Enchantress from the Stars

by Sylvia Engdahl

  Every invader in the clearing froze, eyes held by the unbelievable thing that was taking place. Only the machine worked on; whoever was running it apparently had not seen. I realized that since most of the men were helmeted they could speak to each other only via their radios; I would not hear even the tone of the reaction. Tell me what they’re saying! I urged Jarel.

  He stared at me, startled, but had the good sense to know that he could answer silently. They’re incredulous, frightened … but not frightened enough yet, I’m afraid. His thought broke off, to be replaced by a stronger one driven by anger. Oh no! That fool—not again, not now!

  An Imperial was coming up behind Georyn with weapon raised. I could see that it was not a stunner. Oh, Jarel, do something! I implored.

  Jarel’s face darkened. For a moment he seemed torn by indecision; then, without hesitating, he pulled out his own stunner and fired. Not at Georyn, but at the man who in the next instant would have dealt with this strange and unwelcome phenomenon by vaporizing the native responsible for it. And that man was abruptly immobilized, the lethal weapon falling harmlessly from his extended hand.

  Several other men started toward us, their momentary awe of Georyn forgotten in the shock of seeing one of their number attacked by a shipmate. This was something they could cope with, and they were no doubt telling themselves that while they were coping, the other problem would go away. Jarel dropped my arm; there was barely time for him to turn the neutralizer on Georyn, freeing him from paralysis, before he himself was stunned.

  There was no hope then, not for the mission, not even for Georyn’s escape. They were not sufficiently impressed; they would simply capture him again. The single demonstration was not enough. We’d always known, of course, that it depended on luck, on an opportunity to do something really spectacular.

  But I had no time to worry about that, for what I myself had to do, I must do while the men were preoccupied, before anyone took it into his head to stun me. I ran forward, toward the “dragon” whose victim I was literally to be, and though I was sorry about a great many things, I was sorriest of all, I think, that Georyn was going to have to watch. He wouldn’t understand, I knew; in the face of his own failure, he would see me die, and he would think it an act of ultimate despair.

  When Georyn at last beheld the Dragon, the sight was more fearful than anything of which he had ever dreamt. The monster’s bescaled body reflected the sun’s rays, dazzling his eyes, so that little could be made of its form; yet all too clearly did he see that the creature was of gigantic size. Even its mouth was large enough to swallow a man in one gulp. And that mouth was filled with jagged teeth, teeth that could bite into solid rock; for apparently, when no choicer morsels were available, this was what the beast fed upon.

  It was feeding now, swinging its long neck from side to side, then swooping that neck down into a vast pit that it had eaten into the very earth itself. After each mouthful, it spit out a great mass of crushed rock, which it no doubt found indigestible; and that rubble had inundated a sizable valley. All the while it ate, its roaring continued, a dreadful sound at which even the ground trembled. This was a monster of awesome strength; to draw near to it would indeed require courage!

  Georyn took a deep breath and strode steadfastly forward. He had no idea of how he could slay this evil thing. By all logic, such a feat was impossible. No longer was he troubled by his lack of a sword, for he perceived that no sword could penetrate the hard silvery scales with which the beast was covered. Nor was it likely that a man could get within sword’s length of the creature. At the moment, the Dragon was not breathing out fire; but all around the ground was charred, and the trees also, evidence enough that when it wanted to do so, it could.

  Yet firmly did Georyn believe that victory was within his grasp, for had not all the conditions been brought to fulfillment? Thus surely some means must exist whereby the monster could be conquered. And even as he approached the beast, Georyn deemed that he knew the answer.

  He was meant to face impossible odds. How could one expect them to be otherwise if one was to save the world not through battle but through magic? From the first, he had been tested for one thing only: not his prowess in the art of killing, but simply his ability to endure terror; and ever had that magic aided him according to the measure of his fear. If through defiance of fear alone could the Stone be wielded, then clearly to call forth such power as would overcome this creature, he would need to be terrified indeed. He saw now what was demanded: he must deliberately court terror; he must walk forward to meet the Dragon without any knowledge of the way to victory, in full expectation of death. If the Stone could save him, it would; and if it could not, then no other strategy would be of any avail.

  But in order to reach the Dragon, he must first frighten away its awful servants. There were dozens of them in sight, and most were monstrous, bloated creatures with glistening skin and shiny faceless heads that had an evil look. Georyn wondered, with a shudder, whether they had been born so or whether this was the result of their bewitchment. Would he himself have been so transformed had he remained subject to their sorcery? Far better, in truth, would it be to die in battle.

  Fortunately, as to his present course he had been given direction: he must take their mysterious magic wands from them by means of the charm that the Enchantress had taught him. In a steady voice all but drowned by the Dragon’s roars, he began to recite, fixing his will upon the nearest one; and behold!—the thing came easily to his hand! He stared at it in wonderment. It was made of a material like to silver, but surprisingly heavy, and odd-shaped knobs protruded from its sides. Unquestionably, this strange object possessed the dread power to turn men to stone—provided, of course, that he who held it knew the proper magic words. Georyn did not know them, nor had he any wish to; such knowledge, surely, would lead less to wisdom than to the dark sorcery he had rejected.

  He dropped the wand at his feet and prepared to obtain another, striving desperately to quell his rising panic. The grotesque bewitched ones had not given way at his challenge, but were instead closing in around him. As they brought forth more wands and pointed them, Georyn’s heart quaked. They would turn him to stone! To be sure, he knew from experience that the charm would continue to work while he was immobile, but it was nevertheless an appalling prospect. If struck by the spell, he would have no choice as to his tactics in regard to the Dragon. He would have to wait for the monster to advance upon him, as it undoubtedly would do as soon as it noticed his helplessness.

  Clutching the Stone, he once again committed himself to its protection and turned his mind firmly to the employment of the charm. And alas, his fears were borne out. His limbs froze—whereupon the Dragon swung around, gnashing its teeth, and made a lunge toward the spot from which he was now powerless to move.

  Georyn began to be horribly afraid, a circumstance in which he supposed he should rejoice; but he could not rejoice. A chill shook him, and he knew naught but a bitter, sick misery. He did not really expect that he would live to enjoy the Stone’s triumph, and it was torment to stand as he now must stand, in ignorance as to the manner of the approaching end. The downfall of this raging monster could scarce be imagined; was not its hide impenetrable? Perhaps despite the Lady’s assurances, the beast would devour him, Stone and all, and would be struck dead from within.

  Giving an ominous snort, the Dragon halted its charge; still there could be, it seemed, no possible deliverance. Yet suddenly, at the blackest moment of Georyn’s terror, a thing past hope occurred: as he wrenched the fell wand from a second enemy’s grasp, there came an unlooked-for release from the spell that had bound him. He was frozen to stone no longer. Once more he had command of his body, although he was weak and trembling from fright. With resolution born anew, he started forward, but even as he did so, he caught sight of the Enchantress.

  Now indeed it was well that he had been taught to use his magical powers without giving them his full attention, else he would surely have lost control. For
a heart-stirring thing was taking place! The Lady had broken away from her guards and was running across the clearing, the white of her gown flashing in the sunlight. A thrill of hope pierced him. If she could but reach the forest while all eyes were on him, she might yet escape.

  Then, to his horror, Georyn saw that the Enchantress ran not toward the forest, but toward the Dragon! Unarmed, unshielded by any magic, she was challenging the monster herself, to what purpose he could not guess, for she had told him from the beginning that she had not the power to do so. Even with the Emblem she had not; and now, without it, she could not possibly save herself from harm. And indeed, he realized in anguish, it could only be that she had no intent to save herself. In some mysterious fashion she was seeking to appease the evil creature after all.

  The Dragon let forth a frightful roar, raised its head, and again prepared to spew out a tremendous mouthful of rock. Its fury did not abate, but rather grew more fearsome than ever. Without pause, the Lady advanced boldly into the region strewn with its gravelly vomit, only to stumble and fall to her knees directly beneath the jaws of the beast. She glanced up briefly, then with a cry of uncontrollable terror she buried her face in her arms. There was no doubt as to the outcome: within the next moment, when those jaws opened, she would be crushed.

  Thereupon Georyn was struck with a fear greater than any that had hitherto been aroused in him, beside which his own fear of the Dragon was as nothing. In his wrath and desperation he did not wait to think the thing through; instantly, rather, he acted as he had been readied to act by the days of testing and preparation. All the strength of his will to oppose evil and of his love for the Enchantress was channeled to one end: he ran toward her, raising his fist containing the Stone in the direction of the Dragon’s threatening jaws, and threw the whole force of his mind into an invocation of the charm.

  And lo! a great marvel came to pass, for the Dragon’s jaws gaped open and the rock indeed spewed forth, only to be arrested in midair! The Enchantress knelt stock-still beneath a hovering cloud of rock, once again gazing upward; and it seemed that even she was assailed by astonishment and by an overpowering awe.

  A hush lay upon the clearing, broken by naught save the triumphant song of a solitary bird. Georyn walked forward. No one stopped him; those who were bewitched stood back, giving him a clear path. With the hazy fragment of his mind free for such trifles, he sensed that the Dragon had made no move to harm him; in truth the monster was now silent, motionless with outstretched neck as if it had itself been turned to stone.

  Then, although the stillness remained undisturbed, he became aware of the Lady’s exultant voice: Oh, Georyn, Georyn! The power of the Stone is greater than I knew!

  And his heart responded, Great was the need, Lady, for that you should perish as this Dragon’s victim was not to be borne!

  He took her hand and led her back from the place; then slowly, gently he allowed the mass of rock to settle onto the ground. Still no sound was uttered by the Dragon nor by any of its slaves, who stood dumbfounded in the presence of so puissant an enchantment. A giddiness came upon Georyn; he opened his fist and stared at the Stone in wonder, aware that he had tapped a power that surpassed any he had previously used as vastly as sun surpasses firelight.

  The mind of the Enchantress was now far away, listening as was her wont to the eerie voices of the enchanted realm. Suddenly with radiant countenance she turned back to him, crying with a glad voice, “Now truly have you vanquished these foes, and we have come beyond hope into a brighter morning than you know. For the spell that you have cast is stronger than their will. Their trust is in the might of dragons; they know naught of such magic, and are bewitched as is the way of men by fear of what they do not understand.”

  Then a great rapture welled up in Georyn, and his heart seemed like to burst with the fullness of it. “I had not thought,” he said dazedly, “that even in victory my life would be spared.”

  “Nor I mine,” she whispered. “It is strange that through my peril should have come so wondrous a success.”

  “Less strange by far than if your peril served no end,” declared Georyn. And as he pondered this, the design that had been hidden became plain, and the long-sought reason for her captivity was laid bare. For he deemed that if the Stone’s powers had increased a hundredfold, it was because in the final extremity he had released them less through terror than through love.

  THE ENDING

  At first, Jarel could not believe that it had happened. Even though he’d been forewarned, he could not believe this! That a small object like a stunner should be lifted by the force of mind alone was one thing—an incredible thing, a thing in itself upsetting to a bunch of confirmed disbelievers like Dulard and Kevan. But a great mass of rock—a total defiance of every natural law known to science …

  An advanced thing, she’d called it. An advanced thing that could be “awakened” in a man who was not in himself different, not superhuman? By what means? By belief in a stone? What are we missing, he thought, we of the Empire who are so all-fired proud of our technological prowess? We who study human beings as if their minds were no more than perishable computer circuits, who analyze their behavior and their brains in Research Centers as if they were simply a superior strain of white rats? How could we have blocked out a whole area of knowledge in the name of the very science that should have revealed it to us? Scientists? Why, to her people we must seem no better than primitive tribesmen hiding from a thunderstorm!

  But in this case it was a good thing that Imperial science was backward, Jarel thought dazedly. If it weren’t, Dulard would not have been so overcome as to give the order for retreat.

  It had not been only Dulard, of course. Some of the colonists had witnessed the thing, and they had been the first to demand that the ship be held until they could get aboard. They had come here prepared to deal with all sorts of hardships and hazards—but not with this. Not with a threat that was immeasurable because its very existence invalidated every measuring stick by which they had been trained to judge. What good is superior technology against something that breaks all of technology’s rules?

  It’s a lot more comfortable to live in a world where the rules still apply.

  So this would become an “off-limits” planet, like the ones with virulent bacteria that couldn’t be tamed, and the ones with inhabitants who were in the habit of playing around with radioactive poisons. These natives had now been shown to be equally dangerous. “To think we stunned them,” someone said. “Kept them locked up, and all—”

  “Personally,” another man remarked, “I think those ‘helpless’ captives were running the whole show all along. They didn’t need to worry about trifles like stunner effects with what they’ve got.”

  “What’ll they do to get back at us? They wouldn’t have shown their hand unless they were ready to act!”

  “They’re probably gathering out there now. They’ll disarm us all, and then destroy the ship.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Dulard. “But I sure as heck know that this is something we want nothing to do with.”

  Unreasoned fear, thought Jarel. How did Elana’s people know that the colonists would be so afraid, just on the basis of one man’s demonstration? A man who didn’t even try to harm them? Of course, he had reason enough to want to. Perhaps the colonists were being deliberately trapped by their own consciences. Were all peoples thrown by what they didn’t understand? It seemed such an unnecessary drag on progress. And then Jarel thought, no, it wasn’t. It was a built-in safety factor. Dulard was right, but for the wrong reasons.

  The forces of the mind dangerous? You bet they were! What would the Empire do with them if it had them? And imagine such powers “awakened” in a guy like Kevan! An advanced thing … a thing further down the road. If there was any sort of natural progression, and Elana said there was, why, it worked out very neatly to keep the matches away from the baby.

  Within a few moments of the native’s display of power, the
decision to turn the other captives loose and to start work on the reloading of the ship had been made. Dulard was a realist. It was not that he was afraid personally. But he had not gotten to be a commander in the Imperial Exploration Corps by ignoring the dictates of prudence. He was charged with the responsibility for the long-term safety of the colony. If that colony was wiped out, it would be on his head; and he could see no justification for such a risk, not when they could start again somewhere else.

  In the excitement, Jarel hadn’t had time to consider his own position. He himself had been stunned in the instant following his stunning of Kevan, but he had been released from paralysis shortly thereafter. Now for the first time he began to realize what he’d gotten himself into. There were men at his elbows; he was under arrest.

  They were motioning him toward the ship. Quickly, he “spoke” to Elana, telling her of the success of her plan, for he suddenly took in the fact that without him, she would have no way to be sure that the ruse had worked. Her reply flashed into his mind, strong with the overtones of incredulous joy.

  Not until then did it dawn on him what had actually happened when she dashed toward the rockchewer.

  She had not known what form the thing would take. She hadn’t expected the native to save her; she had expected to die. Yet she had not been in despair; she had done what she did not out of rebellion against a horrifying fate, but solely out of concern for the keeping of her secret. It had been premeditated, several things she had said now pointed to that. She had never had any defense against the Research Center’s methods at all; when she had claimed “a way to deal with that problem,” she had meant this way. This was why she had begged him not to leave her stunned, and when she had promised him proof of her belief that she knew what was worth dying for … well, this was the proof.