The Exile and the Sorcerer

by Jane Fletcher

  However, the demon knew that once the leaders of the Coven learnt of what had happened, it would not be allowed to remain in the land of the living. The sorcerers would come against it in force, and it would be banished back to the icy depths of the netherworld. Therefore, the demon cast another spell, so that all who set eyes on it would think it to be the young sorcerer.

  Only one servant knew of what had happened. When the demon realised this, it drained the sense from the man’s head and sent him forth, witless and babbling, to be scorned by all he met.

  Then was the demon free to indulge its taste for evil. Soon tales of grim happenings spread. Farmers spoke of blighted crops and missing stock. Huntsmen found tracks of fell beasts stalking the woods.

  When first these things were noticed, the villagers went to the castle, to beg the sorcerer to help them, little knowing that the one they addressed was not who they thought, but rather the source of the evil that afflicted them. To the villagers’ dismay, the supposed sorcerer derided their fears, accusing them of acting like frightened children, and sent them away. When the complaints grew more insistent, the demon set wild spirits in the form of bears to keep guard on its home, and none who thereafter entered the castle left it alive.

  And ever things got worse. Unclean things walked abroad and children were snatched from their beds. Evil lights played over the castle at night and even the air began to feel tainted. All went in dread of what else might befall them.

  *

  Now, far to the west, beyond the setting sun, was an island, where lived a mighty warrior, beloved and revered by her people. For, by the strength of her arms, she had vanquished all manner of threat and bestowed peace upon her land. Yet for all the adulation of her people, the warrior felt a great emptiness inside, as if some vital part of her was missing.

  Her family tried to comfort her and show how much she was valued and loved, but at last, the warrior could no longer bear the desolate longing. And so, despite the entreaties and tears of her kin, she set sail into the east, searching for that which would make her whole.

  When she arrived in the Protectorate, she was hailed as a hero, and invited to join the Guild of Mercenaries as an honoured member. Many great and mighty deeds did she perform in the service of the guild. However, no matter how far she travelled or what feat of arms she performed, still the emptiness inside her never lessened.

  And so it happened, one midwinter’s day, that the warrior was trekking north along the western flank of Whitfell Spur, when she was hailed by an ancient seer.

  “Hold a moment, hero,” the seer cried, “and listen to what I have to say, for I know what it is that you truly seek.”

  “What do you mean?” the warrior replied.

  “You seek that which will make you whole. Come, let me show you what it is that your life lacks.”

  At these words, the warrior felt her heart beat hard within her breast, for now she thought she might learn the cure for her dissatisfaction. The seer took a bottle of wine, and poured it into a chalice. The warrior drew close, unsure of whether the seer intended her to drink, but when she looked into the wine, she saw images form and then grow clear. And so, she found herself staring at the face of the sorcerer.

  If the warrior’s heart had beaten hard before, now it redoubled its pounding. She felt the blood seep from her face, and knew that she must meet this unknown woman, as soon as ever might be.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  “One who needs your help. And to her aid you must go, before the month is out. Therefore I bid you, gather a band of followers and lead them across the Spur.”

  The warrior raised her eyes to the ice-scoured heights. Winter lay hard on the mountains, and storms raged every day. Yet her heart was not downcast, for her desire to meet the woman she had seen in the wine would have carried her through any trial. “I will do it,” she said, and turned to go.

  “Before you leave me, hero, there is more I must tell you,” the seer said. “For there are three things you must know, although they may seem more like riddles to you.”

  “I have no time for games,” the warrior replied.

  “But if you do not find answers, you will not succeed in your quest.”

  “Ask away then, old woman.”

  “The first is to believe your ears when you have no eyes. The second is that a woodsman’s axe may cleave through any deceit. And the third is that tears may melt the hardest stone.”

  “None of this makes sense to me,” the warrior cried in dismay.

  “You need not understand all now, but you must by the end, if you are to find what you seek.” With those words, the seer vanished.

  So the warrior gathered comrades who would help her cross the mountains. Few were willing to undertake the desperate venture, but at last, the gallant band set out. On their journey, they were beset by hardships that would have sent weaker folk fleeing to the safety of the nearest warm hearth, yet they prevailed by their strength and courage, and crossed the heights of Whitfell Spur in the heart of winter.

  Thus, cold, tired, and battered, they arrived, unlooked for and unannounced, in the valley where the demon held its reign of fear.

  *

  It happened that, at this time, the demon had called forth a hellhound, to make cruel sport with the villagers. The beast ravaged the district, and many good folk fell victim to its savagery. The nights were torn by its baying, and none dared set foot outside their homes after sunset.

  When the warrior heard of this monster, she immediately resolved to slay it and remove its grim presence from the valley. However, at the sound of the hellhound’s baneful howling, her band of followers, who had so gallantly crossed the Spur, lost their courage and fled, leaving the warrior to face the monster alone. Only two local youths would overcome their dread and help the warrior in her quest to hunt down the monster.

  For twenty days and twenty nights the warrior kept on the trail of the hellhound, and at last she tracked it to its lair. Then she drew her sword and charged down on the beast. Long and dreadful was the fight, and the snow was churned red with blood, but at last the warrior dispatched her quarry, and cut off its head.

  Then did the good folk of the valley breathe in peace and hope that their troubles were at an end. Alas, it was not to be. The demon was aware of its creature’s demise, and immediately it claimed its revenge. The demon called on foul magic that it set upon the warrior, so that, at once, she was struck blind.

  The demon then sent word that the warrior should be brought to its castle, and the villagers, still thinking that the order came from the lawful Coven-appointed sorcerer of the region, had no choice but to obey. With heavy hearts they led the blind warrior to the castle gates and left her there alone, at the mercy of the demon within.

  The warrior now thought that her life would soon be over, but the demon did not so quickly pass by the chance to heap torment upon one who had stood against it. Rather than kill the warrior outright, the demon had her taken into the castle to be used as a slave, working at the demon’s command from dawn to dusk. Many and cruel were the hardships she endured.

  Yet the demon had miscalculated. Its spell of disguise meant that all who saw it would be fooled into thinking that it was the lawful Coven sorcerer. However, the warrior was blind and could not see the demon, and so she was immune to the spell. But she heard its foul tones, and the scratching of its claws on the stone as it walked, and knew it to be nothing human. Thus did she solve the first of the seer’s riddles, for she believed her ears when she had no eyes.

  The warrior now understood that the castle had been taken by some shape-shifting fiend. So she resolved to dispatch it from the lands of the living, and free the good folk of the valley from its cruel dominion, no matter how little hope there seemed that she might succeed, blinded and without weapons as she was.

  *

  One day it happened that she was fetching wood from the store to feed the fires in the great hall of the castle, when her hand chanced
on an old axe, half hidden under the logs. The shaft was worn and rotten with age, and the blade rusty and un-honed, but the steel was strong and the craftsmanship was true, and it might yet be returned to a serviceable condition.

  As the warrior’s fingers ran along the blunted edge, she remembered the second of the seer’s riddles—a woodsman’s axe may cleave through any deceit. “And surely,” she said to herself, “there is some foul deceit at work here that needs uncovering.” So she returned the axe to its place of concealment, until such time as she could return with a knife, a whetstone, and oil.

  In the days that followed, the warrior carried on as before, working at the demon’s command, and giving no hint of her plans. But at last she found what she needed. Then, at night she crept back to the wood store, and began working on the axe.

  First, she honed the blade, until it was sharp enough to draw blood from even a stone. Then she oiled the steel, so that no rust would mar its keen edge. Then she took the knife and a length of stout oak, and carved a new handle for the blade, that would not fail her in the test to come.

  By now, she was so familiar with the castle that she did not need sight to find her quarry, for she knew that through the hours of night, the demon would be in the great hall, feasting on the meat and ale which it demanded as tribute from the villagers in huge quantities—although the good folk had judged the privations this caused to be the least of their woes.

  So the warrior silently crept up behind the demon, while it was at the task of sating its monstrous appetite. She heard the crunching of bone as the demon’s jaws chewed through the carcass of its food. And she heard the slobbering gulps as the demon tossed back quarts of ale in each draft.

  The warrior finished her stealthy approach, until she stood within smiting distance of her foe. And such was the noise of it eating, like a hundred pigs at a trough, that even blind, she could locate its head with ease. She hoisted the axe above her head, and then brought its keen edge slashing down on the demon’s brainpan. Such was the force of her blow that she clove its head, straight through to its neck. Yet though it was a mortal blow, the demon was not so quick to die.

  Knowing that it had not long left in this world, in fury, the demon raged and rampaged throughout the castle. It threw down walls, breaking stone from stone, and splintering mighty timbers with its claws, until the once-mighty castle was no more than a shattered ruin. However, the words of the seer riddle held true, and the demon could not long resist the honest magic of the woodsman’s axe, unbinding the deceit of its own conjuring. With the coming of dawn, it faded from these lands, banished back to the icy netherworld, never to return.

  *

  When she heard the demon run wild, the warrior had sought safety in the dungeon below ground, and despite all the demon’s carnage, she was unhurt in the destruction of the castle. More than that, with the demon’s final departure from this world, its foul magic was undone, and the warrior’s sight was restored to her.

  In joy, the warrior began to climb from the rubble-filled pit that was all that remained of the dungeon, when a beam of light from the rising sun fell though the carnage and lighted on the statue of a woman with the remains of a broken mirror at her feet.

  “It is strange,” the warrior thought, “to have a statue where none may see it.”

  Drawn by her curiosity, the warrior went to investigate, and when she looked on the statue, she recognised the one that she had seen in the seer’s chalice. Yet, rather than a woman of flesh, there was no life in the statue’s eyes, and the face before her was cold stone.

  At this, the warrior thought her heart would break. For she now knew that this woman was the thing that was missing from her life, and without her, the warrior would always be unwhole. But it seemed that she was too late, and that the demon’s foul magic had destroyed any hope of happiness for her.

  “Alas,” cried the warrior, “that you are not a living woman, for it seems to me that I would love you if we could but meet.”

  Tears ran down her cheeks as the warrior leaned forward and placed a kiss on the lifeless stone lips. As she did so, a single teardrop fell and landed on the breast of the statue.

  Now was the meaning of the seer’s last riddle revealed, that tears might melt the hardest stone. For, with the demon banished, and the shadow-land mirror broken, it took but one tear from the warrior to undo the magic and restore the sorcerer to life. And the first thing she saw, when her eyes were formed anew, was the warrior, standing close before her. And as she looked on the warrior’s face, the sorcerer felt her own heart start to pound.

  “Who are you? And what has happened here?” the sorcerer asked.

  At first, the warrior was too amazed to reply, but eventually she managed to recount what she knew of the story.

  The sorcerer looked at the warrior even more warmly, once she had heard all, and knew what she owed to the warrior’s bravery. “You have restored my life,” she said. “How may I ever repay you?”

  “I want nothing in reward,” the warrior replied.

  “I cannot let you go empty-handed. But name your desire.”

  The warrior looked into the sorcerer’s eyes, and said, “In that case, to name my desire. I took one kiss from your lips, when they were stone. To take another when they are warm flesh, I would count myself paid in full.”

  “That you shall surely have and more,” said the sorcerer.

  Then she took the warrior in her arms and kissed her soundly. And with the touching of their lips, their hearts were joined in such a love that would never fade, as long as they both might live.

  “Now we must leave this valley,” the sorcerer said. “For I must go to Lyremouth and tell the leaders of the Coven what has happened so that they may make amends to the good folk of this valley for the hardship they have endured by my folly. And I know not what penance might be put upon me.”

  “And may I go with you? For I would stand by you through whatever may come.”

  “Always and forever, my love.”

  So they left the valley, and went to Lyremouth.

  *

  When they heard the report, the leaders of the Coven pardoned the sorcerer for the harm her recklessness had let loose, as they judged her already more than amply punished and hoped that she might learn something of wisdom from her mistake.

  And so, the pair went forth into the world and performed many great and good deeds for the advancement of the Coven and the Guild of Mercenaries, so that in all the annals of the Protectorate, no names are spoken with more respect and admiration than those of the warrior and her sorcerer.

  Which is why we, who know the full true tale of what happened in this valley and how the two met, tell our story without names, that the reputation of the sorcerer will not be tarnished by this tale of folly from her youth, for she went on to become one of the greatest sorcerers of the Coven, and ever at her side was the warrior who had saved her. And thus were they heroes and true lovers together, for all the days of their lives.

  About the Author

  Jane Fletcher’s novels have won a GCLS award and been short-listed for the Gaylactic Spectrum award. The Exile and the Sorcerer is the first book in her Lyremouth Chronicles. The sequels, The Traitor and The Chalice and The Empress and The Acolyte, will be published by BSB in 2006. She is also author of the Celaeno Series—The Walls of Westernfort, The Temple at Landfall and Rangers at Roadsend.

  Born in Greenwich, London in 1956, she now lives in southwest England where she keeps herself busy writing both computer software and fiction, although generally not at the same time.

  Visit Jane’s website at www.janefletcher.co.uk

 

 

 
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