“Prospero isn’t here,” Walter stated. “And as chief witch, I have commanded this body to carry on with the necessary plans, which she shall be notified of hereafter when she recovers. Where are we on the food stock?”
“Plenty of mead and beer!” Allan, one of the heads of the gardening and booze house, offered. Walter knew they had an official house name, but “House of Dionysus and Jörd” seemed painfully formal for the drunken man.
So they could drink away their hunger?As if that wasn’t going to lead to more trouble!
“Six months on the shelf stable,” said the other one, Jörd. She had a Northern European pale complexion to Allan’s Mediterranean olive skin. She was typically the quiet farmer to Allan’s boozy debauchery.
“And the crops?” another voice called out.
“Worse again this month,” Jörd added. “The bad water… it’s simply not good for the food.”
“And a few of the fish we gathered the last month were odd in ways that meant I’m not sure that we ought to be eating them,” another house head shared.
A quiet filled the building, feeling heavier than silence ought to be.
Walter put his hand on the wall, hoping for some spark of clarity or surge of magic or something. This was the building closest to a holy space in Crenshaw. The home of magical laws and acts.
“So we’re in a pickle, and her ladyship is at home with the vapors? Not acceptable.” Gilbert shot a glare at the chief witch and surreptitiously tapped a pattern on the heavy obsidian vein that was embedded in the floor.
The chief witch, who had turned 312 or some such number this year, had expected an outburst. He looked at his friend and mouthed, “Bad-ger.”
Then he looked around at the group.
Gilbert, Lord of the House of Charybdis, folded his arms. “If she were here, she’d point out that if we open the gates, it’ll be all our heads in jars in some doctor’s laboratory! Mark my words. I hate to agree with that woman, but—”
Titters of laughter filled the right. Gilbert was the only one who managed to argue withbothsides. It was a gift, really.
“And if you don’t have a solution, maybe you ought to take a seat, old man.” The speaker, a woman who was dressed in a newer fashion of robes, made a gesture that was akin to summoning energy. Her hair was as dark as her skin and twisted in a series of long serpentine beach waves, currently stacked atop her head.
“Now see here, Scylla—”
“Lord Scylla,” the woman corrected, reaching into a pocket and drawing out a handful of tiny seed pearls. Each stone was undoubtedly loaded with a spell.
“I’ll eject the both of you,” the chief witch reminded them before Scylla could started hurling spells.
“I was only telling him that if he had nothing useful to say, maybe he ought to let those of us who have ideas do the talking,” Scylla argued. She went out of her way to channel a Medusa-like energy, and if Walt spoke freely, he might even note that she started arguments as often as Gil and Agnes.But perhaps not aloud!
“We can do another food run,” Scylla continued. “It doesn’t help sufficiently with the water, but we can bring jugs of that home, too.”
Gilbert rolled a fat piece of wood between his thumb and index finger. Being bound didn’t stop him from throwing a pre-spelled bit of stick or stone at Scylla. Both House Charybdis and House Scylla argued with the same fervor as they did every meeting. They mixed as well as oil and water, and none of the other representatives in the hall tonight interceded. Only one house was invulnerable to their mutual churlishness, and the lady of that house was claiming illness so she could stay home with her research tonight.
Lady Prospero was the scariest witch in Crenshaw, and only a fool crossed her.
Perhaps,Walter admitted to himself,that was how I landed in the chief witch position. Unlike most of the heads of houses, I’m not afraid of Prospero. The only other person who can say that is Scylla.
At that point, Cassandra blew open the door to the hall with all the cheer and boisterousness that she did everything. She was as tan as theday she arrived here, and at a glance, she almost seemed unattractive. Plain hair, plain features, voluptuous in a way that some would find too heavy, but most found irresistible. The only seer in the whole of Crenshaw, Cassandra decided knowing everyone’s sorrow meant she ought to comfort them, since no one wanted to hear prophecies, so she ran the sex work trade for the town and collected secrets like they were wildflowers.
“I’m late,” she trilled out. “I’ll hold Prospero’s seat tonight so I can report back to her.”
For several moments, the vast room—which was akin to a great hall from the era of castles in the Barbarian Lands—fell calm and blissfully silent. This lasted for all of thirty seconds or so before yells filled it. A cacophony of drunken hobs would be more soothing. Magic zipped around in small arguments as the factions erupted into accusations, screaming, and fistfights in one corner.
The chief witch pinched the bridge of his nose, but then he turned to the topic at hand. “We can buy ourselves more time if we siphon a few of the incoming remedials. As chief witch, that is my recommendation. Mark the four or so weakest for siphoning, and we’ll proceed. Yemaya can try cleansing the water at the latest fissure.”
Prospero had sworn to him that she’d find a plan, but the border that held the line nearest the Barbarian Lands was becoming more porous by the month.
“And we can buttress the southern wall again. The last thing we need is hapless barbarians wondering into town,” Scylla said, as if the strength that would take was nothing. Undoubtedly, Prospero had pre-warned her about the border.
“Soon?” the chief witch asked.
