Georyn felt as if he were being torn in two. For it was not in him to close his mind to such marvels as he was now being shown; yet neither could he resign himself to pain. Surely for this too there must be an answer. At length he found it. Struggling to maintain the steady motion of the sphere despite his inability to ignore the enchanted window, he made a discovery: no need was there to devote his whole thought to the spell in order to control it. The new, magical function of his mind could be pushed aside and yet continued, even as the movement of his legs would require but little attention were he walking. It was not so hard, once he had grasped the idea. Gradually he gained confidence; the Stone was giving him resources beyond all expectation. No longer did the sphere slip from his command, and there was no more pain.
Then for a time Georyn beheld wonders the like of which he had never seen even in dreams. Some were terrifying—a hideous, snarling beast, a series of fiery bursts accompanied by thunder—but he soon realized that he would come to no harm from them; they were merely another manifestation of the spell under which he had been placed. And others were not dreadful, but only strange: there was a tremendous cluster of sparkling towers, for instance, that made him long to rise and step forward onto the silver-paved roadway that led to it; for he could see people there, vast crowds of people clothed in colors more brilliant and varied than the silks of a king. The sound he heard, too, was more pleasing than threatening; although it was unlike anything of which he had ever dreamt, it reminded him of music.
Suddenly, without warning, the window disappeared and there was silence. The Enchantress stood before him; reaching up for the sphere, she took it into her hands. It did not burn her, but neither could she hold it; it continued to rise, gently, while she stared at it in puzzlement. Then with quick understanding she turned to Georyn. “Let it go!” she said, laughing. “You are too good at this now!”
Georyn released the sphere, and the Lady removed it from the chamber. In a few moments she came back to him; her hand rested on his arm, and he felt a sharp sting, after which tingling heat coursed through him, rapidly fading. “Stretch your limbs,” she told him. “They will move again.”
Finding that this was true, Georyn sat up. “The Stone has powers past belief,” he said slowly. “I—I was only beginning to tap them.”
She smiled. “You see what I meant. Its strength grows as you learn. Can you forgive me for subjecting you to this, Georyn?”
“There is nothing to forgive. It was not terrible after the beginning. The last of it, indeed, was in itself worth what had gone before; I would not have been sorry to see it continue.”
The Enchantress sighed, saying, “I know, and I hope that that will not prove to be the worst of the whole affair. I do not want you to be hurt.”
To Georyn, her meaning was all too clear. The helplessness, the brief touches of pain, were now over with and he had taken no harm from them. But the memory of that magical window was something else again; having been given a glimpse, he now wanted more than a glimpse, and he suspected that he was not going to get it. “Lady, where are we?” he said wonderingly. “What is this place?”
“I am not permitted to tell you, nor may you know how you leave it.” In her other hand, she held a steaming cup, which she now extended to him. “Drink this now. Do not be afraid; it will only make you sleep.”
Georyn sipped the drink; it was hot and had a pungent flavor that was not unpleasant. “Guarded by such enchantment,” he told her, “I do not think that I shall be afraid of anything! But the Stone has indeed its perils, and they are not as I imagined them.”
“Ah, Georyn, you do not know them all; nor, I fear, do I,” sighed the Lady. She sat beside him, cupping her hand around the Stone, and for a moment spoke less to him than to herself. “Is it by this that a mighty Dragon shall be overcome? I dare not guess where it will lead us! A stone’s so very small a thing to change the fate of a world.”
THE FIRE
The sun was high when Georyn awoke. He was lying upon his own pallet in the shelter that he shared with the Starwatcher; at first, he wondered whether he had only dreamt that he had been bewitched and taken to the dungeon of an enchanted castle. But when he saw the Stone still bound to his belt, he knew that it had been no dream. It had been real, as the power of the Stone was real; and although parts of it had been nightmarish, he felt all the better for what he had undergone. In truth, he felt far more eager to set forth upon the quest than on the previous evening, for surely the worst of Dragons could be no more terrifying than this past night’s experience.
The Starwatcher was nowhere to be seen. But when Georyn went to the river for water, he found the Enchantress there before him. She sat upon a mossy log watching the clear stream swirl over the rocks, and when he went to her she rose and held out both her hands. He did not take them, for it was not fit that he should entertain the thought that had come suddenly into his mind. That she should bestow an Enchanted Stone upon him was miracle enough; who was he to dare the hope that, in parting, she might honor him with her kiss?
“Lady,” he said, from a desperate need to fill their silence, “did I indeed travel to the enchanted realm while I was bewitched?”
“No, Georyn, you did not,” she answered. “It was an illusion.”
“It was a wondrous one, then; for I have lost all fear even of being turned to stone!”
“That may be true, for the spell was so designed. But there is a difference that you must not forget! Last night your danger too was illusion, but with the Dragon, it will not be. The Stone can give you power, but it cannot make you invulnerable.”
He smiled at her and touched her hand. “Only your faith in me can do that,” he told her.
Suddenly shy, the Enchantress turned away. “Georyn,” she said hesitantly, “perhaps it is best that you should set out upon the journey today after all. Do you feel ready for it?”
“I feel entirely so, but must I not wait to consult the Starwatcher?”
“I—I think that that will not be necessary. You already have his blessing and all the aid he can give you. And now there is little time to waste.”
Georyn said, “That is so, for I do not wish to prolong your peril for a single instant. And yet—” He paused, for it seemed to him that the ordeal now ahead of him would demand far more courage than the confrontation of the Dragon. To go, and not to see her again! To turn and walk away, knowing that in the moment of his victory, if victory he won, she would pass into the forever-unreachable realm beyond the stars! He could not find any words that were adequate to be his last to her.
And then Georyn saw in the Lady’s eyes that he did not need words; she not only understood his feeling, but shared it. This farewell was no more to her liking than to his, yet to postpone it further was beyond her power.
She answered his unspoken thought. “That is not beyond my power, Georyn, for I have decided to come with you. But we must not tarry, for the Starwatcher will soon return, and he will not be pleased at my choice, I fear.”
Firmly Georyn replied, “I shall not take you into further peril.”
“My peril will be no greater than it is here!” she exclaimed, and he knew this for the first falsehood she had ever told him. “I cannot help you in the final trial, but I shall hide in the woods and watch it; and afterward, we will meet again before—before I go from this world. I cannot bear that it should be otherwise!”
“Lady,” Georyn declared resolutely, “I must go to the Dragon alone, as you yourself have told me is a necessary condition for the breaking of the evil spell that guards the monster.”
“It is necessary only that I not be seen,” the Enchantress said determinedly. “Do not set yourself against my will, Georyn. I have not given you that much power!”
“So be it, then,” Georyn said. “But my heart forebodes that this will lead us to an ill fortune. That you should be with me on this journey is a greater joy than I could ever have wished for, but if any harm should come to you, the defeat of
a hundred dragons would be no victory.”
It was absolutely crazy, of course, for me ever to set off for the Imperials’ camp with Georyn. Not that Father had ordered me not to go; he’d just naturally assumed that there was no need to, any more than there was a need to order me not to go there with Evrek. But I knew well enough that he wouldn’t allow me to take such a risk if I consulted him. And I had no real idea as to what good might be done by it; I simply felt that I couldn’t bear to send Georyn into a danger that I didn’t share, not after what had happened to Terwyn. At least I told myself that. Actually, I suppose, when it came right down to it I just couldn’t bring myself to say good-bye.
Father had gone to the village that morning, since we were out of supplies again, and Evrek was away keeping tabs on the invaders. The plan was for Georyn to rest up after his night’s ordeal; his departure wasn’t to take place until the following dawn. But I knew that if I was to go along, we must leave before Father got back. I did not think he would stop me once I had taken the decision into my own hands. After all, I’d ignored his desire to protect me on two previous occasions, and he had not been angry.
Nor had I been sorry. My experience in the village had not taught me caution; it had been painful, but that kind of pain—the kind that comes from facing up to life—isn’t a harmful thing. No harm had ever come from my rash acts. I could not believe that this one would turn out differently.
The site of the Imperial colony lay on the other side of the “enchanted” forest. Since Georyn and I had started fairly late in the morning, we had no hope of getting there before nightfall; we planned to build a campfire and take turns tending it, for we traveled light, without blankets or even packs. (I had sense enough, at least, not to take any offworld artifacts with me other than the clothes I was wearing, for which I had no substitute; I even resisted the temptation to carry along extra food in the form of concentrates.) However, just as it was getting dark enough for us to be choosing a place to stop, we spotted the glare of a large bonfire off in the distance, glimmering through the trees.
It never occurred to me to be leery of that bonfire. As we approached we could see that there were quite a few men clustered around it; that these men might be unfriendly to us never even entered my mind. Georyn was wiser; he insisted that we should size up the situation before making ourselves known. There was one of the typical Andrecian stone huts nearby, abandoned by folk who, although bolder than most concerning the forest, had fled in fear from the invaders; we watched from the cover of its shadow. The mere fact of men being in the Enchanted Forest at night was suspicious, but I didn’t take that in until Georyn mentioned it. I didn’t realize that anything was amiss until we saw the girl.
The girl was young, younger than I certainly; she sat leaning against a tree on the far side of the fire, away from its warmth. She was clad in a shapeless garment of dark, rough-looking cloth, none too clean, and her long blond hair hung limply across one side of her face. At first we wondered what one lone girl could be doing in such a place. The men did not seem to be paying any attention to her; they gave her a wide berth, in fact. Then, as we circled in closer, we saw that she was a captive; her hands and feet were bound, and in her eyes was an expression I had never seen on anyone before: not terror, but a look of having gone beyond terror to the apathetic resignation of despair.
Aghast, I asked Georyn what was going on. He didn’t know, at least he said he didn’t. I think now that he must have had a fairly good idea. He understood the Andrecian mind in a way that I never shall; and moreover he knew that no villagers would camp in the Enchanted Forest, this close to the place of the dreaded “dragon,” merely for pleasure. Perhaps if I had never gone to the village with him, he would have told me of his suspicion; he would have assumed that it lay within my power to deal with this situation as with all others. But to Georyn, the probable fate of this girl must have been a very horrifying thing. He now knew my reaction to horrifying things and did not want to cause me any sadness. It was very ironic, because I would have taken a more optimistic view of this particular truth than he.
As it was, although I had no inkling of the actual intent of these Younglings, it was plain enough that they were up to no good. And I’m afraid that I didn’t have a very realistic idea of my powers as an enchantress! So far the only Andrecians I had met had respected me and welcomed my aid; I was under the impression that any villager would offer me, if not the adoration that Georyn did, then at least the deference that his brothers had accorded me. Cruel as they might be toward each other, their malice surely couldn’t extend to me. I actually thought that I could walk into that camp to demand that the girl be freed and be obeyed.
Georyn tried to stop me. “Are you sure that it’s right that you should be seen?” he asked, clearly indicating beneath the respectful tone that he was not.
“But, Georyn, those men are likely to do something awful to that poor girl! I’ve got to stop them!”
“I don’t think,” he said slowly, “that it’s been laid upon you to right all the wrongs of the world; for haven’t you told me that you are here only to help defeat the Dragon? And isn’t it possible that if we try this thing and fail, our quest may thereby be jeopardized?”
He had hit the nail on the head, of course, just as he usually did. A Federation field agent should not need a Youngling to interpret her responsibility for her; but if she does, and is lucky enough to have one who’s capable of it, she ought at least to listen to him. Unfortunately I didn’t listen, for my decision was already made.
It’s one thing to understand Service policy concerning large-scale actions, and something else to apply your understanding to small and seemingly trivial actions. I knew perfectly well that intervention in the affairs of the natives was forbidden. But I honestly didn’t think that the rescue of one mistreated girl could fall in that category! Father had explained why we couldn’t eliminate hunger from Andrecia, but he hadn’t scolded me for giving food to the starving children in the cottage. How would this be any different? It couldn’t possibly involve Imperials, so the outcome of our mission could hardly be affected.
Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way, I guess. I hope I was motivated more by genuine pity than by the desire to exercise my power. In any case, throwing off the Andrecian cloak that covered my offworld clothing, I entered that firelit circle. Georyn followed, an act that required more courage than I appreciated at the time. Then, as it dawned on me that the stares that greeted us were undeniably hostile, that the men did not immediately fall back in awe at my presence, I began to see how foolhardy I had been. This wasn’t merely a matter of policy. I’d risked Georyn’s safety, and my own.
Though I was supposedly protected from violence by the Shield, to tell the truth I was not exactly confident of my ability to safeguard myself. I hadn’t ever really used the Shield, at least not against anything other than what children usually run into. Not against any serious threat.
I had mentioned this to Father not long after we had arrived on Andrecia, and he had been very reassuring. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, Elana,” he’d told me. “I know you haven’t been trained to bring the Shield under voluntary control, but I’m positive that if you ever really need it, you’ll have it.”
“Couldn’t you teach me?” I had suggested.
“I don’t think it would be wise for me to try. I haven’t the facilities to do it safely; that type of training can’t be made too tame, you know. If it is, you simply fail and lose your confidence. The Shield’s the same as psychokinesis and all the other things; you can’t just practice, you’ve got to be faced with a real challenge.”
Father had added, “There’s only one real danger you have to watch out for, and that’s panic. If you ever land in a situation where you have to rely on the Shield, you’re going to be pretty frightened; but just remember that fear will do you more good than harm, so long as you don’t let it throw you. There’s a difference, though, between the useful kind o
f fear and panic. If you panic, you won’t be able to exert any psychic control at all.” He added thoughtfully, “The Shield for you, at this point, is rather like psychokinesis for Georyn. You’ve an inborn capability, but it’s not under your conscious command.”
“Father, could Georyn ever achieve the Shield himself?”
“No. Younglings haven’t such power, not even in latent form; they simply haven’t evolved far enough. If we could have given him that, the job would have been made a lot simpler.”
So here we were. I was protected on a very problematical basis, and Georyn was not protected at all. However, I had got us into this, and I would now have to see it through. I waved my arm toward the unhappy captive and said with all the determination I could muster, “You must release this girl at once!”
The general tenor of the reply was, “And who are you to say so?” I couldn’t understand all the words, and though the thought behind them was forceful I could not read it readily, as I could Georyn’s. There was some rapid talk, very little of which I caught, during which I began to get very scared indeed; in spite of the nearness of the roaring fire I felt chilly. Then finally Georyn, at my insistence, told me what he now knew for certain: the girl was the victim not of these men’s brutality but of a calculated scheme involving the whole village. She was intended as a sacrifice to propitiate the “dragon.”
And the plan would not be given up because of any objections from a strange being who appeared out of the forest. Not that the men doubted my supernatural origin; they were all too well convinced of that. But there was a side to being an enchantress that up until this point I had not seen.
High into the dark leaped the bonfire, and upon the faces of those gathered around it a red glow was cast. Georyn stood beside the Enchantress, his hand upon her arm, as she made answer to the men’s enmity. Her eyes flashed proudly, and her voice was clear and cold, demanding, “Do you dare to defy me, you who have less knowledge of this Dragon than babes at their mother’s knee?”
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