It appeared that there was a reason for the dragon-banners in the library. The traditional means of transport for the occupant of this castle was — formidable. An elaborate black war-chariot, apparently forged of blackened silver, drawn by two black dragonets — which were the much smaller, unintelligent subspecies of Draconis Sapiens. A third dragonet generally served as the mount for the chariot-driver's outrider. This was why the stableman was a troll. When the beasts were feeling fractious, nothing short of a troll could control them. These were not the beasts that Octavian usually had charge of, although he was familiar with them and they with him.
Elena didn't change much about the rig other than to make it far less menacing — she made the chariot and dragonets white, an opalescent rose and gold instead of black and silver, and she made a few cosmetic changes to the beasts' heads, giving them more a look of scaly horses than of man-eating carnivores. Octavian got armor to match, of course, and she herself had donned her most impressive costume as the Rose Fairy — complete with powdered wig and six-foot staff topped with a pink diamond in the shape of a star.
Octavian was in full armor — enameled in white and rose, with gilding. Luckily for him, it was magic in nature, which made it a great deal lighter than "real" armor. He had gotten very carefully detailed instructions from Elena, but she was taking no chances; there was such a superabundance of magic available that Elena took the precaution of putting a tiny geas on him to obey those instructions. This time, at least, she was going to give The Tradition what it wanted; a full spectacle which would probably turn into a tale that traveled through the Kingdoms for generations. Maybe that would make it leave her alone for a bit.
And no more dreams! she told it fiercely. Not that she had any evidence that the dreams of Alexander — of which she had had another last night — were coming out of The Tradition. But she had no evidence to the contrary, either, and in absence of evidence...
So the whole outre procession went flying off into the morning sky, heading for Kohlstania and the Royal Palace; she driving the splendid chariot, Octavian riding beside her on his winged mount, the whole of it buoyed on swirling clouds of magic that would have enveloped them in a thick, pea-soup fog except that only she could see it. It was practically thick enough to cut; she had stored as much of it away in wand and staff, whatever talismans she had on her person and could put together last night, and in her own reserves, and still it was like this.
And that was after she insisted that Arachnia divide the power with her! The Tradition was making certain that the Kingdom of Kohlstania got its Godmother with a vengeance!
Or perhaps it was trying to bribe her into being more cooperative and conciliatory.
Well, it wasn't going to work. On the other hand, there was no harm in taking the bounty that was given.
Naturally — since she insisted on flying at a little above tree-height, to ensure being seen — they attracted a great deal of attention, and even with her cosmetic changes, they excited a good deal of fear. For every face upturned to watch them pass, there was someone running for concealment down below. So by the time they landed in the courtyard of the Royal Palace, all of the Royal Guard had turned out, armed to the teeth, and she suspected that most of the Army was on its way from the Royal Barracks on the outskirts of the city.
The dragons pulled the vehicle around to stand as near to the door as the Guards would allow. She remained in her chariot; Octavian, however, dismounted from his dragon, and took his place between her and the Guard; with his visor down, he looked very formidable indeed. She surveyed them all haughtily as the dragons tossed their heads.
"Is this any way to greet me?" she demanded "One woman, with a single escort-knight? Where is your King?"
She suppressed a smile at her own words, though — Oh yes, one "mere" woman, clearly some sort of extremely powerful magician, three dragons, and a fellow whose face no one can see! You're right to be nervous, my lads!
"He is here, lady," said a weary, wary voice, and the Guard reluctantly parted to let King Henrick through. "What is it you would have of me?"
The King was armed as well, though he'd only had time to buckle on a breastplate over his velvet doublet, and replace his crown with an open-face helm. Still, he was brave, she had to give him that. He wasn't hiding in his throne room, depending on his Guards to protect him; he had his sword in his hand, and he looked as if he was prepared to use it.
"You have three sons, King Henrick," she said, sternly. "Where are they? Answer me true, for I am a magician of no little power, and I will know falsehood if I hear it. And the cost of falsehood may be more than you can ever dream."
Of course, the cost of falsehood would be that she would not allow Octavian to reveal himself. Not that she expected to hear anything but truth out of Henrick; if everything Randolf had shown her was true, he had spent a very long time learning a great deal about himself since his sons had vanished, and he did not much care for what he had learned.
He reeled as if she had struck him a blow, and yet, from the expression on his face, it was a blow he had, in part, expected. It did not break him — but in that moment, she saw him look at her and admit his own defeat and his own failures.
"I know only what has befallen my son Julian, lady," he replied, bitterly. "In my folly, in my greed, I sent them out, all three of them, to answer my neighbor's Quest and win his daughter, thinking to add his Kingdom to my own. And it is true that of the three, I sent Julian out expecting that he would fail and rid me of the one son I did not understand and could not care for. My cold-heartedness was well-repaid; it is Julian who has won the maid and the throne for himself, and not for me, and my other sons are lost. And in a sense, all three are lost to me, for I fear that Julian knew my heart only too well, and will never forgive me. So here I am — surrounded by wealth that I care nothing for, facing my own declining years with neither friend nor son at my side." He straightened, then, and looked her in the eyes. "So work your will on me, Witch. I am already living in the worst I can dream, and I brought it all upon myself!"
She caught Octavian's eye, and nodded slightly. He needed no further encouragement.
"Father!" he cried, pulling off his helm, and flinging himself to King Henrick's feet. "Father, I am here! I am home again!"
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then the King fell upon his son, weeping, and embracing him, as the Royal Guard erupted into a cheer. And after that — well, that was when things got very interesting indeed.
It was long after dark that Elena finally headed back home to her cottage, and she was just about ready to drop with exhaustion. First, there had been the whole Reconciliation scene to play out, then some (by no means all) of the explanation of what had happened to Octavian and why, then (this time, in private) Elena had delivered herself of a bit of a lecture to King and Prince. Not much of a lecture, but she had made it very clear that their first act must be to reconcile with Julian by delivering the one thing that the King had not been able to bring himself to send —
— an apology, a long one, for a long list of wrongs and neglect going back into his childhood.
It was the newly-humbled Octavian who'd had no difficulty with this rather obvious necessity, and in the euphoria of having his favorite son back, Henrick had agreed.
As for the rest — well, that would mostly be in Octavian's hands, but his Redemption had been very real, and she didn't think he was going to backslide. There would be some gradual improvement in the lot of the common people of Kohlstania, and it would begin with being accorded the common courtesies that had heretofore been honored more in the breech than the observance. She had left, flying off into the sunset, with the third dragon harnessed with the other two, and had returned the whole rig to Arachnia by the time darkness fell. And by the time she had left, there was one very interesting change already visible in Kohlstania. Out in the marketplace, there were stalls and shops hung with the signs of various sorts of magicians. Those hadn't been there when she f
lew over that morning. So, magic and magicians were already been accorded a great deal more respect by the "sophisticated" city folk.
Well, it only took looking up and seeing a dragon flying overhead to make a believer out of you, she supposed.
That was yet another change that had been badly needed here; from what Elena had learned from Alexander and her own readings, Kohlstania had been rapidly on its way to banishing magic altogether. And that would have had a very serious effect on the very soul of the country, for a country whose people ceased to believe in magic soon lost much of their ability to imagine and dream, and before long, they ceased to believe — or hope — for anything. This was one of the fundamental truths of the Five Hundred Kingdoms. Even the lowest of swineherds could believe that he, or his son, or his son's son could one day be a Prince — because all it took was magic, and being the right person in the right place. And the highest of Kings could know that at any moment, an act of dishonor or cruelty could send him tumbling out of his throne — because all it took was magic, and doing the wrong thing to the wrong person. In this way, The Tradition could be a blessing, and the magic by which it operated certainly was. "The carrot and the stick," Madame Bella had once said dryly, when explaining it all to Elena. "The carrot for the lowly, the stick for the mighty. It is quite astonishing how effective these things are when applied in that particular order."
Elena left the dragons and their chariot with Arachnia's troll, and enjoyed a fortifying and amusing dinner with the Dark Lady and her Lord.
At least, it had been amusing right up until the moment that they said their farewells and she drove off into the forest — alone. At that point, she was overcome by a spasm of envy so powerful it felt akin to pain.
She clutched at the reins, and slapped them over the donkey's back to make him hurry his pace. Wise little fellow that he was, he ignored her; he was going no faster than a walk, for he could not see the road well in the darkness. She had evoked the "All Forests Are One" spell, of course, and he might even be in her home forest even now, but it had never taken less than an hour to traverse the distance between where she was and where she was going, and she very much doubted that was going to change tonight, just because she was feeling miserable and wanted to be home.
She stared into the darkness, and felt tears dripping down her cheeks.
Arachnia hadn't meant to hurt her, of course. In fact, she had no idea that her words had left Elena feeling as if she had been stabbed. She'd only meant to explain why she had no intention of being the Godmother to Kohlstania, or any other Kingdom. And she had meant it as a compliment.
"I could never be as strong as you, Elena," she had said, earnestly. "You Godmothers, living all alone as you do, I don't know how you can bear it. You completely amaze me. Now that I've found it, I could never stand to be alone the way you are, to live my life without love."
If she could see Elena now, she would be horrified, for she could have no way of knowing how bitter those words had been, and how they had made Elena's heart ache with pain. Not just because of what they meant now, but what they meant for the future. Because, of course, Godmothers did live alone. Who had ever heard of a Godmother's Consort, or a Fairy Godfather? It was one thing to manipulate The Tradition; it was quite another to forge a new one that would create such a monumental change as that.
In the back of her mind, she had been planning on having Alexander with her all winter — had been looking forward to his company during the days when snow would confine them all within doors. She had not been thinking at all, or at least, she had not been thinking like a Godmother. If anything, she had been thinking like an ordinary woman.
Which, of course, she was not.
That was what Arachnia's words had made her realize. That she would have to put more effort into Alexander's redemption, so that he could be back in Kohlstania himself by the time the snows came.
That she was going to be spending another long winter alone.
As she would, for the rest of her life.
Chapter 17
"I don't know why you're letting him watch this," Rose complained aloud for the fourth or fifth time, as Alexander stared intently into the depths of the magic mirror and the scene that was playing out there. It would have been fascinating enough to watch just about anything there, and know that he was seeing a reflection of something that was going on elsewhere, far away. But to be able to see his own father and brother — well, he simply could not tear himself away. It was a pity that he could not hear as well as see, but Randolf was giving a fairly good precis of what was going on.
Rose, however, was speaking, not to Alexander, who probably would not have answered, but to Lily.
"Because, oh impossibly obdurate one, I told her to bring him here" replied the mirror-spirit Randolf, in a bored tone. "And to repeat myself one more time, I told her to bring him here this morning, because I am something of a predictive Mirror-Slave, and it seemed imperative to me, and important to the lad's Redemption, that the Prince see and understand what was happening to his father and brother today. The Godmother has given me fairly broad scope for me to use my own judgment in such matters, and this is how I choose to use it." The spirit of the mirror paused. "You do want the boy redeemed, don't you?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Alexander saw Rose glare at the mirror, but she said nothing.
Instead of going out to work in the orchard today, directly after breakfast Lily had insisted on bringing him into the house, right up to this rather feminine chamber, where she had placed him on a hassock in front of a mirror that was not silvered, but black.
He thought he had gotten used to magic and the idea of it, but when a face appeared in the mirror that was clearly not a reflection of anyone in the room — and then, when it spoke to him! — he had nearly jumped up and gone looking for a weapon.
His self-control had the upper hand, however, and quite honestly it was impossible to listen to Randolf without being amused and forgetting that he was basically a disembodied head. And before too long, he was talking with Randolf almost as if the spirit was an ordinary person rather than something that only lived in a mirror.
Then Randolf began showing him what had taken the Godmother away from home — and that it had to do entirely with his brother Octavian.
Now, the Godmother had been keeping him fairly, if sketchily, up-to-date on the rest of his family, but it was one thing to hear about it, and quite another to see it. Octavian just astonished him; his brother had never been a weakling, but the amount of muscle that he had put on was matched only by the changed look of his face. There was thoughtfulness there, and intelligence; Octavian had once seemed a bit imitative, reflecting what others thought rather than thinking for himself.
Alexander scarcely left the mirror for anything; Lily brought him a ploughman's lunch and he ate it without even tasting it. It was not only that he was half-starved for the sight of familiar faces, and anxious to know the welfare of his father and brother. It was that, if Octavian had managed to win his freedom, how had it been done? And could he manage, as well?
At least, that was how he had begun his vigil. But as he watched his father and brother together, and heard from Ran-dolf what they were all saying, he had realized something quite profound.
They did not need him.
Oh, they wanted to know that he was all right, and when Elena had assured them, in rather vague terms, that he was, they clearly dismissed him and his current situation with some relief. But it had been Octavian who had been brought up at their father's side; it had been Octavian who was the Crown Prince. The problem that had occurred with Julian had, in a lesser fashion, been going on between Alexander and his father. He'd been raised by nurses and tutors, educated by the Academy, and although he idolized his father, he realized that before his return on graduation, he had probably spent less than a month in his father's presence, all told. Realistically he was the Spare. And with Octavian hale and hearty and as like to their father as if they'd bee
n hatched from the same egg, there was no place at the Kohlstanian court for Alexander except as a perpetual Prince-in-Waiting. Even that promised position as Octavian's Commander-in-Chief would probably have been in name only. The Commanders of Kohlstania's army were practiced and competent, and he was unblooded. Exceptionally well-trained, but unblooded.
So, by the time that Randolf showed them Elena, in her little donkey-cart, on her way home again, the question had been significantly altered in Alexander's mind. It was no longer How can I get home, but Do I want to go home?
What would he do, when he got home again? Oh, he could take command of the Army, he supposed, but to what purpose? To watch them drill, and take them out on parades, and make some effort at keeping them sharp? The current commanders would be better at that than he was. He didn't know a great deal about anything other than military matters, and to put it bluntly, he doubted that seasoned Commanders would give more than lip service to his leadership. He had no practice, and no real experience, and they had no reason to trust his judgment. So what would he do when he got back? He had a taste of real work and real life now, and while he wouldn't miss the blisters and the sweat and the dead-stupid physical labor, the artificial surroundings of the Court did not seem particularly attractive anymore. Watching the intrigues going on, playing politics, sitting in on the Council sessions and pretending he was actually contributing to the discussions seemed an utter waste of time. And a day "filled" with games, hunting, flirting, wenching, and the like wasn't particularly attractive, either.
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