The Witch of the Western Winds

There lived in the black deserts of Dahjimet a witch with control of the wind. She was the fastest of all witches, who admired herself for her abominable speed, for she could travel all the way from Amsherrat to Tukal in the tiniest blink of a star. Irreverently she teased everyone who she met and fled joyously away every time.

All that exceeded her indulgence was her wickedness, for she adored to pluck the bones out of still-living men and suck them as clean as flutes. She was, however, a rational witch, and though she could flee even the Bishops, reserved her gruesome passion to only particular victims.

“Don’t want the spears of those Church hooligans sticking me from bottom to mouth!”

She hunted then not the flocks of the Bishops’, but the wandering, defenceless apostates.

“I’m sure sanctified bones have a prettier sheen, but these branded ones are delightful! Who’d even know they were gone? Nope, just walking bonebags, says the Church, all for me!”

And what hunt her, in turn, was the Tax Collector.

“Ah, the Tax Collector. The only one of the Church’s hyenas who’d care about a biddy like me. What a gracious sort! And what a runaround I’m sure to give him. Oh, he’ll be addicted to me.”

He came to the peaks. “Hello. I’m here to kill you.”

“Oh yes, oh yes, hello to you too you adorable wee bushel of monkshood. Certainly you’re here to kill me—if you can catch me first!”

So she exited her hovel and cast a spell that the western winds gulped her up. They carried her faster than peregrines, and she was in Jima in less than a blink.

“Hoo! That will take him some time. Now what silkily sumptuous bones can I find over here...”

But even though she fled so far, all the way back in Dahjimet, the Tax Collector knew her place and took a single step her way...

“Oh!” she gasped. “I quite felt that; he’s following me. Oh, what a terrible feeling. Oh, it’s like tar creeping near. He may dart faster than that and catch me unawares. No, I cannot stay here.”

So she raised her hands and cast a spell that the western winds swept her up. They carried her faster than swallows, and she was in Kardesh in less than a blink.

“There we are! So far from anywhere; he mustn’t even know such a small town exists. Surely I’m safe now to search for my bones.”

But even though she fled so far, the Tax Collector knew the town and took a single step her way.

“Oh no! No! He can still taste my scent? His rank breath is so hot on my shoulder! No, he will catch me like this, I cannot stay here!”

And again she raised her hands and cast a spell to the western winds. She was in Jima, she was in Rajj, she was in Lassa, then in Huthiknel, Chedar, Phenthis, and Kirish. She whorled about to every corner of the continent, onto plateaus and mountains and rivers, into forests and grasslands and caves. In Amsherrat the Bishops calmed the hurricane that she kicked up.

“Hoo... hoo... this time, surely I shook him...” she panted to herself, hid in a cavern behind a great waterfall. She perked to feel for his pursuing presence. The seconds passed. He was gone.

“Phew...” she sighed, but the moment she did, he stepped towards her, and she gobbled her heart.

“Still he follows my tracks! How can he do this!? I must go farther, through the frigid northlands and then into Nix. Ah, you wily jackal, even the Tax Collector has his bounds, and surely the continent’s his. Farewell then, my home, let the western winds take me afar!”

So she raised her hands and cast a spell, but the western winds would not answer. A gust slapped her onto her face.

“Huh!? Hurragh! Listen to me, western winds, for you must take me afar!”

But black were her hands charred by hexing, and even her body had rot. Each one of her fingers tapered like a spindly black carrot. She had run so far and for so long in circles that she had exhausted herself and her magic.

“No!” she gasped, and raised her hands. Blood poured out of her mouth. She would die from her own magic, should she cast any spell, so she laid on the floor of the cavern. Too tired to move, she laid silent and still.

“If I stay so silent, perhaps he will forget me...” But the Tax Collector’s murky shadow menaced a step closer.

“If I stay so still, perhaps he will bypass me...” But for four days like the creeping of tar, the Tax Collector’s murky shadow only menaced closer.

“I can do nothing but lay silent and still. I am a rational woman. I know that passive is how I shall be, and that my own hands control not my fate. Czjeir, no, I’m not one of yours, but please—let him turn away, towards anyone but me.”

As soon as her befouled lips spoke this prayer, the Tax Collector entered the cavern.

“Oh, so you came then, Tax Collector! Surely you found me, but I’m not yet caught. Is there nothing in your heart that could spare an old witch like me?”

“There is nothing in my heart. I just removed my blood, so I could say that with honesty.”

“What—are you truly a devout, then, that pursues virtues?”

“I just like to mean what I say, or else I don’t know what I am.”

The Witch of the Western Winds then realised that she did not understand the Tax Collector at all, that even the Tax Collector did not understand the Tax Collector at all. The confusion was keen wizardry, and she cursed herself for her own assumption of his spellbinding aura as tenderness.

“Why did you panic? You could’ve outpaced me.”

The Witch of the Western Winds wept.

“I’m sorry. That was a joke. I am slower, you know, but better at waiting. I didn’t know that you’d fly off like that. But I did know that my stalking inevitably kills the mark. Was it scary?”

The Witch of the Western Winds shook her head, for she could not speak without sobbing.

“You were a lot of fun chasing. I’ll say that much as charity. I just walked in a circle, you know? Oh well. You know what you’re due for; you need no torment. You’ll get it smoothly. I’m not sorry. Good night.”

And so the Tax Collecter slit her throat that she died painlessly in that instant, then he ate the Witch formerly of the Western Winds up. Praise be to Czjeir and to his Night Claw, who reaps the witches that men cannot touch.