Elena had contacted every magician that she could, sending out every one of the white ravens with messages that would not arrive until, at the best, nightfall. She had sent frantic messages via her own chronicles as well, but had no guarantee that anyone would read the things any time soon.
More than ever, she cursed the fact that there was no good, fast way of sending messages from magician to magician.
The best one could manage was the better part of a day, and often it was far longer than that.
But by noon, she had the transportation she needed.
It came galloping down out of the sky, and drew attention to itself by drumming excitedly on the rooftop before coming to land in the courtyard.
At the sound of hooves on the roof, Alexander had started up, eyes flashing wildly, but Elena had known exactly what it was and ran out again into the stable-yard, where her help was waiting for her. “Sergei!” she cried with joy, and flung her arms around the neck of the Little Humpbacked Horse.
“This is dreadful, Godmother,” the horse said, somberly, in her ear. “The Sorcerer who has taken Fleurberg is one out of my countries. I do not know what he is doing here, invading your Traditions.”
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Elena did not say what she was thinking, but she had been fighting terrible and despair guilt from the moment that she had heard of this disaster, and Sergei’s words only seemed to confirm her worst fears. That this was happening because of her. She had broken The Tradition by taking a lover, and now a Black Mage from another set of Traditional paths had taken advantage of the weakness.
She did not say it, not because she did not want to acknowledge her own guilt, but because doing so would serve no purpose, would weaken Alexander’s spirit and resolve, and would only waste time, time that was already precious.
“What can we expect, Sergei?” she asked, pulling away from him and stifling the wish to simply hug his neck and wail.
“I think it is a Katschei,” said Sergei in reply, while Alexander stared at them both bemusedly. “Which will mean that his heart is not in his body, so you can only kill him by finding his heart. He is in a new land, so he probably has not yet done anything other than encase it in a diamond and place it somewhere he considers safe, which is usually somewhere near him. I would guess that it is in the throne room, under the throne. If one of you can penetrate the throne room and find the heart and return it to where it belongs, you can kill him. If you can break the diamond and smash the heart, you can kill him. Of course,” he added thoughtfully, “you’ll have to get past his army of creatures first.”
“I’ll—” Alexander began, then stopped at the look on Elena’s face. “Tell me,” he demanded instead.
“Whoever defeats the Katschei and rescues the Princess can’t be you,” she said, slowly, “because The Tradition is 432
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very strong in Fleurberg, and Princess Kylia is going to fall in love with the man who rescues her.”
Alexander looked at her for a moment, then licked his lips. “Then what use am I?” But before she could answer, his face lit up. “Wait! If I gather the remains of the army and attack the city and the Palace, the Evil Mage will be distracted!”
“And I can go in and try and find his heart,” said Elena.
“But I will need more than a distraction, and someone needs to occupy the Mage in a way that will keep all of his attention elsewhere.” She took a deep breath, and wondered if she could keep her face from showing her pain. “Champion—”
He straightened, and his entire demeanor changed. He seemed taller, and larger somehow.
“Champion,” she said, knowing that this was the right thing, the only right thing for him as well as for Fleurberg, but feeling her heart whimpering in pain all the same.
“Champion, you must challenge this Evil Mage yourself.”
“Ah.” He took it as she had expected him to; willingly, even eagerly. “And you, meanwhile, will rescue Kylia, free Julian, and find the heart.”
“Probably not quite in that order, but I think that I have a plan to do that,” she agreed. “Sergei can take both of us—”
“Sergei can take you, Godmother,” the little horse interrupted. “Mother and I suspected you were going to do something like this, and I brought one of my brothers.”
He tossed his head up and whinnied shrilly. He was answered by a deeper whinny from up above; there was a clat
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ter of hooves on the roof again, and a second horse leaped down onto the yard, landing as lightly as a swan on the water.
It was a coal-black stallion, as handsome as the humpback horse was homely. His mane and tail swept the ground, rippling like waterfalls of silk, and his coat gleamed like the finest satin, and he was both incredibly graceful and massively muscled. His beautifully formed head turned towards Alexander, and the Prince stepped forward, entranced.
“Don’t expect the kind of intelligence and cleverness that I have out of him, but he’s loyal as a hound, brave as a lion, strong as a bull, and he can fly, just as I can. Mother says that every Champion needs a proper mount,” said Sergei, eyes glinting with satisfaction. “So from this moment on, Nightsong is yours.”
From somewhere, Hob came up with what must have been armor meant for a young Elven princeling for Elena. It fit well enough, although her breasts were squashed beneath the breastplate. Still, it was no worse than what the flattening corsets favored in Arachnia’s Kingdom of Bretagne did to a woman’s breasts, and Elena was not going to complain if it kept her alive—and further, that it made her look like a young man, and kept her from being recognized as a Godmother.
They knew from the messenger’s story where the window into the dungeon was that he had spoken to Julian through.
The Princess’s tower had a balcony that Sergei could land on.
So there was just one more thing that needed to be arranged.
It would take a lot of magic. She hoped that there was 434
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enough still here that it would not seriously deplete her own resources.
Hob’s magical game bag could actually hold just about anything put into it. The Katschei’s creatures were probably things that could only be harmed by magical weapons; Sergei was not sure on that point, but he agreed that it was likely. So the House-Elves and Alexander stripped every room in the cottage and lodge of anything that was remotely weaponlike, right down to the knives and cleavers in the kitchen; Elena enchanted every one of them with just a touch of magic, enough that they could actually hit a magical creature. Then they were stuffed into the game bag.
When she was done, she had exhausted all of the ambient power that had dropped down around them when The Tradition closed its jaws on them, and every bit of power that the Brownies could spare. She hoped that what she had left was going to be enough, but she knew that she was going to have to be very, very clever with every bit of power left to her.
By sunset, they were as ready as they were ever going to be. Alexander was dancing with impatience, wanting to be off; Elena felt as if her heart was so heavy that Sergei would never be able to fly under the weight of it.
But they had no choice, neither of them. With a last, longing look at the cottage, Elena clambered into Sergei’s saddle—ungracefully, for she still had never learned to ride—as Alexander vaulted lightly into his seat on Nightsong’s back and accepted his lance from Hob. He looked every inch the Champion, as bold and brave as a legend, and eager to be off. She closed the visor on her helm; his was al
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ready down, and she was glad of it, for it would have been much worse if she had been able to see his face with that weight of guilt on her. It was bad enough, knowing that, with the weight of Tradition along with his own eagerness, Alexander’s mind, heart, and soul that of a Champion, and if he thought of anything else, it was fleetingly.
/> “Ready?” he asked, his voice echoing hollowly out of the depths of the helm.
She nodded. Sergei gathered himself beneath her; she clung to the pommel of the saddle with both hands, and the two sons of the East Wind rose on their hind feet and leaped into the blood-red sky.
It was near midnight when they landed amid the dispirited mob that was what was left of Stancia’s army. Alexander had made a proper show of it, too, for had anyone been alert or brave enough, it all might have ended then and there. But calling down from above, “Loyal sons of Fleurberg, we have come to aid you!” and having Elena illuminate him as he landed, meant he had no chance of being mistaken for some warrior of the Katchei’s.
Now he stood on a rock, ringed by torches, as the tired old soldiers surrounded him, looking at him with expressions in which fear warred with hope. So far Alexander had said nothing to them, other than to send out word to gather together, and Elena had kept her mouth shut. This was not a Godmother’s business; it was the business of a Champion.
Here it was Alexander who was the master of the moment.
Finally, when no more men were coming in from the darkness, Alexander drew himself to his full height. “Hear 436
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me, men of King Julian!” The voice that rang through the night sounded like Alexander’s ordinary speaking voice, but—stronger, deeper, and certainly a great deal louder.
Below him, the men started and gasped as Alexander’s words told them what they had feared—that Stancia was dead. Alexander would not have named Julian King, otherwise.
“Hear me, men of King Julian,” Alexander repeated.
“Your old King is no more. A foul usurper has attempted to seize the throne. King Stancia fought nobly and died as a warrior, his sword in his hand—”
Now that was a complete fabrication, as Elena well knew, but it was the sort of thing that a soldier wanted to hear. No soldier wants to be told that his King was cut down before he could rise from his dinner, that he was slain as he tried to push away from the table by magic against which he had no defense. They wanted to hear that their beloved monarch was a fighter to the end, someone they could emulate, and whose memory they could honor.
“—but Julian lives, and your duty is now to him! Hear me, warriors! I am Alexander, brother of your King, and have come to help you. You must hold until our allies arrive—you must fight to enter the Palace and destroy the evil usurper—”
“How?” bleated one grizzled old man, demandingly, interrupting Alexander’s stirring speech. “How, when spears and arrows just bounce off ’em, and swords and spears won’t bite?”
But Alexander simply gave the man a pitying look. “With the weapons my squire will give you,” Alexander coun
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tered, not missing a beat. “Weapons enchanted by the hand of the Fairy Godmother Elena, to strike to the heart of these monsters and give you strength beyond your own!”
That’s a bit much! she thought, though she was secretly pleased at being accorded such great power by Alexander.
But—well, it isn’t going to hurt, I suppose, to have them think that they’re being given magical strength even if they aren’t. If they think they are, who knows? It might actually happen.
Taking that for her cue, Elena opened the game bag and began passing out whatever came to hand. There was a moment of reluctance, but then she was engulfed by men who were desperate to have something, anything that would serve them against these creatures that some were already calling “demons” rather than “trolls.” They were neither, but that didn’t matter, either.
There were still weapons in the bag when the last of Stancia’s men, the survivors of what had been a rather pathetic little army in the first place, had each claimed a weapon. Alexander began his rallying speech at that point, and Elena stared up at the castle.
It was not a big castle, and fortunately, it was not surrounded by a moat. But the walls were stout and there were an awful lot of torches and forms moving up there.
“—a frontal assault, to occupy him and keep him from spreading out to conquer the city and the Kingdom,”
Alexander was saying, when she turned her attention back to him. “Do not spend yourselves needlessly; it is a holding action that we need. Help is coming from Kohlstania! My father would never permit his son to languish a prisoner! More 438
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help is coming, in the form of magical allies, brought to our aid by the Godmothers themselves!”
Your father would never permit an evil magician to set up shop in the neighboring Kingdom, you mean! she thought, with some irony. This was, in fact, King Henrick’s worst nightmare come to pass, the very thing he had hoped to prevent by sending all three of his sons to the Glass Mountain. And I only hope that the other Godmothers do respond….
“And what are you doing, while we’re doing this?” asked that same troublemaker, dubiously.
Alexander drew himself up, and—yes, there was no doubt of it. His armor began glowing as he took on the full aspect of a Champion. “I,” he said, with great dignity, “will be fighting the Evil Mage in challenge combat. Alone.”
“All right,” Alexander said urgently to her, as the little army organized itself around its few surviving officers, and prepared to make that frontal assault on the gate. “Time for you to go. Find Julian, get him out, and send him around to the front as soon as you hear the fighting start. Then go to the aid of the Princess when you hear the trumpet sound for my challenge.”
She nodded, a great lump arising in her throat, rendering her speechless. He was going through with this, and unless she could find the Evil Magician’s heart—he could be killed.
“And Elena—” he paused, and his voice lost that quality of “Champion” so that it sounded like nothing more than
“Alexander” “—I want to know. I have to know.”
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question about her own guilt in this mess. But she would answer him truthfully if he asked. She owed him nothing less than the truth.
“Will you consent to marry me?”
She felt as if something had slapped her across the helm so that her head was ringing. She heard her own voice say, joyfully , “Yes!” before her head had formulated an answer.
“Good. That’s all I needed to know.” He grinned at her, and closed his helm down over his face. Before she could say anything else, he had lifted her into Sergei’s saddle, and the little horse was off like a shot.
She sawed at Sergei’s reins, trying to bring him back around, but the little horse was having none of it. “Godmother, we have a job to do,” Sergei said, acidly, the bit clamped between his teeth. “Are you going to put all of it to naught?”
She let go the reins, but her heart wanted to be back there, with him, demanding to know just what he had intended with that question—
Except, of course, he was not actually going to be there; by now he was at the forefront of the army, on Nightsong, making himself visible as the attack began, before he and Nightsong flew over the gate and into the forecourt to challenge the Sorcerer. The Evil One would have to answer; The Tradition would force him into it. Never had Elena ever heard of a Challenge going unanswered.
Sergei’s night vision was better than hers was; he spotted the dungeon window in the shadows and plunged down towards it like an owl on a mouse. Stancia had been a good king, as had all of his ancestors; his dungeons might be stout, 440
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but they were not lightless nor airless. They had heavily barred windows in their walls that were just about at ground level on the outside—oh, twenty feet above the floor on the inside, of course, but still, windows. It would take magic and cunning to use them for an escape, but magic and cunning Elena had, she hoped, in abundance.
At just that moment, the attack on the front gate began.
&n
bsp; There was a roar, and the sound of weapons and a battering-ram hitting the front gate. Virtually every torch on the walls skittered in that direction, and there was more than enough noise to cover anything that Elena was about to do.
Elena slid from Sergei’s back, and ran from dungeon window to window, whispering urgently, until she found the one letting into the great room where Stancia’s guards, remaining nobles, and Julian were imprisoned. They were, thank heavens, sensible; they did not shout at her whisper, and in fact, she was able to talk to Julian himself.
“Who are you?” he called up.
“The old woman in the forest,” she whispered back. “I gave you the gift to speak with animals; I advised you not to be so generous in the matter of your food, sir, if you’ll recall!”
“Only that woman knew this,” he replied, sounding out of breath. “I believe you, lady! Have you come to succor us?”
“I have. Are you hurt?”
“A bad slash to my shield-arm, but I am alive, and afire to get out,” came the whisper up out of the darkness. That was all she needed to know.
Time for a little more magic.
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“Give me but a moment, Majesty, and you will be leading your men again!”
She hitched Sergei to the bars of the grate, took out her wand, and ran a trickle of magic along the perimeter, chanting under her breath, giving the magic form and purpose.
“Time erodes all that is made. Weakens iron and crumbles stone.
Undermines all that is laid. Time is lord and time alone.” This spell should have the effect of accelerating the hand of time there, and weakening both the bolts and the cement. “Pull!”
she whispered to the little horse, who threw himself against the ropes.
Nothing. She ran another trickle around, repeating her incantation. Sergei pulled again, and this time the entire grate came free with a groan—
It would have landed with a clatter, but she caught it before it fell, and lowered it to the ground. She stole a quick glance up at the walls, but so no sign of movement. No one had seen them yet. Perhaps, with luck, there was no one there to watch.
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