Marta was in an unlit cell, alone, her arms tightly chained together behind a stone column, which was scratchy, likely unpolished and rough-hewn granite, which had left Marta’s wrists raw from struggling too much. The only light in the room came through a thin crack under the heavy, oaken door, though it barely illuminated anything.

  Marta missed all the little sounds of Starwitch, like the little metallic noises that went through the hull with every little adjustment of the sails, as well as the sound of the little control cables that ran from the witchpit’s levers to the engines and various mechanisms, but in contrast, the Dead Queen’s monolith was utterly silent, as if Marta had been buried alive.

  The room smelled of strange herbs, which was fortunate, after a fashion, because they were pungent enough to block out the pervading stench of rotting filth. In her mostly sense-deprived state, she’d come to imagine the herbs as those used for embalming, since they smelled similar.

  She felt cold, as if the grave were scrabbling at her, clawing to take the soul from her body, and she shivered, despite the fact it was reasonably warm, likely a symptom of what had been done to her.

  Her mouth was dry and tasted of a hint of blood.

  She’d been in her cell at least a day, after a nightmarish, one on one experience with her captor, as the dead woman stared directly into her eyes, which had been held open by a pair of zombie soldiers. Marta felt as if her captor had literally been using her eyes as a window to the soul, which she wished was only a metaphor.

  She also felt as if something vital had been stolen from her, like a piece of her soul was missing. In its place, she felt as if something that didn’t belong had been forced into her body, like a spiritual parasite, or possibly a demon, a very worrying thought.

  Marta had initially tried fighting back, but that only resulted in the old witch applying pain spells. Those did no physical harm, but they left Marta in the worst kind of agony, until she’d stopped fighting and let the old bat look into her eyes.

  When she’d been put in her cell, she’d tried for hours to free herself with magic, but whatever the Queen had done, it had left Marta unable to cast spells.

  She waited and wondered what was coming next, while exhaustion crept into her body, robbing her of consciousness as her head bobbed downward.

  Red hair in curls framed Marta’s view as she leaned over a little, black puppy. She picked it up and the puppy licked her face with excitement. She’d always wanted a puppy and Mama had finally giver her one for her birthday.

  Marta straightened up, looking on the red mask and hood of Mama, who’d just stepped into the private quarters they shared on their star ship.

  Mama removed her mask, revealing she’d been the source of Marta’s curly, red hair and green eyes.

  Mama smiled in a warm and motherly way that left Marta feeling happy, “Remember Elsbeth, if you wish to keep this animal, you must vow to care for him and never neglect him. That includes cleaning up after him.”

  “I promise!” Marta enthused.

  “No. I said vow, not promise.” Mama corrected.

  Marta nodded and tried again, “I, Elsbeth Natas, vow to care for and never neglect this dog! I will clean up the messes he makes!”

  “That’s a good girl.” Mama smiled, “Now, I’ll be stepping out for the afternoon. Have fun with your puppy and try to choose a name for him.”

  Mama put her mask back on and left the room. Marta was so happy! She opened the little box of toys she’d been collecting to give to her puppy, including a few balls in various colors and a rubber bone. She spent the afternoon teaching her puppy to play fetch, petting him whenever he brought the ball back.

  After a few hours, the cognitive dissonance of experiencing another woman’s memories finally caught up to Marta and she managed to separate herself from the little, redheaded girl’s body, stepping back from the scene, to stand near a dark corner that included an archway to another room.

  Someone hissed from the dark recesses of the other room and Marta turned to look. She saw nothing but an indistinct space, with fuzzy details that were further obscured by the lack of light, though there was a darker outline in the shape of a woman.

  “We don’t have much time,” the dark figure hissed in a warning tone, “but you better stay out of the light!”

  Marta stepped further into the shadows, asking in a whisper, “Why?”

  “I hate to break it to you, but Elsbeth has already stolen a piece of your soul, as the first step toward consuming all of it. To make your souls compatible, she’s replaced what she took with a piece of herself, creating a link between your souls.”

  “That’s sick!”

  “Don’t I know it! She did the same thing to me, fifty years back, but I’m not even sure what my name was anymore, because the more time passes, the more my memories mix with hers. I’m barely holding on, but back to the point: if you make it clear you’re fighting back by lurking in the light, she’ll return to chip away another piece of you, by force. The more you fight, the faster you’ll lose yourself.”

  Deep worry crept into Marta’s voice, “What can I do, then?”

  “You need your magic to win. To get that working again, you’ve got to accept the process. You’ve got to accept the fact you’ll forever have a piece of that awful witch inside you, as well as a piece of me, I guess. If you can learn to cope with who and what you’ve become, you should be able to use your magic and surprise her in the real world.”

  “Why are you helping me?” Marta was feeling extremely skeptical and paranoid, “What do you have to gain?”

  The shadow woman softly chuckled, “I’ve been fighting back for fifty years, looking for any way to get revenge. If you win, I get my wish! With any luck, you’ll put her down for good, because I can feel the power thrumming through your body and it’s beyond anything the Queen has ever consumed before.”

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  “Fair enough.” Marta nodded, “Any other suggestions?”

  “Get back to that kid and roll with the punches. If you come up with more questions, step back and we’ll talk.”

  Marta nodded, “Thank you.”

  She rushed out of the shadows and stepped back into the little girl’s perspective. In a strange way, she almost enjoyed the memory, because it was rather pleasant. She eventually decided to name her puppy Bones, because he liked his rubber bone best of all.

  In the background, where Marta couldn’t see, her mysterious benefactor grinned in an exceptionally wicked fashion, a smile that would have made the Cheshire Cat look rather moderate, by comparison.

  Marta woke with an aching neck, because her head had fully fallen forward in her sleep. For a brief moment, she thought her name was Elsbeth.

  She should have been hungry and thirsty, because she’d had no food or water for more than a day and a half, but with the abundant life energy of the Queen flowing through her body, she wasn’t.

  She decided to try some magic words, namely ‘metal’ and ‘unlock’. As she concentrated, she calmed her mind and focused, until the manacle on her left wrist popped open, followed by the one on the right. She felt as if she’d just run a marathon to cast such a simple spell, but it was worth it, to have her hands free. She rubbed her aching wrists and smiled.

  The shadow woman had been right that acceptance was the path back to her magic, but she clearly had lots of work left to do, because the result was a rather weak spell. She crossed her legs, leaned back, closed her eyes and tried to meditate her way into a hypnotic state, a technique she’d learned in the Dugaria military, though she’d never been very good at it.

  Her mind wandered the memories in her head as she decided which were her own and which were not. When she located one that wasn’t, she dove straight into it, that she might get to know her enemy a little better.

  Elsbeth was sixteen years old and wearing the full red dress, robe and mask of a Newt Witch, her hair carefully tied back and tucked away. Bones walked behind her, obediently. He’d grown into a great big dog, because he was a rottweiler, a fiercely loyal breed that made excellent guard dogs. On top of that, he’d become an exceptionally large example of the breed. He outweighed Elsbeth by at least forty pounds and his jaws were large enough to clamp onto a man’s skull. Four years had passed since she got him and they’d been inseparable. They slept in the same bed, played together, worked together and never went anywhere without the other.

  Bones always watched Elsbeth’s back and he was willing to kill to protect her, something he’d done on multiple occasions, because the life of a Newt Witch was sometimes dangerous; not everyone venerated them and some few were tired of witches being in charge.

  They walked the streets of a city on the surface of Taneas, because her mother had business with the city administrator. Contact with the distant world was irregular, but The Order of Newts tried to keep in touch with all worlds on which they were welcome.

  The city had more glass and steel than most, but was otherwise not that different from most moons orbiting Junas.

  Bones growled and Elsbeth turned, looking on a man with a knife. He was clearly quite scared, but also angry. Fortunately, good old Bones had gotten right in the way.

  “You’ll put that blade down, unless you want to be dog food.” Elsbeth spoke with absolute confidence, on top of the trained calm and serene voice of authority.

  The man seemed to evaluate his situation for a moment, then rushed forward to attack, but instead of aiming for Elsbeth, he aimed for the dog! Bones was stabbed, producing a shriek, but he didn’t back down, laying into the attacker’s leg with his teeth! The man was soon on his back, unable to scrabble away, while he stabbed again! Bones shrieked again and went for the throat, but as his attacker braced himself to stab again, Elsbeth muttered the ancient words for ‘blood’ and ‘death’, causing the man to die of a heart attack, on the spot!

  Bones returned to his master’s side, whimpering, because he was bleeding quite badly and leaving a pretty wide trail as he walked.

  “Good boy.” Elsbeth patted her dog on the head and began muttering in the witch’s tongue to cast a healing spell.

  That’s when the second and third attackers grabbed her from behind, laying hold of her arms! She was too startled to finish the spell, while Bones initially tried to attack one of the men, but a simple kick was enough to knock him down, because he was already too weak to be of any assistance! As Elsbeth tried to speak the words of a fresh spell, a rope was thrown over her head and neck, hauled back by a fourth man, preventing her from speaking!

  Tears rolled from Elsbeth’s eyes as her loyal companion expired from losing too much blood, while she tried to cast a spell, despite being unable to speak! Haywire magic poured from her body in a dense torrent that left one of her attackers stunned, while the others kept trying to murder her!

  As Elsbeth started to gray out, due to a lack of oxygen, she began to see beyond the mere physical, taking note of the spirit of her loyal companion, who was barking and failing to bite the attackers!

  Most of the magic went to waste, but the spirit of Bones absorbed the rest, empowering him to make a difference, by force of stubborn will! Bones leaped and bit, catching the man with the garrote in the face!

  The man screamed as his skull was crushed by the supernaturally-strong jaws of a ghostly dog, while Elsbeth looked on the other two with murder in her eyes and repeated her earlier spell! Both men died screaming, while Bones tore the third to shreds, a fate that was too good for him.

  When the violence was over, the spirit of Bones loyally returned to Elsbeth’s side, making it clear that living or dead, he intended to stay with her.

  Tears of gratitude and loss rolled down her cheeks, beneath her mask, as she softly muttered, “Good boy.”

  Bones was dead, but perhaps there was something she could do for him. She couldn’t raise the dead, but she’d read about a technique largely considered dark magic, which bonded a soul to its bones.

  Laying a hand on the cooling corpse of her dog, Elsbeth spoke three words in the witch’s tongue: ‘spirit’, ‘bind’ and ‘bones’. The soul of Bones flowed like a mist through the air, settling back into his body.

  In the background, the people in the streets reacted with fear as the dog rose up, licking Elsbeth’s glove.

  He was still dead, though his wounds began to bleed faster, because his heart had started back up. Something had to be done about that, lest he make a mess.

  Elsbeth spoke another spell: ‘blood’ and ‘bone’ were linked, followed by ‘repair’ and ‘corpse’. The dog’s wounds vanished and Elsbeth smiled at her faithful companion, knowing he would never abandon her, so long as she could keep his body together with magic.

  As Elsbeth walked away, Marta stepped out of the memory of the woman in red and looked for a dark corner, in an alley between two buildings, another shadowed area in which the memory became indistinct, an edge that marked the boundary of what had actually been experienced.

  Just as expected, there was a shadowed figure there, who nodded, “I think you’re doing well, so far. What do you need?”

  “I don’t like this, because it feels like putting on another woman’s underwear, only worse.” Marta pointed out, “I feel like this is a mistake.”

  The shadowed woman nodded, “It’s a two-edged sword. You can cut the Queen with it, but it can also cut you. Keep going and you’ll get your full power back. When she comes for you again, you start a full magical duel, on the spot. She won’t expect that.”

  “Okay,” Marta took a deep breath and nodded, “I guess you’re right.”

  She rushed off and stepped back into the body of Elsbeth, while the shadowed witch grinned and muttered too softly for Marta to hear, “You poor, doomed fool.”

  The shadowed woman briefly stepped into the light, revealing she had curly, red hair, green eyes, and fair skin, just the same as Elsbeth Natas, the Dead Queen.

  I hate you so much. The strongest of the souls trapped in the body of the Dead Queen grumbled, at a volume lower than the lowest whisper.

  “This is your fault, you know.” Elsbeth muttered as she stepped back into the shadows, “You gave me the idea fifty years ago. If you hadn’t tried to give that poor, scared little girl a fighting chance against me, I’d have kept doing this by force.”

  I hate you.