Jolly Cooperation

The air high above the little hamlet gnawed at the young witches’ ankles, threatening to claw its way up her long, striped socks and cause a general nuisance, unbecoming of a practitioner of the natural arts.  

It was exactly why she had worn two layers of woollen tights. You could hardly turn up shivering, not to a village like this.  

The little span of houses and yellowing fields down below, patched with green and threaded with brown, looked quaint and quiet from this height, but word had come a long way, through the branches and in the breeze. The sparrows and pigeons had whispered in the dawn birdsong, and the foxes had cried in the night, over the rolling hills and down the chalk.  

One word, to be precise.  

Necromancy.  

Man’s ultimate perversion of the natural order—and that was saying something. And so she had flown, taking to the skies and racing the rising sun cross country to put a stop to this bloody nonsense once and for all. 

Before man did something really stupid and got them all killed.  

As she began her gentle descent, she frowned.  

‘Man’ she thought, but ‘Men’ she meant. Of course it was a man. Only a man would think playing with bones and summoning spirits was a suitable alternative to going outside and getting some fresh air.  

The villagers were running about like ants down there, flooding the paths and swarming towards the crumbling well. Something blue flashed amongst the crowd, and her frown curled down further into a cold sneer, knowing her labours had only doubled in weight as she shivered with jealousy.  

Witchcraft was all well and good, but sometimes she longed to be able to just click her fingers and step through a portal.  

It was easy for them. Roll out of bed, wave your hand and you’re already there.  Not to mention the lack of splinters, or need for extra padding.  

Touching down lightly on a small rise, the witch dismounted and took a second to throw out her cloak and re-pin the hat.  

It was spindly and black, with a slight and disconcertingly eastward bend. It always had an eastward bend; a clever bit of magic made sure of that, no matter what direction she was facing. It was the pride of her wardrobe. You could see it over crowds, crops and even small trees. And it either froze you in place or sent you running—depending on how much trouble you were in. Taking a moment to wipe the annoyance from her face and stamp the austere look she’d practised in the mirror into place, the witch turned and began her stride.  

The tall black boots echoed loudly over the dirt, despite the distinct lack of stone, and her cloak billowed in the still air.  

Behind her, the broom retreated back to the skies, far off but following doggedly.  

The sun was still young in the sky, barely more awake than the world below, and the temperature down here wasn’t that much better than it had been up above.  

An extra cardigan beneath the robe would have been sensible, but she’d been so groggy when she’d woken that she’d barely remembered the second pair of tights.  

Couldn’t be helped now, she’d just have to scowl and bear it.  

The first of the villagers saw her then, peeping out from the battered wooden door.  She turned her face, but the door slammed before their eyes could meet.  

Checking her step, she dropped her pace and let them get a head start.  

Why introduce yourself when the whispers could do so much more than any shout? That’s  what they would never understand.  

The witch passed through the village like a tide, washing over awestruck small folk and dragging them in her wake towards the little square.  

When she arrived at the crowded well-side, the whispers clashed with the mutters of the gathered peoples, the hubbub rising to a storm, until the wall of bodies suddenly parted, a stunned silence crashing down over the place like an icy wave.  

The witch stopped, heart squirming in her chest, nail biting her palm, as she leered down her nose with open contempt.  

“Oh. It’s you.”  

 The young wizard looked up from his little stool beside the stacked stones, eyes wide behind dinner plate lenses perched on his nose.  

He stood quickly, panic subsiding into cool professionalism.  

“Miriam.” The wizard said. “What a … pleasure.”  

The witch let her eyes fall to his little chair. She stared for just long enough to bring a touch of red to his face.  

“Is it, Gregory?” She acknowledged, feeling an unwitting surge of anger as she realised he must have brought the little perch with him, whilst she herself has spent the morning on a significantly lesser span of wood.  

The crowd slowly looked at Gregory.  

The wizard pushed his glasses up his nose and sniffed. “I can only apologise.”  Heads turned.  

“Oh?”  

And back.  

“You’ve come all this way, but it really wasn’t necessary.” He smiled. Just a corner. “I’ve got it all in hand.”  

With a hundred eyes trained on her, Miriam was left with no choice.  

She laughed, a single barking note.  

“Oh, really? Why don’t you just go back through your little portal and leave this whole debacle to someone infinitely more qualified?”  

Beneath his crimson robes, Gregory bristled. The villagers collectively shuffled a step backwards.  

“I am well prepared for a trifling necromancer.” He said, waving his hand. “The tomes are quite clear on the matter.”  

“Oh, the tomes? The tomes that were written three centuries ago by a shut-in, with skin so pale you could practically see through him?” She tutted. “The tomes know nothing compared to the land; all you need to do is listen to it. All you ever needed to do was listen.”  

The common folk froze as one. They would have run, but they weren’t entirely sure which direction was safe.  

Much to their surprise, Gregory smiled dryly. 

“Are you going to start every sentence with a query?” He asked brightly. “I’ve a tome on polite and proper grammar here somewhere…”  

Somewhere towards the back of the crowd, someone laughed. With distant thump and groan, they fell silent.  

Feeling a surge of regal anger, Miriam swept forward, gazing down her nose at such an angle she might have been blinded by the sun, if it had dared to look down.  

“Typical wizard.” She hissed. “Swaggering through your portal spouting from the little tome of jokes, shoot a few thunderbolts and generally refrain from engaging your brain, whatsoever!” 

“Oh, yes, I’m sure we can all learn proper decorum from the impassive cruelty of the witching covens, can’t we?” Gregory shot back, feeling his face redden again, this time with  defiance. “I’m surprised you haven’t erected a maypole and taken all your clothes off yet.”  Half of the heads in the crowd back snapped towards her, but a single passing glare deflected them all towards the clouds.  

Miriam’s mouth opened and prepared to lash back with her tongue, only to pause at the last second.  

This was exactly what he wanted. She was better than this.  

Refusing to engage the wizard any further, she turned towards one of the villagers, a stout-looking woman with several children lodged about her skirts.  

“Tell me what happened.” It was not a question.  

“Somethin’ nasty pissin’ about in the woods. There’s an old castle up there, on the hill. You can hear the screamin’ all night.” She said, pulling the child closer. “Don’t half scare the children, and the pigs are starting to bite.”  

The words of the alderman drifted over the crowd.  

“… you see the fort was actually created in the reign of King Baldrick XI to hold the southern road against invasion. If someone were to hold it they could disrupt trade between the capital and…”  

The witch gritted her teeth and turned her back. “Have you seen the bloody fool?” 
The woman frowned and pointed over her shoulder. “Who? Him?”  

Miriam resisted the urge to glance back.  

“No.” She explained patiently. “Not that fool. The necromancer.”  

The whispers tore through the common folk like news of an unexpected pregnancy. “Did she just say necromancy?”  

“What’s that?”  

“I’ve had a bit o’ sore throat for a while now …”  

“She means the dark arts, y’idiot!”  

“Got to be hard to paint if you can’t see nothing- Ow! Stop thumpin’ me!”  

As Miriam realised her mistake, the stout woman paled and pulled her children closer. “One o’ them? Here?”  

Miriam smiled sweetly. “Not for much longer.” And with that she strode through the crowd, guiltily basking in the growing terror that caused them all to scarper out the way.  Already, the cries were rising as confusion and panic turned to anger. As the only reception of complaint, they quickly swarmed towards the errant wizard, drowning him in a sea of flying spittle and the stench of raw pig.  

On the edge of town, the broom descended to greet Miriam’s open hand. She mounted quickly, folding the edge of the cloak under her bottom to stop it from flapping about, before kicking off from the worn patch of grass.  

She quickly climbed into the air, already feeling the oppressive cold creeping up her legs.  

Enjoying the little flash of red robe below, caught like a fisherman’s boat upon the swell of a storm, she turned her gaze up and out. 

There was no need asking for misleading directions when you could ascend a few hundred feet and see for yourself.  

The crumbling stonework was easily visible, poking out of the forest canopy atop a craggy little hill a few miles away. Even from this distance she could see the dark and heavy clouds hanging gloomily overhead.

She knew they weren’t natural. These types always had a penchant for dramatics, even if they were of the supremely amateur variety. That’s what happened when boys took their ideas of villainy from roving theatre groups, she supposed.  

With grim demeanour, she turned the broom westwards, feeling the tip of the hat pivot back. The treetops swam below her as she sped over the grey-green sea of leaves towards the rocky crag that had once been the castle. Crumbled stone and mortar had fallen from the towers and had been left, wayward in the mud, like its juvenile architect had been called away for tea by his mother before he could clean up properly.  

As the village fell away behind and the smell of pig receded, she drew a clean, wizard-free breath and set her sights on the grey stone up ahead.  

As it drew closer, she felt the rain start to patter on the brim of her hat; a light sprinkle to start, but as she went on the deluge truly began, and soon the weight of the water forced her down, almost into the treeline.  

Maybe the little spell that had twisted the local climate into this autumnal bluster kept away the small folk, but as she approached, Miriam couldn’t help but consider that fallacy or not, it certainly was pathetic.  

Her mood soured further still as she saw a flash of crimson robe waiting upon open stone, his back towards her as he regarded the collapsed pile of rubble that may have once been a gateway. Miriam didn’t mind the rain; she enjoyed long walks through the spring drizzles. With total honesty, she could hold up her hands and say that even the winter sleets held some reassuring pleasure for her, knowing the rise and fall of the seasons was part of the ever-turning world and the natural passing of the years.  

But here and now, she would be hard pressed to deny, as she watched the water splash off an invisible barrier a foot above the wizard’s head, that she wasn’t raging at the prospect of being soaked to the drawers.  

 

Gregory put his hands on his knees and panted as the magic door collapsed to its base elements and the rain licked at the thin bubble of magic he had hastily drawn around his body. The petrichor filled his sinuses and made him sneeze, though thankfully the ghastly weather was subduing the worst of the pollen.

Finally drawing himself upright, he looked about at the little fort, perched atop the not-so little hill.  

It would have been a true logistical challenge to move the stones up here, not to mention then erecting them in the proper alignment.  

Absent-mindedly, he turned to look back towards the village, wondering if magic had been used. Maybe the king had had enough sense to raise funds to hire one of his ancient brethren. Not that he was inclined to think wistfully of his brother-wizards at this particular moment. They were the reason he was here, after all.  

The delicate instruments in his tower had been raving all night. The chiming and whistles and buzzing had kept him up to the wee hours – even after he’d placed a silencing spell over the room and applied both types of nightcap.  

By morning the tomes were clear and the verdict was clearer still.  

Bloody wizards. 

A flicker amongst the raindrops foretold her arrival, and he quickly turned his back, slowing his breathing in hopes it would chase the last dregs of ruddy blush from his cheeks.  There was a certain degree of effort incurred when forging such doorways without the proper preparation,but it wouldn’t do to be tardy.  She’d had a head start, after all, since she’d set the bloody peasantry on him.  He shook his head and sighed. You couldn’t use words like ‘necromancy’ around the low peoples, Miriam of all people should’ve known that.  

It had too many syllables for a start, and three different people had accosted him for cough drops as he tried to clear a suitable area for the dimensional doorway spell.
Gregory heard her touch down on the flagstones as he examined what used to be the barbican. Such things were naturally sturdy in design and, just as the alderman had said, this was no exception.  

It should not have collapsed naturally.  

He pretended not to hear her adjusting her cloak and hat as he pondered the issue. The bristles of the broom creaked as it sailed back into the air. Boots clicked over the stone. “I hope you didn’t close your little portal.” She said at his back, aimed with enough force to break cloth and skin alike. “That way, you can hop right back through to your tower.”  

Gregory turned as if he had only just noticed her arrival.  

“Believe me, Miriam, I don’t want to be here anymore than you.” He said gravely. “But this is wizard business.”  

Miriam put her hands on her hips. “Yes, it is wizard business. A wizard started this evil mess and it’ll take a witch to end it.”  

Gregory rolled his eyes.  

“Evil? Really? You’re as narrow minded as the peasants, but at least they’ve got an excuse.” He sighed and glanced back to the pile of rubble, trying to work out if it might be possible to create a 

series of levers to clear the way. “Necromancy is a tool like any other.” He added. “When utilised  appropriately.”  

“A tool?” Miriam’s voice rose in pitch as she drew herself up to her full height of just below his jaw. “A tool doesn’t corrupt the ground. A tool doesn’t poison the air. Necromancy has one use, and it’s tying the natural order in knots and flogging someone with it!”  

Turning back, Gregory used the opportunity to give her a taste of her own herbal remedy and peer so far down his nose he was looking under the rim of his glasses.  

“And an axe leaves a nasty stump for someone to trip over. A knife can take a finger here or there. We haven’t stopped forging either yet.” He turned back and crouched, feeling the stone beneath his fingertips. Slate. Perhaps some sort of explosive spell… “Besides, you talk of messing with the natural order, is that so different from what you do? Every time a baby comes out wrong, when the sheep are lost in the night with the wolves, you just… twist things a little bit, don’t you? That seems to turn out alright.”  

A shadow fell across Gregory and he froze, eyes locked to the silhouette. Not because of the shadow itself, but because overhead, the sun was quite hidden from sight.  

“Don’t you dare compare what I do … what we do … to that.”  

Throat dry, Gregory bulked, words caught in his throat as he looked up to see the look in her  eye.  

He really hated it when she did that. The old crone that had taught her how to do the stare all those years ago ought to be burnt alive.  

With a twirl of the cloak she spun away, letting the hanging threads clock him wetly across the face, catching his stubble and stinging worse than any slap ever could.  

She stalked over towards the young shrubs and adolescent trees that had taken root in the cracked and broken land, pushing their way through the beautifully carved and carefully laid stones like an inevitable green tide. 

Gregory blankly watched her go, shoulders hunched against the rain, eyes tracking down towards her booted feet before coming to rest on the cracked earthworks beneath.  The little raindrops splashed into the puddles, sending ripples streaking out in the pools that had formed across the surface of the uneven stone.  

Fractures. Imperfections. Flaws, in every surface. The stone had yielded an inch or so over the years, and the collapsed barbican would have only made that worse.  

A small smile flickered across his lips, one that he quickly wrestled down to a professional scowl. It had been years since he’d blown something up.  

Standing, he waved a hand, clicked his fingers, and drew forth the smooth and well-polished mahogany staff from the outer dimension. Rolling it between his palms, he took stock of the innate energies around him as they suddenly clarified themselves.  

Taking hold of the amplifier was almost like putting on glasses. The world was full of fuzzy shapes and colours that you could see moving vaguely about you, but it wasn’t until the glass was up to your eye, or the wood was in your hand, that it all snapped into focus. A clear image, a clear mind, as the old masters used to say.  

Lightly, he tapped the bottom of the stave on the ground, enjoying the sound of blue sparks dashing against the wet stones as steam flickered around him.  

An eighth level combustion spell should do it. A sixth level might have even sufficed. But Gregory was cold. And Gregory wanted tea. And both could be solved by being back in his tower, in front of the fire. And a Gregory that wanted to be back in his tower was not one to do things in half measures.  

He listed off the components in his head.  

Some gunpowder—black—for the Accelerant. A piece of slate—dry—or the Sympathy.  Three ounces of tin—ore—for the Focus. But first, some brandy—cognac—for the wizard. 

Tucking the hip flask back into his robes, he began rummaging around in his pockets and pouches. It all had to be here somewhere…  

“I do hope you’re not planning to blast your way inside.” A shrill voice cut across the open courtyard, dripping with disdain.  

Gregory groaned quietly, but he didn’t look up. Yet another reason to rush back to the tower. “A controlled explosion, Miriam, nothing more.” Perhaps a seventh level, then, since the witch was watching. “It’s hardly an unreasonable suggestion. Look at all those rocks!” 

“This land has suffered enough from errant magic. Are you really going to scar it further?” The young witch reached out and laid a hand on a young branch, running her fingers along the thin bark, feeling the spring of the limb full of a millennium of promise and potential. “Besides, it’s hardly subtle, is it? For all your lectures on strategy and tactics, you seem to have missed the wood for the trees.”  

The wizard rose, albeit with some reluctance, turning to stare at the back of her head with tired eyes that were only growing more exhausted with every passing moment. “No. You’ve got me there.” He agreed. “But time marches on, and I can’t see another way in.”  

Miriam closed her eyes, feeling how the leaves tickled the air at the furthest reaches of the plant. How they fed the connected branches, and how those branches joined and merged into the trunk, how that trunk dove deep into the ground, the roots stretching for yards through the mud, where they found others and caressed lightly in the darkness.  

“Have you looked?” She said, after a moment.  

Gregory sighed. “This was collapsed intentionally, Miriam, but it’s still the entrance way. I don’t want to spend the next six hours of my life poking at bits of rubble.”  

“Of course not.” Miriam sighed. “Why bother looking when you could never be bothered to see in the first place?”  

There. A few hundred feet away. A little tunnel, lined by bare chilly roots, pitted and puddled by the falling flow of water.  

Eyes flicking open, the witch turned, just in time to catch sight of the man rubbing black powder between his finger and thumb.  

“You stop that, right now!” She barked, storming back towards him before he managed to align anymore parts of the incantation.  

Gregory turned his weary face back towards her, fingers frozen as he carefully laid the blasting powder over the top of the shard of slate. “What?”  

“There is another way, you fool. A few yards over there. A tunnel runs beneath the walls and comes out inside one of the corridors.” Miriam pointed off towards the encroaching shrubbery with definitive certainty.  

Eyes dropping reluctantly towards the powder and stone, the wizard frowned sadly, feeling the concussive potential slipping away from him under the watchful weight of the witch’s gaze. “How do you know?” He asked defiantly.  

She folded her arms. “The earth speaks of many secrets, Gregory, if one is willing to listen.” Her eyes flicked down towards his hands. “Now put those away before you hurt someone.” With that, she turned, striding away over the uneven stones.  

He glared at her back as she went.  

If there really was another way in, he could hardly go blowing the place up with her inside. She might even survive…  

With hurried care, Gregory lowered the ingredients to the ground, sprinkling the splinters of tin into the mix and quickly tapping his staff thrice around the mess on the floor, muttering a few loose words as he did.  

Stepping out of his bubble into the rain proper, he groaned, feeling the wind slide its way under his robe and snatch dangerously at his hat. 

Without the ward he’d cast about him, it suddenly occurred to him how ridiculously impractical three feet of stiff red fabric really was.  

Burning self-consciously, he tossed the stave back into the ether and, with a hand to brim and another to hem, he hurried off.  

He avoided as many of the deeper puddles and locks as he could, irritation only growing further as the raindrops hit the tops of his shoes, and he suddenly discovered the red felt and curled toes were not actually waterproof.  

He stopped Miriam at the edge of the stones, thoroughly soaked and rather annoyed. “I say,” He called. “I really must insist you head home and leave this to me—”  “If,” The witch began, the single word cut through his expulsions and compelled his mouth to close before he realised what was going on. “I left this to you, this castle would have just been scattered over the surrounding mile. I think it’s you who should be heading home, Gregory.” She looked him up and down with the disdain of a veteran outdoorswoman. “This is no place for a sorcerer.”  

Letting the hem of his robe fall into the water, the wizard held up a skinny finger in the witch’s face, forcing her back a pace.  

“One: This is a fort, not a castle. It’s clearly far too small, and nor would it have been a place of permanent noble residence.” He raised another finger. “Two: I’m wizard enough to admit the force needed to do that to all this is quite beyond me, nor was it my intention to do so. And three: for goodness sake, don’t step back again.”  

Miriam glanced down to see the heels of her boots were but a fraction from the edge. Beyond that was a gentle slope of slick mud that led down towards a hungry maw in the churned mud. Swallowing her heart, she turned towards the abyss that had formed in the earth. Gregory stepped up beside her and together they peered down into the black. 

Miriam regarded it disdainfully. It had seemed mostly flat from the tree’s perspective, but its roots grew both down and out, and things were always lost in translation between those with critical minds and those without any minds at all.  

Even then, she wasn’t angry with the trees or herself. Had she been alone, it would have been little more than a minor inconvenience.  

But regrettably, she wasn’t.  

“That’s your tunnel?” Gregory cried. “I’ve seen more friendly angles of attack from a trebuchet! That’s not a tunnel, that’s a pit!”  

She glared at him. “Finished?”  

“Have you annoyed any particularly malicious trees recently? Are you sure there’s not a horde of botanical demons down there, waiting for a snack?”  

She glared a bit harder.  

Gregory took the hint, but not without one last jab.  

“I mean, really …”  

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. It’s a tunnel, isn’t it?” The witch said defensively. “And it leads right into the castle! Honestly, there’s no pleasing some people.” “Fort.” Gregory quietly corrected.  

Miriam’s eyes narrowed so much completely disappeared.  

“Well, you can stay outside the fort, then,  and sod off home, whilst you’re at it.” With that she turned and began to eek her way downwards, heavy boots sinking into the thick coco-coloured mud, though providing worrying little security for it.  

“For goodness sake, Miriam, what are you doing?!” Gregory sighed. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”  

She spun, hands against the wet earth, the sodden ground rising between her fingers. Her cloak coiled around her like a great python, the wet mass of the thing weighing her down. 

The hole yawned hungrily below.  

“Stop it!”  

Ignoring him, the witch slid clumsily to the edge of the chasm. She peered down between her open legs. The rain thundered down from overhead, cascading into the darkness and falling from view.  

Maybe it was the darkness, brought along by the wet and wind, but from where Miriam was standing, wherever the bottom was, it was a long way down.  

“Right, that’s it!”  

Peering around, she spied a gnarled knot of old roots just across the way, exposed from where the ground had collapsed in a mudslide. Clearing her mind, she stretched out a hand, fingers brushing the expanse of ancient life that ran under the soil.  

It wasn’t enough.  

With a grunt, she leant further, boots squelching as the mud pulled at the heels of her boots as they rose into the air.  The wind cast itself down upon her as her free hand curled around an outcrop of brown rock. Just a little further…  

Gregory descended into view, silently levitating on a disk of shimmering blue light. He had his hands raised to his hips, lips thinned, exuding a general sense of disappointment.  “Really?”  

“Go.” She grunted. “Away.”  

Expanding with his sigh, the disk ballooned slightly, digging into the mud beneath her until one foot was all but resting upon it.  

“I don’t need your help.” She hissed.  

“No, but you will if you keep that up.”  

Finally dragging her attention away from the roots, she turned to glare up at him. 

His shoes were no longer red, nor was the hem of his robe. Instead they had taken on a dark brown colour almost unheard of in wizarding circles.  The brim of his hat was even starting to droop under the force of the water.  

Clearing her throat, Miriam pushed herself upright, feeling her heels sink through the mud and come down upon the summoned platform.  It was certainly more stable, but there was a slither of springiness that still turned her stomach.  

“Thank. You.” She spat, more out of manners than real meaning.  

Gregory looked down at the mud-stained witch in front of him, but he didn’t show his relief. The weight taken off his shoulders as she’d left the holeside had been added back to his mind as soon as she’d stepped aboard.  For one brief moment, he considered taking them back up to safety and telling her to stay put, if he’d not known she’d be back in the mud before you could say ‘unnatural disaster.’ Gods, the outside really was an accursed place.  

He sighed loudly, meeting her hard eye. “Brace yourself, then.”  

Steadily, they began to descend at a crawling speed, down into the dark, The muddy walls rotted with root and stone, pressing in close and closer still, until he was forced to bring them to a halt, the blackness leering in from every side as the rain continued to shimmer down upon them. He took a step closer and cleared his throat.  

“The disk is … ahem … too wide.” He said to the darkness, coughing again. “You need to come in a bit.”  

There was a pause, then the sound of rustling clothes, punctuated by the unnaturally loud click of a boot that echoed up and down the sodden tunnel.  

Gregory gritted his teeth and waited for it to subside as he felt her breath tickling his chin. “Sorry.” Miriam muttered, glad he couldn’t see her face glowing red. 

They continued a moment later, the sound of their breathing all too close under the tiny echo of the raindrops upon their hats.  

After another agonising minute the disk finally splayed itself into the waterlogged earth, evaporating at the impact with the brief sound of sand pouring over glass.  

“One moment.” Gregory extended his hand and blindly drew his staff out of the outer dimension. As soon as it was in his hand he thumped it against the floor and the carved wooden tip ignited into heatless flames.  

Together, they blinked against the newly birthed light until some semblance of sight returned, and they noticed the sudden turn of the tunnel, leading off under the fort proper. Miriam regarded him with a cool glare, before tilting her head in thanks. As she turned, storming her way over the crumbled earth and mud as best she could, there was a noise like water being wrung out from several yards of damp cloth.  She turned suspiciously, only to see Gregory standing there, blue runes fading in the air, leaving his spotless crimson regalia a brilliant eyesore under the dancing firelight. Miriam arched an eyebrow.  

“It’s a little cleaning spell, perfectly harmless.” He huffed. “I don’t see why I need to spend the rest of the day damp and dirty.” There was a pause. “If you like I could-”  

“No, thank you. A little dirt never hurt anyone.”  

With that she turned, stalking off into the darkness, letting her feet guide where her eyes failed, the eastwards crook in her hat the only thing stopping it from catching on the ceiling. Sighing, Gregory removed his own hat and moved to follow, the futility of his words matched only by the futility of trying to keep his robes clean, as the hem immediately dropped into another chasmic subterranean puddle.  

It was dryer here, though. The shaft that let the rain in also kept it contained, and soon enough the dirt hardened and compacted, fading into ancient stone as the hillside gave way to the foundations of the fort.  

As their path turned upwards, Gregory regarded the distant figure of Miriam carefully. There was a feeling in the air, an odourless stench that set your teeth on edge and your head spinning.  This place had been carved with magic. Wizard’s magic. The only way in and out – except  for the boldest of climbers – was by levitation disk.  

Of course, he’d already known this. What concerned him now was that it was suddenly so blatant, an offence to the magically inclined senses, and that meant at any moment…  

“You lot can’t just leave well enough alone, can you?”  

There it was.  

“Miriam, please.” He sighed, coming to a halt and tucking the hat under his arm. “I told you this was wizard business. Look, I’ll send you back up, you can even take the staff. Leave it to me. Please.”  

She shook her head.  

“Oh no, I don’t care what’s up there, I’m not leaving until I’m sure it’s all been put to rest.”  She glared again. “Properly.”  

With that she was gone.  

Gregory hurried after her, feeling the incline start to burn his poor legs, atrophied from long sessions in the chair by the fire. Such was the drain, it took him longer than he would have liked to admit to realise that he was now climbing a set of curling stairs, lined with brick and antique iron.  

They emerged into a little corridor, the remnants of a rotting carpet underfoot the only decoration. Somewhere overhead, light leaked from broken windows. 

As Gregory placed his hands on his knees and fought for his breath, Miriam surveyed the corridor, turning so that he wouldn’t see the rapid rise and fall of her chest as her heart pounded in her breast.  

This close. She could feel it. Just down the hallway.  

The world was full of natural energies; their flow and pull dictated all things, from the unnoticeable microscopic events that happened a million times a second to the unknowable movements that took a billion years to come to fruition.  Even the wizards knew that.  

Observing these flows and only intervening when absolutely necessary was the hallmark of her craft.  

They treated it more like rummaging about as if you were looking for a certain tool in a full drawer, careless of how many errant pins might catch your fingers or what you might spill on the cosmic kitchen floor.  

And just like the mess on the floor, it left its mark.  

Her lips thinned.  

And now another wizard had appeared with a broom, as though he could brush the whole lot under the bureau before anyone noticed.  

Her feet carried her down the hall, and Gregory leapt to follow. They took a right at the junction, and suddenly the wall of magic was upon them pressing down like the tide, leaving them reeling.  

Miriam regained her balance quickly and took a breath, letting it wash over her until she felt the change in the current and leapt forward. As it turned again, she paused, bracing herself against the shift. Like a dancer, she waited for the rhythm and soon she was there, a shadow under the arch that led to the old hall. 

Gregory found himself floundering under the pressure for a moment, pressing his will against the wash of raw magic as it seemed to worm its way into his very being, through his ears, eyes, and nose.  

“Oh, for goodness sake.” He spat, drawing the staff up before him, extinguishing the flame and drawing the sea of power about him closer. For a glorious moment, his soul touched infinity, and his skin seemed to blaze like the surface of the sun.  

Intoxicating as it was, such things could not be sustained.  

Bringing the staff down, he let the magic flood the stone, sending rending cracks shooting up the walls and churning the carefully laid floor into a craggy sea of shards and rocky splinters. The energy ebbed and flowed away, leaving his skinny form tingling like he’d received the lingering kiss of a lover.  

With a calming breath, he reluctantly pushed the feeling aside and strode up the corridor to join Miriam at the edge of the cavernous room, taking a different kind of pleasure from the look upon her face.  

She opened her mouth to chastise him, but another booming voice beat her to it.  “Who dares disturb the great- Oh, Gregory. What on earth are you doing here?” Pulling his eyes away from the furious witch, Gregory turned to regard his colleague, slipping the staff from one hand to another.  

“Hello, Timothy.” He said, tiredly.  

The other wizard was clad in a similar style of robe, though the shoulders had sprouted points and all the reds had deepened to coal black. His raven hair had been slicked back unevenly, and a rather patchy goatee had taken root around his mouth.  

Otherwise, he looked the same, dishevelled, slightly sunken man he had been when they’d  last seen each other at the college wine and cheese evening a month prior.  

A black pointed hat lay on the raised altar beside him, a wicked white knife close by, beside a messy clump of orange fur that Miriam judged might have once been a fox.  

Behind him, the air seemed to shimmer and thrum, like it had been pulled too tightly from all sides, growing thin and distorted.  Purple and blue seemed to leak through, wafting into reality from places that really should be quite separate.  

Timothy’s eyes fell to Miriam, saw the look that awaited him there and frowned. “Oh.” He said after a moment. “It’s like that is it?”  

“Now you listen to me, young man.” She began, but Gregory swept past her, staff catching her on the shin and driving her to silence.  

“Timothy.” He started carefully. “I think this has gone quite far enough.”  

Timothy sighed. “But I’m so close, I know it!” He protested. “Not much longer now and I’ll be done and dusted – you won’t hear a peep from me! I give you my word.”  

“We both know it doesn’t work like that. Even if you managed to do it successfully – and that’s a big ‘if’, old chap – it can’t last forever.” Gregory gave him a look lined with lead. “It’s time to let go.”  

“I can’t do that.” Timothy replied, shoulders falling.  

“Excuse me.” Miriam piped up, looking between the pair of them. “What the bloody hell is going on?”  

Gregory rolled his eyes. “I told you this was wizard business, Miriam.”  

“I’m not going to lose him!”  

The words echoed off the walls, leaving silence in their wake. Tears welled in the man’s eyes.  

“Listen, Tim.” Gregory took another step forward. “I want you to close the rift and go home. We’ve all lost people, but it’s no excuse for this kind of nonsense.” 

Miriam prowled forward, softly in his shadow.  

“I’ll dismantle it next week when I’m done.” Timothy pleaded. “You can even come and help if you like!”  

Gregory shook his head. “Tim …”  

“Please.”  

“Timothy.” Gregory said, all warmth fleeing his voice as he levelled it to a stern point. “I’m not going to lose him!” Timothy cried again, and this time the veil behind him flexed. The tendrils of ethereal fog creeping over the floor flared and slithered hungrily towards him, pooling on the flagstones like the rain outside.  

Miriam dug her elbow into Gregory’s back.  

“This may be wizard’s business but this is witch’s territory.” She hissed. “Shut up before you get us killed.”  

She stepped out, drawing the crying wizard’s gaze almost immediately.  

“Listen to me, Timothy!” She said, not unkindly. “Losing someone is hard! I know you must be feeling awfully wretched right now, but you’re hurting people! There’s a village out there full of people, and what you’re doing here puts them in danger! Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, wives and husbands – all of them! Do you want them to feel the same way as you do now?” 

Timothy looked down towards his curly black boots.  

“I just want him back …”  

Miriam glanced at Gregory, who gave her an equally draining look.  

She turned back. “Tell me about him. What was he like?”  

A tear fell to the floor. “He was wonderful. Every morning he’d be there as soon as I opened my eyes. We’d spend every evening together by the fire… he’d fall asleep in his chair, and I’d have to carry him up to bed.” A sob wracked his body. “I loved him so much.” Miriam nodded. “He sounds very kind. How long were you together?”  

“Twenty years, I’ve had him since I was a child.”  

“That’s … I’m sorry?”  

Timothy pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and sobbed loudly into the fabric. “He used to sun himself on the windowsill in the library, and he’d sit there meowing if anyone dared to put anything in his spot.”  

Turning to regard the altar, she stared at the ball of orange fur. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gregory rubbing his tired eyes.  

She pivoted quickly. “It sounds like he lived a long life. A good life. That’s worth celebrating, you know.”  

Timothy’s red eyes found hers. “I just don’t know what to do without him.”  

“Do you really think he’d want you down here? You should be out in the sun, in his honour. By the fire, in your chair. That’s what he would have wanted. Not this.”  

“I just want him back …”  

Miriam sighed and took a step forward. “Come on, let’s get you a nice cup of tea. You’ll catch a dreadful cold down here.”  

Timothy sniffed loudly, looking up at her again.  

“I’m sorry. But I can’t leave. I won’t. I’m this close, and damn it all, I’m not leaving without him.”  

The expression on Miriam’s face cooled rapidly.  

“I’ve shown you compassion.” She said sternly. “Do not mistake it for timidity, Timothy.”  Gregory sighed again, putting her teeth on edge.  

“Look,” he began. “I don’t want to do this, but—”  

“You can’t stop me!” Timothy roared, leaping backwards. “The binding ritual is nearly complete! The power of the twilight plains will be mine!” The air between them shimmered, hardening into a solid wall of invisible energy. “Mittens will come back to me, when I call him!” 

“Oh, for goodness sake.” Gregory muttered, flexing his wrist and smashing his staff into the ground thrice.  

A distant roar rocked the room, sending dust and debris flittering down upon them. The very ground seemed to shake, and Timothy looked up in fear, shifting the barrier between them overhead to deflect a sizable piece of rock plummeting towards his head.  Gasping in shock and relief, he failed to notice Miriam approaching until her fist connected with his jaw, and he crumpled to the floor like a sack of malevolent potatoes. Gregory leapt forward and jabbed the staff towards the rift, letting blue light burn away the anchoring runes, causing the portal to hiss and snap wildly before finally giving up and fleeing the material realm.  

The dust settled as they both stared up at the freshly cracked vaulted ceiling. “Did you just punch his lights out?” Gregory gasped. “So much for that legendary witch’s compassion!”  

Miriam turned. “Given what he was about to try and do, I’d say that was compassion for everyone in a seven-mile radius.”  

Gregory looked down at his fallen colleague, considering his options, until Miriam crouched down beside him and tried to hoist him over her shoulder.  

“Come on,” she grunted, “give me a hand.”  

“What on earth are you doing with him?”  

“Taking him back to the village. He needs a strong cup of tea and good chat. And some time outside.”  

Reluctantly, Gregory cast his staff back into the ether and helped hoist the comatose wizard up between them.  

“I wasn’t expecting that sort of thing from you, Miriam, I must say.” He said. “The glaring is all above board, but the punching was a bit of a surprise.”  

Miriam grunted. “When dealing with wizards, I find the most direct course of action is the most effective.”  

Fresh light spilled in from where the blast had cleared the rocks. Perhaps slightly more cleared than Gregory had originally intended, but he wasn’t going to mention that now. Fresh air swept the room. The rain had finally stopped.  

“Well, I’ll certainly have to remember the whole ‘talking them down with empathy’ trick. Worked a treat!”  

Miriam gave him a suspicious look over Timothy’s slack shoulder. “Will you indeed?” 

“Oh, yes! Got you close enough to sock him, didn’t it?” Gregory grinned.  

The witch sighed. “There we go.” 

©2025 M.C. Read

M.C. Read lives in East London, UK, writing fantasy, sci-fi, and whatever else grabs his attention. He is now actively building a list of published shorter pieces and seeking representation for his longer work.