Joseph Lewis - Wren the Fox Witch

“You have a fox’s soul inside you?” He glanced at her with a look of mingled amusement and disbelief.

“Yes. But just a little piece of one.”

“And now everyone in your whole country has ears like that?”

“Yes.”

“Even the men?”

She laughed. “Yes, even the men, although they weren’t very happy about it.”

Tycho blew out a long breath. “Well, if that’s the cure, then I’d hate to see the disease.”

Wren winced and looked away. Visions of deformed monsters ran through a blood-soaked tapestry in her mind. “Yes, you would.”

They walked on in silence for a minute, nodding at passing servants and soldiers. Wren tried to study the strange buildings around them, the huge towers and domes and arches and columns. Omar had told her about the buildings in the south, that they would be larger and grander than anything she had known in Ysland. And he was right, as ever. But there was no magic or mystery about the palace. It was all just cold, gray stone. Shaped and polished and cunningly arranged, yes, but just stone all the same.

Tycho led her up the steps to a many-arched entrance, and Wren saw high above the building a square tower rising behind it.

“She’s up there?” she asked.

“In the Tower of Justice? No, not usually. She’s made herself quite comfortable in the lower chamber. It’s an older hall, abandoned long ago, but still intact,” Tycho said. “It’s not very nice down there.”

“Then why does she stay there?”

“She says she likes it.” Tycho opened the door and ushered her inside a nondescript room of polished marble filled with doorways to other chambers. “When Prince Vlad agreed to defend Constantia, we had no idea he would bring someone like Koschei with him. And I think even Vlad had no idea that Koschei would bring his mother.”

“Life is full of small surprises,” Wren said.

Tycho paused at the top of a stair that led down into a well of flickering torchlight. “Listen, to be honest, I’m still not sure what sort of person she is. She spent most of her time alone even before Koschei was captured. And now, since he’s been gone, she’s been more than a little unhappy, as you can imagine. She comes out at night to harass the soldiers from time to time, but other than that, we don’t see her.”

“No one sees her, not even to bring her food?”

“The servants leave it at the bottom of the stairs for her. But she’s made it fairly clear that she’s not in the mood to take visitors unless there’s word that her son has been freed.” Tycho said, “Are you really a witch, like her?”

“I’m not a witch. I’m a vala.”

“What does that mean?”

“I make medicines from herbs, and I read the stars, and I read dreams, and I talk to ghosts,” said Wren. “Anyone can do what I do, if you learn how.” She fingered the ring inside her glove again, feeling a vague sense of guilt at her one omission.

But he doesn’t need to know about the aether-craft. Not yet, at least.

“I didn’t think you were really a witch, exactly, but the black dress, and the ears, well…” Tycho shrugged. “Are you ready?”

Wren nodded, and they descended the stairs.

The steps spiraled down and the air grew cooler, until they stepped out of an alcove into a large chamber in which their footsteps echoed far into the distant shadows. But only a few paces from the alcove, the floor was covered in Persian carpets, which were covered in dirty animal pelts, many of which had their heads and paws still attached. Three iron braziers stood in a crooked triangle around the rugs, all burning brightly and throwing off waves of heat.

In the center of the braziers there was a collection of gold and silver plates and goblets, none of the same size or design, and all with the remains of some old meal dried and crusted along their edges and bottoms. And seated amidst this chaos and debris, was a woman.

Wren wasn’t sure what she had expected. A crone, a gibbering lunatic, a vicious old mother, a lady in mourning? But not this.

The woman sitting on the pile of skins, surrounded by chewed bones and dried wine, roasting between the braziers, was…

…beautiful. She looks like an ancient queen. What sort of witch can she possibly be? And why is she down here, living like this?

Wren stared at the woman’s blood-red dress, the crow feathers tied into the braids of her snow white hair, the silver bracelets on her wrists, and the necklace of tiny animal skulls hanging around her neck. The woman looked up, tilting her face to the light, revealing a thousand fine lines of age and worry, but her skin was still firm, her eyes keen, and her lips ever so slightly pink.

“Where is my son?” she asked in a deep, commanding voice.

Wren blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

“Then get out!” The witch flung up her hands and a white wind blasted across the braziers and shoved the two near the alcove.

Wren stumbled back as the aether struck her flesh, and she instinctively threw up her own hands to shield her face, and the aether fell away, melting into the darkness. Slowly, she lowered her hands and looked at the woman, and felt the cool air tickling her tall furry ears.

Damn. The aether couldn’t move my scarf. I must have knocked it back myself. Stupid, clumsy…

“Lady Yaga, if you please!” Tycho said loudly from behind Wren. “We have something very important to discuss with you. And I’ve brought this young woman to meet you. She’s from Rus, too.”

“Ysland, actually,” Wren corrected him quietly.

“Right, Ysland.” Tycho nodded. “This is Wren Olgasdottir.”

“What the devil is wrong with your ears, girl?” the woman asked.

“I’ve, uh, I have an extra-”

“An extra soul, a portion of an animal, something thrust into you.” The witch rose to her feet. “Come here. Let me look at you.”

Wren swallowed and came forward.

“A fox soul,” the witch said, peering at Wren’s head. “But just a portion of it. A tiny scrap. And something else, as well. Something to keep the animal at bay, trapped in your silly ears and those pretty eyes of yours. What is it?”

Wren nodded. “That something else, the thing that keeps the fox under control, is another soul, a bit of a man’s soul.”

Don’t ask anymore. Not yet. Don’t make me say his name to you yet.

“Hm.” The witch turned away with a weary sigh. “Is that why you’re here? You want me to fix you? You want me to get it out of you?”

“Well, no.”

“Good, because I can’t. It can’t be done.”

“I know,” Wren said. “I know how it works. I know about soul-breaking and aether-craft.”

“Do you now?” The witch sat down on her pelts. “Then why are you here?”

Wren knelt at the edge of the rugs. “I’m here because I need your help. The city needs your help. There’s something coming, and I need your help to stop it.”

“We have reports, my lady, of an army marching on Constantia,” Tycho said. “An army of walking corpses. The undead. The deathless ones.”

The witch stared into Wren’s eyes. “You don’t say.”

“You don’t seem surprised,” Wren said. “Has this happened before?”

“In Rus, the dead often have a mind of their own,” said the witch. “That’s why the people burn their dead. At least, they do when they can.”

“And when they can’t?”

The witch smiled. “Then they call for me and my son to set things right.”

Wren nodded. “I see. But why does it happen at all? Is it because the aether freezes in the blood, and the ghost stays there, confused, thinking they might still be alive? And then they just drag their dead bodies around by the aether like puppets on strings?”