The Golden Shield of IBF Read online

  Resolution of the hand problem accomplished, the next problem was speech. What should she say to this one she trusted so, who had told her—Nausea swept over her, but she held it back. Her father, alive!

  As was usual for her more and more as she gained in wisdom and maturity, Swan said nothing, only listened. “I know that Eran, curse the Queen Sorceress—forgive my unintended rudeness, Enchantress. But I know that the Queen Sorceress told you that your father was dead. He is not and I know this for the truth that it is.” Erg’Ran exhaled a cloud of grey pipe smoke, sweet smelling. “He is and has been a prisoner these many years where you are forbidden to go—”

  “Barad’Il’Koth,” Swan murmured.

  Erg’Ran placed his clenched right fist to his forehead, invoking the courage of Mir to fill his heart, then spoke the name himself. “Barad’Il’Koth. He is there, your father.”

  Swan’s momentary feeling of nausea was gone, in its stead a feeling she not often experienced and despised in her sex: faintness. Perhaps Erg’Ran noticed the blood draining from her cheeks, because he took her elbows in his hands and all but lifted her, taking her to the far side of the miller s cottage, easing her into a rough-hewn wooden chair. Swan covered her face with her hands, remembered at last to breathe.

  “The secret of my mother’s evil is at Barad’Il’Koth. And so is the secret of my father.”

  “And the Horde of Koth guards Barad’Il’Koth, thousands of men and other creatures and there are fewer than ten score of the Company of Mir. And even, somehow, if we were to defeat the Horde, there is the magic of the Queen Sorceress.”

  Swan nodded, almost angry with Erg’Ran for stating the obvious. “Her magic is stronger than mine. Yes, I know, I know. G’Urg!”

  Horrified, obviously embarrassed by her reference to fecal material, Erg’Ran said, “It is a testament to the times in which we live, I suppose, that the Virgin Enchantress, Daughter Royal, Princess of Creath should even know such a word, let alone utter it. Forgive my boldness, Enchantress, but—”

  “You feel as if you are a father toward me—I know that and find that endearing about you, old friend.” Swan stood, ungloved her hand and outstretched it to him. As if he were the most elegantly costumed courtier from the days before her mother’s reign, Erg’Ran stepped back, bowed, a shock of his grey hair falling across his forehead. His lips lightly touched her hand. “I have less than a day,” she told Erg’Ran, “to master what spells I can which might prove useful against my mother and her armies, then forsake my castle and join the Company of Mir behind the Falls. Good will prevail over evil. Somehow it will.”

  “Take Gar’Ath with you, then, Enchantress, to guard you lest the Queen Enchantress should count the time differently than you and catch you unawares. He is the greatest warrior in the Company of Mir. I can have him here in less than half a day, sword at his side.”

  Swan shook her head. “No, my friend. That would be half the time I have to prepare. I will know if my mother sends the Horde against me sooner than she had promised. Gar’Ath should see to the defenses of the encampment, and you should help him to find routes to safety lest—”

  “Lest the Horde takes your life and your spell can no longer shield us. Yes, I know. Perhaps you should break the spell and the Company can—”

  “Can what? If I surrender to my mother, you might all die, and there would be no one remaining to stand against her evil.” Swan held Erg’Ran’s hand. “It is foretold in the Prophecies of Mir that in the future of Creath there would come a time when a Virgin Enchantress would attempt to seek the origin of her seed in order to break the power of evil. You are the one who taught me this prophecy, old friend, taught me that perhaps my mother was that evil, and that I was the Virgin Enchantress spoken of by Mir himself. You started me along this path. Would you have me deny what I’ve come to believe in?”

  “You discovered the prophecy in the hidden writings your mother had thought she had destroyed. I only translated it from the Old Tongue with the help of your magic,” he reminded her. “You cannot win the day by yourself, or even with the Company of Mir fighting beside you. The prophecy in no way guarantees that you will be able to defeat your mother’s evil, only that you will attempt to. There is more to the prophecy, too, but it is a riddle.”

  Swan sat down again, hands resting limply in her lap, her mind suddenly devoid of focus, certitude gone and resolve leaving her. “What riddle, Erg’Ran?”

  He closed his eyes, cocked back his head, inhaled deeply and spoke haltingly, translating from the Old Tongue. “In a place that is not but is, the Virgin Enchantress will seek a champion who is not but will be. If death does not claim one or the other, the power of one will be the power of the other. Goodness is the fruit of evil and also its seed.”

  “What does that mean?” Swan gasped.

  Erg’Ran looked embarrassed, his face seaming with an odd smile. “I don’t know! All of Mir’s prophecies end cryptically, almost contradictorily. It must mean something, or Mir wouldn’t have said it.”

  “How do we know Mir said it? Maybe somebody just wrote it down and said that Mir said it.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s possible, Enchantress, but hardly likely.”

  “Then where do I go to find this champion person?”

  “Well, that’s right in the prophecy. You go to a place that is not but is.”

  “What if there isn’t a place like that? Or, well, what if there are a thousand places like that? How do I find it, Erg’Ran?” He was searching for his tinderbox to relight his pipe. Perhaps pockets had their disadvantages, because he seemed unable to locate it. “Let me,” she offered, recognizing the edge of exasperation in her voice. With a look and a flick of a finger, a tiny tongue of flame licked upward from the bowl of his pipe.

  “Thank you, Enchantress.”

  “Where do I look?” Swan persisted.

  “From my study of the Prophecies of Mir, from what I have seen happening in your life, Enchantress, I can only say that there is no answer which you can seek, only an answer that you will find.”

  Swan stood up, on her toes, back arched, shoulders raised. “That word? The one you don’t like me to use? G’Urg! Hear it? G’Urg!!” She stomped from the miller’s cottage, calling out over her shoulder, “Be careful, Erg’Ran! And I’ll see you with the Company of Mir a little over a day from now.” Out the door, before she lost her temper with this wonderfully sweet old man and turned him into a frog or something and then felt guilty about it for the rest of her life. And if she didn’t hurry, that might not be too long. Swan hitched up her skirts, mounted less than gracefully and wheeled the mare toward the forest path...

  The ride through the forest was frightening but also restored Swan’s resolve. If her mother triumphed all of Creath would be like that forest, no one would be safe and everyone who somehow managed to survive would exist in constant terror.

  The trouble with looking up anything—she was in her tower, her sanctum of sanctums, where all of her precious spell books and her most special charms were hidden away for her use alone—was that as one searched, other things were noticed, catching one’s interest. Swan was searching for an herbal compound that would allow her to cast just one spell, then administer the resultant elixir to the Company of Mir in order to keep each member safe. She hoped to achieve the same effect with this elixir as the spell that she constantly kept reweaving by conscious and continuous force of will. But she found something else that attracted her attention. “I never heard of that,” she exclaimed aloud to herself. It was an incantation which could be used to turn the force of a volcanic eruption back into itself. “About as useful as a sword made out of bread dough,” Swan laughed. The last volcanic eruption on Creath near any populated area was in the time of Mir. And she was beginning to think, that was an awfully long time ago.

  Swan returned to her search for the herbal compound.

  She came across a spell which could change good wine into foul-tasting vinegar. The same effe
ct could be achieved by leaving the wine too long in the bottle, no magic involved. The more she learned of magic, the more she realized that much of it was simply accelerating normal processes in an abnormal way. “Oh, well.”

  Water clocks were the fashion for logging the passage of time, had been since before she was born. She never liked them. When she was just a child, she found a book which explained how to assemble gears and springs and make a time-telling device that was much more accurate (and never needed water). She glanced at it now. If her mother kept her word, time enough remained to gather together some special books and scrolls and favorite articles of clothing and use a compression spell to reduce them to a size that would fit in a man’s pocket, then get her horse and escape before the Horde came for her. Compression spells were long and involved to conjure, however.

  Swan felt a subtle tingle along the back of her neck and in her fingertips. The guarding spell which she had set on the castle walls and gates (as she cast afresh once each day) was abruptly broken. Had her mother done it, Swan would never have felt it. Bridging spells would have been cast and the lifting of the guarding spell would have been unnoticed. Her mother, Eran, could do that sort of thing with ease. Swan had tried it, too, knew that such complicated spell casting was not beyond her capabilities.

  But, whoever had lifted the spell had powers beyond those of an ordinary military spell breaker. Even those assigned to her mother’s elite guards, the Sword of Koth, were not that good. Probably a group of the Handmaidens of Koth had done it. Taken from their mothers at birth, the Handmaidens were taught the old Witchcraft. Individually, they had some basic magical skills. But in a group of six, one for each of the cardinal directions—above, below, right, left, before and behind—their powers could be significant enough to be dangerous. Confirming her suspicions, Swan felt her heart beginning to race.

  The Horde had come for her, and they were using magic to slow her response to their attack.

  There was no time for a compression spell. Her precious things would have to be left behind, perhaps to be retrieved later. Swan slowed her breathing, reduced her heart rate to normal. Her hands moving in all directions, she ordered the books and scrolls and vials and retorts to their hiding places, ordering the notes she had taken to fly into her leather spell bag.

  There was the noise of heavy footsteps coming up the winding stairs to the tower. Not much time.

  Swan extended her left hand, calling, “Sword and sheath and belt, come to me!” They flew immediately from the small couch on which she’d placed them when entering the tower, coming to her hand. She cinched the double wrap belt around her waist. “Dagger!” She had used the tip of her dagger to open the stubborn cork which had sealed one of her vials. There was always the temptation to use magic for everything. That was wasteful, and led to laziness. The dagger slid across the long rough-hewn table where she’d set it, coming to her open right hand. It was the only weapon she always carried. She raised her skirts to sheath it on her left calf.

  The footsteps were loud enough now that her second-sight only confirmed what she already knew. Six Handmaidens on the heels of a dozen black-clad warriors from the Sword of Koth. The warriors wielding crossbows, axes and fireswords.

  The window would be her only escape. If she used her Enchantress powers to fight these persons whom her mother had sent to kill her, she would be so drained that she might not have enough magic to escape if ordinary means should fail.

  Summoning her cape and her spell bag as she ran, Swan reached the window, twisting the latch. Her plan was simple enough. She could summon a strong night wind in a matter of moments, then cast herself from the window and the powerful air currents would set her safely in the courtyard. There’d be time to reach the stable and escape.

  Throwing open the sash, the first words of the wind summoning spell were on her tongue. Swan screamed instead, throwing her shoulder against the open window, slamming it shut, but not in time. Swan staggered back.

  The warriors from the Sword of Koth, the six Handmaidens, the breaking of the guarding spell. They were all a diversion. Her mother was about to kill her, personally. Only her mother could have summoned what lay beyond the window and was inexorably creeping across the tower floor, along the tower walls.

  Her mother had somehow, using magic Swan could not even begin to comprehend, summoned the Mist of Oblivion, the blackest of all magic, a fog but denser than the deepest, darkest night, damp and cold, consuming all that it touched, rendering everything into nothingness. In moments, the castle and all within it would be devoured by the Mist, would utterly cease to exist, not just as flesh and bone, stone and steel, but even as dust. If her mother somehow lost control of the Mist of Oblivion, all of Creath and all of the universe of sun and stars of night would be lost, every life within it gone forever.

  The stout wooden door at the far end of the tower shattered inward. Three of the Sword of Koth, faces swathed in black leather battle masks, ran into the room. The six Handmaidens, black robed beneath their cloaks, followed after them. The Handmaidens immediately formed a circle, joining hands. And they began their chant of power.

  “Fools!” Swan screamed at them. “My mother is murdering all of you along with me!” The other nine warriors were coming through the doorway now. A crossbow bolt was fired, streaking toward Swan’s head. She flicked her hand, diverting the missile from its target.

  The window, the wall where the window had been, the floor near the wall, all were gone, enveloped in the creeping blackness of the Mist. In a matter of eyeblinks, the warriors would be closed off with her where she stood and the Mist of Oblivion would devour them all.

  Swans heart beat savagely, her chest visibly pulsating, her breathing labored. It was the magic of the Handmaidens at work against her body.

  Swan started to raise her hand, to counter the magic the six Handmaidens worked, but this was what her mother wanted her to do, waste her magic, waste the precious eyeblinks it would take. So there must be an option, something that she could do in order to survive.

  And though her mother was now trying to take her life, if Swan survived she would have her mother to thank. Her mother had spoken once of a casting she had made, taken from an old scroll. It drained Eran of almost all her magic for a period of several hours.

  Swan let her mind drift back to the Memory Pool, to recall the incantation if she could.

  Another crossbow bolt. To deflect it would not drain her. Swan waved her hand. The Mist of Oblivion rolled toward her, was only a few spans from her feet. Two warriors lunged toward Swan with their glowing hot fireswords.

  Swan stretched out her arms, her hands grasping for the magic in the air around her, feeling its current surging through her body, strengthening her. She uttered the words of the incantation as she pressed her palms together between her breasts, becoming one with the energy around her.

  Light, dazzlingly bright, filled her, exploded from her, magical energy beyond anything she had ever experienced or even imagined, a sound crackling like thunder from chain lightning—

  A darkness that glowed like light but was neither light nor dark was all around her, then gone.

  Swan looked up. There was a different light, that of the sun, but the sun was different, too. Tall castle towers, unlike anything she had ever seen, soared into the blue sky above. Her gaze trailed downward along the castle walls. They were filled with windows, larger than any she had ever seen. An army of coaches moved along smooth black stone roadways on either side of her, but no horses or other beasts drew them.

  There was magic here. Of that, Swan was certain.

  Someone spoke to her in a tongue which she did not understand. Swan turned toward the voice. It belonged to a girl, a girl about her own age, black coloring around her eyes, a spiked animal collar around her neck. The girl spoke again to her and smiled. Swan smiled back. The girl was attired only in a leather binding around her breasts and a skirt that was too short to be a skirt and boots which rose to her thighs, thei
r heels too high to be practical for riding.

  The girl spoke still again, and when Swan did not respond, the girl nodded, then began using her hands in some sort of gesturing symbology. Swan did not comprehend the gestures, but realized clearly their intent: the strangely dressed girl thought that she was deaf. A very large lantern swayed over the road. It had been emitting a red light, which seemed to serve no practical purpose of illumination on such a bright and sunny day. The light changed to green and the oddly dressed girl touched at Swan’s elbow and propelled Swan with her into the road.

  Swan was about to protest, but then she saw something on the other side of the road which gladdened her heart. Yes, there were men in odd metallic suits carrying strange weapons, a female creature that seemed to be half cat and woman, other oddities. But, she saw a girl attired similarly to herself, in long dress and hooded cloak, although the girl carried no sword, no spell bag. With her were two men, one of them a great teacher or philosopher from the look of his cowled robes, the other dressed in the finery of a courtier, like the ones whom she had seen pictured from the days before her mother’s reign, in bright red hose and gleaming black knee boots, a black jerkin over his white shirt, a bonnet with a feather plume on his head. A sword—a little too flashy looking to be very good steel—hung from an elaborate frog at his hip.

  Reaching the far side of the road, Swan saw others dressed in similar finery, and others attired even more oddly than the girl who had guided her across the road. What land was this? Swan had learned spells to translate writings so that she could assist Erg’Ran in his translations from the prophecies of Mir. They required little magical energy once mastered. She cast such a spell now to interpret the runic symbols on the cover of a colorful book the courtier with the flashy sword held in his hand. And Swan wondered, what was a DragonCon? A Comics Expo? What was an Atlanta?