiet spot but the further she looked out into the Hollow, the mushier everything became. She didn’t recognize this place at all.

“I want to go some place that’s… out of sight…” Mismra said, her words droned out by a groan from deep in her gut. “Out of mind.” She grasped her head tight and keeled over, her face dunking into the lake.

“Let me help you.” Keziah reached out a hand. It was saturated with the blood of the sparrow.

Mismra recoiled, shielding herself and giggling. “No, no. You did enough. It’s no use. This headache won’t go away.”

“I met some elders. And the Root Mother. We can help you. Don’t rot away, please.” Keziah said. She felt herself smile. But her jaw was clamped shut. Her teeth were cracking.

“Who have you ever helped? Noa is all alone. Daire has lost interest. And I died in my bed, calling out your name. All while you went on a one-witch camping trip and watched some men die by the Root. Why did you sit and watch? If you refuse to help the innocent, they will always succumb.” Mismra ended with another head-twisting groan. The words were tearful and stung as such, but her voice was cold. “I don’t want to start over.”

“Then come back to me!” Keziah cried. Her voice was smothered to a wheeze. “I’m right here and I need you!”

“The night has passed us by. It’s so hard for me to remember things now. I know your voice but not your face. Would you like to see mine?”

The water rose to Keziah’s waist. The tide was rolling in. Mismra waited patiently, her breathing ragged. Keziah shook her head.

“Did you like me? Or did you just use me for your gardening? I was always able to water your plants when you were gone. Do you even know what their favorite song was?”

Keziah fought back tears. She didn’t know. “I never used you. You loved singing to the berries! Don’t change your story now!”

“Everything’s just a bit wrong, isn’t it?” Mismra asked, in a voice older than she. It was the kind of tone that answered itself.

“Miz…” Keziah said, her own voice fading to the breeze.

But Mismra wasn’t listening any longer. The pain in her head was moving across her forehead, like a flexing hand seen from behind a thin curtain. She drifted to the center of Birch Lake in the hazy blink of an eye, the body of water sparkling in silvery moonlight. Keziah reached out, her fingertips grazing her soft brown hair as she jetted away. The alabaster moon hung fat and craterous, so close that she saw heat waves shimmering along the uneven curve of the sister planet, wobbling in place like a water spirit. The clouds were swallowed in the warmth of the night giant, leaving a star-filled void. Mismra had left the lake, drifting a hundred brooms into the air and exposed in sharp shadow against the moon. It was all so inevitable. Keziah fell to her knees.

Her sister’s head cracked open like a robin’s egg, her face separating in two equally jagged pieces as a spray of goldmist shot across the sky, covering the moon. The violet night clouds returned to fold in on themselves, sounding like mountains scraping against each other. Mismra’s broken body started to raise higher to the heavens, knocking down tiny stars pinned to the expanse like jewels on a Mendac collar. The tiny white stars grew bigger as they fell to the Hollow, crashing into the forests with mighty flames that billowed into clouds of red smoke—the aftermath concaved into the shape of the Rootbase. The fallen stars graciously set the Hollow aflame.

She watched in frozen fascination as Mismra’s body began to contort, as if pulled and prodded by unseen sticks on a fire spit. After a moment of wiggling like worms on a hook, her body naturally came to a drooping position and her split head turned and faced her. The separated smile leered at her and Keziah tried to look away.

What are you? she said to herself, shaking in place as the waters lapped about her chin.

Out of sight… the mature voice whispered aloud, out of mind… Keziah was speechless as a gigantic blue-skinned arm emerged from Mismra’s cracked skull, stretching in scale to monstrous proportions, like a tree branch growing from sprout to full size in the blink of an eye. The arm was slimy like a frog’s and whipped across the goldmist-infested air as if it were poison. Mismra’s limp body remained floating, flopping about, centered as a spider supporting its final twitching leg. Finally, the alien arm flexed and in the clarity of full moonlight, seven ghastly finger bones shot through the pale blue skin, stabbing into the nearby riverside. Soil was sent into the air in chunks and the heavy splash brought Keziah underwater.

No! No! Not again! Keziah said, plopped away from the horrid sight. From under the shimmery surface, she saw a three-hundred foot tall feminine body slip out of the vacant head like yolk from an egg. She broke through the watery brink in time to see the gigantic figure leave Mismra’s head, her massive legs and feet snapping away with a final tug. The massive figure, as tall as a watchtower, giggled at Keziah before swimming through the air and soaring towards the fiery Hollow in the distance.

For some reason, the cracked-open head of Mismra screamed.

 . . .. . .

MOST DAYS SHE AWOKE, KEZIAH felt like a child’s doll—her neck and limbs were crunchy like the twig-tied effigy figure stuffed somewhere in her scattered belongings. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and went through her daily task of stretching and craning every which way, popping bubbles of air nestled between creaky joints. She hummed a song in her head, something from House Echni’s oldest tilling melodies as she prepared for a new, sure-to-be-confusing day.

She did not remember the dream.

The furnace churned six times at the crack of dawn and the blur of Daire’s red hair zoomed across the double-wide room—just getting dressed was an adventure for a runner. The tan brown day clothes zipped through the washroom’s door drape and over Keziah’s head as she fastened her boots.

“Oh! You need to wear these today!” Daire said, appearing from the fuzzy morning light with a pair of yellow-tan pants, made of the thinnest and most breathable fungal leather. She tossed them to Keziah who nearly missed in her drowsiness.

The color was nice, sun rays through yellow maple leaves, but needed some extra sewing. On the right thigh was a sliced-open circular cut big enough for two fingers to poke through. “Why do I need these in particular? If you have another pair, I would welcome it. There’s a giant hole!”

“Just put them on! It’ll make sense later!”

“Do you want to know the main reason I want to become a high-witch?” Daire asked loudly from the washroom.

Keziah scratched her head and yawned, waiting for the obvious response.

“All I’d have to do is think about my outfit and… bam! it’s on me! What a relief.”

The common term ‘high-witch’ meant many things, a large canvas word for the many wondrous roles within the upper echelon. But secretly, Keziah believed all Mendacs wished for the chance to do things with the snap of your fingers. Sure, you could fly on brooms made of goldmist and urge plants to accelerate their life cycles in seconds. But witches like Levidia, Yoni, or the Root Mother were capable of so much more. They had no need for life’s simple time-wasting activities like getting dressed, throlling a series of spells or even walking if they felt like it. Keziah worried it might make her lazier than she already was.

“What’s for breakfast?” Keziah asked after getting dressed and tying her boot strings.

“Probably a slab of pig, heated goldgrain and some hearty, farty eggs.” Daire said as they left the room, leaving the door cracked so the cleaning spirits could do their work at noon.

They reunited with Noa on the Moth floor, two floors from the bottom and leaving her guest room with a wide smile. Her pale skin was radiant—pale pink gloss coated her like dusty sunlight as she cracked the door and waved at the two. Her dark blue gown had been replaced by a thin, laced green robe and her observer’s crowned glowed in matching hues. Something had changed. Keziah felt the heat coming off of Daire.

“And how are we this morning?” the runner asked quickly, turning on her heel like Levidia.

“Fine, thanks. I had the most wonderful dreams. And Gylnn left me a vial of pink shellmist from the coast.”

“Yes, we noticed.” Daire said.

“I think you look great.” Keziah said, tugging on the green robe. “Not exactly guard colors, are they? Did the sea witch leave you a souvenir?”

“No,” Noa said. “That would be her assistant, Joy.”

Daire’s quick-turning heels came to the briefest of stops before she continued down the main stairs. Through the growing wafts of honey-smoked hams and morning chatter, Keziah felt the lover’s quarrel curdling like old milk. The runner nonchalantly fluffed her hair as they turned a corner and looked back, straight through Keziah who stood in the middle. “Oh! True to her name, I hear! Is she still into loom-weaving?”

“She switched to broomflight, actually. Master of the hillsands, she’s called. We talked for much longer than we should have—her room is across from mine. She’s fond of watchtowers and long nights like I am.” Noa retorted.

Keziah grew restless on the final steps, blurting out, “Bless the Root! I can’t wait for some eggs!”

. . .. . .

AT THE FINALE OF THEIR FIRST MEAL, the three witches waited for the arrival of Levidia, who was several minutes late. The sixth rumble of the day was followed by a flurry of grunts who neatly stomped into formation and received the final, greasier cut of the breakfast bounty. In between the young girls was the scholar, her face resisting a scrunch, wading past the pointed hats down the main hall staircase. A dulled yellow sunbeam broke through the ceiling, the same as the scholar’s tightly-brushed hair, freshly braided down the left side of her face. A combat braid.

Keziah felt a smile come across her lips. Watching her move through the river of grunts was charming in a way, looking like the commander of a sinking ship. She wasn’t comfortable around anyone besides the Mothrunners, but her piercing eyes watched every one of them like a mother hawk. She did care. Keziah vowed in that brief moment as the scholar approached their table, to always remember that.

“Daire told me that you have quarters here. I assumed you slept at Wormhill.” Keziah asked.

Levidia quickly slid herself into the empty seat between her and the runner. “Wormhill is not a place of rest for scholars. Meditation? Yes. Naps? No.”

“Did you sleep last night?” Keziah asked.

Levidia let loose another smile. “You’re being polite, aren’t you, Adams? Do I look restless?”

“I can see that you need a spa day.”

“And I see that you didn’t study very hard in your combat lessons. You haven’t been to a single training session for half a year! Last night, I went through your records with a fine-thistled broom. The Nizak, to be precise.” Levidia proclaimed in a low hiss.

The breakfast mood had suddenly changed. And with the scholar’s harsh revelation, the sunny sky shifted to a dark bloom. Thunder called nearby, rattling Wormset’s ceiling beams. The three witches looked up at the sound, but the scholar remained where she was.

Keziah pondered for a moment before returning a look that must have read something close to dumb rodent. She had no clue what the Nizak spell was. Levidia bowed her head slightly before the tension in her throat and bloodshot eyes relinquished.  “I’m sorry, Adams. No, I did not sleep well. And we must see how you fare in action, although we will try to prevent that at all cost.”

“In action? She needs her wand for that!” Noa laughed briefly.

Keziah turned to Levidia. Dammitall, she thought, I never took Moonscar out of her case!

Levidia raised an eyebrow and snapped her fingers. With a whoosh! and the tiniest blue spark, the long wooden wand case landed in her hand. She silently handed the heavy case to Keziah, who tried to slide it inside her long blue jacket.

“Oh, no.” the scholar hissed. “Take it out of the case. And keep it out.”

Keziah relented and opened the wooden case, letting out a dusty cloud of expelled air. She waved the old goldmist flakes away while Levidia crossed her arms and looked on. Moonscar was white as a bleached bone, almost as long as Keziah’s forearm and fairly light, even by Mendac standards. She twisted in her seat and slid the wand inside the leather holster on her right leg.

Noa approved. Daire shook her head. And a little grunt of ten or so, with a pudgy face and button-red nose had appeared at the end of the table. Levidia turned ever so slightly to the short witch who wore a cloth version of the Sparrow sign, making her one of the youngest in-hands at Wormset.

“Yes?” Levidia said with a curl in her voice.

The grunt greeted Levidia with a slow bow before staring at Noa.

“Speak quickly, little on. We have much to do.” the scholar sighed.

“Flaps took a liking to you.” the grunt answered, beckoning Noa to stand.

“Really? What did she say about me?”

“Don’t get so excited. She needs someone to mop up the molten splash. But she did say something about you having a lot of backbone.”

Flaps had mentioned her spine grafting when they visited the cave. Perhaps she had a special salve to help with the aches and pains. Keziah watched Noa relax her shoulders and take a deep breath before standing. She thought she would be upset at being pulled to the undermost part of Wormset but the pink-skinned witch was smiling.

“That sounds great. Will I see you witches at midday?”

Levidia answered for them, scooting from her bench seat and straightening her gauntlets. “No. But you can count on dinner. Tell Flaps we said ‘Hello’.”

She turned on her heels and Keziah followed Daire as they saw Noa off, the small grunt holding her hand and leading the way in a broken sprint.

“She seems pretty happy to sit around magma all day.” Daire mused.

Keziah held onto Moonscar like she was nursing a nasty stab wound, her hand glued to her thigh. The three witches moved past the line of hungry grunts and around the circle tables. The gentle thunder got louder, the rumbles of outside pulsing in her head. It was a new day. The first morning after the weirdest day of her life.

At the entrance, the scholar flipped her hood up, commanding the doors to open and filling Wormset’s lobby with the sweet smell of a green morn-rain. The fullness of the storm rolled inside, blanketing Keziah with a memory of the recent cloud tower.

Levidia lifted her head high, summoning her broom. “It’s a perfect day to learn, wouldn’t you say, Daire?”

“Absolutely!”