Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1), page 17
Sarah was pondering whether her openness toward new experiences and tendency to push others into doing things that made them uncomfortable had gone too far when Veronika, who was walking by her side, hastily pushed her into a broom closet and left the door ajar.
This broom closet was one of the many in the headquarters of the Church of Quackology, whose hallways both witches had been walking through after Sarah’s initiation. She was not happy about it. She had only said her usual, “We must do what’s necessary to further the investigation” speech because she expected Laura to be the one to join, and she was considering perhaps being more conservative about things would suit her better in the future.
She also tried to convince herself it wasn’t all bad by considering the amazing story she’d tell her eventual grandchildren: The time I joined a crazy alien cult. It would be priceless.
All of it, of course, was useless now that she was in a broom closet with Veronika, one of the last people with whom she wanted to inhabit a broom closet.
“What the hell was that?” said Sarah.
Veronika replied by placing her hand over Sarah’s mouth to shush her. “Take a look,” she whispered. “Out there.”
Sarah glanced through the tiny crack. Two people were standing in the middle of the hallway, talking. One of them was Antoine LeFlay, whom she found suspicious from the get-go. The other one was…
“The little talentless bitch that could is here,” said Veronika. “I can’t believe she’s involved in this.”
Veronika seemed to think about it for a moment.
“Actually, I very much can. This is exactly the kind of thing one could expect from a woman like that. Thin blond women have never been up to no good.”
Sarah shrugged off the comment. “Let’s just listen, all right? Maybe that horrible man and that horrible woman are—”
“Having an affair, of course. It makes complete sense. Horrible people feel attracted to other horrible people. I’m sure soon enough they’ll marry and—”
It was Sarah’s turn to shush her friend.
“I’m truly heartbroken that you couldn’t make it to today’s initiation, Stephanie,” said LeFlay, in his usual voice that betrayed no feelings other than hatred. Sarah tried imagining how LeFlay would be as a husband and father, then stopped as she wanted to be able to sleep that night.
“I wanted to come,” said Stephanie. “Applause is what I live for, so you know I would have never skipped this. Not to mention this church has helped us greatly. It’s just, sometimes things get in the way like—”
“Like what?”
“A squirrel broke into Salem’s house, and he needed me to shoo it away for him…”
Sarah couldn’t keep herself from laughing at the situation. Salem had tried to pull that on them once. Only once. They had quickly made it clear they weren’t his servants. Stephanie, on the other hand, had been—
“Assigned to the perfect role for the likes of her,” whispered Veronika. “She’s nothing but a squirrel chaser, in fact, why don’t we call her that?”
Sarah shushed her again.
“Anyway,” said Stephanie after LeFlay failed to react to her squirrel incident, “Salem asked if you guys would have him for the next initiation. He says he’s giddy to return to the stages and—”
“And he would come?” said LeFlay. “Like, in person?”
Stephanie looked as if she’d been asked a difficult question for an important test. “I…I don’t know?” she said, “I think he’ll probably send his parrotphone, to be honest I’ve never seen him in person. I don’t think he does proper appearances anymore.”
“I see, I see, but I don’t like revving up a crowd over a great personality only to give them a…parakeet. It makes them antsy.” LeFlay looked around the place, including the broom closet. His poignant stare was so that Sarah was almost sure he’d seen them. She had to keep herself from closing the door in response. “We should have a chat with him. He’s one of our biggest celebrities, so it stands to reason he should come out and advertise for us. He has given us much, but we have given him more…”
Sarah gasped. The realization that their boss was a part of the cult shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it’s wonderful the kind of things the human brain will do to exercise denial. She had always thought of Salem as a spiteful, selfish little man who only cared about things if he got something from them, but she had always thought he was inherently good.
A tiny, almost unnoticeable, part of that image was shattered there and then.
“I believe the walls might have ears, my friend,” said LeFlay. He didn’t stare at anywhere in particular, nor did he need to. Sarah felt like running away immediately. “Perhaps we should go somewhere more private to discuss the details of your presentations and Salem’s. Don’t you agree?”
Stephanie looked around and played with her hair. “I liked it here. I was hoping fans would see me and run to tell me how much they love me.” She sighed. “But I guess I’ll follow you.”
Together, they disappeared at the end of the corridor. Sarah came out of the closet immediately after, wanting to run away before LeFlay could send his thugs after them.
“He didn’t see you,” said Veronika. “Calm down. Maybe he knew there was someone in there, but he couldn’t know who it was.”
Veronika’s words did nothing to calm Sarah.
“But he saw! I saw him look here and—”
“As much as I’d love to discuss that, I think there’s something more important right now. You did listen to what they said, didn’t you?”
Sarah assented. She started walking to the other end of the corridor, almost dragging her friend with her.
“Then you know who we have to visit next.”
“On Friday everything will change,” said Annabella from atop the hill at Dominion Park as she stared at the eastern, richer part of the city. West New Wakilork, with its poverty and crime and overall have-me-not-ness was obscured from view by a tall wall painted with portraits of the Dominatrix. “Once the night arrives, I’ll hold a meeting in this park with anyone interested in getting rid of the blight that is the Church of Quackology. I shall meet here with thousands, and together we will destroy our enemy for the glory of Xianuu!”
The wind, with its peculiar and not-at-all-nice mix of excessive moisture and heat, hit her in the face as soon as she finished speaking. A murder of crows flew away from a nearby tree, as if they had nothing to be doing there now that Annabella had spoken. Silence reigned while a storm brewed far away. If one paid attention to the horizon, one could see a pink kite flying under the storm clouds, being struck by lightning in a regular, almost rhythmical way.
Behind Annabella somebody clapped slowly.
“Well said, I guess,” said Sister Theresa. “But I’m wondering why it was necessary to come all the way here to let me know of this. I believe my office back at House Xantiplam would have sufficed.”
“It’s a matter of style and storytelling,” said Annabella. “Every historical figure has had a moment where a decisive statement is pronounced from atop a hill or a cliff or a tower or a pile of dead bodies. If I’m to change the course of history, it has to happen like this.” She thought of having pronounced her decisive declaration of war against the Church of Quackology from the shrink’s office at a local brothel. The sole idea made her feel sick and ashamed. “Also, I needed to get the attention of Xianuu. What a better place than this?”
“Dear child, the gods are everywhere. If this Xianuu exists, he must be able to hear you no matter where you are. I’m not against going for a stroll, but you should know he should even be able to hear your thoughts. The gods don’t just hang around iconic locations waiting for people to say things like this.”
May as well have said all of this from the bathroom then. Xianuu would have heard it anyway, right? The thought sickened Annabella. A story that begins with a statement in a bathroom or brothel was not one suitable for her grandeur. The chosen of Xianuu needed a much better start than that. “You’re forgetting the storytelling. Have you never read a history book? All characters have a moment like that.”
“I’ve lived through enough history to know history books are mostly made up of fabrications. Things rarely go as the books say, or do you really believe the Dominatrix seized control of Wakilork Tower while riding a red grand dragon? No one has seen a live dragon in centuries, and I can confirm there wasn’t one flying through the skies of New Wakilork thirty-nine years ago. I was there.”
Annabella sighed. “It doesn’t matter!” The whole conversation felt oddly like having a discussion with her mother. Not the alcoholic, cult-crazed one, but the good mother she had dreamed of having as a teenager. She had even resorted to her ‘But moooom!’ tone, the one she had endlessly rehearsed without having ever used. “Even if history books are fabrications, what if I end up having a good-for-nothing biographer with a poor imagination? At least this will be there, you know? Because it happened.”
It dawned on her that, if history was to be reported as it happened, her discussion with the nun would also be in history books. She made a mental note of setting aside a bit of money to pay her biographer to skip that part.
“Have it your way. Can we go back now? It looks like it’s going to rain and, as much as I support you, I don’t think one should go around starting crusades all willy-nilly. Innocent people die on those.”
“You’re just worried I’ll grow power hungry and go after your religion afterward.”
“Of course not! I may be religious, but I severed all ties with the Church of Dinah a long time ago. I couldn’t stand how—”
“They failed to support you when you wanted to work with a bunch of hookers. They threatened you with excommunication, and you kindly let them know those who live in sin are the ones who need religion the most. Then you left, forever, and never looked back.”
The nun stared at Annabella, seemingly angry. She didn’t look that angry at all, for she had never been any good at pulling the whole evil nun stunt. “It is also—”
“The best choice you’ve made in your life. I’ve heard that story hundreds of times, and I haven’t been in House Xantiplam that long. I’m just saying, it might be a good time to retire it. At this point probably even the Dominatrix has heard it.”
“Have you at least thought how you’ll let people know they should meet you here?”
“They’ll know, because I said so. Sister, you don’t believe in Xianuu, or do you?”
“I must say I’m not prone to believe in gods who come out of nowhere and say all the other gods are fake, no. It clashes with my beliefs.”
“I have my doubts too. So I just figured, if Xianuu exists and he wants me to be his champion, who better to call on those destined to be part of my army than himself? I have called for them from atop a hill, so now if they exist they should come to me.”
Sister Theresa seemed baffled. “But you didn’t even say their names. How will they know it is them you called?”
“They will, because I said so.” Annabella smiled a somewhat twisted smile. “After all, aren’t I the chosen of Xianuu? Better test his trust in me sooner rather than later.”
The women held each other’s gazes for a moment. Sister Theresa didn’t look all convinced of Annabella’s folly, and Annabella wasn’t really swayed by the nun’s moral stance.
“We should go, sister. There’s probably somebody waiting for you back at—”
“Is there ever no one waiting for me there?” The nun smiled. “I had never worked so much or answered to so many religious queries until I moved to a brothel. Why, the convent was peaceful and boring by comparison!”
The two women walked away from the hill, trying to return home before the city’s all-too-common afternoon rain started. Meanwhile, from a tree, a lone crow who had refused to fly with its murder stared at them. It did so shiftily, as crows are known to.
10
Madame Xantiplam sat on her throne under the stern stare of the endless paintings of herself hanging all over the room. It was audience day, which meant she’d be unable to enjoy much. While she was supposed to give audiences to businessmen and other such envoys on those days, she far too often ended up as the arbiter in petty squabbles with no importance whatsoever to the Dominion.
It felt good at times, because there was nothing like sending a few criminals to jail to cheer her up, particularly if said criminals didn’t even know they were criminals when the audience began. However, there was the part of dealing with people she never got used to.
She looked down at a pair of peasant women. From the moment the audience started, she knew at least one of them would be awarded a meet and greet with her alligators. Or a tour through her snake pit. Or a blind date with any of the many dangerous animals she kept on her private menagerie, all of them always anxious to make new human friends.
“This woman is lying,” said one of the women, curiously the one who looked the most like a liar. It wasn’t a specific look Madame Xantiplam could describe; it was just something she noticed. After you had ruled over a state so long, some things became obvious. The lies written on people’s faces were one of them. “There is no way I could have stolen anything from anyone, ever. Saying I stole a child is preposterous, your Excellency. I suggest you send her to the dungeon, where she shall rot like the street rat she is.”
Madame Xantiplam stared at one woman, then at the other. Last, she looked at a child between them. They were fighting over whom the child belonged to, neither of them having any proof of ownership. The little tyke just lay there in his crib, completely unaware of his destiny being shaped by the minute. Oh, the grace of being a child: The one being affected by the situation the most was the only one not complaining about it.
“She is a thief!” said the other woman, who looked quite a bit like a thief. “I was doing laundry by the river just two weeks ago. I put my little baby down for a minute while I washed my husband’s unmentionables, and when I turned around, he wasn’t there. I walked all the way to the square, pale with worry, and there I found him. In this woman’s arms.” She spat in the other woman’s face. “I swear this woman stole my baby, and she is now trying to send me to jail on top of it. I propose you throw her in the bear den where they can maul her to death!”
A bear den. That was an interesting idea. Madame Xantiplam made a mental note to ask her advisers whether such a punishment type was feasible. It might be, but sometimes her desire for grandeur got in the way of logic, like the time she wanted a dragon pit.
She stared at the women, pondering the situation at hand. A woman who looked like a liar was saying that a woman who looked like a thief who was accusing her of theft was a liar. It was a complicated decision to make. Neither of the women was innocent, but that was commonplace: ‘Nobody is ever an innocent’ she would often say. It always held true.
“Before I come up with a verdict on this lamentable situation,” said the Dominatrix, her voice making both women stop squabbling and stare at her in fear—the kind of fear she liked, in fact. Some rulers sought to rule by respect, but in her opinion there was nothing like a bit of fear to get people in line. Respect was for the weak. “Can you both tell me: What is the name of the tyke here present?”
“Why of course, he’s called Julius,” said the liar. “I named him after my deceased grandfather, who fought in the Dominion wars and perished trying to establish the Dominion. He would have been awarded the highest honors had he not perished defending a Dominion fortress from the opposition,” she added, in what anyone could see was a total fabrication. Madame Xantiplam stared at her and said nothing.
“No, his name is Caesar,” said the thief. “I named him after my good brother, who used to work as an intelligence operator for the Dominion. He got tortured and killed by an assassin when the guild found out about him. He never faltered, and never gave away any vital information, but they couldn’t give him honors because he worked in covert ops. He was a secret informant, and by giving him honors they would have blown his cover,” she added, in what was obviously an appropriation of somebody else’s life story. The Dominatrix also stared and said nothing.
She studied the baby, who had been asleep during the whole argument, then proceeded with her verdict.
“Usually, I would have the baby cut in two, so both parties would be able to have him. This would show you women the importance of learning to share in our Dominion, and how collective happiness is more important than your personal desires,” she said, her eyes darting from one woman to the other. “However, I have listened quietly to each of your arguments, and I believe cutting the poor tyke in two won’t fix the real problem here, or will it?”
Both women assented with their heads while giving each other poisonous stares—the kind of poisonous stares that were often quickly followed by a call to the Assassins’ Guild and a contract on somebody’s head.
“That is why I have made a special choice in this occasion.” She looked at the liar, who met her gaze in what was a clear attempt at defiance. It didn’t work, for her fear betrayed her. “This woman is a liar.” The liar gasped and tried to complain, but the Dominatrix shut her up immediately with a flick of her wrist. “She has been found guilty of lying to the Dominion about her heritage, and will therefore rot in jail, much as she proposed the other woman should have ended her days.”
The thief produced a victorious grin and jumped in joy as the guards came over to keep the liar silent and in check.
The Dominatrix stared at the thief. “As for this other woman…she is a thief. I have found her guilty of misappropriating somebody else’s life, and therefore she will be punished too. She will have to face the bear den she proposed as a punishment for the other woman. In there, the Dominion bears will bite and maul her to death with their bear arms. Should the bear den not be available, she will meet the snake pit, where the snakes will, I’m sure ,find their own serpentine ways to deal with her. This is my verdict, and it is final.”
