The Witch and the Tower - Writings
These were originally written in 2010 and are the beginning of the base story idea I was working from when I first started this.
The Witch was deep in the forest on a warm spring afternoon when the Tower appeared.
Like everyone in her village, she remembered what she had been doing at that moment very well. she had been gathering damp black moss for her aunt, in one of the thickest and darkest corners of the forest. She was examining one particularly lush and promising patch of moss, hoping that it would prove to be enough and that she could go back home soon, when suddenly she was deafened by a loud and terrible crash, more horrible than even a thousand trees falling at once. And then, for one terrible instant, the entire forest had been flooded with a flash of light, like her aunt's stories of lightning, but a warm gold in color instead of cold white. She remembered trying and failing to bite back a shriek as she dropped to the ground, squeezing her eyes shut, pulling her hood over her head with both hands and dropping her basket, scattering black moss all around.
The flash of light was thankfully brief and faded almost at once; the sound lingered in the air for a few moments longer before slowly fading and giving way to the frightened calls and chirps of dazzled wildlife - insects, birds and beasts who had lived their lives in the forest and who had never seen such light before. The Witch herself did not scream again, but her eyes were blinded, and she crouched there blinking and whimpering in terror. She was terrified that her aunt had been right, that she'd never regain her sight after such brightness. She had not seen so much light at once since she'd been very small, and even that was only faintly recalled, a memory from a very different life.
Soon enough, though, she did regain some use of her eyes, although dark specs still swam in her vision as she turned her head. She grabbed her basket and picked it up warily, looking around for anything strange or threatening, but saw nothing. What had happened? Had there been a disaster, or had one of the rituals misfired? She had a sudden and horrifying vision of her aunt writhing in agony in the square, her skin burned by the light, her hands grasping helplessly at ears deafened by the sudden sound. The image terrified her so badly that she forgot the rest of the moss she'd been told to gather and the purple berries that she had hoped to pick for dessert that night. She took off at a dead run back to the settlement, stumbling all the way over obstacles that she could not see with dazzled eyes. She had never run so fast before, not even when she'd been chased by a wild cat as a little girl.
She soon crashed into the settlement panting and shaking with exertion. The circle of huts was lit only by the dim glow of the hanging lanterns, and even they were already beginning to fade. The others who lived there were gathered around the ashes of the bone-fire, speaking in hushed voices, but their attempts at staying quiet did little to conceal their fear. And in the center of it all her aunt stood, back straight and hood drawn back so that her short gray hair bristled in all directions. Her wrinkled and seamed face wore a severe scowl, her eyes were closed tight, and one long, twisted finger was pointing upwards into the blackness. The Witch could feel the tendrils of power that were slowly extending from her Aunt and stopped short of entering the clearing proper, recognizing the patterns of the scrying ritual and afraid that her presence might somehow disrupt them.
"What was it?" a little voice piped beside her. The Witch recognized one of the little girls, newly come to the settlement with her mother and father. Big blue eyes stared up at her from under her undyed gray robe. "Did you see it?"
"Yes, I saw it." The Witch patted the little girl on the head reassuringly, as best she could. "Don't worry - the Elder is searching for it right now."
Her aunt's eyes snapped open as she finished the sentence, and the tendrils seemed to withdraw, as if she had heard her niece speak. Her arm dropped, her finger pointing into the distance. Everyone fell silent, even the children, waiting for their leader to speak. "A taint!" she rasped in her old, tired, fading voice, wavering only slightly. "Our home has been tainted by magic from the blinded ones!"
"What? But how?" a man cried out. "How can light shine here? It's impossible!"
"What magic could possibly be so powerful?"
"What must we do, Elder?"
Her aunt raised her other hand, and everyone fell silent again. "We must learn the nature of this taint," she said, "before we can attempt to fight it. Its center is deep in the woods. I must examine it."
"We'll go with you, Elder," someone shouted, and soon everyone else had taken up the call. Her Aunt did not object, merely nodded as the people around her went to gather up traveling gear.
The Witch found herself doing the same, setting her basket down and searching for a staff. She was buoyed by excitement as well as fear, although she admitted it to herself only reluctantly - a thrill born from having seen something happen in the forest that had never happened there before, not if her Aunt's tales were true. The forest had always been dark, she had said, even on the brightest of days, and its own magical nature had ensured that for longer than anyone or anything within it had lived. To see such a flash of light, as golden as she remembered sunlight... how was it possible? It was terrifying, and yet... she found herself hoping she would see it again.
But it did not come again, and soon she set off with the rest of the people from the settlement, trusting in her Aunt's enchantments to keep them and the village safe.
---
The golden flash of light had been shocking enough; its source was stupefying, far stranger than anything the Witch had ever imagined. What they saw as they reached the place where her aunt had found the source of the taint was a vast clearing in what had once been another thick patch of forest, lit by a ring of globes suspended from shining poles. The globes shone with a dimmer version of the golden light, but it was still far brighter than the Witch was used to, and it hurt her eyes and was harsh on her pale skin; she hunched away from it, hiding in her robes. Judging from the hisses and curses of the other villagers, she was not alone.
But that paled in comparison with what they all saw in the center of the clearing, for standing where trees had once grown was now a massive tower of marble and gold. It stretched up, endlessly up, its height seeming to reach the stars above them -
The stars! The Witch stared up again, realizing that it was true, that they truly were stars. How was that possible? None of the light from the sky penetrated the enchantment on the woods, even in the clearings. She had not seen them since she had been a very small child, and she stared at them, shocked. They were almost as surprising as the tower itself.
Someone cursed again behind her. "Wizardry!" She spat. "They can work their arts in the world of the blind ones. Why must they interfere with us here? This is unforgivable!"
Others took up the shout, among other things. Soon the Witch could hear and feel things being thrown at the tower, magical curses flying past rocks and sticks. But the thrown items and magics all bounced away from it, and the Witch could not see that they had affected it in any way.
"Enough!" her aunt rasped behind them. Her voice was not loud, but a twist of her own power augmented it, and everyone stopped and turned to her. The Witch turned as well, staring at her aunt. For all of her strength, it was plain to see that she was as shaken as anyone else. "This is beyond any of the casual magics that we are capable of. Whoever created this thing is tremendously powerful, and tampering with it could create a great deal of mischief. We must be cautious."
There was a great deal of muttering. "Elder," one man finally said above the crowd, "we must do something! We cannot allow this thing to stand!"
"I do not intend to," she answered, then stood quietly, still holding up one hand for silence. Her face was calm and composed, but the Witch could see the tension in her shoulders and chest, even under her heavy black robes. "There are those with whom I must consult first," she finally said, her voice grim and edged with dread. It gave the Witch pause; what could possibly frighten her so much? Her aunt had never been afraid of anything. "But for now we must leave. There is danger here, a great deal of it."
That gave everyone pause, and they all slowly turned away, some of them staring balefully back at the tower as they slowly walked away. But the Witch was the last to go, and she turned back to look up at the stars that twinkled above it, and in her heart she felt a strange and powerful longing that stirred at the sight.
---
The next day passed slowly for the Witch, despite the new and strange chores that she was made to do - to prepare for visitors, her aunt had told her. It was not that she was the only one busy, but the adults had their own work, and the children were almost all too young for the sorts of tasks that she was asked to do. Only the Witch herself was too young to be considered ready for adult responsibilities but old enough to take on adult work - she remembered thirteen summers, and had no way of knowing how many had passed that she did not remember. And being the only child in the Elder's care, naturally she took on the Elder's work, although she had never once asked for it and sometimes wished that things could be different.
It was not that she did not love the woods, she told herself as she did her chores, or that she did not love her aunt. She loved them both very much, and she was comfortable in the woods, knowing so many of its secrets. She had spent so much time exploring it, even when she had been too young to be allowed to do so; her aunt had forbidden it, and had punished her severely when she had disobeyed. But it was only because of those excursions that she had such knowledge of the lay of the land, and therefore was able to do things that many of the adults did not dare to do.
She wanted so badly to be in the forest then, she thought glumly. But for now she was stuck in the village, preparing food for the guests that her aunt seemed to be expecting. She still didn't know who the guests were, or why her aunt seemed so afraid of them; she had asked, but her aunt refused to answer. Surely they were only other Elders, men and women from other settlements, the ones further from the place where the Tower had appeared. But her aunt seemed so afraid that it seemed that they must be great and terrible, and if they were only other Elders they would be her aunt's equals... so why was she afraid?
It occurred to her then that perhaps her aunt was giving her the work to keep her in the village because she was afraid, as she had when she was young. And she could see why her aunt was afraid, because in her heart of hearts she knew that it was the Tower she wanted to see, not the woods.
No one had spoken of the Tower except in whispers, as if refusing to acknowledge it aloud would make it less real somehow. But the memory of the Tower and the sky full of stars stayed in the little witch's mind, and she wanted very much to see it again. More than that, she wanted very much to know what sorts of people would choose to live in a place like that; she couldn't imagine who they would be. But with her aunt ordering her to stay in the village and work, she couldn't get away. If only she could be permitted to go and forage, to wander the woods again! She knew exactly where to go. She would go and wait, wait for hours if she had to, just to catch one glimpse....
Three days of menial and monotonous work passed, each followed by a long, exhausted night. She would do her best to sleep, but she would be awakened by strange dreams that she could barely remember. All she could retain from them is the strange and growing sense of loss, that there was something she had been missing for so long that she only now realized was gone and that she felt cheated for not even having known before. It was three days of stumbling around, spilling buckets of water, daydreaming at crucial moments and scorching the bread that she tried to cook. Three days of thinking and wondering.
On the fourth day, her aunt woke her hours before the usual time. "Wake up, girl," she said curtly. "I need you to go into the woods and gather glowflies."
"Glowflies?" she repeated, still groggy, realizing only slowly that her aunt was asking her to do exactly what she had hoped to be able to do for so long.
"Yes, glowflies. For the ritual today. Our guests will be arriving tonight, so look sharp and hurry!"
"Of course, Aunt," she said meekly, but inside she was tremendously excited. It was before sunrise - she was not sure how long, but long enough, she was sure, to reach the tower before it rose.
"Quickly, girl!" Her aunt turned and walked away.
Excited, the Witch dressed quickly in her plain grey robes and gathered her cloak and a cage, cloth stretched over a wooden frame like a lantern. She found herself singing quietly as she left the hut, and quickly lowered her voice so that her aunt wouldn't hear her and wonder why she was so pleased. The Witch knew what would happen if she as much as alluded to the Tower.
She moved quickly through the dark forest, and none too quietly. Along the way she managed to catch a few glowflies, and they glittered in her cage like little stars themselves... but for every one that she caught she scared three more away. They were skittish creatures, and while normally she had a knack for moving silently and catching them, she had too many things on her mind to manage it; her footsteps felt clumsy and oafish, and she cursed herself silently as the bugs scattered. By the time she was nearly upon the clearing, she had caught only a sparse handful of the skittish bugs, and her makeshift cage was far too dim. She knew that the bugs would be difficult to find after sunrise, and knew that if she did not find more, her aunt would scold her.
She was having trouble caring too much about that, however, because she was far too excited. Her heart was pounding in her chest at the thought of seeing the Tower again. She would risk the punishment if it meant that she could see the people who lived in it, if they would come outside in the sunlight of the clearing. She had to know why it had appeared, and what people would choose to live there.
---
The edge of the clearing came very abruptly; she went in an instant from the comforting darkness of the woods to the golden glow of the orbs and the swiftly brightening sky above. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, wondered how much more dazzling it would have been if she had been here during the day. Would she burn away to nothing in the sunlight? No, of course she wouldn't; she'd once lived in the sun, after all. But after years in the woods, the fear was very strong.
When she opened her eyes the sky above her was different from the way it had been before; now it was soft dark clouds floating in a reddening sky. She turned her eyes back to the massive Tower. It seemed to glow faintly with the same golden light as the orbs; the glow made it shimmer faintly, seeming almost unreal. It almost looked as if it was an illusion, she thought, and that it would go away if only everyone closed their eyes and willed it to disappear. But that was another ridiculous thought. She stepped up to the tower, lightly touched the marble wall - it was very solid and very cool to the touch, and very, very real. Just beside her she saw the heavy oaken double doors, doors that had no handles, and wondered if there was a way to make them open for her -
She suddenly heard something above her, looked up and saw the floor of the balcony above. Quietly, with the stealth that she had neglected while hunting for glowflies, she stepped to the side where she could see the balcony, then turned and looked up again.
She saw a beautiful Lady standing there, staring off and away over the balcony. Her long, curly black hair tumbled over her pale, creamy-skinned back and shoulders, and her flowing gown was as green as moss and so soft in the golden light that the Witch, who had felt nothing but rough homespun cloth against her own skin for so long, longed to touch it. The expression on the Lady's face was deep and thoughtful, her features soft and gentle. Beautiful as she was, it was difficult for the Witch not to make a sound, lest she betray herself.
Another sound - it must have been the sound of a real door, the Witch realized, turning on real hinges, something she hadn't heard since she was a little girl - and she saw another person walk out to join the Lady. He had the bearing of a Knight, although he wore only a pair of gray tunic and trews; no armor, no crest, not the way she remembered the stories from when she was very young. But his hair seemed to shine with golden highlights in the light, and his full beard could not hide the good-natured smile on his face. The Witch watched him walk up to the Lady, watched him wrap an arm around her waist, saw her smile and close her eyes and lean in for a kiss, and then -
And then the Witch must have made some sound, because just as the kiss broke she saw them both turn and stare at her with wide, surprised eyes. She froze, felt her skin growing hot, suddenly feeling very afraid and self-conscious in her ugly homespun robes. She tried to lift her free hand in a sort of wave but found that she was frozen in their gaze, and watched helplessly as the Lady lifted her arm and pointed at her, saw her lips move -
That broke her paralysis, and she turned and ran into the forest as fast as she possibly could, cage clutched tightly in her hand, heart pounding in her chest. She didn't stop running for a long time, dashing blindly through the woods and stumbling over obstacles that she normally would have avoided with ease. Even when she finally stopped, leaning heavily against a tree trunk with the cage clutched in both arms, she couldn't seem to still her mind.
They had seen her! Both of them had seen -
No, no. She tried to calm herself, tried to focus her thoughts on the feel of cool, soft moss on the tree below her back and on the dance of light in the dim little cage. Anything but what she had just seen. Anything but the memory of their eyes, of both of them staring at her. At her, a little Witch girl who had always passed beneath the notice of the rest of her village, except when her aunt had been cross with her. A woman who was so often quiet and forgettable, a shadow in a dark forest. And they had seen her. More than that, they had even pointed her out.
She wanted to turn and go back very badly. She wondered what they must have thought when they had watched her run off like that. But fear had taken hold of her again when she had realized that they were looking at her, and she could not do it. Besides, she realized with a sinking feeling, she had to finish gathering glowflies. It would be hard to find them now, and she had very few... her aunt was going to be very angry with her, unless she could find more.
She sighed deeply and started back into the woods, resigning herself to spending the morning digging under leaves and to a long, hard lecture later. She had work to do. She needed to focus on that, or else she would be able to focus on nothing.
---
The Witch was somewhat surprised by her aunt's reaction when she came home late, covered in mud and wet leaves and carrying only a few glowflies in her cage. Yes, she had been scolded, but it was very clear that she was distracted and that her heart was not in the scolding at all. She made a few half-hearted attempts to reprimand her niece before taking the cage and walking away into her hut.
Usually her aunt would have done far worse. She might even have struck her with a switch, if she'd been in a particularly foul mood. Whatever she was planning for must have been obsessing her, and normally the Witch herself would have been afraid... but she was hopelessly distracted herself, and spent the afternoon largely on her own, cleaning and arranging the village square. Her mind was full of the memory of the Tower and the people in it. It was all she could do to try not to think about it, and the more she tried the harder it got.
Late that evening, after she had finished cleaning and was finally resting near the gates, the Witch saw three black-robed figures enter the village. She watched her aunt greet them with her head bowed, speaking only in a very hushed voice. It was strange, deeply and utterly strange, to see the proud, domineering Elder of the village be so meek and humble. Who could these people possibly be? What sort of hold did they have over her aunt?
Her aunt led the people into the large common hut, then went and summoned the other villagers into the square with a long, low blast from a horn. But instead of giving another lecture, she merely announced that she would be in council with their visitors for at least a full week, perhaps more if a solution could not be found before then, and that the village would be in the hands of the other adults until then. The Witch had sighed to herself at the announcement, since she knew that the village would be chaotic at least for a while. Her aunt might be strict, but she was very good at keeping everything in order. And she also knew that she would slip through the cracks and be at least partially ignored for most of that week. The last time her aunt had left the settlement, the Witch had spent most of the time wandering through the woods, doing a few chores on occasion but mostly left to her own devices.
Then again... she thought about the tower again. She thought about being free to go back to it. Perhaps this was a good thing, perhaps she would benefit from having been left to herself. Perhaps she could sneak out... was it really a good idea, though? She didn't know. But she wanted to do it whether it was a good idea or not, quite frankly. Curiosity was burning fiercely within her mind, along with something she couldn't quite define; her heart still pounded hard when she thought about how they had looked at her.
The idea was tempting, very tempting. But she was still very nervous and needed time to think about it. Hopefully she would be able to think if she could get away.
---
The Witch saw nothing of her aunt the next morning. She had woken up a few times during the night, and did not remember seeing anyone else in their hut. Had the other elders kept her aunt in the lodge all night? It was strange, but then, nothing about this situation was normal. So the Witch stayed in the village for some time after she woke up, waiting for her aunt to come out and ask her for more materials, attempting to be dutiful. But her aunt never came, and soon the call of the woods was too tempting to resist.
When she left, she told herself that she was only leaving to gather supplies, things that she hoped would be needed. She felt restless and useless, and hoped that the labor would help. So she gathered bales of ropeweed and laid them by the fires to dry. She found more glowflies to catch, and that time she was careful to sneak up on them and not scare them; her cage was bright as a lantern when she arrived back at the village, and she hoped that it would make up for losing so many before. She plucked flowers and crushed them carefully, soaked them in spirits to extract dyes and sealed the dye carefully in cured jars of earth. And she went and dug for more clay to shape into more jars that would be cured in a hot oven later, once the clay was properly formed. It was a long, full day, and she was proud of herself when she fell asleep in her hut; she had not given into temptation and gone to the Tower. Her aunt would be proud of her, if she knew.
The second day came, and her efforts went largely unrecognized; her aunt had not even come home, once again. The Witch found herself lacking the will to do any more trapping or gathering, although she knew that there was more to do, and so she found herself wandering, swinging a stick through the air and striking tree branches with it. Leaves fell from the shaking limbs, still glowing faintly with their phosphorescent light, a thousand shades of blue, purple, red and green. And after a while she even bumbled on a rare patch of smoke-filled mushrooms, and gathered as many as she could, making a fold in her robes in which to carry them.
For all of her hard work, though, she could not stop thinking about how close she was to the Tower. She had pondered going that way so many times. She had even found herself walking there while thinking about it, as if her body had made the decision for her. But her nervousness had always led her to go another way, to go back to safer ground. For all that she tried to lose herself in routine, though, it kept calling to her.
Maybe she should go, just to see it again and reassure herself... because she knew that she was very, very close, even then. She would go, take a quick peek, and then walk away and take her smoke mushrooms to the village. After all, she'd gone there before, hadn't she? She had been there with the entire village, and no one had said a word. No one had seen them. Why would they be there now? Surely this would be no different from before. Would it? Those two people she'd seen before... they couldn't be there all the time, and it was likely that they weren't there now, so she'd probably be alone. She would take a quick look, and there would be no one there, and then she would feel better and she would be able to turn back around and stop thinking about it. It was so simple.
So why was her heart still pounding?
Still. She had to face this, or she never would, and then it would be hanging over her head forever. So she turned and walked in the direction of the Tower, still holding a handful of mushrooms gingerly in a fold of her robes. At least the sun would not be out. It was just after sunset; the sky would surely be dark by now. She did not think that she would have been able to do this if the sun had been shining.
It did not take long before she was there, and looked up to see the Tower, casting no shadows at all in the bright golden light that shone all around it. She smiled again. It was not as imposing as she remembered, at least. She saw no one, heard no one, so she simply walked around it, and looked up at the sky as the stars began to come out. It was very lovely, and she was just starting to relax.
"Hello down there! Are you there?"
A man's voice, clearer and brighter than that of the warlocks she had known, came down to her from somewhere above. The Witch jumped, and the smoke mushrooms fell from where she'd kept them onto the ground. The little round puffballs burst, releasing their clouds of black spores, and the Witch covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve and ran to the other side of the clearing. Breathing in the spores would hurt her, and she knew that she needed to stay away, but she kept herself from going too far, with an effort. Part of her wanted to use the excuse and run far, far away.
She was coughing there, dimly realizing that she was nearer to the doors now, that she had avoided the spores... and very much aware that the man who had called out to her must be able to see her now. She knew who he had to be. There wasn't anyone else.
"Hello!" he called again. "Are you all right? I'm sorry, I didn't meant to frighten you!"
She forced herself to stop coughing and took a deep breath. "I'm... I'm all right," she called back nervously. She could feel herself turning red again. She wanted to look up, but at the same time she didn't; she wanted to run again, but she refused. She had run before. This time she'd at least try to be brave, even if she wasn't very good at it.
He was standing alone on the balcony that time, looking down at her, obviously concerned. His clothing was much the same as it had been before; his hair was tied back now, and she could see the cragginess of his face even under the beard and mustache. "Good," he said, and smiled a bit. "We had both been hoping that you would come back; I didn't want to frighten you away again so quickly."
"You... you wanted me to come back? Really?" She knew she sounded incredulous, but she couldn't help it; it was hard to believe.
"Well, yes. We called for you when you ran away, but my Lady didn't think you could hear us. She asked me to keep an eye out for you; she'd hoped that you would come back."
"But why would you want to see me again?" she asked, confused.
"Why not?" He laughed a bit. There was something strange in his laugh, though. "You're the first person we've seen here that hasn't immediately tried to hurl something at us. We had hoped that you would come inside and stay, talk with us a while. We know so little about this place."
"Then why did you -" She started to ask the question that had been on her mind for so long, her curiosity getting the better of her, until the rest of it sank in and she found herself staring up at him, almost struck dumb. "You want me to come inside? Really?"
"If it's possible. I'm not certain that it is, truth be told." He stood up. "Try to open the doors, would you? I think that since I've invited you in, they'll open for you. I'll be down in a moment to try to open them if you can't, but I must tell my Lady that I've seen you again. She'll be very happy to hear it!"
She nodded as he turned away and went back through his door, still not quite daring to believe it. Of course part of her still wanted to run; why should she go into the tower? It wasn't her place. She should melt back into the woods... but they both wanted her to be there. Why shouldn't she at least see what the place was like?
Her mind made up, she walked up to the doors, wondering how they would open. They had no bolt, no handles, no way that seemed to make sense... she reached out and touched them, gently, and then jumped as they swung inward at her touch.
Startled, she gathered her resolve quickly before she could change her mind, and walked inside.
The Witch gawked at the grandeur around her as she entered. The room that she walked into was comfortable and sumptuously decorated, the stone floor covered with rich, very plush rugs. She could feel how soft and deep they were through the soles of her thin leather shoes. The walls were hung with grand tapestries that depicted beautiful pastoral scenes, the like of which stirred memories from long ago in her childhood - meadows full of wildflowers at sunrise, and mountains capped with snow under a starry night sky. A fire crackled merrily in a stone fireplace, and near the fire sat a small stone table and three finely-carved wooden chairs with very soft-looking cushions. An archway on the far side of the room led to a marble staircase. She had expected the inside of the Tower to be beautiful, but she had also expected it to be cold, stark, uncomfortable. She had not expected somewhere so soothing and warm and welcoming, lit with the same soft golden glow as the tower's exterior.
She turned in a slow half-circle, trying to take it all in. She could see the hard wooden doors behind her, still with no knobs or rings or other obvious ways to open them - very curious. She could not help but wonder how she was going to open the door when she had to leave.
She heard footsteps on the stairs behind her as she pondered. "Well," the Knight said after a moment's pause. "What do you think of our home?"
She smiled. "It's so beautiful," she said softly.
"Yes, I suppose that it is," he said with a quiet laugh.
The Witch turned to face him, saw him clearly up close for the first time. She was struck by how much more careworn his face seemed in the golden light, and how the look in his eyes was almost sad. He was not the heroic figure that she had first taken him to be, although he certainly had a noble look about him. "But why did you come here to our forest?" she asked. "And how did you get here?"
"Well... that is a long story, I'm afraid, and one that is not easily told." Suddenly he seemed very sad indeed, and the Witch stopped, because while she very much did want to know the story, she did not want to press him for it.
She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get the words out of her mouth she heard antoher sound from the stair, a rustling of cloth. The Knight, apparently hearing it as well, turned away from her and faced the stairs. The witch stepped up to stand beside him, stole a quick glance at his face and found that he was smiling again, as if the sadness had suddenly been erased. Or maybe he had just put it aside, just for a little while. She had seen that sort of face before on her aunt, after all, when something bad had happened and she had had to put on a brave face despite it.
Soon she saw the Lady slowly come down the stairs. She was dressed in a long gown of red fabric, and the fabric of the long skirt swished around her legs as she walked. She seemed very weary indeed, as if she had not slept in a long time, but her eyes lit up when she saw the Witch, and she smiled. "Good morning!" she said, very brightly.
"Hello," the Witch replied in a shy, quiet voice. She had not been greeted in such a way in a very long time. No one in the woods thought in terms of mornings or evenings; what was the point?
The Lady's smile never faded once. She ran her hand through her long black hair as she came closer. Up close, her lips were very full and dark, and her eyes glittery and green. The Witch could see streaks of grey in her hair as she looked closer, though, although her face still looked so young. "We were hoping you'd come back!"
"Thank... thank you very much," the Witch managed. She cleared her throat; her voice was getting very strained. "I'm very sorry. I mean, I know that I'm... well..." She looked down at herself, brushed one dirty hand against her plain robes, very self-conscious and a bit ashamed of herself.
"Oh, don't worry! It's all right." The Lady laughed merrily. "Besides, if it really bothers you, you can try on some of my other dresses. You might be able to wear them."
"Uh-oh. This doesn't bode well." The Knight chuckled dryly. "If my dear Lady begins to talk to you about her dresses, she'll never stop."
"Oh, come now," the Lady said, rolling her eyes, but with a smile. "You're no better. Which of us can speak for hours about ancient battles, or horses on the battlefield, or the making and use of swords, or-"
"Very well, very well," he said, still amused. "Your point is well taken, milady." He joined her and embraced her, gave her a swift kiss on the mouth. "But we forget our manners. We should show our guest around."
"Oh, yes!" The Lady turned to her again. "Why not come and see the place for yourself? Have you eaten yet?"
"Um, no, I haven't..."
"Well then, please join us for breakfast, and then we'll go and have a look around. What do you think of that?" And without waiting for a response the Lady grabbed the Witch's arm, not roughly but insistently, and began to pull her along.
The Witch, shocked, tried hard to conceal her amazement. No one had ever been so happy to see her before. She could barely believe that they were so happy to have her as a guest in their home! "Thank you," she said, starting to grin as they led her to the stairwell. "I'm sure it'll be fine, as long as I don't stay away from my village too long."
---
None of it felt real yet, the Witch thought as she allowed her new companions to lead her along. She was still convinced that if she were to squeeze her eyes shut and open them again, she would be lying back in her own bed. There would not be any Tower; all of it would have turned out to be a dream. It would have made far more sense than what was really happening.
There was a strange, guilty thrill inside of her as she walked. She knew very well that she should not have been inside of that Tower, that it was far too bright and too much like the places outside of the forest. She knew that she should have shunned the Knight and the Lady, that they were too much like the ignorant people who lived in the sun. Blinded ones, her aunt called them - men and women who lived with their eyes perpetually dazzled, who depended on the sun for everything because they could not live any other way. They could not see without its light, and had to create mock-ups of the sun whenever the sky grew dark, whether they be mundane fires or magical lanterns. They couldn't understand how beautiful and magical their Forest could be; they would feel nothing but fear there, without their precious light.
Or so her aunt said. But seeing this beautiful and strange new place, and speaking with these people who seemed to have stepped out of a half-remembered fairy tale, made her wonder. Maybe her aunt really was wrong. Maybe they could make everything all right again, just by talking to each other. They could learn to coexist with these people... maybe even teach them to understand what they saw. Maybe they'd condemned them too soon.
"This way," the Lady said, starting to pull her up the marble steps. "We'll have some breakfast."
The Witch took a few steps, then looked up dubiously. The stairs spiraled around a long, tall shaft that seemed to go on forever. She had never seen that many stairs before - she only barely remembered them from when she'd been a child - and seeing that many of them made her stomach lurch. "Do we have to climb all of them?" she asked dubiously.
The Knight chuckled behind her. "Oh, not at all," he said reassuringly. "We never go to the top of the tower."
"Why not?" she asked, curious.
The others fell silent for a moment, and the Witch could feel a tension falling in the room between them. "It's a long story," the Knight finally said, his voice tight and strange.
"I'd rather not talk about it," the Lady said almost immediately after, and the Witch could see the sudden discomfort on her face. "Please."
"Okay," the Witch said quietly. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean any harm -"
"Never mind," the Lady said, and smiled. "Let's keep going. I'm famished!"
They climbed the stairs, and the tension started to fade. The Witch couldn't forget it, though. What was wrong with the top of the Tower? Was it just too high? Maybe that was it, she reasoned. It was too high, too much... and maybe they were afraid of falling.
"Here we are," the Knight said as they approached the first door, cut into the side of the shaft. "Go ahead, my dear. Open it."
"Breakfast, here we come!"
The Lady pushed open the door, and led them all inside.
The Witch's jaw dropped as she beheld a massive dining room, bigger even than her village's lodge. It was so much - far too much for two people - and just as richly decorated as the foyer. More so, because this room included chairs with cushions that looked incredibly soft, and a table with a dark red tablecloth and candles every few feet. Empty plates were set along the table, white and decorated with gold, and sets of silverware - the sorts of things that she'd only heard about in her mother's stories, so very long ago. Tapestries and paintings covered the walls, amazing scenes that she could only barely categorize.
"Wow," she finally breathed. She was surprised by the room, but equally surprised at how the Lady and the Knight seemed to react to her. They were both smiling, amused at her reaction. How could they possibly be immune to it? It did not look like something that anyone would ever get used to, even after seeing it a thousand times.
"It's a big room, isn't it?" the Knight deadpanned. "Really something."
"It is, but... where's the food?" she asked reluctantly. "Is someone going to bring it out to us? There have to be people who keep the place clean, right?"
"Sit down," the Lady said, giggling, "and you'll see."
"All right..." She sat down carefully in the nearest chair. The cushions were as soft as she had imagined, and she felt incredibly comfortable. "Now what? Do we ring for someone?"
"No," the Knight said, and pulled out a seat for his Lady. "Close your eyes, and think of what you want to eat."
"All right. I'll give it a try." She closed her eyes tightly, imagined the first thing that came to mind. She thought of the delicious, fragnant toasted bread that the old women in the village baked when they were able to gather and pound enough of the grass seed to make flour. She thought of the eggs of the nightbirds that cried in the village, with their rich, blood-red yolks, gathered and simmered in a pot of water seasoned with fresh, pungent herbs until they were tender and delicious. She thought of milk from the elk that wandered the forest - a rare treat, something that they were able to gather only occasionally, but something that she had tasted a few times and had thought was terribly good. And she thought of the juice squeezed from the berries that grew on the various vines that grew in the underbrush of the forest, a perfect mixture of tartness and sweetness.
"What is that?" she heard the Lady ask, in a rather odd voice, almost shocked.
"What do you mean?" the Witch asked, opening her eyes and looking down at her plate. And sure enough, just as they had promised, there was the meal that she'd imagined - perfectly cooked and prepared. Even the eggs were the perfect texture, she noticed when she poked it experimentally with one of the real metal forks - the whites were just set, the yolks still a bit runny. "That's amazing!" she said, smiling delightely as she began to scoop the red, runny yolk of the egg with her toast. "It's just like I imagined it!"
"You mean that's the sort of thing that you eat?" the Lady asked.
"Well, yes," she said, just before taking a big bite. It tasted just as good as it looked. She chewed it quickly - too quickly, and no doubt her aunt would have scolded her for it had she been there, but she didn't care - and swallowed hastily. "It's very good," she said. "Would you like to try some?"
The Lady leaned back. "No," she said, quickly. A bit too quickly, the Witch thought for a moment. "I mean, I'm sure it's good, but I thought I might have something else today!"
The Knight, who had been watching this exchange, laughed a bit. "My Lady is something of a picky eater," he said. "Please forgive her. I'm sure she didn't mean any offense."
"It's fine," the Witch said, too busy concentrating on her own food to really look at the others. "This is wonderful! Can it make anything that we think of?"
"Anything," the Lady answered, her voice steadier now. "We'll have to give you a few things to try later."
"All right, but only if you'll try some of the things I like. That's only fair, right?"
"Of course it is," the Knight answered quickly.
The Witch smiled and turned her attention back to her food. Soon enough she heard the sounds of eating from the others, glanced up to see what they had - the Knight had some sort of bread pudding with what looked like cured meat, while the Lady ate heartily of what looked like some sort of custard in a delicate bread shell. They looked interesting enough, she supposed, but she doubted that they could have possibly been as good as her breakfast.
It didn't take her long to finish, and she sat back, closing her eyes. She'd had her fill; she wasn't often able to do that. The forest wasn't always so good to them, and often there were times when the village had to survive on much less. But she'd had it, for once, and she felt good - stuffed, yes, and sleepy, but very pleasantly so. She opened her eyes, looked down at the end of the table, where the Knight was feeding his Lady some sort of fruits, and she was eating them with a huge smile on her face. The Witch couldn't help but smile at it - at how much the two of them were obviously in love, at how they were so happy together. She'd seen lovers before, of course, but never anything so brilliant and beautiful as that. She felt herself starting to blush, and turned away quickly before they could notice.
She turned to look at the tapestries instead, standing up so that she could get a closer look at them. They were remarkably detailed scenes, landscapes of the world outside of the forest that she did not recognize. She walked around the room, looking at each one. "These are beautiful," she said to herself.
"Yes, they are."
She turned around, saw the others standing behind her, looking at the scene of a meadow with a castle in the distance. "Who made these?" she asked.
"We don't know," the Lady said, shaking her head. "They were just... here."
"But who put them here? Someone must have done it. They couldn't have just come from nowhere, could they?"
They didn't answer, just looked at each other, strange looks on their faces. It was as if they had never thought about it at all. For all of her amazement, the Witch felt a chill go through her for a moment. Was something wrong? She seemed to have been asking a lot of questions that her new friends didn't want to answer...
Maybe... she didn't want to run away like this, not after all of the trouble she'd taken to get to this place, but she was starting to think that she should run back to the village. Her aunt was still talking to the others, making some kind of plan to do something to the Tower... she didn't know what. But whatever it was, it probably wasn't going to be pleasant for the people in it. Maybe she needed to leave, now. Run home, tell her aunt and the other Elders that these weren't bad people, that they had been kind to her. Maybe they could all find a way to coexist. It wasn't so bad having them there, was it? It wasn't as if they were trying to destroy the forest. And it was just one place.
She was afraid that her aunt wasn't going to see it that way, though. Or the other Elders - she didn't know them at all, but they did not have very forgiving looks about them. But she still had to try.
"Are you all right?"
The Witch snapped out of her reverie, looked up at their smiling faces. Even when they were worried, they smiled. "What do you mean?" she hedged.
"You looked a bit lost for a second." The Lady tilted her head. "Do you want to rest? DId you have too much to eat?"
"No, I'm fine. I was just..." She sighed slightly. There was no point in lying to them, was there? "I was thinking about going home."
"But you just got here," the Knight said, blinking, obviously taken aback. "I thought that you'd want to stay, look around a bit more..."
"I do," she said hastily. "I want to see the rest of this place, and I want to know more about it." And about both of you, she thought, but kept that bit to herself. "But if my aunt worries about me... she might come looking for me, and I don't want her to worry. I just need to let her know I'm going to be okay."
"Yes, but wouldn't it be best to wait until -"
The Witch interrupted the Lady, shaking her head. "I need to go now. Or I might stay here all day, and then she'll be really worried. I'll be back soon, though. I promise I will!"
She turned back to the door and walked through to the stairwell, started to walk downstairs. She could hear them both behind her, but she didn't look back. Oh, she wanted to, wanted to say goodbye to them properly... but as much as she wanted to stay, she didn't dare. She needed to do this. Just run home, talk to her aunt, and come back. That was all.
She looked up at where she'd come in at the bottom of the stairwell - and stopped cold, confused.
It was the same entryway. The same decorations, the same plush carpet. But there were no doors - just an unbroken brick wall.