Kissed by Magic

by Erica Ridley

  “The ones that look like a drunken sailor rolled around in a field of Play-Doh?”

  “Watch it. I painted those.” Lance took a deep breath. “Underneath each one is a different work of art. It’s actually… The Lost Triptych of Atlantis.”

  “The Lost—” Sancho’s mouth fell open. “Why even attempt Castle Cavanaugh if you have The Lost Triptych of Atlantis nailed above your couch? It’s got to be worth half a million, at least!”

  “Much, much more,” Lance admitted. “If I could prove what it was. Which I can’t. I love it anyway. My dream is to hang it in the galley of my pirate ship. I could sail the world for adventure, knowing the greatest treasure of all was already aboard my ship—and no one but me would ever know. If you have to sell it, you won’t get anywhere near what it’s worth… but it should at least cover my rent.”

  “Dude.” Sancho stared at him in disbelief. “I can’t sell your priceless triptych.”

  “You run a pawn shop. You’re exactly the person who could fence a priceless painting.” At least, Lance hoped so. He had little else to offer. If this Castle Cavanaugh thing went south, Lance was out of other options.

  Sancho shook his head. “If I sold your art, you’d never get it back. Some collector with billions in cryptocurrency would snatch it up and that’s the last you’d ever see of it.”

  Lance lifted a shoulder. “If I don’t make it back alive, my art collection will be the least of my concerns.”

  They stared at each other in silence. At best, he had a one percent chance of pulling this off. Lance’s throat was unaccountably tight, and for a moment he wasn’t quite sure what he’d say if he could speak. He loved Sancho like a brother—they’d been looking out for each other practically from the cradle—and the thought of dying was almost too much to contemplate.

  He was on the brink of shocking Sancho senseless with a quick bear hug, when a pair of bounty hunters used silver bullets to announce their presence. Four more bounty hunters fell in behind them.

  Lance had his sword in hand and through the chest of the closest attacker before the hunter had a chance to pull the trigger a second time. Two razor-edged claymores appeared in Sancho’s mitts from out of nowhere, and for several adrenaline-filled minutes, the only sounds were the clang of swords, the sharp report of gunfire, and a series of wet thuds as the bodies of would-be assassins hit the ground and stayed there.

  At last, Sancho tossed his claymores atop his desk with a grin. “Just like old times.”

  Lance grinned back. “In the old days, you were faster,” he said as he sheathed his sword. “My grandma has better moves than you.”

  “Your grandma once raised an army of mummies from the dead in order to overthrow a terrorist military regime.”

  “Yeah, she’s feisty.” Lance pushed open the back door to the alley. No hit men in sight. He glanced back over his shoulder, hyperaware this might be the last time he stood at this threshold. No. He refused to consider failure. “See you when I get back?”

  Sancho leaned against the doorway. “I’ll bake a flan. And your shitty paintings will be waiting for you upstairs.”

  With a nod, Lance touched his fist to Sancho’s and disappeared into the shadows.

  Chapter 2

  The number of avaricious bounty hunters requiring a quick dispatch dwindled as Lance’s steed took him far outside the city proper. Eventually, concrete became long-dead forest, and he was forced to let his horse free and continue on foot. By the time he reached the towering cliffs atop which stood the centuries-frozen Castle Cavanaugh, the only signs of life were his own ragged breathing and the occasional shadow of vultures circling high overhead.

  Hours later, he was mentally and physically exhausted, but almost to the top. He could barely coax his limbs to keep moving. Visibility had disappeared beneath a layer of freezing clouds, and the only thing keeping him in motion was the knowledge that a fall from this height would leave his corpse unrecognizable.

  When at last he reached the summit—made all the more unwelcoming by the foot-high snowbank atop an equally thick layer of ice—Castle Cavanaugh rose from the next crest, at the highest point of the land.

  From this vantage point, the shimmering castle looked exactly like what it was: a thousand-year-old fortress frozen in ice and littered with the ash of windswept snow. No lights shone in the windows. Nothing moved, save the slippery shadows of the ice-coated turrets as the sun once again fled behind the cover of clouds.

  Lance pushed onward. Boldly go where many explorers had met their deaths before? No problem. Survive and return to safety, treasure in hand? Well, it wouldn’t be called “adventure” if it were easy. He snapped his carabiners back onto his utility belt and began the slow, treacherous hike along the skinny path snaking up to the frozen castle.

  The whiteness of the snow and the sameness of the vista took on a sinister edge when he realized the macabre difference between this icy deathtrap and his climb to the peak of Mount Everest: no corpses.

  One nightmarish aspect of his trek through the Himalayas had been the frozen bodies of fallen explorers along the principle pathway. Stark reminders of omnipresent mortality, and that for all of us, one adventure was destined to be the last.

  Castle Cavanaugh was different. No corpses meant something even more serious was wrong. He was hardly the first to have attempted the treacherous climb and, as Sancho had so helpfully pointed out, none of the others had returned to tell the tale.

  So, where were they?

  Lance’s stiff fingers brushed against the flame swords dangling at his hips. He had been joking when he’d debated the chances of stumbling across a dragon or a rabid yeti. At least, he’d meant it as a joke. But something had to have happened here. Something terrible.

  The other explorers had all been clever, experienced adventurers with strong bodies and limitless determination. Centuries of them, braving the fabled curse for a chance at untold riches. Yet none of them had survived.

  Lance had assumed the relentless, impossible cold had been their final battle. But there was no indication of struggle. No sign of life, be it plant or animal. There was just… nothing.

  When he reached the snow-crusted ramparts surrounding the castle, his sense of unease sharpened. He was striding ever closer to whatever had felled the other men. His steps slowed. Had the previous treasure hunters survived the grueling climb and the banks of snow, only to succumb to whatever evils lurked on the other side?

  Lance squared his shoulders. There was only one way to find out.

  He looped his kernmantle rope through one of his grappling hooks and let fly. The hook held fast to an embrasure in the battlement, allowing him to scramble up the ice-coated slope to the wall-walk. Saw-toothed square merlons jutted up along the perimeter like great stone teeth rising from flat, ice-dead gums.

  They did little to brighten the sense of impending doom.

  Grunting with exertion, he hauled himself up over the thick barricade with its blocky crenellations. The castle rose from the outer bailey like a kraken from the sea, scraping the barren sky with the pointed spires of each bastion and parapet.

  Lance scanned the horizon for potential dangers. If dragons guarded the gate, they were invisible to the naked eye. Not even footprints marred the marble perfection of the blanketing snow. Pausing against an arrow slit in the stones long enough to secure his grappling hook anew, he began his descent to the waves of snow lining the keep’s yard.

  When he was only a few feet above the surface, he leapt to the ground. He unhooked the rope from his harness, but left it dangling from the hook. A wise man gave himself a head start for a quick getaway.

  He slipped on snowshoes and trudged toward the huge wooden doors indicating what had to be the great hall. From up close, he could see through the transparent ice to the bone-white masonry beneath. The architecture was perfectly preserved, like a fossil trapped in amber. Even the whitewash appeared freshly applied. It was this, Lance realized suddenly, that had reflect
ed through the ice to give the castle’s silhouette such an improbable, unearthly glow.

  When he reached the giant iron-plated door, he considered knocking, but quickly dismissed the idea. He doubted his numb fingers could produce a noise strong enough to echo through several inches of solid wood, and besides… if whatever evil had swallowed centuries of seasoned adventurers without a trace still lurked on the other side of the keep’s door, Lance had no intention of giving it a heads-up to his arrival.

  The door had to be locked and blockaded from the inside, but he gave the ice-covered iron handle a cautious tug just in case. The oversize door swung open as smoothly and as soundlessly as if the hinges had been greased that very morning.

  All he would have to do was walk inside.

  Lance’s heart thudded in surprise—and alarm. Breaching an unbreachable castle should definitely not be this easy. Yet here he was at the threshold, staring into the belly of the keep. Solid darkness yawned before him, as if even the blinding glitter of sun upon snow could not penetrate the blackness housed within.

  He glanced over his shoulder one last time. His footprints were still there, marking the way home. His grappling hook glinted between the merlons. The length of kernmantle rope fluttered in the arctic wind. Lance turned away from his tools. His escape route was as solid as he could make it.

  He unhooked his night-vision goggles from his utility belt and pulled them down over his face. The darkness within the castle snapped from pure black to a faded green. The inner sanctum stretched high and bare, layer after endless layer of interlocking stones without the slightest adornment. Just the occasional empty hook where a torch had once hung.

  On the other side of the great hall, several corridors branched off to destinations unknown, waiting to be explored. Well, then. Lance tightened his belt. Now or never. He rolled back his shoulders, stretched his neck, and stepped across the threshold.

  The door immediately swung shut behind him.

  A sudden brightness blinded him from all angles, causing him to squeeze his eyes shut in splitting agony. He whipped the night-vision goggles from his head. When he could finally open his eyes, he found he was no longer bathed in darkness, but in light.

  Where before the shadowed masonry had tapered upward into blackness, the exterior castle walls were now transparent blocks of ice. The thickness of the interlocking rectangles refracted the snow-covered landscape, causing odd little jagged jumps where Lance knew there to be a straight line. Sunlight streamed in from all angles. Even the pitched roof was solid ice.

  It was like looking through a glass half-filled with water, except in this case, the glass completely surrounded him.

  His gaze flew to his escape path. His footprints were smudged, but still visible leading out from the door. The rope fluttered in three distorted segments, but held strong to the ramparts. It would be there waiting, whenever he was ready to return home.

  Which he hoped was soon.

  The transparent ice-roof magnified the rising sun, warming his wind-chapped fingers and returning blood to his toes until every extremity stung with the prickling of a thousand needles. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. He felt like an ant beneath a magnifying glass. The illusion reinforced the unsettling sensation that he was being toyed with. Much like a cat played with a trapped mouse before biting it in two.

  He stepped out of his snowshoes and hung his climbing harness on the empty torch-hook beside what had recently been a thick wooden door, but was now an impressive block of door-shaped ice. The castle was virtually translucent. From the distance of even a few yards, his moss-green harness appeared to be hanging on nothing more substantive than a breath of air. He shook his head at the brain-bending illusion.

  He turned in a slow circle, marveling at the blurred surrealism of being on the inside of a sprawling castle seemingly carved from a glacier of ice. Except there were no glaciers in this part of the world. Hadn’t been since the Ice Age. A shiver slid down his spine. If he’d had any doubts as to the existence of a curse, this little trick was more than enough to put his senses on full alert.

  As soon as the numbness left his fingers, he touched them to the hilt of his sword and crept toward the first of the corridors.

  Tried to creep, anyway. His ability to move in stealth was severely impacted by the over-bright luminescence permeating every nook and cranny. Which brought to light the second disturbing truth: if a blind man could find Lance amid the see-through walls and sun-bright glare, Lance ought to be able to easily spot anything resembling treasure.

  Yet he hadn’t spotted so much as a cobweb. There were no tapestries, no portraits, no conveniently stacked piles of gold. Nothing but empty torch racks and unlit sconces.

  Until he reached the first corridor.

  To the left stretched the outer perimeter of the keep. Two feet thick, twenty feet tall, and one hundred percent ice. To the right ran an interior wall of palest cobblestone. Pearly white and polished to a marbled sheen, but unquestionably solid rock.

  Frowning, he glanced back toward the entranceway. Still ice. He faced the corridor again. Half ice, half stone. Curious, he moved in deeper until he came upon an open doorway. He peeked inside. The room was cold and completely empty, but made of solid stone. Lance returned to the hybrid hallway and tried to puzzle out the reason. It seemed the curse had turned the castle’s exterior-facing walls into ice, so the peninsular great hall had reaped the double-edged benefit of the sun’s warmth as well as its light. Yet the interior-facing walls had not been affected thusly, and were therefore subject to the same laws of physics as any other building.

  That part was fine. Physics was something he understood. The dearth of treasure—the complete lack of artwork or silver or anything of any worth at all—that was the deflating part. His teeth clenched. Apparently, Castle Cavanaugh was just as susceptible to looters as the next castle. So much for the big curse. And his one shot at saving his neck so he could live to see his boat.

  He tore down the corridor, rushing from room to room in ever-increasing disbelief. There was no Golden Bloom of Eternal Youth anywhere in this vacant castle. There weren’t even any spiders. Or dust. Just room after empty room of nothing at all.

  He veered off toward the corner tower. Although he’d explored barely a quarter of the ground floor, he took the claustrophobic spiral staircase up to the second level, in case only the first floor had been wiped clean.

  No such luck.

  The empty outer rooms were bathed in unrelenting sun, while the inner rooms were filled only with shadows. Nothing more.

  He pushed at an inner door that should’ve led from one wing to the next, and paused in confusion to find himself in a windowless room the size of a large pantry. None of the other rooms had contained what he could only liken to a closet, so what was different about this one? Why would such a room even exist?

  Before he had a chance to solve the mystery, part of what he’d assumed to be solid wall swung open from the opposite side of the pantry. A young woman stepped through with wide hazel eyes, long golden hair, and one hell of a healthy scream.

  “Whither do you seek and whence do you hail?” she demanded the moment she caught her breath.

  Lance was still reeling. The door from out of nowhere had been startling enough, but this chick’s medieval garb was a sight to behold. She singlehandedly put the entire Renaissance Faire franchise to shame.

  Her diminutive figure was swathed in a resplendent multitiered gown of emerald green silk and spun-gold embroidery. Whether that figure was trim or curvy, he hadn’t the least idea. She had more layers than a celebrity wedding cake. He couldn’t even count them without getting distracted by everything else.

  The visible layers of woven material involved an abundance of billowing skirts and flowing tunics. Intricate beading swirled with artistic embroidery at her hemline, and down the front slit of the topmost tunic.

  Matching jewels draped from complicated loops of hair. Several long golden tendrils escaped to he
r shoulders and down her back. Her heart-shaped bodice was laced with braided gold thread. Puffed white sleeves tapered to her wrists, where they met with a final explosion of delicate lace.

  Her feet were hidden beneath the voluminous gown, save for the tip of one tiny leather slipper, peeking just outside the bottom edge of a linen petticoat. She looked… authentically anachronistic.

  He swallowed. This couldn’t possibly be a good sign.

  “Uh… hey there,” he managed, trying for a trust-me smile. “I’m Lance, and your front door was unlocked, and I… Seriously, how can you stand upright when you’re saddled with that much material? That getup has to weigh twice as much as you do. Also, I’m hunting for a lost treasure. Haven’t seen a Golden Bloom lying around anywhere, have you?”

  A shadow darkened the amber of her eyes.

  “Mayhap ’tis treasure you seek,” she said darkly. “But ’tis ruin you shall find. Nay, good sir. I fear there is naught left in the keep but endless hours to while away.”

  “So… no Golden Bloom, then. Bummer. Can’t trust Craig’s List, can you? Well, that’s all I dropped by to ask, so I guess I’ll be going.” He gave her two thumbs up and when that got no response (apart from raised eyebrows) he gave her his best knights-of-the-round-table bow.

  Her expression didn’t change. It still said, you might be crazy.

  He edged toward the door. “Have a good day, Miss… What did you say your name was?”

  “Princess Marigold of Castle Cavanaugh.” She let out a sigh. “And I fear you are stuck here with me.”

  Chapter 3

  Princess Marigold tensed, awaiting the new arrival’s inevitable horror and outrage at finding himself trapped within a fortress of ice.