The Penwyth Curse (25 page)

She whirled about, fisted her hands, then opened them
with her fingers splayed in front of her face. She grinned at him through them.

He was naked.

She began to laugh when he realized that he was sitting in the midst of huge platters of food—deer, squirrel, hedgehog, hare—wearing only his knife sheathed on his forearm.

“Replenish yourself first, prince. I can now judge how the meat improves you,” she said, and laughed when he settled his perfect naked self cross-legged on the floor in the middle of all those platters of meat. He spent a few moments making his selection, then picked up a small bit of hedgehog. He never looked away from her face as he ate it. She looked at his strong, beautiful body and stepped toward him, such a powerful urge it was, and she didn't deny it. He gave her a slow smile—blinked once, then twice at her—and she too was naked. He made room for her between the woodcock and the quail.

“I'm a demanding wizard,” he said. “You need to keep your strength up as well.” He fed her, caressed her just as she was caressing him between bites, and the air was pungent with the smell of the blue smoke and the roasted meat rising above their heads.

And outside in the courtyard, the smell of sweet wood-smoke filling the air, the ghosts sat by their small fires and sang their blessing, their sweet harmony rising and dipping, floating through the branches of the oak trees, and into a night that was warm and soft, and all knew that no enemies were in the oak forest that night.

27

Sometime Else

M
AWDOOR HADN
'
T LAUGHED
so hard since the time fifteen years before when his vicious grandmother had granted him two wishes because he'd cut out the heart of one of her enemies. He would never forget the look on the old witch's face when his second wish was to have her walk into the sacred oak forest blindfolded, and stay there.

Aye, the look on her face had made him feel very clever indeed. He'd waited, his own cleverness pumping through him, to see what his grandmother would say. She hadn't said anything, nor had she gone into the forest. What she'd done was to cover his face with a soggy red rash for a full three months. Still, even with a face that brought scores of averted eyes, he'd believed it worth it.

Mawdoor was looking at the men he'd sent to kill the prince. They were all tangled together, one man's leg twisted through another's clasped hands, another man's head sticking between yet another's legs, eye level to his behind, and Mawdoor couldn't stop laughing. And
Branneck—just look at Branneck, hanging there, as if by invisible cords from the heavens, screaming his head off, still holding the bloody knife that, Mawdoor hoped, had indeed slain the damned prince of Balanth.

Such a short time ago Mawdoor had been willing to live and let live, a philosophical stance he'd had no choice but to adopt when he realized it wouldn't be at all an easy thing to kill the prince of Balanth.

But all that had changed when he'd seen Brecia, that witch of the oak forest, who with one look made him as hard as the rune diamond that blinked like spun light, and whose symbols meant nothing he knew of. And he'd found out very quickly that the prince wanted her too.

He wanted the prince dead.

And now Mawdoor knew that Brecia had taken the prince, alive or dead, to her fortress deep in the oak forest, a place he'd never seen. He'd only heard whispered tales about it in the deep of the night.

In hindsight, Mawdoor realized he should have given the men more than just a dash of power. As soon as he thought it, he dismissed it. No, that wouldn't ever be a smart thing to do. Mortals fast became monsters when given even the simplest of powers. All had seen over the years how mortals, given even a dash of a wizard's power, enthusiastically tried to tear the earth apart in a very short amount of time, and each other with it. Mortals were a distrustful, lame lot, worth about as much as demon piss.

Branneck hadn't stopped yelling that he'd stabbed the prince in the chest—killed the arrogant bastard—until Mawdoor had taken that same knife and stuck it cleanly through the man's neck, just to shut him up. And since it wasn't smart to leave people around who very possibly had failed in their mission, he killed the other three men as well.

Before Mawdoor killed him, Branneck had sworn that the prince couldn't have survived the knife stuck in his chest, that Mawdoor's magic poison that Branneck had pierced deep into the prince's chest had to have done the
trick. He claimed that damned woman had tangled them all up and hung him in the air as if he were naught but a buzzing fly. And as for the damned women, they'd been no help at all. They'd just stood there pointing and laughing. One of them had even waved her fingers at Brecia, as if in thanks. If he could have, Branneck would have slain all three of them himself.

Had she somehow managed to save the prince? Mawdoor stood there, rubbing his hand over his jaw as he looked at the dead mortals, knowing in his gut that this was a witch's work, not a wizard's.

Mawdoor took the three women to Penwyth and gave them to the old men, who unfortunately had no memory of what to do with the splendid gift, but knew they should be pleased. They'd sighed, knowing there had to be some memory of pleasure in their ancient brains.

By nightfall, the old sots were waiting hand and foot on the women, out of breath with all the demands but relentlessly eager. The old women watched and laughed. The young women preened and demanded endless favors.

As for Mawdoor, he realized he would have to wait to learn if the prince was dead. He couldn't enter the oak forest. He knew in his wizard's bones that very bad things would happen to him if he tried. Everyone knew about the ghosts, the ancient ones who had gone beyond, yet who had elected to remain in the forest. Mawdoor wondered if the ghosts knew what became of those who decided not to remain deep within the forest when their time ran out.

It was said that most ghosts remained because all knew that they drew strength from the soul of the trees that encircled them, drew their haunting songs from the rustle of the oak leaves in a light night breeze, drew their substance from the rays of the moon that speared through the leaves onto the forest floor.

And they protected Brecia, even from a powerful wizard who had wanted her since—it had only been one spring ago, he remembered, at the sacred meeting stones.
Odd how it seemed longer. He'd listened to stories of when she'd been just a small witch, unsure of her powers, learning from the ghosts, learning from the very powers that resided in the great stone circle on the plain of southern Britain. And she'd turned a local chieftain who'd murdered a child who happened to wander into his path into a two-headed goat—a female goat who had been milked for the next ten years. All laughed at that story, he as well.

And then he'd seen her. She wasn't a small witch anymore.

He bellowed out several full-bodied curses, and it made him feel better.
The prince.
The bastard had to be dead. He realized he didn't even know the prince's real name. Anyone who spoke of him simply said “prince,” and they said it with admiration, with liking, with awe, and with fear. When the prince had been newly born, his mother standing over him, she had said to Mawdoor, “Ah, say hello to my little prince, Mawdoor. Is he not perfect?”

And Mawdoor had looked down at that wizard scrap and hated him to the depths of his soul. Aye, and now the prince was treated with great respect, and that was perhaps the worst of it. It grated in his belly.

Mawdoor of Penwyth—now his was a good name, a solid name, one that would carry on far into the future. Mawdoor, the name given him by his mother, a witch of excellent parts, not his father, who'd been a rank and dangerous demon, he'd been told often by his teachers, a demon whose teeth were always wet with human blood. He himself didn't care for human blood, and truth be told, that relieved him. His father had come to a bad end. Aye, thankfully, he was more like his witch mother—powerful, determined, and patient.

He would wait now. In truth, he could do nothing else. If the prince were indeed dead from Branneck's knife, would Brecia know it was he who had paid the assassins to kill him? If she did know, what would she do? Did she love the prince?

No, he would never accept that, never. Brecia was fated for him and him alone. He had to prepare his fortress for her. Penwyth was waiting to enfold her in its great seamless darkness, and he would keep her here with him, breeding great sons, until time itself rusted with age and collapsed under its own feeble muscle and dissolved into the very air that hung about it. No one would take Brecia away from him once he had her. No one.

As for her powers, he knew she could not compare to him. He found, however, in odd moments, when he prayed to whoever listened to wizards, that this was true, that she would be his and his alone forever.

But the two of them had escaped him before, and that was a worm in his innards. He didn't know how they'd shattered the bubble he'd fashioned, but they'd managed it.

Was the damned prince dead?

The damned prince leaned close to her ear, his breath perhaps warmer than it had been the night before when he'd traced his tongue over that lovely little shell, and made her start singing with the ghosts. She knew even without looking at him that he'd felt the lovely desire that whistled softly through her blood at just the touch of his tongue, the whisper of his breath, the light stroke of his fingers on her flesh. He was smiling, so sure of himself, the damned wizard.

“Say what you will say and don't play with me,” she said, drawing away from him, just a bit, just enough to get her brain under control again. How had this happened?

“You love me, Brecia,” he said with great satisfaction, still too close to her ear, and she started tapping her foot, to distract herself.

She said, “You have the brain of a toad. You don't know anything.”

“I know that you had but to save my life to realize you love me, to recognize it deep within yourself, to surrender to it and to me. When my parents hear that I nearly gave
my life to win you, they will be awed by my resolve, by my perseverance. They will believe me remarkable.” He frowned at that. “Well, they already believe me remarkable.”

“That is not what happened at all, you fool.”

He just shook his head at her and looked at her closely. It was difficult, nearly painful, but he continued looking. He said, “You are excessively ugly, Brecia, more ugly than you perhaps had to make yourself. Your head, it looks powerful strange.”

“I have disguised the two of us quite well. Mawdoor will not recognize us, you'll see. You think I'm ugly? Ha, if there is a pool of water, look at yourself and fall over dead with horror.”

He only smiled as his fingertip traced her ear again, and he felt the jump of her heart as he said, “This adventure I will tell beyond the time of our children's children. How the witch Brecia made herself so remarkably repulsive that it took all the prince's guts to keep him from looking in the opposite direction.”

“We are standing outside Penwyth and you are speaking about our grandchildren. You must pay attention, prince. You must stop your play.”

He looked to be in pain, then he smiled, this wizard prince who looked like an ancient, gnarly sot, and she wanted him—despite filthy tangled gray hair, lines as thick as a gown's seams dug in his face. It was amazing, this wanting, something no one had ever before explained to her.

He said, “All right. Tell me what you have planned for Mawdoor, Brecia. Is it bloody? So painful that all the ghosts' fires will leap into the air, filling the sky with orange flames?” He sighed. “No, you haven't the finesse. You want me to stomp his wizard's guts into the ground, don't you?”

Slowly Brecia shook her head. “You will see. First things first. Now, look at me, prince. Do you see an old
woman who is as decrepit and ugly as you are in your rotted old carcass?”

“Aye, just looking at this old hag makes my guts cramp. Yet I love every black tooth in her ancient mouth. Don't I?”

“The ghosts told me that Mawdoor keeps a very special golden cask that holds his demon father's visions. They told me it is so terrifying that Mawdoor keeps it locked away and hidden.”

“I have heard of it, now that I think about it. What else did the ghosts tell you?”

“They said that if the chest is unlocked and opened, Mawdoor will be sucked into old, violent visions conjured up by his father and used eons ago to slaughter his enemies, a loop of very unpleasant visions, visions that even a wizard cannot escape.”

“Will he die in the visions?”

“I don't know. The ghosts say that once he's inside, it will hold him forever.”

“Well done, Brecia,” the prince said, rubbing his bent old hands together. “That would be good for Mawdoor. He has crimes heaped high on his door stoop. He has slain many mortals in gruesome ways, but worse, he believes himself above the commonsense rules and compromise, and the reasonable continuation of the world, and that is more dangerous than I can say.”

“I understand. We must find and unlock that chest.” Brecia looked up at the old man who stared down at them from Penwyth's wooden ramparts.

She called up in an old woman's querulous voice, “Hear me, gracious keeper, my husband and I seek word with Mawdoor.”

“I am Supney. I guard the gates on Fridays. I am the one who decides who will and who will not be allowed to come into Penwyth. It is I who give all the orders. And I say to ye, no words with the master now, old woman. Get ye gone. Just look at ye, old crone, yer face fair to
makes my gizzard clamp shut. My lord Mawdoor has no time for someone as old and ugly as ye are.”

“My husband is just as ugly. Why don't you remark upon him?”