The Pathfinder and the Witch

This world would burn, and all the damned souls scurrying across it were well aware.

Wagons and peasants choked the narrow muddy rut of a road wending its way downslope through the forest to the town squatting at the valley’s bottom. Traffic moved with quiet urgency; even the mules seemed content to comply. A blanket of gray clouds lay heavy above, already enveloping the distant mountain peaks, another prolonged drizzle in the offing. Ahead, shouting; the wink of sullen light off polished steel; raised lance-heads visible over the canvas canopies of wagons long before their bearers appeared. Peasants squeezed between wagons to clear a narrow channel for the lancers’ mounts as they proceeded uphill in single-file, fast-trot, young men’s faces weary and tight. Their eyes raked me and my dark horse suspiciously as they passed – my cloak and hood was common enough in this weather, but there was no concealing Duke, who was every inch the warhorse theirs were. The Kingdom’s army was reputed for discipline, but I didn’t release my breath till their horses had vanished ‘round the next bend.

It’d been high summer, then, and the the catastrophe was already upon us; artillery rumbling rather than thunder – but aside that, it felt the same. Faces turned up towards the gray clouds as distant thunder grumbled through the foothills again, woolen caps coming out of pockets to be jammed low over furrowed brows.

A sense of disquiet stole over me as I willed the crowd to move faster, wanting my errand done and Duke and I back in the seclusion of the dark woods swiftly as possible.

This isn’t Volhynia, I reminded myself. It needn’t be your concern.

The close-clinging forests retreated from the road; giving way to steep highland meadows where goats and sheep grazed under the watchful eye of young shepherds that spent more time watching the road than the forest. Then the terraces; farms cut into the slope; then sprawling fields as the slope lessened approaching the valley’s fertile bottom. Wagon drivers relaxed as they released their brake levers, mules now walking rather than skidding downhill.

Entrepreneurs had set up shop by the roadside outside of the town proper, hawking bread and smoked meats – in smaller towns, in narrower valleys, meat was often more plentiful than bread; harvesting the plentiful and formidable game in the primeval forests being the primary occupation. I was tempted to pull aside and secure what I needed then and there – but even if I could talk them into taking my strange coins without scales to hand, I still had a job to do. So I stuck with the main flow of traffic into town.

The wall was neither formidable nor weak; a shallow ditch with logs palisade set into the earthen rampart behind; quiet militiamen cradling their crossbows as they gazed over our heads at the ridgeline we’d just crossed. The streets were overcrowded, but not terribly loud; a general tense murmuring filling the air. Here and there people negotiated in doorways of private residences, under hastily hand-made signs I presumed offered accommodation for rent. I managed to divert my horse into the market street, which was bustling but not bursting from curb to curb like the main thoroughfare. The city boys had been surprised by that; not expecting refugee peasants to have much to spend, but as I’d pointed out, a peasant’s wealth is in their land and buildings and livestock. Those moving now were townsmen with money to flee with. The farmers would come later. After–

–this wasn’t Volhynia, and I had a job to do. I started looking for a tavern, any tavern – the ones offering stables in the back would be full up by now anyway and even the dive joints would be stuffed full of out-of-towners with more coin than the average man, just like me. The rest were still marching towards the town’s far gate, following the road down the valley, getting while the getting was good.

Picking a likely-looking establishment, I dismounted and took a second to let my legs adjust to standing after hours in the saddle. I just tossed Duke’s reins over the hitching bar, patted his flank and talked sweet as he dipped his nose into the water trough and drank greedily, one ear tilted towards me with sedate politeness. I stepped inside.

The tense mood was lighter here; tongues liberated by ale. Shouldering my way through the crowd to the bar, I paid – sans mercantile mysticism, even at inflated prices the local mystery brew was cheap enough to buy with smaller denomination coins I’d received as change – and nursed the swill as I tried to absorb the chatter. I paid no mind to rumors of military movements or the latest bellicose broadside circulating in the broadsheets – politicians and newspapers were the same here as anywhere. I had my own ways of finding where they were; with my own eyes and ears. I needed to know what the people felt.

It was fear.

Voices were low; but I filtered a few words through the muttering; Yulgars, Vlachians and especially Dushniks, eyes scanning the room as if they might be right here with us – which the Dushniks almost certainly were. Ancient tribes immovable as the misty mountains versus revolutionary ideology blazing brighter than a forest fire – all loyalties were suspect now, no matter how the princes and primers tried to corral them into shared national identity. The names and factions and grievances were still little more than names and impressions to me; which I was supposed to be fixing now – buy someone loquacious a few drinks, take a few notes – but I sensed the window for that was over. Scribbling shorthand under my cloak was a good way to get lynched as a spy, now, and with a warhorse and no wagon, “trader” was a thin cover. I should've brought one of the mules.

I was reminded why I hadn’t when Duke’s high whinny and a meaty thump sounded outside. Army-issue mules didn’t guard my saddlebags like Duke did.

Draining my ale in one long draught, I stood and shouldered my way outside a bit brusquely; the would-be thief still reeling from Duke’s kick. I mounted and rode into the flow of traffic quickly, looking for a butcher, my other job still unfinished. We should’ve sent the (other) university man, but it hardly mattered. The names of princes and the grievances of tribes didn’t really matter.

This wasn’t Volhynia. These weren’t the lands I’d known, the tribes and kingdoms of men I’d fought for and against.

But it’d burn just like they had. Of that I was sure.

I found a stall that didn’t look too shady, dismounted and showed my money. The merchant; an expansive man wearing a butcher’s apron (pristine white, for show) examined my silver dollar with fascination. I’d picked the most worn one I could find, but his thumb caressed the engraving gently. “Remarkable.” He went to bite it, then paused; giving the machine-struck stamping another appreciative look. He dropped it on the countertop instead, appreciating its pure ringing tone. Turning, he pulled open the curtain behind him and shouted into his shop: “Bohdan! The scales! And the stone!”

A few breaths later a much thinner, younger version of the merchant appeared, all gangly knees and tousled blonde hair, bearing merchant’s scales and a small leather pouch. A few other customers leaned in to observe the mercantile ritual, peering at the dollar as the merchant handed me the scales and I made a show of satisfying myself with their quality. They were, I noted, nicer than most I’d seen; decorated with embossed swirls and with platforms of hardened iron; not prone to wearing down and changing balance like soft cheap brass. The dollar went on one platform, and local coins on the other. Twenty-six of the little coins had crowded onto the opposite scale before my dollar hovered close. A twenty-seventh sent it a little higher.

The son whistled, but the merchant just turned to the leather pouch; withdrawing a piece of gray slate that’d been polished flat, a few small glass vials with glass stoppers, and a small roll of leather. He made a circular motion ‘round his heart, prompting a few onlookers to do the same, then polished the pristine stone with a rag for show. Taking the dollar, he gently rubbed it against the stone, almost wincing at the necessity, leaving lady Liberty’s crown polished a little brighter as it left a faint silver streak on the dark slate.

Next he flipped open the small leather roll with a crisp showman’s flick; a row of glinting metal needles of silver and gold catching the gray light. He went straight to the end – pure silver, I surmised, by the way he kept it close to his chest and well away from the crowd – and drew a streak upon the stone next to the first. Two of the local coins marked the stone next.

Picking up the larger of the two vials, he removed the stopper and wetted a little brush in it. Touching the stone over the streaks, he paused, letting the crowd lean in curiously as a grin teased the corners of his mouth. Then he drew the brush downward.

“By the Saint,” the merchant’s son commented as the crowd murmured. The needle’s streak was untouched; the dollar’s had gained the faintest of green tints, and the local coins a little greener with tiny bubbles visible as their copper content reacted to the acid.

“… nine parts in ten,” the merchant declared after a pregnant pause, thoroughly enjoying the crowd’s attention. “Almost pure silver.”

I nodded.

“I know earth-channeling,” one of the onlookers said. “I can tell you for certain. Just let me hold it!”

The merchant shared a chuckle with the crowd. Plucking it from the scale he turned it over in his fingers thoughtfully. “Where is this from?”

“A distant land,” I said truthfully.

He squinted at Liberty. “A queen?”

“A goddess, apparently.”

“And an eagle for heraldry,” he concluded. “Well, some things never change no matter how far you sail. What’s it say on here?”

I told him, in English. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Sounds…”

“Foreign,” I said, and we both smiled. “But this-” he squinted again. “E Pluribus Unum. Out of…” he searched for a moment. “Out of many, one.”

“Huh,” I said numbly as pure surprise flowed through my veins like icewater. “What language is that?”

He glanced up at me. “How much did you want to buy with this, anyway?”

“Much as I could,” I said. I held up a second silver dollar in my left hand. “I’ve a trade caravan waiting for me down the road, and the guards are a mite hungry.”

He eyeballed my green wool cloak and its fine weave. “A well-off trader who doesn’t know Old Imperial, eh?”

I gave him a friendly smile and threw my elbow out a bit as I handed him the dollar, shifting my cloak enough to reveal the saber at my hip. “Just a well-off guard.” I caught movement in my peripheral vision as a few onlookers hovering with suspicious nonchalance at the edges of the little crowd decided to resume a-wandering.

The big man smiled back with genuine warmth. “All right,” he said. “What’ll it be?”

“Smoked beef, please.”

He nodded as he took the second dollar. “These are good for twenty-eight kapo apiece, so… three and a half roka?” He turned the coin over, admiring it anew. “A little more, mayhaps. “Bohdan!” The boy was already filling a bag with – I calculated – about ten pounds of jerky. He was plainly still curious, but any merchant’s guard worth a cloak and saber like mine weren’t prone to chatting about their caravan’s goods or route, and especially not in a crowded marketplace, so he handed my bag, holding it a moment too long with what seemed like wistfulness. “Safe roads, my friend.”

I stalked away far enough to find a bakery out of earshot of the last stall and bought a bagful of dense hearty bread with some of the small local coins as hastily as I could, barely bothering to haggle over the inflated prices. The Morgan dollars always attracted too much attention, but waltzing into a major city’s money-changer with a bar of silver would attract even more, if it didn’t get me hung – it was probably illegal, locals wouldn’t likely divulge to a foreigner with an accent which towns it was tacitly permitted and any money-changer who knew a bribable official was as likely to hang me and split the ingot between them as deal straight. And with whispers of war in the air, lurking in bars like a wannabe Gordon Young protagonist wasn’t much safer.

Mounting up, I nudged Duke a little too insistently, getting an exasperated whicker in reply as we navigated into the flow of traffic on the main thoroughfare again. I simply let the flow take us; ‘twas easier to simply drift along and out the other gate then double back cross-country than to fight the crowd. Letting Duke steer himself, I let my thoughts turn over and over, a sour knot tightening in my stomach.

Old Imperial. So they knew Latin. One more point of similarity. “Out of many, one” sounded too much like a Dushnik motto – I was fortunate nobody’d taken it as such.

Or perhaps they had. I resisted the primal, animalistic urge to glance over my shoulder, and the crowd wouldn’t allow faster than a walk. The knot just tightened to match my mouth as I felt instinct distill into decision: we’d overstayed our welcome.

It was time to head home. Let the academics make of our findings what they would, but we were done.

The crowd and I drifted into the main town square, the pressure letting up a little as the flow of wagons and people spread out. I caught myself scanning the rooftops again – old habits. I brought my gaze down to earth and that’s the first time I saw–

Her.

She all but dangled from a post set into the ground of the market square from restraints clearly meant for men; heavy iron manacles digging into her slender wrists as she struggled to stand on tip-toe. Long, glossy hair darker than the night sky hung past her shoulders, unbound and unkempt, hiding her eyes. Her simple cotton shift was dirty and torn – and bloodstained. Wagons and men wandered right past her; a flowing river of humanity passing as close as two feet from her – the radius of the warding glyph etched upon the flagstones ‘round the pole – without giving her a second glance. A broken little figure; soiled white dress contrasting the dark locks lying upon it; standing out bright in the square full of road-muddied travelers in the overcast-filtered light.

I stared, utterly transfixed, Perseus petrified by gazing upon Andromeda.

Another horse jostled mine from the side. “Make way!” the rider snapped irritably. I started; sucking a tardy breath into burning lungs, and found another lancer regarding me narrowly from beneath his raised visor.

“H-Her,” I almost coughed from a dry mouth, pointing. “Who is, what – why!?”

My foreign accent sent a sneer sprawling across his face. “Can’t you read, fool?”

Beneath my cloak my right hand went to my hip before I remembered myself, flinging my cloak back on the left to unshadow my saber-hilt. “Not your filthy language and I don’t like hearing it much better, so you’d best make your next words concise.”

He swore with the fluid mastery unique to cavalryman as he cast his lance aside carelessly and groped for his blade, before the ashen shaft of another lance arced in to smash into his helmet. He swayed in the saddle, still cursing, when an older voice cut in – “STAND TO HORSE! STAND TO HORSE YOU–” the rest was lost in choked fury. The lancer woozily dismounted and stood to attention by his mount, only to catch the armored boot of what could only be his Corporal square in the back. The older man glared down at his charge, then met my eyes, sizing me up carefully. A face and voice I’d seen a thousand times; ever-changing but always familiar.

“Who’s the woman?” I asked.

The non-commissioned officer glanced at her. “According to the sign, a witch.” He squinted. “Caught red-handed, no less.”

“… forbidden magic?”

He rapped on his helmet, the local gesture for ‘crazy.’ “Mind-magic. Worst kind. An’ with the gods-damned Dushniks an’ Yulgars sniffin ‘bout she ain’t be the last, sure bet.” He shook his head. “Ah ain’ know what witches are like where you’re from, but trust me – she deserves what’s coming to her.”

“What is coming to her?”

“Fire,” he said simply – just as the first fat raindrop splashed off his nose. He sighed the long, gusty sigh of the weary and damned. “Eventually.”

We exchanged curt nods and I nudged Duke along with the flow of traffic, the NCO’s rough voice rising as he exhorted the young lancer to his feet to receive a dressing-down at top volume. It seemed that in any world only Corporals and the constellations were truly unchanging.

My gaze was dragged back to the chained girl as I slowly rode past her. Closer now, I could see the bruises and scratches through the rents in her soiled shift; the blood trickling from her abraded wrists.

This, too, was familiar. This was how it started – accusations driven by terror, allegations made to settle old scores and current jealousies, and the authorities lynching as casually as the mobs if only to keep their own necks from the noose. A sacrifice to the terrors and petty tyrannies of the human heart, a pawn in the endless brawl of blood feuds and revolutionary fervor.

I rode past, finally asserting enough self-control to not look over my shoulder like a conspicuous idiot. It made no difference; the memory of her petite form dangling from the post – the stake, the altar – burned vivid in my mind.

I had no god-damned idea what a “witch” really was in this place. I barely knew what magic was – only what I’d seen it do (light pipes, analyze coins, float objects) and what people said it could do (punish an adulteress or flatten a mountain, depending on how drunk the storyteller was.) She could be guilty. She probably was, for all I knew.

And yet.

They say there’s no atheists in foxholes, but it’s a politician’s truth; technically true and all wrong. But I’d yet to meet the veteran who trusted solely to the five senses; and my sixth was fixated on the ‘witch’ like a compass needle on a magnet.

I let my thoughts settle out as I rocked gently in the saddle, and by the time I passed through the far gate, I was sure of one thing.

I didn’t give a damn for these peoples. There was enough misery to break my heart a thousand, a million times over at home – I hadn’t room in that ruin for all of theirs. Naturally it followed that I didn’t give a rusty damn what they thought a “witch” was, either.

There’s an old joke in the Army that Corporals love to spring on young officers. A riddle – supposing the barracks catches fire, and you’re atop the first rescue ladder – whom do you pull out first? The young recruit with his whole life ahead of him and a pregnant wife? The commanding officer with no family, but with a wealth of priceless experience? Or the poor maid; dutiful and sweet and innocent?

The answer is, of course – the one closest to the damn window.