by Peter Beagle
The man looked away. “Nothing, now. Once I was a prince.”
That explained the world-weariness in his voice, Arven thought. He’d been raised to rule and then lost all chance of doing so before he’d even begun. Probably not too long ago, either, or the boy would have begun to forget his despair and plan for a new life, instead of making foolish, gestures like attempting the keep. Arven wondered whether it had been war or revolution that had cost the young prince his kingdom. In these perilous times, it could have been either. Not that it mattered; the result was the same.
“Sit down, then, prince, and tell me your tale,” Arven said in a gentler tone.
“My tale isn’t important. It’s the keep—”
“The keep’s tale, then,” Arven interrupted with a trace of impatience.
The prince only nodded, as if Arven’s irritability could not touch him. “It’s not so much the story of the keep as of the Counts who lived there. They were stubborn men, all of them, and none so stubborn as the last. Well, it takes a stubborn man to insult a witch-woman, even if he was unaware as some have claimed, and then refuse to make apology for the offense.”
Without conscious thought, Arven’s fingers curled into the sign against evil. “That’s what the Count did? No wonder the keep is cursed!”
The prince flinched. “Not the keep, but what is within it.”
“What?” Arven frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. Trust a young nobleman to make hash of things instead of telling a simple, straightforward tale. “Go on.”
“You see, the Count’s meeting with the witch-woman occurred at his daughter’s christening, and the infant suffered as much or more than the father when the witch-woman laid her spell of revenge. Before the assembled guests, the witch declared that the girl would be the last of the Count’s line, for he would get no more children and his daughter would die of the pricking of a spindle before she turned sixteen. The guards ran up then, but the witch laughed at them and vanished before they could lay hands on her.
“The Count made fun of the curse at first, until he found that half of it at least was true. Then he raged like a wild man, but it did him no good. His daughter was the only child he would ever have. So he became wary of the second half of the curse, more because he did not wish his line to end than out of love for the girl.
“He was too stubborn to take her away, where the witch’s power might not have reached. For seven generations, his fathers’ fathers had lived in the keep, and he would not be driven away from it, nor allow his daughter to be raised anywhere else. Instead, he swore to defeat the curse on his own ground. He ordered every spindle in the castle burnt and banished spinners and weavers from his lands. Then he forbade his daughter to wander more than a bowshot from the outer wall of the keep. He was confident that he had beaten the witch, for how could his daughter die of the pricking of a spindle in a keep where there were none?
“The Count’s lady wife was not so sanguine. She knew something of magic, and she doubted that the Count’s precautions would save her child. So she set herself to unravel the doom the witch had woven, setting her love for her daughter against the witch-woman’s spite.”
“Love against death,” Arven murmured.
“What was that?” the prince asked, plainly startled.
“It’s something my wife used to say,” Arven answered. His eyes prickled and he looked away, half out of embarrassment at being so openly sentimental, half out of a desire to cherish Una’s memory in private.
“Oh?” The prince’s voice prodded gently.
“She said that time and death were the greatest enemies all of us must face, and the only weapon stronger than they are was love.” Arven thought of the grave behind the cottage, with its carpet of daisies and the awkward wooden marker he had made himself. He had always meant to have the stonemason carve a proper headstone for her, but he had never done it. Wood and flowers were better, somehow. Una would have laughed gently at the crooked marker, and hugged him, and insisted on keeping it because he had made it for her, and the flowers—she had always loved flowers. The shadows by the wall wavered and blurred, and Arven rubbed the back of his hand angrily across his eyes. Love might be stronger than death or time, but it had won him neither peace nor acceptance, even after five long years.
“Your wife was a wise woman,” the prince said softly.
“Yes.” Arven did not trust his voice for more than the one short word. The prince seemed to understand, for he went on with his story without waiting for Arven to ask.
“The Countess was not skilled enough to undo the witch’s curse completely, but she found a way to alter it. Instead of death, the prick of the spindle would cast her daughter into an enchanted sleep, never changing. The witch’s curse would turn outward, protecting the girl for one hundred years by killing anyone who sought to do her harm. One hundred years to the day after the onset of the spell, a man would come, a prince or knight of great nobility, who could pass through the magical barriers without harm. His kiss would break the spell forever, and the girl would awake as if she had slept but a single night instead of a hundred years.”
“And meanwhile men would die trying to get to her,” Arven said, thinking of the bones among the briars. “It was a cruel thing to do.”
“I doubt that the Countess was thinking of anything but her daughter,” the prince said uncomfortably.
“Nobles seldom seem to think beyond their own concerns,” Arven said. The prince looked down. Arven took pity on him, and added, “Well, it’s a fault that’s common enough in poor folk, too. Go on.”
“There isn’t much more to the story,” the prince said. “Somehow, on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, the girl found a spindle and pricked her finger, setting the curse in motion. That was over a hundred years ago, and ever since, men have been dying in the attempt to break it.”
“Over a hundred years? You said the curse would last a hundred years to the day.”
“That’s why I need your help.” The prince leaned forward earnestly. “The curse was only supposed to last for a hundred years, but the Countess wasn’t as skilled in magic as she thought she was, and mixing spells is a delicate business. She was too specific about the means of breaking the curse, and now there is no way I can do it alone.”
“Too specific?”
“She tied the ending of the curse to a precise day and the coming of a particular man. It would have worked well enough, if the right prince had been a steadier sort, but he was…impetuous.” The prince looked down once more. “He arrived a day too soon, and died in the thorns.”
“And thus the curse goes on.” The young are so impatient, Arven thought, and it costs them so much. “How do you know all this?”
“He was…a member of my family,” the prince replied.
“Ah. And you feel you should put his error right?”
“I must.” The prince raised his head, and even in the flickering firelight, naked longing was plain upon his face. “No one else can, and if the curse is not broken, more men will die and the Countess’s daughter will remain trapped in the spell, neither dead nor alive, while the castle crumbles around her.”
“I thought the girl would come into it somewhere,” Arven muttered, but the image touched him nonetheless. He and Una had never had a child, though they had wanted one. Sixteen—she would have been full of life and yearning for things she could not name. He had known children cut off at such an age by disease or accident, and he had grieved with their parents over the tragedy of their loss, but now even the cruelest of those deaths seemed clean and almost right compared to this unnatural suspension. He shuddered and took a long pull at his mug. The cider had gone cold. “How do you hope to break the curse, if the right time and the right man both have come and gone?”
“I’ve studied this spell for a long time,” the prince replied. “Two men can succeed where one must fail.”
“How?” Arven insisted.
“The curse is complicated, because it is
really two spells muddled together. A single man, if he knows enough of magic, might hold it back for a few hours, but he couldn’t do that and clear a path through the briars at the same time. Sooner or later, his spell would falter and the thorns would kill him. With two men—”
“One can work the spell and the other can clear the path,” Arven finished. He gave the prince a long, steady look. “You didn’t really come looking for me to get information about the keep.”
“No.” The prince returned the look, unashamed. “But you wouldn’t have listened to me at all if I’d begun by saying I wanted you to help me get inside.”
“True enough.” Arven considered. “Why at night?”
“I can only work the spell then.”
Arven glanced sharply at the prince’s face. He knew the sound of a half-truth, and that had been one. Still, there had been truth in it, and if the prince had additional reasons for choosing night over day they could only strengthen his argument. Arven realized with wry humor that it did not matter any longer. He had already made up his mind; all that remained was to nerve himself to the act he had decided upon. That being so, hesitation would be a meaningless waste of time. He looked down and saw with surprise that his plate was empty; he had finished the bread and cheese without noticing, as they talked. He drained his mug and set it aside, then rose. “We’d best be on our way. Half a mile is a far distance, in the dark and uphill.”
The prince’s eyes widened. He stared at Arven for a long moment, then bowed his head. “Thank you,” he said, and though the words were soft they held a world of meaning and intensity. Again Arven wondered why this was so important to the younger man, but it made no real difference now. Whether the prince was trying to make up for the loss of his kingdom, or had become infatuated with the sleeping girl of his imagination, or truly wanted to repair the harm his unnamed uncle or cousin had done, Arven had agreed to help him.
“You take the lantern,” Arven said, turning to lift it down from the peg beside the door.
“No,” the prince said. As Arven looked back in surprise, he added a little too quickly, “I need to…prepare my mind while we walk. For the spell.”
“Thinking won’t keep you from a fall,” Arven said, irritated. “There’s no moon tonight.”
The prince only looked at Arven. After a moment, Arven gave up. He took the lantern down, filled and lit it, and carried it outside himself. He was half-inclined to tell the young prince to go on alone, but each time the words rose in his mouth he bit them back. He shifted the lantern to his left hand and picked up his ax, then glanced back toward the door. The prince was standing on the step.
Arven jerked his head to indicate the direction of the keep, then turned and set off without waiting to see whether the prince followed him or not. If the prince wanted a share of the lantern light, let him hurry; if not, it would only be justice if he tripped and rolled halfway down the mountain in the dark.
Thirty feet from the cottage, with the familiar breeze teasing the first fallen leaves and whispering among the beeches and the spruce, Arven’s annoyance began to fade. It was not the prince’s fault that he was young, nor that he was noble-born and therefore almost certainly unaware of the perils of a mountain forest at night. Arven paused and looked back, intending to wait or even go back a little way if necessary.
The prince was right behind him, a dim, indistinct figure against the darker shapes of the trees. Arven blinked in surprise, and his opinion of the young man rose. Prince or not, he could move like a cat in the woods. Arven nodded in recognition and acceptance of the other man’s skill, and turned back to the trail. He was annoyed at having been inveigled into misjudging the prince, but at the same time he was grateful not to have to play the shepherd for an untutored companion.
The walk up to the keep seemed to take longer than usual. The prince stayed a few steps behind, moving so quietly that Arven glanced back more than once to assure himself that his companion was still there. Mindful of the prince’s comment about preparation, Arven did not try to speak to him.
At the edge of the briars, Arven halted. Though the keep was all but invisible in the darkness, he could feel its presence, a massive pile of stone almost indistinguishable from the mountain peaks, save that it was nearer and more menacing. “What now?” he asked as the prince came up beside him.
“Put out the light.”
With more than a little misgiving, Arven did so. In the dim starlight, the briars reminded him of a tangle of sleeping snakes. Frowning, he untied the thongs and stripped the leather cover from his ax, feeling foolish because he had not done so before he put out the light. A breath of wind went past, not strong enough to ripple the prince’s cloak but more than enough to remind Arven of the clammy fear-sweat on the back of his neck. I’m too old for this, he thought.
“Hold out your ax,” the prince said.
Again, Arven did as he was told. The prince extended his hands, one on either side of the blade, not quite touching the steel. He murmured something, and a crackle of blue lightning sprang from his hands and ran in a net of thin, bright, crooked lines across the ax-blade.
Arven jumped backward, dropping the ax. The light vanished, leaving a blinding after-image that hid the ax, the briars, and the prince completely. Arven muttered a curse and rubbed at his eyes. When the dazzle began to clear, he bent and felt carefully across the ground for his ax. When he found it, he picked it up and slid a slow finger along the flat of the ax-head toward the cutting edge, brushing off leaves and checking for nicks. Only when he was sure the ax was in good order did he say, “Prince?”
“I’m sorry,” the prince’s voice said out of the night. “I should have warned you.”
“Yes.”
“It will help with the briars.”
“It had better.” Arven wiped one hand down his side, then transferred the ax to it and wiped the other. “What else do you have to do?”
“I will restrain the thorns so that they will not harm you while you cut a path through them. I must warn you; I can only affect a small area. Beyond that, the briars will remain…active. The sight may be disturbing.”
“This whole venture is disturbing,” Arven grumbled. “Very well, I’m warned.”
“One other thing: do not look back until you reach the castle gate. Your concentration is as important as mine; if you are distracted, we may both be lost.”
“You’re a cheerful one.” Arven paused. “Are you sure you want to do this? I’m an old man…” And you are young, with a long life, perhaps, if you leave this lunacy undone, he thought, but did not say because it was the same advice his elders had given him when he was young. The prince would probably pay as much attention to it as Arven had, which was none at all.
“You’re the only one who would come with me,” the prince said, misinterpreting Arven’s question and confirming his opinion at the same time.
“You’ve about as much tact as you have sense,” Arven said under his breath. He twisted the ax handle between his hands, feeling the smooth wood slide against his palms, and his fear melted away. He had worked these woods all his life; he knew the moods of the mountain in all times and seasons, and the moods of the keep as well; he had cut every kind of tree and cleared every kind of brush the forest had to offer, over and over. This was no different, really. He turned to face the briars, and said over his shoulder, “Tell me when you are ready.”
“Go,” said the prince’s voice softly, and Arven swung his ax high, stepped forward, and brought it down in a whistling arc to land with a dull, unerring thump an inch above the base of the first briar.
The stems were old and tough, and as thick as Arven’s forearm. He struck again, and again, and then his muscles caught the familiar rhythm of the work. A wind began to rise as he hacked and chopped and tossed aside. A corner of his mind listened intently for the warning creak of a tree about to fall in his direction, but otherwise he ignored the growing tempest.
All around, the briars shifted and be
gan to thrash as the wind ripped their ends from their customary tangle to strike at air, straining against their roots. Where Arven stood, and for thrice the length of his ax in all directions around him, the air was calm and the briars inert. The only motion within the charmed circle was the rise and fall of his arm and the shifting of the cut stems as he pushed them aside. The sound of the wind and the thrashing briars were clear but faint, as if they came from a great distance or from outside the walls of a sturdy house. The thud of his ax, the rustle of the briars as he passed, and the crunch of his boots against the mountainside were, in contrast, clear and precise, like the sound of crystal singing in silence.
Dream-like, Arven glided steadily onward, moving surely despite the gloom. His ax, too, never missed a stroke, though as the keep drew nearer the night thickened until the faint light of the stars no longer penetrated its blackness.
Arven had no idea how long he spent carving his path through the snarl of briars. His arms grew tired, but his strokes never lost their rhythm and his steps never faltered. Even when he came to the ditch that surrounded the castle, three man-heights deep and nearly as wide, and so steep-sided that a mountain goat might have had difficulty with the climb, his progress slowed only a little. The briars grew more sparsely in the thin soil that veiled the rocky sides of the ditch, and now and again Arven left a stem in place, to catch at his sleeves and the back of his coat and help keep him from slipping.
He reached the bottom of the ditch at last and paused to catch his breath. He could feel the keep looming above him and hear the rushing wind and the thrashing of the briars, though he could see none of them. He wondered what would happen if he lost his direction, and was suddenly glad of the ditch. It was a landmark that could not be mistaken, even in such blackness; if he climbed the wrong side, his mistake would be obvious as soon as he got to the top, and he would only have to retrace his steps.
“Go on,” the prince’s voice whispered in his ear.
Arven jumped, having all but forgotten the other’s presence. There was exhaustion in that voice, a deeper exhaustion by far than the world-weary undertone it had had when Arven first heard it, and in his concern he almost turned to offer the prince his arm. Just in time, he remembered the prince’s warning.
