by Helen Lowe
“But how?” he muttered, looking up at the soaring hedge. He had thought that Quickthorn might cut a way through, but now, facing the sheer size of the hedge again, he was not so sure. But it might be that there was an obvious point of entry, a gate or a place where the hedge grew thin. It had to be worth investigating, at least.
The ground here did not seem to be as thick with briars as he remembered, and the pale glow from the sword helped, picking out the worst patches. But neither the thickness nor the height of the hedge diminished, and although he circled it until the sky blushed pink, Sigismund was unable to find an opening. He stopped, studying the long, sharp thorns, and reflected that in any other forest the trees would be alive with birds by now, but not here. In this wood everything was utterly still, as though the whole world was holding its breath—and had been, he thought grimly, for nearly a hundred years.
“And I don’t know about you,” Sigismund said to the surrounding trees, “but I’m tired of waiting. It’s time for some hack and slash.” He raised Quickthorn up and cut into the hedge with a great, backhanded swing.
There was a clap like thunder and the ground shook so that Sigismund struggled to keep his balance. The rose vines in front of him curled away with a snap, and for a moment he thought they were going to whip back into his face, but instead they kept curling, rising and arching to form a tunnel though the hedge. Sigismund swallowed, because it was so deep, a good spear cast at least, and he could never have hacked his way through. But whether it was because of his influence acting on the spell, or some quality inherent in the sword, or both, it seemed he would be allowed to pass without challenge.
It worked, Sigismund thought, exultant. He wanted to punch the air and shout out to the sun, rising above the trees, but knew he needed to remain coolheaded. The magic was still far from undone, but even opening the hedge of thorns might be enough to lift the interdict and let the Margravine through.
Her appearance here, thought Sigismund, sobering, can only be a matter of time. He squared his shoulders and stepped into the shaded tunnel beneath the briar hedge, walking steadily through and out into sunlight and silence on its far side. He had hoped that the magic might work in his favor and the opening close again behind him, but it remained unchanged.
Not good, thought Sigismund, thinking of the faie hunt and whatever else might come out of the Wood, as well as the threat of the Margravine. I must hurry, he told himself, but found it hard to move. Everything was still and even the air appeared thick with sleep, the white towers of the palace shimmering like a mirage on the far side of the garden in which he stood. Sigismund wondered why his arm seemed so heavy, then realized that he was still holding Quickthorn, which felt as though it was made of stone. After another moment he sheathed it and stared around the garden, a puzzled frown on his face. It seemed familiar, but he couldn’t remember it from any of his dreams.
It was certainly large and very formal, with manicured hedges and gravel walks, stone terraces, and trees in tubs leading up to the palace. There was an ornamental lake with a small green island at its center and a marble summerhouse reached by stepping-stones. The stones curved across the water like swans flying and the lake’s blue surface was completely still, unmarred by a single ripple. Sigismund, staring hard, realized that the clouds mirrored in the water were motionless as well. He swallowed, glancing up at the unmoving sky and then as quickly away again, dizzied by the sheer scale of magic required to achieve such a thing.
“Must move,” he mumbled, “find the princess, break the spell. No time to lose.” But his legs felt numb as he forced himself forward and even his thoughts were slow, as though separated from each other by layers of cotton wool. Sigismund frowned, then dragged off his leather gauntlet and closed his hand around Quickthorn’s hilt. There was no hum or crackle of power, but he found he could move and think clearly again.
There was another summerhouse further away, on a small wooded hill beyond the formal garden. Sigismund could see it as he climbed the terraces that led to the castle entrance, and supposed it must be part of a larger park. The whole place was a mixture of the cultivated and the wild, with the white palace floating above it like a cloud and rose vines scrambling down the steps and terraces to meet him. It was not until he stood in the palace gate, however, that Sigismund saw the full riot of briars that twisted and scrambled over the main courtyard and inner walls. They were the one thing, it seemed, that had not stood still but had thrived and grown rampant for the hundred years of the spell.
Sigismund stepped forward, picking his way across the briars and into his childhood dreams. It was all exactly the same, he thought, dizzy again—although the disorientation might not be magic this time, but simply the overwhelming perfume of the roses. Nothing moved and there was no sound, but in every room and around every corner he found people asleep. There were guards standing upright at their posts and courtiers slumped on chairs, some with sleeping hawks on their wrists or slumbering hounds at their feet. Sigismund peered into the silent courtyards where fountain water hung sparkling in midair, and stood for some time looking into the great hall where the King and Queen slept on their golden thrones. Their attendants lay sleeping around them and the birthday guests sprawled forward across the long tables.
But if this was the same as in his dreams, Sigismund thought, pulling himself away from that sad, glittering scene, then he already knew that the princess was not here, or in any of the rooms along these sleep-filled corridors. Instead he had to find the final staircase, the one that ended in shimmering impenetrable mist. Sigismund was not sure whether it was the same staircase he had climbed in his later dream, after his return from Thorn forest, but he was reasonably certain that he would find the briar-choked room at the top, with the sleeping princess inside it.
“So find one or both staircases, and then climb. It should be easy.” He thought he spoke softly, but his voice echoed against the silence and a gong sounded once, discordant, as the echoes died away. It seemed distant, but Sigismund began to run anyway, fearing what it might herald. There was too much magic here, too many potential pitfalls, and he tried not to recall how the princess and her room had always stayed just out of sight in those early dreams, concealed at the top of the next stair or hidden around another corner.
I have to find her, he thought, his heart racing. I can’t fail now.
There was no further sound but Sigismund could not shake the feeling of pursuit, a presence stalking behind him as he ran along corridors and up stairs, crossing through hall after empty hall. The silence became eerie, threatening as well as sleepy, and time blurred, so that he could not say how long it was before he finally stepped into another hall. There was a dry fountain at its center and a drift of leaves across the floor. Rose canes had crept in through the broken windows and down the wall, but the stair he sought was finally there. He recognized the wrought-iron balustrade, with the rose cable twisting up it, from his later dream.
Sigismund paused at the foot of the stair and peered up. It did not seem like a high tower, but it was hard to be sure when the staircase spiraled. He hesitated, listening hard, but everything remained quiet, unmoving, so he shrugged and began to climb.
It was not long before Sigismund decided that this must be the tallest tower in the palace, for the stair wound on and on, getting steeper and narrower with every landing he passed. The walls grew plainer too, shifting from paintings and tapestries to plaster, then undressed stone. The windows were high and narrow, little more than arrow slits in the walls. There was a full-length mirror on every landing, but these too became shabbier as Sigismund climbed, with ornate frames giving way to cheap gilt and then to unpolished wood. The quality of the glass deteriorated as well, so that the reflections thrown back at the world were increasingly cloudy and distorted.
Why so many mirrors? Sigismund wondered. Surely it was unusual to have a mirror on every landing, even in a palace of this grandeur?
He climbed for what felt like hours, but t
he staircase showed no sign of coming to an end and finally he paused on yet another landing, staring at the inevitable mirror. The glass was mottled, with a ripple across its center, and at first it revealed nothing except a shadowy reflection of his own face, with gray stone behind his head. But as Sigismund continued to look the reflection began to break apart, fraying into an image of wind-tossed trees and a roof of curved wooden tiles.
“What—” he began, bending closer, but the trees had already boiled into clouds swirling around a tall white tower, then shifted again into a lover’s knot of briars, crawling across tiles and through a door with gold and lapis lazuli above the lintel. Sigismund straightened, staring, then reached out and touched the glass, which undulated beneath his hand.
“It’s the mirrors,” he whispered, “not the stairs. You must get to the top by going through them, but how?” He pressed at the glass with his fingertips, watching it bubble and stir like liquid mercury. He frowned, then drew Quickthorn and touched the fluid surface with its point. Light rippled, red and white along the blade, and then the glass parted from top to bottom, creating a narrow opening.
Sigismund’s mouth tightened but he turned the blade, holding the substance of the mirror to one side, and stepped into the gap. The glass pressed in on him, half fluid, half substance, and his skin crawled—but then he was through and standing on the same landing he had reached in his dream, after his return from the Faerie hill. When he looked back the mirror had gone, but there was a high, narrow door in its place, with the spiral stair twisting down to the world below. Sigismund shook his head, thinking that the magic that filled the palace was very strange, like an invisible maze designed to bewilder.
There was a door in front of him as well, with the blue and gold mosaic above the lintel and a thick carpet of rose leaves across the threshold. The rose vines twisted around and through the opening, and Sigismund already knew that they would choke the room beyond, climbing up the four posters of the bed and forming a living canopy above the sleeping princess. He also remembered that there had been an invisible barrier in his dream, preventing him from crossing the threshold. He raised Quickthorn again as he walked forward, but this time—whether because of the power in the sword or because the spell’s magic was lifting—he was able to step across the drift of rose leaves and enter the room.
It took time and care to negotiate the jungle of briars between door and bed, but the sleeping princess too was as Sigismund remembered. Her long golden hair fanned out across the coverlet, spilling to the floor, and her sleeping face was perfect as a flower in its beauty. He found it hard to drag his eyes away, but knew he had to work out how to wake her.
“Or will she just wake up anyway?” Now that, thought Sigismund, sheathing Quickthorn again, would be easier than having to shake her awake or shout in her ear. But the princess remained resolutely asleep, so in the end, feeling slightly foolish, he compromised and knelt beside the bed. “Princess,” he said, taking her hand and keeping his voice level, “the spell of sleep is at an end. It is time for you to wake up.”
Her hand was warm but did not stir in his, and her breast continued to rise and fall with the even breath of sleep. What next? Sigismund wondered, sitting back on his heels and looking for the slightest betraying flutter of her lashes. How do you wake someone who has been asleep for almost a hundred years?
He studied the room and the encroaching briars, thinking how they were everywhere in the sleeping palace, like the physical manifestation of the spell that had taken hold. He remembered how Rue could be summoned by plucking the herb of the same name and wondered if the magic here might work in the same way. He could at least try breaking off a rose and see what happened.
Sigismund chose the bloom that was closest to the princess’s head and reached up, snapping it off. He was not sure, but he thought her eyelashes might have stirred. His other hand tightened around hers. “Princess,” he said again, but this time he spoke in Balisan’s tone, resonant with command. “The spell that binds you is done. By this rose that is your symbol, I bid you wake!”
And whether because of some alchemy of the rose, or the memory of Wenceslas’s voice assuring him that kisses were both magical and powerful, Sigismund leaned forward and touched her lips with his.
The briars retracted with a hiss, uncurling from the bed posters and canopy and slithering back toward the door and windows, clearing the room. Sigismund wondered if the same thing was happening all over the palace, but then the hand in his moved. The princess lifted the sweep of her golden lashes, gazing up at him with eyes that were the color of aquamarines, a shade between green and blue.
“But I was expecting a prince,” she said, bewildered, “not a dragon.”
Sigismund stared back at her, wondering what on earth she was talking about. He saw her eyes widen and caught a flash of movement, heard the whisper of a footfall behind him. Rue, he thought, remembering his dream, and began to turn—but something slammed into the back of his head and he slumped instead, meeting darkness.
The Belvedere
There was pain like an ax blade in the back of Sigismund’s head and lights exploding behind his eyes. It was all he could do not to groan, but instead he lay perfectly still, trying to make sense of the voices and movement around him.
“So good of him to let us in,” said Flor’s voice, contemptuous. “What a fool! Did he really think we wouldn’t know once he began lifting the spell?”
“The perversion of the Lady’s death spell was clever. We would never have found our way here without this boy to lead us.” It was a faie who spoke, in the light cold voice that Sigismund remembered from the Faerie hill.
“Even vermin have their uses. But now we have the princess, and my grandmother’s ring is safe on her hand, so let the fools weep!” Flor’s voice was a crow of triumph. “Their counterspells and chosen prince have all been in vain—my grandmother has still prevailed.”
It was true, Sigismund saw, opening his eyes a crack. They must have flung him to one side after they struck him down, and he could look past a number of booted feet to where Flor stood by the door. The princess stood by Flor’s side, the Margravine’s ring blue against her finger. No one was holding her and her hands remained untied, but it seemed there was no need for restraint, since she was making no move to get away. She just stared straight ahead, her aquamarine eyes fixed on nothing—and seeing nothing either, or so Sigismund guessed.
They must have used the blue ring to ensorcell her, he thought, so that she has no will of her own. He felt sick to his stomach, and not just from the blow to his head. He wanted to believe that Flor must be under a spell himself, to do such a thing to another human soul, but the triumph in the golden youth’s voice suggested otherwise.
Don’t delude yourself, Sigismund told himself bitterly. Flor’s face may be golden, but his heart is rotten.
He wanted to close his eyes again, but the blue jewel had begun to pulse on the princess’s finger, like a small but brilliant star. It fascinated Sigismund, pulling his attention away from the rest of the room. It was hard to think clearly past the pain in his head, but he thought the ring was twisting the fabric of reality, sucking the room’s light and energy into itself.
“We have delayed too long and now the Lady grows impatient.” Sigismund was sure it was the same faie who spoke again. “We must do as instructed and bring the princess to her where she waits between the planes.”
“What about him?” An ugly note crept into Flor’s voice. “I want to finish him now.”
“He must stay alive until the Lady’s work here is done; she was adamant on that point.” The faie’s voice was without inflection, but it seemed to have an effect on Flor, who swore beneath his breath.
“Just as long as he can’t escape. I want him here when we return.”
“Without the girl,” the faie replied, “he can do nothing to stop us. And the binding the Lady gave us will seal him into this room.”
Flor hesitated, and this time
Sigismund did close his eyes, trying to shut out the pulsating dazzle of the blue ring, but he could still see it through the darkness of his lids. He thought the pulse was faster now, the air in the room more warped, but still Flor hesitated. “Perhaps we should take his sword,” he said, “just to be sure.”
The faie’s alarm was palpable, even to Sigismund. “Do not touch the sword!” he hissed, and there was a whisper of agreement from his companions, like a breath of cold wind through the chamber. “It is powerful and treacherous, and best shut up here lest it do us harm or interfere with the Lady’s magic.”
“Look to the ring!” commanded another voice, a rasp beneath the chill tone. “It will destroy us all if we do not bring the girl to your grandmother at once.”
“Alright!” snapped Flor. “But I’ll leave this scum with something to remember me by!” He crossed the room as he spoke and kicked Sigismund in the side, a heavy vicious blow.
Sigismund had just enough time to force his whole body to relax, so that it stayed heavy and unresponsive as the kick landed. It was quite possibly the hardest thing he had ever done, but he needed Flor to believe that he was still unconscious. He nearly passed out in any case, from the pain and shock of the kick coming on top of the blow to his head. The darkness swam in until there was only a pinprick of consciousness behind his eyes, and when it cleared he was alone.
Sigismund lay where he was for some time, waiting until the pain from the kick subsided and staring straight ahead in much the same way as the ensorcelled princess had done. All they had to do was track me, he thought. I couldn’t have made it easier for them if I’d tried. They just waited for me to lift every layer of protective magic, then seized the princess as soon as she was awake.
