"Oh, what saddens thee!" Magnus dropped to his knees beside her. "Tell me, tell me what I may do to gladden thee!" But she only shook her head and twisted her whole body, lips parted for a soft and racking moan. Magnus couldn't bear it; his passion drove him, and he leaned to kiss her lips, ever so gently....
Her body stilled, but the moan came again, desperate, demanding.
Magnus kissed her once more, his lips moving over hers, then lifted his head to see the tears had stopped, but the eyes drew him more deeply than ever. He lowered his lips to hers, and kissed, and her lips parted beneath his, her tongue touched his lips lightly, briefly, and he knelt, almost paralyzed by the sensation. She pushed his head up a little, gazing deeply into his eyes, then drew his head down again, and this time her tongue found his, and the kiss deepened and lasted. Little by little, Magnus stretched his form beside her on the moss, eyes closed, her mouth his whole world, drawing him down, down, into darkness.
For a timeless interval, he drifted, aware no longer of her kiss, but somehow of her presence. Then, in the night, a glimmer appeared, a diffuse glowing cloud that fluxed and thickened into whorls that took on human shape and form. He was shocked to see a dozen men or more, and behind them others in a band that seemed to stretch out forever. They were knights, though beyond them he seemed to see fur-clad barbarian warriors with stone-edged spears. Those in the front rank, though, wore crowns and coronets around their helmets, and their shields were emblazoned with elaborate coats of arms. All were gaunt, hollow-eyed and hollow-cheeked, and pale, very pale, but their orbs burned as they marched toward him, and he seemed to hear a whole whispering chorus saying:
Poor mortal, thou art ensnared and lost! Thy soul too will be mired and ginned, even as ours have been for this elfchild is truly an ancient witch, who hath beguiled stronger and wiser men than thee, and will beguile many more. She doth drink heart's blood, as even now she doth drink thine; she will sap thy will to live, thy joy in life, and batten off it. And there is no hope of escape, no, none, for this beauteous lady doth know no pity, and is completely without mercy.
I shall escape! Magnus cried, inside his own mind, but their chorus bore down his voice:
Thou art lost already, for she hath cast her spell o'er thee, and thou has been glad of it. Thou hast gone willingly into bondage to her, and she hath thee in thrall, in company with us. Nay, soon, soon, thou shalt join us, for thou shalt wake to find thou hast no interest in life, no wish to feed, no lust, no love left within thee. Thou shalt waste away, as we have, pining for one more glimpse of this beauteous lady-but she will not vouchsafe even so much as that for thee; nay, she hath left thee already, for thou hast no more to give her. Thou art an empty husk, as are we all.
Their mouths opened, revealing an emptiness that rushed from a score of throats to shroud Magnus in darkness. He screamed and thrashed about, trying desperately to waken ...
And did. He sat bolt upright, chilled and alone, lying on gravel within a grotto of bare rock, wetted by spray borne on the wind. He looked about in desperation, but of the faerie lady there was no sign.
And the despair welled up and engulfed him. He fought against it, struggling to rise to his feet, that he might stagger away from the slate-gray lake with its border of withered sedge. But the despondency overwhelmed him, and he sank back, meaning to rise again, but realizing that he would not, for it was too great an effort. He hung his head to weep, but found he did not even care enough for that. It was as the phantom warriors had said-the faerie child had taken all his energy for life, and left him too empty to care whether he lived or died, too apathetic even to think of suicide. He did not doubt that they had spoken truth-within a week, he would join them. The prospect failed to move him.
And so he sat, alone and uncaring, listening for some sound other than the wind and the rippling of the water-but no animal barked or bayed, and no bird sang.
10
Rod was worried. It wasn't that he had lost Magnus's trail; he knew exactly where his son was. But he had seen him meet the wild-looking beauty, seen him swing her up onto his horse, and had discreetly turned away. Being accessible in case of emergency was one thing; spying was another. No, Rod had gone off and pitched camp and whiled away the time making amusing little carvings and writing in his journal. Not that there was anything to fear, of course, but some nagging concern kept him from just packing up and going home. Of course, if it hadn't been there, he never would have gone traipsing off after Magnus in the first place-but the young man was in very unstable condition right now, very vulnerable. Of course, he had only one real weakness under ordinary circumstances, but that weakness bore a thousand pretty faces and knew a million seductive movements, and was heightened by his current dissatisfaction with himself and his life.
So Rod camped nearby, and waited-and waited. When the gloaming gathered in to become night, he tried to sleep, but vague and dire dreams kept waking him. He rose in the false dawn, blew the coals to flame, heated water, brewed some herbal tea, and waited. And waited.
Finally, unable to take it any longer, he reached out, tentatively, very delicately and with total passivity, to try to eavesdrop on his son's mind-not closely enough for thoughts, mind you, just a general mood....
It slammed through him and nearly dragged him into the earth with the weight of its sadness and despair.
Not even waiting to think it through, not even stopping to look, he sent out a plea for help with an urgency that verged on panic-but a plea to a very specific person. Some things, only a mother can handle. More to the point, there are some crises for which a parent would much rather have reinforcements, if they're available.
Instantly, he felt her response, colored with alarm: What ails thee, husband?
Our son, he thought back. I don't know what it is, but something has him hip-deep in despair. No, amend that-I do know what it is, just not how or why.
Another woman who doth seek to twist my son? The thoughts were tinged with hints of mayhem now, and incipient murder.
Something like that. Come quickly, won't you, dear? Faster than the eagle flies, she assured him.
Rod relaxed a little. When Gwen said "fast," she meant it. He turned away to put out the fire and start a little skulking. It was time to spy.
Gwen landed on the bald spot atop the ridge, where lightning had blasted a pine and new growth had not yet sprung up. She hopped off her broomstick and ran to Rod-but she didn't get more than two steps before he swept her up in a crushing embrace. She yielded, letting herself melt into him for a minute or two, their thoughts mingling in mutual anxiety and reassurance; then she pushed him away and said, "What hath the shrew-witch done to my son?"
"I can't say for sure-I didn't spy on the deed, just its aftermath. All I know is that he met a wild maehad-type, and she went riding off with him, Apparently, she ran him through the wringer."
Gwen frowned, not quite understanding the simile, but certainly grasping its gist. "It may be that solitude is all he doth need, my lord. Thou hast hinted, more than once, that thou hadst been hurted by vengeful women of a time."
"Well, yes, but I was lucky enough to meet you, and you healed all those hurts."
Not completely, Gwen knew-in fact, she had later opened old wounds, quite unintentionally. She now realized just how deeply some of her careless remarks must have hurt him. "Gramercy, my lord," she breathed, and reached up for a long kiss. When at last they drew apart, she smiled and looked down, then looked up again. "And thou dost fear that Magnus will not meet a woman who will banish his memories of the others?"
"Or at least make them seem unimportant?" Rod shrugged. "Maybe. But he has to survive long enough to meet her, and right now, that's very much in doubt."
Gwen's eyes widened. "So bad as that?" Then her gaze lost focus as she turned her attention to the impressions coming directly into her mind rather than those of her other senses. Suddenly, she stared, shaken, and her gaze snapped back into focus.
Instantly, Rod was open to
her mind and caught the impression of their son's emotions.
"Great Heaven!" Gwen cried. "He is sunk in a melancholy so deep that he is like to seek his death!"
"But how?" Rod groaned. "He just finished dealing with a couple of females so predatory that they made wolverines look sweet!"
Gwen nodded, her face grim. "He is more easily swayed for having but just now been set aside, my lord."
"On the rebound," Rod translated, "and not in very good condition to discriminate between good women and bad."
"And she has snared and hurted him already." Gwen's face hardened with anger. "Hurted him, and cast him aside. How long hath she had for the doing of this deed, my lord?"
"A night and a day. I didn't want to seem to be following him too closely."
Gwen shook her head in wonder. "That such as she must feed their dwindled hearts off goodly men, and take the tenderness from them and cast them aside so quickly! Come, my lord-let us seek him and free him from her bonds."
Rod followed, reaching out to touch her hand. "I thought we were supposed to be able to relax and stop worrying about them, once they grew up."
"Never, my lord. Let us seek."
11
They found him sitting on the bank of a gunmetal-colored lake, shoulders slumped, sunk in melancholy. Rod and Gwen both halted, dumbfounded-this apathy was so unlike their son!
Then Gwen knelt beside him and touched his forehead. "What ails thee, my son?"
"Love." His voice was almost a monotone. "I am mired in it."
Gwen stared off into space a minute, probing his mind, then stood up, shaking her head. "'Tis more than that, mine husband. 'Tis the work of a thought-caster, and one most expert, too."
"A projective?" Rod frowned. "To do this to him, she must have damn near hypnotized him!"
"She hath, and quite thoroughly. The posthypnotic suggestion binds him as no coercion could."
Rod's heart sank; for suggestion to work, it had to have struck some chord of despondency in Magnus. What had gone wrong in his son? The boy had always been so dynamic, full of such positive feelings. "Up and away, son! Don't let an enemy get the better of you!"
The vacant gaze turned in his direction. "How can she be mine enemy, when I am sick with love for her?"
"Because she tried to hurt you-and succeeded horribly well! I know it's tough, but you have to ignore the molasses your heart is mired in!"
"I cannot."
"But you know the feeling isn't real! You know it's just an illusion she's bound you into!"
"Nay, Father-'tis not a compulsion alone, but a reordering of my hormonal balance, and of the functioning of my brain. The witch-moss hath been crafted in suchwise as to alter my genes, however slightly."
Gwen drew her breath in with a sharp hiss, and Rod's eyes opened wide. "Witch-moss? What did she do, feed you a love philtre?"
"Aye, yet she held me spellbound from first sight. The philtre only assures that I cannot throw off mine infatuation."
"Come off it! No medieval femme fatale could know that much about physiology!"
"She had no need to; she had but to ponder on the effects she wished, and the witch-moss shaped itself to the pattern that would yield them. For look you, 'tis a substance that doth react to thought, and can therefore alter thought-and in this exacting mass of interactions that doth constitute our bodies and our minds, any alteration in the one doth transform the other. Nay, I know quite well what she hath done, but that doth not change the fact of it. I love her to misery, and will do all that I can to please her."
"But you know it's not a natural, spontaneous feelingit's a synthetic emotion, not true love!"
"Aye, I know that-yet what use is knowledge? The feeling is still there, and cannot be altered." Magnus heaved a mile-long sigh. "Oh, my father! I feel as though the blood of life doth drain itself out from mine heart in a never-ending stream-and I can do naught to stanch it."
Rod looked up at Gwen in appeal. "Isn't there something you can do?"
Gwen shook her head. "There is much I could try, but I think 'wwould be to no avail-and even if it were, the cure would be as vicious as the illness; for look you, ailments of the heart are such that a mother must not cure them, not in the way his need to be healed."
"But there has to be some hope!"
Gwen sighed. "There is a witch I've heard of, one whose gift is of healing, and her powers are of life."
Rod frowned in doubt. "More skilled than you? I didn't think there was any such."
Gwen was still a moment, then flashed Rod a smile. "I thank thee for thy kind thought, mine husband; yet though I've skill and force of many kinds, there do be some magics that others wield better than I."
"But none so many, so well?"
"Save my children; thou hast it. This witch doth dwell in the West, and is skilled beyond any in the ways of life."
"Funny I haven't heard of her."
"Few have; she doth not seek reknown, or those who are ill would give her no peace. Indeed, she doth hold her secret close, not even telling any her name, and will give aid to none who can be healed by others-unless they are near to dying."
Rod glanced at his son's pale face, at the haggard looks and slumped shoulders. "He might qualify on both counts. But how does he find her?"
"He must seek her out. The Wee Folk say that she hath posted sentries, creatures who watch for those so sorely hurt that only she can aid them, who guide the wounded to her."
"But the Wee Folk themselves don't know?" Rod frowned. "Just how powerful is this witch, anyway?"
"As I've said, she doth know the ways of all manners of life, without but even more within-and the elves have life. Nay, she doth know how to mislead even them; they can say only in what region she doth dwell, and tell only what those who have seen her, and been cured by her, do tell."
"Pretty good, since she probably swears them to secrecy-but the elves have some pretty good mind readers. So where is she?"
"In the West, as I've said-and she doth dwell by a curving lake that doth run between hills."
"A river oxbow, silted up till it's cut off from the river." Rod nodded. "But those are usually pretty close to its new course-so we can follow a stream?"
"Even so. The region is known-one of many lakes and ponds."
"The Lake Country?" Rod looked up. "I've heard of it."
"Aye. 'Tis therein she doth dwell."
"But that's a hundred square miles, at least! Isn't there any better hint than?"
"It must suffice." Gwen sighed.
Rod turned away, irritated. He clamped his jaw, then nodded. "Right." He bent down to clasp Magnus's arm. "Up, son. Time to go."
He hauled on dead weight. Magnus looked up, blinking. "I cannot, my father."
"Of course you can!" Rod spoke loudly, to hide the sneaking dread. "All you have to do is stand up and climb on a horse! Come on, son!" He pulled again.
Now Magnus actively resisted. "Nay, my father. The love of my life hath bid me stay; I will honor her wish."
"You'll atrophy! You'll die of stagnation!" Rod took a closer look at the grayish hue of his son's face, and wished he hadn't said that. "Mere's no real reason to remain-you know that. She just wanted you out of her way."
Magnus turned and bowed his head to his knees.
Gwen touched Rod's arm, feather-light. "'Tis melancholia. You cannot jar him from it."
Rod felt his stomach sink. Whatever the murderess had done, she'd altered Magnus's biochemistry to force depression on him. He could save himself, but he had lost the will. "Can't you pull him out of it? Give him some sort of wall within his mind, that'll contain it?"
Gwen looked up, startled. Then her eyes took on a distant look as she considered; slowly, she nodded. "A wall within his mind, aye-and one to ward his heart. But there must needs be an outward symbol, husband, summat to show and keep him mindful that her spell is contained."
"What kind of symbol?"
"A shield, that doth ward him from fell magics. 'Tis ther
efore suited that it be of rowan wood, which will not turn a lance but will catch and hold Cupid's arrows."
"I suppose we do have to blame this on Eros, don't we?" Rod turned away to begin looking.
Gwen turned to her son, knelt by him, lifted his head, and pressed a hand to his forehead.
Rod left her to her emotional first aid and looked for fallen trees.
There were quite a few, not too far from the lakeside-the whole region was on the decline. He found a rowan, thumped it to make sure rot hadn't set in, and took out the dagger with the ruby in the pommel. Rod set it for a threecentimeter depth and starting carving. Ruby light lanced out but only for the preset three centimeters. Rod pressed it slowly against the log, then drew it carefully across, then down, back, and up to meet the first line. He stepped away, eyeing the curved rectangle, nodded, and set the laser for two feet. He took his time burning through the log at each end, then cutting horizontally, following the lines he'd first made. He turned off the laser, lifted out a section of cylinder, and laid it face-down. Then he turned on the laser and began carving away the inside.
He came back to Gwen, holding up a shield that looked like a curved rectangle, a section out of the wall of a tube. She was still intent on her work within Magnus's mind, so Rod sat down with shield and laser and passed the time by cutting straps from his emergency leather supply and attaching them to the shield, then carving symbols into the face of the wood. It had been the easiest and quickest kind of shield to make, but it had come out resembling those the Roman legionaries had carried-so he outlined a pair of Roman eagles, then burned away wood to leave the eagles in basrelief. He eyed it critically, added the letters SPQR, and put the dagger back in its sheath. He looked up just as Gwen was rising-slowly and stiffly; she'd been kneeling quite a while. Rod jumped to offer his arm; she took it, flashed him a grateful smile, then saw the shield. "Ah!" she breathed. "Well crafted, husband! Hale him up, now."
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