The Testimony of Abishah Mechis

Now me and the crew went out, y’hear, to survey all of them crawdads what live in the caves. Pinchy little critters dun live anywheres but in that deep dark dank, and we gotta know how many of ‘em are getting by hunky-dory. Any big upset comes into the caves, whole lotta ‘em could wash out like—snap! These is the only crawdads like ‘em in the world. Can’t have ‘em going gone.

So usses were probing all in, all sixteen, up by the deserted mines. Aw, we thought we knew all the stories—of ghosties and witches what are lurking up there, and cor, we stayed far outta them peaks. Only stuck around near the shallows with our crawdads. Or was the plan, anyways...

“Don’t you go wandering too far, Abishah.” That’s me, Abishah—most times they call me Abi. Aw, and they all gotta tell me that every season, never to go wanderin’ off. I gotta penchant to wander. One time I wandered all the way up to a crystal cave, and another times was up to a waterfall. I ain’t tryin’ to cause any hurt. I just gotta look for me crawdads.

“Where’re yer buggers,” I muttered. Last year’s pool done rummied up five. Hey, it ain’t right! Gotta be more of ‘em somewheres. Was up in the gloomy ol’ cave with Meripah my buddy (coz you gotsta have a buddy!) and a lantern what barely flickered in the damp enough to show the nose on my face.

We was crouched over a cave-pond pointin’ here-there to count ‘em through the murk. One of ‘em critters scuttled outta the pond then up the boulder walls into a big crack. Ah-hah! I squeezed like butter through the crack after it.

“Hold on, Abi, that’s too narrow for me. Come back around?” that’s Meripah.

“Aw, you hold it. I’ll be in and back in a jiff. We gotta get the survey, and wee crawdiddy’s bringing me to his friends...” Now I’m a narrow lass what can fit into squeezes like that, but those walls there—hoo! Got cuts on me leathers and had to leave my lantern behind, switched up to me trusty ol’ headlamp. We got’em good ones from Ordanz. Beam cut through the dark what like Czjeir’s sword through a sinner. Short batteries though—best used for a moment.

“Abi, come back! Can you get back?”

“All’s good apricots!” I what called, and swished ‘round my foot. Short fit, but no trouble turning.

But like I told her, I gotta get a look at me crawdads! I shimmed what up on my belly through the press and came out like a baby coming outta a lady. Whump! Front of me was a cavern smelling like fungus and musk with the trickling of water dinging me ears, and what-how, right there was a pond full of wee white little crawdads! Hoo-ee, fifty of ‘em, maybe a hundred! Barely fit in the pond, all looking like boiling rice!

“Got a big load o’er here!” I called back to Meripah. “Motherlode of crawdads! Hoo-ee! Meripah, getchyer papyrus, there’s one, two, three... shoot now, where’s that one going?”

“Just count them and come back, Abi!”

“Hoo, it’s a whole lotta crawdads.” I knelt all over the pond to pick ‘em out one-by-one. Crawdad counting best ways is done with a bucket, when you gots so many. Yer pick ‘em up and put ‘em in the bucket. Meripah had our paper and buckets, I got the oil and the lamps.

“You gotta scully over, Meripah, or I gotta get quicker eyes!” I called.

“Guesstimate it,” her voice what flowed from the crack like a breeze. “Thassa crazy small crack you did, Abi, I’m not gettin in there, even, bucket’s not getting in there.”

“Aw, well I guesstimate ‘hundred. Comin’ back now—ah, wait.” I hefted meselfs up when the torchbeam hit on the pond just the right ways, and saw a crawdad zip down outta sight. Now this was clean cave-waters, looks pure as the Katani—never knows if it really is Katani, so’s best never drinking it, but cor, put a thirsty man in these gypsum caves, they’d guzzle it all right up. So see that crawdad zipping away weren’t by murk in the water or nothing. It was gone behind a chunk of cave-wall. That all means the water went deeper than this puddle I thought I was peepin’.

And all that dripping I been hearing—that weren’t coming from this pool neithers.

“Shoot, Meripah, issa whole lake me-thinkin’. Here’s just a side-pool, hold your bouquet.”

“You gotta turn back!”

“Sec, sec...” Shook my head to flurry the torch-beam about, and viola! Was an opening big as a doorway where all that tinkling was echoing from. I scurried down in it to another cavern—and hoo-wee! Space were bigger than a cathedral, and there weren’t hundreds of crawdads scullyin’ about in the water.

“Holy moly, these crawdads weren’t near-extinct at all.”

There was billions! Water was more milky white than crystal-like with all the crawdads! Lake itself looked like it was squirmin’ about. Much as was a miracle for gawkin’, was bummin’ to think all our work surveyin’ these crawdads weren’t all that important. But same turn, ain’t that a discovery? Little fellers been deeper in the deep—and got numbers for celebratin’! All the team’s gots to know!

Cor, then we’ll throw a potluck with puddings and Meripah’s marmalade jam... mmm-mm...

Turned ‘round I did all excited, and whoof, gaping back at me along the wall were three hallways.

Weren’t sure which one I came by. I focused my ears and called, “Meripah!”

“...around, Abi...” Meripah’s voice drifted outta one of them halls, but which? Sound bounced all about echoing like whispers of ghosts.

I spelunked down what seemed loudest, the middle. Opened to a chamber with a little pond—whew—and a whole bunch of crawdads. But me brow crinkled as I raked me light over the walls, got on me knees, peeked in, hunting amid the crags for a tear of the crevice-hole. It were all solid.

“Meripah! Marco!” I yelled.

“...polo,” Meripah’s voice echoed from behind.

Not right. Me brow creased deeper. Meant I gotta pick a new path. I back-doubled to the cathedral chamber and followed Meripah’s voice down the left, where was a craggy cavern nothin’ like I remembered seein’. Then venturing down the right way were a whole bunch of windy corridors.

Gotta been I came from somewhere! Musta ran and wandered so excited I din’t see much of where I travelled. Sighin’ I turned for the cathedral chamber, ‘least to see them nice crawdads, and ‘least to chat with Meripah.

But after those few steps into the messy maze of the corridors, the cathedral chamber were gone.

Swore I just came from it, but—

“Meripah?” I called again.

Nothin’ but me own echo and the dripping of water, when:

“...Abi...”

It mighta been Meripah.

Now I rushed like a whipped pony right after that sound, through corridors and chambers yelling, “Meripah! Meripah!” ‘till I were hurting and huffing and hot in the belly.

Drip. Drip. Huff. Huff.

Where I’d scattered meself to were were a cold silent chamber. Same way my breath puffed wee clouds, Meripah’s whispers shouldda misted to me ears, solid as the fog what winds ‘round gravestones—but weren’t none.

Me hammering heart were the thing in that room moving most. Sweat slicked in me gloves.

Then I saw—down on my boot, a wee crawdad. And I sighed out a chuckle. Through all that weaving and winding, I’d come to a place what with a small pond of crawdads right like that first pool, and dragging me light-beam across the smooth walls—were a crack!

“Meripah!” I cheered. Even ‘fore I heard her talk, I dove to that crack and shoved me face in. Thought her smile would pop gleamin’ outta the dark; least in me head I saw it already. Me headlamp clanged against the ceiling and me cheek pressed to the floor with me teeth juttin’ into the flesh. Once me shoulders and belly and thighs got in I saw there weren’t any Meripah.

If there weren’t any Meripah, what’s Abi squashed here for? I wriggled my rear backwards but me rump pressed on an overhang, and me calves kicked at air still outside the crack. To exit, I gotta go through or I gotta rotate, and rotatin’ needs feet with purchase.

I swept forward me arm to drag meself onward and it stuck in a crook of rock like a vice.

Gasping I pulled me arm in. A sticky moment, and it dislodged to bop me chin.

Me leathers were oozing damp with me sweat. Me chest swelled not even halfway full on each breath.

This weren’t the squeeze I came in by.

In fact were tremendously tighter.

Abishah messed up.

Out of the deep dank dark came only the drip, drip, drip. It got a way of pressin’ on the soul, that heavy, musty noise.

I gasped and I scrambled but in them straits you din’t scramble much; the walls squeezed on poor writhing Abi like the slow closing of a bird’s beak on a worm. “Czjeir, Czjeir,” I mouthed, the press on my tummy too tight to speak.

Deeper in I reached, thinner the space. Like moving a glasswork I jiggered my body best I could to shimmy a route back, hooked me elbow at the wall, fulcrumed me shoulder ‘gainst the overhang. By miracle I wriggled halfway to turning.

About parallel to the opening I laid then. Cold cavern-air licked me exposed flank. Went to pour meself down sideways after it, but all above me shoulder and under me thigh hit rock; the hole weren’t long enough as Abi was high, and Abi got too many bones to slosh through any easy.

Burrow was a strict forward-in, forward out. I been in rodeos with a good summa tight squeezes. Careful as a screw I what twisted, ‘till the beam of me headlamp sliced through the hole, lit the oval rim of its lips, and puddled on the cave floor like a target.

Geronimo. That were my exit.

I was oriented straight as a diver, with me landing-pad all lit up below. I licked dollops of salt from me grinning lips.

Now, what I wanna do were whiz out like a cannon-shot, but way you move forward in a squeeze this tight is, you gots to paddle your feet. Stroke-by-stroke, like yer swimmin’ against the stone. I winched me left foot up to paddle. Toes flattened to ground, and heel jut to the ceiling—

The vice-squeeze of the narrow end snapped me foot locked at the crest of its stroke.

I pulled. I pushed. The cave held me foot tight as the jaws of a gator. If I couldn’t move that foot...

And these weren’t easy boots to inch a leg outta, if I couldda slipped out by that. They was cave boots, with leather straps up the shin, what choked my feet in their own right.

I yanked. Me ankle clicked and all below lodged still in the rock as an anchor.

I was stuck.

“H—hyeeeelp! HYEEELP!” I shouted, jiggering my body aflare with panic in wee twitches what just jammed me worse. “Team, anyone, HELP ME! Are you there!? I’m here! Meripah! I’m here, I gots stuck, help me!”

If the cave really were a gator, least would snap me foot off and I could shimmy outta the crack... hoo-wee, grim thoughts shouldered in so quickly. I stared down the hole all lit by me head-lamp, with me pulse thumpin’ in me ears. How far did Abi go from the team? Through all them long windin’ passages, could anyones even hear me?

I sucked a breath, gulped in me spit, and revigored loud as I could, I screeched:

“HYEEEEEEEEELP!”

All for minutes, all for hours, till my throat was dry as Dahjimet’s desert and I wouldda drank up that crawdiddy water.

“HyeeEEEEeelp!”

To guide the team all through the caverns, loud and long as I could, but—

“Hyee-eelp...”

When me throat was screamed raw, yellin’ more hurt. Talking more hurt. Breathing even hurt. I laid with me cheek a cushion for me skull ‘gainst the rock, and stared exhausted out the durn exit hole, right inches ahead of me nose. Right inches, and I couldn’t get out.

Me tummy rumbled in the cold. Stupid foot had gone numb.

But me only hope is that the team comes. I cracked me mouth open, like a dry crevice:

“hyellp...”

Shushing the billowy huffs of me breath, I strained me ears for any hint of the team. The drip-drip of the cave hit back like a wee nasty faery hammering a needle on me temple.

Me eyes rolled up ‘neath half-curtained lids.

You wandered too far, Abi. Who’s gonna hear a whisper as that?

The sight of the cavern beneath me ‘least heartened that the outside were there. But soon as that thought blew across me soul, the Ordish headlight blinked out.

In that full dark I couldda been floating in space, if space were a tight coffin what crunches your limbs all bent, squishes you still, casts you in plaster... nothing were real but a single thumpin’ pulse, hitched breaths, and me thoughts, and even those—in five minutes or hours—‘tween the cold and the blackness, went loony.

The voice of Shien himself whispered out from the thick dark. You’re such a stupid bitch, Abi. A stupid impatient bitch and now you’re gonna die. Yeeap, I’m gonna make you a bitch. Your ghoul’ll be some ugly little yappy dog made uppa turds with its back legs jammed in a conibear trap. It’ll drag itself around stupidly. Then you’ll be what you are, a stupid bitch what got herself stuck because she weren’t listening.

Sobs ricketed outta me. “Hyelp...”

Keep begging with that stupid accent. People think you’re thick as a cork whenever you open your gab. Y’dumb yokel, you sound like a dog yapping already. You’re already becoming a dog. You’ll be a stupid little clown doggie bitch in a stupid little country clown outfit.

Couldn’t even see my hands to know they weren’t turned to paws.

Better to stay silent so you’ll maybe be less of a clown.

“Hyelp...”

Moron! Now you’ll die faster!

Outta the dark, like it were made from the dark, there rolled the face of a huge wolf. Just inches from me it licked its chops, laughing. What tousled me bangs, the coolness of the cave air, were breaths snorted out from its maw.

I overlapped my hands best I could to pray. “Holy Czjeir, help me, get me outta here, dun make me a dog...”

The wolf cackled. Why are you so selfish you think you won’t be a dog? When everyone rots. You seen how saints turn, into those dribbling beasts? Ahoh, and are you the special exception? You’re not. You’re just gonna be an ugly ghoul, then you’ll sneak out and kill the whole team.

Tears rolled down my face. Why was this voice being so mean? And why was it sounding so right? The scriptures never said nothing ‘bout any of that. They said not to judge peoples who get hurt in predicaments, or even the dead folk...

Those scriptures are sooooo beyond you Abi. Thems’re for smart people like pastors and preachers. Only they really make it to Heaven, coz they think right and they study. Using your brain to think right about Him is devotion to Czjeir. But you? Missus Brainless Counts-Bugs? Yain’t even think if jumping into somethin’ over yer head. Cor yes, you deserve this, now you’re gonna thirst or you’re gonna starve. Never were you gonna make it to Paradise. Shien’s already got you.

“My Master Czjeir, perfection is in Your name, let your power and glory be poured upon us / when we are at our weakest, let Your hand lift us up, when we are in the dark, let Your light guide our path...” my voice were so weak it barely creaked out the paeans.

Keep yapping. Some dolt as dumb and careless as you, he don’t even pick up the line.

“...so that not one will be lost. My Master Czjeir, perfection is in Your name...”

On every repetition me cadence wilted more ragged and weak. The voice from the dark snorted. Where’s the big sparkling miracle, Abi? Oh, are you not a Bishop? Disgusting y’think that you were so special. If you’re useless at everything else, ’course you’re also useless at prayer. Stop oversteppin’ your lack of importance.

My throat stung raw. I were whispering by now. “Please, send me an angel...”

And I went quiet after that but for weeping.

After some minutes or perhaps some days or some hours, a wetness soaked out from the surface of the rock, like I were trapped between the wolf’s teeth and it were salivatin’. The damp seeped warm into me leathers. Then a big heave lifted apart the floor and the ceiling.

Nerves in me stuck foot zapped alive with a fresh bloodflow. I could wiggle it—I could waggle it! I could swish it around! I gasped and shoved meself forward for the exit when something—a hand—grabbed me ankle, flipped me force backwards, and carefully as a nurse tugging free a breech-facin’ baby, eased me out through a big hole suddenly there at the foot-end.

In the pitch darkness I saw less than a bat. Whosever hand that was assembled me afoot, onto wobbly legs what weren’t yet rememberin’ how to hold a body upright. The stranger’s arm propped me steady; and I grappled to hold his hands.

Now I’ve got you, idiot bitch. Now I’ll eat you up.

Bumbling dullard-brain Abi! The stranger were the wolf! I couldn’t even see meself to knew I weren’t a dog, and this spindly stranger, he was the shadow wolf come to drag me to Hell. But I weren’t even bothered by the thought coz I was some stupid dog-bitch what all likely belonged into Hell.

Through the darkness, holding hands, he led me along. I was smilin’ and shiverin’ in that weird way when you dunno anything of what’s happening, and yer noggin is froze. When I stumbled on crags and dips in the floor he lifted me up from tripping.

Maybe his head were the wolf, coz his body were man—he had man-hands, cold as a snowstorm. Broad mitts of parched ice what felt strange to touch coz there weren’t no melting or wet. A weird clicking and clacking sounded out as we went.

Suddenly he sighed a sharp sigh.

“I guess... are you alright?” Hoo-wee, were his voice black as granite and glassy as a cobweb.

“You taking me to Hell, Mr. Wolf? Gonna, gonna eat me up?”

“Wow, uh woah. N-no, I’m not.” He sounded plussed. “If I was going to eat—no, no, whatever. Look, I’m uh, I noticed you got... separated, and thought I could... you’re not alright. Alright, okay.”

Fabric shuffled, and the stranger snapped his fingers. Hovering over his palm ‘tween us then glowed a jello-orb blasting out light—me eyes pressed burning and blinking into my shoulder, all the dark seared away, the cavern lit up in the colour of caramel. And amid the clear bright I saw the stranger.

His face ‘round pitted eyes was sagging like flesh trying to slop off a skeleton. Human looking only human-like being bucktoothed as a mole-rat, then below his green robe, maps of veins all purple showing through papery skin as white as the cave’s crawdads.

An ugly gaze heated chunder in me guts, and his legs were the legs of a goat! All the clicking and clacking were his hooves! And he had a big tail, swirling slowly around, all furry but what moved like a snake!

He were dead! He were a devil! —No, worse, he were a witch!

“Ohh... ohhhh!” I wailed. What dog and what Hell and what wolf? Snap! Reality burst solid from outta the dream; me future’s standing in flesh before me, and it’s not me dyin’ in Hell yet, it’s me kneeling grubby in the chains of a witch! “No... please, Mr. Witch, I ain’t!”

“Okay, hold on. Um,” he looked aside then up to an opening in the rock, atop a rough stairway, of the pit we was in. “You know the male term for witch is technically warlock. Wow, sorry, that’s so irrelevant. I’m uh, not going to kill you, or anything, I’m—I’m trying, to get you out...”

“Really? B-but all in one piece? Please, all with my own soul? You swear that on Czjeir, Mr. Warlock?”

“...A normal witch would’ve killed you for that...” he mused. I gotta sense that he mused a lot. “But yeah, um, Czjeir, please torture me for five thousand years then turn me, literally, into an amoebic sludge that can still think enough to despise itself, and that doesn’t have a mouth to eat with, and then spread me on a ghoul’s taint, and then burn me with lasers, or whatever You can think of that’s worse, then kill me forever if I murder her.”

Whoof—that were a big swear.

The kind what only spellcasters come up with. Air flowed cold in the cavern. Maybe he weren’t lyin’ about wanting to do me nice, himself, but maybe he got meaner friends—o-or, a mistress.

Coz there were some of those, the slaves, made-witches. Familiars...

Up the stairway of rough scraggy rocks the Fella flowed like a cat made of water. His muscles rejiggered, under his skin, like they was shifting to propel him up. At the top, he waited for me with a regal look, and the light-ball beamed on his face from below.

I hoisted meself across the ‘stairway’s first boulder. Downward he flowed, to fish me up, and took me by the hand—touching his cold skin, me heart spiked in terror.

Springing along went me heels, as he swept me with him to the hole.

Its mouth gaped black to the next cavern. He leaned inside with his light. I paused. Me shoulders shivered up into a ball.

“Please dun take me to your witch...”

“She’s dead. Don’t worry. They’re all dead. I killed them.”

“T-then, don’tchyer need to die too?”

“I’ll be fine. The Bishops know about me already.” He withdrew to look my way, then his head flagged down. “Once it’s so obvious, of course people actually ask about it with that consideration. I’ve been so stupid for such a long time...”

Shaking his head, he hopped through the hole. I scampered after the rays of the light, what glistened like echoes upon the bending walls, and came out to a chamber where the familiar stood.

It was a wide and soaring room, carved rightly square with straight walls. There was leftovers of people here once; such, a long stone table with forty-more chairs, then bowls and basins, and a cluster of knives and forks scattered about the ground ‘round a water-still. There was poles for candles, and cupboards, and sitting lounges, with the wool of the cushions torn out.

On the biggest of the walls, opposite a big fancy stairway, and all flanked with worn purple curtains, was an engraved symbol of a tongue pierced with a big sickle. Lotsa littler symbols surrounded it like a swarm of footmen, holding it up, and then was an altar, and below that, a gutter.

Majesty of that massive rune were like an eye staring down at us, and at me, who weren’t weirded. And I stared back shivering like what you gotta do in the court of a king, even though me guts seeped ice that it couldda been spitting out at me so many curses.

The familiar came over. “That’s inert. It’s broken. Don’t worry.”

His light shining closer revealed claw-marks all over the wall, what sliced through the runes, and the cracks in the altar, and its empty sockets what musta held something before.

The familiar fella turned away ‘fore I could figure to ask if he did it. I jogged to follow him up the stairs, which were properly made like that in a city, and there passing on our right and our left was statues of ladies with animal bits. Their hands were raised all prayerfully, but their faces and bellies were cored, destroyed craters.

Then at a landing were a busted drawer, and a bookshelf with pages all shredded up.

We stepped to a new flight of statue-stairs. Noticed then at the figures’ bases little inlaid cups, full of ash. Me head shook.

“Hoy... there wassa witching here.”

“Mm, before, yeah. Now it’s... I just live here. W-when I’m in Amsherrat, I mean.”

“In the dark, you sure there ain’t creepers?”

“I know. It’s really just me.”

“’Kay...” I mumbled. “...with alla this, they musta been weirding lots...”

“Yeah... I-I mean, for all specificity, they shoved one guy into the body of a gecko and kept ramming their fingers into his cloaca. Another girl they kept alive as a slab of flesh they would cut up and stitch back together. That’s just, kidnappings. The rituals themselves, those orgies, and, bloodlettings... for these, s-stupid games... I hate, witches.”

My lips pursed and eyes heated teary. A breath came into me sharp as a dagger.

“Sorry. You—didn’t know that’s what they do, huh. You, didn’t need to know, maybe... but, but, it really does, kind of, infuriate me, how they... sorry, yeah.”

“How could they get away with any’a that? S’a pebble’s toss from Amsherrat...”

“When they target the right people, nobody sees it.” The fella, frowning, prowled up. “Though I mean, it’s not like the Bishops didn’t know there were rumours, and the, and the Pontifex, I doubt he could’ve not known. But this kind of coven is... circumspect. They only assembled when the Bishops were busy. And besides, these caves are a bit... inaccessible, unless you know.”

“Know? But whassat, the crack?”

“Which crack, yeah...” he muttered to himself and rolled his eyes. “‘Witch crack,’ hah... b-but yeah, um, anyway, they were constantly cursing Amsherrat...”

His voice trailed off as he crossed the last step and waited. Too shooken to follow quick by the hearing of all them horrible things, I was trudging step-by-step with fire seeping ‘round my eyes. When I met him at the top, and the fella saw me near crying, he went quiet and looked ahead.

The next chamber were a jungle of stalagmites. Not anything like the cleanly-carved downstairs, so’s wonder how the witches related at all, or if he were forking deeper into the cave.

Into his den fulla bones where he’d gobble me up alive... I glanced the other way. If there was a crossroads behind us, with more stairs to follow, or a hole to more rooms, they was all hidden in black. Only the bright bitty star circling around him gave any light.

Careful as a dove, and focused ahead, he leaned into the gaps ‘tween the rock. Splitting off along a banister to feel my way out would only get me lost.

“So’s... so’s, what about you?”

He jerked up. “Oh, I’m—”

“—If, they’s was doing that stuff to whosever they nabbed...” Stupid Abi, was all bets too sensitive.

“Oh.” He paused his hand on a stalagmite. Then he tossed his head and hopped in deeper, using the rocks as a fulcrum. “Uh, with me, it was nothing. That they did, in particular. I’m, I’m, to them I guess I’m like catnip. So—so I really, drive them wild. That’s not an enchantment or spell, it’s probably something with my name... that I suit them, well suitor them, ah...”

I squeezed in and popped through the same gap. “Yer name? You’s saying your name makes you, eh...”

“...Alluring to witches. Yeah, most of them wanted to date me. It’s been like that since—before this, so, that’s why I think it’s intrinsic. I probably should tell you that they didn’t kill me... like you need to know any of that. Um, whatever. Point is that, their guards were down. When I showed up.”

“So, you thens you could...”

“...Kill them, easily. Yeah. Sorry, it’s a gruesome course I’ve dragged this uh, dialogue onto. Just, I’m sick of all these witches always slobbering for a—um, whatever. I guess I’m trying to brag.”

I ducked me head ‘round a jutting stalactite. “I ain’t never heard of a person’s name doing things.”

“Really, never? —Uh, it’s not exactly witchcraft, but it’s a principle you’ll know if you study it. I mean, ghouls all vary, and that variance comes from somewhere. Those—attributes originate in... you shouldn’t learn this. Sorry.”

Like a snapped trap he went mute. His swirling tail flicked ‘cross the peak of a little stalagmite, as he soldiered on, the forest of them all thinning. Silence in the musty air oozed on me skin worse than the cold.

“W-wells, we was come looking for crawdads...”

“Oh.”

“We, we ah, come’n survey them every year...” but when he slowed to glance over at me, it felt I’d said something wrong.

“—Sorry,” he corrected himself. “I-I’d really rather like it, if we just talked about me. That’s, how I’m enchanting this discourse. I’m, at least a little able to be more honest now, about that,” and he strode on, all swishing his hands here and there as he spoke, like he were acting on stage. “Because I’m conceited. Like, incredibly so, I don’t know, you’re a captive audience to bear this tirade, like a dirt to me, ahah. Uh, the path’s not much longer. Yeah, there’s more wildlife here than you’d think. Bats and fish and spiders... none of it particularly glamorous, o-or the kind of creature to ah, keep as a pet... normally. Though, though, probably you already know that—you know, I’m sorry, I’ll just shut up.”

“Awh, naw, if you wanna talk...”

“I don’t. Really,” his shoulders raised and tail swished. “I’m just trying, to be less of, a freak. Is all.”

“Cozza the witchin’...”

“No.” His hoofs clapped a stop and he glared over his shoulder. Hoo—were he witchin’ then. Heat in his eyes seared what like a carving knife glowing white-hot, and prickled me neck. A wave of black scales shuddered down over his body like a liquid poured all over.

Then the fury melted, yer could see the whole feeling dying. He sighed at himself. His tail slumped and shoulders sagged.

“Sorry,” he said.

What for? He reacted big but he ain’t done anything bad. He gots a squidge tetchy because Abishah said wrong. Heck, I get mad too, when people says things about me that ain’t true. Don’t apologize for feelin’ a feelin. But felt like the wrong words to say.

Instead on me tongue hovered a ‘sorry’ of me own, like the issue weren’t already cut. I bit me shaking lip shut. Cool air breathing ‘cross my face prickled me alert. No more were we paused in the crook of a buncha stalagmites, not even wee little ones, but before a new craggy chamber way more like the ones yer traverse when yer huntin’ down crawdads.

The fella stretched out his arm and rubbed his fingers like he was snuffing a candle. The orb-light dimmed out. I squeaked like a mouse, all gobbled up in the dark, when outta the dim like a ghost fading in were the whitish blob of the fella ahead, then the walls of the cave, then up on a shelf a mound of cloths and pillows what must been the guy’s bed. And then smacked me pupils like the slash of a sword, from up in the ceiling, out from a crack, a beam of bluish light rainin’ in.

“That’s the outside!” I exclaimed.

“Mm,” the fella mumbled, while I scampered like a swingin’ monkey up the shelves to inspect it. Squinting blind into the bright, I reached out me hand and groped ‘round the edges. My whole hand barely fit; it felt teensy...

Then, “wauh!” I yelped as the hole widened, light rushing in like a river and me tumblin’ out. Rocks was groaning all around me like how strained furniture squeaks, ‘till theys settled into a bay window with me in the middle.

Fella musta did the same widening magic what got me outta the first crack! I reckoned while turning ‘way from the light, rubbing me eyes.

He stood shaded below in the cave, staring upwards like a hawk, with his hands posed into opposing ‘ells’ like he were measurin’ a real big picture frame. Then he snapped his thumbs to his palms, curled in his hands, and started trudgin’ up the shelves.

“Huh,” I muttered and shivered as a bold wind wooshed by.

“It’s an enchantment on the hole itself,” said the fella, ‘till the clopping of his hooves stilled beside me. “The one who did this—it’s so vile. I, kinda hate her a lot.”

He frowned at the ground in that heavy ways where yaknow there a dam in their throat fulla baggage. His gnatted, feathery hair were tousled in the breeze.

“It’s any orifice,” he blurted like a confession. “The mouth, eye sockets, g-genitalia... I am, so glad that one is dead.”

He takes their spells when he kills ‘em, me brain clicked. He lowered his hand from his chin with his droopy face all numb and sombre. If he been chasin’ witches for that, he musta seen a whole lotta evil—and all them horrors packed up in his brain, when he chattered sincere, they leaked out like sludge.

“Hoy...” I tested a thought. “So’s you gots ridda a lotta bad ghoulies.”

He shrugged, hummed, and stepped into the sands by the mouth of the cave.

I planted me hands to vault off the stone lip, and follow, when the shifting aside of his silhouette unveiled before me a sight—of sand-dunes upon sand-dunes painted silver and blue, a black sky glowin’ with rivers of glitters, and dead ahead, meeting me gaze, the round eye of the full moon.

“It’s nighttime!” I wailed, and hid meself quick in the shady crook of the cave. The Book of Czeresh tells us, ‘followers! Don’t go out durin’ the night coz there’s so many beasties and curses’. There an anointing you need to be safe after curfew, coz like how the warmth hits you outta the sun, that’s how curses hit you outta the moon!

I stomped me feet and squeezed me body tight ‘gainst the rock in frustration. Abishah ain’t blessed to traipse through the hives of nocturnal beasties, but I wanted outta this durn cave so bad!

The witchy fella’s gaze slid from the moon over his shoulder, to me huddled in the cave.

“...Right. You could sleep here,” he offered. “But, uh, I’m technically fourth-anointed—”

“You was a Bishop!?” I exclaimed.

“—i-it’s, uh, n-n-not legally, by the Church, just uh, self-study. But, but, yeah—anyway, I could walk you through the night, if—if you’d prefer that, right now.”

An illegal Bishop? Were he maybe tricking me to get cursed? But as me body was frozen leaning all forward, me head nodded like it were gonna fling off me neck.

He nodded as slight as a whisper. Stumbled I did up the crags, and saw his cloak blur like water, then flutter still. Now it was embroidered and hooded and trailin’ with gold coins. A sludge was drippin’ from those coins.

I gawked at them drips ‘till I got the jitters, then looked out over the desert. It was spread for miles and miles. We was exited upon a ridge at the foot of the hills east of Amsherrat, ‘bout five hours walk outta the city, with the other hump of the valley as landmark barely a smudge in the starlight.

Now I never been outside during night this deep before. Under the moon and all the stars—hoy, I hugged me arms and I shuddered. All the black between those lights couldda been spewin’ out so many curses, and the light of them celestials were just exposing me to be caught.

I wandered, awed then, a step into the sand, when the chill wind ripped like a claw through me leathers. Battered I was, gasping, and iced down to the flesh.

Cloudless sky; windblown ridges. Never knew the kettles-pot what’s the desert pit could kills yer too with a cold.

The fella waved his hand. A blanket flapped fast outta the cave like a bat caught on a fishing wire. I lopped it ‘cross me shoulders against the freeze, and knotted it tight.

Next he did the picture-frame spiel in reverse. The exit hole closed shut.

“You could, technically, manipulate it too,” he said.

Then we set out.

Sand crunched under me boots and wind blew me blanket’s hem swishing about me hips. The couple of us surrounded by all that desert were like wee specks of boats on the river Katani. Sky above us were a vast mirror of the sea, what taunted, ‘much as the stars are specks on this canvas, life and death spans even deeper than you.’

S’weird thought, Abi—felt like Czjeir was talking.

With me empty tummy and cotton-dry throat and tired legs all a-groaning, the trek ‘cross the valley slogged on tough and slow. The illegal Bishop prattled on like the thoughts were froggies breedin’ and leapin’ outta his brain.

“It’s like a job, kinda, what I’m doing presently. I don’t know if I’ll... always be doing it, but at least for now, it’s, ah...”

Amsherrat shimmered onto the horizon as a dot. Next hour is was a wee sculpture. Next hour is was a big castle.

Soon after that was its bricks visible, and the flags of Clearwater University up on the hill was waving big and brightly. I craned me head up to goggle at the outer archway with its shimmery shell mosaics all lit up in silver; here’s was first of the five entry arches, each a good five minutes apart.

Crunch—crunch. There a sound of footsteps stopped.

“Okay. You can make it the rest of the way,” said the fella from someways behind me.

Me lip quibbled. So’m walking the last ways alone in the night? Twenty-five minutes ain’t but a mite after our odyssey over the desert, but thassa scary corridor for ol’ Abi to trek if she ain’t got a Bishop shooing off the nightmares! I whipped right around to protest—

—And seeing what I saw, me breath stuck.

The fella were glowing under the moonlight. His skin were so pale that in the dark, any lights what did hit him hovered ‘round like a halo. A fallen star stuck walkin’ on the earth wouldn’t be as pretty as him.

Wrapped up all regal in his embroidered cloak, he jut his chin to send me onward.

Flushed me with determination that he’d be watchin’ and I’d be alright. I blushed and I trekked further past the archway alone—weren’t no final trick, no ambush leapt on me, but yet felt his gaze watchin’.

So’s quietly I soldiered on, and the smoulder of him dimmed as I passed under the next arch.

“Shouldda said thanks...” I muttered to meself. I knew bit ‘bout him already though. He said he were witchin’ conversations—he were really witchin’ everything, and din’t want me to turn around to be charitable when he were being charitable. I reckoned it burned him to think ‘bout charity.

“Coz he’s a familiar, so he’s gonna rot more... one day he ain’t gonna do any nice, and he’s gonna be just like those evil witches...” The Bishops better free him ‘fore that happened, cor, I swear that on my God.

“Hor, hope I can meets the team at daybreak all quicklike and tell ‘em I’m alright.” The more over me flickered the shades of Amsherrat’s archways, the more watery me thought of the fella, ‘till his stare on me back were barely warm as a fading ghost’s whisper.

Funny what I prayed to Czjeir for messengers and miracles to blast me outta that hole, and what really answered were some witched-up devil. Says something were messed-up and upside-down for Shien’s wards to manage a good—

I slapped me forehead.

D’orrr!

That was the angel!