CHAPTER 19

The city of Aston was both a port and a frontier town about eighty miles south of the Urthan border and about three hundred or so miles north of the capital of Angland, the grand city of Darnell. The town proper was perched on the cliffs above a sizable cove, its hundreds of inhabitants all industriously working to build it into a proper city, toppling trees in the forest to the east to raise buildings, hauling stone from the port to cobble streets, delving and prospecting the nearby hills and forests for minerals and lumber. Below in the cove, dozens of mages that had been shipped from the southern continent of Rothgar were all employed in dredging out and widening the cove so that large ships would be able to berth, carving out parts of the cliffside in arranged and designed steppes, and clearing large tracts of land for farming.

Construction mages, spellcasters with specializations in moving earth, carving up stone, and transporting large volumes of material were more than worth their weight in steel, and the Church of the Golden Lady spared no expense. Aston was essential for the Anglish Empire’s expansion, both strategically and serving as an excellent shipping port for the Yamato, who required constant large volumes of raw goods to make up for their mineral-poor islands.

The infrastructure for smelting and mining, farming and woodcutting was already in place, and hundreds of peasants lived and worked there every day, as there was never a lack of materials or jobs to be done.

On the east side of Aston, the sounds of hammers, saws, axes and robust lumberjack curses filled the air nearly twenty hours a day, and the bell-like peals of hammers on metal, the sizzle of metal being quenched, the susurrations of grinders, and the shouts of the laborers on the west, and overhead, thick clouds of steam and smoke belched constantly into the air, along with the occasional cinder or shower of sparks.

Despite this, it was categorically small compared to the cities in the southern continent. People called cities like this, like Aston in the north and Norn to the south ‘frontier cities’, where southerners pejoratively referred to Aston, Norn, and their outlying villages as ‘shanty towns’.

When Katarina arrived, riding out of the forests to the east, it was midafternoon, and the sounds of industry were alive in the city, and although she was still some ways away, the sounds of relentless manufacturing buffeted her. As she cleared the forests’ edge, she halted her horse and took a long moment and contemplated the city.

Each main thoroughfare was dedicated to some industry. Stonecutter’s Way, or Forest’s Path, or Smithy Road, were arranged in parallel lines. Each road brought in raw materials at one end, and passed everything forward to the next shop or facility, so that by the time you reached the broad highway headed south, you had cartloads of finished products ready to be sent south to Norn or Darnell.

Out across the bay, she could see mammoth towers going up; the cove had been dredged and massive stone walls, quarried from the cliffs, edged the cove, protecting it. The walls were large enough that four horse drawn carriages could ride side by side with room to spare, and the towers were to function as defensible lookouts and lighthouses.

She was filled with conflicting emotions as she looked over the town from her vantage, the spring breeze stirring the leaves at her horses’ feet. She spent months in the wilds, living raw, hunting mages, scouting and mapping for the church, and while she was glad to revisit civilization, at the same time she was reluctant to enter because she knew that once she entered the city, once she entered the church, she would have to be on guard to avoid getting enmeshed in political schemes. While frontier villages like Higgenfal might only have a pastor or a couple of missionaries and a local lord, they didn’t have much time or resources to commit to political schemes.

However, Aston was both large enough and populous enough that there was likely a Bishop, a bureaucratic functionary that oversaw the disbursement of pastors and scribes across the local region. This bishop was likely the one that assigned Camille and her ill-fated brother to Higgenfal.

This bishop would likely want to enmesh her in some political scheme or some bid for power. She’d have to establish early on that she wasn’t the kind of person that would easily go along with such things.

Katarina took a moment to compose herself and wondered if Sasaki had caught her ship yet. She hadn’t seen Sasaki on the road at all, and diminutive woman didn’t seem suited for aggressive travel through the woods. Had Katarina arrived ahead of Sasaki?

She rode slowly through the north gate of the city, glancing around as she did so, wisps of her white hair floating about her face, stragglers that had escaped from under her hat. She took note of landmarks and buildings, keeping an eye out for the local church as she passed.

On this edge of the city, all the buildings were ramshackle clapboard sealed with pitch, mostly unpainted aside from dirt, grime and smears of soot, much like their occupants. The main streets were paved after a fashion with thick wooden planks, where the smaller streets and alleys were dirt. Closer to the heart of the city the wooden planks gave way to cobbles.

The laborers were just as filthy as the buildings they lived and worked in. Dirt and soot seemed liberally smeared and smudged around, and the clothes they wore were dirty, stained, and careworn linens and cottons. The men wore heavy trousers and shirts, and most wore heavy leather aprons and chaps over their clothes and robust workman’s gloves. The women wore simple peasant’s skirts with aprons, drawn up just enough so that the hems did not drag in the mud, and their heads were covered with a simple wrap or kerchief.

As Katarina carefully guided her horse through the throngs of people, she could feel disapproving eyes on her. No matter where she turned, however, no one seemed to be looking directly at her. The unspoken statement that women did not wear trousers and women certainly did not ride astride a horse like a man did not escape her. Still, they made way for her.

As she reached a street corner where this muddy street intersected an equally muddy street, several city patrolmen eyed her with a frown, and one actually began rising up from his post, but she casually tapped her holy symbol, a shield-shaped medallion with a lily inscribed on the face, and they grudgingly subsided. If one of the peasants had the audacity to dress as bizarrely as Katarina did, no doubt they would have been arrested, marched to the church, flogged, fined, and censured.

Katarina, however, was a Witch Hunter, a warrior for the Church of the Golden Lady tasked with hunting down unsanctioned mages. Witch Hunters were given a great deal of flexibility and latitude in what they could do in the pursuit of their duty, as witches could be found at all levels of the society, from Nobility to the meanest peasant. For Katarina this meant she had the liberty of wearing pants, a singular freedom accorded to the women who were called to the craft.

Oftentimes Witch Hunters wore absurd and bizarre combinations of armor and clothing, and often wore them in slipshod, incomprehensible ways. In this Katarina was no exception; a heavily embroidered and riveted brigandine vest over a loose man’s shirt with voluminous sleeves, fringed buckskin breeches with a steel greave on the left thigh and a stylized lily worked at the knee; a short leather hat with a wide brim that looked seared and chewed, a mail cape that was bound about her waist, and an oversized fringed buckskin coat that hung from her shoulders and would drag on the ground when she walked. She wore several necklaces, and the holy symbol of the Golden Lady, the Shield of the Defender was affixed haphazardly to a heavy golden chain that hung from one of her three belts.

The shopping district was unsurprisingly commonplace. The simple vendors, people that sold their wares from stalls or wagons shouted their wares into the streets, offering everything from thread to canning jars. Proper shopkeepers didn’t hawk their wares, they stayed in their shops and brokered deals for themselves and their patrons. In the Anglish empire, most shopkeepers were owned by merchants, nobles that traded in volumes of unprocessed raw materials. They in turn provided these materials to various shopkeepers who turned them into finished goods. Simple vendors, on the other hand, were ordinary folk who sold meat pies, candles, fishhooks, and twine and all sorts of bits and baubles who didn’t belong to the noble class.

The traffic here was slow going; Katarina barely nudged her horse to keep moving. Many tried to give her berth, but the cramped and compact streetway made it impossible, so they settled for angry, dark looks from beneath hats or behind headscarves and bonnets and muttered invective.

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Katarina’s mouth twisted wryly; she strung her holy symbol around her neck so that it was obvious, and hoped they’d eventually stop complaining about her trousers. Well, they likely took umbrage with her riding like a man as well.

She eyed the stalls as she passed, and she briefly entertained the idea of purchasing from them. She did not often purchase anything; her needs were few and far between.

A girl was offering needles and spools of thread; Katarina had lost her sewing kit when her shelter had been swept away by a flash flood some months back. She swung down from her horse.

"Might you have a complete sewing kit?" She asked the girl, whose eyes immediately riveted themselves to Katarina’s holy symbol with an intense fixation. "I need needles for both cloth and leather, scissors, thimble and finger blade." She added.

The girl glanced up at Katarina’s face and nodded jerkily. "At the linen shop, mi’lady." She replied, and attempted an awkward curtsey with her tray in hand.

"Excuse me mi’lady, but might you be an adventurer?" She asked. "I’ve never seen a lady dress so..." She trailed off.

Katarina took a second to consider her answer. Aston was a larger city, which meant she likely could announce her trade without fear of a lynching at the terrified hands of a peasant mob. She shook her head. "I’m a Witch Hunter in service to the Golden Lady." She said by way of introduction.

"You’re a ... Witch Hunter?"She asked timidly, alarm flashing across her face. Katarina raised her eyebrows, and schooled her face to calm.

"Yes I am, what can I do for you?" Katarina asked, motioning for her horse to step to the side so that she didn’t hold up the flow of traffic in this narrow street.

"Well, it’s said that Witch Hunters don’t always... kill the mage, is that right?" She asked with an offhand casualness that belied the true interest beneath. Katarina nodded, turning back to the girl. "That’s right. If a mage agrees to Sanctioning, to be legitimized and blessed by the church, then there’s no reason to kill them. Rather, they’re welcomed. In times like that we escort them to the nearest Church."

"What- what happens to them?" the woman asked nervously. Katarina’s eyes narrowed as she invoked a silent prayer to her Goddess and examined the woman with her blessed senses. The woman had faint traces of magical residue on her. Coupled with the woman’s inquiry, what could that mean?

"I’m not sure I understand the question." Katarina said carefully.

"Can we go somewhere and talk?" The woman asked, and Katarina nodded. The girl moved to a nearby alley, which put Katarina on her guard.

"I mean, what happens at the church, with the Mage?" Katarina nodded and shifted her stance, both to appear open and inviting, and also to give her a clear shot at her gun if she needed.

"They’re Sanctioned. I don’t know all of it, but they pray to the Golden Goddess, and they are anointed with a tattoo. The tattoo is made with consecrated inks." The girl looked troubled, so Katarina continued her explanation.

"Magic is corruptive, dangerous, and if left unchecked, fatal to the mage. The blessed tattoo acts as a filter, cleansing the dangerous element so that the mage may learn to practice magic without fear of debilitation, mutation, corruption. They live longer, healthier lives."

The girl looked immensely relieved at that.

"My... little sister seems to be... I think she might be a mage, Lady Witch Hunter. I was afraid for her."

"Would you like me to speak with her? I can tell her what I told you, and I would be happy to escort her to the Church here. I will tell you one other thing: It’s very likely that your sister will be sent to the Miskatonic University in Darnell for formal training in the magical arts. If she is indeed a mage, she needs to be trained properly in the use of her ability, so that she does not bring accidental harm to herself or to others."

The girl shuddered and clutched her arm reflexively.

"Has she ..." Katarina started, and the girl nodded. "There was a ... fire." Katarina nodded sympathetically.

"It’s best we attend to her soon, then. Will you introduce me to her?" The young woman nodded, and they stepped out of the alley and moved off down the street.

In front of her was the little girl, no more than six or seven. The girl was perhaps the same as any other peasant girl; grimy about the edges, chubby-cheeked and gap-toothed, rumpled hair. Her name was Katja, and the older sister that had approached Katarina in the street was Liesel. The girl fidgeted and squirmed. She was uncomfortable, and it was understandable; as soon as Katarina had entered the premises she had extended her antimagic field just to be on the safe side. Now a girl who had been born with the sense of magic suddenly discovered it was absent. Like a missing tooth that the tongue keeps reaching for, she was missing her magical ability. Katarina had spoken with the both of them; as soon as the parents arrived she would move forward with getting the little girl Sanctioned. In the interim, they made desultory conversation; Katarina spoke of the tiny frontier towns she routinely travelled through, most only populated with maybe two or three families, a very tiny church, and a local land baron, who in turn was likely a servant to a greater land baron, who in turn, so on and so forth, finally leading back to the Great Church of the Golden Lady.

When the parents came home, they were immediately on their guard.

"Who are you and what are you doing in our house?" the mother demanded without preamble. Her hands were grimed with coal and her arms bulged with appreciable muscle.

"My name is Katarina", she began, reaching into her shirt to display her holy symbol. "I’m a Witch Hunter in service to the Golden Lady."

The woman’s demeanor instantly changed; a moment of fear flickered across her face. She frowned, her suspicious, guarded expression harder. "That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here. There are no witches here."

"On the contrary." Katarina said, and tilted her head slightly to Katja.

"Oh, I’m sure Liesel told you quite a story, but Katja is no Witch." She replied defensively, shooting a glare at the girl, who cringed back in her seat.

"Don’t dissemble with me." Katarina replied patiently. "You honestly don’t expect me to believe that someone who has been called to hunt the witch cannot tell when one is so plainly sitting in front of her?" Katarina asked sarcastically. "Her powers have manifested. It is paramount that we get her to the Miskatonic in Darnell. She needs to be protected from the side effects of her power, and she needs to learn how to use it without harming herself or others."

"I think you should leave." The father said warningly, stepping to his wife’s defense. "Katja is no Witch."

Katarina sighed. "I will, certainly. With Katja." She paused briefly. "How you behave within the next few minutes determines if she leaves an orphan." she added in a challenging tone.

The girls’ mother stepped back, hands to her face, eyes wide in shock.

"How could you say that?!" Her mother gasped.

"Easily." She replied calmly. She stood up, and addressed them clinically. "Would you like me to tell you about magical poisoning? If she does not become sanctioned quickly, she will begin to mutate. Extra eyes, scales, or maybe a dozen tentacles from her arms. This mutation will not stop. Eventually she will be completely unrecognizable as a human, and yet even then she will continue to mutate, an abomination that is an affront to every living thing on the skin of this world. Even if she escapes the fate of mutation, she still has to contend with the inherently toxic effects of magic: her hair and teeth will fall out, she will get lesions that will not heal, her bones will grow brittle, she will be sick and nauseous and incontinent. Her very flesh will rot off of her while she yet lives, and finally, her organs will fail, one by one, until she is finally dead."

Her parents looked over at Katja, who was huddling with Liesel. Katarina smiled warmly. "I am doing the best thing for you and for her. No parent wants their child to mutate into an abomination, or dissolve away into a rotten pustule-riddled horror." she added gently.

She shrugged. "Even if neither of these were the case, what would happen if she, with her lack of training, had a nightmare and say, set fire to the house? Or worse, if her power is great, sets fire to the city? Or becomes possessed by a demon? How would you answer the Golden Lady when she calls you to judgement for your actions? My job exists for a reason, you know."

They sank to the floor as she laid everything out.

"To protect the world from her, I would kill you here and now and drag her kicking and screaming all the way to Darnell. To protect her immortal soul, I ask that you let me escort her to the Church of the Golden Lady here in Aston for her Sanctioning. Sanctioning offers the Goddess’ own protection from the effects of magic. She will be safe. The Miskatonic University in Darnell offers the finest magical training in the civilized lands. She will learn to control her power. Make the best decision, or I will."

"Can we have some time?" the father asked. Katarina shook her head. "I’m afraid I can’t offer you that luxury. Right now, simply by me being here, her magical ability is suppressed. Were I to leave, her magical power could spring forth unpredictably. You need to make your choice here and now."

She resolved to take a penance at the church when she got there. The girl’s power would not erupt. However, in situations like this, the parents could be moved to conceal the child, at which point she would have no choice but to resort to violence. By forcing them to make the choice while she was still there, she prevented them from making a poor decision, and saved herself the trouble of judging them with heresy.

They agreed, of course. She had no doubt that they would. The Church preached about the dangers of uncontrolled magic in the pulpits every week. If they didn’t agree, they would be dealt with harshly. This way, at least, they could be comforted in knowing their daughter was safe.

As she rode to the church with a teary-eyed Katja perched in the front of her saddle, she wondered if a Witch Hunter had come for Alsabet, so long ago. A cleric had come for Katarina, to train her as a Witch Hunter.