“They worship you, Brecia?”
“Of course they worship me. I give them food and water and shelter. I provide them harmony and order and balance so they can become all they wish to be, with no impediments.”
“Is this fortress real or is it just a special treat for my eyes only?”
“It is real enough to those who see it.”
Since he had said something like that many times, he let her get away with it. “When will Callas begin to fade?”
“In perhaps a hundred years or so. I’m not really sure. So many of them overlap in age, it is difficult to know individual ages.”
“And who will the old priests and all the hiding ghosts worship when you are dead?”
“You’re right, of course, I will have an end, I will die. They will worship my heir.”
“Who is your heir?”
“I am very young, prince. I have no need as yet for an heir.”
“Good solid witch blood for your heir?”
She inclined her head gracefully, sending thick red hair over her shoulder. By all the ancient powers that poured through his blood, he wanted to touch that hair of hers, wrap it around his hand, over and over, and keep wrapping until she was not more than an inch from him, and then he would wrap again until she was against him, then he would put her under him. He blinked away the image.
“Yes, as you say, good solid witch blood.”
“You need a powerful wizard to bring forth a decent heir, a wizard to strengthen your sputtering blood.”
“I have yet to meet a wizard who could meld his powers with mine in a way that would blend properly. Wizards are too unbending, too contemptuous of anything that isn’t of their making, of their beliefs.
“Perhaps I will travel to Spain. I understand the Karelia there have fashioned incredible sacred places, all hidden from mortal eyes. Aye, there I might find a Spanish wizard who would complement my own powers, who wouldn’t seek to control me, make me a slave.”
“I have been told that the Spanish Karelia capture men and stuff them into wooden cages. At night they burn them for warmth.”
“I had not heard that. It is something I would not accept.” She shuddered as she said, “The smell. It would be offensive.”
“It makes me think they are weak and cruel. Who needs to burn a mortal in a cage when all you have to do is cast what warmth you need with your wand?” He slipped it out fast, flicked it upward, and the faint blue smoke became a narrow funnel. He watched her look at the smoke, now swirling upward in a tight circle to the hole in the ceiling.
“Now your eyes won’t burn, will they?”
“They didn’t in any case. A clever trick, prince, but then you—” She raised her own wand from where she’d held it against her skirt, and smiled at him. He waited, doing nothing, watched her lips move. Suddenly he was in a wooden cage, suspended by a long iron chain from the roof of the fortress. The cage swung back and forth.
The prince said nothing at all. He was cramped, his left leg felt ready to break. He gave a soft whistle, lightly flicked his fingertips over the wooden bars. The cage disappeared, and he was once again standing at his ease in front of her.
He smiled at her, pointed his wand at her, nothing more than that. Suddenly she wasn’t standing in front of him, she was lying on her back on a bluestone altar, her white woolen skirts fanned around her, hanging over the sides of the altar.
“Bluestone,” she said, slowly sitting up. “You stole the bluestone from the sacred circle of stones in Britain.”
“Aye, it’s a mighty stone, beautiful and thick. A fitting resting place for a witch.”
Quick as a swallow, Brecia raised her wand. In that same instant, the prince tilted his head back, his throat working over strange words. Suddenly her wand was in his left hand. He smiled, waved his own wand toward her, and there were ropes tying her down, quite thin beautiful leather straps that even a wizard couldn’t break. She was at his mercy now, and still he smiled.
He held the two wands up in front of her, hers so beautiful and graceful, his hard and deep, solid power with little ornamentation. “See these, Brecia? If I cross the two wands, then it is very possible that the world would end. What think you?” He slowly brought the witch’s wand and the wizard’s wand close, until only a breath separated them.
She tried to jerk free of the ropes, but couldn’t. She raised her head, stared fixedly at the two wands so close to each other. “Don’t, you fool. You have no idea what would happen.”
Since he had no idea what would happen either, he pulled the wands apart and held one loosely in each hand. “Have you any power without your wand?”
“Of course.”