"Who are you?" he asked.
"Who be you?" she asked right back.
"I asked first."
"I..." She drew her cloak around her fine, green dress. "I don't know who I be. Who be you?"
He held a finger skyward. "I'm... I'm..." He let out a thin sigh. "I'm afraid I don't know who I am, either. Don't I look like anyone you recognize?"
She pulled her cloak a little tighter. "I do not know. I be blind. I cannot see what you look like."
"Blind? Oh. Well, I'm sorry."
He rubbed his head where he had hit it on the side of the coach. Looking down, he saw that he was wearing fine clothes; a maroon robe with black sleeves that had three rows of silver brocade around them. Well, he thought, at least I must be wealthy.
He picked a black cane off the floor, giving its fine sliver work a look. He turned and thumped it against the roof, in the direction of where the driver must be sitting, up top. The old woman jumped with a fright.
"What be that noise!"
"Oh, sorry. I was trying to get the drivers attention."
The driver must have heard. The coach slid to a stop, and then rocked as someone climbed down. When the door drew open and he saw the size of the man in a longcoat sticking his windburned face in, he clutched his cane and slid back.
"Who are you?" he asked, brandishing the cane.
"Me? I'm just a big fool," the big man growled. His deeply creased face softened into a little smile. "Name's Ahern."
"Well, Ahern, what are you doing with us? Have you kidnapped us? Are we being held for ransom?"
Ahern chuckled. "More like the other way around, I'd say."
"What do you mean? How long have we been asleep? And who are we?"
Ahern looked to the sky. "Dear spirits, how do I get myself into these things?" He let out a sigh. "You've both been asleep since late yesterday. You've slept last night, and all day today. Your name is Ruben. Ruben Rybnik."
"Ruben?" He harrumphed. "Ruben. Well, that's a fine name."
"And who be I?" the woman asked.
"You are Elda Rybnik."
"Her name is Rybnik, too?" Ruben asked. "Are we related?"
Ahern hesitated. "Yes and no. You two are husband and wife. Sort of."
Ruben leaned toward the big man. "I think that needs explaining."
Ahern gave a sigh, and a nod. "Your name's Ruben, and hers is Elda. But that's not your real names. You told me that for now, it would be best if I not tell you your real names."
"You have kidnapped us! You've knocked us on the head and spirited us a way!"
"Just calm down, and I'll explain."
"Then explain, before I give you a thrashing with my cane."
"It isn't worth it," Ahern mumbled to himself. "How did I ever get into this? Gold, that's how," he answered himself.
Ahern pushed into the coach, sitting next to Ruben. He pulled the door closed against the flying snow.
"Well, just invite yourself right in," Ruben said.
Ahern cleared his throat. "All right, now you two listen to me. You both were sick. You had me take you to see three women." He leaned closer to Ruben and gave him a scowl. "Three sorceresses."
"Sorceresses!" Ruben yelped. "No wonder we don't know who we are! You took us to witches and had a spell put on us!"
Ahern put a calming hand on him. "Be quite and listen. You are a wizard." Ruben gawked at Ahern. Ahern turned to Elda. "And you are a sorceress."
Ruben waved his arms around with a flourish. "No I'm not," he snapped, at last, "or you'd be changed to toad."
Ahern shook his head with a grumble. "Your power is gone."
"Well," Ruben asked as he straightened his back, "was I a talented wizard?"
"You were good enough to put those cursed fingers of yours to the side of my thick head and put it in my mind to help you. You said wizards had to use people sometimes, to do what must be done. The burden of a wizard you called it. You said helping you was something I would have done anyway, that you were only calling on the 'goodness' within me to hurry my thinking along. Anyway, that, and more gold than I've ever seen, convinced me to do something I ought to know better than to get tangled in. I surely don't like anything to do with wizards and magic."
"And I be a sorceress?" Elda asked. "A blind sorceress?"
"Well, no, ma'am. You were blind, but you could use your gift to see—see better than I can see with my eyes."
"Then why be I blind, now?"
"Both of you were sick. Sick with some kind of evil magic. The three sorceresses agreed to help you, but in order to cure you, they had to... well, they had to give you both something that would make your magic, your gift, go away. You made me wait outside, so I don't know what they did. I just know what you told me before you went back in for the last time to have it done."
Ruben leaned in. "You're making this up."
Ahern ignored him and went on. "The sickness you two had was feeding on your good magic. I don't know the way magic works, and the spirits know I don't want to know, I only know what you told me, the way you explained it to me, when you came out and convinced me to help you. You said that in order to help you, the three sorceresses had to give you something to make your magic go away. Only in that way could you two heal. The evil magic wouldn't wither and die, and your wounds heal, as long as it had the good magic to latch onto, to feed on."
"So now we have no magic?"
"Well, I don't know how it all works, but as I understand it, your can't really get rid of your magic. What the three women did was make you forget everything about yourselves, so you wouldn't know you had any magic, so the evil magic wouldn't know, either, that it was there. So that's why neither of you knows who you are, or how to use magic. That's why Elda is blind."
Ruben squinted. "Why would the sorceresses agree to help us?"
"Mostly because of Elda. They said she was a legend among the sorceresses of Nicobarese. Something about what she did when she was younger and used to live here."
Ruben stared at the big man. "It has to be true." He turned to Elda. "It has to be true. No one could invent such an absurd story. What do you think?"
"I think as you. I think he be telling us the truth."
"Good," Ahern said. "Now comes the part you aren't going to like."
"What about our magic? When does it come back? When do we remember who we are?"
Ahern raked his meaty fingers through his shaggy, gray hair. "That's the part you aren't going to like. The three women said they doubt you two will ever get it back. You may never remember. You may never get your magic back."
The silence echoed in the coach. Ruben finally spoke. "Why would we agree to such a thing?"
Ahern picked at his fingers. "Because you had no choice. You were both sick. Mighty sick, Elda more than you. She would have been dead by now, and you within another day or two, at most. You had no choice. It was the only way."
Ruben folded his hands over the sliver head of his cane. "Well, if that is so, then we had to. If we never remember, we will just learn to be Ruben, and Elda, and start our lives over."
Ahern shook his head. "There's a problem about that. You told me that the three women said that if the evil magic finally left you, then you might be able to get your memory, and your magic, back. You told me that it was imperative that you get it back. You said that there was great trouble in the world that you had to help with. You said that it was a matter of grave importance to every person alive. You said you had something you must do."
"What trouble? What is it I must do?"
"You didn't tell me. You said I wouldn't understand."
"Well, how do we get our memories, our magic, back?"
Ahern glanced to each. "It may not come back. The three women didn't know if it ever would, but if it is to come back, it will only come back with a shock. A great emotional jolt, or shock."
"An emotional shock? Like what?"
"Like maybe anger. Maybe if you are angry enough."
Ruben
frowned. "So... what? You are to slap me, to make me angry?"
"No. You said that you didn't know how, but something like that wouldn't work. You said it required a great emotional shock, but you didn't know what it could be, or how to bring it about. You also said that if something did bring on the anger, it would be violent, and terrible, because of the magic. You said you had no choice, though, because you would die if you didn't do this."
Ruben and Elda sat in silence and thought while Ahern watched them. "So, where are you taking us? Why are we in this coach?"