Witch vs Wizard

Chapter 1

               “But, Mr. Wizard, why can’t we chant in English?” inquired a fair-faced adept positioned at the inner circle of enchantment. Her freckles were so thick it caused her milk-white skin to appear beige.

“To chant in Celtic,” replied Wizard, “is to add power to your words, Ms. Adept. Now, resume; Sgothan geala.” Wizard echoed the words in his head, rain cloud.

“But I’ve heard older apprentices chant in English,” she persisted and halted her feet, which in turn stopped the entire inner circle. Shoulders bumped into chests, and juvenile curses came from the group of adepts. Nevertheless, the outer ring continued its formation strong, ignoring the chaos. Wizard had purposely placed the stronger of the class to the inner circle, and now he second-guessed his initial interpretation of this particular adept. If she complained to have the easy way out of a chant, she would undoubtedly be more inclined toward the easy way out of thaumaturgy.

“Ms. Adept,” Wizard held his words calm, steady with patience, “you have disturbed the flow of energy. I will you. Please resume.” He pulled his glasses off the bridge of his nose and rubbed the exasperation out of his eyes. He then motioned for the circle to close once more and continue their motion. He loved his adepts. To watch them grow gave him such pride.

It took a few extra steps and miscalculations from some adepts, but they fell into place, and soon, the movement of the two circles flowed.

Once you channel the energy from our Earth, Ms. Adept, and master your power, you then may chant in English. He placed the reassuring words gently in her mind.

Thank you, Professor Wizard, she smiled with a response.

Deep in the Seminary of Thaumaturgy, Wizard thrived on the growth of power in his adepts. His teachings were whispered in seminaries across the land. Professors alike spoke of Wizard, boasted of his excellence at quick learning of thaumaturgy to adepts. How powerful their magic grew together as a community from Wizard’s infamous lessons. He pined to one day be named Mage, and Professor Mage would sound lovely. He smiled at the thought, his cobalt blue eyes full of optimism for the future.

Many hundreds of adepts past had come through this seminary with him, and many hundreds more will follow. To move upward in the ranks, what is a name but what you attest to. Children born with nothing but the Earth’s potential are named infants. Prove elevation toward magic, and they are enrolled in seminaries to learn the art of thaumaturgy and called them to be adept. Junior apprentices follow before they progress, move to their own, and are named Wizard. Likewise, women carry Witch’s name once they graduate from seminary school. The prefix determines their rank, and Wizard had honoured with being dubbed Professor Wizard several hundred years ago.

Any infants not proven to be close enough to the Earth to be enrolled in a seminary, directed to work as a labour rogue. Either at home or in the fields, everyone is expected to contribute. All rogues lay their energy back into the Earth much earlier than a Witch or Wizard, and one controls it all; Master Mage.

No matter the abode, seminary, or shop, there was meant to be no floor. The Earth must be dirt open to all thaumaturgy practicing beings, and they too must wear no shoes. It allowed energy to flow in and through them to flow naturally back into the Earth. To be recycled once more. Wizard’s wife, Witch, too, knew this rule well. When she was still an adept in his class, he recalled how she would be the one teaching the other adepts the reasons why.

Witch, as Wizard recalled, once had been as promising as the fair-faced adept in his class. She had excelled at thaumaturgy young adept in his class. Witch was the curious and most potent of his course. She had returned to him one day a hundred years after her own graduating from seminary. He recalled the day, the careless bump outside of school. Outside in the same fields they worked on now. Just fifty-seven years past, those corresponding fields where Master Mage approved their wedlock.

Wizard trained his thoughts from his beautiful wife back to the chant of the room.

The voices came together in perfect unison. The power rose in the air, lighting the room in electrical sparks. The Celtic chant was forced louder by the hum of magic, and the adepts got it. They understood thaumaturgy. The energy in the middle of the smaller circle pulled up from the dirt floor. Specks of sand suspended by nothing other than the children’s words. The dots grew until it was a cyclone of dirty air; it threatened to topple and spill before reaching too high. The adepts pushed harder, yelling their chant above the crackle that filled the room. Wizard secretly added his power to the growing cyclone, with not a word but only a slight wisp from his hand; he smoothed the sides and formed the teetering storm into a solid branched funnel of Earth.  

“It’s the tree of life!” The fair-faced adept shrieked in a solid breath of joy before returning to her chant. The trunk grew stable and robust from the dirt Earth floor. Obsidian dark particles are swirling too fast to see the separation any longer. The almond-shaped branches grew and stretched out above the adept’s crowns. The energy pushed them thin into twigs, and all shaded the Earth.

Soon the thin twigs snapped off from the trunk’s branches, darkened to a lucent navy of storm clouds and spun as a whimsical cloud. Then, finally, the cylindrical growth of energy fell in a wave and reabsorbed into the ground.

The cloud swam free above them, twisting out soft white wisps. Wizard crossed his arms to observe, leaving the energy solely controlled by the adepts. The escaping wisps pulled in once more, the two circles of children walked in different directions, and the chant was held secure. The colour of the glamorous azure darkened and was ready.

Wizard held his deity built by his adepts, proud as he stroked his soft grey beard. Hundreds of years of experience as a professor had grown the Hair on his chin long, but it stopped short of mage status. An heir would be better, but a reliable battery of adepts succeeded in thaumaturgy early did wonders for one’s situation.

“You see, Ms. Adept, the power of your chant?” Wizard motioned to the spinning electrical cloud of formed thaumaturgy. The fair-faced adept smiled widely, her lips moving in unison with her mates.

The Earth gave energy to each living creature, and almost all grew into strong enough adepts. They would grow older and contribute their energy then back to the Earth by assisting crop growth, cloud movement, and abode building. The few adepts that honed their skill would grow to be named Witch or Wizard. The ones that faltered would be called Adept for the entirety of their years, typically not stretching to hundreds of millennia such as wizards would be gifted. Witches would be slightly less, all depending on the strength of their energies.

The teaching of thaumaturgy was limited even more. Only select wizards would become professors, and Wizard was lucky to choose. He was lucky enough to say he had a class full of young adepts that looked up to him and pined so profoundly to be his adepts.

Wizard was satisfied. His broad chest frame grew as he inhaled self-importance, as his class produced the energy more tremendous this morning. More remarkable than they had before. He placed his strong hands on each outer circle adept’s shoulders and pursued the ring to part. Finally, he stepped through the inner circle, and the students smiled widely at their professor.

Wizard stood firm in the middle, his head high. He peered over the cloud of energy. It darkened from the deep blue to an obsidian black and proved ready. The professor raised his arms, slow and steady. He whispered one word of encouragement, “falbh,” ‘go.’ The magic swam above the two interlinked circles of adepts and out the window. Passed through the glass quickly as if made of nothing but air, the thaumaturgy cloud showed no hesitation before opening its energy and releasing life-giving rain into the seminary field.

The class cheered with excitement, and the smaller adepts fell onto their bottom, spending their energy. The fair-faced adept that had earlier doubted the power of the chant smiled broad and stood firm. The power was still durable in her, snapping at her wrists and falling reluctantly back to the Earth.

“Excellent work,” Wizard addressed the whole class but matched the gaze only that particular adept. “Tomorrow, the seminary field will yield wondrous fruits.” A silent snap of his fingers added a spark of growth power to the downpour of the black cloud. Its colour faded to the cosmic blue as the energy expended over the newly fertilized field. The beginner adepts had planted the seminary field, but it was up to these to compel it to grow. Wizard wanted to be sure it offered something sweet tomorrow to reward his adepts truly. The simple snap had told the field to produce at least two dozen strawberries by the following day, and he bid his students a due.

Chapter 2

“Welcome home, my love.”

Wizard received a greeting before his foot was even through the doorway of his abode. The sugar sweetness of his wife’s voice filled the entry, and he was sure she used precognition to offer her greeting. He placed his briefcase in the same spot as every evening, and the soft dirt floor created a crevasse to hold it upright. The love and affection that his wife, Witch, filled the house with were immense. She made it as a curtain of warmth to melt the woes he might carry from his day. It brought a radiant smile to his greyed fox face.

“Hello, my wife,” replied Wizard as he walked through the new room to find Witch. Dressed as a proper lady and elegant queen, she stood to wait for his embrace. He smiled seductively and walked to her, welcoming the instant lover’s hug.

“How was the seminar today?” Witch pushed a loose strand of grey hair from his face. It had turned salt and peppery since he had become a professor, and she loved the new look. She kissed his soft beard before moving her lips to meet his.

Wizard embraced his beautiful wife as they kissed, an energetic show of lovers even with so many years passed. He held her back to admire the soft tones of her face. His face, strong and handsome, had begun to show profound age lines. Some deep enough to hide dust, carved from long nights of study. Witch’s face appeared to grow more radiant, more youthful with the passing of years. Her Hair of Semblance, a hereditary power, faded and shifted between the subterranean black that she loved and the ginger honey kiss shade that he loved. She enjoyed showing it off to Wizard. A swift nick of her head and the strands flower-free and colourful. A snap of blonde and she turned back to continue the preparation of their evening meal.

               “Wonderful,” Wizard answered his wife’s inquiry, “the adepts are learning well.”

“They have a brilliant professor,” she winked with a flick of the hip, her petite frame not lost beneath layers of crinoline. The embossed apron clung to all the right curves, and Wizard envied her grace. She touched nothing as the buns rose and the butter browned. Witch rubbed her thumb and forefinger together to pinch the ingredients together.

Wizard smiled at the compliment, “one is shining brighter than average,” he commented as he recalled the fair-faced girl adept.

“Oh?”

“I have considered gifting the knowledge of my thaumaturgic ability to her,” Wizard began as he positioned himself at the dining set, “it may enhance her direction of energy. It could turn her Mage. It may be in her; those powerful enough to become Mage are rare. They are far too scarce, and adepts are becoming weaker as the decades passed. Too complacent to create protection spells for the city. Adepts use more energy than what they create. It could happen that one day all the energy will go back into the Earth, and thaumaturgy may be gone forever.” He had spoken, so engulfed in his own out loud thoughts. Using his power to set the table around Witch as he told, he had failed to notice the demeanour of his wife change. The words he had said stung her.

“Why would you gift it to an adept in your class?” Her voice caught on the emotion. Anger was apparent, but a deep sorrow hid below. Highlighted by the fact her husband was considering gifting his thaumaturgy away. As if he had given up already.

Witch dropped her hands to snap her gaze to him, and her Hair reflected the crimson anger that boiled up. Wizard swallowed dryly, regretting his words before they were out, “I have no one else to gift it to.” He dropped his eyes at the immediate guilt he felt: the decades that had passed, complex trials of attempts. Wizard had risked losing his career, abode, and everything to surmise an infant. They had tried well past the suggested time frame for an infant. The possibility of it occurring had been deemed impossible by the physician. All avenues spent; all enchantments of common knowledge attempted. The physician had signed off stated it was futile for Witch and Wizard. That was the word. There was no going back.

“You could still….” Witch stuttered, all cooking behind her abandoned. Her words were interrupted by Wizard moving from the table to her grabbed her hands into his own. Her skin was so soft. She smelt of fresh-cut flowers and smoked amber. Witch’s lip quivered as the depression welled up once more. It had taken several years for the Wizard to work Witch through these feelings. To accept the fact, they would not have an infant. He didn’t realize she still clung to the off chance.

His hands were warm, but they did nothing to prevent the flow of tears. Her Hair failed to a desperate almond; her eyes sunk with grief. She had not thought Wizard had given up. Witch gulped back the well of emotion and corrected her wording, “We could still have a chance at an infant. I found another invocation, stronger….”

“Witch, it is not to be. Physician has said it.”

“I may just need larger quartz…” her eyes fell to the coral-coloured amethyst held in a tight metal tooth claw on their dining table. Witch had spent all of her energy’s day in and day out for years to trade for that amethyst. So many evenings were spent sleeping long before Wizard due to her conjuring garden days for the lesser-powered neighbours. The rogue neighbours that could hardly yield a lettuce harvest free hand. The amethyst seemed to swirl and reflect the attention, brightening in response to a crazed lilac. She reached for the quartz, which held so much hope, but it still failed her.

               Witch dropped her eyes, misery wrapped dark fingers around her heart and squeezed it. She choked as she stood just before the dining table where her husband sat, holding her hands.

               “There are only so many years to impart my wisdom. To share the teaching of thaumaturgy is necessary. But, my love, you cannot bear an infant. It has been deemed futile.” Wizard watched as Witch’s Hair turned from the mouse brown of a passive wife and grew to a lump of fiery coal. Not her typical black but a gray shade that threatened Wizard to stop talking. Her eyes trained on the quartz in the middle of the table, “it is no use for us. We must give up.”

               Instead of his words comforting Witch, her face darkened. An understanding was gone as the emotional wipe snapped.

“You would accept no infant in our family?” Her voice rose as did meniscal dirt particles from the Earth below Wizard’s feet. He could feel the electricity crackle without even a whisper of a mantra from Witch. She was so powerful. Wizard had secretly placed trinkets of understanding under her pillow in the evenings. To try to woe that needs for an infant that she had. He knew it was useless, and she was only torturing herself to continue to pine for one. It was so ingrained in her soul.

               “My love, Witch,” he tried to appeal to her, but as a clay mask finally cracked, she pulled away, and the sadness dissipated to more intense emotion. The raw anger, the contempt she held for her husband for giving up hope.

The air in the room changed. It charged with electricity from Witch’s growing fury. Her ability to pull energy from Earth was strong. Wizard felt the crackle of current in the Hair on his arms. The strands of hair tucked behind his ears stood outward from the charge in the room.

               “You give up on us! To turn your power to an adept at your seminary!” The words smelt of venom in the room. Her lips set in a line. The peach hue in her cheeks darkened to blood rose. “I am not going to give up,” she snapped. Her emotions spiralled out of control, and the Hair of Semblance shattered to an unearthly lava red. She interlaced her fingers to attempt to hold power, but Wizard knew it was futile. The burst was coming.

               “My love,” Wizard reached out for her, but she pulled herself onto a plane higher than him, lifting her body off the dirt Earth, bringing a cascade of molecules below her naked toes, falling as a continued waterfall beneath her.

               “I tried the goat’s milk with honeysuckle, as you suggested!” Dagger-edged words smacked across Wizard’s face, fueled by Witch’s tears. The green in her eyes lit as her Hair danced around her head, creating a demonic crown forged of rage.

               “There are other incantations we can try,” Wizard compelled her to come down. Then, desperate in the wake of his wife’s outburst, he spun his fingers as if encircling an invisible ball in the air. Dread sat on his chest if she heard him whisper the binding spell.

               “I tried the incense in my seed carrier!” She lashed out and burst the small weaved basket into a straw. It blew in mid-air and flitted back to the dirt floor in splinters. An echo of the grass explosion was soft but there, all the same. Wizard insisted harder, coaxing his wife down from her turmoil. The dirt below his feet began to shift, pulling up like a rug under his feet. The emotional mayhem Witch was suffering darkened the room. It was pulling the abode into a singularity if Wizard couldn’t stop it.

               The glass became pliable in the windows from her power.

               The lights snapped off, and blackness rolled in to encase her.

               Witch shrieked a warrior’s cry and the table that Wizard had been sitting at burst into toothpicks.

               “I tried the wine distilled from orange cloudberry!” She screamed.

The wall of new bottle wine wavered, the integrity of the building itself shifted, and the glass burst. The spray created a wave of sangria to the dirt earth floor. Witch hardly flinched.

               “My love,” pleaded Wizard as the binding spell fell away from Witch. Soft wisps of failed thaumaturgy, as feathers, floated to the dirt, and the broken, calm blanket of his incantation fell away from her body. She grew in power fuelled by desperation, depression, and infuriation. The power of electrical energy in the room was choking Wizard, “Witch,” he gasped. Collapsed to the dirt floor, Wizard watched his wife become overtaken by grief.

               “No!” Witch wept her desperation loud into the pliable windows. The shriek then echoed as they shattered. “You want to give away your thaumaturgy! You want to give up!”

Wizard pulled the energy from the dirt waterfall beneath her feet. He drew as a tug line solidified them with a hard clap of his hands. The sand turned to bind ropes, hard as a rock but supple as silk, and he willed them to wrap around her body.

More effective than a calming spell, they would absorb her fury as they pressed into her flesh. There was the potential for them to cut the skin only slightly, and it was a risk Wizard had to take. If they worked, they would stop her, dissipate into the atmosphere, and take all memory of the fight with them.

“Mar ròpa, ceangail I,” as if that fair-faced adept were with him now, words powerful spoken in English to add to his energy, her tiny voice echoed in his mind, “as a rope, bind her.”

“Mar ghaol, socair leatha,” echoed again, “as love, calm her.” Wizard was so tired, and it took everything from him to pull the energy from the Earth. His palms were cramped as they whirled the circular motion to create the snap of the ropes. Amber laces built of Earth grew faintly, but he lost his breath. His hands trembled from exhaustion, and Witch stood bold and powerful still.

The framework of the ropes formed created an outline of warmth around Witch. Ghosted up around her arms, then spread to her legs. The enchanted dirt ropes darkened as they absorbed her temper. The mass intensified from the weight of her internal turmoil. Wizard sighed in relief as he watched the rage melt from her body. Solidified ropes sat around her body as she slumped forward. Witch’s Hair changed from rage electrified blue to a blood-red, then darkened. She weakened with the spent emotion. She swayed, and her eyes sunk. Wizard saw a snap of embarrassment in her eyes. Then, slowly, an ash grey produced balayage lined through her thick strands of pitch-black Hair Semblance. The grey is a metaphor for her acceptance of the inevitable, no infant.

               “No,” she sobbed and broke the ropes to fall to the floor, “I will not allow you to continue to soothe my woes as an adept.” Witch’s words sharpened once more, this time with profound resolve. They cut deep scratches into her husband’s skin unintentionally. Her face to the dirt floor, she was unaware of the force of her words as they pushed him across the Earth and slammed him into the wall. The thin wood caved under his weight. A second whimpered, “no,” was softer, full of agony. The dirt around the torn lovers was littered with glass shards and splintered wood from their dining table—a graveyard of such, an epitome of their crumbling union.

Wizard traced her silhouette as an hourglass with a wobbled fingertip. A last attempt to cut away all remnants of mayhem. Aired out space and tossed the emotions to the dirt. Although not colour or material to them, tufts of dirt still sputtered up as the indiscernible sentiments crashed from his wife.

               “We have taxed all options, my love” exhausted of her energy, Witch drifted back to touch the dirt floor with her toes. Wizard collapsed his head forward, and he, too, was fatigued. Witch cried soft like a mouse and knelt across from Wizard with a slumped posture. Hopeless breaths were the last sound in the broken abode.

               “My wife,” Wizard pulled himself from the cracked wall. Splinters of wood fell around him as he crawled his fatigued form to her. Witch proved to not allow him to her immediately. Instead, she pulled her own body across the floor with a silent chant and built a wall made of fallen emotions and broken glass to block Wizard.

She stood and turned from the haphazard wall, the one that hid her husband’s sullen face from her. The devastation of the kitchen and their marriage that she had inflicted. A part of her anger, depression, and inability to produce an infant. She stepped into entering the next room, the one that sat undisturbed for many a decade. Before she closed the door to the empty nursery, she heard his parting words, “we will not give up.”

Chapter 3

“I appeal to you, my husband,” Witch placed her hands on either side of Wizard’s face and stared into his eyes. Hours had passed with not a word shared between the two and Witch knew this was her last option, “Let us request a spell from Master Mage.”

“Such a spell, my love, requires a mighty offer.”

“Our abode is large. Mage may be content with this as an offer,” Witch placed her head on his shoulder. Witch pined for him to agree. She had pondered on this for some time but dreaded requesting it of him. Knowing he would reject this possibility.

               Wizard shook his head, “he will deny. He felt gratified, standing in his chamber. He has yet to accept such a trivial offer from anyone. What would make our abode so different? There is nothing special about it.”

               “Our friendly, he is the protector of the abode. So, it would make sense for him to be offered as well?” So, Witch willed her husband to release the friendly Serpent with the abode. So, the albino python kept their home safe and kept Witch company on the long-lit hours of the days when Wizard taught at the seminary.

Wizard dismissed her suggestion with a wave of his hand. “No, there are fellow professors that offered Ley Line artifacts for an infant and still denied. You are well aware that the balance of living beings has been nearly expended and can hardly offer infants any longer. The balance of energy on Earth has tipped, which has stopped natural infant births. Master Mage has to be selective of who can become heir now.”

She blinked but refused new tears to appear. Wizard ran his finger down her peach hue cheek.

“My love…” his words were stopped short when Witch planted her lips on his. She loved him so deep it melted even the worst depression away. Her thought of the infant faded as she pressed her body against his. Wizard rolled his hand down her soft neck, electrifying the skin under his fingertips. Pressed firm as his hand reached her bosom, an erotic groan passed between their lips.

 Wizard pulled her petite body tight against his own, “my beautiful wife.” He whispered the words between passionate caresses, and the kissing grew fiercer as his need for her increased.

               Witch planted her body to her husband, his arms strong around her. She pulled back to face him, “I have more to give,” she ran her hands through her hair. Electrified with the erotic increase in the air, it turned from the charcoal black to the colour of a lover’s rose—a passionate pink of the impossible cactus flower—the colour-washed through as if painted by her expert hands. She started at the roots, moved to the tips, and her Hair Semblance sparkled when she wanted. Endued with the power of generational ancestry—the charged strands nestled on the small of her back, just above the curve of her buttocks.  

Illuminated to prove how powerful the Hair Semblance could be, Witch shook her head a simple, swift motion, and the Hair swam to a pure serenity of gold. Wizard lifted the golden silk strands to his face; his wife’s scent was that of heaven. Angelic and full of promise.

               “You cannot give this,” Wizard spoke passionately, caught in the moment of love.

“I could, my love. Master Mage would accept,” her words a soft coo in his ear. Witch tried to appeal to her husband in his moment of passion.

“No,” he pulled himself out of her scent. It had masked what she said. “I command you not to offer your Hair Semblance.” His words firm, he dropped his hands from her body.

Witch stepped back and turned abruptly. Her hand at the nape of her neck swam the golden Hair back to black. Her body was encased in the shell of charcoal once more.

               “You do not command me, wizard.” She snapped the word, not addressed as his name with power but as his sexual orientation being basic as Wizard. “I will offer what I will.”

“I have forbidden it,” Wizard replied, shocked that she would consider challenging him.

“An infant will be mine, and if you refuse me, I will find another wizard.”

“You threaten me! Witch, this is my abode. You will not defy me. You will not offer your hereditary enchantment. Hair Semblance is not to be offered.” His voice grew louder with each syllable in his speech. Anger was his. This time, it made his size tower over Witch as he renewed his energy out of the Earth, as Witch had done hours before.

“This may be your abode, but this is my body,” Witch said, then translocated herself away.

Chapter 4

The antique ebony door was heavy, and it proved to deceive any adept that might enter, but Witch was no adept. She was near one of the most powerful witches in the vicinity, approaching Master Mage. Wizard’s words echoed, such as a light buzz when the thin appearing door swung free from its wooden frame. Magic turned the weight behind her hand from an unfathomable heaviness to that of a feather. Once halfway ajar, the door swung open on its own. The enchantment on the door is a test to weigh the resolve of whom should enter.

               Master Mage’s chamber was affixed to the Seminary of Thaumaturgy but separated all on its own by his enchantments. By the exterior location, it appeared small. As Witch stepped through the dark wooden door frame, it unfolded its immensity before her. It proved to be grandeur, in both size and energy potential. The air energized from Earth; voices emitted from nowhere, particularly whispered of the welcome. An enchantment folded into the space to restrict entrance if unwelcome. Just as the ebony door had limited the weak to enter, the darkness proved to prevent the fearful to continue further. Witch pursued deeper into the chamber, unafraid and more reliable than ever.

Her tassel-adorned feet were naked on the earth floor. The dirt made no smudge on her milk-white skin. She moved with the grace of a queen yet an air of a widow. A dark black cape covered her shoulders and hid the depressed black of her straight dress. When one approaches Master Mage, Formality is required, but Witch’s despair is boasted loud by her demeanour.  

Wizard had been asleep for hours by the time she had gotten caped. The night had been unrelenting when she left the warmth of her abode. The wind had slammed against her body as she struggled toward the seminary against her husband’s will. With the memory of the cold night fresh in her mind, she moved through the darkness in Master Mage’s chambers. The weight of rebellion against her husband was heavy.

She stepped gingerly forward, and the walls stretched for miles ahead. Witch feared Wizard had learned of her arrival and translocated her to a limbo. But then, the abyss broke with a boom of a voice that resonated through her very soul. Master Mage was here, and he sounded as though he anticipated her arrival.

               “The entrance is not for faint at heart,” the sovereign of the statement not lost on Witch. Her breath hitched in her throat, and her Hair inadvertently dimmed to a cool grey. Master Mage could quickly expel her and warn Wizard of her disobedience. It was unheard of to challenge your husband, whether adept, Wizard or Mage.

               “Beg my intrusion,” she kept her voice low but risked another step. Light cleared the room of mystery. The endless walls shrunk, came to an end, and she dropped her eyes as he appeared in front of her. Several meters ahead, Witch tried to will a bold auburn to her Hair to hide any weakness the grey revealed, but it failed her. She had courage only to muster a washed-out umber shade. Breath was thick in her lungs; the infamous tales of Master Mage invaded her mind. Trades that not upheld requests that not completed. A basic forebode from him, and they dispelled. Their energy reabsorbed back into the Earth. The mental image of their dead bodies made up the miles of dirt. The shadowed walls made of souls killed, doomed to repent for eternity to return as an adept if they were so lucky. “I wished only to speak….”

               “I know what you want, Witch,” the authority behind the boom of his voice caused her muscles to contract with distress. Her heart froze. The determination of her bargain failed. Witch was sure she would crumble to dirt. But, instead, the umber hair wisps faded, and she was left white, her Hair Semblance near iridescent. “You were instructed not to come,” the command built an invisible barrier in front of her.

Her steps slowed as she heard the crackle of thaumaturgy in front of her. There was a wall built to refuse her any further. The only movement she could afford was to train her eyes upward and confront the entity she came. Tears thick with dread as she forced the emeralds irises upon him. A flash of awe as they met the image of Master Mage. Few, feared by all, saw them.

               Witch knelt on the dirt floor in front of Master Mage, sitting at his bureau. His long face is encased with ghost-white Hair. His beard screamed of power fell to behind the bureau. The hat atop his crown created an appalling shadow across his brow. Wrinkles cracked through his leathery skin, threatened to break patches off, and emit dust rather than blood.

The old bureau was grand and matched his tarnished skin’s brown shade. Twisted roots of a godly Oaktree bent to create the desk shape. Emerged from the Earth on his right, he turned in an unnatural way to produce a writing surface before it twisted once more to his left and shot upward into a mass of branches and leaves. The tree spurted out at the top, which proved to hide any type of ceiling and spilled behind Master Mage as a curtain. To conceal the horrors he kept in the backside of his chamber, Witch thought.

Witch pulled her eyes away from the concave of a twisted scream in the depth of the Oakwood. She shuddered at the recollection of that particular fable of an adept turned evil for this specific seminary. Banished to live a millennium in foliage that Master Mage willed into a bureau. The humps of what appeared to be the spine, where his pencil rested, shifted from the anticipated consequence.

“Apologies, but…” Witch tripped on her words, and Wizard would forgive her when the infant was born.

               “Yes, Witch, I recognize why you are here, what your lifetime of labour has conjured. Yet never, an heir.” He rose from the bureau without not even a hair move. The length of his beard masked behind the desperate bureau. Yet, perfectly still, not a fraction of a feature shifted on his face. As if he wore a clay mask to hide the rot of his corpse. An illusion of opulence.

His overcoat hauled up with him as he stood. His motion demanded a muffled groan from the bureau. A wrenched from hell sound that was muted by his enormous sleeve. The overcoat is a celestial blue like the night sky with black evil edges. He appeared to hold his past death age form stable.  

               “Master Mage, I will of you, a spell. I wish to give my husband an heir. He deserves one….”

               “No! You distinguish that he deserves one. What makes you so bold, Witch?” The bureau shifted its spinal bumps to attempt an escape from Master Mage’s bellow. Witch buried her face into her kneeling form, she could hide, but the bureau was cursed to feel the wrath of its Mage.

               “Every Witch, every Wizard! They all distinguish, they all determine, they all deserve!” The power behind the words trembled the dirt beneath Witch’s knees. She dropped her body further into the Earth as the beratement continued. “Crops grow thinner, seminaries pack fuller, professors wane scarcer. Every Witch wants more, and every Wizard wants more! But who can offer this balance? Who has the means to take from the stores these enchantments require? Thaumaturgy does not come from air, water, or quartz stones. It comes from Earth. It requires trade. You must surrender before rewarder.”

               Witch’s bosom stung from the pressure of which she pushed her body down—willed for Earth to open and swallow her. Her forearms stretched out; the tips of her fingers touched the barricade of thaumaturgy Master Mage had created. The unholy restriction singed her delicate nails. The separation pushed her desperation and renewed her courage. The words tumbled from her as her lips pressed in the dirt. She had no more time to waste.

“I will of you, my beauty. Take my beauty, the power I have, the Hair of Semblance.” Near inaudible, she rambled before the thaumaturgy wall crashed to her. “I am the last Witch capable of this offering from nearby. It cannot easily be enchanted or willed. Master Mage, I will of you, take my Hair of Semblance. I request an infant, an heir for my husband. Show compassion. The Hair of Semblance, I offer to you to die with you, Master Mage.” The sobs convulsed her body in the dirt. Betrayal dragged a hot knife, but words spun in a cycle in her mind. Just as energy cycled through the Earth, so did the prayer in her mind. To will find the Mage before her to make the trade, make right on the offer she had been strictly prohibited.

               Witch remained doubled over, and her tears turned the dirt to mud. Her lips mouthed the silent words, and her eyes closed tight in fear of what repercussions Master Mage would demand of her feebleness. No professor, mage status, or not would accept this type of blithering. She should have enveloped herself with a strength enchantment before she approached him. To be sure her tears would not fall and show such weakness. “I will,” the luminosity of her Hair grew darker, a wave of internal pain brought back the strength of her black Hair, “Master, I will of you, take my beauty.” There was no sound in front of her, no absolute devotion or otherwise. The silence stretched to eternity as her hope diminished to dirt.

               “Yes.”

               “I will. It is all I want…” his response fell to oblivious ears as Witch continued to sob, “my beauty, my beauty- is yours.”

               “Yes, Witch, stand.”

               She was stunned. Her energy work, she could not stand. Witch pulled the energy of the Earth to hold herself upright. Face turned to the mud, and she was in a near-sleep state. Her hair fell forward, creating a cloak as she stood exhausted and leaning on a pedestal of thaumaturgy. The shock of the acceptance by the Mage in front of her was nearly too much.

“I give to you,” Master Mage spoke and moved through the bureau and the restrictive wall without so much as a blink to touch Witch’s forehead. The touch, so light, knocked her backward. “An infant, you have. He grows, even now.” And the chamber went black once more, and Witch was moved back by Master Mage’s thaumaturgy and out the heavy door. As it was closed, the final of a chant echoed in her ears, “fior bhoidhchead.” Witch, recognized as ‘real beauty.’

               Within a downbeat of her heart, she was back in the living room of her own house. The new morning sun peeked in the window. Witch curled and slept on the couch in her abode. The memory of her visit with Master Mage faded as if it had been a dream of yesteryear.

Chapter 5

               “My love?” Wizard had arrived home from the seminary with no greet. He followed the sound of water to the bathroom, the door open to a floor wet. The water continued to pour into the clawfoot tub, crested over the ceramic edge, and splashed to the floor.

Witch sat ghost-faced pale in the tub, belly full of an infant.

“My love,” he knelt in the puddle next to his wife. He looked at her face, still beautiful, her Hair even night sky black, but her eyes, they were gone. The vibrant green of fresh grass went to a pale grey. Her peach lips were still plump and sensual, but her evenings cooking meals had faded. Her bosom was still full and enticing, but her welcomes to Wizard had stopped. She again looked as Witch once had, but the Witch he loved was gone. Her trapped mind was like a birdcage, and Wizard doubted it would ever return. She was gorgeous and missing, a gazelle with no soul.

Witch had never spoken the admission of her trade with Master Mage, but Wizard suspected she had some interaction. He could only imagine she offered her Hair of Semblance, and Master Mage had eagerly accepted. Wizard was astonished, though, that her Hair Embelance remained. It often shifted from solid black to an icy blue without reason.

“Did you see him?” Wizard would inquire.

“No, I obeyed you.” Witch would lie, but those words only worked as her voice worked, and soon both were gone. The love and the lies faded to mumbles and cries.

               Wizard pondered the truth, and it was not so apparent for him. The trade had not worked, like Witch’s Hair still changed, but it seemed only from the turmoil in her mind. He touched his hand to the infant swell on her naked body. A small foot pushed into his palm, and his heart pulsed with excitement but quickly turned to dust. No matter the love he felt for the infant, his wife was gone. The tears wet her Hair more than the overflow of bathwater. No meditation would give Wizard the answer he sought. Only one could give him the answer, and if his wife gave her mind to Master Mage, she would never know this infant. She would never know the love for this infant.

But if Witch had been truthful in her admission that the goat’s milk in her tea had brought forth the infant, then Wizard would be safe. If Witch had been false, Wizard would pay. It had been the trade he made with Master Mage himself. He recoiled from the dark memory of that visit.

It was after he could watch her suffer no longer. The physicians told him it was the energy required to grow the infant. That once the infant was born, Witch would be his sparkly green-eyed wife once more. He had wanted to believe the physicians but had to be sure. When he had approached Master Mage, he received no answers and was forced to follow through with his threat of shattering the precious bureau. Master Mage had bound and slammed Wizard’s body against an invisible wall. Crushing his spine under the power of energy from the monstrous Mage, Wizard regretted his arrival in the chamber. Even the memory of that day hurt his body. He had wanted she had not befouled his wish.

His offer had been essential and accepted just as quickly. The trade with Master Mage haunted the corner of his mind. It would depend on the truthfulness of his wife. He spent his evenings waiting for the conversations about returning with Witch. For the spark to return to her eyes. The passion for becoming real once more and his best friend, his lover, to flourish. His only hope was to wait for the birth. That would be when the trade would be complete, and he would know then that his wife had been honest. She had obeyed him, and then his deal with Master Mage would be void.

Chapter 6

               Her screams were the first real emotional response Wizard had heard in nine months. Witch translocated through the Seminary of Thaumaturgy to where the infirmary was. The physicians circled her to assist in the delivery of the impending infant. Wizard held her hand firmly. He believed in his core she had been truthful. The infant was coming, and he held his lovers trust. Time soon for her to return once the energy-feeding infant was in his own space and out of Witch.

               Wizard was sure her mental ailment would dissolve as the swell of her belly faded. The love of their infant would grow, and Witch would return into her mind, Wizard was sure. He smiled at his beautiful wife as she screamed in his face. The pain appears in her loud yelp, but Wizard is joyous.

               “Witch,” he tightened his hold on her hand as the grey shifted to white in her eyes. They did not fall to him. Instead, they rolled in their sockets as she screamed once more. “Apologies, my love, for I had believed you to disobey my command. Proven wrong, at this time of our infant’s arrival. I apologize, my love.” He kissed her hand as the physicians spoke labour demands to her. Wizard never told Witch of his visit to Master Mage; she had been an empty shell. It was redundant at this point, Wizard thought to himself. His trade had been dependent on if Witch had approached Master Mage. Wizard was sure she had not. His hand firm in hers, he watched the physicians ready her.

“The infant, it is twisted,” said one.

“It will not come until it is corrected,” said the second and pushed one out of the way. His expert hands were on the swell of Witch’s belly. Pressure in one direction, a lurid shriek from Witch, and a positive reaction from one physician.

“Excellent,” physician two moved around Wizard’s wife with expertise, “now, we translocate to deliver.”

Wizard attempted to translocate with the physicians and his wife.

The infant’s body was turned and ready to emerge.

The physician commanded Witch to push the birth.

Witch blinked, the haze of confusion subsided. She saw her husband affixed in the hall.

Wizard could not translocate; the dirt earth floor commanded his energy. He compelled to not.

Physician commanded Witch to impulse, and the infant was near.

               Witch cried as the infant’s crown released from her energy.

               Wizard could no longer see his wife, his sight taken. His mind turned to a tunnel, and his cheek hit the cold dirt floor.

               Witch watched in horror as her husband’s body collapsed. The semblance of Witch returned as the counter spell took effect.

Physician held the infant.

The Earth’s energy reabsorbed Wizard, but his cheek grew warm.

Witch cried an animal scream as her husband’s energy lay dead on the dirt floor.

Physician offered the infant to the Witch. She sobbed heavily.

Witch held her infant wizard, and thaumaturgy required balance.

               His eyes were closed, but he knew he was alive.

               The air stings his lungs, but he knows it’s fresh.

               The blood wiped off his body, but he knew it was his mothers.

               Wizard is no more; the memories of his wife fade. He was wiped clean with his mother’s kiss.