Part 2, Chapter 17

Magic spells

Ch 17

The Sea Witch entered the garden just after noon the day after the festival. Xiaomin, who had been on watched hurried to alert the others. By the time Xun and Leng Zai arrived the Sea Witch had laid out a small stool and a little table cluttered with various herbs, chalks, and odd things in jars. She glared at Xun. “You bring?”

Xun and Leng Zai began pulling out garments from their various hiding places.

“Good, good! All good things,” the Sea Witch muttered, fingering the cloth. “Stand back.”

The three stepped away from the circle that the Sea Witch had drawn while they were fetching the clothes.

“Not you, empty head,” she said, grabbing Leng Zai firmly by the arm. “You stay. Stand here.”

Leng Zai stood in the circle with a bemused look on his face. The Sea Witch tied a cloth collar around his neck, then began to rip the center from the front and back of each garment. The first few scraps of cloth were tied to the collar and then to each other, after that following clothes were tied to the bottom of the proceeding layer until they formed a long ragged cape that just brushed the ground. When she had used all of her patches she stood back and gave a satisfied, gap-toothed smile. She moved to stand behind Leng Zai and began tracing complicated sigils on his back with her fingernail. There was no physical mark where she had touched, but a faint glow, almost invisible in the noonday light followed her finger. When she was done she stepped back.

“Good! Done! Gimme cloak.”

Leng Zai untied the collar and handed it over. “What are all,” he gestured to the bric-a-brac on the table, “those for?”

“Stupid people.” The witch replied with a little cackle. She swung the cloak around her own shoulders, raised her hands, and howled. Power streamed through the air, first in streams then in rivers of force.

“NOW!” Xun cried.

Xiaomin in her hawk form shot into the air, holding a glass lens and focusing the sunlight into a tight beam centered on the Sea Witch. The Sea Witch began to steam and screamed.

“Leng Zai, take the cloak!” Xun shouted, but he was already moving, replacing the garment over his own shoulder. Magic danced over the fabric, different colors for each robe that had been cut. The patches glowed brighter and brighter until suddenly everything went dark and the cloak fell away in ashes.

Leng Zai stood in the circle, his finger tips, eyes, and even the tips of his hair shimmered as if seen through a heat haze. The Sea Witch, on the other hand looked even more shrunken than she had before. She had almost curled in on herself she was so small and shriveled. Xun approached her and gently set her down on the stool.

“Leng Zai, bring me the buckets from the corridor,” Xun said, kneeling at the witch’s feet.

The witch said nothing, staring blankly into the distance.

Leng Zai brought the buckets over and set them near Xun who tenderly placed the witch’s feet into the first bucket and then peered at her intently.

“This should work,” she muttered under her breath, “If the hints she gave us yesterday are right, this should work.”

Slowly life began to return to the Sea Witch’s features. Like a sponge filling with water she began to unfurl, rolling her neck and stretching. Xun looked down and moved the witch’s feet from one bucket to the other.

Xiaomin, back on the ground asked, “What’s in there anyway?”

“Water from the Western Sea, that’s where the Sea Witch is from. My cousins found it for me, don’t ask me how, I find it’s better not to know where they find things on such short notice.”

The Sea Witch actually looked much better than she had when she had first arrived, traces of her beauty could almost be seen in the ravages of her face. She looked at Xun, “That should not have worked,” she said calmly.

Xun grinned. “I figured if you were in part of a spell for absorbing magic it might work. If the water was fresh. I gambled that there would be enough of the spell on the clothes that Leng Zai could step in after taking it from you.”

Xiaomin frowned, “It’s three months travel between here and the Western Sea. How...”

Xun shushed her, “Don’t ask, remember.”

“How did you know I would betray you?”

“You weren’t exactly subtle...” she said. “You never asked for a price. All of your talk of revenge and hate and there’s no price for this? The evaporation attack was a bit of a stretch, but again you did tell us.”

The Sea Witch sighed, “I was not in the best condition. I will do better the next time I deal with you. What would you have done if I had come at night?”

Xun materialized a small braiser on the other side of the courtyard. Even with the distance the heat was barely tolerable. “I borrowed it from my mother, it’s for cooking meat from beasts of the Demon Realm.” She vanished it. 

The Sea Witch stood. “Thank you for your help. My memory since I came to the Palace is foggy, so I don’t know much else about the spell your empty lover is under, but I will tell you what I do know. The Emperor wears a talisman at his belt. Get that talisman and break it, it’s tied to what was done to him,” she said gesturing to Leng Zai. She vanished her table and walked back into the Palace.