Authors: Ron Miller
After three days, the landscape was hidden beneath a blanket of snow two feet deep. Bradamant was sickened by the whiteness of everything; the uniform brilliancy made her tired; it made her giddy; the road seemed to wave beneath her feet with no fixed point on the immense white surface. She felt as one does on shipboard when the deck suddenly gives way beneath the feet. Her limbs grew torpid, her mind dull. She waded through the drifts like a sleepwalker; a slip or a sudden fall would only momentarily rouse her from her sluggishness. She tried to eat a mouthful of snow in an effort to slake her feverish thirst, but it was too cold and she felt as though she were suffocating, choking as though a mass of cotton had been stuffed between her jaws.
She crawled into the hollow of a tree; it held her like a cupped hand might hold a kitten.
It will make as good a coffin as any,
she thought morbidly. She did not particularly want to die, for it would be the final separation from Rashid, who, as an unbaptized pagan would be barred from her heaven. She could see the sky clearly: the constellations brilliant and unwinking. Snow was falling from the glassy sky—she could see the stars plainly among the flakes—as though the galaxy itself had at last succumbed to the cold and was dropping to the earth in a gelid, milky drizzle.
One of the flakes, caught perhaps in some vague current, hovered a few feet above the drifts, twinkling in the starlight like a windborne sequin.
How pretty!
the frozen girl thought as the crystal floated closer to her face. She could see the clinquant facets, like tiny mirrors woven into a delicate lace. No, she realized, it was not coming
closer
, it was growing
larger
. Spinning at first slowly and then ever faster, the snowflake seemed to shoot off sparks like a St. Catherine’s wheel. The flaming light grew too dazzling to bear and Bradamant squeezed her eyes shut against the actinic glare. When she reopened them, the sorceress Melissa stood before her, as limpid as an icicle in the moonlight.
“My poor dear!” cooed Melissa. “What have you done to yourself?”
“I’ve lost Rashid,” came the whispered answer, in a voice so weak that the sorceress could scarcely discern it from the sound of the drifting snow.
“Silly girl,” she replied kindly. “Come on with me and we’ll get things fixed up.”
She reached in among Bradamant’s layered robes to find a thin, cold hand.
“I can’t,” said the girl.
“‘Can’t?’ Can’t what?”
“I—I can’t rise. I can’t go anywhere.”
“But there’s no need, my dear. You
are
there.”
Bradamant opened her eyes with enormous effort—they had been sealed with frozen tears. Her congealed lenses refused to focus and she struggled to make sense of the nebulous forms that swam before her. Meanwhile, warmth flooded painfully through her. The cold had been painless and numbing; the heat felt as though she were being imbedded with red-hot nails. The pain was unbearable as frigid blood began to flow again and nerves that had resigned themselves to death complained at their forced resurrection.
She protested weakly as her friend gently unwrapped her, clutching feebly as the now-damp robes were removed—they came away like the skin of a scalded tomato and heat rushed into her body like a thousand needles. But the pain was evanescent; the needles seemed to melt, spreading a warmth that filled her like water saturating a thirsty sponge. She felt hard flagstones beneath her. They were as warm as toast.
“Where am I?” she asked, thinking that Melissa had somehow managed to carry her to some nearby peasant’s hut.
“In Merlin’s palace, of course.”
“Of course,” Bradamant replied, oddly unamazed.
She did not know how it was done, but she felt herself lifted by the sorceress. She knew that she was almost as tall as the woman and certainly heavier, but felt like an infant child in those slight arms.
She was carried into a chamber that was filled with fragrant steam roiling around her in the kind of chubby clouds upon which artists like to pose cherubs. In the middle of the room was a low wooden tank, sloshing over with bubbling hot water. Melissa lowered the girl to the wet floor, still supporting her with an arm passed behind her back, and with her free hand began to finish the undressing of her patient. Bradamant protested weakly, but Melissa ignored her. Deft fingers flew over the fastenings of the armor, which fell away like the leaves of an artichoke, followed by tunic and undergarments. As the knight stood there naked, too dizzy to be embarrassed, she heard the sorceress say, with a shocked gasp, “Oh, dear! Oh, dear, dear, dear!” and wondered abstractly just what she saw that was so awful.
She allowed herself to be lifted again and then lowered with infinite gentleness and care into the tub of water, which seemed to fizz around her like champagne. She sat on the bottom and leaned against the concave side; the wood felt like warm, firm flesh. The water came to her chin, lapping at her face like a friendly, slobbering dog. She held her right hand above the surface and was horrified to see that the fingers were black. She placed her left hand beside it and it was the same. Melissa reached over her shoulder and carefully pressed the hands back into the water.
“Keep them there,” she said in her quiet, musical voice as she poured fragrant oils into the water. “Your feet are the same, if you are wondering. But they’ll be all right. Trust me.”
“I trust you,” Bradamant replied through her tears.
She must have fallen asleep, for there was only a hazy sense of duration before Melissa lifted her from the water. This time, Bradamant needed only a little help to get to her feet and once erect stood in the mid-thigh-deep water without aid. She looked at her hands. The fingers were pink and flexible. She lifted a leg and took a foot in one hand. Healthy toes waggled happily back at her.
“How do you feel?” Melissa asked.
“I feel strong.”
“Strong?”
“Yes,” Bradamant replied, as she ran a hand over a hard biceps, over chest and breasts no longer sunken, flaccid, over stomach and thighs no longer hollow or shriveled, over ribs now decently buried beneath firm, shingled muscle. “And stronger here, too,” she added, pressing a palm to her left breast, beneath which her powerful heart beat like a trip hammer.
“Good. Dry yourself off, then, and get dressed. You’ll find everything you need right over there. When you’re finished, go through that door. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Bradamant had not felt so strong, physically and spiritually, in months. The mere presence of Melissa, she knew, had a great deal to do with her sense of well-being. Would she feel so well, she wondered, beyond the influence of the sorceress? She knew that there were drugs that caused the same evanescent sensation of euphoria and well-being as she was now feeling—was Melissa’s presence like that? Would she collapse back into depression and obsession once her quest was resumed?
With all the anxiety of a child on Christmas morning, she quickly dried her body—and not without taking another moment to linger so appreciatively over its amazing metamorphosis that she courted being guilty of vanity. She found clothing hanging on pegs, including gleaming new armor with enameled scales as white and lustrous as rich milk or mother-of-pearl.
In the hall beyond the bathing-chamber was a broad table burdened with a sumptuous quantity of food, beside which Melissa awaited with a smile. Bradamant, who only a moment before had not considered herself at all hungry, found her mouth suddenly awash with thick, sweet saliva. She hardly needed the sorceress’ invitation to pounce upon the various delicacies like a starving wolf. Although Melissa joined the girl at the table, Bradamant noticed that she only nibbled at a bit of Melba toast and sipped from a cup of clear water.
“How long have I been here?” Bradamant mumbled through a spray of crumbs and saliva.
“How long? That’s difficult to say. There’s very little in the way of objective time here. It’s usually pretty subjective.”
“What do you mean?” Bradamant asked, thoroughly confused.
“Well, what I mean is, ‘how long’ time passes here depends entirely upon who you’re asking. Let me give you an example that may answer both of your questions at once. How long do you suppose it took for your body to heal?”
Bradamant hadn’t thought much about that, but she did seem as fit and healthy as she had been the day she had last seen Rashid—perhaps even more so. “I couldn’t have been in that bath for more than an hour,” she answered. “I mean, the water was still hot when I got out and I wasn’t the least bit wrinkled. I suppose I’m mistaken?”
“No, not really. If you’d asked
me
that’s what I would have said. I would have said about half the time it took me to arrange this meal. But if I could ask your
body
how long it took, it would reply that it took more than two months. For Merlin, it may have been only a heartbeat. So who can say how much time may have passed in the world outside the palace?”
Bradamant could only stare incredulously, not knowing whether to argue or laugh.
“I told you that you’d be unlikely to understand,” the sorceress said, with a smile that took away any supercilious sting the words may have carried.
“All right then, what time
is
it outside?”
“Ah, now you’ve asked the right question! Well, I believe that the back of winter is finally broken and that spring is only a few weeks away.”
“So much time lost!” Bradamant moaned. She dropped her food to the table, forgotten, and buried her face in her hands.
“What is it, my dear?”
“Every day takes me that much farther from Rashid. I fear I’ve lost him forever.”
“What makes you think he’s lost?”
“What do you mean?” Bradamant asked; then, as the full meaning of Melissa’s question dawned upon her: “Do you know where he is? Tell me!”
“Please, Bradamant! Calm yourself!”
“Don’t tell me to calm myself!” she snapped, leaping to her feet. “I
must
know where Rashid is! Don’t you realize that I nearly died searching for him? Why didn’t you say something when you first found me?”
“That
would
have killed you,” the sorceress replied calmly, unruffled by the girl’s outburst. “You needed to be strong again.”
“Why?” she asked with a terrible foreboding.
“I must tell you a story first and you must promise to be patient.”
“I don’t suppose I have any choice.”
“You can listen or not, as you please. But only by hearing me out can you save your lover.”
“
Save
? He’s in danger?”
“Do you want to listen to me or not?”
“All right,” she replied sullenly, dropping back into her chair and crossing her arms so violently sparks flew from her armor, “All right: I’m listening.”
“Will you have just a little of this fruit pie? I had it made especially for you . . . There’s no need to look at me
that
way, my dear! Well, then . . .
“The hippogryph carried your hero far beyond the confines of Europe, beyond the limits set by Hercules, limits which even the bravest mariner hesitates trespassing. That amazing steed mounted higher and higher into the sky, and sped faster and faster until it left even the swifts and eagles simply nowhere. I doubt that even the thunderbolt is very much swifter than the hippogriff. Straight as an arrow the monster flew, league after league, day after day, until finally an island came into sight, far below. Much to Rashid’s relief—for he was beginning to tire from keeping his grip on the monster—the creature began to spiral down toward the island in a lazy helix. You’ve no doubt seen hawks do this on still summer days. Yes?
“As he neared the island, Rashid saw it was a place of uncommon beauty. Indeed, in spite of his hunger, fatigue and anxiety (I cannot add fear to the list, of course, since Rashid fears nothing), or perhaps because of them, he thought he had never seen a happier, lovelier land than this. After one final swoop, his great steed finally came to a rest and Rashid gratefully leaped to the flowered earth. All around him were well-tilled pastures and neatly groomed hills, soft meadows and limpid streams beneath shady banks. There were groves of laurel, of palms, myrtle, cedar and orange-trees, all offering cool respite from the searing summer heat beneath their thickly spreading foliage. Safe in the branches, nightingales sang melodiously. Among and between the roses and lilies chipmunks, squirrels, hares and rabbits were leaping with happy abandon. Deer, undisturbed by the presence of Rashid and the hippogryph, roamed indiscriminately as fawns and kids skipped nimbly around their legs. It all looked rather like a mural from some Roman villa, or perhaps some particularly naïve artist’s idea of the Garden of Eden.
“Rashid, no longer trusting his mount, tied its reins to a heavy myrtle branch near a cascade of clear water that bubbled from a spring. He took off his helmet and gauntlets and shook his head. Dropping to his knees he ducked his head in the icy water, then drank deeply and thirstily. Regaining his feet, with water streaming down his neck and breast, he looked first at the sea and then the hills, enjoying the vigorous breeze that cheerfully rustled the treetops. He felt very vigorous, alive and feisty.
Here I am,
he was thinking,
having traveled ten thousand miles or more, armed to the teeth and not a soul to do battle with.
“There was a sudden commotion behind him and he whirled to see the hippogryph—”
“Its name is Papillon,” Bradamant interrupted.
“Pardon?”
“The hippogryph. Its name is Papillon.”
“I see. Thank you. Well, then, Rashid whirled to see
Papillon
shying like a horse confronted by a snake. He couldn’t tell what was upsetting the creature, somewhat surprised that there
was
anything that would spook the powerful monster. In its panic it was entangling itself in the branches of the myrtle. Unable to get free, it was pulling the tree to pieces. A storm of branches, twigs and leaves flew around Rashid.
“Have you ever heard a log hiss in a hot fire? As when the heat penetrates to the soft core, turning the moisture to steam which forces its way from every crevice and interstice, making the log sizzle and hiss like a snake. In a similar way, the poor myrtle moaned and whined. Finally, it exclaimed in a sad, tearful voice, ‘Friend knight! If you are as good and kind as you appear, release this animal from my branches! I’m suffering enough without this additional and entirely unnecessary imposition!’