The Empress and the Witch

by Tamias Nettle

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about

This story has become an important part of my personal mythology. It's also taken on a life of its own, getting me into learning computer skills and all sorts of weird stuff.
I had published "Chapter 1" here, intending to follow up with other chapters. I'm switching (Sept. 2022) to a earlier version that stands alone. The rest of the story is to the original as The Lord of the Rings is to The Hobbit: it's in the same universe with many of the same characters, but it's for an older audience and it follows a variety of characters over different time periods. Anyway, I'm not ready to publish it.

lyrics

The Empress and the Witch

Several hundred years ago, on the far side of the world from where I’m sitting as I tell this, was a vast empire. It was ruled by an empress who lived in a huge stone castle, in a huge stone-walled city, in the foothills of the mountains that formed the southern border of the empire. It was said that that was the largest empire the world had ever seen, and it was said that the empress was the strongest Go player who had ever lived.
In a cabin on a mountainside, not far from the capital city, lived a witch. The witch mostly kept to herself, but two or three times a year, she would walk down the steep, rocky path to the village at the base of the mountain, and trade at the village market. She made medicines from herbs that grew in her garden, and traded them for the things that she could not make for herself, like metal tools.
One sunny day, at the beginning of the harvest season, the witch heard a surprising rumour in the marketplace...

Full text here: <https://tamiasnettle.neocities.org/text1.html>

credits

released August 10, 2021

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about

Tamias Nettle British Columbia

Tamias is a storyteller, a naturalist, a single parent and a descendent of settlers living in Coast Salish territory. It uses its literate English speaker privilege to advocate for the non-human and the unseen as well as for humans who are underage, neurodiverse or otherwise marginalized. Tamias talks about itself in the third person to help others get used to its unusual preferred pronoun. ... more