He said to Brecia, “Mawdoor cursed me in my cradle. My father told me that, told me he hated that I’d been born because he feared I would be more powerful than he. My father said Mawdoor was only seven years old at the time. I hope he has skills and imagination above the ordinary. I am ready to be impressed by wizardry.”
Brecia chewed on that a moment, then said, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe he couldn’t hurt you because you were in my forest. I have always put a stop to any violence in my forest, if possible.”
“You’re saying that you protect your forest?”
“Aye, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t know if it’s enough to stop a wizard as powerful as Mawdoor. Perhaps it is.”
The prince said nothing, but he didn’t believe it for a minute. No, Mawdoor wanted him to come to his home.
He paused, watching Brecia pull her hood over her head, hiding her hair.
The prince pulled his soft woolen cap down over his head, pulled it tight. All he needed was a gust of wind to knock it off. The fitted cap was blacker than Mawdoor’s fortress, as black as a moonless midnight, and softer than a mink’s fur. The cap would hold him invisible, but for no longer than one hour, because he didn’t have his wand to steady the spell for a full twenty-four hours. An hour had to be enough. He knew no one could see him, not even Brecia.
“We must hurry,” Brecia said, eyeing where she knew he was because she could hear him breathing. “I wish I could do that, flick my fingers, or curl over my toes, or stick my elbow at an odd angle, and conjure up a cap like that. If I could, my cap would be white, the purest white imaginable.”
He smiled at that, and said, “I saw you disappear, and you didn’t have your wand.”
“Aye, but I couldn’t go far at all. I was no more than two feet away from you, prince. I would fall flat on my face in view of anyone looking if I moved any distance at all away from my wand.”
“You have just told me one of your secrets, Brecia.”
She had indeed, and she wondered at herself. Why had she said anything at all to this wizard who threatened all that she was and all that she c
ould become in the mists of the future? “Mayhap I’m just speaking aloud because I believe I’m alone.”
“Mayhap,” he said, and laughed, pointing, even though she couldn’t see him. “I can see the cook chopping up something green on his table. Maybe Mawdoor is eating plants now. I wonder what that would do to his disposition?”
She laughed, and it warmed him.
The prince looked up at the black fortress, felt his blood pound thick and hard. He wanted Mawdoor, wanted his neck between his hands. To take another wizard’s wand, that was a very bad thing. He said, “We must go in. We must get this done. Time runs short.”
Brecia walked up the impossibly steep stone steps that led to the fortress gate, a huge structure that was banded with iron, the prince invisible at her side.
A querulous old voice yelled down, “What do ye wish, woman?”
“I wish to see Lord Mawdoor.”
“Why?”
“If I wished to speak to an old graybeard with fewer teeth than my ancient cat, I would. I am a witch. Open the gate, now, or I will turn you into a lily pad.”
“Ha! There bain’t no lily pads hereabouts, no place for them to sit.”
“Then you will be a lily pad sitting on a rock,” Brecia said.
She saw that he still wasn’t sure. She nearly smiled when he said, “A woman or a witch who has no respect for her elders isn’t worthy of anything. I think I’ll leave you until you rot clean into the dirt and roll back down the hill. What do you think of that?”
“Mayhap I would roll onto a rock and land on you, an old withered lily pad, baked from the sun and brittle with age and no water. What are you called, old man?”
“I am called Debbin, I guard the gates on Tuesdays, and I am not an old man. I am in my prime.”
“Prime of what?”
The old man shook his fist at her, he opened his mouth and yelled out several full-blooded curses, all aimed at her head, only to have Brecia nod pleasantly at him. When he opened his mouth again, he discovered that his tongue was so fat he couldn’t begin to stuff it back in. Debbin wanted to spit it out, no, he wanted to gag. He stood there, looking at the cloaked woman, and wanted to howl, but he couldn’t do that either—his tongue was just too big.
“If you would like your tongue to fit again into your mouth, then let me in.”
His cheeks bulged, and his face was red as a sunset off the western coast.