The sun was high when Georyn awoke. He was lying upon his own pallet in the shelter that he shared with the Starwatcher; at first, he wondered whether he had only dreamt that he had been bewitched and taken to the dungeon of an enchanted castle. But when he saw the Stone still bound to his belt, he knew that it had been no dream. It had been real, as the power of the Stone was real; and although parts of it had been nightmarish, he felt all the better for what he had undergone. In truth, he felt far more eager to set forth upon the quest than on the previous evening, for surely the worst of Dragons could be no more terrifying than this past night’s experience.
The Starwatcher was nowhere to be seen. But when Georyn went to the river for water, he found the Enchantress there before him. She sat upon a mossy log watching the clear stream swirl over the rocks, and when he went to her she rose and held out both her hands. He did not take them, for it was not fit that he should entertain the thought that had come suddenly into his mind. That she should bestow an Enchanted Stone upon him was miracle enough; who was he to dare the hope that, in parting, she might honor him with her kiss?
“Lady,” he said, from a desperate need to fill their silence, “did I indeed travel to the enchanted realm while I was bewitched?”
“No, Georyn, you did not,” she answered. “It was an illusion.”
“It was a wondrous one, then; for I have lost all fear even of being turned to stone!”
“That may be true, for the spell was so designed. But there is a difference that you must not forget! Last night your danger too was illusion, but with the Dragon, it will not be. The Stone can give you power, but it cannot make you invulnerable.”
He smiled at her and touched her hand. “Only your faith in me can do that,” he told her.
Suddenly shy, the Enchantress turned away. “Georyn,” she said hesitantly, “perhaps it is best that you should set out upon the journey today after all. Do you feel ready for it?”
“I feel entirely so, but must I not wait to consult the Starwatcher?”
“I—I think that that will not be necessary. You already have his blessing and all the aid he can give you. And now there is little time to waste.”
Georyn said, “That is so, for I do not wish to prolong your peril for a single instant. And yet—” He paused, for it seemed to him that the ordeal now ahead of him would demand far more courage than the confrontation of the Dragon. To go, and not to see her again! To turn and walk away, knowing that in the moment of his victory, if victory he won, she would pass into the forever-unreachable realm beyond the stars! He could not find any words that were adequate to be his last to her.
And then Georyn saw in the Lady’s eyes that he did not need words; she not only understood his feeling, but shared it. This farewell was no more to her liking than to his, yet to postpone it further was beyond her power.
She answered his unspoken thought. “That is not beyond my power, Georyn, for I have decided to come with you. But we must not tarry, for the Starwatcher will soon return, and he will not be pleased at my choice, I fear.”
Firmly Georyn replied, “I shall not take you into further peril.”
“My peril will be no greater than it is here!” she exclaimed, and he knew this for the first falsehood she had ever told him. “I cannot help you in the final trial, but I shall hide in the woods and watch it; and afterward, we will meet again before—before I go from this world. I cannot bear that it should be otherwise!”
“Lady,” Georyn declared resolutely, “I must go to the Dragon alone, as you yourself have told me is a necessary condition for the breaking of the evil spell that guards the monster.”
“It is necessary only that I not be seen,” the Enchantress said determinedly. “Do not set yourself against my will, Georyn. I have not given you that much power!”
“So be it, then,” Georyn said. “But my heart forebodes that this will lead us to an ill fortune. That you should be with me on this journey is a greater joy than I could ever have wished for, but if any harm should come to you, the defeat of a hundred dragons would be no victory.”
It was absolutely crazy, of course, for me ever to set off for the Imperials’ camp with Georyn. Not that Father had ordered me not to go; he’d just naturally assumed that there was no need to, any more than there was a need to order me not to go there with Evrek. But I knew well enough that he wouldn’t allow me to take such a risk if I consulted him. And I had no real idea as to what good might be done by it; I simply felt that I couldn’t bear to send Georyn into a danger that I didn’t share, not after what had happened to Terwyn. At least I told myself that. Actually, I suppose, when it came right down to it I just couldn’t bring myself to say good-bye.
Father had gone to the village that morning, since we were out of supplies again, and Evrek was away keeping tabs on the invaders. The plan was for Georyn to rest up after his night’s ordeal; his departure wasn’t to take place until the following dawn. But I knew that if I was to go along, we must leave before Father got back. I did not think he would stop me once I had taken the decision into my own hands. After all, I’d ignored his desire to protect me on two previous occasions, and he had not been angry.
Nor had I been sorry. My experience in the village had not taught me caution; it had been painful, but that kind of pain—the kind that comes from facing up to life—isn’t a harmful thing. No harm had ever come from my rash acts. I could not believe that this one would turn out differently.
The site of the Imperial colony lay on the other side of the “enchanted” forest. Since Georyn and I had started fairly late in the morning, we had no hope of getting there before nightfall; we planned to build a campfire and take turns tending it, for we traveled light, without blankets or even packs. (I had sense enough, at least, not to take any offworld artifacts with me other than the clothes I was wearing, for which I had no substitute; I even resisted the temptation to carry along extra food in the form of concentrates.) However, just as it was getting dark enough for us to be choosing a place to stop, we spotted the glare of a large bonfire off in the distance, glimmering through the trees.
It never occurred to me to be leery of that bonfire. As we approached we could see that there were quite a few men clustered around it; that these men might be unfriendly to us never even entered my mind. Georyn was wiser; he insisted that we should size up the situation before making ourselves known. There was one of the typical Andrecian stone huts nearby, abandoned by folk who, although bolder than most concerning the forest, had fled in fear from the invaders; we watched from the cover of its shadow. The mere fact of men being in the Enchanted Forest at night was suspicious, but I didn’t take that in until Georyn mentioned it. I didn’t realize that anything was amiss until we saw the girl.
The girl was young, younger than I certainly; she sat leaning against a tree on the far side of the fire, away from its warmth. She was clad in a shapeless garment of dark, rough-looking cloth, none too clean, and her long blond hair hung limply across one side of her face. At first we wondered what one lone girl could be doing in such a place. The men did not seem to be paying any attention to her; they gave her a wide berth, in fact. Then, as we circled in closer, we saw that she was a captive; her hands and feet were bound, and in her eyes was an expression I had never seen on anyone before: not terror, but a look of having gone beyond terror to the apathetic resignation of despair.
Aghast, I asked Georyn what was going on. He didn’t know, at least he said he didn’t. I think now that he must have had a fairly good idea. He understood the Andrecian mind in a way that I never shall; and moreover he knew that no villagers would camp in the Enchanted Forest, this close to the place of the dreaded “dragon,” merely for pleasure. Perhaps if I had never gone to the village with him, he would have told me of his suspicion; he would have assumed that it lay within my power to deal with this situation as with all others. But to Georyn, the probable fate of this girl must have been a very horrifying thing. He now knew my reaction to horrifying things and did not want to cause me any sadness. It was very ironic, because I would have taken a more optimistic view of this particular truth than he.
As it was, although I had no inkling of the actual intent of these Younglings, it was plain enough that they were up to no good. And I’m afraid that I didn’t have a very realistic idea of my powers as an enchantress! So far the only Andrecians I had met had respected me and welcomed my aid; I was under the impression that any villager would offer me, if not the adoration that Georyn did, then at least the deference that his brothers had accorded me. Cruel as they might be toward each other, their malice surely couldn’t extend to me. I actually thought that I could walk into that camp to demand that the girl be freed and be obeyed.
Georyn tried to stop me. “Are you sure that it’s right that you should be seen?” he asked, clearly indicating beneath the respectful tone that he was not.
“But, Georyn, those men are likely to do something awful to that poor girl! I’ve got to stop them!”
“I don’t think,” he said slowly, “that it’s been laid upon you to right all the wrongs of the world; for haven’t you told me that you are here only to help defeat the Dragon? And isn’t it possible that if we try this thing and fail, our quest may thereby be jeopardized?”
He had hit the nail on the head, of course, just as he usually did. A Federation field agent should not need a Youngling to interpret her responsibility for her; but if she does, and is lucky enough to have one who’s capable of it, she ought at least to listen to him. Unfortunately I didn’t listen, for my decision was already made.
It’s one thing to understand Service policy concerning large-scale actions, and something else to apply your understanding to small and seemingly trivial actions. I knew perfectly well that intervention in the affairs of the natives was forbidden. But I honestly didn’t think that the rescue of one mistreated girl could fall in that category! Father had explained why we couldn’t eliminate hunger from Andrecia, but he hadn’t scolded me for giving food to the starving children in the cottage. How would this be any different? It couldn’t possibly involve Imperials, so the outcome of our mission could hardly be affected.
Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way, I guess. I hope I was motivated more by genuine pity than by the desire to exercise my power. In any case, throwing off the Andrecian cloak that covered my offworld clothing, I entered that firelit circle. Georyn followed, an act that required more courage than I appreciated at the time. Then, as it dawned on me that the stares that greeted us were undeniably hostile, that the men did not immediately fall back in awe at my presence, I began to see how foolhardy I had been. This wasn’t merely a matter of policy. I’d risked Georyn’s safety, and my own.
Though I was supposedly protected from violence by the Shield, to tell the truth I was not exactly confident of my ability to safeguard myself. I hadn’t ever really used the Shield, at least not against anything other than what children usually run into. Not against any serious threat.
I had mentioned this to Father not long after we had arrived on Andrecia, and he had been very reassuring. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, Elana,” he’d told me. “I know you haven’t been trained to bring the Shield under voluntary control, but I’m positive that if you ever really need it, you’ll have it.”
“Couldn’t you teach me?” I had suggested.
“I don’t think it would be wise for me to try. I haven’t the facilities to do it safely; that type of training can’t be made too tame, you know. If it is, you simply fail and lose your confidence. The Shield’s the same as psychokinesis and all the other things; you can’t just practice, you’ve got to be faced with a real challenge.”
Father had added, “There’s only one real danger you have to watch out for, and that’s panic. If you ever land in a situation where you have to rely on the Shield, you’re going to be pretty frightened; but just remember that fear will do you more good than harm, so long as you don’t let it throw you. There’s a difference, though, between the useful kind of fear and panic. If you panic, you won’t be able to exert any psychic control at all.” He added thoughtfully, “The Shield for you, at this point, is rather like psychokinesis for Georyn. You’ve an inborn capability, but it’s not under your conscious command.”
“Father, could Georyn ever achieve the Shield himself?”
“No. Younglings haven’t such power, not even in latent form; they simply haven’t evolved far enough. If we could have given him that, the job would have been made a lot simpler.”
So here we were. I was protected on a very problematical basis, and Georyn was not protected at all. However, I had got us into this, and I would now have to see it through. I waved my arm toward the unhappy captive and said with all the determination I could muster, “You must release this girl at once!”
The general tenor of the reply was, “And who are you to say so?” I couldn’t understand all the words, and though the thought behind them was forceful I could not read it readily, as I could Georyn’s. There was some rapid talk, very little of which I caught, during which I began to get very scared indeed; in spite of the nearness of the roaring fire I felt chilly. Then finally Georyn, at my insistence, told me what he now knew for certain: the girl was the victim not of these men’s brutality but of a calculated scheme involving the whole village. She was intended as a sacrifice to propitiate the “dragon.”
And the plan would not be given up because of any objections from a strange being who appeared out of the forest. Not that the men doubted my supernatural origin; they were all too well convinced of that. But there was a side to being an enchantress that up until this point I had not seen.
High into the dark leaped the bonfire, and upon the faces of those gathered around it a red glow was cast. Georyn stood beside the Enchantress, his hand upon her arm, as she made answer to the men’s enmity. Her eyes flashed proudly, and her voice was clear and cold, demanding, “Do you dare to defy me, you who have less knowledge of this Dragon than babes at their mother’s knee?”
There were angry mutterings, followed by an ominous silence. When at length it was broken the villagers spoke not to the Lady, but to one another. “She has cast a spell upon us!” declared someone. “She speaks in the tongue of demons, yet we understand as though it were human speech.”
“I do not understand,” answered one surly fellow. “But she is a witch, without doubt; one has only to look at her to see that!”
“A dealer in fell magic,” agreed another, and fear was in his eyes, fear masked by hatred. “What else should we expect if we are fools enough to come into the Enchanted Forest, to remain even past nightfall? Are we now simply to stand here and let her bewitch us all?”
“Not unless we are witless,” a third man growled. “There are ways of dealing with a sorceress, whether she come out of the Enchanted Forest or no.”
The greatest danger in the Enchanted Forest at the moment, Georyn thought, might well be from the fearfulness and mistrust of men rather than from any magical force. Grievous misgivings had he had about the wisdom of confronting these people; without questioning the power of the Enchantress, he had deemed there to be many things in the real world for which she was ill prepared. An understanding of enchantments was one thing, knowledge of the ways of men something else! Ever since the day she had gone with him to the village, he had known that the Lady had but little of the latter, and he now saw that his concern for her safety had been well founded. The tone of these men’s comments was not at all to his liking.
Their best hope, it seemed, lay in boldness; so Georyn took a step forward and said firmly, “Not all who practice magic are to be feared. This Lady is a wise and powerful enchantress, whose notice you are unworthy to receive; pay her the honor that is her due.”
The biggest of the men, who was evidently their leader, stared thoughtfully at Georyn. “She may indeed be a powerful enchantress,” he conceded. “But does she serve good or evil? That is another matter, and one that must be looked into.”
“She is entirely good!” cried Georyn. “There can be no question!”
“No question? Ah, but stranger, how do we know that she has not bewitched you? If she has, you would surely defend her.”
“I defend her because I know her for what she is,” Georyn insisted. He turned to the Enchantress; she stood frozen now in silent dignity, but he could tell that underneath her calm demeanor she was both angry and bewildered.
“There is a way to find out!” shouted an excited voice. “Let her be put to the test! If she is innocent, no harm will be done by it; and if she is not, it will be no worse than she deserves.” There were cries of approval, and the men moved in closer, surrounding Georyn and the Lady.
“What foolery is this?” Georyn demanded, but inwardly he quailed, for he already knew.
“No evil witch,” the leader said darkly, “can face the ordeal of fire and emerge unscathed.”
“No!” Georyn declared. “I will not have it so!”
“Have you so little confidence, then?” the man inquired with a slow smile.
Georyn did not reply. It would not be wise, at this point, to mention that he had far more confidence in the goodness of the Enchantress than in the validity of the test. He put his hand upon his sword, but there were angry shouts, and his arms were seized on either side. His protests could avail nothing; the Lady was beyond his aid.
She too had been seized, but she remained unshaken; she spoke softly to Georyn while the villagers watched with growing suspicion. “Georyn, tell me what is happening!” she urged. “What have I done that they should treat me so?”
Then did Georyn reveal the grim truth to the Enchantress, for he realized that she had not taken full meaning from speech not directed toward her; and to his dismay he sensed that she was appalled. Yet her expression did not change. “I am not afraid, Georyn,” she said quietly. “I will submit to this test, if the men demand it.”
“Will your powers protect you, Lady?”
“Yes, I shall be shielded,” she replied calmly, but she was very pale. “Do not fear for me; I will come to no harm.”
“Can you know that certainly, before you are tried?” Georyn asked. He was troubled, for he guessed that she had not faced this particular sort of challenge previously, and were not enchantments at times capricious?
“Whether I can or not,” she told him, “there appears to be no choice in the matter; and should I fail in courage, my Shield would then surely fail also.”
That the Enchantress should have a need for courage was a totally new thought to Georyn; he had supposed her above that sort of thing. But if enchanted folk were subject to fear and pain even as men were, she should not risk this ordeal. “If there is any question, Lady,” he said, “I will take the thing upon myself. If one of us must depend blindly upon this Shield, it had best be me; for have I not already committed myself to the protection of the Stone?”
The Lady managed a weak smile. “That you should make such an offer touches me as has naught else in all my life. But you could not do it, Georyn, even if the men would permit you, which of course they would never do, for it would not suit their purpose.”
“Build up the fire!” shouted a harsh voice. “Bring the witch; let her look upon it and tremble!” Logs were piled on, and a tower of hot sparks rose upward into the blackness of the Forest. The Enchantress was dragged around to the opposite side of the circle so that she was facing Georyn across the barrier of the fire. The leader of the villagers thrust a long stick into the blaze and drew it out again, a flaming brand; he approached the Lady and brandished it before her. She shrank from it, her eyes dark with apprehension. Georyn could see that she was indeed trembling; he strained for freedom, but his captors held him fast.
Then in desperation he raised his voice, saying, “Look you, if this enchantress passes your test, which I am sure she can, you will only have made her angry; and the wrath of one so powerful as she is best avoided. Why should you risk that, when there is an easier way? For I have in truth been bewitched by her, even as you said, and therefore you can determine by testing me whether her enchantments be good or ill.”
“There is sense in what he says,” muttered someone.
“There is indeed,” agreed the leader. “And besides, it is in my mind that this witch would be better suited to our main purpose than yon hapless maid; yet if she is guilty and dies under the test, she will be useless to us; whereas the fate of the man is of little account.”
Shouts of assent greeted these words, whereupon Georyn was pushed roughly forward toward the fire; his hands were bound securely behind his back. He was very much afraid, but had he not been afraid before, during the tests to which the Lady herself had subjected him? Surely, if he was indeed destined to challenge the Dragon, which she had assured him that he was, the Stone would protect him now. “And in any case,” he thought, “for it to fail me, if things should come to that, would be better than for her Shield to fail; they might then at least grant her an easier death.”
Burning brands were now taken up by several of the other men; Georyn considered using the magic charm to rip them from his tormentors’ hands; but this at best would be but a temporary respite, and if he was indeed to draw the attention of these people from the Enchantress it was more to the purpose that he should offer no resistance. He drew a deep breath, hoping that he would be able to meet the coming trial without flinching.
But even as the villagers advanced upon Georyn, the Enchantress caught their intent, which was by this time all too clear, and the studied calm of her face changed to a look of stark terror. “No!” she cried out. “It is beyond the power of the Stone!” And with that she shook off her startled captors and strode quickly forward to the very edge of the bonfire, which was now blazing furiously from a fresh load of logs. The men murmured in astonishment, for none dared to stand so close as she.
The hot red light blazed on her silvery garments, and upon her breast the Emblem shone, its myriad facets reflecting the brilliance. Heedless of the scorching heat, she knelt. Georyn, across the circle from her, could not actually hear the words her lips formed, but in his mind they sounded as clearly as if she had been speaking to him alone amid the stillness of the wood. Georyn! she said to him. Whatever now betides, remember the Stone! Though it cannot give you the Shield, it is powerful; and its power is independent of mine. If I fail, you still must carry through the quest!
There was an uncertain pause; the men clustered around, silently. Though they were still hostile, there was no more jeering. The Enchantress looked up toward the stars for a moment. Then, slowly, she stretched her hands out in front of her, plunging them into the heart of the blaze.
And there was a gasp of awe, for behold! there did indeed seem to be an invisible Shield around the arms of the Enchantress. She held her hands steady, and though flames leapt about them, they were not burned. She smiled triumphantly, holding the eyes of each man in turn, and her face bore no trace of pain.
Then was Georyn seized by wonder and a great joy; and he stared at the shining Emblem, struck anew by its power and by the valiant spirit of the Lady whom it guarded. None but he knew how very brave she had been. To the others, she was a witch, born without feelings; but he knew that enchantress though she was, she had a human heart, a heart that had known real fear. And he deemed that she had won the protection of the Emblem, even as he had been required to earn that of the Stone, by her willingness to trust in it. There is ever a cost to magic so mighty, he thought, for enchanted folk no less than for men; but surely now we are well armed against the most horrendous of Dragons!
But not so soon was the ordeal ended, and the bravery both of the Enchantress and of Georyn himself was presently to be sorely tried. For the leader of the villagers strode up to the Lady and pulled her back from the fire, by his roughness breaking the aura of respect that had for a time surrounded her; and as she stumbled to her feet her unscathed arms were grasped and twisted from behind. “Fools!” cried the man, “are you frightened merely because fire cannot hurt her? She can still be made captive.”
“What are you saying!” exclaimed Georyn. “She passed your test; she is innocent!”
“Such innocence I want no part of, nor do you, if you are wise.”
“But she may help to save you from the Dragon!” Georyn protested, using the argument that he felt would have the most weight.
“She may indeed. The Dragon is angry and has taken many of our best men; we intend to offer it a maiden from our village so that it may be appeased and leave us alone hereafter. But why should we give up one of our own women when fortune has placed this witch in our hands? We will now send her to be the Dragon’s victim and see how well her powers can protect her there.”
Georyn grew cold; had she not told him that for her to confront the Dragon would be disastrous not only to herself but to the entire quest? He turned to her, reluctantly telling her the gist of this new threat, for she must perforce be warned of it if there was to be any chance of escape. To his horror her eyes grew large with dismay; far greater fright was in them than when she had knelt before the flames.
The big man held up his torch, illuminating the now-white face of the Enchantress. “Look at her!” he called out. “Dragon’s fire is a hotter flame than our poor blaze; and that, she fears!”
“If you do this thing,” Georyn said despairingly, “who knows what evil you may bring upon yourselves? The Dragon may not be appeased; it may become more powerful than ever, and then where will you be?” But he perceived that such logic would be of no avail, for to the men, torn between their dread of the Dragon and of the Enchantress’s magic, the vulnerability they now saw in her had been only too welcome.
“At dawn,” their leader was now declaring, “this witch shall be taken to the place of the demons. For now she shall be bound and kept in yonder stone hut, and you with her, stranger, so that whether you are bewitched or not you cannot help her to escape. In truth, I think that we shall give you to the Dragon also.”
Thereupon both Georyn and the Enchantress were forced to enter the hut, which was dark and cold, having neither windows nor fire; and their hands and feet were tightly bound with cords. And the Lady was rudely stripped of her shining raiment and given a coarse shift of dark cloth in its place. But the men, rough though they were, dared not touch the Emblem; and, when the door creaked shut behind them, a ray of firelight shining through a wide crack illumined it faintly, the one glimmer of light in that dark place.
Dulard had seemed only too happy to assign Jarel to the supply ship that was to leave in two days’ time. Probably, Jarel reflected, he was considered a disruptive influence on the colony’s morale because his sympathies were so openly with the natives. All Dulard had said though was, “All right, someone’s got to go in any case, to look after the natives. The regular crew’s got enough on their hands.”
“Natives?” Jarel had inquired. He could not see why there would be any natives aboard the ship.
“Specimens for the Research Center. As soon as those headshrinkers hear of a new species they start pestering headquarters about it.”
Jarel had with great effort concealed the sick feeling that hit him. He was familiar with the Center for Research on Humanoid Species; it was a very old and very respected institution with the highest of scientific reputations. The science of psychology had no doubt been immeasurably advanced by its work. Certainly little would be known of the primitive species of the galaxy without it. All the same, he found the idea sickening. To him, the natives were not mere “specimens” but people, and he did not like to see people kept in captivity.
“The only problem,” Dulard remarked, “is that they want a female. If Kevan had captured the one he blasted a while back—”
At last, Jarel had thought bitterly, someone had come up with a legitimate reason to regret one of Kevan’s impulsive killings. Perhaps, though, the poor woman was lucky to have been killed. The Research Center didn’t mistreat its specimens, but still … He was glad that no native girls had ventured into camp, for he didn’t think it likely that a scouting party would be sent out to find one. Dulard was not the man to put the request of some distant scientists ahead of his construction schedules.
“Anyway,” Dulard had gone on, “we’ll send three or four of the males. Pick out the ones in the best physical shape and give them the standard inoculations, or whatever you medics usually do. I don’t want them contaminating the ship any more than we can help; just having them aboard will tie it up in quarantine long enough as it is.”
It was a matter of opinion, Jarel had decided, as to who was most likely to contaminate whom. But he had said nothing, thinking that to indulge in any sarcastic remarks just because tomorrow was his last day under Dulard’s command would be a fool thing to do. If he was to have any career in medicine at all, he must leave the Corps with a good record.
Now, crossing the clearing under the cold black sky, Jarel was more depressed than ever. He wished that he could resign on the spot, without waiting for his tour of duty to be up, without having anything to do with this latest piece of dirty work. Yet there was no escaping it; the natives would be taken aboard the ship with or without his help. The Research Center would undoubtedly want him to start the preliminary medical workup en route, and as a physician he could scarcely refuse.
Tomorrow night would be his last on this planet, his last on any virgin world, he reflected. It could have been such a thrill, being here, if it had turned out to be anything like what he’d expected. Was he really so green? he wondered. Was Kevan right when he called him a starry-eyed idealist?
It was too bad he’d never gotten a chance to do any exploring; he still didn’t know much about what lay beyond the forest. What were they doing out there on a night like this, those simple, innocent village folk? Probably sitting by their firesides, little knowing that some of their kind had fallen victim to a cold-blooded bunch of strangers who intended to use them for their own dubious ends. How could they ever imagine the way that “civilized” people were likely to behave toward anybody who happened to be both different and weak?
Jarel didn’t feel proud of his heritage. He wished, even, that he had been born a native of this world himself. It would be nice to belong to a people with a cleaner slate than the Empire’s.
No hours so dark had Georyn hitherto known. Hard indeed was it to be an unarmed and helpless prisoner, yet harder still did it seem that the Lady should share this doom. He sensed the apprehension in her mind, and he perceived that in some strange way, mighty as was the enchantment that guarded her, she now had need of his strength. It was a situation that he had never thought to meet; until this night, all his hope had been founded upon his confidence in her wisdom and power.
At length, he worked his way across the dirt floor of the hut to where the Enchantress sat, but try as he would he could not loosen his hands to reach hers. “It was not fit that they should touch you!” he exclaimed angrily. “They will pay for it, if I am ever free again.”
“Do not be sorry that they have clothed me thus, Georyn,” she said in a sad, quiet voice. “It is better so, if I must face the Dragon. Even the Emblem must be hidden, if I can find a way to do it; and if I cannot, our position will be still worse than it is now.” She struggled with the cords that bound her hands, but it was useless.
“Why is that?” Georyn asked, and great was his consternation, for he had considered the Emblem her sole protection.
She sighed. “I must tell you the truth. Though my magic is powerful, there is a restraint upon it, a restraint that I am bound to obey. The condition under which I wield the Emblem is this: if it or its works are ever revealed to the servants of the Dragon, a great evil will be the result, for the Emblem can aid our cause only so long as they remain unaware of its existence.”
“Would it then become powerless, if it were seen?” he asked despairingly.
“For this venture, yes,” the Enchantress replied. “But worse than that, it would change and bring disaster upon the world. Whatsoever good might have been wrought by my coming here would turn to evil; no longer would there be any chance for the Dragon to be killed at all, by anyone! And even if it were not seen, should my identity become known, I would lose my power to help you.”
As she spoke thus an appalling thought came to Georyn, and he cried in horror, “Can you not then save yourself, as you did from the fire?”
“That specifically is forbidden me,” she said gently. “But we must not lose courage, Georyn. The breaking of the spell that guards the Dragon will surely require that we be tried in many ways, not all of which I am permitted to foresee, and mayhap our capture is but one of them.”
Then did Georyn recall the other condition of which the Enchantress had told him, that in the end he must lose that which he deemed most necessary to the triumph of good in order for the Dragon’s spell to be unmade; and despair weighted his heart. For naught could be more necessary to good than the Lady’s safety, and was she not facing deadly peril? Gladly would he die to defend her, if that could be of any help; but how could he fight this strange evil enchantment that he could not even understand? Bad enough had it been that he must meet the Dragon without any real plan of attack, but if she too was now bewildered and afraid, their plight was grievous indeed. It appeared that instead of going to the Dragon as challengers, they would in truth be taken there by force, no doubt to be fed to the beast! And if that were to be the end of it, it would almost have been better to have died by fire.
The Lady answered, as she so often did, his unexpressed thought. “Is that your fear? Oh, Georyn—I promise you that no matter what happens to us, we will not be eaten! We may, perchance, die in some other fashion; yet we are not defenseless. Remember that the Stone too has power, and it is not bound by the condition that holds the Emblem. There is more magic in the world than even I know of.”
“The Starwatcher! Can he help us?”
“Perhaps. If he can, he will; but he too is under restraint, for he too wears the Emblem.”
Surprised, Georyn exclaimed, “I have never seen it!”
“It is hidden, but he is far more the master of its powers than I.”
Often of late, Georyn had wondered as to the nature of the connection between the Starwatcher and the Enchantress, for it was a thing never mentioned in his presence. The Starwatcher did not wear the garb of the enchanted realm, and his hair was white, whereas the Enchantress was from her appearance a young girl; but who can judge the age of a woman who possesses magical powers? These two might be more to each other than he would care to think.
Again the Lady replied to words that had not been spoken aloud. “I see that no secrets can be kept from you! The Starwatcher is my father, Georyn. I am only a student of the art of enchantment; I must pass through much before I am fitted to wield the full powers of the Emblem.”
She sounded very young, not at all commanding; and from that Georyn got the boldness to ask a thing that he had hitherto kept hidden in the depths of his mind. “Lady, if we succeed in this venture, is it sure that you must return to the realm whence you came? Might not your father be persuaded to—to give you in marriage to a mortal, if that mortal could prove himself worthy of such an honor?”
She dropped her eyes, and Georyn could see even in the dim light that there were tears in them. “No,” she said sorrowfully, “that he would never do. For I am bound by a vow to serve the Emblem, and I may wed with no one but another who is so bound.”
“I will take any vow he asks of me!” Georyn declared, hope rising within him.
“Georyn, Georyn, the stars are not for you! The ways of enchanted folk are not your ways; you could not bear the Emblem, not if you were to slay all the dragons that exist! Valor is not enough.”
“Yet if I learn to wield the Stone?”
“Give it back to me now, if that is in your thought!” cried the Enchantress. “I would not have you do it through a false hope, not though we all die, not though the whole world is lost to the Dragon.”
But Georyn said, “No, Lady, I will not presume to that which must remain beyond my reach. But if I may not wield the Stone to win you, still will I do it to save you, if that is how it must be.”
At first, I was too stunned by the narrowness of our escape from the fire to give much thought to the difficulty of our present plight. For, by the power of his belief in the Stone, Georyn had already saved me; he really had saved me! If he had not acted as he did, I might easily be dead.
For I had gone to the fire in my own time, of my own free will, and I’m not at all sure that I’d have had the courage for that if Georyn had not forced me to it. Not even though I knew, theoretically, that it would be a wise thing to do. To use the Shield you’ve got to have absolute trust in it; you’ve got to be sure. If you commit yourself to its protection voluntarily, well, in that moment you are sure. Whereas if you wait, if you allow yourself to become a helpless victim, then you’re all too likely to find yourself besieged by doubt at the very time doubt can be fatal.
With me, it had been touch and go for a while; I had been really afraid, with a terror that made the sort of fright to which Father had exposed me seem very mild indeed. Georyn had known—and though he hadn’t understood enough of the truth to know how he was helping me, he had unerringly done the one thing that could jolt me out of it. And yet the Stone was proving truly perilous for him; we’d given him too much faith in it. What would surely have happened if I hadn’t been in a position to counteract his rash offer was just too awful to contemplate.
My strength was now at a low ebb; sustained use of the Shield takes a lot out of you. Then too, I was horror-stricken not only by what lay ahead of us but by what I’d very likely done to the chances for our mission’s success. For although the Imperials probably wouldn’t kill me, they would see me at close range; they would know I was not of the same race as the Andrecians they had previously encountered. They’d have no cause, perhaps, to suspect that I was not a native, so long as I was very, very careful not to reveal any understanding of their ways. Yet if I failed to hide the Emblem …
If I couldn’t get my hands free to drop it beneath the high neckline of the shift in which I was now clothed, the whole thing was as good as blown. The Emblem is made of a substance that is not found on Andrecia. It is not found anywhere, as a matter of fact; it can be manufactured only by a very advanced technology.
One thing was in my favor: the loss of my own clothes. It hadn’t been easy to stand still for that; but exhausted and dazed though I was, I had known it was the only thing to do. Now, providing the Emblem wasn’t seen, there seemed very little danger of an actual disclosure resulting from my capture. The peril was in the colonists’ suspicions being aroused, so that they would not accept Georyn as a typical native. My being found in company with him could easily mean that anything he might do in the way of psychokinesis would be in vain, since our entire scheme depended on their making the assumption that all the natives were alike.
Beside that problem, the question of my personal fate wasn’t very significant. Yet I must admit that it seemed significant, as I shivered through that miserable night of captivity. All in all, that night was even more of an education than my first night alone, let me tell you! Georyn eventually slept; but Georyn had both a clear conscience and an unshakable belief in the efficacy of magic. I had neither. I sat through until dawn, propped against the cold stone wall; scarcely moving, scarcely noticing even that I was hungry and thirsty, that the rough garment chafed my skin, that my arms ached from the tight cords. And when morning came the only thing I was sure of was that I would never, never again jump into anything without thinking through its implications.