The Witch's Want

I'm a little torn here. I suppose that this ought to go into the Non-Human category, but then... I dunno. All this guy wants is to finish the life that he started as. That's not possible, so now he'd just like to HAVE a life. I guess that makes him just like a lot of folks, no? ~grin~

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The glare of the headlight danced along the pavement and flickered off the leaves of the trees, bushes and roadsigns up ahead as the mechanical horse thundered steadily through the darkness.

Bart was tired. Bone-tired, beat, and just plain road-weary on the way to another nondescript job in another featureless town. He reached over to the handheld GPS that he'd mounted on the handlebars and squeezed the button to turn on the red night-lighting for a second and grunted to himself.

Maybe another half-hour to the motel and a bed.

He listened to the rumble and took a bit of comfort from it. Most days, he felt just like that, even and steady, as though he could go on forever.

Well, he surmised, he'd already been going on pretty much forever, considering. But he was getting to the end of a long day in the saddle and decided that the bike was the stronger of them for now. And that was fine with him. He'd been riding toward this job interview for two and a half days now.

He smirked to himself. He'd already be there, warm and fed if he hadn't given in to the desire to just spend the afternoon sitting on his ass in the roadhouse two hundred miles back, chewing the fat with the waitress and daydreaming about chewing a few other things.

It had been pleasant and he'd been careful to stay on the polite side of civil, and the friendly side of polite, but the truth was that he'd just been wasting the afternoon when he should have been motoring.

It served him right, he admitted. Now he was here, long after dark, and the night air was beginning to chill him. A large moth turned into his high beam and died against his left knee. He hoped that the motel had a Laundromat.

He'd been a dreamer once, a strong young man with hopes and aspirations. That felt like three of four hundred lifetimes ago at the least. But he'd learned a thing or five in the time since and he was still learning, still feeling things out here in this long hoped-for second chance that he'd found for himself.

Bart wasn't his name. It was only his name now. It came with this second chance.

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He'd been born the bastard son of a serving girl slave and a fighter who had no wealth himself. His father had been given the slave as a gift from his general for saving the man's life in battle when the general had gotten separated in the swirling masses of the crash between two armies.

Along with the girl, the fighter had been given duties as a trainer, and along with that came a place to live when the general's armies weren't on the move. But the gift of her wasn't more than a hope that he might be successful in killing her since no one else had been able to accomplish it.

His mother had been born a high priestess among her own people. She carried herself proudly even after there were few left to worship the gods of her people since there no longer was a temple, other than a ruin on a hill, and there no longer was a people, other than several hundred thousand surviving as conquered peasants now.

She'd come to the fighter in chains, glaring and seething with her hatred for what his kind had done. The trouble was that she wasn't defenseless, and no matter what had been attempted to break her spirit, those who'd tried had most often ended up dead before her. They'd tried to beat her, whip her, rape her and worse, but though she was chained, she always remained standing there triumphant and laughing. Her gods hadn't forgotten her.

Their son knew only a little of what had transpired between his parents, but he knew enough.

She'd stood before the fighter, covered in the filth of her neglect at the hands of the frightened jailers. They hadn't fed her for a week, just hoping that she'd begin to starve quietly. All that they'd accomplished was to make her angrier. They were overjoyed at the chance to be rid of this one.

She sneered at her new owner. She knew enough of their speech, and she was more than prepared to taunt him.

"And?" she glared as she stood before him, "what is your first wish, the first of the commands from my..."

Her nose wrinkled in derision and her voice dripped with her scorn, "master."

She spit on the floor between them.

He'd looked up from where he sat at the table in his new home, still wondering how he was going to manage all of this -- and just how even he was going to be able to eat all of this food here.

He didn't much like what he saw. The girl was beautiful to him, despite her obvious hatred, and it shamed him to see what his countrymen had done to her -- or tried to.

He asked her name, and before she could spit again, he added that it would be fine with him if she lied to him -- he only wanted a name by which he could talk with her. To her own amazement, she told it to him truthfully.

"Well," he said, "that is the first thing out of the way." He gave her his name then and told her that he never wanted to hear her call him her master again. "You have much pride in you still, and it is good to see. I have no plan to break your pride and I cannot think that it would do either of us any good."

He said, "We are both here due to circumstance. I did not ask to be given a slave, and I did not ask that it be you. Until just now, I knew nothing of you at all, but I will say this; we both are as slaves here and I have my own master, though I wear no chains that you might see. What I see on you there are nothing more than reminders of the ones which I wear, though they cannot be seen."

He nodded, "On one so beautiful and proud, they are as sins to me."

He gestured toward the feast on his table, "Please do not spit on my floor again. I think that I need the help of my new companion with this problem before me. Food such as this goes wasted everywhere here, and I see it as wrong -- just as I see those chains in the same way."

"Be glad of these chains," she growled, "for they are all that prevent me from tearing your heart from you." She began to curse him and revile him in an unending torrent of insults.

He listened for a time, and then stood to step closer. She was surprised, but it didn't cause her to miss a beat in her invective tirade. He reached out and took her lead -- the single chain attached to her bound hands and walked away slowly, leading her -- still cursing - to another chamber. It took little effort on his part, but she knew that she had to follow or he would drag her and still use little of his strength to do it.

He noticed that she paused as she looked around her, and he held up one finger.

"No spitting" he said. "None. Not once anymore in my presence. I do not know you, and I do not know why you are a slave. But I can see that it does not befit one such as you. Something like this is far beneath one like you, and I will not suffer it."

She spit in his face.

She began then to ask him what he planned to do about it, but her vitriol was cut short when he picked her up bodily and dropped her into the deep bath. Before she could even move to reach the surface, she found herself staring at his face from very close up. He'd taken hold of her chains and pulled her half out of the bath and she hung in his grip. His voice remained calm.

"If you can calm yourself here and stop the rise of your indignation for but a moment or two, you may see that I mean you no harm at all. I have no need or want of a slave. I will not harm you. You stink, and it is not your fault, but I mean to have you sit at my table and eat with me -- and not as the slave that I have no use for, but as one who is as imprisoned as I am."

His face came even closer, "Until now, I have never kept a slave, but you have been given to me and I cannot change this, no matter what I might want. I will need to care for you when I am one who had only had to care for myself and the fighters around me. Use the mind behind those lovely and hate-filled eyes for a moment. I am trying to make the best of this for us both."

She began to draw herself together for another blast, but he pulled her even closer to his face -- to the point where almost all that she could see were his eyes.

What she saw then were the burning eyes of one imprisoned, just as she was though in a different way. She saw the scars of his battles even from this close up, and she felt his obvious might.

"Stop this, if you have anything in your mind but your rage. Whatever you have suffered, I have done none of it to you. I fought in the army that vanquished your land, that is all, and I had no choice in it."

He shook her once then and his strength surprised her when she noticed that his other hand was on the rim of the bath. He was holding her up with only one hand.

"I am trying here to offer the poor friendship of a trained and tired killer to a queen or a princess or, ... whatever you once were. You can howl at me all that you like, but it changes nothing here. We are trapped and shackled together no matter what we would like. Think. You might kill me, and I might kill you, and for what? I try here to offer you some kind of life, and though you will get no dignity from my kind, you will get much from me, if you would only allow it."

He pulled back a little, "You are fine, and none of this befits you. I seek only to make this a little better for you. I want to share the little bounty that I am given, that is all."

The priestess shook her head slowly before him, keeping her eyes on his. "And then what, my conqueror?" The sneer was gone and she spoke quietly, still showing her proud nature.

"Am I to cower at your kind feet and service you in your bed at night like any good slave girl does, whether she wants it or not?"

He shook his head, looking down for a moment. He looked at her face, "No. That is beneath you as well. We eat together and we talk between us so that I can come to an idea for what I need from you, since we are together here no matter what we may wish. You may sleep in my bed, and I will sleep on the floor, since between us, I am the one who most often must sleep where I can. It comes with the life I have. You are only my slave because someone above me wills it to be. For my part, this is all far beneath one such as you. Stand up ... please."

He helped her to her feet and she stood compliant and followed his directions as he bathed her carefully, cursing the sores and the chains on her the entire time. When she was clean, he helped her out of the bath and she stood in shock as he dried her very carefully before asking her to come back to the table in the other room where she stood beside him.

"I cannot feed myself like this," she said.

"I know it," he nodded, looking at her, "I am considering. I need to know if any of my words have gotten into your head. I would hate more than anything to have to feed you, and I will not allow you to eat like an animal from a plate on the floor. Can you not find a little trust in your heart?"

She sighed, "I can. I see what you would do for me here." She hung her head.

He lifted her chin, "None of this," he growled low in his throat quietly, "Never again before me. I think that you are such a proud one for a reason, though I do not know what it might be. But I can see that it is not only because of high birth. I see that there is more to you. But I will have none of this head-hanging between us. I think that I would rather have you spit on me again than to see this. Please wait."

He walked off and returned with a large dry towel. "I was given the keys for these insults that you wear. I know of what you have done to the jailers. I heard them talk among themselves outside my door as they brought you. I am pleased that you have ways to protect yourself, but these things must come off for I cannot look at them much longer myself. I will remove your chains and shackles, and you may use this to cover yourself, and then, please, may we finally eat together?"

The young priestess finally found a thin smile for him then and she nodded. As the signs of her new and very low status lay in a heap on his floor, she sat and looked at him.

"You did not wrap yourself in the towel," he said, "why? I will try tomorrow to find some clothing for you, but this is all that I could do for you this night. I could give you a singlet of mine, but you would be lost in such a thing. Still, it would offer you some dignity."

She shook her head, "No. I am not cold, and I come at last to know the kind of warrior that you are. I feel no shame in front of you for you have already seen all of me that there is to see and you have washed and cared for me better than any of my own slaves have ever done all of my life. For one such as you, it must have been hard with those hands much used to gripping a sword and smashing skulls to show me such care as you have. Also, I am so hungry now that my dignity matters little, and anyway, I am a slave myself now. I see more than enough dignity now for myself in your eyes."

He grabbed his wooden plate and heaped food on it until it could hold no more and he placed it before her, "Then please, eat."

He filled one goblet with water and one with wine and set them both in front of her. "We will need more of these things," he said, "but for now, use these."

She shook her head, looking at his arms and the tendons and veins there, along with his scars. Now that she took the time for it, there was much more to him than his hard fighter's face showed and she knew that he couldn't help the way that he looked. He was a hard man -- it was plain -- but he hadn't chosen the way that he looked. It was how his life and the horrors of his warrior's existence had shaped him. He hadn't chosen this any more than she had chosen her life.

And neither of them had chosen this.

"We will share," she said softly." "You are very fearsome to look at, but I have seen some of your heart here. If we must be together, I see that you want no slave, but you would try to find something for me to do so that I might help you. I understand these things."

By the time that their meal had ended, they'd indeed found some things where she could help him, and though she remained a slave to him, she was no slave to him between them, and he took her wherever his duties carried him. She was his servant and armorer, learning anything very quickly. She was his guide in his rise among the officers, planning every political move for him to the finest detail. He very seldom knew of it, but she had found plots and intrigues going on behind his back as he rose through the ranks. The priestess was very quiet about it, but she'd murdered many by the time that he was in a position to declare that she was now free and could go where she would.

But where she would go was wherever her warrior was.

She used her abilities to protect him in battle, and in the quiet times between them, she taught him of her gods, and showed him how to protect himself in many ways.

She'd wanted to kill him as soon as look at him when they'd met, but by the time that the meal and their long talk was over, she'd forced herself to revise her opinion.

As he showed her where she would sleep, she grasped his hand as he'd turned to go, and asked him to sleep with her. Somewhere in the dark of his bed chamber, it came to her that they were a very unlikely pair, the powerful priestess and the mighty fighter, but it didn't change anything. They tamed each other from the first night and a very strong love grew between them.

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The one now known as Bart was born late in their second year together. He spent his childhood among the wagons and the horses of a conquering army most often. He grew and with the teachings of his parents learned much that helped him in his own rise to be a general in his father's armies.

Along the way, he'd had his own slaves, but the women who cared for his tired and scarred body had all asked meekly to be his when he'd walked by them all in their chains. They knew that this was the one, having heard about the mighty young general who was riding down the soldiers of their own armies as he conquered more and more in the name of his now-ruling parents.

Most often, he only looked and smiled, telling their handlers that he wished to hear nothing of ill-treatment of any slave, for to be vanquished was as much the luck of the draw as a lowly birth.

But once in a while, he chose one for himself, always asking them why they wished for the invisible chains of his house. He always paid well for them, and always told them that he would pay them as well, and that if they had a brain, he advised them to save what he gave them against the day that they wished to leave him as freed slaves and citizens of the kingdom.

But that had all ended on a battlefield as he rode the crush of his winning tide. As he took the life of the enemy king, he suffered the pain and the instant knowledge that there was a sorcerer here as well. Both the general and the king lay dead, but his spirit hung before a necromancer who sneered at him that he as now a dead servant who would make the sorcerer a king in his own right.

It had been a huge assumption on the necromancer's part, and the gods of his mother tore the male witch's flesh from his bones, taking him into eternal torment.

None of that helped the dead bastard general. His spirit wandered for thousands of years, seeing what humans such as he was once had accomplished for themselves. But there was the one chance that fate had offered...

He'd seen the policeman lying in the pool of his own blood in the alley. The killers stood laughing, high as anything nearby and almost twitching nervously. But the general watched as the spirit of the policeman named Bart left him, and took the one chance that he'd seen for this in all of the thousands of years of his wandering and eased himself into the body -- and hopefully, into the life as well.

He'd had only seconds, but he used his strength to close the tear in his throat until there was only the mark of it. What coursed through his veins and arteries then was more his will than what blood remained, but he commanded this body to produce more blood and as fast as it could. It took him only three minutes to remember where his mind could control the synapses, and then he was in firm control of a body once more -- and it lived.

Unseen in the dark, he sat up, and by the time that any of them bothered to turn and look to where he'd lain, he was gone. He was careful to leave some of his blood seeping and collapsed against the fender of the backup unit on this call. He spent six days in hospital recovering, but he recovered far more than that. As the doctors filled him with bags of the blood of others, he relinquished the space for it and drew back on his own will until he was whole again.

Then he sought answers in the residual memories of his new brain, learning everything there was to know about this Bart.

The man that he now was.

The knowledge was useful. It told him where he lived and what he'd done, so many things.

Seven nights after his release from hospital, he was on his recovery leave, walking the same part of town. He had a debt to repay to the one whose spirit had left him this body at just the right instant. He wore track shoes, track pants and a black T-shirt.

He found the same fools in the same alley, but they didn't recognize him. He let some of his other features show through, the ones that the necromancer had given him - like the razor sharp teeth which filled his mouth. Like the featureless blackness where his irises should have shown in his eyes. The muscles had come from Bart, but he added his own build to that.