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(Originally posted October 5, 2018)
The Spellcaster's Wife | 838 words | Fantasy
Her approach is heralded by an uneven gait, one foot dragging slightly in the gravel of the roadbed, and by the clinking of the multitude of little bottles she carries. Not long afterward, she crests the horizon, a woman who is not really old but whose body has been broken down before its time, carrying a large box made of varnished wood with gold latches, an ill-tempered dog with a mangy black coat at her heels.
She had a name, once, but it has long fallen into disuse, even by her, and thus been forgotten. Instead, those who recognize her – and they are few, for she is prudent about keeping always on the move – call her only the Spellcaster’s Wife. In so doing, they refer to the great magician of the age, Horatio Cain.
Talented and handsome, with hair so dark it shone blue, Horatio had as strong a draw toward the company of women as he did toward his magic. He met his wife while she mixed potions for a traveling medicine man, and, seeing she was docile and plain and not likely to make a fuss while she made his dinner and washed his clothes and while he spent evening after evening with a bevy of willing beauties, he married her. But, one day, while practicing for a show, something went horribly wrong, and Horatio magicked himself out of existence.
Her source of income gone, his wife was run from their home by the landlord, and learned to survive on the road, selling her potions in the towns she passed through.
And so it was today, when she settled near a stump beneath an old tree and set her box atop the stump, opening it to reveal row after row of tiny bottles filled with colorful liquids and labeled such wondrous things as "Love," "Confidence," "Power," and "Wealth." In front of the box, she propped a hand-painted sign, faded by the sun and warped by the rain, that read simply, "Take what you need."
( Read more... )
Her approach is heralded by an uneven gait, one foot dragging slightly in the gravel of the roadbed, and by the clinking of the multitude of little bottles she carries. Not long afterward, she crests the horizon, a woman who is not really old but whose body has been broken down before its time, carrying a large box made of varnished wood with gold latches, an ill-tempered dog with a mangy black coat at her heels.
She had a name, once, but it has long fallen into disuse, even by her, and thus been forgotten. Instead, those who recognize her – and they are few, for she is prudent about keeping always on the move – call her only the Spellcaster’s Wife. In so doing, they refer to the great magician of the age, Horatio Cain.
Talented and handsome, with hair so dark it shone blue, Horatio had as strong a draw toward the company of women as he did toward his magic. He met his wife while she mixed potions for a traveling medicine man, and, seeing she was docile and plain and not likely to make a fuss while she made his dinner and washed his clothes and while he spent evening after evening with a bevy of willing beauties, he married her. But, one day, while practicing for a show, something went horribly wrong, and Horatio magicked himself out of existence.
Her source of income gone, his wife was run from their home by the landlord, and learned to survive on the road, selling her potions in the towns she passed through.
And so it was today, when she settled near a stump beneath an old tree and set her box atop the stump, opening it to reveal row after row of tiny bottles filled with colorful liquids and labeled such wondrous things as "Love," "Confidence," "Power," and "Wealth." In front of the box, she propped a hand-painted sign, faded by the sun and warped by the rain, that read simply, "Take what you need."
( Read more... )
