Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON ONE (Completed!)

Part 1.8

I know I told Addy I'd meet her in the morning, but I'm not going to. I didn't get any practice last night because of that voice. Until my connection with Amarat strengthens there's no way I'm going in the potions room.

I don't really want to touch the bracelet again but it's the only way. Onyx stays with me this time.

The bracelet takes me to an arched stone door. It's closed but there are voices on the other side.

"...simply lying there, not a shred of clothing on her...she couldn't even speak real words.."

"Arti still won't say where she came from," a second voice says. "The old fool doesn't know."

The voices are female. Amarat recognises them.

"I've never met a girl so odd. She likes to take things apart. She wants to know why this and why that. And she laughs in the face of the old ways. Is it a surprise what's happening? The harvest was fine before she started uprooting everything in the forest."

The second person lowers her voice to a whisper. "You know what Old Ma used to say...there are creatures that live in the bowels of the earth. They're the Dark One's children. When they rise there will be famines and plagues, and the old ways will die. Didn't Arti say he found her deep in the earth?"

A sickening anger rises in me but I push it back down. I turn from the memory, shifting my focus to a new one.

I'm sitting under the stars. A breeze tousles my - Amarat's - hair. I'm in an empty field, perched on a raised rock with my legs dangling over the side. A black cat lounges next to me, its tail slowly swinging from side to side.

I'm speaking to the cat. Amarat calls him by another name, but the word reaches me as Onyx. "I can't let the crops die, Onyx. They'll starve. I know I can save them. I just need time to understand." She frowns. "You don't think our crash had anything to do with it? A sudden influx of fire quartz...there might be too much energy in the earth. It could be killing the crops."

Onyx tilts his head to the side. You cannot use magic. They will not understand.

Amarat laughs sourly. "No, they won't. They'll think I'm some demonic being from the bowels of the earth. They have so much to learn, Onyx."

In time they will.

I cherish the cool air on Amarat's cheeks. "We'll teach them, Onyx. They'll build great cities to match our own. One day, perhaps they'll build something to sail the stars. When that day comes, we shall go home."

*

I wanted to stay under those stars forever. It was a moment I, and Amarat, wanted to hold onto. But it had slipped from our fingers, and we were left with the wheels of time, turning, turning, with no end.

My own room feels foreign, like I'm a visitor into someone else's life. That starlit field of a thousand years ago feels like the original, and this - my room, my life - a faint replica.

Because so much has changed in a thousand years.

I hold back a gasp. The voice is amused, mocking.

Onyx said to ignore it so that's what I'm going to do.

You can't ignore me, little one. I speak what you know to be true. The nature of love will never change. Love is a thing for fools.

Who are you? I demand, forgetting Onyx's warning.

I am one who needs no name.

Then leave me alone, I snap.

The voice tuts, still amused. Alone? You do not wish to be alone. You wish to be surrounded by fools. You wish for their love. Its tone shifts. I can feel the disgust bubbling in its depths.

I probe the room with my mind, looking for the source of the voice. There isn't any other sentient aura in this room.

It sniggers. Send me away, little one. I shall oblige. You will come back.

A sudden absence opens up inside of me.

It has left.

Onyx materialises in front of me.

"Ah!" I jump back. "How did you do that?"

The cat gives me a smug look. I have my ways. He shakes himself. A few raindrops land on my skirt. I excused myself to run a small errand. How is your connection with Amarat? Any stronger?

"It's the same story," I reply, irritated. "Straight after I visit her memory I'm connected to her. Then the connection fades and I'm useless again."

Onyx mulls this. There has to be another way. Perhaps you need more time. He sounds disconcerted.

He doesn't ask me to practice again. Which is good, because I need some sleep. Real sleep, not Amarat-sleep. I wrap the bracelet in a pillowcase and place it as far from my bed as possible. Onyx watches me warily. He can think what he likes. I don't know what he is, but we humans need to rest.

I lay my head on the pillow.

For a while, I'm at peace. Then I'm in Arti's little stone cottage again, ladling soup into a small, rusted bowl.

No, no, no. I didn't want this.

I'm watching Arti over the soup's steam. He's biting his lip. "You mustn't be so strong-willed, Ammie. The women are starting to talk. They're saying you'll never fetch a husband."

I grin wickedly. "That's good, because I don't want one."

"Ammie, be serious." He realizes that his hand is on the last loaf of bread. He puts it next to my bowl. "You have it, Ammie. You're a growing girl. You need it more than I do."

I scowl. "Don't be silly, Arti. You've barely eaten a thing."

Arti sighs, reluctantly accepting the bread from me. "It doesn't make sense to me, Ammie. A famine at this time of year. We've had good rainfall."

"Mmmm...mmm." I gulp down my bread excitedly. "I'm so close to the answer -" I pinch my index finger and thumb together "- this close."

Arti shakes his head. "Some things are not for us to understand, Ammie. If the Light One wished us to understand, he would have made the answer known."

I snort. "Have you ever seen the Light One? Did he tell you that?"

"That's enough, Ammie." Arti's face is red. "This nonsense stops right now."

That is who he really is. A man ruled by fear and ignorance.

My consciousness buds out of Amarat's. I'm not going to let this thing, whatever it is, get the better of me this time. I didn't have enough self-control last time. This time I'll triumph.

He deserves the fire. Would you like to see it, little one? Would you like to see how he died?

Amarat has stormed out of the room. She's with her plants now, angrily hammering away at a wooden pot.

Isn't love a beautiful thing? It stands in the way of one's dreams, and it eats at one's resolve. I have never encountered anything so ugly.

Amarat pauses. She's noticed a pair of potted wheat plants in the corner. "Oh!" She approaches them, eyes wide. One is withered, black and covered in open pustules. The other shines a healthy golden brown.

"This is what happened to the harvest," she whispers.

Her eyes shine with knowledge. She rests a hand on each of the pots, under a slab etched with strange writing. It's a script I've only seen in history books, but the meaning is clear in my mind.

Under the healthy plant: "Magic removed".

Under the dead one: "Magic retained".