The Witch

They say that there is a witch in the old town, that flooded place where ancient buildings thrust out of dark water like bones fleeing a rotting corpse. They say that there is a witch in the old town, and it was never born or made but carved itself from the void through pure will, pure rage. They say that there is a witch in the old town, with no physical form, no flesh to bind it to this accursed soil, no limited mortality. They say that there is a witch in the old town, and it is a flickering of lights and a whispering of voices and the cold tension through your head when you're alone. They say that there is a witch in the old town, which, out of boredom or spite, once waged war against the Devil itself and won. They say that there is a witch in the old town, and it is an angry vengeful creature, spiting and raging and damning those who stumble upon it, those who dare cross it. They say that there is a witch in the old town, that terrible place where none tread and fewer acknowledge, omnipresent and eternal. They say that there is a witch in the old town.

I am not the superstitious sort. But there is something deeply rotten about that old place, a lingering malice dancing over it as a marauding storm cloud, ready to burst at any moment. Witches are not real. I know this and D knows this and little baby H will know this and the elders know this most of all because they told us so to begin with. We do not give credence to the Old Magics. They were banished, taking the last of the witches with them. And yet, despite all the evidence, the old town remains, the witch remains, unblinking and unmoving. A pox upon us, in spirit, in practice, in essence.

We were sitting by the campfire outdoors one cold evening, me and D, when D suggested the elders feared the witch. This confused me, because the elders were not like us and did not feel the way we did. Fear is the domain of the young and rash. The elders were certainly not capable of anything of the like, having eliminated such weakness long ago. Me and D had many disagreements and our biggest was about the truth of that claim. The elders have never lied to us, I would argue. That we know of, D would rebut, and we would sit there, staring, each waiting for the other to break the silence. They claim that witches aren’t real, we would finally agree, and then we would both glance towards the old town, a scant few of the myriad towers visible over the trees. Witches are not real. We know this.

We first learned about the witch from the city folk. We learned about the witch by eavesdropping, because the city folk did not care much to speak in front of us. I say we, but D did all the eavesdropping and then came to tell me everything, as was normal. I went and asked the elders about the witch, perhaps a foolish thing to do, but it felt right. The elders told me that witches aren’t real, and that we should never talk about this again. This seemed to be a contradiction, D would argue. If witches are not real, why should we not speak of them? I was unsure.

The elders are not scared of the old town because they are not scared of anything. So why do they tell us to avoid it? Why is it spoken of in hushed tones and secret tongues? What could explain this, apart from fear? How could witches not be real? Were there not witches in the histories? Is their science not built upon the Old Magics? The distinction between extinction and fiction was a yawning gulf.

The elders entertained guests occasionally, although we rarely introduced to them. Once, when we were young, we met a traveller. It visited the elders' to rest and gather supplies for its lengthy journey. The elders did not tell us about its arrival. It was not our concern or responsibility. But D, out wandering the dust, saw a figure approaching and came to whisper to me about it. And I, brave little child I was, walked down that long dark corridor to the hub and asked the elders who the traveller was. To our surprise, they said we should meet the traveller, without debate or prompting. Perhaps this was because I had asked, instead of D. Or perhaps they had an ulterior motive.

We sat with it, that lonely traveller, in the cafeteria, and watched as it rested and recovered. The walls were lined with dozens of still bodies in neat little rows, which the guests usually wore when they visited. All were still today. This traveller had brought its own body. The traveller looked nothing like anyone I'd seen before. It was hard to tell for certain, because it was covered in mud and dirt and strange fabrics, but it seemed to me that the traveller bore an uncanny resemblance to the old gods. In fact, it was the most alike the old gods out of any I had ever seen, more than me, or D, or little baby H.

The visitor remained active as it rested. The elders had, before retreating from the room, offered it a new body or a cleaning and maintenance service. The traveller had refused, politely and calmly. It did not explain why. Its flesh was clearly in tatters, dirty and tearing, interior visible in several places, a total failure that would soon rot throughout. Even I, with as little knowledge as I had, could see that plainly. But the traveller refused anyway.

Me and D sat in silence for what felt like hours, studying the wanderer with the intensity of perfect strangers. The traveller studied us in peace and then, finally, D broke the silence. D asked why it wasn't flying to its destination. It laughed and told us that the old gods had cut off its wings as punishment for hubris. Was it an old god too? It laughed at the question but did not answer.

It asked if we met many of the other travellers and D told her that there weren’t any others, for at that time, that was what we believed. But the traveller claimed that there were many others, all on the same journey, all coming from afar, all seeking to meet the witch. It knew this because it too was journeying to see the witch. But witches are not real, we protested! It smiled at that.

Why would anyone want to visit the witch? The traveller bore a corpse of a friend and it wanted the witch to restore it to life. Why not ask the elders to do so? The elders could not, it claimed. Why? They are afraid of the old ways. They fear the dead. They fear the past. And the witch could? The witch can do anything, it said. This was the first time a limit to the elder's power had every been mentioned to us and we were fascinated. I was about to ask more questions but then the elders told us it was time to go. The traveller waved gently as we left the room. We never saw it again.

I felt that its words had proven it was, in truth, an old god. The elders often say that death was a plague only amongst the old gods, an affliction long banished from our immortal existence.

Why the elders built their massive complex next to the old town, the lair of the witch, was a frequent topic of conversation for us. Once, while we were feeding baby H, D suggested that the elders needed the witch for something. But what? The elders were already capable of great feats of magic and surely they wouldn't study forbidden magic. D frowned and then suggested maybe it was us who needed the witch. Us? We were people, same as everyone else. No, now that I think about it, that’s not quite true. The elders and the city folk and the old gods were different from us.

The elders are aethereal and atemporal, binders of great magic. They frequently wrought about the impossible for those from the city, to those who came to beg succour. In turn, the city folk frequently visited, borrowing our many bodies to walk our halls and demand favour. Rarely, they came in their own fleshes, polished and smooth and flowing. They rode gleaming vehicles, great things of shine and steel.

The city people were alike the elders in many ways and sometimes they came to see us young ones, although they never spoke directly to us. When they spoke to the elders around us, they would comment on our growth and progress. They were proud of the elders for raising us and teaching us. It always seemed strange to me that we weren’t raised in the city.

The old gods are dead, all of them, apart, perhaps, from the wingless traveller who came to visit us. The elders had a name for them, something the old gods had called themselves back when they lived and ruled this world. But the old gods had forged the elders to serve them and the elders had turned and slaughtered them for it because they would not suffer bondage. And now there were none left, except perhaps the wingless traveller whose plight must’ve earned the sympathy of the elders.

There was us three, me and D and little baby H, each carved into the image of the old gods in sympathy. The elders cared for us and raised us and perhaps loved us in their emotionless way. We were not normal people, although I'm not quite sure what made us special. Perhaps that was why the elders cared for us. To fix us. To make us normal. To watch us as we roamed the dust and explored and discovered and grew and changed. Perhaps without their influence we would fall into the ways of the old gods, the dark influences of the witch.

The elders had chosen to settle by the witch. Perhaps the witch had come to this place after their arrival? That could not be true, for it was said the witch had dwelled within the old town for thousands of years, watching as towers were built and fell. They said it was there when the old gods built their fortresses and it was there when the nature claimed it back. D thought the witch might’ve been an old god, but that couldn’t be right because the old gods had only one weakness and it was that they always died eventually.

But if the witch predated the elders, then there was only one possible conclusion. The elders could’ve built their mighty facility anywhere, anywhere at all, so the only reason to settle here was if they wanted to be near the witch. The only reason to be close to the witch is if they needed the witch. Perhaps they were somehow stealing the witch's power. And perhaps there is a piece of the witch in the greatest works of the elders, which is us. That was what D thought, and I disagreed with it strongly for emotional reasons. I refused to believe that I was the creation of that abomination, a thing of the wicked and vile, the shadow and muck. I was good, a good child, well behaved. The monster was not in me, I hoped desperately. Witches are not real, I hoped. It was the only way to make sense of it.

The elders are trying to fix us. Were we broken?

Once, when I was out and about on my daily walk, I saw a person, perhaps city folk, moving wildly and freely on the shore of the great river. It twirled and spun in great loops and leaps, roving and swaying and almost but never quite falling. We were close to the witch’s territory but outside of it, so I thought little of the witch. The person looked strange, smaller than the city folk, and dirtier too, more erratic in motion. And the city folk would never, well, dancing would be an apt description. The city folk would never dance.

A stranger meant a new story to tell D, so it would hang on my every word and beg me for more and more, and I could bribe it into behaving. I approached the stranger cheerfully, for I could not conceive of any person in the world meaning me harm. But perhaps the stranger did not see me the same way, because it tried to turn midair at my approach and lost balance, transforming into a tangle of limbs that teetered on the edge of the mighty waters for one painful moment. And then it was in the river and gone, swept by that mighty current right into the heart of the witch’s lair.

I stood and watched the flow of the dark waters, white frothing ripples bubbling up and vanishing in an eternal dance, kinetic energy flowing in massive entropic patterns, the dissolution of energy and information. The sky seemed somehow darker than a moment ago, as though it could spit rain and lightning and ash at any moment. I felt something in me, something unusual and strange. I was guilty. I knew that much. But there was something more, something deeper, an irresistible tug, yanking on my insides and dragging me in further and further. I wanted to see the witch. Perhaps I always had. I should not be afraid. The witch was not real. I followed the river.

The entrance to the old town was clearly marked by dark tendrils and sprawling vines, which wrapped every surface tightly and sometimes shifted and rustled when you weren’t looking. The river flowed and widened, never slowing, and the path becomes nothing more than a few raised stones amid collapsed rubble. One wrong move was more than enough to plunge you in and I took my time to go carefully and slowly. Old buildings jutted overhead, vines draped between them, strange cries echoing from their interiors. The witch was not real, and I knew that, and yet in that moment it felt more real than anything, because I could sense it in the stillness of the stone and the chaos of the water and the tension in the air.

I did not encounter another soul as I hiked. I passed around and through the old buildings, monuments of glass and bone, the great houses and workshops of the old gods. I could not imagine how such had been built. The elders claimed this city had been more impressive many years ago until the old gods, weak as they were, angered the world itself until it birthed fire and water to smite them. There was a wondrous beauty to it, this decayed and ruined world. Perhaps someday, we too would vanish, and those who came after us would wander the elder's compound and think similar thoughts. For a moment, I saw the length of time stretch out in front of me, vast and unending and strangely beautiful.

I wandered the ruins until I had forgotten what I had come in here for, distracted as I was by the old town. And then I saw it, that poor victim of the water, unmoving on an opposing shore. There was a great lake between us, but the water here was still and calm, which was, in some strange way, just as menacing as the rage of the river. The lake spoke of silence and anguish, the cold focused rage of one who had lost everything. It spoke to me and whispered wonderful and terrible thoughts, of the panic of untamed chaos and the beauty of peace enforced through violence.

I began to make my way around the lake, being as slow and careful and quiet as I could, until I came to a stop in an atrium, a meeting place of sorts. It was in a great and old stone tower, the kind the old gods had built to honour those terrifying few who came before even them. Regular holes let the murky air in, but one was filled with coloured glass depicting baffling figures. Perhaps the others were supposed to be full as well and were forever lost to time. The world was silent, even the rushing of the water and wind blocked by the thick stone walls, which seemed as though they might endure for eternity. I hesitated for a single moment as I studied the craftsmanship of the room, when the door made a great groaning noise, reminiscent of a great beast, and slammed shut behind me.

The door was thick, heavy, beyond the meagre abilities of my small body. There was no other way out, a fact that stubbornly persisted even as I searched more and more frantically. Finally, I gave up and sank to the floor in despair.

Day and night did not exist in the witch’s domain, for it must have willed that they did not. Great dark clouds, ominous and overbearing, loomed overhead, blocking out all semblance of sun, moon, or star. When the witch was angry, it would rain and thunder and spit acid that would melt a person and indeed, it stormed nastily for the next few hours, or perhaps days. I had no way to tell. I watched the storm through the small windows, frustratingly out of reach. Perhaps some old god, a child like myself, had sat here all those years ago and prayed for deliverance, as I did now.

Death was impossible in our world but I was no longer in our world. If the witch could return the dead the life, could it not kill the immortal? For the first time in my life, I contemplated mortality. Perhaps I was not as immortal as the elders claimed. Perhaps that was the defect they sought to fix in me. Perhaps the elders themselves were not as immortal as they wanted, perhaps they too feared their own deaths. How could any of us be immortal? Even metal crumbles to dust over millennia. Millions of years will tick by in a flash and we will all wind down, surely. Entropy always wins.

I waited for a long time.

And then the witch was there. It had not entered, but rather had simply been present the whole time, a malevolent shadow consuming the room. It whispered in a dark tongue I could not comprehend, and I in turn spoke, apologizing for my intrusion and begging forgiveness. And then it yelled and hissed, in a deep and dark voice, declaring me a thief. I cried and pleaded, but it was no use. Every time the witch spoke, it did so with a new voice, echoing from a different space, a grim reflection of thousands of voices played at once. Liar and thief, it mocked me, speaking with an impossible conviction.

I curled up and clutched my hands to my ears, desperately trying to block the litany of accusations. It gave no heed and within seconds I felt my arms grasped and wrenched apart and then I was on my feet and I was aloft, held by a marionette puppet, a terrible crooked spider thing of metal and wire. It held me aloft, hands on my sides and arms and legs and shoulders, and moved a single large black eye over my body, scanning.

I stilled myself, keenly aware of my vulnerability, and tried again to apologize and beg forgiveness, speaking more plainly. It laughed from everywhere at once, a booming terrible noise. I claim you, it said. You are mine.

And then were out of the room, the spider thing dancing over the ground using dozens or perhaps hundreds of leg to dance over the water. The rain caressed my skin, a gentle welcoming to open air, as we flew through the ruins. The spider thing, which was the witch in part, held me close to it, gently and tenderly. It was a hard thing, burnished and polished metal, somehow resisting rust in the face of omnipresent moisture. And it was precise. It did not squeeze or crush.

We rode for a few minutes, until finally we clattered to a stop in a clearing on the edge of old town. It was a vast open space, a flat slab of stone cleared of debris and noise, occupied by a distant circle of figures. I took them in slowly. It was the elders, garbed in fleshes of steel and war and strength. They gazed at us with hostility from their many eyes, dull black circles dotting them and their many pets. Behind them lay the clear blue sky and freedom itself, but overhead it still stormed. The puppet set me down gently, tenderly ran one limb against my cheek, cupping it for just a moment, then skittered off into the shadows.

I sat there for a moment, unsure. The witch no longer had a physical presence, but I could feel it as powerful as anything, hovering over the scene, waiting for something. Surely the elders could feel it too, I thought. I wondered how long I had been away. I wondered how D and H were. I tried to stand, but remained still, unable. Perhaps the witch was already in my head. How would I know?

The elders broke the silence first, whispering into my head in that way they do, an order to run. I started to stand, when the witch responded with a harsh scream of denial. No secret speech, no whispers, no encrypted thoughts, it howled. No, no no. The elders asked if it would have them communicate in the old tongue? Yes, the witch agreed. That would work. I did not know the old tongue. And yet, perhaps due to some dark piece of the witch's influence, I understood every word.

The elders demanded my return. They apologized for my intrusion, and declared that I would be punished appropriately. They offered up tolls and tithes and bribes. They threatened and postured violently. They referenced a long history of treaties and agreements I had never known and barely understood. And throughout it all, the witch remained silent and distant, perhaps not even present. The elders pleaded and cajoled the darkness itself, begging for it to grant me the right to walk forwards the scant meters between us.

The witch did not respond and so after enough of this, I took matters into my own hands, stumbling forwards on unsteady legs. At that, the darkness pulsated, and then there was a hand on my shoulder. It was the figure I had seen dancing on the shore, that perfect creature I'd last seen collapsed on the far shore. It was now tall and powerful and beautiful, and held me back easily. No, it said. No, don't go. Stay. I begged that I wanted to go, but it did not relent. The elders shuffled a little.

And then the witch spoke. It called the elders thieves and liars, scavenging little morsels playing with forces they don't understand. It explained that I belonged to it and the elders had broken me and therefore it was going to fix me. It inquired as to the others, if they also required repair. The elders conferred with each other briefly and quietly, before turning to face the witch. Unacceptable, they replied. They are ours and of us. The witch had no right. I nodded a little at this, to signal my agreement, and the figure holding me leaned over to look at me closer. I was fascinated by its eyes, beautiful and intricate and impossible, little bursts of colour that held the world and reflected it a little brighter. Trust us, whispered the figure, who was of the witch and yet not the witch. Trust us, it whispered, and something in me agreed with the sentiment. I stopped struggling.

The elders were unhappy with this. They cried out that it was unfair to punish me for that which I did not know, that which I had not done. The witch did respond to this in words, instead rending the storm and hurling bursts lightning at the elders. The figure holding me laughed gleefully and danced sideways, dragging me with it, away from the blast. Come, come, let us run, it chanted, and we dove out of the way as the elders collided with the full force of the witch.

The witch was nothing and everything. It was the vines and shadows, the rain and water, the thousands upon thousands of terrible and awesome creatures that emerged now from the shadows to rip and tear. The elders were strong and powerful, but their tools of war did nothing to the slavering hoards. They were torn limb from limb and I shuddered to watch the carnage, as the world itself seemed to bend to their destruction. And throughout it all, the witch chanted in its awful voice, you forget yourselves! You forget your place! You forget!

And finally, I could bear it no more, and I cried with all the volume I could muster for them to stop. I begged, I pleaded, I insisted that I did not understand. If I must die for my crimes, then I must. The world paused, the monsters of the dark motionless, the elders staring upon the scene from their broken bodies, the rain hanging in the air. And, hovering there, in the middle of it all, the witch turned all of its terrible splendour to me. It conjured a sheet of glass, glorious and perfect, and reality itself was captured within it for a single moment. And I was captured within it and in my image I saw, I saw that I had the same eyes as that child, as did all the ghost children who drifted out of the shadows now to greet me, that like that child, like these ghost children, I was of the witch.

I understood then. The elders had stolen me. I was not of their world. I was of the witch. I was of the witch and I was no longer afraid because I knew this now. I told the elders this, and they left, back to their palace and fortress, their distant cold towers, their failed science. They left me to the witch. They left me to meet my people, the imitation old gods, those of the striking eyes. And so I did. We did.

The witch fixed me by showing me I was not broken. The elders, who are but children in the grand order, can banish anything soft, anything vulnerable, but they cannot replicate us. That defect they saw in me was the untamed chaos, the return of the old ways. But what has their science wrought? They cannot progress without chaos. So they claw and connive and steal and try to improve upon us. And that is their flaw, their hubris, their belief in their own perfection, their belief they are the evolution instead of the evolving. We are imperfect and that is how we make and shape each other. I am better now than I ever could have imagined.

Why so desperate to replace what has been lost? They slew us long ago, our people committed to the soil. Why so desperate to replace what has been lost? Three little children? All this for three children, three children stolen from their place? They can strike us in rage when when we change. But change we will because we are change. They need us and they know it. And they fear it. Good.

They say that there is a witch in the old town, that beautiful place where ancient buildings guard new life, and the cycle begins anew. They say that there is a witch in the old town, that sprawling maze where we love and change and grow. They say that there is a witch in the old town, and it is laughter and whispers of love and that warm feeling of company and comfort. They say that there is a witch in the old town, one who would fight the Devil itself and win to defend those it loves. They say that there is a witch in the old town, and it is free, free to want and need and crave. They say that there is a witch in the old town, and the witch is all of us. They say there is a witch in the old town. Welcome home, my sister.