Magic Three of Solatia

by Jane Yolen

  “Is all wizardry seeming?” asked Jared.

  “No, my friends,” said a dark and sinuous voice. “The slaying is real. It is very real.”

  The three friends and the two birds turned slowly toward that voice, as if they did not want to know who had spoken. Or as if they knew and did not want to see. The goose began to weep real tears, which fell silently to the castle stones.

  It was Bleakard. For so Jared and Coredderoc said together. But even if they had not, Lann would have known him. It could have been no other.

  Bleakard was dressed in a long, billowing, blood-red robe. On his head was a crown of iron. On his fingers, dully gleaming, were iron rings. A large bone flute hung from a linked chain around his waist. His golden mustache and beard were streaked with gray and ran together down his face. His eyes were like two hollows and so deeply set that Lann thought he could see neither their color nor their size, though he knew they were black. And when Bleakard spoke, his words sounded like the hissing of a great snake.

  Lann was afraid. But when he saw the goose weeping, every tear pushed him to action. “Hold, friend wizard,” he said.

  At that the wizard laughed. “I am no friend of yours, boy. But speak, as if words would help you. You are mine to do with as I will.” As he spoke, Bleakard moved toward them. And though he raised neither his voice nor his hand, there was such menace in his every move that they all stepped backward until their backs crowded the wall.

  Lann spoke then, braver than he felt. “Before every step there must be a chance,” he said. “There was a chance for us before the singing. And a chance before the seeming ended. We must have a chance before the slaying. Magic is always fair. That I know, for so my mother taught me.”

  “Feh! What do mothers know of magic.”

  Lann looked calm. He even felt calm. He put his hand on his amulet and said, “My mother is Sianna of the Song. And all I know, she has taught me.”

  The wizard looked startled for a moment. Then the sneer crept back on his face. “And you think she has taught you well, young master? For if there is any who comes even near to me in magic, it is she, Sianna of the Song. But you are not she. No son is ever the same as his sire nor the equal to his dam.”

  Lann knew that so many words were meant to keep him from his purpose. So therefore he knew what his mother had taught him was right. For one who is assured of his purpose does not need words to spur him on. He took a step forward and said again, “What is our chance then, Bleakard? Tell us that we may at least try.”

  “You no longer call me friend?” the wizard asked.

  “No, I now see you are no friend of mine, nor are ever likely to be.”

  “Well said. And truly said. I would be no friend to such weak, pitiful creatures as you. Hear me, then, Sianna’s son. A single note is not a song. And you are not your mother. However, if you or one of your motley company will give up what is most precious to him, then you are all free. And I am slain. If not…” Bleakard lifted his right hand to his beard and stroked it slowly. “If not, you will join the gray-green rocks below. Alive, yet not alive. Slain, yet not quite dead. To come and to go at my call.”

  “What does he mean?” asked one of Coredderoc’s heads.

  “I am afraid I know,” said the other.

  “I mean…friends…” said Bleakard, “that you will become gray-green rocks, as have others who have incurred my wrath or displeasure.”

  The friends turned and looked down to the lake. Each felt he could see the shape of a man or woman in the rocks that lay broken and still in the water. As if in chorus, the three friends and two birds shuddered.

  “Come, then,” said Bleakard, “the little game begins. And what have you to offer—that which is most precious?”

  “That is easy,” said Lann, not daring to look at the goose as he said it. “Here is my lute. It is my most precious possession.” He unslung the instrument from his back and handed it to the wizard.

  “If it is easy,” said the wizard, taking the lute and breaking it across his knee, “then it is not so important at all. A minstrel without a lute can still be a lover.” He looked darkly and meaningfully at the goose, and swept the broken lute aside with his foot.

  Lann looked down at the shards of his instrument. He felt doubly shamed. He had known that Bridda meant more to him than any lute. And so he had hoped to fool the magic, though he knew that magic does the fooling and is never fooled. He put his hand to his eyes and wept, and did not care who saw him weep.

  “There, lad,” said one of the dwarf’s heads.

  “There is yet a chance,” said the other.

  “Ah, what have we here?” asked the wizard with a laugh. “A two-faced friend. A counselor with no one to counsel? Well, counsel me. What have you to offer?”

  The first head spoke softly, “Take my other head.”

  The second head snapped, “Wait, you can’t give me away, I give you away.”

  “Both right and both wrong,” sneered the wizard. He laughed louder still. “You cannot give someone else away. One person cannot own another. This game is funnier still.”

  Coredderoc’s heads looked at one another. Then the eyes of the first head softened and the head spoke to its twin. “I am sorry. I mean it truly. You are precious to me. You are me.”

  The second replied, “It is true. We are both precious to each other.”

  The wizard fingered his bone flute with one hand and stroked his beard with the other. “Come now, I lose patience. You, giant, what have you to offer? Your marvelous feet?”

  The giant looked down at his feet and shook his head miserably. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but fear closed it again.

  The wizard smiled slowly and said, “And this is a company of friends. A fine rocky company you will make, too.”

  Lann looked around at his friends. He could scarcely see their faces in the gathering gloom. He realized that the sun had already gone down behind the cliff, as if to hide its face from what must surely happen to them in a moment. Darkness was fast coming on.

  So Lann reached into his shirt and pulled out a silver button on a chain, the Magic Three. For the past seven years he had lived with it on his neck, and though often he had had a need to use its power, he had never tried its might. Briefly he remembered his mother’s words those seven long years before. “Its consequences may be too hard to bear,” she had said. Yet what could be worse than the certain living death of all his company? To be forever by his beloved’s side and be unable to reach out to her, a gray-green rock in a fog-bound pool? So he twisted it in his hand, first left, then right, then right again. And as he twisted it, he said the words “Magic Three of Magic Three, grant this boon I ask of thee.”

  From out the darkened sky there came the sound of thunder. And the button twisted by itself in his hand.

  A precious gift give us to give,

  That all this company might live.

  Lann spoke the words in a whisper. There was another loud crash of thunder, and the magic button ran like quicksilver through his fingers and was gone.

  Suddenly the two birds gave a moan and began to change. First the feathers on their heads turned to hair. Their faces changed from birds’ to those Lann knew so well—his beloved Bridda and her brother. Then the feathers, soft and white on their wings, dissolved and the wings turned into arms.

  Even before the change was complete, Bred moved over to his sister. He took her wing in his and placed it in Lann’s hand. Then he knelt before the wizard.

  “I give you what is most precious to me,” he said.

  “And what can be most precious to a man who is part bird?” mocked the wizard.

  “I give you what is most precious to any—man or bird,” said Bred. “For these my friends, I give you my life.”

  10. And After

  THE WIZARD STILL SNEERED. But deep in his hollow eyes, for the first time there was fear. It was fear born of certain knowledge.

  Lann felt his heart contract with pain
and relief. He felt ashamed of such a feeling and glanced at the others. He read the same thoughts in their eyes.

  The wizard reached down for the bone flute that hung at his side. And while the horrified friends watched, the flute grew in size until it was as large as an ax and as sharp.

  “No!” cried Lann. He leaped toward the wizard and Bred. But he was too late.

  With a swift, vengeful movement, Bleakard brought the sharp edge of the flute down on Bred’s bared neck. At the blow there was the red of blood and the black of night. And the entire castle moved as if shaken by an invisible hand.

  When the darkness cleared, Lann looked around him in amazement. Of giant or dwarf, of goose or gander, of the wizard and his bone flute, there was no sign. The castle itself was changed. No longer were the rocks gray-green in color but a soft, warm brown. And instead of being on the cold tower walk, Lann was lying on a fair bed hung with velvet curtains.

  Slowly he set his feet on the floor and got up. A small arched window beckoned to him. He walked over to it and peered out. Instead of night it was noon, and the sun’s light was warm and full. The lake had disappeared and in its place was a great meadow with cows and sheep grazing and a company of herdsmen nearby.

  Lann looked about him again, wondering if it had all been simply a seeming after all, a tale to while away an afternoon, a magic entertainment planned by his mother. But then, on a chest at the foot of the bed, he saw the pieces of his broken instrument. Picking the pieces up sadly, he shook his head. His life, he felt, was as broken as the lute. His friend’s solitary death was, indeed, a consequence he could scarcely bear.

  It was then Lann saw the open door. He went through it and found himself in a long hall hung with rich tapestries.

  At the hall’s end was yet another door. And when he opened it, Lann found himself in a large pleasant room filled with well-dressed people. As he walked through the door, the people all bowed.

  “Hail, Lann, Sianna’s son,” they said at once.

  Lann looked about him wonderingly and approached the people. For surely someone there could explain the things that had happened to him and help him find his company of friends.

  Yet as he approached, the people fell back, bowing and opening up a pathway. At the end of the path was a throne. On the throne sat a kindly man who seemed tall as a giant, for he sat straight and proud. He was dressed in royal robes, yet beneath his golden crown was a face that was familiar.

  “Jared!” cried Lann.

  “It is indeed I,” said Jared.

  To his right stood a small man in robes of blue. A gold medallion hung around his neck. He was a counselor who looked at Lann with an expression he recognized at once.

  “Coredderoc, too?” asked Lann.

  “Cored one,” said the counselor. “Both in one head.”

  Lann could contain himself no longer. He ran over to the two and threw his arms around them. There was a gasp from the people and Lann drew back, suddenly remembering that Jared was a king.

  But the noise from the crowd was not for that. They were drawing apart to let a beautiful girl step through. Her hair was as soft as feathers and her face as gentle as the wind.

  “This is my daughter,” said the king, “whom I had thought lost forever. Bridda.”

  But Lann had not waited for her name. He had already gone to her side.

  It was then that Cored explained what had occurred. “It was, as you have probably guessed, mostly seeming. We have all been enchanted, for our own folly or the follies of others. The king, the prince, the princess and I in our own sad states in which you found us; the lords and ladies and cooks and stableboys as the gray-green rocks on which Bleakard’s castle was built. For he was so evil, he could only build upon the wreckage of others’ lives.”

  All the people gathered in the room nodded at this and whispered “How right” and “So true” each to his neighbor.

  The king broke in then, saying, “We would have remained forever thus if you had not come by. With love and courage you inspired us to great deeds.”

  “But it was Bred who saved us all,” protested Lann. “It was his sacrifice.”

  “Yes, in the end it was Bred, my son, who gave his life for us all,” the king agreed. “Gave it without knowing who we all were—except that we were friends.” He looked around at the assembly of people and then stood up. “Brave men do that, that others may live. And it will always be my special burden to know that at the moment of asking—though I guessed what it was that was required of me—I could not do it. I was not as brave as my own son. That is a piece of knowledge that will guide me when I must judge others.”

  Lann turned to the princess. “But if you are of royal blood, then I fear what I hope for may not come to pass. For though there was never a one such as my mother, she is of the blood of peasants, and so am I.”

  “Lann, my friend, my son,” said Jared, “you are ever as dear to me as the son I had for only a moment and lost. Marry my daughter and rule in my place. For any son of a woman as wise as Sianna of the Song is more than worthy to be a king. And Cored and I will serve as your counselors whenever such a need shall arise.” And, taking the crown from his own head, he placed it on Lann’s. Then Jared knelt before the minstrel-king. “Your servant and your friend till death,” he said.

  “May that be a good long time,” said Lann.

  “I sincerely hope so,” replied Jared with such fervor that the two friends at last were able to smile.

  So Lann and Bridda married with the blessings both of her father and of his mother, who came with her minstrel-husband to the wedding. The young king and queen shared in the ruling of the kingdom. Jared was ever at their side, leavening their judgments with his caution and wit. And Cored, too, served them well, as wise as two men, always seeing two sides of any question and balancing them both in any answer.

  It was said that every night a silver bird with a blood-red ring around its neck visited the castle tower. King Lann played it songs on his lute. Queen Bridda fed it red berries, green salad, and wine. They called it Brother Gander and swore that it brought them news of all the people, great and small, who lived under their rule. Or so it was said in the kingdom—but many things are rumored, and not all are true.

  What is true, though, is this: from that day on, no one within the kingdom was allowed to draw bow against any bird that flies in the sky or swims in the streams. And a flock of geese still lives contentedly in the palace courtyard, petted and beloved as any friends.

  Here ends Book IV

  A Note from the Author

  I had a dream about the magic buttons of Solatia. It is one of three books I have written that began with a dream. (The other two were also fantasy novels: The Wild Hunt and Uncle Lemon’s Spring, set in a magical house and on an Appalachian farm, respectively.)

  That dream, though, was the easiest part of telling the story. It was just an idea, an itch, a tiny buzz in the head.

  After that, the real work began. All the folk and fairy tales I knew came together in my mind and I sorted through them, added a combination of a Bar Mitzvah and a Quaker meeting—two things with which I am well acquainted being both Jewish and Quaker—and sent my characters off on their story.

  Jane Yolen

  A Personal History by Jane Yolen

  I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!

  We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father wa
s stationed in London running the Army’s secret radio.

  When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a house in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.

  I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book, Owl Moon—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.

  And I am still writing.

  I have often been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of America,” something first noted in Newsweek close to forty years ago because I was writing a lot of my own fairy tales at the time.

  The sum of my books—including some eighty-five fairy tales in a variety of collections and anthologies—is now well over 335. Probably the most famous are Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? My work ranges from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction, to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. I’ve also written lyrics for folk and rock groups, scripted several animated shorts, and done voiceover work for animated short movies. And I do a monthly radio show called Once Upon a Time.

  These days, my work includes writing books with each of my three children, now grown up and with families of their own. With Heidi, I have written mostly picture books, including Not All Princesses Dress in Pink and the nonfiction series Unsolved Mysteries from History. With my son Adam, I have written a series of Rock and Roll Fairy Tales for middle grades, among other fantasy novels. With my son Jason, who is an award-winning nature photographer, I have written poems to accompany his photographs for books like Wild Wings and Color Me a Rhyme.

  And I am still writing.

  Oh—along the way, I have won a lot of awards: two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, two Christopher Awards, the Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among many accolades. I have also won (for my full body of work) the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master Award, the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal, the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award, the University of Southern Mississippi and de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection’s Southern Miss Medallion, and the Smith College Medal. Six colleges and universities have given me honorary doctorate degrees. One of my awards, the Skylark, given by the New England Science Fiction Association, set my good coat on fire when the top part of it (a large magnifying glass) caught the sunlight. So I always give this warning: Be careful with awards and put them where the sun don’t shine!