In the morning, the brothers came to the Starwatcher and said, “Here is the piece of Sun for which you have asked; and though it is dark now, we have been told that by your magic you can make it burn again.” And he replied, “That is true, for I have an understanding of enchanted things. But you must perform one final task for me before I can give you magic that will enable you to stand against the Dragon. It will be more difficult than the others; do you wish to hear of it?”
Georyn and Terwyn assured him that they did indeed so wish, although by this time they viewed the difficulty of such tasks with a great deal of respect. However, since they were nearly spent with hunger and weariness, having been required to travel for a day and a night without food or sleep, the Starwatcher told them that they should rest before setting out again. Thereupon he himself went off into the forest, and they did not see him until the morrow.
“I have no doubt that we will be forced to seek the aid of the Enchantress again,” Terwyn said to his brother as they were finishing their meal. “But I hope that she will not put us into another such situation as we met last night. I do not care to be made a fool of more than once.”
Georyn said, “She was not making fools of us, Terwyn. I cannot fathom her full purpose, but I know that there was more to it than a test of our loyalty to her. Somehow, I had the feeling that she did not enjoy all of what she did. I—I pitied her, in a way.”
Terwyn frowned. “Have a care, Georyn! A witch, having no heart, will have little regard for yours; and though she seems very fair, her fairness in itself may be perilous. Who is to say that she charms only lifeless things, and not men?”
“I will not have you speak so of her!” exclaimed Georyn angrily.
“I meant no harm by it, for I myself am fain to trust her. But whether her purpose be good or ill, Brother, she has little need of sympathy from you. You will never get even a glimpse of what goes on in such a mind as hers; and as for the wisdom that you are always seeking, think not that she will impart it to you. The wisdom of enchanted folk is not for the world of mortals, nor will it ever be.”
“I do not agree with you,” insisted Georyn. “Must a man then live always as his fellows live, and never reach beyond? There is more to knowledge than you dream of, Terwyn, and if it lies in some enchanted realm—well, I think that there is a door to that realm. And I think that the Enchantress knows where the door is and can open it.”
“Perhaps; but will she leave it open? Think, Georyn: even if she should let you look through such a door, the time will surely come when it will be sealed again; and when that happens you will be not on her side of it, but on ours. How will you feel then? Let us accept her help against the Dragon, but no more—for we are men, not wizards.”
“I am not sure,” said Georyn, “that there is such a difference between the two.” Well he knew that however unwarranted Terwyn’s first warning might have been, this last one was all too pertinent. Yet just the same he intended to pursue the secrets of the Enchantress, both for love of her and for their own sake.
Early the next morning, when the brothers presented themselves to the Starwatcher, he said to them, “This time, all I ask of you is that you shall bring me a cup. But it is no ordinary cup: rather, it is a very remarkable one; for the cup I seek can float upon the air with naught to support it, and yet spill no drop of water.”
“Remarkable indeed,” said Terwyn. “But no more so, surely, than an enchanted disk that holds images that move and speak!”
“Nor than a piece of the Sun that can be darkened or lighted at will,” added Georyn. But to himself he thought, “It is very near to being as wondrous as a sword or a globe that moves without anyone’s touch.”
Father and Evrek came to the base camp to talk over the next phase of the operation with me in detail. “This is the big step,” Father said. “If Georyn and Terwyn get along as well as they have so far, we’re in business; but it’s going to be very tricky.”
“I have to hand it to them,” Evrek remarked. “Every time they come through with a little more than we have them figured for. Deliberately turning out that light took nerve! I hope this time I’ll be able to let them win.”
“So do I,” I agreed fervently. “But Evrek, do you think they’ll really be able to counter your ‘magic’? If they can, I want to see it!”
“You won’t, I’m afraid,” he told me. “It’s got to take place off in the middle of the forest again.”
“I’m sorry,” Father said, “for if it comes off they’ll get a tremendous lift from it, and it should be pretty thrilling to watch.”
“Couldn’t she follow them?” Evrek suggested. “After all, we’ll be joining forces anyway if they succeed.”
“I don’t see any harm in that—so long as you keep out of sight, Elana, until it’s over.” He smiled. “You can bring us something to celebrate with. A canteen of soda pop ought to seem literally marvelous to them.”
“I guess it will! They won’t have tasted anything like it before, certainly.”
“First, though,” he reminded me, “you’ve got some ‘magic’ of your own to perform. Let’s have those cups, Evrek.”
Evrek opened his pack and got out two wooden cups with elaborate, intricately carved handles, obviously native handcraft. “Two genuine enchanted cups,” he declared. “The best the village has to offer.”
“Enchanted? How?”
“You should know”—he grinned—“since you are going to cast the spell on them.”
“What do you mean, spell?”
“An incantation that will make these cups float in the air without anything touching them,” Father told me. “It should be something very dramatic. Pick anything you like in the way of poetry. In our language, of course. You don’t want to convey meaning with it; it should sound like gibberish to the Andrecians, only be rhythmic and easy to memorize.”
“I’ll think of something,” I promised. “But why all this hocus-pocus? Why not just do it?”
“Because the concept of controlling objects by conscious mental effort is beyond the Andrecians, while that of casting a spell is not. And to them a cup, even a floating cup, may be less magical than a disk containing moving images or a ‘piece of the sun;’ so it needs to be made impressive.”
Less magical? I thought, suddenly, of how the colonists would react if presented with such a comparison. Well, even naïveté has its advantages—not that the Imperials had lost much naïveté, but theirs was the cynical variety. We couldn’t teach them to use any psychic powers; their so-called scientific attitude would get in the way.
But I saw what Father was driving at. If I gave Georyn and Terwyn a magic spell to pronounce, they would believe in the spell. They would be fully convinced that it would be as effective for them as for me. But would it? I’d always simply accepted psychokinesis as a fact; I’d never analyzed its prerequisites before. Now I had to know some of the theory.
Father told me, “There are three important factors; but the first, the belief, is the most essential of all. If we’ve given them that, the rest will be easy.”
“It still seems incredible,” I said.
He laughed. “The human mind is incredible. It can do nothing without belief, yet practically anything with it. In our society, belief in this particular ability comes naturally; a child learns it from his parents, as he learns language. Here it is not natural, so we’ve had to lay a foundation for it. I think now that that foundation is strong enough.”
“But if they can’t do what I ask at first, won’t they stop believing?”
“Yes, so we have to be very, very careful. This is the most difficult part of the whole business, Elana, knowing at what moment it’s safe to let them try. Because they must succeed the very first time. When you teach them the ‘spell,’ you’ll control the cup yourself; they’ll only think they’re doing it. The crucial part, the transference of control to them, I’ll handle. At that point, of course, they’ll be under great emotional stress, which is the second of the three essential factors.”
“I know it’s a principle of psychic power in general, and psychokinesis in particular, that emotion helps,” I said. “But I don’t really understand why.”
Father hesitated. “I’ll try to make it clearer,” he said. “But first, let’s practice this a little. We’ve got to make absolutely sure that you can do what’s necessary.”
He held out one of the cups to me, and I took it, feeling somewhat doubtful. You can’t control your powers easily if you haven’t had special training, because while you believe in them, you also know that failure’s possible: the very thing the Andrecians would not be allowed to learn. At the time, I had never before had a real need to use psychokinesis; I’d only played around with it in the way that any child does. Sometimes when I was in the right mood, I was quite good at it; but could I count on that? Keeping a small object like a cup motionless a few feet off the ground is pretty elementary, of course; but still, what if I should drop it?
I held the cup before me with both hands and tried to concentrate, but I was suddenly very unsure of myself. I couldn’t seem to bring myself to let go of it. I just couldn’t pick a moment when I was ready for the attempt. How awful it would be if I couldn’t control it well enough to do the job.
“Go ahead!” Father said sharply.
Drawing a deep breath I parted my hands. The cup lurched, hovered for a moment, and then crashed to the ground.
Impatiently, Father burst out, “What’s the matter with you, Elana? Can’t I depend on you for a simple thing like that?”
“I was doing the best I could,” I said miserably.
“Apparently that’s not good enough! I’m sorry now that I let you have any part in this.”
I stared at him, incredulous. It was not like him to be so unreasonable. Glancing around, I saw that Evrek’s face was impassive; he did not seem inclined to jump to my defense. “Let me try again—” I began.
“No! I’ll revise the plan,” said Father, his voice hard and angry. “I can’t take a chance on you; anyone can see you’re too young to take this much responsibility.”
“I’m not!” I said furiously. I’d show him! I picked up the cup, thrust it out in front of me, and quickly drew my hands back. It stayed put, as it was supposed to. “I can do it, if I’m given half a chance!” I declared.
He grinned. “When you’re mad enough, you can,” he agreed amiably.
“Oh—!” I sputtered. “You and your—manipulations!”
“Elana,” Father explained, “that illustrates the point pretty well, doesn’t it? When you are angry or frightened or wrapped up in some other strong emotion, you don’t stop to worry about whether you can do the thing or not. You just go ahead and do it, because you have to.”
“I guess I see,” I said slowly.
“When Georyn and Terwyn do this for the first time, they’ll be under a lot of pressure,” said Evrek. “They’ll be outraged because I’ve already defeated them once without letting them fight; yet they’ll be afraid, too, because I’m going to make some very ominous threats, threats that, after the lesson I taught them last time, they’ll have no reason to doubt! And they will know that mastery of this ‘magic spell’ is the only chance they have to save themselves.”
“But will they know how to master it, when their minds have never worked in this way before? I mean, if it’s possible, Younglings should be able to do it any time the belief and the emotion happen to be present.”
“You’re right; naturally, there has to be more to it,” Father said. “There’s the third factor I spoke of. Psychokinesis is centuries ahead of anything they could develop for themselves. So the initial knowledge of ‘how to do it’ has to be passed to them telepathically.”
“Can they understand that kind of knowledge?”
“Not in words; they have no such words in their language. But there’s another level, you know. I’ve got to be the one to do it, since you and Evrek haven’t yet learned to transmit in that way.”
I began to see. Of course he wouldn’t try to explain the thing. He’d simply give it to them, just as he had given me an overwhelming, undefinable feeling of elation at my investiture. They would never understand the skill consciously in the way that we understand it. And so, of course, they would always need immediate, raw emotion in order to use it at all.
Not that I seemed to be very much more advanced than that. “How am I going to manage the demonstration?” I asked nervously. “I won’t be either mad or scared, at least not scared in the helpful sort of way—”
“No, but when the time comes you’ll be aware of how much hangs on your doing it perfectly,” Father assured me. “For you, it will be stimulus enough just to know that if you slip, this whole scheme will very likely fail and Andrecia will be lost to the invaders. You do know, don’t you, that we probably won’t get a second chance?”
I shuddered. “You make me feel so—so accountable. So weighed down with it, as if the fate of this world was in my hands.”
“That’s how I want you to feel,” he said gently. “You can’t afford to take it casually. But Elana, don’t worry about it. If I didn’t have complete confidence in you, I wouldn’t dare to give you a key role.”
He wouldn’t, I knew. Under the Oath, he could consider neither his own personal feelings nor mine. You might think I’d have found this cold comfort, but Father never made it seem cold. Instead, he managed to give us confidence that something wonderful was going to come out of all this, something that would be worth whatever we had to go through.
Once more the brothers set off for the hut of the Enchantress; and they took the shortest way, through the Enchanted Forest, for Georyn declared, “This is not a time to shrink from whatever there may be in the place. We are going to encounter plenty of magic, both white and black, before we are through; and we might as well get used to it.”
The sun was yet high in the sky when they arrived at the hut, and the Enchantress was nowhere to be seen. But on searching they came to a meadow, and she sat there in the grass amid clumps of yellow flowers; and though again she held the book of charms before her, she was not looking at it.
Seeing the brothers, she got to her feet and ran toward them; and the smile with which she greeted them was not hidden this time. “What a lovely day it is!” she exclaimed happily. “Oh, this is a fair world, touched by such sunlight! Do you not think it so, Georyn?”
“Fair indeed, Lady,” he agreed, but the beauty of the sunlit meadow was not in his mind. And he was moved to wonder whether it was invariably true that a witch had no heart. For surely such feeling as he saw in her could be naught but genuine.
Yet as he and Terwyn told the Enchantress of the cup that the Starwatcher had sent them to find, her gaiety faded and she said, “As you have guessed, I have such a cup; in fact I have two of them, which are a pair and must not be separated. But—”
Georyn smiled at her and said, “But there is a condition, which is harder than it seems? Do not look so downcast, Lady. That is not such a woeful thing. It would be a poor enchantment indeed that had no price.”
“The risks but add interest to the game,” Terwyn declared stoutly.
“So I too once thought!” the Lady said. “But alas, it is not a game.” She looked out over the meadow toward a break in the rippled grass—a trampled spot—and it was almost as if she saw something there that was, to them, invisible. And with one hand, as she spoke, she twirled the magical Emblem. “Georyn, are you and Terwyn very sure that you want to confront the Dragon? It will not be easy. Even with the Starwatcher’s magic, and mine, it will not be easy!”
But Georyn knew that if somewhere the enchantment existed that could make it possible, he did not care whether it was easy or not; so his heart was light as he said to her, “We are absolutely sure.”
“Why? Because of the reward the King has promised?”
“Indeed so,” began Terwyn; but Georyn said, “No, Lady, for the King himself has not such knowledge as can now satisfy me, having glimpsed that of the stars.”
And at this he perceived that she felt sorrow, though he could not divine its cause, for why should there be grief in her concerning his desire for such unattainable wisdom? And not wanting to dwell upon that which disturbed her, he continued, “Now, let us see these marvelous cups.”
They walked back to the hut, and the Lady brought forth two carven cups, cups that did not look very different from many that the brothers had seen before. “In fact,” murmured Terwyn, “if I did not know better, I should say that they had come from the woodcarver of our own village.”
The Enchantress took one of the cups, and from a tall, cylindrical silver jug she filled it with water. Then, holding it carefully between her two hands, she said, “This is not quite like the other magic that I have shown you. For this, it is necessary to use a charm.” And as the brothers watched in awe, she raised her voice and began to repeat the words of a spell—strange, musical words that differed from her accustomed speech in that they carried no intelligible meaning. Slowly, then, she stretched her hands out in front of her and parted them. And the cup remained poised in the air where she had placed it, motionless, and no water spilled from it; and the Lady dropped her arms and backed away.
She was silent now; there was no sound anywhere except, in the background, that of the river. Still the cup floated, and neither of the brothers could turn their eyes from it. Then, though the Lady’s lips did not move, Georyn heard her voice as if from far away, saying: Georyn, take the cup! And he stepped forward and put his hands around it. As he did so, the cup settled into them, so that he seemed to be holding an ordinary vessel such as those from which he had often drunk. And when he looked up again, the Lady was laughing. “Do not drop it,” she said. “For the charm is broken now, and you would have wet feet.”
Terwyn was still staring as if bewitched. “That is the strangest thing I have ever seen,” he said at last. “For the cup looks too plain to hold so strong an enchantment.”
But Georyn said, “It is in my mind that the magic of this is not in the cup at all, but in the spell. Is it not so, Lady?”
“You are already wise, Georyn! You see beyond your experience.”
“I have had experience,” he said with a troubled frown. “As you well know, I have seen something of this sort before. For two nights past it has been used against me. How then am I to distinguish between a good spell and an evil one?”
“That is a good question,” the Lady admitted, “but not simple to answer. For good and ill are in the uses and not in the nature of things.”
“Yet if this is related to the magic practiced by the evil demons of the Forest—”
“There are no evil demons. There is peril, surely, but that is not the form it takes.”
Terwyn protested, “But we ourselves have met them twice.”
“I am quite certain that you are mistaken,” the Enchantress said, and her tone seemed almost to be one of amusement.
“Were you then, through your own magic, testing us?” asked Georyn, for he had suspected this all along.
The Lady answered gravely, “I am not permitted to say.” But as to what authority such as she might serve, she did not tell them.
“Even if what we saw was not an evil spirit,” persisted Terwyn, “there are many that attend the Dragon; we have met a man who was turned into stone by them.”
“That is another matter,” said the Enchantress. “The servants of the Dragon are not demons either, but men who have been bewitched. They are a danger to you, but they are not in themselves evil.”
“Have they truly the power to turn men into stone?” asked Georyn skeptically.
“They have indeed.” Hesitantly, the Lady went on, “Perhaps I should tell you that when you meet the Dragon, this will undoubtedly happen to you, and you must be prepared for it.”
“We will be turned into stone?” cried Terwyn, horrified. “How will we be able to fight, then?”
“There will be a way, for you will not be defenseless. But you need not worry about that now. For the moment, you need only to learn this charm.”
Georyn exclaimed joyfully, “You will teach us to use it, then? I had feared that the Starwatcher alone—”
“I will teach you, for you have earned it. But you must promise never to use it except as I shall direct you. It is not as safe as it seems.”
“I am sure of that, Lady, and I will promise gladly,” said Terwyn. So both the brothers gave the Enchantress their word that they would never repeat the charm save in her presence, or the Starwatcher’s. “Or,” she added, “in one other instance, which I shall describe to you presently.”
With that, Georyn took up the cup again, and Terwyn took the other; and the Lady taught them the spell. And the cups did indeed float steadily wherever they were placed, as each of the brothers repeated the strange words. At length, when they had proved that they knew the words and would not forget them, the Enchantress said, “Now you must return to the Starwatcher; for again I shall require you to journey without pausing, and I am sure that you do not want to wait for dark.”
“We do not,” said Terwyn grimly. “Is there any other condition, Lady?”
“There are two,” she said slowly.
“I will venture to say,” Georyn declared, “that one of them is that we must not allow these cups to be taken from us; and I have no doubt but that we will be put to the test. Have we any reason to suppose that we shall fare better than we did last night?”
The Enchantress’s dark eyes measured him. “What do you think, Georyn?”
He hesitated, then said thoughtfully, “I believe that this charm that we have learned is intended to be used as a counterspell against the magic that overpowered us before; and I also believe that if we fail this time, it will be a real failure, for which we will be answerable.”
“That is indeed the way of it,” she agreed. “You may use the charm in defense of the cups; but I warn you that merely to recite the words will not be enough. For the best of spells requires the control of a firm will.”
So Georyn knew that this final test would be the most difficult of all, but he nodded confidently and said, “And the other condition?”
“Oh,” the Enchantress said, “it is simply that in return for what I have given you, I would like your promise that if you succeed in this task, you will come to see me again. For I—I would like to advise you in the matter of the Dragon.”
“But, Lady,” exclaimed Georyn with warmth, “that is no condition at all! Rather, it is a reward.”
She turned away hastily. He could not see her face well; and yet, if she had been anyone other than who she was, he would almost have said that she blushed.
When the brothers had gone, I went straight back to the hut and contacted Father. I was shaking, not only from the strain of my performance being over, but from something else. Inexplicably, my eyes stung as if with tears. Oh, Georyn wanted knowledge, all right! He wanted it too much; and on top of that he had begun, all too obviously, to want some things that he was never going to get.
“What is it, Elana?” Father said anxiously. “Did anything go wrong?”
“Not with the magic charm,” I told him. “That went beautifully. I’ll give Georyn and Terwyn a good head start, and then I’ll be along to meet you. But that’s not why I called.”
He was silent, waiting for me to go on. Father has a way of projecting his sympathy that comes through even over a communicator; I didn’t hesitate to speak my mind. “Don’t you see what we’re doing?” I burst out. “He’s perfectly well aware that we’ve got a lot more knowledge than we’re revealing. He wants it—and we’re deliberately tantalizing him, making him reach for something we don’t intend to give!”
“Of course we are,” Father admitted gravely. “It’s unavoidable, since we’re raising him above the level of his culture.”
“But it’s cruel.”
“Perhaps it is. On the other hand, Elana, I don’t think that sort of reaching is a bad thing. A certain amount of it’s the normal price a man pays for an inquiring mind. How else can Youngling peoples evolve?”
“He’ll be hurt, though.”
“Do you suppose he doesn’t know that?”
“How could he know? He hasn’t all the facts.”
“No one ever has all the facts. All a person can do is to choose a goal that seems worthwhile and commit to it. That’s as true for Georyn as it is for us.”
“But we’re responsible for him,” I insisted. “We should protect him!”
“Like a little child … or a pet? Now you’re thinking of him as the invaders do: as less than human.”
“Of course I’m not! He’s a person, a person I care about.” It was rather a shock to me to realize, as I said this, just how much I did care.
“Then grant him the right to suffer for a cause of his own choosing,” said Father slowly. “He did choose it, you know. This cause—call it a quest, if you like, as he would—is a deadly serious thing from his point of view; it is as serious as your Oath. If you care about him, don’t belittle it by trying to make it easier than it is.”
“Oh, but he thinks he can save the world by slaying a dragon! With the help of a magic spell!”
“And he must think that. If he ever stops thinking it, it will cease to be true.”
“Are you saying it’s true now?”
“Elana,” Father said soberly, “if we don’t believe that it is, we might as well give up right now and go back to the starship.”
He was right and I couldn’t deny it, so I signed off. I wasn’t any happier, though. Somehow, when I became an agent, I hadn’t pictured quite this sort of responsibility.
I stood in the doorway of the hut and watched the sun sink slowly into the low haze of Andrecian afternoon. The tears brimmed over, my first for Georyn. What would become of him? Suppose this crazy scheme did save Andrecia, suppose the whole thing was a glorious success. Whether he was acknowledged as a hero by his own people or not, the local king would have very little to offer.
And there was something else about which I felt even worse. For I hadn’t been wholly frank with Father. The truth was I could hide from myself no longer the fact that Georyn was not interested in me solely as the holder of magical knowledge. What was more, I couldn’t say that I was so absorbed with Evrek as to be totally oblivious to Georyn’s interest. Were he not a Youngling, I thought, nor I an Enchantress, we might easily come to like each other simply as boy and girl.
Jarel walked a little way into the woods, away from the depressing sight of the ravaged clearing. He looked up at the stars, thinking that it had been a long time since he’d seen them through evergreens that way—a long time, and a long jump through space, too. It reminded him of the way he used to stare longingly up at them when he was a kid, dreaming of the day when he’d be old enough to go out there. Maybe that was what was getting him about this planet, its likeness to home. Maybe that was why whenever he looked at the natives he got the feeling that he was way back in time, instead of here on a new world where people seemed like people and yet weren’t, really. Back in time … that faint, yellowish star over the tall fir tree, that was his own sun, home. The light he was seeing had left there just about the time his ancestors had believed in dragons and all sorts of other crazy superstitions. Were they human, those distant folk to whom the starlight he now saw had been sunlight? Of course, yet there had to be a dividing line somewhere.
He did not really take seriously the things he had told Dulard, of course, all those wild conjectures about extrasensory perception. He didn’t believe in things like that any more than the average citizen did. He had only wanted to shake the guys up a bit, challenge their cool assumption that because the natives were different, they were inherently inferior. Of course they were inferior, technologically; but as individuals, were they any different from anyone else? Hadn’t they the same feelings, maybe even the same kind of intelligence?
It was too bad there was no way to fool Dulard into thinking that the natives really were more powerful than they looked. He’d admitted, after all, that if there were any reason to fear them, he’d pull out fast. This was a colony, not a military base, and it was meant to be a safe colony. It was meant to be run by inexperienced homesteaders, once the Corps had completed the preliminary construction work. So if the local inhabitants were to show up someday with an impressive weapon of some kind, even if they never used it …
Jarel stopped short. He mustn’t start thinking along those lines. To speculate about the natives, even to argue with Dulard about them, was one thing; but to side with them against an Imperial colony would be treason. And anyway, there was no way he could manage it. In the first place, he didn’t have access to any weapons other than those manufactured by the Empire itself. And in the second place, it would be quite obvious to Dulard that no superior weapon, even if it was one he’d never seen before, could have been developed by a nonmechanized society like this world’s.
Dulard was right about one thing, Jarel realized; he shouldn’t be in this kind of work. Not if seeing a primitive people overpowered bothered him this much, he shouldn’t. Because the Empire did have to move forward, and technology was important, any way you looked at it. Technology was necessary to scientific advance, and scientific advance was good. Even with the natives, it was not so much their present culture that he valued, but what they might become. Expansion was necessary, too; without expansion, humankind would soon become decadent. If it were a choice, survival of one race or the other, even indirectly …
But it was not a choice. There were plenty of planets on which no sentient race had evolved. Less suitable planets for colonization, of course, but the Empire’s technology could make them usable.
There were planets to spare. There were so many that they were not worth fighting over; the Empire did not fight, in fact. When a planet was occupied by a race advanced enough to resist, the Corps stayed clear of it, and apparently other spacefaring peoples did the same, for though occasionally aliens with starships had been encountered, the Empire had never found it necessary to defend its worlds.
How would we like it? he suddenly wondered. What if there were civilizations above us? Sure, we’ve never run into one, yet it could happen. Would a superior people think us too lowly to be worth preserving?
Well, Jarel sighed, there was no use losing so much sleep over it. Nothing he could do would make any difference. The natives’ interests were going to be sacrificed whether he liked it or not, and from the prospective colonists’ viewpoint it would happen in a good cause. He knew he shouldn’t blame men like Dulard, who were doing the best job they knew how to do. But it would be nice, he thought, if there were such a thing as telepathy, just so he could give those poor captives in the barracks some idea of what it was all about.
Though the Enchanted Forest by daylight was not nearly so fearsome as by night, still it was a place of gloom, and no sunlight could penetrate its heart. The brothers were assailed by dread as they proceeded farther and farther into the wilderness of moss-shrouded trees. It was a fine thing to be told that there were no evil demons; but the creature that, to their certain knowledge, they must confront again had the feel of a demon, and last time, he had won.
At length, when twilight was upon them, they judged that they must be near to the abode of the Starwatcher, yet still no enemy had challenged them. Then abruptly they came to a place where they could no longer see the path. It simply stopped, as if the trail they had been following led nowhere at all; they found themselves in the midst of an impenetrable grove that had been untouched for untold years, and the only way out was the way they had come in. The brothers looked around apprehensively, half-expecting to see that way, too, close behind them.
“I cannot understand it,” muttered Terwyn. “We came straight through only this morning—”
“We must expect,” Georyn told him, “to encounter things that we cannot understand. Undoubtedly we have been led to this place by design, and you know as well as I what is likely to befall us here.” And indeed, even as he spoke this foreboding was borne out. The brothers found themselves faced by a threat more dire than any they had anticipated, for this time there were two dark figures!
The two stood side by side, silently, cutting off the only escape from the place. Their hoods covered their faces completely; no expression could be seen. The thought of one of them was as overpowering as before: You must give me the cups! But though the other communicated nothing, the menace of his presence was all the stronger for it; the brothers sensed some great, immeasurable strength there that was only awaiting the proper moment to assail them.
Do not attempt to resist me! came the dark command. Until now I have been merciful and have not punished you for your defiance. But it will not be so if you refuse me for a third time! If I must take the cups by force, you will suffer for it.
Both Georyn and Terwyn knew full well that although they were being tested, there might in truth be a dreadful penalty for failure. The Lady had, after all, given them clear warning that it was not a game. A means of defense against the fell magic had been provided them, but, Georyn thought, they had as yet no real idea as to the use of that means. For the Enchantress had mentioned a need for control over and above that which they had exerted when they repeated the charm under her guidance, and as to the nature of that control she had offered no clue.
Yet he was sure that she had meant him to succeed in this, wanted him to succeed. So there was a way. If simply saying the magic words was not enough—and she had said that it was not—then the other thing would surely come to him, if he looked for it and did not lose courage.
You have ten seconds, Georyn! After that, I will take the cup. Do not be foolish; do not seal your own doom! The Enchantress cannot help you now.
“You cannot have the cup,” said Georyn aloud. And, holding his hands before him, he began to say the words of the charm in a firm tone.
But still, inexorably, the cup was drawn from his fingers; more slowly than with the sword or the globe, but all too surely it was being taken from him after all! Desperately Georyn raised his voice, but while continuing to recite the spell he was thinking, “I must stop it! I must, for if I fail now she will no longer befriend me. She will teach me nothing further, and worse, I may never see her again.” For it was this, even more than his antagonist’s vengeance, that he truly feared. “Oh, Lady,” he cried silently, “what is it that is asked of me? Where must I search for the answer?”
Then, even as hope was fading, it was as if there had indeed been an answer, though not from her. For Georyn found his mind filled with a glowing presence that was unlike anything he had ever felt or imagined. There were no soundless words such as had come to him from his assailant and once from the Enchantress herself; but somehow, from outside, had come knowledge. He could not interpret it; he could not put it into words of his own; but suddenly he knew how to control the spell. It was an indescribable thing, a thing like knowing how to lift one’s arm, which, if one had not been born knowing, would surely be difficult to learn. Yet this could be learned, he was learning, and he was aware, dimly, that the ability to accept such teaching depended upon the strength of one’s desire.
Exultantly, he fixed his eyes upon the cup, and for an instant it wavered, so that if it had contained water, some would have sloshed over its rim. And then it froze! It hung motionless in the air before him, as it had under the control of the Enchantress; and Georyn knew that before, even while he spoke the charm himself, it had been under her control; but now he was holding it by his own will. He was master of the spell now, and the command of the weird enemy could have no effect upon him.
That command had, rather, been turned upon Terwyn; the other cup was now being pulled toward the cloaked figures. Terwyn, his face contorted with helpless rage, repeated the words of the charm in a determined voice; but it was ineffective. Since Georyn’s mind was totally occupied with its strange new task, he could give his brother no aid; instinctively he knew that to relax his concentration for a single instant would be to break the spell. And in the end no aid was needed, for all at once Terwyn’s face took on a look of wonder as he too received the secret, knowing no more than did Georyn whence it had come.
Then joyfully did both brothers step forward to reclaim the cups; and they felt a great relief, like a rest after some arduous labor, as they took those cups into their hands. But to their dismay the cloaked figures did not vanish into the Forest; instead they advanced threateningly.
“If they want a fight,” cried Terwyn, “they shall have it, and I for one shall rejoice in the chance! We shall see who is to pay for resistance, now that we are no longer subject to their magic!”
Georyn agreed heartily. Unarmed though he was, he was not in the mood to fear a fight; and if magic of some new variety was to be employed against him, he felt quite ready to face it. However, it did not come to that, for the two figures made no move to attack them. Rather, the one whose thought was unreadable threw back his hood, revealing, to the brothers’ astonishment, a familiar face. It was the Starwatcher himself!
For a long moment, Georyn stared at him; then finally he went forward with the cup in his hands and held it out, saying, “I see that in spite of my resolve to keep this from you, I must now give it over after all.”
“That is not necessary,” said the Starwatcher. “You and your brother may keep the cups, for you have proven yourselves fit holders of them. And besides, were you to give them to me, you would want some magical weapon in return.”
“Yes, as you have promised us!” Terwyn said eagerly. “For have we not fulfilled our part of the bargain?”
“You have fulfilled it admirably,” the Starwatcher told them. Then, impassively, he went on, “But though you have done so, there is no secret that I can now give you.”
Terwyn began angrily, “You gave us your word!”
“Wait!” Thus silencing his brother, Georyn met the Starwatcher’s gaze. “There is not,” he said with an awe even greater than that which he had felt in the presence of the Enchantress. “There is not, for we already have it!”
“The secret that will overcome the Dragon?” Terwyn exclaimed. “How can that be?”
Georyn turned to him. “The charm is not for cups alone,” he said wonderingly. “It is a general thing, a thing that could be extended past imagination—”
The Starwatcher smiled. “Once again you step ahead of my anticipation, Georyn. You are too quick for me; I can keep nothing from you, not even to try your strength of purpose.”
“You have been working with the Enchantress all along,” Georyn declared. “She chose us to challenge the Dragon when she first appeared to us—even before, perhaps; it was she who arranged that we should be given these tasks.”
“Although that is not the precise truth,” answered the Starwatcher, “it is close enough, as close as you are likely to get. For we are, as you have guessed, in league; and you have been chosen to confront the Dragon. That, however, will be a more difficult task than you yet know, beside which the tests that you have undergone will be as nothing.”
“With the Enchantress’s help, and yours, surely we need have no fear!” Terwyn burst out. But Georyn told him, “If there were naught to be feared, why then would she have gone to such lengths to test our courage? For she is gentle and good and would not play with us merely for her own amusement. Is that not so, sir?”
“It is indeed so,” the Starwatcher said firmly. “In her goodness, you may have absolute trust; and you may be sure that I would never have sent you to her, were I not sure that she may have equal trust in yours.”
As he spoke thus, there was a rustle of leaves behind them, and Georyn turned to see the Enchantress herself standing on the path, wrapped in a glimmering cloak; and in her hands she carried the tall silver jug that she had used before. And the brothers went to her and held forth their cups, and she filled them, not with water this time, but with a rosy liquid that seemed like to wine. Yet it too was magical, for when they drank of it they felt an icy prickle that was unlike the tang of any wine they had ever tasted. At this, Georyn knew a fleeting fear, wondering whether Terwyn might not have been right after all, for who could say what sorts of potions a witch might have to offer?
But the Starwatcher took Terwyn’s cup, and drank also, there being not enough vessels for all. And Georyn gave his own cup to the Lady, so that she too might drink. As her hand closed upon it, their eyes met; and in that instant all doubt passed, for he saw into her heart and knew, with a certainty akin to his mysterious knowledge of the spell, that the feeling that now rose within him stirred also in her. Then great was Georyn’s happiness, and he was sure that whatever might betide in the end, he would ever rejoice in the wondrous chance that had come to him.