Witch Hunters and Other Stories (2018-2019) Read online

  Witch Hunters

  Witch Hunters

  And Other Stories 2018 - 2019

  A collection of tales written drawn from the worlds of imagination, dreams and curiosities that highlight and underscore our shared humanity.

  By Ecallaw Leachim

  Contents

  Title Page

  Witch Hunters

  The Whir of Deceit

  One-Eyed Teddy

  Diary of RUIN

  No Virtue in Reality

  Curse of the Monsoon

  Yellow

  THE WALL

  Red Dust at Boulia

  The Givernment Tree

  Old Harry Jenkins

  How to Build a Tardis!

  Ode to Bernie

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Witch Hunters

  We do not know what will come, how the world will change, or even if humans will survive. A virus might wipe us out, a super volcano may reduce us to a permanent iceage, a comet might strike - as it did to end the reign of the dinosaurs. What will never change is the human will - to survive, to understand, to grow. Presuming we survive the change, of course.

  Grey mist clung to the bones. A chill wind grazed the remnants of nature as it struggled to survive. Bleak and forlorn, these outlands were to be avoided by all sensible folk, not just for the sunless, empty reaches, but because these were the areas controlled by the witches.

  The Gregorians were humanities only defense against these black creatures and a training day such as this put life and limb on the line. "It's not just the witches out here boys," the instructor whispered, "there are also their creatures, things they create from the angst and suffering of the people. They draw on energy to live, vampires of a sort. The witches use them as protectors. You might think a witch was vulnerable when she sleeps, but no, that is when her creatures are out. There is but ONE way to kill a witch, you have to catch her mid-spell."

  Pherial Artrim had been a witch hunter for some thirty or more years. You lose count, but he was the oldest and best of them all. Every year, a new batch of recruits like this had to face the first challenge, and more than a few would fail, either in heart or by the blood. Soon, he knew, some creature would be licking their blood from the ground, sucking up the last vestige of life from one or more of these lads.

  He didn't pay a lot of attention to them at this point. Out of the ten he had with him, he knew only one would make the grade and that even this one rarely lived more than four years. Cold, hard facts stopped him from forming any bonds of affection. Three would be eaten by the wild, three would run in terror back to their mothers and live in shame their whole life. Three would just kill themselves after they see the pointlessness of their existence echoed here in this parody of life.

  Fooking witches, he hated them with such a passion. Master Artrim had personally killed over three hundred of them, five of them the most powerful of them all - Twitches. These High Witches controlled whole swathes of territory with their spells. But he had stood his ground, stared them down and as a result had brought countless acres of sunlight to grateful farmers and townsfolk.

  "This is the battleground lads. You kill the local witch, you release her spell casting, then the clouds breach and sunlight streams through. The sunlight is what heals the land and drives out the evil, not us. Our job is just to kill the bitches who bring the grey mist. Remember this, nothing else is the enemy, not even the creatures. Only the Witch is important and there is only one way to kill her - You must catch her mid-spell with THIS!" Pherial holds up a coin, a simple coin of the realm.

  "A witch cannot resist the lure of a coin rolled in front of her. No one knows why, no one cares why. A witch sees a coin and she pauses her incantations to pick it up. This is the ONLY time she is vulnerable."

  He sighs. Does he bother to waste breath to tell them more? Well, one of them may end up being worth something. "But remember, witches are drawn to coins of differing quality. If you want a higher up one, you need a silver coin, and for a Twitch, you need a pure gold one. They will not be drawn to anything less. And for a Twitch, she needs to physically pick up that coin. Contact with gold temporarily freezes them into place. Otherwise, they are almost impossible to catch in a net."

  "But you caught FIVE. How?" one of the boys asks.

  "No Twitch will fall for a trap or a dummy. You have to offer YOURSELF, they know the difference between the fakes and real humans. Your WILL has to defeat them, your pure hatred, your pure determination has to override theirs, and you have to slap that damn coin onto their skin. Your pure, unadulterated COURAGE is the only thing that will defeat a Twitch, lads. I found my courage from inside my hatred, because of what one of those bitches did to my family. You will have find yours where you can."

  The most promising recruit was Tomic Suras, from the Midlands. "I have heard the tales, Master Artrim, but I cannot but be thinking that by now they would realize the trick and bait US instead. What is to stop two witches knowing we are about and allowing one to look like she is vulnerable. We go in, we die. Makes sense to me."

  "Aye, it DOES make sense. What doesn't is why they never learn. One day, you might be right, one day they may work together and defeat us, but until that day let us be grateful that all the venom and spite and bitterness that goes into making a witch makes them as unpalatable to each other as they are to us. Don't forget this lads, each witch hates her sisters. Each witch lives only to control more witches, more territory, and breed more mist. This is why we keep beating them back at the fringe, to stop them expanding and eating up what is left of our good farmlands."

  He signals a pause, cocks his ear to listen. "Soon we will not be able to speak. They have acute hearing, these things do, and from the density of the fog I can tell we are coming into the range of one of them. A low-grade fringe dweller like what we are hunting is not particularly strong, but the deeper you go in, the more powerful, the more paranoid and the more dangerous they become."

  Jimith Tyler asks, "Is it true, Master Artrim, that you have personally killed five Twitches and released whole territories back to the farmers?"

  "It is Jimith. I am a wealthy man from all the taxes they pay me, a very wealthy man, and my children will have an easy life. But this is not why I am here. I am not here for accolades or medals, though I have plenty of both. I am here to kill the witches. Nothing else is in my mind or heart. I am CONSUMED by the desire to end this blight upon our people."

  A boy who was certain to fail puts up a querulous hand. The Master looks over and nods, knowing the poor lad was driven out here by his rapacious mother. She wanted taxes, she wanted her boy to pay her life for her. What was his name? Ah yes, "Cleath, first, asking permission to speak is a kindergarten habit you must wash from your mind. Second, we know you do not want to be here. It is no shame to leave and run back home. Live child, you have no chance out here and you know it."

  "Master," he finds the courage to speak. "Master, surely the witches were once human like us. What turned them? What changed their hearts to become the evil they are now?"

  "A philosopher are you then, lad? Many have asked this same question, boy. Many have gone out with perfect intentions to research, to understand, to discover what aberration caused this foul stench to creep over and blight our lands. They have gone out in fine carriages with armies to defend them and degrees from universities. And if they survived, they came back broken men, missing teeth or hands or feet." Master Artrim knew this well.

  His own father, may he rest in peace, tried to find out what caused this infection. "My own dear Da tried. Somehow he got permission to speak directly with a Twitch, can you believ
e. This was in the early days before the mist had spread so far, before the Gregorians were formed. It was a trap, and a message. She turned his mind into madness, removed one eye, one toe, one finger, and his cock before sending him back to my mother, an utterly broken, insane man. She did this ON PURPOSE! (he shouts) She did this to show us we were powerless! She did this to break our spirits.

  "That Twitch took a good man and made him utterly useless, like this land around us. So, young Cleath, ask these questions if you will. Go speak with these witches if you wish, but expect to end up like my poor Da. WHY do you think I hate them so damn much? WHY do you think I hunt them night and day? WHY do you think I am out here training the next crew of Witch Hunters?" Then he paused, and sniffed the air, like rat sensing danger. "Well, that has done our work for us. Be silent now. My hatred has stirred the mist and called in a witch."

  He whispered, "Do you feel it, lads? My passion is bait, they cannot resist it. My hatred for them is what draws them to me. All I have to do is lay a trap, a place where my coin can roll easily in front of them. Now we must be completely silent, find a spot to trap them and just watch and wait. Remember lads - Do NOT try to tackle these things on your own. But you all have your copper net? (the boys nod in the affirmative) Good. This is your ONLY defense! Net them with copper and you cut them off from the mist."

  Master Artrim looks at his map and sees that nearby an old village once stood. Excellent, that will have a hall where they can set up. Silently he signals them to move forward and soon they are in the ruins of what was once a thriving community. All gone now bar the shattered husk, only the shells of buildings and the ghosts of the past remain. The village hall still stood, the perfect trap.

  He whispered to them, "Your fear is like a beacon to the witch near here. Even now she is licking the mist, finding her way to us. Witches are blind, but they see emotion. They feed on negative passions: hate, anger, lust, vanity. This is food for them, and they can never have enough. We need to set up a dummy in the middle of the hall (He pulls out an inflatable mock-up of a person, and using a small power pack, pumps it up.) I know it looks incredibly easy to tell the difference between this and a real human, but what we do now is to project all our negative feeling into this thing."

  He places it into the middle of the hall, where it stands in an awkward posture, bobbing about in a mimicry of life. "Now lads, everything you have always hated feared or loathed, feel it, taste it, and IMAGINE it is in this dummy. The witch cannot tell the difference and will hone in on the fake. That is when we can paralyze her with a coin, then net her. You got that?"

  They all nod in sullen silence, close their eyes, and do what they had been trained for the last year to do. "Project your thoughts and feelings lads, make them part of that dummy. Put all your hate of these vile creatures in there."

  And, as promised, soon an ugly form of grey starts to gather at the door. It is a woman, of sorts. Matted hair, sallow skin, blank, white eyes, apparently devoid of pupils or iris. It was not particularly tall and looked incredibly fragile, but the boys knew, it was the MIND that took your will away and turned you into a vegetable. They kept focussing on the dummy, making IT the center of hatred and fear. Slowly, carefully, the thing moved closer, chanting the words of control under its breath. Deep in spell casting, feeling the food it needed so close, it was oblivious to the humans all around it.

  Then the coin is released from Master Artrim's hands. It rolls on its edge, slowly towards the dummy. The witches' attention is drawn to it, her head tilts as if following its path. Then it tilts the other way, locked in fascination, like a bird frozen by the flickering pattern of the snake about to strike.

  He leaps up, the Master has the net flying through the air to scoop up the Witch, but she is quick. Too quick! Dammit, a TWITCH, the bitch was faking it, baiting THEM. She knew it was a training exercise and had come out for THEM. Master Artrim's hand reached for his pocket, to pull out the gold coin, the only thing that could trap a Twitch, but he was too late. She had his mind, she was already controlling him. All his will, all his hatred, all his fire burned and pushed her back. He had done this once, he had done this FIVE TIMES - she would not hold him.

  Yet he could feel her beating him back, laughing, saying in his mind that she will do to HIM what she did to the father. Dammit, this was the one. This was the very start of things, the first accursed Twitch that mutilated his Da. He hated her more, drove her back with ever great waves of hate. But he was losing. She was strong, too strong.

  But then, the miracle. Little Cleath walked up, sacrificing himself to save the Master. He walked right up to a TWITCH, the brave little soul. Master Artrim felt her control seeping away as she turned with fascination at the young boy. Tears were in his eyes, great sadness overwhelmed him and he reached out to her, "Why?" he asked, with pure, childlike, open-hearted curiosity. "Why do you do this? Do you have a name? Do you want to talk?"

  The Twitch is frozen in place, wondering. She starts to speak, a witch never speaks to a human, they only consume them, but she does not eat his energy and leave him like a grey stalk. She wants to speak? Master Artrim needs no further assistance, he pulls his gold coin, slaps it on her forehead to immobilize the creature, and nets it. "All of you, we need to cut off her electronic connection to the atmosphere. Everyone throw your nets!" he commands.

  Despite the fact they were quivering in fear, they find their courage and do it - apart from Cleath, who has tears in his eyes, watching the creature scream and squeal as her power is captured and contained by the others. She collapses to the floor, a shattered wreck, howling in pain and fear. All around them, the mist starts to evaporate, the noiseless shuffling of death begins to depart the scene and blessed sunlight begins to filter through the evaporating fog.

  Then sharp rays of light begin to penetrate, they are like knives to the creature. The Witch starts to break apart, then decompose. It turns to dust, screaming and squealing the whole time - until silence. The mist it created disserts the dying wraith - then sweet, beautiful silence. No more hatred, no more pain - only peace flows out and, in exchange for the dank clouds, sunlight begins to flow through the battered shutters of the hall. Steams of golden light dissolve the last of the witch's spell and the land is freed from her curse.

  Master Artrim cannot believe it, they are all alive, and little Cleath - he saved them all! How he did it, he had no idea, but that mere boy started down a damn TWITCH! He stood there with nothing but his courage and stared down a Twitch. He goes over to pick up the shaking, weeping lad, who is pale and weak from the challenge. "Boy, you saved us all. I don't know how, but you saved us all. Let's go up the steeple of the church and see how much land you have earned for yourself!"

  Cheering, carrying the still weak child, the boys all rush to the high point, to look out over the lands. From up there they can see hundreds of acres of ruined countryside, bent trees, brown broken shrubs barely alive, but they can SEE them. The mist is gone for miles and miles around. There will be enough food from these fields to feed a city!

  But Cleath is not cheering, he is not even smiling. He whispers to himself, "She was so desperately alone. So desperately in need of love..."

  Master Artrim hears his soft voice, and bends down, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Lad, who could have imagined that my father may have been right after all. I watched her, she could not penetrate your strange and unexplainable compassion and, in the end, she wanted it. That is what made her vulnerable. She took in a little of your love, rather than our hate, and it destroyed her."

  Cleath looked up, a question in his eyes. "Do you think she would have turned? Do you think she could have left that space that made her a witch?"

  Pherial smiled, "The very same questions my father asked. Lad, in all honesty, I believe it was only that you caught her by surprise that it worked. She tried to trap us, she was using our hatred for her as bait to draw us into HER trap. Then she saw your courage, your faith, your kindness, and it forced her to shift ge
ars, to recalibrate, just like when a normal witch sees a coin. I would not be thinking we will be so lucky twice, lad. But be at peace, you have freed the lands from their curse. And young Cleath - you are now a wealthy man, one who will be celebrated and praised for a hundred years."

  "I didn't do this for the gold, or the glory," Cleath whispered, still deeply in shock.

  "No true Witch Hunter does, Lad. No true Witch Hunter does."

  The boys have paid no attention to the conversation. They were too busy cheering as more mist rolled back from the edges. Little puffs of smoke blew up, and more land appeared. "How come Master Artrim? There seem to be small explosions of mist at the edges of the cleared lands, then more land is revealed."

  Master Artrim looks up, "Ah, yes. The greatest sight for a Witch Hunter. This is because, in her dying moments, the Twitch called in all her creatures to save her. They are rushing blindly towards her call, but when they hit the sunlight, they are destroyed. She was a powerful one and being right on the edge of her territory, everything she created will be rushing in. This mist may well roll back another hundred miles. You lads can be proud, you have been witness to the most amazing capture and destruction of a Twitch and are now part of legend. Against all the odds, we are still alive to speak of it! Be sure me lads, your names go down in the records of the greats."

  Finally, Cleath is strong enough to stand, "And they all get a share of the bounty," he says. "We were all in this together, we all get a share."

  The boys cheer wildly. Master Artrim smiles, and says, "Looks like you have gotten yourself your own hunting posse, young Cleath. Oh then lads, let's get back to the guildhall and register the kill."

  The old man nods to himself, deep in thought as they make their way back in clean, bright sunlight. The death all around him is shriveling, recoiling from the brightness it is exposed to. He felt himself resting with his father's thoughts - Life is so beautiful, why would anything willing want to live in the shadows? Is it possible they may one day understand these creatures?