“What’s going on? What’s happening?” the poor lizard begged, swiveling her huge eyes from chicken to squirrel and back again. “I don’t understand!”
“He let Lady Mara into Briardale,” Lolly answered, her voice strangely dark and dangerous coming from a chicken beak. “He’s the one who betrayed us all.”
“Oh, surely not!” the lizard exclaimed, sitting upright on her tail and clasping her little clawed hands. “He’s our princess’s best friend! He could never do such a thing, could never let the curse catch up with her! Could you?” she added with a forlorn glance up at the beautiful young man’s face.
He could not meet her gaze. “I’m sorry, Auntie Viola. I’m sorry, Auntie Alicia, Auntie Lolly.” He gulped and lifted a hand.
Before any of the three fairies quite realized what was happening, he uttered a few words in a dark tongue—the dark elf language of sorcery. Power shot from his fingertips, three jagged lines of rippling shadow that struck each fairy in the heart. They stood not as stone, but frozen. Only their eyes moved, turning this way and that as though trying to see some way out of this new dilemma.
An evil laugh filled the tower chamber. Lady Mara, recovered from the stunning blow dealt her, rose up, her dark robes billowing about her feet. “Did you think,” she said, sneering down at the three fairies, “that I would not prepare myself in case of weakened magic? Lady fairies, meet my loyal apprentice!”
Three pairs of furious eyes glared up at the young man. “You thought him nothing more than the princess’s sweet little friend,” the Lady said, her voice mocking and horrible. “You thought him harmless and innocent as a lamb. But he has been my servant all along!”
Even as the sorceress’s laughter rang out like the tolling of funeral bells, the apprentice hung his head in shame, unable to so much as look at the fallen form of the stone princess.
The Dark Mistress of Briardale passed like a shadow through the passages of her abode. The old castle was not her favorite choice of headquarters, but following the events of five hundred years ago, she had thought it best to remain at the center of things until the Magic Cycle ended. But it was a cramped, moldy sort of place in the most ill-begotten corner of the kingdom.
Little wonder her foolish brother had elected to hide his precious daughter here all those centuries ago.
Lady Mara held her head high as she strode along the corridor like a queen moving through the streets of her kingdom. Voices sounded through the heavily barred doors on either side—wild, ranting voices of the lunatics she had collected over the last several centuries.
The mortals in these parts had needed a convenient place to send their madmen and madwomen. Why not to Briardale Castle, where the Mistress welcomed all with open arms?
The Lady smiled behind her veils, listening to the animal-like howling on either side of her. Those who had not been mad when they arrived, she’d quickly turned mad using her evil arts. What a fine, ravening army they would be when the Magic Cycle ended! Not even the remaining elf hosts—who had all gone into hiding when the curse took their king—would stand against her.
She would wear the crown at last. The time was so near, she could taste it! Tomorrow at sunset her wait would end. Only twenty-four hours to go . . .
A dark, scuttling form caught her eye as it tried to dart out of her way into the shadows. She whipped out an arm, caught the figure by one big ear, and hauled him before her. The bug-eyed dungeon keeper cowered before her, falling to his knees and wringing his long-fingered hands.
“It is sunset,” the Lady snarled down at him. “Time to bring in the Slavering Swamp Beast. Don’t imagine you can slack off in your duties now, just because the Cycle is almost at an end!”
The dungeon keeper nodded, his lips moving soundlessly, his whole body cringing away from her.
Lady Mara chuckled. Even after all this time the sight of his ugly face still amused her! And when the Cycle ended and all the fairies’ magic vanished? Oh, then she would have her proper revenge upon him! Everyone would see how she dealt with those of her servants who dared defy her will.
She slapped him hard across his pasty face. “Go on!” she snarled. “Fetch in the Beast.”
Her slave crawled away to follow her orders. Lady Mara, still smiling, continued on her way down the corridor.
She passed out of the castle proper into the courtyard, making her way across the paving stones and between the assorted statues of those who had once been her friends and fellow courtiers. All those noble elf lords and ladies who had not raised a finger when her crown was snatched practically from her head and placed on the head of her brother. They deserved everything that was coming to them . . . tomorrow night . . . tomorrow night . . .
And him. Pintamore himself, standing there with that shocked expression on his face. How little had he expected his sister to summon a power potent enough to rival his own! Lady Mara paused before his statue, studying the marble visage she knew and loathed so well.
“How aware are you, deep down in that stone?” she whispered. “Since that foolish Alicia set your spirit free, have you been watching all that I do? Have you seen the heroes try and fail again and again? Have you seen this last, most pathetic hero who even now languishes in my dungeon?” She reached up and patted her brother’s hard cheek. “I hope you do see all and see it well, dear Pintamore,” she snarled. “And I hope you are counting the minutes until sunset tomorrow as eagerly as I am!”
With that, she moved on to the tower doorway only a few yards away. She opened it and climbed the long spiral staircase. The barrier she had set in place was so strong that not even she could pass it. But the door to the uppermost chamber stood open, and Lady Mara might pause just outside the barrier and look into that dismal little room.
She saw the sleeping princess, waiting there even as she had first fallen. Beside the princess, curled up in little balls of fur and feathers, lay two of her guardians, sleeping. And in the center of the room stood the spinning wheel with a lizard in a purple fur coat pushing, pushing at its treadle to keep it going.
“Are you still at that useless task, little fairy?” Lady Mara asked with a cruel chuckle.
Startled, Viola almost lost her rhythm; but then she stiffened her tiny spine and redoubled her efforts, refusing to look Lady Mara’s way.
At the sound of the sorceress’s voice, Alicia’s head appeared from behind her fluffy tail, and she sat upright, straightening her mobcap with one paw. “What are you doing here, Mara?” she demanded, her squeaky voice waking the chicken, who pulled her head out from under her wing.
Lady Mara smiled hugely at the sight of those three absurd creatures (though no one could see her smile behind her veils). Even now, almost five hundred years later, she felt a thrill of satisfaction over a curse well executed. “I came to see if you still persisted in spinning that wheel,” she said with a careless shrug. “After all, your doom is certain now. Come sunset tomorrow you will all turn to dust, no matter what! Why prolong the inevitable? You might as well give up.”
At Lady Mara’s words, the chicken ruffled up her feathers and marched to the treadle, where she began to assist the lizard, spinning the wheel faster than ever. Alicia nodded proudly at this gesture and folded her tiny squirrel arms over her chest.
“Go away, Mara,” she said. “You may gloat and preen all you like. But good will triumph in the end!”
A sliver of anxiety passed through Mara’s heart at these bold words, but she shook it off. “Do you still believe that somehow the curse will be broken? Your little ghost girl has failed again! She brought the most feeble of all heroes—hardly what anyone would call a True Hero. He even now languishes in my dungeons along with the others. Your situation is hopeless! Give it up, Fairy Alicia. Give it up and rest in eternal peace.”
Alicia said nothing. Instead, she marched over to the treadle and joined her sisters. They continued to push and push, spinning the wheel. As though it would make any difference now!
Lady Ma
ra turned and descended the stairs. She had half feared that perhaps the fairies were even now concocting some final, desperate venture that might undo all her plans. But they were as hopeless as ever. The Magic Cycle would end. Her reign as queen of the elves—and, indeed, of all the kingdoms surrounding—would begin tomorrow night!
“Oh, Alicia,” whimpered Viola when the sorceress had gone. “Maybe she’s right! I am so tired of spinning this wheel. And is there any use to it anymore? Even if Roselee can break the hero free, how can he possibly find our wands? The others couldn’t.”
With those words, the little lizard succumbed to tears and could not even manage to keep pushing the treadle. Lolly and Alicia exchanged glances, then the chicken led the lizard away, one wing gently wrapped about her shoulders.
But Alicia kept on spinning. To be sure, they hadn’t much hope left. But sometimes a final, desperate hope is all that’s really needed . . .
Chapter 7
THE SQUIRREL TRIED TO twitch her tail. She felt a burning sensation there at its tip, and she knew the paralysis enchantment wouldn’t last much longer. But for now she was trapped, as were her sisters.
The Dark Lady, still laughing, stepped lightly around to each of the three frozen fairies in turn and snatched the wands from tiny hands and tiny beak. They brimmed still with fairy magic, though that would quickly fade—for the wands had no magic of their own, only that which they channeled from the center of the fairies’ magical beings.
But without their wands the fairies would have no channel for their power. Their magic would be unfocused and potentially disastrous. Without their wands they dared not try to work any big spells.
Lady Mara smiled at the squirrel’s furious glare even as she drew the wand from her little grasping claws. Suddenly the squirrel’s smallest clawed finger twitched. The paralysis was wearing off!
Jumping back beside her apprentice, Lady Mara hissed, “Quickly! My powers are still depleted. Do something before they are free!”
The apprentice, his beautiful face drawn with wordless woe, stepped into the room and past the three frozen fairies, then knelt beside the stone body of the sleeping princess. For half an instant his gaze lingered on her lovely face, half covered though it was by her stone curls.
Then he reached out and plucked up the spindle, blood still glistening on its sharp point. He stepped to the spinning wheel, affixed the spindle in place, and spoke a few words of dark elf enchantment, finishing with:
“I curse the spindle once more. The wheel must spin for as long as it takes for the princess to awaken. If it stops once during the next five hundred years, before the princess receives her waking kiss, then any object of stone within and around this castle will crumble to dust.”
Lady Mara cackled with mirth even as her apprentice took the wheel in his hand and spun it. It whirred with motion, then slowed . . . slowed . . .
Energy flowed through the squirrel. With a squeak and a flash of her bushy tail, she flew across the room. But she did not fling herself in rage at either Mara or the apprentice, no matter how she might wish to. Instead, she rushed to the treadle and began to push it for all she was worth. She had to keep the wheel spinning!
The apprentice backed away then joined his mistress in the doorway. Even as he did so, the lizard and the chicken also broke free of his curse and rushed to the aid of their sister at the treadle.
“Five hundred years, sweet fairies!” Lady Mara declared. “I can’t say I’m delighted at this delay in my ultimate plans, but then again, what are five hundred years to the elves? Keep on spinning, little sparkly ladies . . . keep on spinning until the sun sets on your Magic Cycle. Perhaps I’ll let you live long enough to see me crowned!”
With those parting words, she drew her apprentice out the chamber door and into the stairwell. She clutched the three wands against her breast and realized suddenly that although each was individually much depleted in power, the three of them together still boasted some magical potency.
Inspiration struck. Mara urged her apprentice several steps down before her, then turned back to the open doorway of the chamber. She waved the three wands, using their fairy magic to channel her own slowly returning elf magic, and declared in a voice of enchantment: “With these wands, I curse this tower! No one will be able to enter this room until the Magic Cycle passes.”
She laughed again, her voice ringing down the winding stair and out into the courtyard where the king and his court stood frozen. “Best wishes finding a True Hero now!”
She did not see her apprentice bow his head and bury his face in his hands.
A horrible, screeching roar—like the creak of the world’s most enormous gate being shut by the hand of a howling banshee—shot through the corridors and halls of Briardale, bouncing off every wall and crashing down into the deepest levels of the castle asylum.
Franz, seated on his bed in the dungeon cell, snatched up the nearest thing to hand—which was the illustrated book—and clutched it to his chest as a sort of shield, cowering behind it as the hideous noise assaulted his ears.
Eidor, who lay across from him on his own bed, saw him jump and chuckled. “What’s the matter, hero? A little noisy slavering never hurt anyone.”
“Leave him alone,” said Crete, perched cross-legged on his own bed, slowly spinning his jeweled pin in two fingers. He glared reproachfully at the dwarf. “The Slavering Swamp Beast is an intimidating monster to even the most experienced hero. Why, I found it quite the dreadful sight the first time I saw it, and I’m an actual dragon slayer!”
“Yeah, but compared to that dust mite of a dragon you fought, most anything would look ferocious . . .”
The two of them launched into back-and-forth bickering which, oddly enough, served to soothe Franz’s rattled nerves. At length they subsided—along with the din of the Slavering Swamp Beast, which really did sound much too close for comfort—and Eidor went back to lying still on his bed, periodically holding his breath and straining every muscle in his body. Franz guessed he was trying to turn himself invisible but found watching him struggle to do the impossible rather unsettling. Crete, by contrast, sat calmly on his bed, spinning the pin slowly as though in planetary rotation, his gaze focused as if he were trying to see his homeland on it somewhere.
Needing to distract himself from his mad companions, Franz slowly lowered the book from his chest down onto his lap and took his first good look at it. The illustration on the open page depicted . . . well, if he was honest, a princess more gloriously beautiful than anything he had ever dared imagine! She lay as though she had just fallen to the floor, her golden curls tossed about her perfect face and shoulders, her lavender skirts spread like the petals of a dainty flower around her feet, one slim white ankle just showing beneath the lace hem. A spindle, its tip stained with blood, seemed to have just rolled from her fingertips.
The opposite illustration showed the same princess again—only this time all the colors were muted to grey and her skin and hair were hard. She was solid stone.
Franz stared at the two images. Was it possible . . . could this be the same princess the ghost girl had started to tell him about in the carriage? The one Eidor and Crete claimed to have been brought here to rescue?
The illustrations were so distracting that Franz almost missed the text written in a small, spidery script beneath. He drew the book up close to his face now and read:
And the princess’s rose-petal complexion paled . . . then darkened to hard gray.
“What is she doing?” cried the youngest fairy, nearly dropping her wand in terror.
“She’s turning her to stone!” the middle fairy replied. And she was right—for as the enchantment dissipated and drifted away, they saw their princess’s image in perfect stone . . .
Curious, and feeling that he must be missing something, Franz turned back a few pages to an illustration of a tower chamber with a spinning wheel standing in its center and an old woman seated on the stool. He saw the stairway leading up to tha
t chamber, the same beautiful princess in her lavender dress climbing the stairs, a petulant expression on her lovely face. He read:
On the day of the princess’s eighteenth birthday, mere moments before her kingly father was due to arrive at the hidden castle to celebrate that momentous occasion, the princess, in a fit of dramatic temper, stormed from her bedchamber and escaped the ministering hands of her three aunties. In her desire to find peace from their constant nagging, she fled to the highest tower of the keep . . .
Before he knew it, Franz was caught up in the unfolding story of the princess and the spindle enchantment. He turned a page and saw the three beautiful fairies as they discovered their princess fallen deeply asleep. He turned another page and there saw a terrible dark sorceress depicted almost entirely in jagged strokes of black ink. Could it be . . . ?
He peered at the scratchy text and saw the name—Lady Mara.
A shiver rattled him to the bones. Though he had not seen her face, somehow he did not doubt that this was the same Lady Mara he had met when first dragged through the gates of Briardale. Was this illustration a true depiction of her hidden face? If so, it was a beautiful face in its way, though marred by deep lines of bitterness about the mouth and eyes.
Franz gave his head a little shake. Why was he taking such interest? This was just a picture book, a fairy story for children! He’d have to be as mad as Crete or Eidor to believe it.
But then . . . he couldn’t deny the conversations he’d had with the ghost girl . . .
“What are you doing?”
Franz looked up to find Eidor’s icy blue gaze fixed upon him. “I’m reading,” he said, almost defensively.
“What? As in actually reading?” Crete exclaimed, his head jerking up from contemplation of his pin. He tucked the pin into the front of his shirt, then sprang off his bed and rushed over to sit beside Franz and peer over his shoulder. “You can actually read this stuff?”
Five Magic Spindles: A Collection of Sleeping Beauty Stories Page 18
