The Writer And The Witch by Robin Sloan

ONCE , LONG AGO , A YOUNG MAN WAS WALKING down an old road on
his way to the New Capital. Ancient trees leaned in on both sides and cast
shadows that dappled his way. He was very ambitious. His father was a
farmer, but he wanted to be a writer. He wanted to see everything and try
everything—and he was in a hurry to get started.
    (That’s how it starts. This is a story that’s
been in my family for a long time. It gets told and retold in times of
transition—graduations and weddings, births and deaths. It’s not a story you
tell around a table; it’s a story you tell quietly,
one-on-one, maybe after everyone else has gone
to sleep.)
    So, the young writer came to a short stone bridge
that crossed a narrow river. There was an old woman sitting like a heap of
gray rags at the base of the bridge.
    “ A coin for an old
woman?” she asked as he passed. He said nothing and kept walking. “Just a
kind word, then?” she called. Again, he said nothing, and picked up
his pace.
    “ STOP !”
she said—her voice very different. He turned. The old woman was standing,
pointing at him with a long, pale finger. “In such a hurry? Then, in the name
of the rock and the ice, I curse you. For every step you take along your path,
you will age one year. And then you will die.”
    The young writer rolled his eyes. This was not
the first time he’d been cursed by a vagabond. He turned and continued on his
way across the bridge. But the air suddenly smelled like a thunderstorm. And
with every step, he felt it: something inside of him was coarsening and
thickening. His heart was hammering in his chest.
    He reached the other side of the bridge and there
he fell to his knees. Reflected in the river, he saw not the face of a young
man, but one twenty years older.
    He lifted his eyes. A jet-black
crow screamed and spun above the trees. The old woman was gone.
    # # #
    THE YOUNG WRITER ’S FIRST INSTINCT was to run, to outrace the old woman’s words, to
put this hallucination behind him.
    But it was no hallucination.
    He stared at the foreign face in the river. He
felt sick and dizzy. He thought of all the things he wanted to do, all the
places he wanted to see. It had all been laid out before him, like some magical
feast. Twenty steps ago, life had seemed like an improbable blessing. How
could something so small and stupid destroy it all? How could he have made
such a simple mistake?
    He cursed the old woman—the witch—and he cursed
himself. He made little strangled sounds of pain and he wept.
    He sat there. A step in any direction was
suicide.
    The sun set and he curled into a fitful sleep.
In the night, cold rain fell, and it soaked him through.
    # # #
    IN THE MORNING , he woke and ate some of the bread he’d brought
for the journey. There wasn’t much.
    He stretched his arms and legs, which ached more
than they’d ever ached before. The young writer was no longer young.
    A woodcutter came down the road leading an
ox-cart. He slowed in front of the sprawled writer. “Are you hurt
or sick?” he asked.
    The writer began: “A witch”—and then he paused.
There was a choice to be made, and I’m not sure that he realized just how
important it was. You’ll understand soon enough. Once told, stories take on
a life of their own.
    The writer glanced over to the river. The water
was running fast and dark. He made his choice. He lied:
    “ I am a pilgrim from far
away,” he said, “and I have come to spend my life in prayer and meditation
here, in this spot, where the river meets the road.”
    The woodcutter frowned and glanced around.
“It’s not much of a spot, is it?”
    “ It is more important
than you realize!” said the writer. “Why, there is a spirit in this river that
would devour you and your ox, and having done that, it would roam the land
until it found your village, and it would eat everyone there, too.”
    The woodcutter looked dubious.
    “ But I have placed myself
here as sacrifice to the spirit. And