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Water
Orthema has just come back from a routine patrol on the lower steppes when the guardsmen at the fortress tell him they’ve caught a witch.
Curiosity wars with prudence and ultimately wins. He heads to his private quarters, just one of the small luxuries afforded to him as a senior officer. He has food brought, and sends two guardsmen to bring him the witch.
He is surprised when they arrive. He had somehow expected a giant: the sort of creature one might encounter in a horror tale to scare children. But the witch is slight, with lithe but muscled form. His hair is braided with ribbons of indigo and turquoise that wave down like the patterns of an aurora. His features are fine, or would be, but for the wicked points of his teeth and the bloody red cast of his eyes. Those eyes pin Orthema and he can feel a seething hatred hit him like a blow; he almost steps back in response.
Some part of him wants to admit this was a mistake and have the witch taken back to the gaol. But curiosity wins out. “Release him,” Orthema says, casting a quelling glance at the left guard when he opens his mouth to protest. He waits until the other guard, blessed with more sense than his counterpart, slips a knife from his arm-sheath and slices through the witch’s binding. “Wait at the door.”
The guards back away, though not without a handful of concerned glances at Orthema. Really. He’d find it insulting if he weren’t rather touched by the concern.
He gestures to the small table in the center of the room. He’s had his page set out a simple meal of steppe-quail and onion. “Sit.”
The witch sits in silence. He doesn’t touch the food, just stares at Orthema with those blood red eyes of his.
Orthema shrugs and starts to eat. “You may not like our spices, buts it will taste even worse cold.
There is a moment of hesitation, but then the witch picks up his spoon and takes a bite. He must be starving but he eats the entire plate in slow, measured bites. He does not touch the water.
He is silent the entire time, until Orthema, unnerved and helpless, calls for the gaolers to take him back to his cell.
Metheglin
Orthema is many things, but a quitter is not one of them. He has the witch brought up the next evening, and this time he has a plan of attack already in place.
He has the table set for two with a fine linen tablecloth and plates of Barizhiese enamel-work. The cooks prepare a filet of salmon brought up the river by steamship, seasoned with fennel and sugared orange rind. He breaks out a bottle of fine southern metheglin he’d been saving for a special occasion.
His guest arrives with the sunset; the light falls through the western windows and sets an eerie glow to the red coals of his eyes. Once again he’s flanked by two guards and bound at the wrist with leather ties.
“Release him,” Orthema says, and this time the guards merely hesitate and do not protest. After a moment’s indecision they both back away, taking their place as silent watchmen at the door.
“And you, sit,” he adds, gesturing at the chair with an impatient wave of his hand. The witch gingerly sits down in the seat, his eyes never leaving Orthema except for a brief glance at the rack of swords on the wall. Well. He can hardly blame the fellow.
“How are you this evening?” Orthema asks as he pours the metheglin into two goblets, taking a second to admire the rich gold color under the light of the candles.
The witch does not reply. Of course.
“We ourselves are fairly well,” Orthema continues blithely. “Though we slept poorly and have a terrible crick in our neck. If we were in Cetho we would visit a masseuse, but we do not know of any such establishment local to the area.”
The witch stares at him in either incomprehension or confusion.
Orthema takes a hearty bite of his salmon. The orange rind is delightfully tart. “Perhaps you do not have masseuses among your people. In which case we wish you our most sincere condolences. A good masseuse is the key to a long life.”
The witch holds eye contact as he picks up a fork and stabs it down into the fish. One of the guards at the door winces. Orthema cheerfully ignores them both.
“In any case,” he says, “we had a lovely time sparring with our lieutenant this morning, though it rained in the night and we fear the tourney ground will be mud for the next span of days. We were surprised, as we did not think it rained often in your country. Or are the rains seasonal?
The witch’s gaze grows even more unimpressed, which Orthema had not previously thought possible.
Orthema refuses to allow himself to feel intimidated. He takes another bite of his salmon, tilting his head to consider the witch. He’s still as a frozen pond, and his pale red eyes never leave Orthema’s face. He understands why his men make gods’ signs when they catch his eyes, why they shy away from him. A man could be forgiven for seeing a monster.
But Orthema has a hunch in his gut, and if he has learned anything in years of military service it’s that his gut generally has the right way of things.
He takes a quick sip of his metheglin and then reaches over to switch their goblets and then the plates of salmon, taking note of the way the witch flinches back from him as he leans forward. Not so stony after all.
“We swear we haven’t poisoned it,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “We simply thought you might be thirsty.”
The witch reaches over and steals Orthema’s fork with a challenging glare, then when Orthema does not object begins to eat the salmon with the same slow, measured bites. But still he does not drink.
Orthema takes the fork at the witch’s side of the table and proceeds to eat from the plate in front of him until he’s picked the bones clean. He considers his stony companion over the lip of his wine goblet. “We think you may not speak our tongue,” he says at last. “And if you do we must apologize for boring you with our trifles. But we did not wish to leave you in the dungeons like an animal. For you are not, no matter what tongue you speak.” He sighs once more and waves over the guards. “Same time tomorrow.”
The witch rises from the chair as the guards clap their hands on his shoulder; he stands still and stares at the wall as one of the guards fishes another length of leather from his pocket and wraps it around the his wrist. He glances back at Orthema as the guard ties the knot. And then he frowns. “It’s seasonal.”
Orthema blinks. “What?”
“The rain,” the witch says slowly, as if speaking to a very young child. “You asked. The rain season is coming. It lasts until Swan star rises in north.”
Orthema duly catalogs this information and realizes he has no idea what to say in response. “Oh.”
Luckily the witch does not seem to expect a response. He turns away and takes a step towards the door. After a moment of stunned hesitation, the guards follow, and then gather enough of their wits to remember that they’re supposed to be leading him. They guide him out of the room, perhaps with a touch more respect than they’d had when they’d brought him into it.
Orthema watches them go, then turns to the window, where he can see the gentle gray of rain clouds on the horizon.
Wine
For the next span of days and nights the rain is torrential, pouring down to scour the landscape clean. The witch is not nearly so effusive.
At their next meeting he has once again retreated into silence, seemingly content to listen to Orthema natter on about this and that for the duration of the dinner. He is silent at the next dinner as well, and the next, and the next, until Orthema begins to wonder whether he’d imagined those few scant sentences he’d thought he’d heard the witch say.
The witch. Orthema mislikes calling him that more with every other day. It sounds fearsome and monstrous, like something out of a wonder tale meant to scare children. It seems at odds with the individual he has come to know, this slight man that is left handed, and has a freckle just below his right eyebrow, and taps his nails against the edge of his plate when he’s bored, and never drinks anything set before him.
He brings up the subject at their next meeting, over a glass of fine southern wine. “If you will not give me your name,” he says, gesturing with his fork, “I will have to give you one. Cseia or-“
The witch’s eyes flash. “No.”
Orthema takes a sip of his wine to mask his surprise. “You don’t like the name Cseia?”
The witch’s lips curl back in disgust so that Orthema can see the fine points of his teeth. “You people are always naming things. Stealing names and forcing your own names onto the things you take.”
“Are we?” he says carefully. “We are unsure what you mean.”
The witch jerks his head at the wall. “This monster of rocks you built.”
Orthema raises his eyebrows. “As far as we are aware there was nothing here before we built the Anmur’theileian.”
The witch hisses. “Nothing but the bones of our ancestors and the nests of the gods. Your stone house is ashcanazheis.”
The word is unfamiliar, but the way the witch spits it like it burns his tongue gives a sense of its meaning. As for the rest of it- well, if what the witch says is true, this might go some way to explaining why the Nazh warriors have been hammering the fortress with attacks since it was built. “It seems,” he says, picking his words carefully, “that when one knows little of another’s ways he is liable to make mistakes.”
There is bitterness in the twist of the witch’s mouth. “You never ask. You never want to know.”
Orthema thinks of all the soldiers that see the steppes as little more than a place to win glory, remembers the words they use for men like the witch and his kin, and thinks the witch’s assessment more than fair. “We are asking now. So tell us, what shall we call you if not Cseia?”
The witch seems to mull it over, perhaps unwilling to give even this bit of himself to a hated enemy. But finally he sighs and nods. “Nazhcreis Dein,” he says.
Where has he heard “Nazhcreis” before? Some puzzlement must show on his face, for Nazhcreis twists his hands into claws and pantomimes clawing at the air. “Like night hunter.”
Orthema wonders whether all Nazh boys are given such fierce names, or if Nazhcreis earned it on the battlefield. Given the stunned reports of the man’s fighting he suspects the latter. “Let me ask you a question, Nazhcreis.”
Across the table his guest tenses, as if expecting a trap.
But all Orthema does is tap the side of his goblet. “Do your people not drink alcohol?”
The slight tilt of Nazhcreis’ head is his only reaction, but by now Orthema knows him well enough to identify it as surprise. “They do,” he says after a pause.
Orthema purses his lips in thought. “Yet you do not. We don’t know many mazei, but we suppose there could be some interaction of magic and alcohol. Or is it a religious matter? Do all witches abstain–“
“No.”
Orthema expects that is all the answer he will get, and is thus surprised when Nazhcreis adds, “I do not like the taste of your drinks. On the steppes we drink inzherca.”
He coaxes Nazhcreis into telling him a few other tidbits about his people’s food and drink, and by the time the guards signal it is time to leave he has heard more words out of the witch than he had on all the other nights combined.
The next day he goes in search of this mysterious inzherca.
Inzherca
Inzherca, Orthema finds, is a local brew made of fermented juniper berries. It is very tasty and very, very potent. He buys a flagon from an incredulous camp follower; he gathers that very few elves buy the stuff. He feels a bit excited as he head back to his quarters with the setting sun, swinging the flagon back and forth as he walks. He chides himself; Nazhcreis is a fearsome warrior, not some courted maid or a youth that will sigh over favors. But nevertheless the anticipation remains.
He busies himself “Nazhcreis, we have a gift…”
As soon as he turns around his words die in his mouth. The guards do not hold Nazhcreis as a guest, but bent over and shackled. His face is smattered an ugly yellow bruise that covers his right cheek.
“What’s this?” he bites.
The soldier at the left cringes in response. “There was an incident in the dungeons. He attacked four men when they entered his cell, two are in the infirmary. Uneia has a broken arm, sir.”
Something cold kindles in his heart. “Why were there four men in his cell?”
The soldier’s eyes dart to the side like he’s looking for a place to hide. “We… really couldn’t say, sir.”
Nazhcreis is staring at him with a bitter smile, and Orthema wants to throw something. “Leave him and go.”
“But sir-“
“That was an order,” he roars, and perhaps some of his fury shows in his eyes because the soldiers stammer out an apology and back out of the room.
With them goes Orthema’s anger, leaving him feeling tired and bitterly cold. His eyes catch on the two goblets of inzherca he had prepared. Funny, the idea seems so stupid now. He takes one and swigs from it before offering it to Nazhcreis. The drink packs a punch such that he almost doesn’t notice the split second look of surprise on Nazhcreis’ face as he smells the liquor.
Orthema picks up the other goblet and takes a second drink for good measure. “You won’t be harmed again here, on my honor,” he says.
Nazhcreis leans against the wall and sips at his drink. “The honor of an elf is worth so much.”
Orthema opens his mouth to argue the point, to talk about chivalry or honor or some other gods’ forsaken ideal he’d always believed in as a boy- but the ugly yellow stain on Nazhcreis’ cheek stops him.
They drink in silence. Nazhcreis drinks in sips, delicate, like a cat. Orthema swigs the liquor, perhaps more than he should. It heats his stomach, setting a restless energy in his limbs that makes him itch to move. He finds himself again and again staring at the bruise, until at some point his eyes slip downwards to Nazhcreis’ lips, and he marvels at the way they shine wet in the candlelight.
He looks up and sees he’s been caught, trapped, in the knowing gaze of those blood red eyes.
“You could, you know. No one would stop you.” There is a curious note to Nazhcreis’ voice.
He tastes bile. “We would not- we would never-“
In a flash Nazhcreis Dein is out of his chair. He moves like lightening, flowing through the space between them too fast for Orthema’s drink-addled mind to follow.
And then he’s on him, too close and not close enough, mouth whisper-close to the shell of Orthema’s ear. His hands are not so very far from Orthema’s neck before he even has a chance to react. Speed like that- Nazhcreis could have killed him that first day they met. He could kill him now, and oh, why does the thought not terrify him as it should?
“Are you sure you won’t?” His breath hot on the exhale. “I know you want it. So take it. Take it the way your people do everything that lights their desires.” Fingers spider over the rim of his baldric, plying at the skin beneath. His clothing is too tight, too hot, but Nazhcreis is hotter still.
It takes everything he has, but he grits his teeth and shoves the other man away. “We’ll not hurt you to prove my people are evil.”
“I don’t need to prove anything.” A studious shrug, the picture of nonchalance. “Your men would have done it.”
“We are not our men,” he says, wincing at how utterly paltry that is.
Nazhcreis stares at him again, before nodding to himself. “No,” he finally whispers, as if making a decision. “No you are not.”
Nazhcreis walks to the door and raps loudly on it. The guards come back in, scrambling to tie Nazhcreis’ proferred wrists as Orthema watches.
“I will not say thank you,” Nazhcreis says as they make to leave.
Orthema steadies himself against his desk, ignoring the wide-eyed looks of the guards. “I would not ask you too,” he says as Nazhcreis is taken away.
The next morning a ransom comes.
Tea
The seasons wax and wane, and Orthema leaves the Steppes behind him. It becomes a thing of nightmares of shifting grass and ambushes, and other stranger dreams marked by ruby red eyes in the dark.
Until the day his emperor summons him to the tortoise room of the Alcethmeret and regards him with a somber, weary pride. “We shall have peace with the Steppes,” he says without preamble.
He looks at the young emperor, who has never seen war, never seen the ravages it wreaks on mens hearts, seen the monsters it makes of men. “Many have tried,” he says. Many have failed, he means.
Maia nods and signals to a waiting maid, who sets down a tea service and pours a steaming cup for each of them. “We will have peace,” he says again, and there is iron in his voice. Orthema momentarily wonders what the boy would have been like as a general.
“We have reached out to the witches and called for a meeting, and they have agreed to meet this summer. You told us that you knew something of their ways. WIll you come with us?”
By summer the rains will have ceased and the steppes will be blooming in a riot of Cstheio’s lace and wild aster. The grass will be red as rubies, red like a witch’s watchful eyes. He stares at the surface of his tea and wonders, and hopes.
“Of course, serenity.”