Young Witches & Warlocks Page 8
“I’m going to the court of the Lady. I need the horse to get there,” the minstrel said.
“A man of the south going to visit the Lady,” the leader wondered. “Strange. Since our foolish king has refused to pay tribute to the Lady, few from the south venture into her mountains.” As he spoke, he fumbled with the minstrel’s pouch, pouring a stream of coins into his hand. “Nothing of value,” he said then. “Just pretty gold and silver.” The robber held a coin up to the light of the dying sun—just as the innkeeper had held it up—and he whistled long and low. He glanced at the minstrel’s face and Tarsia could see his teeth flash in a grin. “Did I say our king was foolish? Not so foolish as his son.” The leader tossed the coin to another man in the circle. “Look. We’ve got a prince here.”
The coin was tossed from hand to hand—each man inspecting the minstrel and the coin, the coin and the minstrel. Tarsia, peering over the edge, tried to remember the profile on the coin, briefly glimpsed in a dim light. She tugged a coin from her pocket and compared the cold metal etching with the minstrel’s face. They matched.
“We follow our destiny and our luck,” the minstrel— or the prince?—was saying. “I am on a mission at my father’s request.”
The leader’s grin broadened and he tossed a coin into the air so that it flashed gold as it tumbled back to his hand. “Bringing tribute,” the leader said.
“No.” The winds were silent and the voice of the prince—once, the minstrel—was calm. “I have come to free the winds.”
Tarsia leaned against the rock and listened to the rhythm of her heart—beating faster and faster. She heard the leader laugh. “What do you expect the Lady to say to that?”
“I may have to destroy the Lady. But the winds must be free. For the sake of the land you have left behind, you must let me go.”
“You appeal to the honor of a thief?” the leader said. “You are foolish indeed. And foolish to think that you alone can destroy our Lady.”
The prince looked up then, just as if he had known all along where Tarsia was hidden, then looked back to the leader. But his words were echoing in Tarsia’s mind: “destroy the Lady ...” And in her mind, the winds howled. The prince was not alone; the giant had been seen climbing toward her court and the undine was free. Tarsia leaned against the rock for support and listened to the men argue about what to do with the minstrel—no, the prince. She had to remind herself he was a prince. They could hold him for ransom, deliver him to the Lady for a reward, kill him on the spot, feed him to the dragon. She followed, a little above them and a little behind them as they walked to the dragon’s cave, still arguing. She heard the horse nicker softly as they stood at the cave entrance. The man who held the animal’s reins was right below her hiding place, paying more attention to the argument than to the horse.
Tarsia sprang. Landed half on and half off the white horse’s broad back, gripping its mane and pounding its sides with her heels. The animal leaped forward— was it by the horse’s inclination or her direction? she was not sure—toward the prince. The horse reared as she strove to turn it, dancing in place and throwing its head back, startled past the capacity of even a well-trained horse to bear. Tarsia fought for control, only partly aware of the men who dodged away from the animal’s hooves in the dim light of twilight. She could not see the prince.
A crackling of flame, a scent of sulfur, and the mountain was no longer dark. Small thief—she had never dabbled in magic, never met a dragon. If she had imagined anything, she had imagined a lizard breathing fire.
A lightning bolt, a fireworks blast, a bonfire—but it moved like an animal. Where it stepped, it left cinders and when it lifted its head she stared into the white glory of its eyes. A sweep of its tail left a trail of sparks. Half flame, half animal—or perhaps more than half flame.
She could see the prince, standing in its path. The child of fire opened its mouth and for a moment she could see the jagged lightning of its teeth.
“Child of fire,” Tarsia called to it. “If I free you will you lead me to my mother?”
The crackling warmth assented with a burst of heat and a flare of flame.
Tarsia’s heart was large within her and she was caught by confusion—burning with shame and stung by betrayal. She saw the prince through a haze of smoke and anger. The coins she had stolen from him were in her hand and she wanted to be rid of them and rid of him. “I give of myself to you, child of fire.” she said, and hurled them into the flames. Three points of gold, suddenly molten.
The heat of her pain vanished with them. She burned pure and cold—like starlight, like moonlight, like a reflection from the heart of an icicle.
The dragon beat his wings and she felt a wave of heat. He circled the mountain, caught an updraft and soared higher. His flame licked out and lashed the granite slope beneath him before he rose out of sight.
In the sudden silence, Tarsia fought the horse to a standstill. The prince stood alone by the cave. The world was tinted with the transparent twilight blue of early evening in the mountains, touched with smoke and sprinkled with snow.
“You didn’t tell me you wanted to free the winds,” Tarsia said. Her voice still carried the power it had had when she spoke to the dragon. “You didn’t tell me you were a prince.”
“I could only trust you as much as you could trust me, daughter of the wind.”
“Ah, you know.” Her voice was proud.
“I guessed. You freed the undine,” he said.
“Had you planned to use me to destroy my mother?” she asked. “That won’t work, prophecy or no. I’m here to help my mother, not to destroy her.” She urged the horse up the canyon, following the mark left by the dragon’s fire. She did not look back.
Up the mountains, following the trail of burnt brush and cinders, kicking the horse when it stumbled, urging it to run over grassy slopes marked by flame. The moon rose and the horse stumbled less often. Alpine flowers nodded in the wind of her passing and on the snow banks, ice crystals danced in swirling patterns.
The towers of the Lady’s castle rose from the center of a bowl carved into the mountain. A wall of ice rose behind the towers—glacial blue in the moonlight. The ice had been wrought with tunnels by the wind and carved into strangely shaped pillars. Tarsia rode over the crest of the ridge and started the horse down the slope toward the gates when she saw the giant by the towers.
She felt the strength within her, and did not turn.
As Tarsia drew nearer she saw the figure in the ice wall—the slim form of the undine. She smelled the reek of sulfur and the ice flickered red as the dragon circled the towers.
The gates had been torn from their hinges. The snow had drifted into the courtyard. The stones had been scorched by fire.
Tarsia pulled the horse to a stop in front of the grinning giant. “So you’ve come to finish the job,” he said.
“I have come to see my mother,” Tarsia answered, her voice cold and careful.
“I hope you know more than you did when I talked to you last,” said the giant.
“I have come to talk to my mother,” she repeated. “What I know or what I plan to do is none of your concern.” Her voice was cold as starlight.
The giant frowned. “Your mother’s men have fled. Her castle is broken. But still she holds the winds in her power. She stands there where we cannot follow.” The giant gestured to the tallest tower. Tarsia noticed that the wind had scoured a bare spot in the snow at the tower’s base. “Visit her if you will.”
Tarsia left the white horse standing by the tower door and climbed the cold stairs alone. She could feel a breeze tickling the back of her neck and tugging at her clothes. She was cold, so cold, as cold as she had been the morning she stole the loaf of bread.
A slender figure was silhouetted in the doorway against the sky. “So you have come to destroy me,” said a voice that was at the same time silky and sharp.
“No,” Tarsia protested. “Not to destroy you. I came to help you.”
Their eyes were pools of darkness and Tarsia wondered what the winds of the world thought about. Where would they wander if they were not on leash? The breeze tugged at her hair and she wondered why they needed to be bound.
Tarsia stared into the Lady’s eyes and the lady laughed—a sound like icicles breaking in the wind. “I see myself in your eyes, daughter. You have come to help.” She reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder, pulling the young thief to her. Her hand was cold— Tarsia could feel its chill to her bones.
The wind beat in Tarsia’s face as she stood beside the Lady, looking down at the giant and the snowbank, silvered by moonlight. The dragon swooped down to land nearby and the glow of his flames lent a ruddy cast to the snow.
“We are above them, daughter,” said the Lady. “We don’t need them.”
Tarsia did not speak. Looking down, Tarsia saw the piece of chain still dangling from the giant’s arm and remembered wondering why he had been bound.
“You are waiting for the coming of the one who will destroy me?” called the Lady. “You will wait forever. Here she stands. My daughter has joined me and we will be stronger together than I was alone. You will be cast back to your prisons.”
The dragon raised its fiery wings in a blaze of glory. The giant stood by the gate, broad face set in a scowl.
The undine flowed from one ice pillar to another—her body distorted by the strange shapes through which she passed.
“All who have risen against me will be chained,” said the Lady.
“That need not be,” said Tarsia, her voice small compared to her mother’s. Then she called out to the three who waited, “Will you promise never to attack us again? Will you vow to . . .”
“Daughter, there can be no bargains,” said the Lady. “No deals, no vows, no promises. You must learn. Those who betray you must be punished. You have power over them; you cannot bargain with them.”
The Lady’s voice gained power as she spoke—the cold force of a winter wind. Not angry, it was cold, bitter cold. Like the bitter wind that had wailed around the towers of the city—alone, lonely, proud. Like the gusts that had chilled Tarsia when she slept on the city wall. Like the chill in the dungeon when she was chained and unable to escape.
Tarsia looked at the hounds at her mother’s feet: shimmering sleek hounds with eyes of night. Why must they be chained? She looked at the Lady: sculpted of ivory, her hair spun silver in the moonlight.
“Go,” Tarsia told the hounds. “Be free.” The words left her body like a sigh. And the power that would have been hers, that had been hers for a time, left her with the breath. With her sharp knife and an ease born of a magic she did not understand, she reached out and slashed the leashes that held the hounds. Beneath her, the tower trembled.
The hounds leaped forward, laughing now, tongues lolling over flashing teeth, sleek legs hurling them into the air, smiling hounds looking less like hounds and more like ghosts, like silver sand blown by the wind. The Lady’s hair whirled about her. She lifted white arms over her head, reaching out to the faraway moon. Tarsia watched and knew that she would never be so beautiful, never be so powerful, never would the winds heel to her command.
The tower trembled and the scent of sulfur was all around and crystals of snow beat at Tarsia’s face. She felt herself lifted—or thrown and caught and tumbled like a coin through the air.
Somehow, someone shut out the moon and stars.
A scent of a charcoal fire—damp dismal smell in the early morning—and . . . damn, she thought. Will I never be free of this? She forced her eyes open.
“You’re awake,” said the prince. “How do you feel?”
She had been angry, she remembered. And she had been cold with a frozen bitterness. Now she felt only an emptiness where once the power had dwelled within her. She felt empty and fight.
She looked back at her mother’s castle. A ruin: scorched stones marked with the handprints of the giant, dusted with snow and tumbled by the wind. The ice had crept over the ruin, cracking some stones. Tarsia shivered.
She struggled to her feet and stepped away from the castle, toward the village. Ahead, she could see snow crystals whirling on the surface of a drift. The grass around her feet shifted restlessly in the breeze. She looked at the prince and thought of all the things that she wanted to explain or ask—but she did not speak. The wind flirted with the hem of her skirt and tickled the back of her neck.
“I’ll take you with me to my land if you bring the winds along,” the prince said. His gaze was steady, regarding her as an equal.
“I can’t bring them,” she said. “I am not their mistress.”
“They will follow,” said the prince. “You’re their friend.”
The breeze helped him wrap his cape around her and the winds made the flowers dance as the prince and the thief rode away from the ruins.
Mistress Sary
William Tenn
It was a particular talent Sarietta had . . . to get others hot under the collar.
* * *
This evening, as I was about to enter my home, I saw two little girls bouncing a ball solemnly on the pavement to the rhythm of a very old little girls’ chant. My lips must have gone gray as the sudden pressure of my set jaws numbed all feeling, blood pounded in my right temple; and I knew that, whatever might happen, I couldn’t take another step until they had finished.
One, two, three alary—
I spy Mistress Sary Sitting on a bumble-ary, Just like a little fairy!
As the girl finished the last smug note, I came to life. I unlocked the door of my house and locked it behind me hurriedly. I switched on the lights in the foyer, the kitchen, the library. And then, for long forgotten minutes, I paced the floor until my breathing slowed and the horrible memory cowered back into the crevice of the years.
That verse! I don’t hate children—no matter what my friends say, I don’t hate children—but why do they ' have to sing that stupid little song? Whenever I’m around. ... As if the unspeakably vicious creatures know what it does to me. . . .
Sarietta Hawn came to live with Mrs. Clayton when her father died in the West Indies. Her mother had been Mrs. Clayton’s only sister, and her father, a British colonial administrator, had no known relatives. It was only natural that the child should be sent across the Caribbean to join my landlady’s establishment in Nanville. It was natural, too, that she should be enrolled in the Nanville Grade School where I taught arithmetic and science to the accompaniment of Miss Drury’s English, history and geography.
“That Hawn child is impossible, unbelievable!” Miss Drury stormed into my classroom at the morning recess. “She’s a freak, an impudent, ugly little freak!”
I waited for the echoes to die down in the empty classroom and considered Drury’s intentional Victorian figure with amusement. Her heavily corseted bosom heaved and the thick skirts and petticoats slapped against her ankles as she walked feverishly in front of my desk. I leaned back and braced my arms against my head.
“Now you better be careful. I’ve been very busy for the past two weeks with a new term and all, and I haven’t had a chance to take a good look at Sarietta. Mrs. Clayton doesn’t have any children of her own, though, and since the girl arrived on Thursday the woman has been falling all over her with affection. She won’t stand for punishing Sarietta like—well, like you did Joey Richards last week. Neither will the school board for that matter.”
Miss Drury tossed her head angrily. “When you’ve been teaching as long as I have, young man, you’ll learn that sparing the rod just does not work with stubborn brats like Joey Richards. He’ll grow up to be the same kind of no-account drunk as his father if I don’t give him a taste of birch now and then.”
“
All right. Just remember that several members of the school board are beginning to watch you very closely. Now what’s this about Sarietta Hawn being a freak? She’s an albino, as I recall; lack of pigmentation is due to a chance factor of heredity, not at all freakish, as is experienced by thousands of people who lead normal happy lives.”
“Heredity!” A contemptuous sniff. “More of that new nonsense. She’s a freak, I tell you, as nasty a little devil as Satan ever made. When I asked her to tell the class about her home in the West Indies, she stood up and squeaked, ‘That is a book closed to fools and simpletons.’ Well! If the recess bell hadn’t rung at that moment, I tell you I’d have laced into her right then and there.”
She glanced down at her watch pendant. “Recess almost over. You’d better have the bell system checked, Mr. Flynn: I think it rang a minute too early this morning. And don’t allow that Hawn child to give you any sass.”
“None of the children ever do.” I grinned as the door slammed behind her.
A moment later there was laughter and chatter as the room filled with eight-year-olds.
I began my lesson on long division with a covert glance at the last row. Sarietta Hawn sat stiffly there, her hands neatly clasped on the desk. Against the mahogany veneer of the classroom furniture, her long, ashen pigtails and absolutely white skin seemed to acquire a yellowish tinge. Her eyes were slightly yellow, too, great colorless irises under semitransparent lids that never blinked while I looked at her.
She was an ugly child. Her mouth was far too generous for beauty; her ears stood out almost at right angles to her head; and the long tip of her nose had an odd curve down and in to her upper lip. She wore a snow-white frock of severe cut that added illogical years to her thin body.
When I finished the arithmetic lesson, I walked up to the lonely little figure in the rear. “Wouldn’t you like to sit a little closer to my desk?” I asked in as gentle a voice as I could. “You’d find it easier to see the blackboard.”