Last Witch Standing (Mountain Witch Saga) (5 page)

What luck finding this book had been! To think she almost
left it in the Citadel world because it wasn’t a science text. Had she done so,
she would have missed learning her purpose and destiny. These quotes from the
master particularly intrigued her; they were so true and described her so well:

You look up when you wish to be exalted. And I
look down because I am exalted.

The stronger becomes master of the weaker, in
so far as the latter cannot assert its degree of independence — here there is
no mercy, no forbearance, even less a respect for "laws."

I teach you the overman. Man is something that
shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? "All beings so far
have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this
great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is
the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be
just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment.

In the mountains of truth you will never climb
in vain: either you will get up higher today or you will exercise your strength
so as to be able to get up higher tomorrow.

And concerning the Citadel with their self-imposed
limitations:

That is mediocrity though it be called
moderation.

Yet, one problem remained, limiting her potential. This
portion of the Cosmos was isolated, with less galaxies than in the area of the
Citadel world. Travel between stars was not a problem for her, but away from a
star, interstellar plasma or other source of energy, she could not acquire
enough power to channel effectively. For the first time, she cursed not being a
witch – they could store power. As a sorceress, a type of magical creature she
now recognized herself to be – based upon a careful reading of “Powers of the
Realm”, a book she had stolen from the Citadel’s library, she could not store
power effectively.

There had to be a workaround to this. Somewhere in the
science books was the answer.

Antimatter? That would be a powerful explosive. Usable both
as portable source of power and as a weapon.

Or, the strong nuclear force! If she could suspend it for
an instant, the particles would annihilate each other, producing energy. That
meant she could use matter for energy and would no longer be tied to only what
she could pull in from kinetic energy in her environment. Yet, suspending the
nuclear force took energy to do. Where would she get that initial energy? Back
to square one.

Finally, the vacuum energy, or dark energy, of space could
be stored in capacitors via the casimir effect – but this might not be sufficient.
Katie wanted enough energy to manipulate matter – regardless of where in space
she happened to be. Traveling through space, she could do that effortlessly
now, but when out of the effective range of stars or interstellar plasma, she
could not draw ample energy to do much beyond travel. A small portion of her
was
witch, maybe two to three percent, and she shuddered to acknowledge it was Mountain
Witch. How could one such as her be kin – even remotely so – to such silly
little creatures?

Nevertheless, she would try it, she would build those
capacitors. But first, there was something else she’d like to try.

***

The blue giant star filled the space before Katie, its immensity
and majesty crowding out all emotions other than a contemplation of its splendor.

If I can destroy, may I also not create? We are
all made of star stuff. How many new worlds can I give birth to?

The heat penetrated her shield and, with an irony not lost
on her, Katie channeled the very energy that penetrated it to increase its
strength. She glided back through space, still facing the star, examining its
solar flares, absorbing its beauty.

Creative destruction.

Katie used the Gift to reach into the center of the star.
It was easier than she imagined, to feel into the solar core, as the amount of
energy available to channel far exceeded that required.

There is none but I.

Once a star began fusing iron, it was in its death spiral.
Once so massive as this would then become a supernova. Katie did not know how
much fire and shockwave she could take without destroying herself, but this she
did know: the timid did not discover, the timid did not create. She let loose
the strands of Power, accelerating the fusion within the star.

Silence.

She backed up further, prepared to channel more.

Crash!

Needles of fire radiated outward, blinding Katie and
hurling her back like a steel shot fired from a slingshot.

I am become death, destroyer of worlds….

The supernova would continue to spew out star stuff for
some time, fertilizing interstellar space with a multitude of matter. This
matter would coalesce into smaller stars, and perhaps planets, perhaps even a
Pangea. She had done it: turned a dying star into a life giver.

Who, in all the Cosmos, commanded such forces
as she?

Katie raised her tiny fist into the air, as her vision
returned, and grinned.

***

Katie descended onto her cliff, a string of capacitors
following like a tail on a kite. She hovered, carefully lowering the line
carrying the devices onto the ground in front of her cave.

Safely relieved of the burden, the sorceress landed.
The
amount of energy she had managed to acquire and store during this most recent
trip into space was minuscule.  She kicked the side of the cave as hard as she
could. The stone did not yield and Katie fell backwards onto her behind, dress
ruffled.

The work with capacitors was a dead end. At least for the
moment.

Katie
needed
a witch. One that could serve as a
battery for a sorceress. Where to get one? The Citadel would be wary of her,
prepared. Not from their planet, then, but many witches came to them from other
worlds. It only remained for her to find one of these worlds. Find and obtain a
newly channeling witch before the old bats of the Citadel did.

Over the next days, as she sat on the cliff, with its
breathtaking scenery, condors flying overhead, clouds forming abstract shapes
as they rolled past, a plan gelled in Katie’s mind.

She could pass herself off as a Mountain Witch – even to
the point of duplicating their earthy, forest smell. They were silly little
creatures. Pets of the Citadel and the Witches’ Council. Yet their very
inoffensiveness could disarm any suspicion. There would be some stooping
involved, particularly in rolling around the forest floor to transfer soil and
pine scent to her body, but she could stoop. For the amount of power
obtainable, yes, she could do that.

Maybe, she would even find an intelligent one. One to talk
to, one to share in her explorations.

35 Years Later

October, 2010

Earth

A sensation, a stirring in the Power caused Katie to stop
mid-flight and land on one of the well-manicured lawns of the residential
district she was passing through. Somebody was channeling. Another witch. This
town of Melville had more than its share – this was her fifth find in less than
two years. What was attracting them here? Whatever it was, she needed to locate
this witch before she stopped channeling and the signal died.

The Power spiked again. This time Katie got a direction –
what her navigation book called a line of position. The signal was strong:
either this one was more powerful than the rest, or she was very close. Katie
followed the line, intent upon intercepting her prey, hopping through the air
to gain speed, stopping from time to time to see if she had overstepped the
signal.

The strands of power strengthened measurably after Katie
passed a neighborhood park, and into even finer and larger houses. The signal
came from within a two-story house. Upstairs, she could see the silhouette of a
girl through the curtains. Katie knew instantly that was her witch.

Powerful. This was the jackpot! The other four
had all been such abject failures, so disappointing —

She leapt onto the yard, using the Power to mute the sounds
of her landing. As she knelt beside the front door, Katie put her palms to the
wall. The Power. She had to move quickly – this witch, in her ignorance – was
channeling enough power to attract the attention of any member of the magical
kingdom within hundreds of miles. Even if no other creatures were present to
catch the signal, the Citadel witches periodically scanned the worlds for
pulses of power. An upper floor of their Academy held rooms with row after row
of globes of many worlds, Earth included. These models were linked by the Power
to their respective planets or inhabited moons. This foolish girl was
channeling enough to show a spike on the Citadel’s Earth model.

If they happened to be looking this way, they would surely
come for this child-witch.

Katie followed the yard’s fence and used the storm drain to
climb onto the roof. Flying, at this point, would be risky. Here, under the
cover of the oak tree, like a sailor climbing a rope ladder up the mast, she
scaled the building.

At the roof, she paused and scanned the area. Through her sorceress-heightened
senses, she could tell a person was on the bottom floor, stirring. A woman.
Across the street, a young man pulled up in a rundown late model Toyota Celica.
Katie waited for him to go inside his house before she started towards the
upper floor window where the girl was channeling.

The branches of the oak tree provided cover from the street
and Katie was glad she did not need to channel to approach unnoticed. First
approaches were always the most risky; Katie did not know the witch, the area,
or whether or not she was the first to discover this witch.

Katie peered through the gap in the curtains. A dark-haired
girl of about sixteen lay upon the bed moving marbles, that were set about the
bedspread, with the Power.

Katie rapped against the window. The girl looked up, eyes
narrowed, as if caught in the commission of a crime.

Katie tapped the window again, this time gently.

The girl jumped up and faced the bedroom door. For a moment
she hesitated, as if trying to decide whether to flee or check out the strange
noise.

Katie tapped a third time. The girl turned towards the
window and was at it in a few strides. She pulled the curtain back at the
corner of the sill and looked out at an angle onto the roof, body shielded. 
Katie waved. The girl jumped back. A second later, the latch clicked and the
window opened. The girl stared at Katie.

“How did you get here, sweetie?” The witch-girl stared down
at the sidewalk, probably looking for whoever put the child onto her roof.

“May I come in?”

“What? How did you get here? Are you okay?” The girl put
her hands out and lifted Katie into the room.

The things I do for science. This child-witch
will have to be taught not to touch me. For the moment I will tolerate it – the
potential gain is too large not to.

 “I am not a child, witch.” Katie forced a smile and looked
up at the girl.

“Pardon?” The girl held the sorceress tightly by the arm,
as if afraid she could somehow fall back out the window.

“Please let go of me. I need to speak to you about what you
are doing with the marbles. It is very dangerous.”

The girl let go and stepped back. Katie watched as awareness
dawned upon the girl that Katie was not a child – at least not a human one –
and that the sorceress knew what she was up to.

“I have come to help you.” Katie looked up at the witch,
counting upon her blue eyes and baby face to resonate benevolence. She touched
the child on the arm. “Let’s take a seat on the bed and we can talk.”

When they were seated, Katie began, "My name is Katie.
I am a witch myself. A tiny one." She held out her hand to the girl.

"I'm Rachel."

"You are probably very confused right now. I can help
you. Please, ask me anything you want about what is happening to you."
Katie glanced down at the marbles the girl had been moving with the Power.

“How did you know what I was doing?”

“Unshielded channeling sends up a signal. You may as well
have stood on the roof of your house and fired a flare into the sky that said
‘here lives a witch’.”

“Why is that dangerous?” the girl asked.

“Because, the magical world is filled with malevolent
creatures as well as benevolent ones. You are very lucky that I am the first
magical creature to find you. I shudder to think of what may have happened to
you if I had not found you.”

“How do I shield my channeling?”

“For the moment, you lack the ability. What you need to do
is limit your channeling to small amounts. I can help shield you provided you
do not exceed a certain threshold. Over time, as you become more proficient,
you will learn how to shield yourself.”