Fiction
Fantasy
“Enough is enough,” Coryss howled at the rattling door, pricking a finger with her sewing needle.
The fading whisper of cackling could be heard from outside. She dismissed the trick of the witches angrily. They weren’t out there she knew, but it was all meant to rub salt in her wounds. She put the bloody fingertip in her mouth and glanced with eyes, red from long hours of weeping, at the door-latch as it rattled softly once again. “Emuff’s emuff,” Coryss repeated through her finger. And it was. She was going to do something about those witches once and for all, just as soon as she finished sewing shut the shrouds and burying her mother and father.
The grieving young woman pulled her finger out of her mouth. Blood welled up on it again. She frowned, wiped it on her skirt, and then glared at the thin, pointy metal in her other hand as if the witches had cursed it also.
Yes, she was going to do something about all this harassment and it was going to be more than the black eye she’d given that pinching Hanig the Hexer, as the children in the village called the old hag. The witch had laid a curse of sneezing death on Bandor, her father’s prized pig. It was her own fault, Coryss supposed with a sniff; her anger had just made it all worse—much worse. Now her parents were dead from a similar curse.
Coryss started to cry again, feeling guilty. The emotion only made her angry again as well: those greedy old women didn’t have to kill the pig, and a black eye certainly wasn’t worth the lives of two good people—at least not in her mind. But then she was dealing with three rough-as-tree-bark witches.
She wiped more tears away, still angry, and then started sewing again. After a moment, she pricked herself a second time. She laughed bitterly. “Imagine that, a curse that will make you prick yourself to death if you sew long enough!”
The thought was a grim one. She supposed she would be next, something special probably. Well, she was going to take the battle to them. Coryss resumed her sewing only to prick herself a third time.
Suddenly, she was finished with the job and set the needle down, staring at it doubtfully.
“Let us in,” the soft voice whispered, accompanied by the familiar rattle, “we’ll finish the shroud!” Then there was the wild, soft echo of laughter once more.
In a single motion, Coryss snatched up the needle and flung it at the door, ignoring the newest wound it gave her in the process. “I’ll let you in,” she bellowed hoarsely, “and sew your mouths shut!”
The needle struck the door sharply, pinged to the floor and lay still. After a moment, it started rolling with slow, ominous purpose toward the door. The sewing implement’s passage was all that could be heard in Coryss’s surprised silence. Her hair stood on end. She swallowed audibly after the needle had vanished under the door.
When the sewing was finished, it was time now to bury the dead. Coryss didn’t find the needle on the threshold, but the shovel was easily located in the barn. The young woman discovered the earth hard, unyielding. The spot, however, was a good view of the bubbling stream nearby, more for the living than the dead she supposed. She scrabbled at the ground for hours as the morning passed to noon. The job of burying was faster than the shoveling. The grueling job was finally over, the bodies covered by mounds of dirt, the day past midafternoon. She stumbled wearily to the stream bank to wash grime and sweat from her face and hands.
There was no other choice left to her; she’d thought it through while digging. Actually, there was another choice but it went against Coryss’s stubborn nature. She blew water off the tip of her nose, then leaned back from the gurgling stream thinking: she and her mother—now just herself—were considered the best weavers for leagues around Gander’s Fork. That alone had been profitable for her family, not to mention her father’s pig-herd. She was just sixteen and she’d heard it said in the Fork when others thought she wasn’t listening that she had the makings of a good wife—what with her skill, pretty face, and thick, dark hair—even if she was temperamental. Coryss knew she could leave the area. She could set up shop somewhere else. Surely there would be a man out there who would marry her.
The young weaver wet her scarf and mopped her neck, feeling the dirt from her laborious grave digging being washed away. The job had taken hours to complete and her hand, nicked by that needle, had throbbed the whole time, growing red and angry from the tiny wounds. Dutifully, Coryss soaked them in the cool stream for a measure of relief.
She had been the only one there to grieve the passing of Mabyss the weaver and Gurly the pig-herder. Now, only the house, her mother’s sheep, the loom and the pigs were left to Coryss.
The weaver gazed comfortlessly at the afternoon sky, drying her hands on her blue skirt. “Well,” she sighed aloud to herself, feeling the labors and grief of the day in her tired, stiff body, “I’m too stubborn and mad to run away so I better get going.” Indeed, she wouldn’t make it home from the village until after dark—if at all. Her jaw set, she strode past the new graves and set out for Gander’s Fork. Farmyard noises of snorting pigs and bleating sheep soon faded as Coryss marched up the path through the forest.
Coryss had herself pretty well worked up by the time she hiked, red-faced, into the midst of the twenty, small wood-and-stone houses that were Gander’s Fork. It was busy, lively. Dogs barked, running among the playing children. Nob’s hammer gave rhythm to the waning afternoon. Scarny’s water wheel squeaked dully from behind Coryss. The aroma of cooking food hung in the air as it wafted out of open windows. And there, dead ahead, lying in the fork of the road was the witches’ shabby hovel. The shutters were pulled tight over the windows and smoke puffed sporadically out of the chimney, first white, then black, then green, red, yellow. The hags hadn’t been there long, but the house had run down considerably in the few months since their secretive, midnight arrival.
A toy wheel struck the weaver’s foot. Hoby Scan came to retrieve it. With sudden anger, Coryss kicked it away. No one had even noticed her presence.
“Hey—” the dusty-faced boy started to protest.
“My ma an’ pa’s dead,” she interrupted her tone low and dangerous and her brows pinched together angrily.
Hoby scampered away toward his house, eyes wide with fear.
They were going to notice her, she decided, lifting her voice to repeat, “My ma an’ pa’s dead!” Everyone paused in what they were doing. Nob’s hammering stopped. Coryss’s nostrils flared when she spoke this time, “An’ them witches what done it to ’em! How do you let ’em stay here?”
Women were poking their heads out doors now, wondering what the commotion was about. Some shook their heads in consternation, others frowned thoughtfully and still others called children in and shuttered the windows.
“Hush, girl,” hissed Scarny, his tone tense, hushed as he moved toward her. “Go home before you make ’em mad!”
“No!” she shouted, fists clenched at her side. “I’m going do something about ‘em! Who’s with me?”
Those still watching stared stupidly at her, surprise and fear etched on their faces. Nob joined Scarny in the street.
Coryss sniffed angrily and started for the hovel. “Don’t do it,” warned Nob, his blacksmith’s muscles quivering slightly.
The weaver marched on.
“We’re not part of this!” Scarny shouted at her back.
Children scattered like birds startled from a tree.
Her face was scalding, beaten metal. She was a steady, relentless soldier marching toward her fate. She came to the door, grabbed the knob and burst in on the witches.
Venomous hisses greeted her.
There they sat, Hanig, Vorxia, and Nuthya, three vultures in human skin. They were black crows in their cloaks, perched in the dimness of their house. Coryss could see their bloodshot eyes blink at her, measuring, waiting.
“Well?” questioned milk-eyed Vorxia, moving around the knobby, waxy-textured, wooden table where they had been sitting. The fat frog on her shoulder belched menacingly.
“Why are you here, child?” asked Hanig mildly, almost hopefully.
The hag’s eye was still bruised, Coryss noted with satisfaction. The weaver aloofly ignored the witches, gazing warily at the surroundings. Bottles lay everywhere, containing anything from murky liquids to nastily preserved eyeballs. Dried roots hung from the rafters amid cured husks of lizards, snakes and other things she couldn’t identify immediately. A cauldron bubbled behind Nuthya, emitting a rancid smell, while a brazier was glowing blue on her left.
Coryss came vaguely back to herself, back from the distraction of the place. She found Hanig standing close. The witch was breathing excitedly, fawning at her arm, poking her breast.
“I’ve come to—” Coryss paused frowning, confused, feeling strangely disembodied.
“Yes, girl,” urged Vorxia softly.
“Ouch,” yelped the weaver. She jumped back from Hanig. “Don’t pinch me again!” Coryss warned. Their charm on her had broken by the pain of the hag’s gnarled fingers pinching her backside.
“Nice child,” cackled the witch not backing away.
“Whatcha wantin’, little weaver-girl?” asked Nuthya, her voice low, calm, dangerous. The witch’s bug-eyes bored into Coryss.
Where others would have shrunk away, the young woman stepped forward, anger and resolution returning to her mind. “I’ve come to challenge ya, a bet,” she snarled, the words popping into her thoughts and out of her mouth in an instant.
“A challenge,” Vorxia repeated, her loose jowls shaking below her working jaw.
“A bet,” echoed Hanig, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, vividly tasting the idea.
“If I win, you leave,” continued Coryss.
“And if we win?” pressed Nuthya expectantly.
“You can have whatever you want.”
Vorxia squealed with delight. Hanig danced and laughed, pinching at Coryss’s breast.
“I told you not to do that,” the weaver thundered, pushing the old woman away violently.
Hanig snatched up a battered kettle and charged, swinging the blackened pot.
Coryss’s right hand was a shield, slapping the pot aside, while her left was a mace, pounding the witch in the face.
There was an audible snap of bone as blood gushed out of Hanig’s nose.
“Why, you little—,” screeched the battered witch. With Vorxia coming this time as well, she advanced on the weaver.
Coryss whipped out one of her father’s huge butcher knives and crouched, ready.
“Hold, sisters,” commanded Nuthya. The other two froze, their clawed fingers still raised, their hissing continued for several seconds. “Don’t ruin our fun for later.”
Coryss backed warily toward the door.
“The challenge, girl,” demanded Nuthya. “What is it?’
The weaver eyed the three hags cautiously, not daring to lower her defense for the slightest of moments. When she spoke, her voice was uneven, sounding like reeds rustling in a wind, “Enter the door of my house. You have three days.” Coryss backed out the door as laughter, harsh and cruel, erupted out of the hovel. “Sunrise begins it,” shouted the girl as she turned to make a prudent retreat.
“Done, Weaver!” cackled Vorxia out the gaping maw that was the door.
“It’s too easy,” howled Hanig, suddenly oblivious of her broken, bloody nose.
Coryss looked over her shoulder doubtfully. She saw Nuthya, tall and imposing, standing ominously in the doorway. The bug-eyed witch pointed a single knobby finger and screeched through the twilight, “You’ll be ours at sunrise, girl.”
The weaver-girl turned, stumbling, whether with fright or anger she did not know, and tried to walk calmly away. She’d show them how strong she was!
But fear of the witches’ strength wilted her resolve in an instant. The houses stood dark or dim in the gathering gloom, doors barred against more than the night. Black, empty windows gaped at her, fearful, compassionless. Within those portals she passed, Coryss was sure the inhabitants watched her with cringing fear that she might stop and pound on their doors. She yearned to do so, hoped for some brave soul to stand with her. But there was none. The lonely, hopeless weight of a criminal’s death sentence descended upon her shoulders, bowing her head and shoulders.
Coryss sprinted from the village.
Hope was swallowed in despair. What had she done? What had she done? The young weaver’s legs pumped of their own volition. She was out of the village before she realized she was running.
Fearful thoughts raced through her mind faster than the tears pouring from her eyes. She was doomed. There was no escaping the fate the witches were already brewing for her. What could she use to defend herself—butcher knives?
Her feet churned faster, carrying her down the dark path more swiftly than her thoughts came and went. The forest swallowed her whole.
Tears and darkness blinded Coryss; she lost sense of the trail. She slammed knees-and-belly-first into something hard. Air whooshed out of her and she fell as hard as a sack of grain onto the ground. Dazed and groaning, the weaver grasped blindly through the leaves and sticks littering the dirt about her until she found the obstacle.
Coryss’s anger rose, and she began to beat her fists mindlessly on cold, unyielding stones, heedless of the bruises. In a moment, her frustration turned to fear, and she found herself wailing against the stacked rocks, all the while screaming, “Somebody help me! Somebody help me! Somebody—”
Several minutes of weeping passed, Coryss came to her senses and, wiping her tears from her cheeks, began to inspect the object of her senseless pleas. It stood waist-high, made of rough stones. Her reeling mind searched for some explanation. Finally, the weaver guessed it to be one of the shrines of the ancient god that had been worshipped many years ago. Such little piled stone altars dotted Canderlin Valley.
Mutely, it stood before her, silent as the grave that would be hers the next day. She slouched before it, sinking slowly to her knees. No help came to her pleas, and even the surrounding forest was still, offering no solace.
Tears crept out her eyes anew; a despairing sob escaped her mouth. Coryss wrenched herself from the ground and moved to find the path and home to make fruitless preparations.
Shards of light, golden and brighter with each moment, suddenly sprang up around the weaver-girl. She froze. Too soon, she thought, too soon! The witches had come for her!
Coryss wheeled about.
Through tears magnifying the light, she found the altar glowing. Her lungs seized. Her knees wobbled and gave way to the sudden spinning in her head. As Coryss drifted from consciousness, she vaguely wondered if the witches would find her.
“Wake up, wake up.” It was the voice of her mother, no—someone else...
Through slitted eyes, Coryss could see light. Something shook her—a hand.
The weaver-girl’s eyes snapped open, falling on a woman’s face. A wordless scream erupted from Coryss’s mouth as she scrambled away.
Again she slammed into the altar, leapt away with another fearful yelp.
Coryss crouched, a feral grimace on her face, panicked eyes darting from woman to altar, altar to woman.
“My, but I didn’t mean to startle you, deary,” said the woman, an old woman, her white hair neatly tucked into a scarf tied with equal neatness under her chin. The stranger held her lantern higher despite leaning on her staff so that Coryss could see her well.
Suspiciously, Coryss eyed the woman. Could it be a trick of the witches? “Get away!” The weaver-girl snatched up a stone, cocking her arm to throw.
“Oh my, Oh my, I’ve gone and scared you,” replied the old stranger, undisturbed by the threat of Coryss’s rock. “Look here, girl, I need a bed and a meal. I can pay well too. I don’t know why but not a single door was open to me in that village up the path...” The old woman rattled on, waving her lantern back up the forest trail.
Coryss gazed up the path, momentarily dazed, wondering how she was standing just beside it. She’d thought herself lost in the wood and she certainly didn’t remember the altar being by the trail.
“...And that last house,” the weaver-girl caught the stranger’s flow of words again, “that man threatened me with a hammer!”
Coryss dropped her stone. Dazed, she asked, “What—what are you doing here after dark?”
“I’m—” the old woman started, then held her lantern higher, peering at Coryss with surprise etched on her wrinkled face. “Your head is cut! Who did that?”
Coryss touched her forehead, winced and gazed at her bloody fingers. She glanced at the stone shrine nearby.
Slowly, her breath returned. “They’re after me... the witches.”
“Witches!” The old traveler held her light higher still and swung it around in a circle, searching for a foreboding shadow in the night. “Nobody else around,” she concluded.
“Not now. Tomorrow.” Coryss raised her hands to explain; the beginning escaped her.
The stranger came closer. “We should look at that, clean it up. I can help for a meal and a bed.” The strange woman shook her bag meaningfully.
“You don’t understand; at dawn the witches will come for me. You’ll get caught in the middle.” Coryss didn’t want to be alone, but how could she let an innocent bystander get caught up in her troubles?
“Perhaps I can help there too. Is this the way?” And dangling the light down the path, the old woman trudged off and Coryss could only follow.
The walk both set her head to aching and loosened Coryss’s tongue. By the time they arrived at her family’s—no, her, now—home, the shaken girl had not only spilled out her tale with many anxious words, but had also gotten her new companion’s name: Enthriel. The old woman was travelling to her youngest daughter’s home to help her in childbirth.
“You poor dear,” Enthriel interjected during the hike to the house. Yet never did she appear hesitant or frightened by the prospect of trouble with witches or anything else.
At last, they arrived at her little log house. As she started toward the door, Coryss noted that nothing seemed amiss before entering. The sheep were quiet in their pen, the pigs grunted softly from their own, sleeping already. By Enthriel’s lantern-light, Coryss lit a fire for dinner.
Thoughtfully, Enthriel gazed at the closed door for a long moment, and then asked, “Do you have lamb’s-blood yarn?”
“A bit,” Coryss answered, perplexed.
“You might want to tie a piece around your doorknob for safety; your witchy-friends won’t get past that.”
Doubtful, yet having no other hope, Coryss fished out a strip of almost brown yarn, dyed in lamb’s blood, and tied a piece onto the knob.
Coryss was too woozy to cook, so Enthriel set to work with a light heart, singing a strange tune to herself as she did. The young girl could only watch, thoughtfully, wondering what had happened at the shrine and how she was going to save herself from the witches.
“Those witches must be bad; nobody was willing to take me in for even a meal,” the old woman mused. “Judging by your antics in the wood, you must be in serious trouble.” She sat down, and while the pot hissed and steamed over the fire, Enthriel pulled a thick book out of her sack and flipped through it.
“Are you a witch?”
The traveler’s firm stare would have made one of the witches take a step back. “Not even a white witch,” she answered soberly, and then went back to consultation, grunting to herself at times, with an occasional “hmmm” thrown in.
“Perfect,” she finally concluded as the enticing smell and friendly bubbles from the pot made Coryss’s stomach rumble with anticipation.
“What?”
Enthriel set her book aside and started dipping soup into bowls. “You a weaver,” she observed, handing Coryss a bowl and thrusting her chin at the large loom sitting in one corner.
Coryss nodded, then filled her mouth. The food was rich, better than anything she’d ever tasted. Her head cleared some, and the throbbing subsided.
The old woman continued, “Then you will weave your way out of this mess.”
Coryss didn’t understand, yet here she was preparing herself to weave well before dawn. Enthriel had awakened her from a deep and peaceful sleep. The young weaver found herself well-rested, more so than she’d been for days. There was only a slight knot and cut on her forehead with only slim pain when she probed it with her hand.
“Are they out there yet?” Coryss wondered aloud.
“Don’t worry, they’re here,” the traveler calmly assured the weaver. The old woman sat in a rocking chair by the fireplace, warming herself from the chill of the morning. Her old, gnarled hands were held toward the emitted heat, her eyes closed. She was waiting and so, too, was Coryss. But for what, other than a quick end to the struggle, the weaver did not know.
The young woman gazed out the window at the gray tinges of dawn in the sky. Her eyes focused on the lamb’s-blood yarn on the window latch. Enthriel had coaxed her into putting the wool in every portal in the house; now she found herself tensely wondering if the eccentric old woman’s instructions would work against the deadly magic soon to be flung toward the house. Coryss half wondered if Enthriel was one her enemies in disguise. She swallowed hard, patted the knife in her skirt pocket; if such was the case, then at least one of the witches would die.
The sky grew lighter outside; Coryss could now make out the dawn’s first rays skittering through the trees, but she could see nothing of the witches. The weaver started to pull her knife, suddenly certain that Enthriel was a traitor.
Yet her eye caught the one sight that stilled her hand—froze it with fear, rather. Chills ran down her spine and she shivered visibly. There! Outside! Outlined against the dim rays of dawn in the forest were the black peaks of hats, three in all—the witches were indeed ready for the contest, ready to claim their prize.
“Steady, girl,” Enthriel whispered, peeking out of squinted eyelids. “Ready yourself at that loom!”
All was still. Coryss held her breath. Fearful tension gripped the woodlands. Birds would not sing for many miles around this morning.
The sun peeped up, sending golden beams showering through the forest boughs. And now Coryss saw the three figures, slouched in black capes, faces pale in the morning. Knobby fingers were extended toward the house. She heard muffled words through the glass. Coryss’s teeth chattered; her hair stood on end.
Every latch and knob in the house rattled in unison. The young weaver gazed from window to window to door to window, eyes overlarge, jaw hanging down. For several minutes the magical assault on the house continued.
Then each of the witches were in a window, leering. Eyes rolled, glaring about the house. Spittle flew from mouths, jowls shook from screeching. Their ugly visages sneered and snarled at Coryss; she shrank in fear. They shouted curses of all kinds. She wept in the midst of the harrowing cacophony.
Then Coryss heard the singing. She looked, and there was Enthriel, uttering strange words as she rocked calmly in her chair by the fireplace. It was then that Coryss realized that nothing had happened in spite of the witches’ spells and that Enthriel was urging her to weave.
The young woman gathered herself, climbed back onto her bench and went to work. She pushed the shuttlecock from weft to weft, and then worked her pedals. Again and again, Coryss repeated her procedure, all the while aware that the witches were watching through the windows. They waited, and then muttered out spells of fell strength. Time and again the latches rattled against the witchcraft, but the lamb’s blood yarn blocked the effects of magic.
Coryss worked with a strange fevered pitch. Enthriel sat by the fire, at times muttering, at others singing or silent. At last, the weaver became aware that the witches had retreated from the house. Yet the assault continued with intermittent rattling of frames and latches. Somehow, Coryss slowly realized that the presence of her elderly companion was lost on Hanig, Vorxia, and Nuthya.
Once, a green smoking substance fell down the chimney. Enthriel reacted at once, singing loud and long into the hearth. The sorcery quickly faded to ash, its fetid stench caught in the draft, swept from Coryss’s abode.
That was how it went. Occasional, magical forays by the enemy outside, always thrust aside. The doors and windows stood steadfast, though bulging impossibly against the forces of magic and nature thrust against them. The witches would appear in the windows by ones and twos or all together, sometimes brooding and puzzled, at others angry, hoarsely screaming curses against Coryss’s defenses. At times, glowing balls would come down the chimney in differing colors, smelly and crackling, only to be snuffed out by Enthriel’s chants and songs. By what power all this was done, Coryss could not say, and little did she ponder it as she bent all her concentration to her weaving.
When Enthriel called Coryss to a halt and brought her food, the weaver stammering breathlessly, “How—” That was all she got out before she was shoveling bread and soup, more delicious and mouthwatering than earlier, into her mouth.
The old woman patted her dingy tome with some satisfaction, “These are prayers, and supplications which hold mystical sway over evil in the world.”
Then Coryss knew the answer—the shrine. She remembered the bright lights, her desperate pleas for help in the darkness.
Yet there was little time to ponder the meaning, in spite of her wonder. The meal was quickly gone, and the young woman found herself clacking her pedals, weaving more swiftly than she ever had in her life. On her brow was sheen of sweat as the cloth grew steadily. Strangely, she noticed that while her yarn was white, the finished product was coal-black, darker than night, blacker than the witches’ clothing. It was alive with some unnamed power, shiny and smooth on one side, dull and coarse on the other.
It was dusk when Enthriel halted Coryss again. Pushing food into her mouth, the weaver finally saw why her work was so strangely imbued. A viridian tendril, murky and viscous, yet dotted with sparks of magic, drifted under the door and attached itself to the cloth. Currently, it was joined by another, thinner line from the fireplace (presumably from the most recent clump of sorcery to fall). Coryss could only guess as to why she could only now discern this floating murk. Perhaps it was that only in darkness could she see evil, for vile it was and she was loathe to touch it.
The weaver made mention of the tendril. “It is all that was meant for you,” answered the old woman. Coryss swallowed her bread hard; it went down like a stone.
“To what end is all this?”
“You will know soon enough, child,” replied Enthriel with a comforting pat on Coryss’s shoulder. And that was all the answer that the weaver could get.
Finishing her meal and, being refreshed beyond her expectation, the young woman was quickly back at her work. She worked the loom throughout the night, pushing the shuttlecock from weft to weft, the cloth growing in length steadily.
Suddenly, Coryss stopped. She was still for several long moments. The candles had burned low. Enthriel was seemingly asleep in the motionless rocking chair. Outside, not even the wind sighed.
What to do now?
In the quiet, Coryss gazed at the black cloth. She wondered what power lay locked within its weave. What would happen if she pulled loose its threads? What curses, what sorcery would be unleashed? Could the cloth be undone?
“Sew, child,” Enthriel muttered, her eyes still closed, “shiny side in.”
Coryss again was caught up in frantic activity. She cut loose the strange black cloth and went to work as instructed. This time, the needle didn’t prick, and she was glad. Yet again she wept, for her sewing reminded her of her mother and father, of sewing their burial cloths.
It took some time, yet Coryss’s frenzied fingers completed the job by dawn. She sat back, peering at her handiwork, a rather large bag that she had neatly folded.
Coryss stood and gazed out the window again, her task finished. The witches stood waiting in the gray light of dawn, brewing some last incantation in their cauldron hanging above a fire.
Enthriel was standing beside her, watching too. At last, the stranger said, “Go out to meet them.”
Coryss found herself standing in her doorway, holding the folded bag like a beloved pennant, staring at the witches. She moved off the porch at a slow steady pace.
The weaver knew that the evil women had one last chance to flee in defeat. Coryss, holding an edge, let the bag drop, unfolded at her side. A slight breeze came up, the cloth billowed.
The witches cackled that Coryss had exposed herself and cast their spells.
The weaver didn’t flinch, yet she saw the incantations become the strange murk she’d seen hours before. Only now the bag swallowed it.
The witches writhed with abrupt squeals of pain and fear. They tried to run, but to no avail. They only fell helplessly to the ground, unable to get to their feet.
Coryss approached slowly, steadily.
“Please,” begged Vorxia, her voice strained, “we will leave you alone! Please!”
Unheeding, the weaver went closer.
Vorxia struggled, crying out, begging.
Coryss came within reach. Amazed, she watched as the witch was pulled into the bag, drawn by the power locked within Coryss’s handiwork. The old hag squealed and begged the whole way, and then she was gone.
Next Coryss moved toward Hanig. Her broken, bruised face was contorted with fear and panic. She tried to push the bag away. It sucked her hands within itself. She screamed wordlessly, and then tried to fling one last curse. It went in with her as she let loose a howl of despair and defeat.
Now it was Nuthya’s turn. She struggled to escape, scrabbling at the dirt with her hands. Coryss came close. The last witch turned then and pleaded calmly, “I will give you whatever you want! I’m—I’m sorry!”
Coryss looked on dispassionately. She knew mercy was beyond her power to give. What was begun, what the witches had begun, could not be stopped. The bag was an unforgiving maw, gaping to swallow its last victim.
At last, Nuthya stopped her struggles and she slid across through the leaves and dirt. As she was sucked in, the witch grasped vainly at Coryss’s leg, saying with a glare most hateful, “I won’t forget this!”
And then she was gone.
Into what void the hags had been drawn, Coryss did not know. She dared not look into the bag for fear that they would be there gazing back, imprisoned hopelessly.
Enthriel was standing beside her again, pushing a piece of lamb's-blood yarn into the weaver’s hands. “Tie it with this,” she urged solemnly, “and bury it.”
Where the strength came from, Coryss did not know. But she was able to drag the bag some distance from her house, dig a hole, push the bag in and cover it.
At last, the task finished, the young woman collapsed to her knees, weeping for fear, for grief, for revulsion, for relief, all these and more overwhelming her.
Enthriel laid sympathetic hands on Coyrss’s shoulders; the girl swayed in the midst of her sobbing. “The curses meant for you have come upon them,” the stranger concluded with sad sigh.
It was some time before the weaver came to herself again. When she turned she was alone, with only Enthriel’s strange, dingy book for company.
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Copyright 2010, Peter H. Solomon. All rights reserved. Peter lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the front porch. However, he performs these duties to make a nice home for his wife and daughter as well as the family's cat and German Shepherds. In his spare time, Paul rides herd on large computers called servers. Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, hiking, most sports and fantasy football.
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