Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [22]
But to Katya, the interesting thing was that this witch had threatened the villagers rather than actually doing anything to them.
She must have made some display of power, or they wouldn’t be so frightened, but it didn’t look as if the display of power included much actual harm. Not like what had happened to the monks. Katya doubted that this was out of the kindness of her heart, or a disinclination to slaughter an entire village full of people. Oh my, no.
It had to have been because she couldn’t do anything to them.
As she listened to the arguments go back and forth, she wondered what the difference was between the villagers and the monks. Because the witch hadn’t hesitated a moment before going all out against the shrine.
What was in the shrine, besides the talisman?
Perhaps the answer lay, not in what but in who.
Six unarmed priests, none of whom were trained in fighting, most of whom were probably old or elderly? I suspect that may be the answer. They were not a challenge. But a village full of working men and women, with weapons or weapon-like objects…
Whatever it is that the talisman does…might have very little to do with combat.
She might have demons, but evidently not enough of them. Not enough that she could take on a village. Or else…her demons couldn’t cope with something that the villagers could use against them.
She began casting glances around at the homes and workshops. There were carvings and written symbols everywhere; they could be nothing, or they could be guardians and runes of protection. But the shrine presumably would have had the same sort of protections. That couldn’t be it.
Something common, so common as to be easily overlooked.
The iron of their farming implements? The bird-frighteners in the fields? The presence of ancestral spirits about the village? The presence of children in the village? Without having the sort of concentrated and focused magic that a real magician or sorceress had, rather than the bits and bobs that she had as the daughter of the Sea King, there was just no way for her to work it out.
Katya circled the group, looking for clues, hoping for ideas. At least at the moment, it appeared that the witch was not all that powerful—certainly not so powerful that she could not be overcome by someone who actually had strong magic. But Katya knew better than to trust appearances. She wanted to see this creature with her own eyes, to judge for herself just how dangerous she was.
And then there were the seabirds. They would never be crying doom if the danger wasn’t real. So just because this witch wasn’t strong enough to take on a group of simple villagers at the time of the confrontation—
She might be very strong now. She had her stone, and as far as she knew, all the priests were dead. The threats had served their purpose; the villagers had stayed away from the shrine long enough for her trail to have gone cold. That may have been exactly what the witch wanted.
Well, this would not be the only cold trail that Katya had pursued. Meanwhile, she also needed to get help for the old priest. It was a very good thing that she knew exactly how to get that help.
On the outskirts of the crowd were the adolescents, huddled in a knot, listening intently and doing no small amount of grumbling. Katya went to eavesdrop.
“Who is this foreign witch to tell us we are not to visit our own shrine?” hissed one of the boys, keeping his voice down. Katya smiled.
“That’s right!” One of Katya’s little magics was the ability to make her words seem to come from anyone other than herself. Right now it seemed to be coming from a group of four, each of whom would swear one of the others had spoken just now. “Besides, those priests aren’t fighters! What if something happened to them?”
“I’m sure something did,” replied the first boy, grimly.