And there was the promise of endless youth. Although the girl lacked the vanity that often plagued the beautiful, she had a physical prowess most women never knew. The thought of never having her strength and agility diminished was almost irresistible. But she couldn’t forget the stories she’d heard all her life about the Sorcerer. This offer couldn’t be so simple. There must be something he wasn’t telling.
“What is your hidden price?”
“I’m offering you a chance to change your destiny. Are you really going to ask me foolish questions?”
“I want to know what your hidden price is.”
“I suppose you’d lose your soul if you should ever die,” he snorted. “But that would be no benefit to me.”
Up until this moment, the Sorcerer’s demeanor had been mild, even cordial. His sudden belligerence was unsettling. The warning of danger was a scream tearing through the girl, impossible to ignore. She shook her head and stood, looking up the tunnel to the boulder blocking the way out.
“Girl, do you really think you will ever get a better chance than this?”
“I listened to you, as you insisted. You have my answer. So are you going to let me go or not?”
The girl marveled at how resolute she sounded. Where had this strength come from, she wondered. She held her breath, relieved when she heard a long sigh and looked back at him.
“Ah well, I suppose I must.”
The Sorcerer picked up the crystal and pressed it into her hand.
“Take this and go home to your father. If you decide to keep living the life you’ve always known or not…”
The Sorcerer trailed off and looked at her pointedly. The girl flinched at the hint. She had completely forgotten that she wanted to die. It seemed an eternity had passed since she stood at the edge of the river, trying to muster the courage to jump.
“…then consider this crystal stargaze a keepsake of an extraordinary day in your life.”
The Sorcerer finished and snapped his fingers. The Gateway out of the Caverns opened to the girl. Her limbs quivered when she looked up and saw dawn reflected in the clouds. Had she really been here since the previous morning? She almost wept at being given another chance, but she’d only taken two steps towards freedom before she was arrested by the grip of his bony fingers.
“I’ll give you three days to accept,” the Sorcerer hissed. “After three days, you will never see me again and you will never find these Caverns.”
He released her.
***
The Sorcerer punched his thigh, watching the girl leave. He bellowed through his nose while she took the spiral out of his Caverns two stairs at a time. He had waited for too long to claim this one to allow her to slip away. He glimpsed the liquid cloud of second sight. The vial was on the top shelf carved in the eastern wall, resting beside a small cauldron. Perhaps he could see something useful.
He took them both to the table and sat on the sofa, resting his palm where the girl had been. He savored the heat she left behind until the image of her was clear in his mind. Then he emptied the vial into the cauldron and closed his eyes. His face smarted from the smoke rising to form a cloud above his head. The Sorcerer cast his mind, and heard the girl’s labored breathing before he saw her running through the trees. She came out of the woods at the river, close to where he had found her the previous morning just as she was about to jump.
This time she wasn’t alone. On the other side of the river was the giant gray stallion, the one that ran wild in the Abandoned Valley. Although he was a mammoth among horses, his glossy coat blended with the rising light and the girl didn’t see him until he pulled his head from the water. She glowed when she saw him. The Sorcerer was surprised at her reaction. Then he remembered that summer years ago, when the girl rode in the Abandoned Valley. The handsome young Horse Trainer who accompanied her always rode a splendid gray colt. This must be the same animal. The girl called out. The giant equine looked at her for a moment before turning away. As the animal ran for the far reaches of the Abandoned Valley, the Sorcerer saw the crest of the Patron seared into its left flank.
The girl shook her head and turned towards her father’s manor. The house was high enough to view the fields, orchards of unborn peaches, and forests of the family estate, as well as the village to the south. The manor was also backlit by the coming sun, and the household would be coming awake to start the new day. The girl stretched her limbs to their limit and fled. She didn’t stop until she came to the garden of lilies encircling the house. The top bulbs peeked at her from above her head, but the girl had her gaze fixed on the massive door carved from the wood of peach trees. With her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, the girl could have been a refugee at the gates of sanctuary.
Then she touched her hair. The coil had come undone when she fell in the river, the golden tresses hung loose and tangled to her waist. She looked over the stains on her gown and paled, her fingers touching the remnants smeared across her face. When she faced the front door again, the shine dimmed from her eyes. The girl took several deep breaths before following the path to the portico. Her hand shook reaching for the knob.
All was quiet when she stepped in. She made her way down the hall that ran through the center of the house. One door opened to a salon on the west side, while the one on the east was closed. At the end of the corridor, the Sorcerer saw twin doors that opened to the dining room.
From the west side, two servants swept in from a second door, what the Sorcerer assumed must be the kitchen. Their arms were laden with a basket of steaming bread, a cutting board with a round of cheese, a tray of sliced oranges, and a silver pitcher of coffee. They seemed unaware of the girl’s presence, arranging the breakfast at the far end of the table near the lone place setting. From the parlor, the rising sun shone through the eastern windows, gleaming along the wooden floors and fading away before the stairs.
The sudden creak in the floor startled the younger maid to look up. At the sight of her Patron’s daughter, she spilled the tray of oranges. The other servant turned and scowled at the stains on the pristine linen. She opened her mouth to scold the other, but closed it when she saw who stood just beyond the doors. The Sorcerer suspected this must be the girl’s personal maid when the woman curtseyed. She looked over her mistress, taking in the ruined gown, unkempt hair and grimy face, and paled more than the younger maid.
The servants looked at each other and back to the girl, all three standing motionless. The trio made a tableau of panic until the heavy tread coming down the stairs spurred them to action. The older maid hurried to place the tray of oranges over the soiled tablecloth, the younger poured a stream of coffee into a china cup, and the girl turned to meet her father. The Sorcerer also held his breath, knowing that what he wanted depended on the Patron’s reaction.
His boots appeared first when he stepped down from the landing. The Patron would be working in the fields again that morning. He was dressed in peasant garb and there was a permanent cake of mud around the soles of his boots. His torso held the vestiges of the formidable strength he had when he claimed this estate as a young man. His large hands were calloused from years of hard work, the mark of a farmer. Yet his hands were also those of a nobleman. His fingers were scrubbed each day; his nails were rounded and clean of dirt.
The Patron stopped when he saw his daughter, his eyes wide with surprise. He opened his mouth as if to speak. Then his gaze dropped. As he took in the girl’s appearance, he flushed and his lips clamped in a tight line. Shaking his head, the Patron flicked his eyes away and came down the last stretch of stairs, stepping past the girl to the dining parlor. His manner was stately when he claimed his seat at the end of the table.
The girl stared after her father, the high color draining from her cheeks. Her lips trembled and empty swallows rippled down her throat while she fought to regain her poise.
The maids shifted their regard between their Patron and his daughter. He said nothing until he had taken a few sips of coffee. Then he placed a few orange slices on his plate and reached for the bread, nodding at his daughter with a glance to her maid.
“I think she needs to attend to her toilette.”
“Yes, Patron.”
The rigid features of the older servant relaxed. She left her position at table to approach her mistress and curtseyed to her again.
“Would you like me to draw you a bath, Miss?”
As the last of the liquid cloud dissipated, the polite smile and empty eyes of the aging lady’s maid faded from the Sorcerer’s mind, yet the well-modulated voice lingered. Miss, he wondered, frowning. Miss. How strange that her own maid should address her in such a common manner, even if she was the only person in the entire village that spoke to the girl.
His eyes snapped open. He’d forgotten the Patron had never given his daughter a name. The Sorcerer of the Caverns leaned back into the pillows of blood red velvet, smiling up at the bright sky at the end of the tunnel.
She would be back.
The portrait was the size of life. It hung between floors on the wall of the landing facing the upper stairs. The woman was painted on canvas exactly as she had been when she was alive. Lamps always burned around her so she could be seen day or night. She stood facing the artist, her butter yellow gown falling in graceful folds from her chest to her feet. Her pale blonde hair hung loose and free around her shoulders and arms. Her lips were curved in the impish smile that had enchanted the Patron on the night he met her. Her body was straight, head leaning over one shoulder, chin tucked in, almost shy. Her eyes sparkled, looking beyond the man painting her likeness. Her forearms encircled her middle, white hands resting on the stomach still lying flat, her dreamy eyes seeing deep within, thinking only of the baby growing inside.
It had been years since the girl sat before her mother. She kept her stargaze in hand while she stared into the eyes of a woman immortalized in a moment of precious time. The subject of the painting embraced her belly, yet still held traces of the maiden wild she was leaving behind for the motherhood to come. There was no shadow of death coming for her when the portrait was made, only joy for the life she carried inside.
The edges of the crystal chafed her fingers, reminding her of the Sorcerer. Day passed into night, but she never left the stairs facing her mother. Images of the morning intruded on her vigil, and the memory of the Patron’s expression before he looked away ripped through her.
“Take this stargaze and go home to your father,” the Sorcerer had said.
She could almost hear that deep voice whispering in her ear.
“If you decide to keep living the life you’ve always known…or not…”
The girl remembered how her reflection had distorted the moving water when she looked at herself from the river’s edge. For a moment, she felt it again, the resolution to jump and surrender to nothing. Again she had the relief that it could all be over soon. Then the grip inside her breast made her double over when she thought about dying. Nothing had changed in her world and she knew nothing ever would. But the numbness was gone, along with the anguish that drove her to the river. Something had changed. She wanted to live.
The girl gazed into her mother’s eyes. Even so many years after her death, there was still so much life in that gaze, the passion she had for it and the desire to pass that gift on to her unborn child. The girl gripped the crystal, her fingers slick from rivulets of blood. Then she thought about the Sorcerer and his offer, searching for a hint of judgment from the woman in the portrait. But there was none.
Instead her mother was radiant, her likeness seeming to stretch beyond the paint to come back to life. The girl closed her eyes and shook her head. When she opened them again, the woman in the portrait glowed even more, the glaze of dreams gone from her expression. Then the girl heard a soft soprano teasing at the edge of her hearing, a mother beseeching her daughter to come closer, closer. Then there was that squeeze inside her breast again. The girl wondered if she was losing her mind.
“Mama?” she whispered, shaking her head in an attempt to come back to her senses.
“Come to me, my child.”
The voice was louder, ringing with the clarity of a silver bell, and the painted gaze grew intense. A wave of heat wrapped around the girl, a blanket she couldn’t touch. Then she caught the scent of lilies, the beloved flowers of her mother, and sobbed. She knew she could be going mad, but she didn’t care. In that moment, the girl no longer felt alone as she came down the stairs to stand before the portrait. She now stood two fingers taller than her mother, but became like a child when she reached out to her.
“Please,” she whispered, staring into the pale blue eyes. “Mama, please show me a way to protect my heart.”
The girl touched the hands in the painting and encountered flesh. The skin was so soft and the girl stroked the backs of her mother’s hands embracing the daughter as yet unborn inside her. The girl sobbed. So this is what it was like to touch her mother. Beyond the veil of death, the soprano sang a lullaby that eased the torment of her mind, coaxing the girl to lie down and sleep. Fatigue settled over her and she did as she was bid, stretching out across the landing and resting her head at the painted feet. The sweet cling of lilies guided the girl to where her mother waited.
“My darling,” the soft voice whispered. “I will be with you always.”
That promise was all she needed to let go. The loving words were the last she heard before the girl drifted to the land of dreams.
***
The Sorcerer held the vial up to the candle, satisfied with how much essence had been drawn from the crude peasant blouse. He’d kept it for years before boiling it down. Glimpsing at the cauldron, he was satisfied that not even a shred of the garment remained. He extracted every last drop. He swirled the liquid, admiring its hue. Even after several years, the essence of that young man still retained the dark red of virility.