If witches ruled...

So this was my first attempt at Alternative history, and I couldn't help but imagine, what could have happened had thousands of witches not been hunted and burned at stake in early 16th century.

“Muriel, I need the love potion you gave Ashthi”, my patron stood across the counter and asked me. But I couldn’t just give her the love potion.

With great witchcraft, comes great responsibility.

“Why do you need it Runa, didn’t you just take one last month for, what was that boy’s name, Aryan, isn’t it?” I asked her.

“Yeah, but now I am bored of Aryan, and he is all love struck, done it all to please me. This time, it is the mail man, Pasha. He seems quite a catch.” Runa’s eyes light up with excitement and desire. She obviously was bored of her last month’s love slave and needed another distraction. But I wasn’t going to provide her with the love potion.

Yes, they were just men. And yes they served few non-intellectual purposes like lifting weights, making love, running errands and giving us our precious baby girls. There would sometimes be boys, but those boys were given to wet nurses and sent to the palaces to be raised as love slaves. And yes, even if it felt wrong to treat them as slaves, there wasn’t much that could be done. It was after all the way of the world.

What I did not understand for the life of me, was when asked to think differently, they would look and that’s it, just look like they had the thinking capacity of a sparrow! I had heard stories about smart men, intelligent men, Alexander the great, King Arthur but that was all before the 16^th century. All before witches of the world took over the reigns and men lost the capacity to exercise their brain.

So yes back to Runa, while Pasha would serve his purpose for Runa, it was wrong for Runa to want so much. After all greed and lust were the ancient sins.

“Sorry Runa, you know the drill. One love potion for one man. And that has got to last for at least 3 months.” I responded to Runa, who made a face and stomped out of my store.

Ufff, these new rules made by the new Queen of witches were too much to abide by. We had heard rumors about a man in the Queen’s service who was a wizard, and the Queen was in love with him.  This was the reason for all those pro – men rules. These rules did not go down well with most of the world. Already there was a rebel uprising in whole of Europe and India.

“Love” a woman falling in love with a man was unheard of, and that too a wizard.

Wizard’s were a small species of men who were respected by witches because they were as well versed in magic as we Witches were, but the Wizard population was dwindling. They were one by one being hunted down by a secret society of witches who felt that men had only one purpose and that was one of a slave.

This secret society went by the name of “Kooreetsi”, it began in the later 17^th century and were lorded over by a panel of 7 fierce and powerful witches, who were also referred to as elders. Every 100 years the reigns of power passed on to the chosen 7. The 7 were chosen from a lineage of pure blood witches and after years of rigorous training.  Each one of these 7 had to prove mastery over 5 elements before they were declared as elders. And their identity remained a secret from every one including the bottom ring of the “Kooreetsi” society. The elders were not just responsible for taking crucial decisions in running of the “Kooreetsi” society but also were especially trained in taking down and hunting of the most powerful wizards.

I looked outside and realized it was dark already. Time to shut shop and go home. As I was about to pull down the shutters, a Raven came flying towards me and dropped a sealed envelope. I instantly knew where the letter came from. My hands shivered in excitement as I opened the letter.

There were just two lines written on it:

Hunter: Elder Muriel

Hunted: Wizard Dragan

With a crazy grin on my face, and the lust of my next hunt literally making me salivate I ran to the resource room in the basement of my 2 storied home. A cozy abode that alternated between a ground floor store and 1st floor living quarters.

The weapons room was filled with spell books, potions, swords, axes, guns, poisonous knives and my most prized possession, Rhys, my pet boa constrictor. A wizard can’t possibly incant spells when Rhys is increasingly choking his throat now, can he? Oh how many of those, nasty men who called themselves men of magic suffocated to the grip of Rhys. Rhys loved me and I loved him and the best part of having Rhys with me was that I was never lonely.

When I became the Elder, Rhys was my gift. Blessed with the power of speech he was a young 6 days old Boa who would wail consistently for either milk or a frog. But I raised him and I have loved him ever since first set eyes upon the tiny, scaly green shiny delight.

It took me around 2 hours to collect all my weapons and magic books, potions and poisons and dump them in the bottomless bag. Before I could ask, Rhys wrapped himself around my neck and I teleported us to the nearest “Warp”.

“Warps” were this elite mode of travel, reserved only for witches and wizards. They could teleport you to any part of the world in an instant.

I stood outside the warp looking up at the night sky and the giant columns where every single inch was carved with incantations.

I cut my veins and allowed the blood to flow through the channels that led inside the warp and invoked the spell of teleportation.

“Ut ducem luna et requies lucis,

Oh ianuam, ut me semper in – Pragae”

I saw a light forming in the dark recesses of the “Warp”, I waited in anticipation for the light to engulf me and pull me in, for what I knew would be the greatest adventure of my life.

“Muriel, I have always hated teleportation, it ruffles my scales.” Rhys spoke in a tone that sounded suspiciously like fear.

“Don’t be a wuss, Rhys. 5 -4 -3 -2 -1….Wohoooo here we goooooooo!” and we were sucked into the bright vortex.