“I can see that would give him courage.”
“Aye, it did. Unfortunately, it also killed him before I could contain the prince’s wand in a special place.”
Mawdoor walked away from her to a small golden chest that sat atop a rich malachite table. He flicked his fingers and black leather gloves covered his hands. He took a key from his hand, slid it into a small, strangely wrought lock, and watched the lid of the chest fling itself open.
She saw pulsing light within the small chest.
Mawdoor stuck his hand inside, and she saw him grimace. But he set his teeth and pulled out the prince’s wand. The wand was straining to get away from him, but Mawdoor was expecting that. He was using a great deal of force to keep control of it and to keep it from touching his flesh as well. What would happen if the prince’s wand did touch his naked hand?
He said over his shoulder, “Do you think the prince will come here, Brecia?”
The prince stood very still. He could have reached out his hand and touched Mawdoor’s left shoulder. He could feel his wand trying to escape Mawdoor’s hand to get to him, but Mawdoor’s hold was too strong. The prince concentrated on the wand, spoke ancient words to it, stroked it with his mind, called it again and again. His wand began to vibrate, sending pulses of warmth into the silent air.
“It is strong, this damned wand,” Mawdoor said. “Stronger now than it was when it first came to me. But my grandmother’s chest held it, and so can I.”
Brecia said, shrugging her shoulders, “I don’t care if he comes here if I am already gone. Why do you think that I would? I came here only to fetch my own wand. Where is the prince? I don’t know.” Her voice dropped, and she leaned toward him. “The prince is dangerous, Mawdoor. I have witnessed his magic. He is the strongest wizard I have ever seen. It is said that his sire and his mother were more powerful than any in Britain, and thus their seed formed a being even stronger than they.”
“Nonsense,” said Mawdoor, “all nonsense. It is a tale he himself has spread about the land. I laugh at his claim. I spit upon the idea that he could be the strongest wizard in this land.” He turned and spat onto the bare stone floor. “I am the strongest wizard of all time. I will prove it to you. I can even control the prince’s wand.” His green eyes were even greener now, the thick hair on his head now blacker than the blackest night. He smiled and nodded at his spit on the stone floor. A blood-red carpet suddenly appeared. She didn’t know if the carpet was real or not. He pointed the prince’s wand at her, again careful not to touch its tip to his bare skin. He was smiling. “Ah, Brecia, you came to me, just as I wished you to. I wish you to remain here, with me. Aye, you will stay here at Penwyth and wed me.”
Brecia was tempted to turn his head into a mushroom, but she wasn’t certain she could do it. By all the gods, time was growing short, too short. Any moment now the prince would be visible and Mawdoor could scatter pieces of him throughout the earth, using his own wand against him. Was that possible? Why couldn’t Mawdoor feel the prince’s presence?
“No, Mawdoor,” she said finally. “I will not remain here and wed you.” Now—she had to do it now. Brecia felt the prince’s breath on her cheek. She whipped up her arm, wand in hand, and mind-trapped the prince’s wand even as it rose in Mawdoor’s hand.
It was in his left hand. Oh, no, oh, no. How did it get in his left hand? There was nothing she could do. She was frozen to the spot.
Suddenly the prince was so close to her that it seemed he was covering her with himself.
He laughed and rubbed his fingertips together and watched his wand heave and jerk against Mawdoor’s hand. “Just a bit more,” he said. “Come to me, you can do it.”
Mawdoor yelled, “Why can I not sense you, you evil spawn of a witch’s seed? I know you are here. You’re trying to get your wand, but I won’t let you.”
The prince laughed again, and for a instant he let himself be heard and seen. He stood there in front of Mawdoor, glittering in gold cloth, a gold crown on his head, and he laughed even as he drew in his breath sharply, then blew it out. His wand rose straight up, pulling Mawdoor’s arm with it, up, up, at least twenty feet into the air. Mawdoor hung on. He shouted words unknown to either of them. The wand stopped rising. It held him there, twenty feet off the floor, swinging back and forth like a clock pendulum.
“Let it go, Mawdoor, or you will remain there for the rest of time.”
“No,” Mawdoor yelled, swinging over their heads, a gentle arc, back and forth. “No, damn you, you wretched creature.”
Brecia realized then that Mawdoor couldn’t get to his own wand; it would be his downfall.
The prince laughed again, raised his arms, and clapped his hands over his head. The wand simply disappeared from Mawdoor’s left hand. Mawdoor hung there, cursing, and the prince blew him a kiss. A cage came around him, wooden bars, blacker than the black of his hair.
“Only a mad fool takes another wizard’s wand, Mawdoor,” the prince said. In the next instant, the prince, his wand now safely in his own hand, flicked it, and both he and Brecia were gone.
Mawdoor whacked his left hand at the bars. The cage fell apart, spilling him out. He got to his feet, still breathing hard, wondering how the prince could have gotten the wand away from him, not that it mattered where he’d sent the prince and Brecia. Still, he’d held it in his left hand, fought with it but managed to hold it firm. His left hand had put a powerful drugging hold on the wand, kept it safe from Brecia, but not from the prince.
But losing the wand was only a moment of humiliation; hanging in the air, then being slammed into a damned cage, that was only another moment of humiliation. Even as he’d hated it, he smiled.
He rubbed his hands together, smiling in triumph. He threw back his head and shouted, “You believe me stupid, prince? You are trapped, you abominable creature. I have both of you, and you will stay here until I call you forth.”
He saw his splendid prison. His magnificent brain had plotted out every last detail. Now that he was able, he pulled out his wand, closed his eyes, and chanted a prayer of thanksgiving to his antecedents.
22
THE PRINCE SAID, HIS voice disbelieving, “We can’t get out. I will kick myself for my conceit, for believing that Mawdoor would be crude and violent in his plans to kill me. But look what he has managed, Brecia. We’re trapped.” He then cursed loud and long, remarkable curses really, come from all over the land, and from all over time, enriched by wizard curses from faraway Bulgar and Byzantium. He stopped, got hold of himself. “Look, Brecia, the bastard has created a lock on the very air that flows over his fortress. I wanted to be impressed, and I surely am.”
She nodded. “You were too arrogant,” she said, and looked at the nothingness that held them. She couldn’t see a trace of the trap, couldn’t feel it either.
“I am not arrogant,” he said. “I was overconfident and I confessed it.”