Voice for Princess (v1.1)

by John Morressy

  “It would be best if you did,” Kedrigern said as he put the book down, “but that will all come in time. A Handy Book Of Basic Spells will give you the necessary fundamentals. You’ll learn the essentials of transformations, transmutations, transportations, appearances, disappearances, invisibility—”

  “Keddie, wait! You’re confusing me.”

  He pointed to the blue book. “That will explain things.”

  “But they all sound the same! What’s the difference between transformation and transmutation?”

  “Well, a transformation—turning a man into a pig, say, or a woman into a crow—is really just a matter of reshaping what’s already there. Feet into hooves, or arms into wings, and so forth. Rather simple, actually. But turning someone into an anvil, or a swamp—transmuting them—takes a bit more effort. There’s not much in common between the before and the after, you see.”

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully.

  “And then you have the alchemists throwing the word about, talking of ‘transmutation’ when they really mean their foolishness of turning lead into gold, which—if they could actually do it—is transformation.”

  “I see,” said Princess, nodding. “So when you turned Buroc into stone, you worked a transmutation, and not a transformation.”

  “You could say that. Actually, the precise technical term for what I did to Buroc is ‘translation.’ Any petrifaction spell is a translation.”

  “Oh.”

  “Very simple, actually, because it’s just a taking away of qualities. It can be done quickly, too. Good in an emergency, but not very impressive stuff.”

  “It impressed Buroc.”

  “Any decent spell impresses the spellee. I meant the informed onlooker. The connoisseur. Compared with what the Drissmall sisters did to Metalura, my spell on Buroc was nursery games. On the instant, they worked a self-renewing petrifaction in beautifully textured gray stone, exquisitely detailed. Sheer artistry,” said Kedrigern.

  “Who are the Drissmall sisters? And who is Metalura?”

  “No time to talk about them now. You must learn your basic spells, and no distractions. Let me see, now… transportation is, as you might expect, getting yourself, or someone, or something, from one place to another without the bother of traveling through all the space in between. It eats up magic, but it’s a real timesaver.”

  “I can see how it would be. And I understand what an appearance spell must be. But aren’t disappearance and invisibility the same thing?”

  “Oh, my, no. Not at all. When you make something invisible it’s still there. You just can’t see it. But when you make a thing disappear, it’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  Kedrigern shrugged. “Anywhere you like. It’s your spell.”

  Princess stared at him in silence, wide-eyed, then looked with new respect on the books in her lap. After a time, she said in a subdued voice, “That’s a lot of power to have at one’s command.”

  “It certainly is,” Kedrigern agreed cheerfully.

  “I don’t know whether I really want to be quite that powerful, Keddie.”

  “My dear, my dear,” he said, taking her hands in his, “You’re an intelligent woman. You’ve had experience with magic, and you have a sense of responsibility. After all, you’re a princess. You’re not going to turn people into newts just to see the expression on their faces, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there you are. Besides, it isn’t all that easy. Magic doesn’t grow on trees, you know. Sensible people don’t squander it. If you’re profligate with your magic, and use it for amusement, or convenience, you can find yourself all out when you need it most. That’s what happened to Conhoon, as you recall. And even more so to poor Yoligon. Or so I’ve heard. Yoligon was a friend of my old teacher, Fraigus. I never met him, myself. Not when I could speak with him, anyway.”

  “You’ve never mentioned Yoligon before.”

  “His is not a happy story. I don’t like to think about it. But I believe you should be aware of all the pitfalls. Yoligon was a pretty fair wizard. He had one idiosyncrasy: he couldn’t bear to have anyone around his house for more than a brief visit—anyone at all—so he kept no servants. On the other hand, he liked good food and a tidy house, so he used a considerable amount of magic for cleaning and cooking and general housekeeping.” Kedrigern cleared a comer of his worktable and perched on the edge. He folded his arms, looked earnestly down at Princess, and went on, “The house was quite a show-place, from what I’ve heard. Everything spotless and gleaming, not a weed in the garden, not a speck of dust or a cobweb to be seen.”

  “It sounds lovely,” said Princess. “Spot does its best, I know, but it misses the cobwebs.”

  “There are worse things than missed cobwebs, as the fate of Yoligon attests. For a long time, he had been feuding with a pair of elderly sorceresses over a strip of property running between their house and his. He decided to invite them to dinner and settle their differences amicably, so he did a thorough cleaning and sprucing up of house and grounds, and prepared a marvelous seven-course dinner. All by magic. Well, the sorceresses enjoyed the dinner—even asked for seconds on the dessert, I’ve been told—and after dinner, while they were all strolling in the garden, they leveled a spell at Yoligon. Ordinarily, he would have been able to defend himself, but he had used up all his reserves getting ready for his guests. So the spell took. They turned him into a lilac bush.”

  “A lilac bush,” Princess repeated in a low soft voice.

  “Yes. A very pretty one, too. I had a cutting from it by the old tower where I used to live. It was lovely in the spring.”

  Princess took up the three volumes of magic very cautiously and set them atop the stack of open books at her right side.

  “Maybe magic isn’t really the thing for a princess. I might be wiser to stick to embroidery and the lute,” she said. “For the time being, anyway. That’s what people expect, after all…”

  “Ah, but my dear, you’ve got the gift, I know you have. It would be a shame to waste yourself.”

  “But Keddie, it’s so complicated… I thought it would be nice if I knew a litle more about your work. It would give us something to share. I thought I might even be able to lend a hand with a spell now and then, when you were pressed for time. But I don’t want to be turned into a lilac bush!”

  Kedrigern came to her side, dropped to one knee, and took her hands in his. “The more magic you know, my dear, the less chance there is that anyone will try to turn you into a lilac bush. Or anything else. A toad, for instance.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” she conceded.

  “Absolutely. If you had learned magic as a child, you could have been spared… on the other hand, we might never have met. Well, anyway. I think you should start to work this very day.”

  “I will,” she said resolutely, taking up the three volumes she had set aside. “I’ll go out into the garden and start on Enchantment for Beginners. Right now.”

  “Wonderful, my dear. And to break up the long hours of magical study, you can use this,” said Kedrigern, rising and extracting a small green book from inside his tunic. “A Storehouse of Serviceable Synonyms To Enlarge The Vocabulary, Enrich The Mind, Enliven Discourse, And Enhance The Expression Of Ideas. The best litle vocabulary builder I’ve ever encountered. Just ten minutes with this book, two or three times a day, and you’ll soon be sounding like an academician.”

  She leafed quickly through the book, page after page of tiny print in triple columns. “There’s a lot in here,” she observed.

  “Just think of how your vocabulary will grow!”

  “Between this and my magic studies, I won’t have a spare minute in the day.”

  “How fortunate you are, to have the time to devote to it, and all the lovely peace and quiet to study in.”

  “I certainly have peace and quiet,” she said without enthusiasm.

  “Nobody barging in on us at all hours, traipsing through our house ma
king noise and slamming doors and disturbing our concentration. No intrusions at all. Just you and me and Spot,” the wizard went on cheerily.

  “Yes, just you and me and Spot. Day after day,” she said, looking at him with narrowed eyes.

  “We can come and go as we please, eat whenever and whatever we like, go to bed when we’re tired and get up when it suits us. We can wear old clothes, and comfortable slippers, and just be ourselves. Our time is our own. No need to make small talk when we’d rather be working a spell,” Kedrigern rhapsodized.

  “Some people don’t mind making small talk once in a while. Some people actually enjoy it,” Princess said in a chilly voice.

  “Oh? But surely now, with all this work… all the study you have to do…”

  Princess advanced on him, books tucked under one slender arm. The other arm was extended before her, an accusing finger aimed at the wizard. “I recall some mention, Keddie, when I regained my proper speaking voice, of a change in our mode of life. A party. Friends for dinner. Neighbors for a chat. Travel. In short, a social life befitting a princess, not the seclusion customarily enforced upon a nun!”

  “My dear, I was only trying to give you time to grow accustomed to speaking again. I didn’t want to rush things,” said Kedrigern, sounding aggrieved.

  “You didn’t?” she asked warily.

  “Certainly not. I knew you’d need some time to adjust to your voice. It’s only natural. And I was certain you’d want to do something like this—enlarge your vocabulary and acquire new skills before encountering total strangers. Once you’re ready, we’ll plunge into society.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “It is. I’ll invite… oh, I’ll ask Bess the Wood-witch to fly over for dinner. She’s a great one for gossip and small talk.”

  “Is that your idea of plunging into society? Dinner with the wood-witch?”

  “I need time to adjust, too.”

  “You didn’t spend part of your life as a toad, and another part of your life croaking like one.”

  “Well, no. But I’ve lived alone for more than a century, and suddenly to be faced with the prospect of a stream of guests, visitors… a social life…” He closed his eyes and shuddered.

  “A normal life, Keddie. That’s all I want.”

  “Normal life is awful. Why do you think I became a wizard? My family led a normal life, and they were miserable.”

  “My family led a normal life, and we were all very happy,” Princess countered.

  “Yes, but you were living the normal life of a royal family. There’s a big difference. I was raised by peasants, and it was no fun, I can tell you.”

  Princess dropped the books and recoiled. “By peasants? Are you a peasant?”

  “No, I was raised by peasants. They found me in a basket in the middle of a fairy ring on Midsummer Day. I was too big to be a fairy, so they assumed I was an abandoned child.”

  “Who could abandon a baby like that? What a cruel thing to do!”

  With a shrug, Kedrigern said, “Whoever my parents were, they weren’t altogether heartless. They left a purse of fifty gold pieces in the basket with me. That was more money than Hob and Mag dreamed existed on earth.”

  “Hob and Mag?”

  “The peasants who found me. They treated me pretty well, actually. They always said that I was the best thing that ever happened to them. Considering the other things that happened to them, I suppose I was.”

  Princess sat down and looked at him sorrowfully. “What was it like, Keddie? It must have been awful!”

  “Not at all. Hob and Mag were certain that I was the son of some great king who’d come to claim me one day, so they let me do whatever I liked. When I was about six, I discovered that a retired wizard lived in a cave not far away, and I used to visit him a lot. Nice old codger… Tarrendine, that was his name.”

  “Was it Tarrendine who introduced you to magic?”

  “Not exactly. He never mentioned it. We used to fish a lot, and he told me some wonderful stories, but I never suspected that he was a wizard until… well, until later on. At the time, I had no interest at all in magic. I wanted to be a robber,” Kedrigern said with a sad, nostalgic smile.

  “What happened?”

  “I came home from Tarrendine’s one evening and found the hovel burned down. Hob and Mag were hanging from a tree, shot full of arrows. Once I saw that, I didn’t want to be a robber anymore.” He was silent for a time, then he sighed and went on, “I ran all the way back to Tarrendine. He let me stay and be his servant. I wasn’t much of a servant, because I didn’t know how to do anything except play, but he was patient, and I learned. Tarrendine taught me how to read, and one day I came across his old books of spells, and I guess that was how it all began.” After a thoughtful pause he rounded on Princess and said, “It took me years and years of struggle and hard work to become a wizard, so if you expect to learn anything, you’d better get to it. No time to sit around listening to stories.”

  Princess rose reluctantly, clutching the books to her like a schoolchild. She made no move to leave the workroom. “Don’t you want to tell me anything more about your early life?” she asked.

  He looked at her blankly. “There’s nothing worth telling. I worked and I studied.”

  “But didn’t you ever seek your true parents? Didn’t you wonder?”

  Kedrigern hesitated for a moment, as if weighing the advisability of revealing a secret, and then said, “I’ve always believed that I’m related in some way to Merlin. If I’m not, I don’t care to know.”

  “Surely there must have been some clue—a token of some sort, or a heraldic device on your blanket. Or a birthmark! Do you have a birthmark?”

  “I did. Mag had a witch spell it away. She paid her with the gold locket that was clutched in my fist when they found me.”

  Princess gave a groan of frustration through tightly clenched teeth. “The blanket—was there a crest on it?” she asked.

  Rubbing his brow, frowning with the effort to recall, the wizard said, “There was some kind of emblem woven on the blanket, I think. A coat of arms or something like that. Mag tried to tell me about it—I had chewed the blanket to bits while I was teething—but Mag didn’t communicate well. She had a vocabulary of about forty words, all of them concerned with work or suffering, and it’s hard to describe fancy needlework under such circumstances.”

  “Keddie, aren’t you curious? Don’t you ever wonder who you are?”

  “I know who I am. And I’m curious about what’s going to happen, not what’s already happened. I’m not an historian, my dear, and I’m not a genealogist. I’m a wizard.”

  She shook her head slowly, dazedly, in disbelief. “I don’t understand. I can’t see how anyone can go on so calmly not knowing who or what his parents were. It bothers me terribly, not being able to remember.”

  “My dear, I tried,” he confessed. “Naturally, I tried. But when you’ve worked a difficult spell with exacting care and had an ominous voice from the heavens tell you that the spell is temporarily out of service, you begin to wonder. And when you try a half-dozen other spells, and none of them get through, you accept the fact that there are things someone doesn’t want you to find out.”

  “Is that what happened?” Princess asked, alarmed. “Oh, Keddie, that’s awful! You poor, piteous, tragic man!” Her eyes grew moist. “You dear, sad, thwarted creature!” She wiped away a tear. “You wretched, unhappy—”

  “It’s not all that bad,” he broke in. “I may not have names and addresses, but it’s obvious that I’m descended from royalty on one side and wizardry on the other. And I learned a valuable lesson: even a great wizard doesn’t always get what he goes after. So if you want to be even a moderately successful wizard, my dear…”

  “I’d better get cracking,” she said, and turned to go.

  Learning magic is a slow and tedious business; improving one’s vocabulary, on the other hand, is not, and Princess had such success in the latter endeavor
that she bore the frustrations of the former with quiet patience. Days wore into weeks, and summer was fully upon them, and still she plugged away, morning to night, at her studies.

  One evening Kedrigern came into their dining room and found Princess standing by the window, looking out to the west, where a beautiful late summer sunset was blazing in splendor down the skies. Her little green vocabulary book lay where it had been tossed aside. Her hands were planted firmly on her hips, the fingers drumming a silent tattoo. A slight spot of color glowed on her perfectly sculpted cheeks. The simple golden circlet on her brows was set at a determined angle. To Kedrigern, who had learned to read her moods, these were signs that the present one was not her best.

  He cleared his throat very softly. She did not speak, or even turn, but the color in her cheek glowed a bit more brightly.

  “Is anything wrong, my dear?” he asked.

  She turned and pinned him with wrathful eyes. “Yes, Kedrigern, something is very wrong, amiss, and awry, and you know exactly what it is, and how many months it has been that way, and how to set it right.”

  “If—”

  “I’ve had my voice back for nearly four months now, and in all that time I haven’t spoken to a soul but you and Spot. On the day I ceased to croak like a toad, and finally spoke good sensible prose like every other woman in the world, you promised me that our life would change. We would entertain. We would travel, she said, advancing on him. “There was a convention to attend.””

  “That’s not for a while.”

  “And we were to have visitors. The house was to ring with persiflage, railery, quips and cranks and badinage, wit of all sorts, and merry banter. But not so, Kedrigern. There has been no one. No one at all.”

  He stepped back. Raising his hands defensively, he said, “But your studies… the distraction…”

  “A plague on my studies. I want distraction. I want to see people!”

  “I asked Bess to come over just last week. She wasn’t free.”

  “Always your friends. Why don’t we invite any of my friends?”