Chapter 3: The Truth About Witches

I called Cor as soon as I got back to my apartment in Cambridge and asked her to lunch. We agreed to meet at the Forbes Family Café.

I had brought NeedleThorn back with me to my apartment, having decided I needed some time getting familiar with using it as a weapon. Its length and weight were new to me, and it was both longer and heavier than anything I'd used in my training. I talked Nicco into suiting up and training with me for a couple hours.

We stood in the middle of Briggs Field, not drawing a lot of attention yet, and I held NeedleThorn in my hand, feeling its balance. I closed my eyes and spun her in my hand. The extra length and mass would make her slower to get moving, but she carried that weight well, and the bulging tip of the Crown-in-Heart added a deadly amount of mass at the point of delivery.

She felt good in my hands. I shifted her from hand to hand as she spun, I spun with her and did an exchange behind my back and add a long reach, extending my arm, letting NeedleThorn slide out through my grip until I was spinning with her full length extended. I counter-spun, pulling the weight and length of her back to center. I sent her out and around me again and followed that with several spins over my head and to each side. I had done all this with my eyes closed. As I came to a stop, I opened them.

I saw Nicco standing in front of me, and he was wearing a grin a mile wide.

"I don't think there's going to be too much time needed for adjusting Andy. You looked pretty comfortable there."

"I think you're right. Let's begin."

We ran through some forms first. Mirroring each other at first, and then doing a couple combat forms, where we each took turns with offensive and defensive series of moves. We ran through some familiar practice routines at half speed, and then without stopping, we ran through them again at three quarter speed. Only a couple of spots gave me any trouble, both aerial maneuvers where the timing of the spin or leap was off.

"Again!" I called, and we ran through the same sequence again at full speed. It felt much better the second time. When we finished the patterns, we bowed to each other as we had been taught.

Wrapped up in the patterns and the feel of it, we hadn't noticed a crowd gathering, but when they applauded as we were bowing, we took notice.

"What was that about blending in and not drawing attention?" Nicco said with a snicker. Those words echoed instructions from Dad about how to avoid problems while at school.

"Oh Well, too late now!" I said. "Defend yourself!"

The next thirty minutes were nowhere as pretty as the patterns we had just finished, but they were fiercer, harsher and interspersed with moments of danger and pain, as now an occasional blow was struck. Nicco, as strong and skilled as he was did not have my Light enhanced muscles, and near the end he had to make more desperate moves, and more urgent saves. It ended with a beautiful blur of a sweep that took his feet out from under him as I spun through the it and around, bringing the tip of NeedleThorn in a smashing blow that I stopped inches above his exposed throat. We were frozen in that position for only a second, while we absorbed the lesson. Finally I retracted NeedleThorn, and using it as a prop to push myself up from where I had been bent over Nicco's outstretched body, I lowered a hand and helped him up.

"That was fun, right up until I was on the ground with your new toy poised over my throat." Nicco said.

"Thanks for the workout Nicco, I needed it."

We had to spend a little time receiving the compliments of the crowd we had drawn and answering, or pretending to answer, their questions, but finally we were able to break free and head for the car. I had twenty minutes before I was due to meet Cor. As soon as we were in the car I told Nicco I was using the family shortcut to get home and get a shower, and jumped back to the apartment. I put NeedleThorn back in her spot and hopped into the shower. My usual jeans and running shoes, along with a favorite old Think Geek T-shirt that said "Obey Gravity, Its the Law!". The shirt was now a badge of honorable irony for the members of the Gravy Geeks.

I jumped myself into the usual swirl of people entering and leaving the Strata, and headed for the Forbes. I was a few minutes early, and made sure I grabbed us a nice table for two, throwing my book bag on it. The bag actually did contain a couple books on Economic Policy in the Third World, neither of which I found useful because they were written before the Fusion Reactor revolutionized the economies of most of the smaller African nations, as well as the micro-economies of many of the traditional tribal groups. With a table secured, I wandered around near the entrances keeping my eye out for Cor.

I spotted her, almost at the same time she spotted me, and We began making our ways towards each other. She had a beautiful smile and sparkling eyes I managed to notice, before we were in each others arms, and locked in a soft kiss, that had to have defied certain laws of time and space, because although it had lasted an eternity, the same people were still there around us when it ended.

"My Lady." I whispered into her ear.

"I'm so glad my Knight has made it safely back to me." She answered out loud before planting another serious but shorter and more relativistically constrained kiss on me. This ended when I heard a familiar giggling coming from behind Cor. I looked over her shoulder and saw Traci and another girl standing a few feet away.

"You remember Traci of course." Cor said. "And this is her best friend Analice. They're headed up to the R&D for their lunch.

"Always a pleasure Traci." I said. "And a pleasure meeting you as well Analice. My Lady, our table awaits us." I said to Cor.

"Bye you two!" she said with a wave to her friends.

Lunch was fun, and despite being surrounded by what must've been hundreds of other students, it seemed an intimate and private time. I found out that Cor had told her parents about her exciting trip to New York, and the Julliard performances, and about the forget-me-nots, but that she hadn't told them who I was yet. Well, it was only one official date so far.

I apologized in advance for not being able to plan a date for the coming weekend.

"My trip went well, but I didn't clinch the deal yet, so I've got to go back to get a certification that's required by the local guild that I'm going to have to be a member of if I expect things to work out. I'm hoping it will only be a day or two, but since I'm going in without much advance knowledge of the process, I can't say now if I'll be back in time to do anything together this weekend. Is it alright if I just call when I'm back?"

"I'm going to be going home for the weekend anyway, although I had considered the possibility of dragging you along. My sister's birthday is Sunday, so we'll do the cake with candles routine, and have a nice family dinner."

Neither of us had a class after lunch that day, so we lingered over lunch, just chatting about this and that, and then decided to walk off the slices of rosemary chicken and feta cheese pizza we'd had for lunch.

We walked towards the Charles River through campus, past McDermott Court and between Walker Memorial and the tennis courts. When we got to Memorial Drive we turned West and began a slow walk towards Baker Hall. We held hands as we walked, and stopped often to chat with people we knew. Far more of them seemed to know Cor than me.

As we approached Massachusetts Avenue, we were overtaken from behind by Arne Walker and about half the Gravy Geeks.

"We're jogging over to Rockwell for a little pickup basketball with the 'Light-Wits', you should join us if Cor doesn't mind.

"Light-Wits?" Cor asked.

"The Laser Lab guys. They may have an aura of respectability, but don't be fooled, they're all closet pyromaniacs." Morrie Scheufelt deadpanned.

"We get the court in 20 minutes!" Arne yelled as they began jogging up Mass Ave. "See ya there!"

"I don't have a class right away, but if you want to go, you should." Cor said.

"I probably should. Half of those guys are only doing this because it was part of our deal. I offered to advise the group if they promised to stop being couch potatoes and start getting regular exercise. Why don't you come along? If you don't play basketball, you could always be the Gravy Geek's cheerleader."

We finished our walk to Baker, but set a brisker pace. We kept our handhold going, right up until we reached the front door of the dorm. After I opened the door for her, I dropped her hand.

"Uh Uh, Mister!" Cor said, grabbing my hand again. "This may not be a coed dorm, but there's nothing that says I can't sign my boyfriend in so he can come up to my room."

Cor's room still bore the evidence of my assault by forget-me-not, but it was not quite the blizzard of blue that I had imagined in my mind when I placed the order. Cor noticed my glances and laughed sweetly. "We gave quite a few of them away to our friends and neighbors." Cor said, reading my expression perfectly. "Be proud, you've made an entire dorm of MIT women happy."

This happy statement was followed by the happy miracle of my brand new girlfriend changing into a sports bra, a woman's copy of the very same t-shirt I was wearing, and then into a pair of workout shorts. She didn't change panties. What she wore were dainty, but not frilly, and in my opinion, entirely serviceable. Very, very serviceable! What I saw in the process was very appealing. Very, very appealing.

I had my basketball gear in a locker at Rockwell, so with me carrying Cor's pack with her court shoes and a towel, we jogged over and I dropped Cor off at the court with the Gravy Geeks while I went in to the locker room to change. It was just shoes and shorts, so it was quick, but by the time I got back Cor had drawn a crowd.

"Give her room gentlemen!" I called out as I walked over. "Cor is not claustrophobic, to my knowledge, but the only sweaty geek flesh I want to see crowding hers is mine, understood?" I said it with a grin, but I let the dead serious tone of my voice carry the real message.

"The court is ours. Lets get to our benches and both teams send out their five, okay?" Arne said, instantly getting things back to the originally scheduled mayhem.

Most people would never pay money to watch ten science geeks playing basketball, but for what we were, we weren't too painful to watch. I was as good as I wanted to be physically, and had to really ramp down the Light enhancements big time to make it fair, but that was easy enough to do, and enhancements or not, basketball was not my sport, though I had a decent jump shot, if given enough time to shoot it unmolested.

Robby Whitaker, one of the Light-Wits, was incredibly quick and agile, and we had a hard time stopping him from scoring on the fast break. Fortunately for us, their half-court game was severely hampered by a lack of any outside shooters, mostly thanks to Yuri Stepanovich. Yuri was six and a half feet tall, and thin. He was slow-moving up and down the court, but once we were on defense his long arms and shot blocking skills were an awesome force for the Gravy Geeks team, and with his deffense preventing any inside scoring, they were left with only perimeter shots.

Yuri had absolutely no other basketball aptitude mind you, and couldn't throw the ball in the ocean, though he could dunk the ball if left alone to do it, but he just seemed to have a natural sense of timing that made him a shot blocking demon!

Arne's aggressive nature carried over to the basketball court as well, and he was a very aggressive defender, and despite his somewhat stocky build was all over whoever had the ball. I always found it annoying in the extreme on those occasions when we had played against each other. He was also left handed, which got him some open shots on a regular basis, although he was a mediocre shooter. Mediocre was actually ahead of the curve for this bunch, so he had fun.

When it was time to send in subs, we were ahead by eight points. Cor went in for me, and I gave her a kiss as she handed me her towel.

I sat on the bench besides Arne, Yuri, and the rest of the starters and watched. Cor was actually a decent ball handler and passer, and she quickly became the floor leader for our second bunch.

"By the way," I said to the bench. "You don't have to worry about the last name thing anymore, the secret is officially out."

It became obvious very quickly that without Yuri's presence in the middle, the Light-wits were slowly closing the gap. Suddenly, in the middle of a scramble for a rebound, Cor spun and sent her knee square into one if the Light-Wit's groin. He dropped like a stone.

"Fair warning!" Cor yelled. "Grab a boob and you pay the price!"

They practically had to carry the guy off the floor, and with substitutions once again taking place, Yuri, Arne and I took the floor, but we left Cor and Dave Hamlin in. Dave seemed to be the only one of us who came close to being able to keep up with Robby Whitaker.

This combination proved to be the winning one, as we dominated the game from then on. We declared victory when we built the lead back up and hit a 10 points margin.

Stewart Yost, the guy who got the knee from Cor came over and apologized to her after the game. He sounded very sincere. He also sounded like he was still in a lot of pain, and he walked away very gingerly.

Cor got universally praised by the guys, and they issued a standing offer to play for the Gravy Geeks any time. Everyone except me had late labs to get ready for, so I walked Cor back to her room. She was going to need a shower, so she just got to watch me change out of my gear and back into my jeans and running shoes. I had a clean pair of boxers in my bag, so she got the full show, quick as it was.

"I'll call you tonight to chat, but I'll be gone first thing in the morning to try and get that deal finished. I'll miss you while we're apart." I said as we kissed at her door.

"Just remember to come back to me, and I'll be okay." She answered.

"Always."

The Ur-Witch of the Bitteroot Forest was a widely known and well documented utter mystery.

As to what exactly an Ur-Witch was, the information available to me was limited, at best. I had Lord Esterhal and Wizard Firetree's description. The Ur in general were large shambling beasts, with fangs and claws like a bear. They had the arms and shoulders to go with that description as well, broad and powerful. The rest of an Ur was much more variable, as apparently they could come in almost any shape or size. Generally though, the back legs and lower torso of an Ur-beast was categorized as misshapen, twisted, stunted and bizarre.

Like a lot of the magical creatures of Arbor, no Ur was ever born that way. Instead, as with the Brude and others, a person slowly transformed into their Ur-shape over time as that aspect of their being became dominant. Every Ur began life as a human child which, as it became older, was slowly transformed by its own nature and inherent Magic into the creature of its own imaginings.

The chief difference between the Brude and the Ur, as Block Harnish explained her understanding of it to me, was that the Brude were driven by specific self-imagery. They saw themselves as strong and implacable and enduring. Their ox-like physical features were simply a result of that, but they did not see themselves as beasts. The physical transformation did not reflect their hearts or souls. Where it mattered, they still saw themselves as human.

The Witch part of the Ur-Witch was something I wound up getting the most perspective on from Firetree. Some Ur-beasts had Magic beyond that which worked their transformation.

"In theory I suppose, there are other Ur-Witches elsewhere on Arbor." Firetree said. "Nothing I know of Magic would prevent an Ur from possessing the talents which might make them a Wizard or Witch, just as nothing prevents any of the transformed people from having Magic above and beyond that which caused their eventual transformation."

To listen to the people of Esterton, and Red Flag, and even to Firetree, you would believe that this particular Ur-Witch possessed every gift and talent known to man.

Surprisingly, my most reliable source of information about the Ur-Witch's gifts came from Shard, the Palace Chamberlain. The palace stored meticulous records on all reported activity by the Ur-Witch and other known problems. We spent an entire day going over the records, cross-referencing and compiling a profile of what we could consider reliable and what we could dismiss.

The first thing I did, once I had a look at the records, was give a little praise to Shard.

"Shard, we may have gotten off to a bad start you and I, but I will tell you right now that these records, and the manner in which you have managed the information they contain, is deserving of recognition. This is incredible work here, and you should feel proud of it."

I got a deep nod from the Chamberlain, though he remained silent. I may not have made a friend yet, but perhaps I could diffuse an enemy.

"You are the one who has had the most time to spend with this information, so I am going to have to give your impressions great weight in my considerations. Tell me, which piece of information do you see as being key?"

My question really threw Shard for a loop. He blanched visibly at first, but I saw his brow knit in concentration as he actually considered the question.

"I don't think there is any doubt but that those who have sought to kill her have invariably wound up recruited into her army. Subsequent adventurers and bounty seekers have reported recognizing those sent against them as such."

"Some sort of mental coercion?" I asked, while inside my own thoughts I asked myself if this was becoming the family fate, to fight an endless series of coercers.

"If she is able to coerce her attackers into obedience, it would explain some of the reports of other talents. We have several reports of pyromancy, but we know that at least two pyromancers have gone after her in the past."

"Are there reports of other abilities that can't be explained away as talented mind slaves?"