The Breath -Sixth Whale Book 1

*11*

Old Aggie watched as a group of twenty witches slipped through the barrier. She'd seen more witch trials than anyone in The Halves, excluding The Witchfather and knew things were going to continue to get worse. How these young ones who were little more than children were so willing to rush to their deaths was beyond her understanding. She remembered witches flooding into the halves to escape the mobs, mothers carrying their children despite having broken legs, hiding their hair beneath wigs, She remembered the screams and the blood and the fear. She remembered the relief as witches tumbled through the barrier and suddenly the stones stopped pelting their bruised and bleeding skin. She remembered how not everyone survived. She remembered smelling the smoke and hearing the screams, of burnt and drowned bodies piled high. She prayed to the Creator. Even he couldn't stop stupidity though. they wouldn't listen to her, not to an old woman. She sat and she waited and she hoped maybe more than one would come back.

Mae had slipped away from the pyre and joined the elderly witch, sitting beside her chair on the lumpy paving stones. 

" He tried to get them to think and stop." She informed Aggie, watching the smoke spiral in the edge of the firelight. 

" There was nothing he could do this late. Magic sickness spreads insanity you know? It had that lad by the neck and it seeped into his friends. All too weak with magic. Barely warlocks  or witches at all." The old woman sighed. Mae frowned.

" They looked like witches and warlock to me." She replied after a moment's contemplation. 

" Looks can be deceiving. Most of the Halves have magic in their blood somewhere. You the original witch, or warlock and they have a child with someone no magic because all the boys get whisked away to the guild. Then that child grows up and does the same and with every generation, the magic gets more dilute. Unless they are conceived or still in the womb during the breath." Old Aggie gentle rocked her chair and it creaked slightly. 

" They eventually lose the immunity to magic sickness." Mae summarized, old Aggie nodded.

" Yes but it's a different kind, most with the sickness are only attracted to harm witches. If it develops in someone like that lad it turns him into a lure, drawing other witches in. If he hadn't spent go long galivanting around the city and spent time listening to the priests he would never have caught the seed. Despite his blood making him prone to madness." Aggie used her can to continue the rocking.

" His blood?" Mae questioned. Aggie turned to the girl and gave a toothy grin.

" You know the problem with a place like the halves with so many abandoned children?" She asked eyes giving a strange twinkle. Mae shook her head.

" Nobody knows their bloodlines, the witchfather used to notice when there were fewer of us, but as numbers grew it got harder and well sometimes children get abandoned for other reasons. The Halves has an issue with inbreeding and sometimes those born of such a union have a stake in madness so deep it runs right into their blood." Mae shuddered. She never thought about it and she guessed neither had most of the population. Old Aggie puffed on her pipe.

" You know you could live outside The Halves girl?" She asked her young companion. Mae just shook her head again.

" The last of my family is here. Pa made me promise to protect her. So where she goes I go." Mae stated as if lost in a memory. Old Aggie chuckled and the pair fell into a comfortable silence waiting for hell to begin.

Outside Tinker's Temple, a celebration was being held to commemorate the killing of the first witches. Hundreds gathered there, eating and drinking while the head of the order looked over them. So many in one day but it wasn't anywhere near enough. He could feel it in his bones, the witches were polluting the city and needed to be destroyed. He would love to kill the nest that the fouls things seemed to spew from but nothing he'd tried so far seemed to work. Nor was the Tinker very vocal about how to destroy such a barrier. He prayed every day that his obstacle would fall. He knew the great Tinker, master of all creation wouldn't let him down. It was he who sent him this great and holy mission.