“A spell to increase speed?” Catherine said. “This is from General Graten, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?” asked Vivian.
“This is part of being a wise ruler,” said Catherine. “You have to know what everyone is going to ask for before they ask for it. General Graten already has the magic sword. But what good does it do him if he can’t wield it faster than the monsters?”
“Not much good, as it turns out,” said Vivian. “We tried to fight the monsters yesterday. But they were too fast.”
“Yes, I heard,” said Catherine.
“Where did you hear it from,” asked Vivian suspiciously. “You weren’t at the battle. In fact, you refused to come out.”
“My ravens were in the trees,” said Catherine. “They tell me everything.”
“I see,” said Vivian. “Then you know we need the spell.”
“There are a couple different spells to increase speed,” said Catherine. “I don’t actually remember them off-hand, but they’re in the library. But you don’t really want to use a spell for this kind of thing. You’d have to be chanting the whole time if you were using it on yourself. If you were going to be using it on somebody else, then it gets even more complicated. You’d have to be chanting constantly and trying to redirect the spell towards them.”
“I see,” said Vivian.
“No, the thing to do for something like this is to make a potion. You know about potions, right?”
“Well, I’ve heard of them of course. But I’ve never made one myself. And I don’t even remember Talon--”
“No, Talon was never much for potions. He never really liked to get his hands dirty with all the slimy ingredients. But I’m being unfair to him. He was also a dedicated minimalist. Some sorcerers are like that. He believed that the best kind of magic was the magic that you could use anytime anywhere without having to prepare anything in advance. That way, you’re never caught off-guard, or wanting for materials. And there’s a certain consistency in that philosophy that you can’t help but admire. But for something like this, a potion is the thing. A potion consists of a long list of ingredients. Usually half of them are very difficult to obtain. Magic is like that--great powers always come at a price. But we’ll work on it together. And then, once you have all the ingredients, and once you’ve mixed them all together in the correct proportions, then, you’ll need to say the spell to truly make the potion effective. And that’s where the magic part comes in. You’ll still be using your magic powers, but it will just be directed at the potion, and not at a person. We’ll look up the potion in the library tomorrow.”
**********************************************************
The potion for super speed was indeed found in the library. Catherine went through it step by step with Vivian. “Let’s see, what do we need here? Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog. Of course, of course, that’s standard. Every potion begins with those.”
“Oh, how horrible,” said Vivian. “Do you mean we actually have to take an eye out of some poor newt? Or cut off the toe of a frog?”
“Goodness me, what do they teach you young children? Has my brother Carlyle left you with no better education than this? Eye of Newt just means a mustard seed. It’s an old name, but it means mustard seed. We can find one in the garden. As with toe of frog. It just means a buttercup. The language in these books is a bit old, so you have to know all the old names for plants.”
“Oh,” said Vivian. “Sorry, I guess I didn’t know.”
“I guess not. Okay, what else do we need? Elvish wine. Okay, we can get that easily enough. Tears from a young lady. Plenty of girls in this castle, that shouldn’t be a problem. A dash of lightning…”
“Is that another plant name?”
“No, in this case it really means lightning has to strike the potion. We’ll, no good just hoping lightning will strike at the right moment--we’ll have to use magic to summon the lightning. Which we can do. Do you know the spell? No? Well, it’s a spell every witch should know anyway. If you didn’t know it before, then it’s high time you learned it.”
“Did you say witch?”
“I hope that term doesn’t offend you, my dear. The truth is, there’s no good word for what we are. I wouldn’t call us sorcerers, since we’ve never joined the sorcerers’ guild, nor gone through their official training. I suppose you could say we’re magicians, but I’ve never liked the term magician as it is sometimes used by illusionists--people who only create the illusion of real magic. The truth is, if you are a woman practicing magic nowadays, they call you a witch.”
“But our ancestor who created this castle…” Vivian began.
“Her? You’re right they never called her a witch, did they? She was an enchanter, a mystic, a prophet, but not a witch. But those were different days. Nowadays, you know what they call us. I find it’s best to just get used to the term quickly. But if it offends you, we can call ourselves magicians, if you want.”
“Nevermind,” said Vivian, who was beginning to get frustrated by the turn this conversation was taking, partly because she felt Catherine was trying to force her to accept a name she wasn’t comfortable with. “Let’s just get on with it.”
“Yes, so I’ll teach you the spell to summon lightning. You should have learned that spell by now anyway. And let’s see…” Catherine ran her finger over the list of ingredients, “what else do we need. So far this has been looking entirely too easy. There’s always one or two items in every potion that cause problems. Ah, here it is. Right at the bottom. A dragon’s claw.”
“A dragon’s claw? How are we going to get that?”
“Well, it’s a problem, isn’t it? It’s like I said before, there’s always an item or two on the list that causes problems. But it’s not a problem we can’t solve. We’ll just have to think it through. Now, there were until recently two dragons in this very castle--Starrof and Klangor. But they’ve gone now. I believe you were the one who took them out. Do you know where they were headed?”
“I don’t know where they are now,” said Vivian.
“But do you know where they were headed?”
“The land of the fairies.”
Catherine burst out laughing. “The… the land of the fa… Oh, I’ve got to sit down. I’m laughing too hard. Help me with a chair.”
Vivian assisted Catherine in sitting down. Catherine tried to compose herself enough to speak. “So those two think that the fairies are going to restore them to their dragon form? After all the carnage and death that they’ve brought to this forest over the years. They think that the fairies are just going to forget about that?”
“They are very miserable right now,” said Vivian.
“Good. We want them to be miserable. Because if those two are ever happy, then it’s because they’re destroying something or eating someone. I’ll take them miserable any time. But I never believed that they would be stupid enough to think that the fairies would restore them. Oh, they must be desperate indeed. Okay, well, if we ever got ahold of them, we could try to get one of their claws. It would, of course, involve turning one of them back into a dragon, at least temporarily, which is not without its risks, but it's an option. Another option, of course, is to find a different dragon.”
“How would we do that?”
“Well, again there’s a couple different answers. The traditional answer is that we would go on a quest, and fight the dragon at the end of our quest, in some land far away from here. But that could take weeks, or months, or years to travel to the nearest dragon horde. And as witches, we have another option. Which is to summon the dragon here to us.”
“How would we…”
“There’s a summoning spell for dragons. I’ll teach it to you. Now, of course the disadvantage is the obvious--dragons are always a nuisance to have around. It’ll probably try to burn part of the forest, and it will definitely try to eat us. And it won’t give up its claw willingly, but of course there are spells for that too.”
Vivian put her head down in thought. “If we had the fast speed potion, General Graten might be able to better protect us from the monsters. It might save lives, but it’s not certain. On the other hand, if we summon the dragons, then the dragons may cause lives to be lost. I can’t risk anyone’s life on the proposition. It would be better not to have the magic potion, and no summoning of dragons.”
“It scares me,” said Catherine slowly, “to think that someday you will be my heir. You know nothing about how to rule. Sometimes lives have to be risked, or lives must be lost, in order to achieve what you need to achieve. That is the burden of ruling. If you can’t accept that burden, then you are not ready for the crown.”
“That’s not true,” said Vivian. “My father never believed that, and he ruled this castle for 20 years.”
Vivian knew that this would anger Catherine. Catherine couldn’t stand for King Carlyle’s name to be mentioned. But Vivian did it anyway, because she felt it was important to exert some independence from Catherine. She had allowed Catherine to teach her magic, but she wanted to make it clear that she was not accepting all of Catherine’s life philosophy.
Vivian straightened herself, and waited for the outburst that she knew would follow. But she did not expect what Catherine did next.
“Sit down, little girl,” Catherine said slowly. “And watch me. I will show you how a true ruler acts.” With that, Catherine began chanting her spells, louder and louder. Her voice finally reached a crescendo as she stomped her foot down and threw her hands up. Then a beam of light shot out of her hands, and went straight up to the ceiling. Although Vivian couldn’t see above the ceiling, somehow she knew that that beam of light was now going straight up into the sky. Vivian didn’t have to ask what had just happened. She knew a summoning when she saw it.
“What have you done?” said Vivian.
“The closest dragon is still several hours away,” said Catherine. “You still have time to prepare, if you wish. Run and get General Graten and his magic sword. That sword can cut through anything. It will be enough to cut off a dragon’s claw.”
No comments:
Post a Comment