Hilda - The Challenge

by Paul Kater

  Hilda slumped back in her chair. "You need to use your imagination, William. Think of air coming around you and making a wall around you. There is no need to do it fast yet, it would just be very nice for me to know that you can protect yourself with that."

  William tried again, but the paper ball Hilda threw at him hit his chest. Again. With a muffled grunt he picked it up and threw it back at her. It bumped off her protection. "I really don't get it. Maybe you should throw an arrow at me." He leaned on the table and studied the page again.

  "I am not throwing arrows at you if you can't even defend yourself against pieces of paper." Hilda got up. "I'm going to watch the mirror. You, please, keep trying this. Okay?"

  She took his hands in her face. "You're mine, William, and I aim to keep you for a very long time, so don't you get any funny ideas in your head about getting yourself killed because you can't defend yourself." Hilda pressed a hard kiss on his lips. Then she let go and sat down in front of her mirror.

  No matter where she looked, however, she could not stop thinking about William's inability to handle protection. That was crucial. Not at the moment, but with the challenge coming closer every day...

  29. Protection

  The next morning. The couple was outside, ready to go do the rounds.

  "Very well, mister Breakneck. If you want to try that, be my guest, but don't come whining when you fall on your face. See, that also is where protection comes in handy." Hilda stood looking at William, hands akimbo. He had announced that he wanted to try and lift off by himself. "And don't get me wrong when I stand to the side a bit, okay?"

  William nodded, waited until Hilda had reached a place that she deemed safe and mounted his broom. This morning he felt well rested. He closed his eyes to sense the magic inside him, and once he had located it he let it flow. It was there, it lived inside him and it wanted to do things for him, William knew. He held the broom with both hands and made the magic go into it.

  At first there was a mere slight tremble. Then the broom wanted to go and it told the wizard in training, who kicked off. The broom lifted William up. Until then everything was going amazingly smooth. There was just one detail missing: the soft and protective layer of air around, and most importantly, under him. The broomstick pressed hard into his genitals and pants-area.

  William gasped for air, forgot to hold on to the broom, tipped over, and as he went down, the broom went up.

  Had it been a contest, the broom would have won with ease. It shot up at least twelve feet with William's weight not holding it down, where William only fell three feet.

  Hilda held back a scream, the fall had happened much sooner than she had anticipated. She squeezed her eyes for a moment as William hit the ground, declaring it an 'oompf'. The 'ouch' sounded just a bit later as the broom, lacking magical inspiration, came down to its lord and master that lay in a heap.

  With all dangers gone, Hilda walked over to the fallen pilot. "Very subtle, William. This reminded me of a flying mallet."

  "Since when do mallets fly?", the man in blue asked from his undignified position.

  "Exactly."

  William got the hint. He got up, brushed the sand and grass from his robe and picked up the broom. "I assume there is something you want to say to me?", he asked, knowing that she had every reason to have a go at him.

  Hilda shook her head. "I think we're all in the clear now. I'll do the flying for now and you work on protecting your ass." The sparkles in her eyes emphasised her meaning: they were red.

  As they were on their way, Hilda loosely remarked: "Really, William, protection is very imperative. Did you know that Babs is a master in that field? I could ask her over to help you." His inner reaction made her giggle. She knew now that she had a powerful incentive to make him work on it.

  William was thinking about the idea of air compacting around himself. In physics-books he had read about compacting air, but that required large amounts of pressure. He was convinced that Hilda used another trick. No way that she would know about pressure and containers with air, like pressurised tanks.

  "You are thinking about things of your own world, aren't you?", Hilda asked, her broom close to William's. She couldn't understand most of the things she sensed coming from him through the link. The link, she thought, that so far only worked one way.

  "Yes, I am trying to think of things that might help me get this protection bit going. I am not making much progress with the air that you insist on."

  "Yes, okay. That is good. At least you're busy with it. Maybe in a bit you can tell me what people in your world use for protection, but now you'd better play along. The castle is coming up and I have a feeling that Walt wants to play."

  "I got the message, sweetheart, I'll sit back and you do the stunts."

  "Cool puppies," said Hilda, a grin on her face. "Just you keep that hood on your head, and I don't care how you do it."

  They swooped in over the moat again, this time Hilda made the brooms leap over the castle walls without stressing the guards, though. The guards, new ones at the gate but they had heard about the exercise theirfellows had already had, kept out of sight. Hearing about that was quite enough for them.

  Walt, the king, was outside and sat on one of the low marble benches that surrounded the magnificent fountain. "Ah... there you are," he said as the two figures floated over the water-display. His face brightened at the sight of the witch and her silent companion. "I have been waiting for you... I have a new challenge,Grimhilda, and I feel that this time I will win."

  Hilda leaned forward, resting an elbow on the bristles of her broom and putting a hand on the palm of her raised hand. "Is that for real, my dearest king? I am game, and so is my friend the wizard. But tell me... how does your wife like her dancing shoes?"

  Walt's face clouded slightly. "Sometimes I have to tie her hands behind her back, she discovered that if she puts things in her ears, she does not hear the music and then she doesn't have to dance. But hey, we live and learn, don't we? Even she does."

  Hilda caught the gleam in the king's eye and she knew he was all prepared to get them.

  Walt's hand slowly moved to the white handkerchief that lay on the seat next to him. Then quickly he grabbed it and waved it while shouting: "Now, now, now!"

  From behind shrubs men and women came running with buckets of water, and inside the castle someone was working like a sod to increase the pressure on the pipes that fed the fountain.

  Hilda shrieked her laugh as she made the brooms jump upwards, while the water-bucket people tried to throw the contents of their carry-on vessels over them.

  William had perceived the tension building up and all kinds of memories shot through his head. At the moment that Hilda made their brooms tilt upwards, a vision of an airshow floated in front of William's eyes, where he had once seen two jets revolve around each other while red and blue smoke came from something on their tail wings. The sudden rush, and the brooms lifting up straight made him apprehend that sensation. The magic that was waking up inside him was caught by the idea. Hilda sensed it also, picked up on the idea and shrieked even harder. As she made their brooms revolve around each other, William made coloured smoke trail from behind the brooms. Purple from Hilda's, yellow from his.

  The cheers that came from below and the applause that followed were the icing on the cake that the thrill of the ascent had already provided them with.

  "William, that was shiny!", Hilda exclaimed as they had reached the highest point of their climb. She looked back at the smoke that was being chased around by the wind, the yellow and purple mixing and making a stunning show before it disappeared. "How did you do that? Tell me later, we're going to stick our tongue out at Walt first."

  They spiraled downwards, without smoke.

  "Very nice try, king," Hilda said. "You almost had us there." It wasn't true, but she knew it would not hurt to flatter the king. After all, he was the king.

  The brooms swooped around the fountain and then took off into th
e sky.

  King Walt was satisfied. "Next time I'll get them."

  "So, how did you get that idea with the circling and the smoke? That was so fabulous!" Hilda made a serious attempt to smile the top part of her head off.

  "It was something of my world that sort of just popped into my head. A memory," he said. "And you picked that up quite well!"

  "This was fun! We should do things like that more often." Hilda nodded to herself. "You made pretty colours, William. You used magic, you know. I am proud of you for that. If only you could make that more consistent."

  "I'm working on that, Hilda. Not very fast, I know, but I do my best. And the fact that this little bitty worked just gave me a good idea. Coincides with your question from before, about how people in my world protect themselves."

  Hilda picked up his underlying thought. "By using examples of your world, things you know."

  "Precisely. I just have to find out what examples work..."

  "Shiny. As long as you don't start experimenting up here, okay? It's a long way down."

  William looked at the green earth and the trees below. "No kidding. I'm not going to do anything heroic up here, believe me." They were at least three hundred feet up in the air. "Where are we going after the village?"

  "We could go visit the shepherds again. I know they are on a different slope today. Oh yes! Let's do that, I suddenly thought of the most wicked idea!" Hilda beamed at him, filling him in on her plan as they were approaching the village.

  There was no market in the square that day. The village look a bit dull and dreary.

  "Hood?", Hilda opted to William.

  He winked at her, willed his hood on his head and was ready.

  "We're going to slowly cruise some of the streets," Hilda told him. "Make them see us. I doubt there will be anything worth doing, unless we make something happen ourselves."

  William just nodded, he knew they'd be fine.

  Hilda dropped them into one of the streets and hovered them there for a while as she watched the few people who were walking along or working there.

  They all knew Hilda the witch and greeted her and William. Nobody was afraid of the woman on the broom, unless they had something on their mind. Hilda had an uncanny gift to pick up on things like that.

  Hilda floated them through the street and from there into another one. This second one had a lot of small workshops. Furniture was made, all by hand and beautifully made. William was disappointed that they could not stop so he could have a closer look.

  Hilda looked at William for a moment and smiled. She sensed how he felt. They past the shop of the tailor and the seamstress, the house of the woman who cooked for the sick and the elderly and at the end of the street was the shop of Johan the mirror-maker. "We'll go in here," she said to William as they were out of earshot from anyone. "This is a nice person, he makes my mirrors."

  Well-trained, William got off the broom and held it in his hand until he knew what Hilda was doing. She winked and simply put hers against the wall of the shop.

  "Hello Johan, my favourite mirror-maker!" Hilda came in and it was impossible not to notice her. There were two customers in the shop, who respectfully backed away as the witch and her silent companion entered the shop.

  "Honourable witch," Johan said, from behind his work table. "Is there something I can do for you?"

  "Nah, everything's fine. I just wanted my friend the wizard to meet you. This is Johan," she said to William.

  "Hello, honourable wizard," Johan said. He did not come to greet William as he was working on a crucial part of a mirror.

  William made a slight bow, keeping his silence. He hoped that was the appropriate thing to do. He had the time of his life, so to speak, to be in this little shop and see what was going on, to smell the real life of this town.

  "My friend the wizard may be around for a little longer," Hilda told Johan, "and I thought that it would be good if you meet him. It could be that he needs a mirror in the future, so it makes things easier if you have seen each other."

  Johan stared at the man in the blue robe and the black cloak, an equally black hood over his head. "I'm afraid there is not much I can see of your friend, honourable witch."

  Hilda frowned without showing it. The man had a point there. Well, there was no harm in this, she decided. The witch turned to William and nodded slightly.

  William did the best thing possible: he let the hood slide off his head by using magic. The two people in the shop gasped for air, they were not used to being near witches and wizards, so seeing magic used at such close range was something awe inspiring for them.

  Johan, more used to special effects like that, nodded at the 'wizard'. "Good day, honourable wizard."

  "Good day, Johan. It is good to meet you." William was at a loss how a proper wizard would address an ordinary he did not know, so he kept things a bit reserved and distant.

  "Where he comes from," Hilda quickly pitched in, "the magical people are not so keen on telling others their name. He is still getting used to our village."

  Johan nodded and William got the hint. "My name is William."

  The two people in the shop whispered among themselves.

  Johan stared at the two people and tried to shake his head violently without any witch or wizard noticing it. He knew that Hilda did not like it when ordinaries near her were whispering. The two people failed to notice Johan's gesture. Hilda and William didn't.

  The wicked witch stepped up to the two people. "Sorry if I interfere. Is there a problem here?"

  The tallest man looked at Hilda. "No, no, everything is fine, honourable witch."

  "Really. You could have fooled me, the way you were whispering. Don't you know that it is very impolite to whisper with a witch present? Especially this witch?"

  "Yes, we do, but-"

  "Ah!" Hilda's voice became sharp as a razor. "You know! And yet... tsk tsk tsk." Her wand appeared. "I think it would be very good if you were to wait outside. Don't you agree, William?"

  William decided to follow Hilda's lead and made his wand appear also, keeping a rather relaxed stance for now.

  Hilda grinned. "And do let me give you a hand..." Her wand twitched a bit, and the man who had talked to her slowly levitated a few inches. She looked at the open door, and the man floated calmly to it. He suddenly found himself outside the mirror-maker's shop and he plopped on the street.

  William did nothing but keep an eye on the other man. After all, he had done hardly anything. Well, he had done the whisper bit also.

  Hilda turned to the other man. "See... I really have a problem with whispering people. Especially if they are talking about me or my friends. And as you were indeed whispering about William the Wizard, I can only do one thing."

  The man felt an invisible hand grab him in the collar, lift him, and moments later he too stood in the street, next to his friend.

  "Do call again," said Hilda, "but not when we're here."

  The two whisperers stood outside the door for a few more moments, still not sure if this had really happened.

  William, curious about the two, was focussing on them. Hilda sensed how he was not paying attention to anything inside the shop. Then there was a very rapid sequence of things that happened.

  A strange sensation made Hilda look at William. William looked at the open door and lashed out with his wand. He knew that magic was inside him, it acted through him. He had an idea of what had happened.

  "What?", Hilda asked in her direct way. She had sensed the jolt.

  "Not sure..." William walked out the door, Hilda on his heels, leaving Johan wondering and stuck with his mirror.

  The two men stood frozen in motion. The small man had his hand around William's broom, the tall man had lifted his foot to kick and probably break Hilda's broom.

  William's hand, the one carrying the wand, trembled slightly. "I thought I felt their intent and just acted." It sounded as if he was apologising. He felt the power of the magic in his body, it permea
ted his entire being, and it held the two man where they were.

  People appeared in the street, looking at what was going on near Johan's shop. Even Johan deserted his mirror as he noticed there were people gathering in front of his workshop. As he saw the situation, he cursed.

  All this happened in less than twenty seconds.

  "Okay. Nobody touch them," Hilda said, rather unnecessary. She removed her broom from the danger zone that was the large man's foot, and then she magicked William's broom from the smaller man's hand. "You can release them now."

  William's sudden anger that was feeding the magic only subsided slowly. He was certain that a proper wizard would be much more in control. As the hold on them unbound, the two men started moving again, slowly at first and more normal as William's hold fell away. It had a dramatic effect which left a profound impression with the bystanders.

  30. Things that go bahhh

  The two men stared at the witch and the wizard. They stood with their backs against the wall of Johan's shop and kept their mouths shut.

  "Very nice," Hilda muttered. "So now we have two people here who are not only disrespectful towards the local witch, but who also find some childish pleasure in destroying the property of the witch. And the wizard." Hilda turned to the large group of people that by now had assembled. "Do you want to take care of these people?"

  A murmur went through the crowd. The people were aware that the two men would be better off if the villagers were to punish then, but that it would be awkward for them to punish the two as they had offended the witch.

  "I thought so." Hilda turned to the two men again.

  William had kept his eye on them, and his wand also, although he was not sure what he could do if the men decided to try and make a run for it.

  The wicked witch slowly recited a spell, her wand pointing at the two men. Then she nodded, satisfied. "You'll know what people mean by 'I smell a rat'," she said. Hilda winked at William. "We're done here."