The King's Blood (32 page)

Her eyes swooped out at the edges like a silhouette of a bird. But the most striking feature was her bone white hair, sliced short and spiking from her head like a startled hedgehog. That it was on top of a face that still had some baby fat on it made it all the more surprising.
 

By the time they made it inside the cabin, Aldrin was suffering a case of fresh deja-vu. Chairs, tables, wall decorations were identical in shape and placement. Even the same slightly stained teakettle sat upon the rocky half circular hearth in the middle of the room, boiling away. Though the pot of blood was new.

And as their host vanished into the bedroom where Aldrin spent almost a week fighting off infection and trying to stitch back together his side, the two of them looked around a bit, growing ever more uneasy at the unknown familiarity of it all. Without saying a word they'd both gotten a cup of tea and took to the bench, staring forward.

Ciara shifted beside Aldrin and tried to wave away the downwind scent of the pig farmer who settled in the last remaining chair and kept unweaving the possible basket in his hand. It was hard to tell what it had been at this point. He also kept lightly touching his jaw and jumping to his feet every time the witch came out of the bedroom, dumping out her old blood and replacing it with boiled water.

Strange noises crashed and shrieked from the bedroom, but when there was a witch about it was best to not inquire lest you got pulled into the donkey sacrifice orgy yourself. Aldrin stared down at his tea, long since cold, and some of the dregs looked a bit familiar. He pushed his finger into it, and mashing some around could just about make out an upright lizard holding a sword. That seemed wrong somehow.

Then, out of the room a deadly silence. The pig farmer knotted what remained of his hat into his hand and gripped it tightly. Even Ciara and Aldrin, uncertain what was going on scooted to the edge of the bench, their ears straining to overhear.

A cry. Small at first, but growing stronger, like it just had the greatest injustice the world could offer up dumped into its tiny lap. The pig farmer jumped up all smiles, pacing about the room, wishing he could light something on fire, then thinking the better of it. The three waited, staring expectantly at the door. Any moment now, someone dressed in heavenly white will come out baring the infant to the world. A minute passed, then another. The crying petered out to a soothing accepting of this new world, but still the door remained firmly shut.

Finally, the wood cracked and their witch stepped out, her apron coated in after birth, carrying the final load to be boiled away before disposal. She closed the door tightly and walked past the new father, carefully dumping the placenta and other gore the human body is so fond of into her pot.

The farmer rose up and slammed her on the shoulder. Aldrin was on his feet before he knew it, but the witch didn't need the assistance of a boy who couldn't keep his belt on. She turned slowly and glared at the man who shirked under the narrowing pale eyes. "What?"

"Is it a..." the farmer paused, rethinking his approach, "is they alive? Both of them?"

The witch nodded softly to herself, as if she won some battle Aldrin couldn't see, "Yes, both your wife and daughter are resting comfortably."
 

The farmer sighed happily, grateful that the growing cloud of despair dispersed. But the witch wasn't done with him. She turned and rising to nearly a full sixty one inches, poked him in the chest, "But she nearly wasn't. Neither of them were. Think of that the next time you leave your wife in such a state before seeking help."

He nodded, trying to fight back a blubber building in his throat. "Go on home," the witch said, "you can see them tomorrow or perhaps the day after. It will be a time before your wife is fully herself again."

The farmer nodded, wiping his nose with the final remnants of his hat. "Yes, I'm so sorry, thank you. Thank you. I just, I'll go and thank you." The man babbled that constant refrain as he scuttled out the door, continuing it down the road until he got to his house, and in the harsh light of his domain forgot why he even cared. It was just a daughter.

The witch wiped her hands on her apron and stuck one out to Aldrin. He barely batted an eye before taking it and giving it a good shake. Something told him it was a test but he had no idea if he passed or not. "I'm Isadora. You can call me Isa if you must, but never Issy."

"Why not?" Aldrin asked, trying to ignore the sticky something clinging to his palms.

"The last person to call me that wound up at the bottom of the lake," she said proudly.

"You killed him?" Aldrin wiped his hand on his robes, earning a small chuckle from the witch.

"No, he was just a lousy swimmer."

He pointed back to himself, "I'm Aldrin, and this is Ciara." She rose and waved her fingers meekly at the specter covered in blood.

"Call me See-ya and you'll wind up at the bottom of a lake," she said, not entirely good-naturedly. Aldrin blinked at that threat, mentally counting every time he shortened her name and wondered if all of the lakes were frozen by now.

But Isadora simply laughed, a hollow one with no mirth, "Then it's a good thing I am a competent swimmer. But you're not here for me."

"We're not?" Aldrin asked, his small grasp of certainty slipping through his fingers.

"No, I have very little use for a couple of green teenagers on their first grand adventure in poorly fitting clothes," Isa snickered looking down upon the ever growing gap between Aldrin's robes and the floor.

Ciara started to object, but the witch looked upon her with all the power a woman raised to cower full grown men could. "You're here to humor the whims of my scheming mother."

"Your mother?" Aldrin said, utter confusion taking its final hold.

"Can you do any other tricks?" Isa asked the parroting boy.

Ciara glared but Aldrin confessed, "I can bend my thumb back like this," and he demonstrated, getting a small shudder out of the witch as his digit touched his wrist.

"Mother!"

The door opened and a familiar sight appeared, a small bundle wrapped in her towering arms. Aldrin tried to stand up on his tiptoes to see the baby's face but was greeted by a stack of towels, some mostly clean. Isa theatrically sighed as the familiar witch dumped her load into the girl's arms.

"Alive, I see," her voice was far more honey than he remembered. But the best he could pull from his brain as he lay across that table bleeding his intestines all over her fine china was flashes of black curly hair and a grim smile hovering over his face, occasionally pulling back his eyelids. He'd assumed the vision was Ciara, or perhaps his own dying brain screaming out at him. It would explain why he kept thinking that night a black bird was cooking sausages in the corner using, of all things, a spoon.

She picked up the boy's hand and raised it, slipping her fingers around his wrist; then, slumping down slightly, peered into his eyes. "None too worse for the road, and even a bit taller."

Ciara coughed lightly, pulling the witch's attention from her patient. The yellow eyes snapped over to her and she frowned slightly, "Be careful who you follow, girl. The dark path is the hardest to follow."

Aldrin glanced to Isadora who was shaking her head and muttering under her breath about flagrantly vague predictions and why not just say "Lo the sun rises but it is the darkest before the dawn in bed." Ciara; however, seemed spooked and glanced behind her towards the still sealed door.

"I asked you to come and you came," the witch said quietly, turning away from the pair to where the farmer left a pair of coins and a small flask of whiskey. She weighed the coin in her hands and tossed one to her daughter, who caught it expertly. "I prefer it when they cooperate. It's much less messy," the witch smiled, her bright teeth failing to illuminate her face.

Aldrin shifted, feeling like a noose was tightening around his royal neck. Being beholden to a witch was probably one of the first ten things they teach future kings to not do, but he'd missed out on all the important training.
²⁶
 

"What's your name?" Ciara cut in, tired of feeling off balance on the witch's territory.

The witch's wrists jangled, the polished bones clattering upon the smattering of bells as she folded her arms. "Names are something for conventional people. People who don't live on the outskirts of society. Names have power," the air grew colder as she talked, each syllable another chunk of ice dropped into the middle of the room.

"Seda," a small voice piped up from the corner, "most folk who don't walk around talking about the mystical streams of energy call her Seda."

Seda shook her head at her daughter, "Isadora, don't you have something better to be doing with your time?"

"Building a new bed comes to mind," Isa muttered, but gathered the threat from her mother and lapsed into criticizing silence.
 

Aldrin tried to rise up to his full height, causing a draft from the door to sting his exposed ankles, "Madame Seda," the younger witch snickered at that, "I have come to repay the debt you are owed. What is it that you want of me?"

Seda smiled again, her eyes crinkling at the edges as she slowly washed her hands in the last of the clean water, "A want?"

"I have a little coin," Aldrin offered. Ciara tried to not snort herself at that. No witch worth her hemlock was going to accept a few Eagles when she had the possibility of an entire treasury at her disposal.

"A life can be a very expensive thing if used properly. That young babe in there could become anything her parents pour into her."

"Or she'll be some brat breeding sow tied down to another muckraker," Isadora muttered.

"A life can also be very cheap, if its potential is wasted. Not just in the sins of the gods, but in failing to achieve its destiny," Seda continued, ignoring her daughter as she usually did.

The witch rounded on the boy, staring deep into his wandering eyes, "Now tell me, how much do you think the future king of Arda is worth?"

Aldrin gasped.
Him, King?

"Him, King?" Ciara voiced his own thoughts, perhaps a bit less dispiritedly than he'd have.
 

"The sands are always shifting," Seda said, "As you know well daughter of the dunes."

Ciara took on the witch's glare, having faced down her own overpowering female influence from time to time, "I am no daughter of the dunes."

"No, but you could yet be."

Aldrin waved his hands, trying to get everyone back on track, "This is all very well and good, but it doesn't make much difference what any of us are supposed to be if we spend our lives talking price in this shack in the woods."

That earned him a glare from the shack's current owner who'd gone through most of her scraped coin trying to get the place up to code. If his mission was to avoid pissing off a witch tonight he was off to a great start.

Seda templed her fingers and said simply, "I require only one thing from you, son of the Ostero King."

Ciara unfolded her hands, glancing around to see if there was anything heavy she could smash into the witch's head before making a run for it. She slowly crept behind the eldest witch waiting for the announcement. Aldrin let his hand drop away from his belt, which mercifully stayed upright, "All right, let's here it."

"Liam."

Aldrin blinked slowly, his mind trying to dig up why that name was so strikingly familiar. But Ciara, who spent the growing weeks with her nose plunged deep into familiar lore was ahead of him. "You can't be serious. It's just a myth," the girl said, standing her ground as the witch spun upon her. The yellow eyes followed to her hand that was mere inches from the fire poker.

"Many things that are myths are real. And many things that are real are myths."

"Why don't you ask for a goblin's gizzard or a seraph's wing while you're at it? We're as likely to stumble across that as we are the sword of Casamir."

"That's it!" Aldrin shouted out, the pieces falling into place. The mystical sword granted to Casamir after he pulled it from the skull of a dragon and then planted it into the skull of a different dragon. Liam always seemed a strange name for a sword. Most called them Doomslayer, or Fateshear, or Stabby Stab Stab! Something with real oomph.

Aldrin glanced around at the sets of female eyes staring at him condescendingly, "I have no idea where to find that."

"These are my demands. A life for a sword. Of course, if you'd prefer, I could always take that life and you can keep the sword."

Aldrin turned to Ciara who threw her hands up. Most of the tales spoke of Casamir either returning his sword to the dragon's skull, tossing it into a lake because he thought he saw a spider (this was the non-canon tale) or it being entombed with his corpse.

The boy prince walked over to his companion, brushing aside the witch who hadn't uncrossed her arms or made any threatening moves. Yet. "What now?" he asked her.

"I've no idea where we find a dragon's skull, I'm not a very good swimmer, and no one who's claimed to have seen Casamir's tomb wasn't blitzed out of his mind. Unless you have some divining rod set for swords up your ass, we're up a creek."

"I don't want to die," Aldrin said plainly. Through all the running, the crying, the stabbing, the running some more, and the partying he'd never felt so certain that death was staring him in the eye as he did hunched over in a kitchen decorated with oversized serving spoons.

"I do not wish to interrupt your little commune, but there is one more caveat to my request. You must find the sword of Casamir with my daughter."

"What?!" a spoon clattered against a cauldron. Aldrin prayed it wasn't the blood pot.

"Isa, do not argue with me," Seda towered over the girl, but Isadora still reached up on her tiptoes, pointing an accusing finger at her mother.

"What gives you any right to a say in my life?"

"Anata wa, kore ga anata no unmei o shitte imasu," Seda muttered under her breath, trying to not look at Aldrin or Ciara.

"Unmei wa anata ga kimeta," Isa spat back, uncaring there was an audience for what seemed like a long simmering feud.