Authors: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
“I’ll do nothing of the sort, and I’m not your girl!” Maggie informed him, anxiously watching at the same time as Winnie and Colin bent over the fallen bear.
“Is he dead, then?” asked Winnie.
“Not yet,” snapped Fearchar. “I just happened to have laid that dragon-strength sleeping powder there. You’ll be meeting the dragon soon.”
Colin had straightened, having wit enough to retain his bewitched expression. “Oh, Master Fearchar, sir, do you think that’s safe? I understand dragons can be hazardous to one’s health.”
Maggie knew she would explode if she heard one more syrupy answer from the lying wizard. Facing him squarely, she threatened. “Tell him the truth now. Go on, tell us all the truth if it’s in you. I’m sick to death of your hokery pokery.”
Her uncle seized her wrists and glared at her. Hugo had twisted Winnie’s arms behind her now, and had a dagger at Colin’s throat, in case he wasn’t so enchanted as he seemed to be. “You will not refer to my magical powers as hokery pokery, niece. Hereafter you will be respectful and will do precisely as you are told.” He smiled unpleasantly, “Too bad you didn’t array yourself as I asked so you would be pretty for your bridegroom. As it is, there will just be enough time for you to accompany us to the feeding grounds to give the dragon his evening meal. You will soon see, while my scaly friend feasts on Lady Amberwine’s tender flesh and that of the minstrel, that I am to be reckoned with. Your little deceits have cost you their lives. You understand that you are responsible for this unfortunate turn of events, not I. You force me into violent action. By the time the gypsies arrive, the effects of your salt will have worn off, and you’ll once more be docile, if somewhat saddened by the loss of your friends. You and the bear will do my bidding, and when he has signed the writ, you will be married and he will be removed to the dungeon till the next feeding.”
“And you really think I’m going to go along with all this?” she asked, fingering the dagger in her pocket.
“Oh, my dear child, I’m afraid you have no choice. It is not actually you who will be queen at all once you marry Davey. Your charming appearance will remind the Ablemarlonians who really rules them, but you will work no more tricks, make no more unwise decisions. You will be quite subdued—permanently. I think I have just the spell to do it.”
Ching’s ears had been flattening as Fearchar’s voice rose higher and higher while he leaned into Maggie’s face to emphasize his point. He had been so intent on making his effect, he failed to notice the cat’s laid-back ears and the tail he lashed behind Maggie’s shoulder. The wizard could not, however, fail to notice the lightning slash of claws that ripped across his face, catching the corner of his eye.
Screaming with pain and clutching his eye with one hand, the enchanter slapped Maggie to the floor with the other hand as he grabbed the cat by the head and flung him into the fireplace.
Maggie recovered quickly enough to shriek at the fire to stifle itself. With a terrible yowl, Ching leaped out of the coals and streaked out the door.
“Catch that beast, Hugo!” ordered Fearchar. But Amberwine took advantage of her proximity to the peddler to stretch out a dainty foot and neatly trip him. By the time the wizard recovered his composure, the cat had disappeared.
Fearchar, still clutching at his injured eye, was stalking towards Maggie, who lay sprawled by the fireplace watching his advance. His uninjured eye tried to skewer her where she lay.
The pulses in her throat were throbbing so that she kept swallowing, and her hands trembled as she drew the dagger from her skirt pocket. Colin leapt forward to help her but was checked by Hugo’s knife. Maggie lost her balance once and had to support herself on the mantle as she stood to meet the wizard. Her eyes felt dry as paper and fastened on him with awe and an odd loathing respect. His was the first real malevolence she had ever encountered, and she found it shamefully attractive. It crossed her mind that all she would have to do to be back to their relationship of yesterday would be to smile, apologize, offer repentance, marry someone she hated, and sit idly by and watch her friends murdered. Not so attractive after all. When she took a backward step, he took a deliberate step forward.
“You have a lot of nerve abusing Ching,” she said. “I don’t know what Gran will turn you into for that—a weasel perhaps. I don’t think there is an animal suitably vile enough to hold your form. You’ve injured my father, disgraced my sister, and threatened your own sisters and my friends. I don’t think we want you in our family, Uncle.”
“I resigned from your family a long time ago, niece,” he snarled. “But I was willing to adopt you into mine.”
“Only when you thought I could be useful. You didn’t even want to use me for my own power—just because I look like you. But my magic is all my own, not stolen, like your castle, or gotten by lies, like the spell for Davey’s heart and probably, if you could tell the truth, the one for changing His Highness to a bear. I can do an honest month’s work in a half an hour if I’m pressed. That’s not very grand by your standards, but all you seem to be able to do is convince people of things that make fools of them and cause their food to spoil, and play a few parlor tricks you’ve begged or stolen from your betters. You’re not even a decently magicked village wizard and you think you should be king on a magical supremacy platform!”
He kept coming after her, but she was drawing courage from her own speech. She stood, dagger poised to meet him, in the middle study. Her voice quavered, and to her annoyance hot tears began to flood her eyes.
“You ought to have listened to me, Maggie. It will be very hard on you now. You don’t know the extent of my power,” the smile he wore as he stalked her was not pleasant. “I can control you completely—so completely you will have to have my permission to bathe or dress yourself in the morning.”
“Not if I keep salt on my tongue at all times, and I will if it dries and cracks it in my head, rather than submit to you.” She shook her head slowly from side to side, raising the dagger slightly. “I won’t be your creature. You cannot injure my cat, murder my friends, and expect to take over my body before I’m done with it. I may be a dilute witch, as you think, but I am powerful enough to prevent your doing that. You can have no power over me that I don’t cede to you. You’re a wretched wizard, and a villain, and I think you may be a coward as well.”
He let drop the hand that held the swollen, bloody eye and stepped as close to her as possible to still be out of striking range of the dagger. “Perhaps. Shall we see…”
“Maggie!” Winnie cried, “The gypsy’s behind you!”
She swiveled to see Xenobia flying towards her, skirts like bat wings flapping as she ran. Maggie threw the dagger and missed. She plunged a hand into her pocket and flung the next heavy object she found, the vial of love potion. Her aim was better this time, and the vial struck the gypsy woman squarely on the forehead, where it broke, its contents mingling with her blood as she fell to the ground.
For a moment Maggie and the others were frozen as Davey, handsome and cool-seeming with only his bolero covering his chest and a dark curl falling over his forehead, turned to his mother. “Are you alright, mum?” he asked. The woman’s head lolled backwards, but even from where she stood, Maggie could see the battered bulging bodice of the green silk gown that had been Winnie’s rise and fall.
She was spun around and her teeth knocked together, bright spots exploding behind her eyelids as her uncle slapped her hard twice across the face. She kicked him as hard as she could with her old boots, but had not gotten her head clear from the slapping when his fist slammed into her jaw and she fell crashing into darkness.
20
Lady Amberwine cradled Maggie’s head in her lap as the swan-propelled boat sped them near to their doom. “When will you ever learn to be still?” she murmured tenderly to her sister. “If only you had kept your tongue, he would have spared
you
.” Maggie said nothing, nor had she done more than breathe since being knocked senseless.
Colin scowled and struggled with the ropes that bound him. The bear was also bound, but starting to recover from the effects of the sleeping potion. In the far end of the boat sat the sorcerer, looking appropriately sinister now that he had covered his eye with a black patch. Xenobia’s usually sour expression was fragmented with what Amberwine, had she not known the gypsy queen better, might have called emotion. The gypsy was wearing her kerchief as a bandage for the wound made by Maggie’s missile. Davey looked sleek, attractive, and bored, swinging his feet restlessly against the equipment storage box he sat upon.
The little boat stopped, and Hugo lumbered over the side to tie her up.
“Ladies first, Hugo. Show Lady Amberwine to the stake of honor. The others will have to make do with lying on the rock till the dragon notices them.”
“Right.” Hugo took Maggie from Winnie’s lap and dumped her unceremoniously onto the beach. From the corner of her eye, Winnie saw Colin’s mouth tighten and the bear gave a feeble, sleepy growl. Hugo handed Winnie out of the boat, and the stench of the animals and remnants of animals who had been left there all week for the dragon to feed upon nearly knocked her over.
“Come along, milady,” mocked the peddler, manhandling Amberwine, “We have an excellent viewpoint reserved just for you.” He pushed her off the beach into the throng of milling animals. The island rose to a central mound and in the center of this was a metal stake driven into the sheer rock. To this pole Hugo lashed Amberwine’s wrists, ankles, neck, and middle. “This is reserved for Master Brown’s special guests, milady. You might say it’s the dragon’s rotisserie.” He went on to describe in great detail, as he finished tightening the knots, in what condition they had found the remains, if any, of former occupants of the stake. Winnie was not listening, having conveniently fainted after the initial explanation of the pole’s purpose.
Colin raged at his inability to do anything to help Maggie and Amberwine, but was unable to do more than shuffle off the boat and onto the island. Davey and Fearchar rolled His Highness off a miniature gangplank, where the enchanted nobleman flopped onto the beach in an excellent imitation of a stuffed nursery bear.
Hugo returned and the wizard gestured at the bear. “Skin him out here. He’s too dangerous to have running amok. I can control Ablemarle without him through that spineless brother of his, if need be. The dragon may have his meat, but I want that handsome hide for my floor.” Before Colin could decide whether to butt him with his head or bite him on the leg, Hugo had grasped His Highness by the furry throat and raised his knife.
But before the peddler could make the cut, a screeching Xenobia leaped upon him and flayed him with raking claws until her son and the sorcerer pulled her off him.
“No! You can’t! I will not allow it!” she cried as they strove to subdue her strong, squirming body. The sorcerer, who was beginning to like that sort of thing, slapped her hard across the face.
“Whatever is the matter with you now?” he demanded, shaking her roughly. “The dragon will come to feed at any time now, and when he’s ready to eat he isn’t going to stop for a chat, even with me. Nor will he be selective about who he eats. I suggest we finish our business and depart.”
The bear groaned and rolled over.
“You can’t skin him alive and use him for a rug, Great Sorcerer,” begged Xenobia, “He’s the father of my son—”
“What?” Davey actually looked up from the inspection he was making of his fingernails.
“—and his hide has enormous sentimental value to me.”
“Perhaps I shall just concentrate on my conquest of Argonia right now, and forget about Ablemarle altogether until some arrangement can be worked out with the present ruler. I can surely find more reliable allies later.” His back was rigid with contempt as he re-boarded his swan powered vessel. “Come, Hugo, if we hurry I can reach the princess’s palace by morning, in time to compose my acceptance speech. You may all stay here and be eaten if you so desire.” Hugo didn’t desire, and leapt aboard. Before the others could express further preference, the boat was gliding wakelessly through the tossing sea. Xenobia began to shriek curses after it, and Davey ceased to look bored. If he hadn’t pulled her back, she would have drowned as she tried to wade off into the sea after the boat.
Colin thought he detected streaming green hair and a flashing tail now and then showing above the surface as it followed the wizard’s boat. He screamed to Lorelei, but received no answer.
His Highness yawned cavernously and attempted to sit up. “I say, what’s all this?” he asked. Xenobia hovered possessively above him, casting accusing glances out to the uncaring gray sea.
“We are about to become dragon fodder,” Davey answered.
“Why is young Maggie napping, then?” the bear asked. The situation was explained to him, and since they were all in the same situation and all would be needed if they were to successfully fend off the dragon for any length of time, Davey and Xenobia were prevailed upon to loosen the bonds of the bear and Colin.
Wasting no time, Colin threaded his way through the animal bodies. He tried not to slip and fall on the rock as he climbed the hillock that held Lady Amberwine. She was beautiful, fragile, and not a great deal of help as he tried to untie the knots that held her with her full unconscious weight dragging against them. “I do wish,” he grumbled to himself, “that people would try to remain alert around here. After all, there IS supposed to be a dragon in the vicinity.” He caught Amberwine just above her abdomen as she slipped down the pole when he untied the last knot.