Slowly Brecia shook her head. “You will see. First things first. Now, look at me, prince. Do you see an old woman who is as decrepit and ugly as you are in your rotted old carcass?”
“Aye, just looking at this old hag makes my guts cramp. Yet I love every black tooth in her ancient mouth. Don’t I?”
“The ghosts told me that Mawdoor keeps a very special golden cask that holds his demon father’s visions. They told me it is so terrifying that Mawdoor keeps it locked away and hidden.”
“I have heard of it, now that I think about it. What else did the ghosts tell you?”
“They said that if the chest is unlocked and opened, Mawdoor will be sucked into old, violent visions conjured up by his father and used eons ago to slaughter his enemies, a loop of very unpleasant visions, visions that even a wizard cannot escape.”
“Will he die in the visions?”
“I don’t know. The ghosts say that once he’s inside, it will hold him forever.”
“Well done, Brecia,” the prince said, rubbing his bent old hands together. “That would be good for Mawdoor. He has crimes heaped high on his door stoop. He has slain many mortals in gruesome ways, but worse, he believes himself above the commonsense rules and compromise, and the reasonable continuation of the world, and that is more dangerous than I can say.”
“I understand. We must find and unlock that chest.” Brecia looked up at the old man who stared down at them from Penwyth’s wooden ramparts.
She called up in an old woman’s querulous voice, “Hear me, gracious keeper, my husband and I seek word with Mawdoor.”
“I am Supney. I guard the gates on Fridays. I am the one who decides who will and who will not be allowed to come into Penwyth. It is I who give all the orders. And I say to ye, no words with the master now, old woman. Get ye gone. Just look at ye, old crone, yer face fair to makes my gizzard clamp shut. My lord Mawdoor has no time for someone as old and ugly as ye are.”
“My husband is just as ugly. Why don’t you remark upon him?”
Supney yelled, “Get ye gone, old woman, and take the ancient old sot with ye.”
“We must speak to Lord Mawdoor. We are capable of many things, other things as well. It is these oth
er things, these very special other things, that we wish to speak to my lord Mawdoor about.”
“Shut yer jaws. I won’t hear more. Go away. There’s nothing for ye here. Go away!”
28
MAWDOOR’S VOICE, SMOOTH and bored, came from deep within the fortress, echoing all around them, an excellent effect. “What more are you capable of, old crone? What are these very special things?”
“Who speaks?” Brecia jerked around.
“It is the master,” Supney said, and he looked around too, even though he had many times heard the master do this. It still scared him to his twisted toes.
Brecia said, her old voice quavery as a feather in a wind, “Is it you, the master of Penwyth? The famous wizard who controls all the lands here about?”
“Aye, it is I,” Mawdoor said, his voice not bored now. He suddenly appeared beside old Supney on the wooden ramparts. “What can you do, old woman?”
“I can see things, my lord.” She lowered her voice, certain that he would have to strain hard to hear her. “I can see things that others cannot. I can make things happen after I look at them.”
There was a hitch in Mawdoor’s breath, they heard it, but naturally their ears were very sharp indeed. She had him. Brecia said—more softly because she was speaking now to Mawdoor, not to old Supney on the ramparts, who looked ready to spit on them at any minute—“I served the witch in the sacred oak forest. I heard that you wanted her, but none can enter the sacred oak forest without fear of death. I know how to go deep into the sacred grove without danger. I can see where she is, see what she is doing. I know how to bring her forth.” She ended up whispering, her voice so old and so parchment thin, she wondered if even a wizard could hear it.
“How do you do this?”
“The old man here, my husband, he places his hands on either side of my head, and he squeezes. He focuses my sight, and the tighter he squeezes, the more deeply I see and understand clearly what it is I must do to achieve what I want. Don’t you think my head looks too narrow—too long for a head? See, it rises straight off my neck and soars upward.”
“Aye, you are powerfully ugly, old woman. Your nose juts out.”
“By the time I pass to the hereafter, I imagine my head will be only wide enough for one eye, and so long that my nose will not only jut out, it will also look to be a foot long.”
Mawdoor laughed at the image the old woman painted. She could bring Brecia out of her oak forest? To him? He came to the edge of the ramparts, began to pace. Old Supney moved quickly out of his way, even though now Mawdoor was moving so quickly he couldn’t see him. But he could hear him sure enough.
Then Mawdoor let the old pair see him clearly, every handsome powerful piece of him. He called down, “Tell me, old woman, why do you want to do this for me?”