The Vampire & Her Witch

While Talauia and Jacques cleared away the remains of their indulgent breakfast, Amahle took the opportunity to give Ashlynn and Heila a glimpse into the month ahead.

”Sorcerers can get away with simple invocations and crude rituals because they don’t work with much power, but for us, as the amount of power you draw on grows, your need for supportive implements will also grow,” Amahle explained. ”Like a craftsman, a witch is far more capable when she’s working with all of her tools.”

”Like the items you put around the circle at the start of the seed-planting ritual?” Heila asked attentively.

”No, those are anchors or supplemental materials,” Amahle said. ”Let’s compare to a woodworker since we all have some affinity for wood,” the elder witch said. ”A carpenter has his hammers, saws, rasps, and so on as the vital tools of his trade. But he also needs timber, nails, glue ,and other materials that are consumed in the practice of his craft whenever he builds something.”

”So, when you say tools,” Ashlynn said. ”You mean things like wands? I brought a branch from an Ancient Oak to craft into a wand for myself. I imagine we may need to ask the Ancient Willow for a branch for Heila?”

”Wands are the first tool we’ll work on,” Amahle agreed with a smile. ”Today, we can visit the Ancient Willow to ask for a branch and tomorrow I can help you both begin your wands. A wand is essential if you want to perform any large-scale witchcraft, or if you want to be very precise with your witchcraft. Both the very large and very small benefit from a wand’s ability to gather energy and give it direction.”

”But, I’ve never seen you use a want, Aunt Amahle,” Heila said with a frown. ”I haven’t seen Jacques or Talauia use one either.”

”I have my own advantages for doing delicate work,” Amahle said. Her spider-like limbs reached out in front of her, each one coming to rest precisely next to a finger the Mother of Thorns placed on the table. A moment later, the tips of each limb began to glow with a dark crimson energy.

”If I’m attempting to raise walls of thorns, flood the Briar, or do something of a similar scale, I’ll still need a wand,” Amahle explained as she withdrew the spider-like limbs. ”But for delicate work, I essentially have four of my own wands to work with. It’s one of the reasons that sorcerers of the Night Weaver Clan are so feared, and witches from my clan are even more so.”

”So the reason we haven’t seen Jacques or Talauia use a wand is because nothing we’ve seen them do is of the right scale to require it,” Ashlynn said with a nod. ”That makes sense. When I was practicing with Jacques, he said we needed to be very careful to restrain ourselves or we would disturb Heila and that if we got carried away, we might accidentally fell trees.”

”It’s good that you two were able to restrain yourselves,” Amahle said with an awkward smile. From the look of the barren island when she arrived, the word ’restraint’ could only barely be used. They’d erected an earthen barrier to protect Heila from the aftershocks of their training! That might have been prudent but she’d hardly call it restrained.

”Wands accompany you everywhere, but the second tool is a bit harder to travel with, though a small one will do in a pinch,” Amahle continued. ”The products of a witch’s cauldron are among the most valuable and treasured commodities we can produce. Never undervalue the work you can do with a mortar and pestle, a cauldron, and a good fire.”

”Wait,” Heila said, startled by the way Amahle had phrased things. ”Commodities? You mean you make things with witchcraft that you sell? Isn’t that... wrong? A misuse of nature’s gifts?” During her trial, she’d been presented with visions of many places where Cecile guided her in using the gifts of nature to cure the sick and heal the injured, but she had never set a price for her services in those visions.

”I would never sell my services cheaply,” Amahle said. ”Nor would I withhold them from someone who I desired to help simply over a matter of money. But child, trade, even if it’s simple barter, is a way of life. We are not hermits to completely withdraw from the world despite how isolated I may appear here.”

”Take this salve, for example,” the witch said, pulling a small bottle from the pouch at her waist. ”This bottle contains enough for three applications to a relatively large and deep wound or two smaller wounds. Applied once a day at the same time each day and the wound will completely heal within a day of the last application. How valuable do you think such a medicine is?”

”To a warrior, it might not be priceless, but it’s life-altering to be sure,” Ashlynn said as she thought back on her visions of the battle. Four days to heal a wound sounded impressive and it was, but it wouldn’t turn the tide of a single pitched battle. It might turn the tide of a prolonged war if the enemy didn’t have similar means to restore their soldiers.

The more she thought about it, however, the more uses she found. Scouts and hunters might need healing while far from a place where they could reach a physician. And even small villages would pay handsomely to have such a medicine on hand in case emergencies happened.

”How difficult is it to create that salve?” Ashlynn asked.

”There you are,” Amahle said with a smile. ”You can’t set a price for it until you know what it costs to make. I can make twenty small bottles in a single batch. Between preparing the ingredients, concocting the salve, and bottling in a way that preserves it against contamination from dust or strange energies, it takes two full days to produce.”

”But the herbs required are also difficult to cultivate,” she added. ”With what I grow in my own gardens, I can make a batch every month or two.”

”It still can’t be cheap,” Heila mused. ”It’s just too miraculous to people who have nothing else like it. You must be able to ask for at least a full gold coin for each of them. Even if you only sold a few every year, it would pay for almost anything you could need.”

”That’s the idea, sugar,” Amahle said with a smile. ”But there is far more than just this that you’ll rely on your cauldron for. Cures for toxins of all sorts, potions that can strengthen and sustain the body and many more things can spill forth from your cauldron. ”I wouldn’t suggest setting up a shop, but there are witches in the past who have.”

”Remember, the earth doesn’t care about how its treasures are used,” Amahle said. ”But we must ensure that we don’t do too much or we risk upsetting the balance of things. If you set up shop, you may be tempted to have others harvest herbs for you. Your harvesters may become overzealous to supply you and before you know it, the herb you need has been harvested to extinction in the area within a hundred leagues of your shop.”

”I don’t think either of us plans to make a business out of witchcraft any time soon,” Ashlynn said with a light laugh. ”But it’s good to know that we could, one day if we wanted to. If we can bring the wars to a stop, running a shop wouldn’t be a bad life, would it, Heila?”

When Ashlynn mentioned it, she wasn’t really thinking about Heila, but rather about Ollie. She’d talked to him when they met about simple ambitions, like opening a shop or working as a butcher in town instead of slaving away in the Lothian Kitchens. To the humble kitchen-boy, they seemed like grand and distant dreams, but in the future...

”I’ll never leave your side, my Lady,” Heila promised while clutching Ashlynn’s arm. After what she had been through and what she had seen, she knew Ashlynn would need her help in all manner of ways in the years to come. Besides, with the wealth of the Vale of Mists, making money for Ashlynn was the least useful thing she could think of doing to help the woman who had given her so much. ”I don’t need to think too much about selling potions and running shops when I’ll always be your lady-in-waiting.”

”Still,” Amahle interjected. ”Even if you never sell a potion for a large quantity of gold, you may find a day where you need to trade them for the kinds of things that can’t be bought for money. Favors between nations,” the witch said with a pointed look at Ashlynn. ”Bartering for the life of a captive. I’m sure you can imagine all sorts of uses for what you called a ’life-altering’ item. Think beyond healing for a moment. How many men have you met who are deeply troubled by their inability to produce an heir? A witch could restore a man’s virility, or help a woman ensure that she conceives after the man has sewn his seeds. How much would men of power give for that kind of help?”

”You’re right,” Ashlynn said, her voice strained as she recalled her parents’ struggles with fertility. Her marriage to Owain had occurred, in large part, because of her father’s lack of an heir. Moreover, if she’d been able to concoct a potion for her mother that would have prevented the stillbirth of her last child... she shuddered to think what her family would have given for such a miracle.

”Mistress Nyrielle is out there right now,” Ashlynn said softly, forcefully turning her mind away from thoughts of her own family and trying to focus on things that were closer at hand. ”She’s searching for allies who can help us in the upcoming war. If I could produce a few useful items for her, even if they were just tokens to ease a negotiation...”

”I’m glad you see the applications and how useful it is to have a cauldron,” Amahle said with a smile. ”Don’t neglect the gardens that feed your cauldron. You’ll find that you spend as much time in the gardens as you do in your workshop to care for everything you need if you find yourself concocting for trade.”

”Still, there’s one other tool that you’ll need to acquire,” Amahle said, her tone growing sharper. ”It’s important that every witch equip themselves with a Severing Knife.”