The queen shook the boulder dust off her white skirt, sniffing.
“We seem to have a slight problem,” said the Enchanter, betraying his agitation by a slightly raised eyebrow. If Queen Sychorax could play it cool, then, by mistletoe, so could the Enchanter.
The crowd stared in horror at the large crater in the center of the courtyard, which now looked as if it had been blasted by the landing of a stray asteroid.
Power reeked from that feathered thing, as slowly, slowly it unfurled its wet black wings to their full extent. They dripped on the floor, black smoking drips, as it lifted its beak and looked around at the crowd until it could pick out Xar and Wish.
Sychorax was pale, very pale.
For she knew that this was all partly her fault. She had tried to be too clever. This was the horror that had been hiding in her Stone-That-Takes-Away-Magic all along. Wish had told her… but there is nothing like being confronted with the actual reality to make you realize the extent to which you might have miscalculated.
White as ice, she turned to Encanzo. “Algorquprqin,” said Queen Sychorax uncertainly. “I think… I may have made a mistake.”
Miracle of miracles! Stiff Queen Sychorax, proud Queen Sychorax, unbending Queen Sychorax who always thought she was right about absolutely everything, admitting that even she might not be perfect!
“We all make mistakes,” said Encanzo grimly. “Even you and I, Queen Sychorax.”
“Oh, by hemlock and nightshade and all things mean and bad,” whispered the Witchsmeller. “What is that?”
“That is a Witch,” said Sychorax. “You see the difference, pest controller? Giants and fairies and Magic people, they’re not really Witches at all, are they? A Witch is kind of unmistakable.”
“And that isn’t just a normal Witch either,” said Encanzo grimly. “That is a Kingwitch.
“What do you want, Witch?”
Now the Kingwitch began to speak, and it was a dreadful sound indeed, a harsh, grating, guttural noise that seemed to pain him to make, and every now and again, a word was reversed, as was the fashion with Witches.
“I want the children,” crooned the Kingwitch. “Give me the children.”
There was a horrible silence.
“What children?” said Encanzo.
The Kingwitch pointed at Xar and at Wish.
“The boy iss mine already,” said the Kingwitch. “And the girl is special…”
“There’s absolutely nothing special about Wish—look at her!” said Sychorax briskly, but there may have been a little anxiety in her voice. “She’s totally ordinary, and if anything, for a Warrior, just a little substandard…”
They all looked at Wish, standing uncomfortably on one leg. She didn’t look remotely special, a small, skinny little child with an eyepatch and hair sticking out in all directions.
“She has something I need,” continued the Kingwitch. “I already have some of it, but only as much as was in the very tip of her very little finger… Now I want ALL of it… to share with my fellow Witches… Give her to me now.”
“And what,” said the queen with considerable asperity, “are you intending to do with her?”
“I will eat her,” said the Kingwitch.
Which was not very nice, but what did you expect a Witch to be like?
There was another horrified silence.
“That is ridiculous!” snapped Queen Sychorax, magnificently scornful and every inch a monarch. “Of course you can’t EAT my child, you disgusting creature. I never heard of anything more barbaric!”
“Give me the child,” repeated the Kingwitch. “I will swallow her whole… Give me the child…”
“I am the queen of these territories,” said Sychorax imperiously. “We have a Warrior army, fully armed with iron. Take your Witches out of here, before we kill you all. Go!”
The Kingwitch gave a ghastly shriek and spread wide his great dark wings and leaped into the air, and as he flew up, up, up into the airy heights, it looked for one moment as if he was flying away, trying to escape.
Spare a thought for the poor Witchsmeller.
This was meant to be his moment.
He had been enjoying the battle with the Wizards, but this was even better!
As the Kingwitch soared upward, the Witchsmeller was rubbing his hands together.
OH, THIS WAS TOO GOOD.
All his wishes had come true at once.
A WITCH! At last he had found a real live Witch, after a lifetime of looking! And not just one Witch, a whole host of the creatures…
They weren’t extinct after all!
“Get out the Witch-destroying weapon!” yelled the Witchsmeller joyfully. “Prepare to face the full force of IRON, Thing of Evil!!!”
He put down his iron visor, almost chuckling to himself.
The Witchsmeller imagined, encased in iron as he was—iron breastplates, iron helmet—that he would be quite safe against the Witch. It might look scary, this creature, but no Magic could work against iron. He would first get rid of the big one and then turn the might of the weapon on all of the others. And then he would go back to the capital in triumph and in glory, with lots of Witch beaks to show the emperor.
The Witchsmeller was just enjoying this happy little thought…
When the Kingwitch turned on him.
High up in the air the Kingwitch turned in a great beautiful glorious swoop, if you had been in the mood to admire the swooping of Witches, which the Witchsmeller most certainly wasn’t, and with a grand gesture of his feathered wing the Kingwitch pointed all five of his taloned fingers at the Witchsmeller and his two imperial giant-killers, who were struggling to launch the Witch-destroying weapon.
And the Magic came blinding out of the five fingers, with the fierceness with which it might blast out of five Wizards’ staffs.
Fifty years the Witchsmeller had studied Witch-hunting and the Pursuit of Magic, and now he was looking up through his little iron visor at the thunderous sky and realizing, oh my goodness, that the Kingwitch was spelling at him, and that was exactly the same moment that he had a tiny flicker of concern as he realized, horror of horrors, how small he was, how insignificant, how unprepared for the spells coming down at him in brilliant stars of light.
The Witchsmeller didn’t even have time to get the imperial giant-killers to launch his Witch-destroying weapon. It had taken years for the Witchsmeller’s father and for the Witchsmeller’s father’s father to design that weapon, and they reckoned they had gotten it pretty much perfect, but this is an excellent example of how things that work magnificently in theory don’t necessarily work in practice.
The Witchsmeller got as far as shouting, “LAUNCH THE WEAP—!” before the spells hit him.
The stars of light hit the Witchsmeller full on the chest and bounced neatly off onto the other Magic-hunters standing around him, one after the other.
One second the Witchsmeller was standing, in full body armor, erect and splendid, if a little uneasy, with his axe raised high above his head, shouting impressive instructions.