27 Otto

27

Otto

One moment of pure white heat.

And then—

Nothing.

I blink, whirling around. Where's Dieter? I have to stop him, I have to kill him, I have to—

That was the wrong question. I don't need to know where Dieter is. I need to know where I am.

A hand reaches through the foggy white surrounding me, and before I have a chance to panic, I recognize the feel of the fingers weaving through mine. Fritzi clutches at me, pulls me closer, and she is clearer in focus now, all the red lines of her wounds made starker in the brightness of the light. The brightness fades to misty white, just like—

"Remember when we were tested?" Fritzi murmurs. "Before the goddesses let us into the Well?"

I start to agree with her, and then we see a figure approaching us through the mist, swirling clouds parting in her wake, a stick tapping on the ground with each step. The sound echoes hollowly.

I've met Holda, the Maid; she tested me and forged my tattoo.

I saw Perchta's monsters in Glauberg, another test, that one from the Mother.

"Abnoba," I say. The Crone.

"And you're the warrior," Abnoba replies. Her voice is scratchy, as if she's not used to speaking. She's bent over a cane, her long silver hair sweeping almost to the ground as she hunches. But when she lifts an eye to me, I can tell her vision is clear, even if her face is lined with deep wrinkles.

Without moving, her gaze flicks to Fritzi. "And the champion." Fritzi's fingers tighten around mine. She's on edge and, I know, tired. Drained. Emotionally, physically, magically.

"If I'm a warrior, why did you take us from the battle?" I ask.

"So eager to kill?" Abnoba says. There's no judgment in her voice, only curiosity.

I glance at Fritzi. Dieter is a monster.

Dieter is her brother.

"No," I say, surprised at the truth of it.

Abnoba focuses on Fritzi. I can feel Fritzi trembling—fear of what must be done, I think—and I step forward, shouldering in front of her. I cannot protect her from everything, but scheisse, I wish I could.

Abnoba's wrinkled lips twitch. "I have been most curious about you, warrior," she says, seemingly content to let her attention fall on me instead of Fritzi.

"Oh?" I hate the combative tone in my voice.

"Am I an enemy to you?" the Crone asks.

"Should I treat you as one?"

She laughs, the sound as hollow as the thuds her staff made against the ground…whatever the ground is. It's too shrouded in mist. "I don't think so. But some of your people do." At my blank look, she adds, "You worship a different god."

"Differences do not make enemies, except among fools," I say.

"And you are no fool?" Again with that tone—no accusation, just curiosity.

"I try not to be."

"Many fools do the same." Before I can respond to that, Abnoba smiles again and thumps her staff. "But the real fools are the ones who think they know everything. That is one thing I appreciate about your beliefs, human. The idea of the mystic unknowable. It's when people start to believe they know everything that they show their foolish hands the most."

"This philosophy is…" Fritzi heaves a sigh, unwilling to label her thoughts on the conversation. "But I believe we're in the middle of an apocalyptic event that perhaps has a little urgency attached."

"And you are eager to return to what must be done?" Abnoba asks.

Fritzi ducks her head, blond hair falling in her eyes. "No," she says, so quietly I almost miss it.

"Well, that's good, dear," Abnoba says, reaching past me to pat Fritzi on the cheek. "You young ones, always doing. It's good to take a moment to pause and think." She turns to me with a twinkle in her eye. "To tell a story. My sisters and I, we are not of your world. But we came here seeking…"

She pauses for so long that Fritzi and I exchange glances, wondering at the way the Crone's voice trails off. "Seeking what?" I ask.

"Oh, different things." Abnoba waves her hand dismissively. "But when we came here, we brought some of our magic. And magic is a wild thing, hm?" She makes a noise at Fritzi, something guttural, and it takes me a moment to realize it's a knowing laugh. "Magic can't be stopped, only delayed. So my sisters and I planted the Tree to slow it down. At the time, this world was very new. We wanted to help humanity grow, but we wanted to protect our children."

"I thought it was Perchta who was the Mother, the protector," I say.

"And I thought you were comfortable with the idea of three gods being one," Abnoba snaps back.

I jut out my chin, giving her the point.

"We did not foresee so many walls," she says after a moment. "A wall to dam magic and mete it out incrementally. A wall to protect the Well. A wall to keep out the Romans. And they made walls, too, the Romans. The limes to push the people back. Walls around your cities, around your amphitheaters, around your homes."

"Walls can protect," I say.

She nods slowly. "They can. But every wall that has ever been made must one day fall."

Fritzi sucks in a breath at that, her hand going clammy. I know what she's thinking. It's my fear too. The wall around the Well has fallen. Dieter used the flames engulfing his body to burn the Tree.

I remember the light. It's hard to think in this fuzzy in-between place the goddess has taken us to, but I remember the light.

I remember the fire.

I'm not sure of time anymore. Did the goddess bring us to this liminal space before or after it was too late to do anything about the fire that engulfed the Tree?

"Is…?" I swallow. "Is today the day the Origin Tree falls?"

"What does that matter to you, human with no magic?"

I'm not sure. I'm a soldier, not a general in this war. Fritzi knows—not just what the council wants and what the goddesses want, but what she wants. Freedom of magic, magic available to everyone, without the restraints of the rigid rules of the Well. I glance at her, and I'm certain she would know what to say. But she's waiting for me to speak. So is Abnoba.

"What does it matter to you, Otto?" Abnoba asks again, her voice gentler.

"I like having access to magic," I say finally. "I did not realize it before—how can one want something one has never had? Had never believed possible? But I know it's possible now, and it is something I want."

Before Fritzi, I never felt that hollow space inside my body that could be filled with magic.

Her magic.

Abnoba's lips twitch, but I don't let her speak. Instead, I continue, "But I don't want it at the cost of Fritzi's magic."

Fritzi's eyes round in question. "My magic—"

I cut her off. "If there were no restraints, if magic was truly accessible to all like Holda wanted, I never would have drained Fritzi, she would never have been open to Dieter's influences, none of this would have happened."

Emotion flickers over Fritzi's face, her expression unreadable.

"I am only meant to use her magic to protect her, and I failed at that." I say the words as if they are a confession, but my eyes are on Fritzi, the only one who can absolve me.

"You lived. I lived. That's enough," she mutters. She means the words to be just for me, but the silence in this place makes her voice echo.

I shake my head. "It's not enough." I turn to Abnoba. "Survival is not enough. Why can't all humans have access to magic? Not just in spells, but the wild magic Fritzi has?" I ask. I hate the whine in my voice, but there's something about Abnoba—her deep wrinkles, her grandmotherly eyes—that makes me feel safe to question her like a child.

The goddess turns to Fritzi. "That is what Holda asked of you, to show witches that wild magic is not evil, and that they have access to more power than we led them to believe."

"Not just witches." Fritzi's eyes flash. " All humans should have the choice to access magic." Her voice is firm.

"We originally tried to keep our magic small," Abnoba says. She looks as if she is carefully considering what Fritzi said. "Only a few chosen had access. Gifts can become burdens. And then when those without access started to persecute those with…"

The ancient tribes, the Romans, the battles.

"You tried to create a safe haven," Fritzi says. "The Well."

She nods. "But we also believe in choice ," Abnoba says, using the word Fritzi had. "We told witches of magic, taught them what the Tree could offer. And then we…" Abnoba takes several steps back, her cane thunking hollowly.

"The people in the Well developed their own governance," she says.

The council.

"Their own rules."

The spells.

"Their own traditions."

The secrets.

She watches me, and I sense that I'm supposed to take more from her speech than just her words. She is old; she is used to waiting, and all of time has stopped anyway, so I consider what she's said.

There is tradition in the Church too. I think of the parishioners who recite prayers in Latin, a language they do not know, the words nothing more than rote memory. The Protestants have translated the Bible from Latin to German, but that text was translated from Greek and Hebrew into Latin already, perhaps other languages beyond that—what meaning was lost in each word's increasingly distant substitution? We kneel when we are told to kneel, we eat when we are told to eat, we move about a calendar with holy days that were originally Roman, originally Greek, originally Pagan.

All in the name of tradition.

But there is comfort in tradition too. I wove advent wreaths with my sister and stepmother. In my village before I left for Trier, I gathered in the town square for dances and feasts—some of my most joyous memories. The Christkindlmarkt was when I started to fall in love with Fritzi. Fresh Lebkuchen sparks warmth and peace at just a whiff of the spices. My sister brews beer with my stepmother's recipe, and in a way, that keeps her alive even when she is gone.

"Some traditions lose their original meaning," I say, "but they're not all wrong."

"And Perchta thought I should let you die," Abnoba says, grinning at me.

My blood runs cold. I cannot forget that, despite her grandmotherly appearance, Abnoba is a goddess. She has stopped time for us in this moment, but I cannot trust her mercy to continue.

"Traditions can be helpful," Abnoba says, nodding as if speaking to herself. "But when they lose all their original meaning…" She looks up, her roving eyes settling on Fritzi. "You, champion, convinced Perchta of that."

Fritzi squeaks in surprise, and that makes Abnoba's face nearly disappear in wrinkles, her grin is so big.

"At best, traditions with no meaning are wasted time," I say. "And at worst, they kill."

"If a tradition would kill my children, then they should kill it first." Abnoba stares into my eyes. "It was not just Fritzi who chose you as a warrior, Otto Ernst."

The weight of the goddess's expectation settles on my shoulders.

"What are you saying we should do?" Fritzi asks.

I feel heat. I don't see the flames of the Origin Tree—all I see is this misty nowhere place—but I think I'm starting to feel the fire.

"Are you saying that we should let the Origin Tree burn?" I ask.

Abnoba laughs. "I'm saying it's going to burn now whether you want it to or not."

"So the world will flood with magic," Fritzi says slowly.

"Yes," Abnoba says, tilting her face to the flames that are gradually becoming visible. "And isn't that wonderful?"

"Are we all going to die?" I ask.

"Oh, definitely," Abnoba says. "Eventually, anyway."

Fear is a tightly coiled snake biting at my guts. "Will the flood of magic kill off all of humanity?" I snap. "There is an apocalypse happening currently, remember?"

Abnoba takes another step closer to me and lifts her walking stick, thunking the knotted top on my chest. Where my tattoo is. "You think this was an accident? You're a human, boy. And you're bonded with a witch. You've felt her magic now. What do you think?" She eyes me, squinting. "We designed traditions to protect, not limit. We taught the witches spells and how to access the Well because they were children then, centuries ago. Children with enemies who wanted to hurt them."

"There are still enemies that want to hurt them," I whisper.

"Yes, but they're not children anymore, are they?" Abnoba's smile turns sad. "Not even little Liesel."

I shake my head mutely.

"Holda would free everything. Perchta would free nothing," Abnoba says, tapping her stick against the wood. "But when you're as old as me, you realize: the only thing left to do is let the children decide for themselves who they want to be."