Spellbreakers (8 page)

“Oh, oh, I have it!” said a slender elf-woman from
high up—she was gracefully “sitting” in a tree.
“
That
Hawkeneye.
Oh yes, he
was
a terrific shot.
Even
for an elver, and they are all endowed with best sight of all the talking
peoples.
But he did not Fade, princess, not at all!”

Leal frowned. “He didn’t? What happened to him?”

“Oh, that was wicked, wicked. He was
enchanted
!”

There was another murmur among the
Faded
people.

“Enchanted?”

“Oh yes. It’s when someone puts a spell on you and
turns you into a talking frog, or something such. Except that talking frogs are
very hard work, and nobody really does that. But this Hawkeneye, he had the
misfortune of being too handsome for his own good. And the Ice Queen of Dalarna
fell in love with him. She is not really a queen, mind, just a witch with some
serious delusions of standing. But nonetheless, she courted him and flattered
him and lusted for him day and night, and he turned her down again and again.
And she grew so angry that she had him seized and brought to her ice castle,
where she had her way with him for three days and three nights, taking from him
all kinds of wanton and unseemly pleasures. But still he would not love her. So
she put him to sleep an enchanted sleep under a vault of ice inside her castle,
to punish him for his cold heart, and as far as I know there he lies to this
day. Very few people ever knew this, even in the northern kingdoms. He was away
and far from home, and all his companions were slain. But we Shining Ones pick
up odd bits of news in unusual ways.”

“He is
asleep
?” asked Leal carefully.

“Well, if you can call it that,” said Jalal. “An
enchantment of this sort is not the sort of sleep where you can walk in with a
mug of tea and fried mushroom on toast, open the window and say, woo-hoo, rise
and shine,
it’s
half past ten and the day is bright! I
suppose there will be some serious waking up to do.
Pure
heart, white steed, kiss of life, that sort of thing.
And kill the
witch, that
goes without saying.”

Leal was aghast. “Is this all real? You are not
pulling my leg? It’s not a legend, or a fairytale? People can really sleep for
a hundred years and be brought back to life with a kiss?”

Jalal put a hand to his heart. “I made light of the
matter, child, in my joy of talking to so young a creature, but you have my
word that I did not make fun of you. If what Libellula says is true and he was
thus enchanted, he might indeed still be brought back to life, provided the
spell has not been broken since. If the spell was correctly broken he has
already been saved, and has been living
incognito
ever since, I guess.
If the spell was broken but not correctly—if, say, the witch was killed, but
the kiss of life was not successfully delivered—then he will have died along
with the enchantress. Or it may well be that he is still there, sleeping. In
which case, you might have a go at it, princess.
Worth a try
at least.
A good, hearty Quest is better than a boring wedding any day.”

Leal frowned again. “Dalarna is a good way north.
All the way north of Kaleva.”

“Ten points in geography for the pretty princess,”
said Jalal. “I didn’t say it would be easy. But neither is marrying a man you
hate. If you want a real hero, child, you got to go to the trouble of getting
one. They don’t usually come cheap.”

Leal was thoughtful for a while. “Can it really be
done?” she asked at last. “How do I kill a witch? How do I give this kiss of
life?”

“Oh, witches can be killed just like anybody else.
That is the easy part. You must get past their defenses of course, but after
that sticking the business end of a knife in their vitals usually does the deed
all right. As for the kiss of life,” Jalal smiled at this point, “that is the
gift of unconditional love. The love you feel when you’ll give your life for a
life, your soul for a soul. Then your kiss will be the true kiss of life.”

“But ... how can you love like that someone you have
never met before?”

“Ah, but isn’t that the snag of all this hero-heroine
sort of stories? Why does the prince kiss the sleeping princess? Why does she
marry him? It is a mystery, and yet it happens again and again. It might even
be argued that this wonderful ability to fall in love as per your destiny is
the first prerequisite for heroes and heroines. The world is littered three
times deep with folks who didn’t make it to their destiny, and didn’t get into
the books, because they settled early, and married the girl next door, who was
sensible and comfortable and was renowned in the whole village for her lentil
stew.
Which had bacon in it, lovage and spicy peppers.
”

Leal was developing the feeling that for all his
highly ascended state of being Jalal missed tasty, real, solid food a lot.

“In any case this is the true lock you must pick with
this kind of enchantments.
 
They are not
meant to be easily broken. The thinking is, I want this man so much and he will
not have me, then nobody will have
him
unless they want him as much as I
do. Only then he can be saved. So you must find it in yourself to want him as
much as she did. It is not an easy magic, child.”

Jalal had become quite serious while speaking these
last words.

“So, it may all come down to destiny. Or ... how much
do you love your kingdom and your freedom, and all these things. You must find
the fire in your heart to love him more than your life.”

Chapter Five

Leal woke up to a peeping of birdsong. The forest
sighed and swayed above her in broad daylight. The fronds were ordinary lush
green, the sky in between a clear blue. Her head ached, and her mouth was
watering uncomfortably.

“Ow,” she said.

She realized she’d been saying it a lot lately. It had
been quite a day. She rolled over on her belly, rose to knees and hands and was
violently sick on a patch of green moss.

She threw up bile, some of her last meal, and, very
recognizable, the seed of the dragon fern.

“Bugger,” she said when her stomach stopped heaving,
but actually she already felt much better. She stood up, and gasped.

What from the shore, by moonlight, had looked like an
ordinary forest was actually mostly constituted by dragon ferns. They were
smaller and younger than the huge old tree from which she had taken the seed.
Some had trunks no taller than she was, but all of them waved slowly in the
breeze, slowly coiling and uncoiling their curly shoots.

“Well I never...” she said, trailing off in sheer
amazement. Then she realized that every pilgrim that had come this way must
have been as sick as she was, at a certain point. The fern had found its own
unique way to spread its seed.

Leal regarded the trees one last time. Then she walked
to the beach, and dove.

Dee was waiting on the other shore pacing the length
of the jetty like a lion in a cage. The lake-shore was once more perfectly
visible, and the swim across felt much shorter.

“What happened?” he asked before she had even come to
the stepping stones. “I was worried sick. Are you all right?”

“I am ravenous,” said Leal, pulling herself out of the
water on the edge of the jetty. At the moment she cared nothing for her
nakedness, but Dee hurriedly fetched her clothes and turned away.

“There’s food in the saddle bags. You’ll be fed as
soon as we are back to the horses. Did you talk to them? Did you find him?”
asked Dee staring at the cliff walls while she dressed.

“Yes, I did. And no, he’s not
Faded
at all. But I know where he is.
More or less.”

“More or less?
What do
you mean more or less? For heaven’s sake, Leal, tell me what happened!”

She told him everything while they climbed the narrow
path up the gorge, and the more she said, the more somber he became.

“So I suppose that I’d better pack some warm clothes
for my next escapade,” concluded Leal, at the end of her tale.

“You can’t possibly seriously mean to travel to
Dalarna seeking out an enchanted hero, can you?”

“Why, dear uncle, to be wholly fair it is
all your
fault. Not only did you drag me here to look for
him and talk to the Faded in the first place, you fed me on tales of high
magic, ancient history, and fabled adventurous quests since I was big enough to
listen, and now here I am, ready to go on a perfectly magical and even mythical
adventure.
All your
fault.”

Dee paused for a moment before replying.

“Listen, Leal, it is one thing to take a night’s ride
in the hills, climb a tree and swim naked across a mountain lake. But traveling
all the way to Dalarna is quite a different matter. You’d have to cross all of
Hassia, to begin with, and take ship to Nevraan, and then cross the breadth of
the Kalevan forest to get to Dalarna. I heard nothing but dark tales about that
forest. Giants, wargs, and goblins might be just local legends, but I am sure
the bandits are not. And the whole northwest half of the forest is Elver
territory. They have commerce with humans, but they don’t love intruders. And
then there is Dalarna itself.
Glaciers and barren moors, all
of it.
How can I let you go on such a journey, even without considering
the murderous witch at the end of it?”

“Oh, but you can’t stop me, Dee. I will find him and
bring him back, or die trying. Jalal believes it could be done. And they said,
all of the Shining Ones, which, on a side note, is a far better name for them
than
Faded
, that
they will send out word to
their brethren all through the north. So we might get help on the way, who
knows.”

“We?”

“Of course, Dee.
I did
not say I’d go alone, did I? I will ask Daria to come with me. She’s hardy and
handy with horses, and she knows her way around the countryside and villages.
She’s clever, resourceful, and brave. Braver than a
man,
and more sensible.”

“Sensible? Daria is a bundle of trouble wrapped in
mischief and tied up with ten turns of tomfoolery.” Dee spoke with some heat,
but even as he spoke he was fighting to bite back a grin.

Leal smiled. “Ah, you know what she is like. She may
be a bit of a daredevil, but she’d never, ever let me down. I’d trust my life
to her.”

Dee shook his head, but did not comment.

“I will think about this.”

It was afternoon by the time they reached their
hobbled horses. They were standing patiently in a patch of short, well grazed
grass.

The noble Lord Dionis sat down on the ground with a
very unceremonious groan after the grueling climb, and even Leal, thirty years
younger, was quite exhausted. They had a quick meal of bread and cold meats,
washed it down with the clear water of the stream, and rode back to the castle.
They took it easy. They did not want to arrive before dark.

****

That night, after he had taken Leal back to her room
via a maze of secret passages, Dee paced up and down his library. He was too
tired to think straight, but too agitated to sleep.

Perhaps it was crazy to put such an improbable quest
in the hands of two young women, but what else could he do? He could not go
himself. He could not leave Escarra right now. He was not a particularly vain
man, but he was cynical enough to know that the kingdom needed the Master of
Enchantments, even if his magic was as good as dead. The knowledge and illusion
of magic that he could provide was the only thing that still kept Hassia at
bay. Leal was the heir to the throne, true, but should something happen to her
... well, he would be the one to grieve her the most, but there were two more
royal daughters in line. He dared not put this thought in words, not even in
his head, but it was there.

But what was more important, nobody else would ever
consider doing this, even at his command. Leal was the only one with faith
enough in the old magical lore to take such an endeavor seriously. She was
eager to go, which, in such an adventure, was perhaps the most important
quality. And he was sure this
was
the best path for her. If she
succeeded in the quest she would be rid of Black Admund, and heir to a free
kingdom. And if she failed and returned in disgrace, or if something happened
to her on the way, perhaps it would be a better way for her to go than as a well-dressed
slave in the Hassian royal palace.

Even in this prosaic age the Master of Enchantments
was
a wizard. He may have been a somewhat crippled magician, but he still had some
senses that common men did not possess. And this senses told him that it was
Leal’s destiny to go on this quest. He suspected that she would go whether he
approved or not. He could give her all his help and make her trip that much
safer, or let her slink away without any money, support, or advice. Not a hard
choice there.

No, in the circumstances it was a sound plan, he was
certain of it, and Leal was the right person to see it through. The Faded had
taken a shine to her, as he had half hoped from the start. And she had Daria.
Daria would certainly go with the princess, no doubt about it.