When he returned to his table, he drained another cup of wine and had one of the servants fetch Constantine. The artificer came simpering up a few moments later.
“Well, mage, will you be dancing tonight or is my fool finally working?”
Constantine nodded. “Oh yes, your Grace, it is working wonderfully. I believe you will be quite pleased.”
Philip had actually been hoping he could force the mage to dance, but if the fool worked, it would have more of an impression on his guests.
Well enough. He waved the man away.
“Have it ready at the top of the hour.”
“Yes, your Grace. Of course.”
Philip went back to drinking and dancing, until a servant came up a while later asking if he wanted the fool to perform now. He nodded and went back to his table.
One of the servants rang a bell until the room quieted and everyone looked his way.
“Yes. I have prepared some entertainment for you.” He motioned toward the rear of the room. “Something my artificer created. Make way for it.”
The dancers spread out toward the sides of the hall. Constantine was at the opposite end with the fool. The guests murmured when they saw it, and Philip had to concede Constantine had done a good job with its appearance. It indeed looked like a brass dwarf, complete with a pointed hat and long curly beard. The toes of its shoes were curled up in little spirals of brass. Whether it could perform adequately, well, he was about to see.
The dwarf pranced forward, dancing about in circles, tapping its feet and moving its arms around its body. The guests laughed and clapped their hands. It circled forward, spinning a few times, then turned a somersault on the floor before jumping to its feet again.
It danced about like that for a minute or two before Philip wondered if it was going to sing as he had requested.
He did not need to wait much longer. The dwarf completed its dance with a pirouette in the center of the room, then stood straight with its hands on its hips. As the guests applauded, the dwarf went to a nearby table and grabbed a mug of ale. Then it started to sing in a rollicking voice, waving the mug back and forth.
“A shepherd ’neath a tree one day
As shadows grew more long
Drew out his pipe and made to play
How merry was his song.
“A buxom damsel from the town
With basket made of straw
Came gathering rushes on the down
And smiled when him she saw.
“The shepherd’s pipe did gaily sound
As on her back she lay
And when his quivering pipe she found
How sweet the lass did play.”
The guests roared with laughter, though Philip rolled his eyes. Ribald tavern songs were not what he had in mind, but if the guests were entertained, so be it. The dwarf continued the tune, now dancing a merry jig as it sang.
“The shepherd long did tune his pipe
And played her loud and shrill.
The maid his face did often wipe
With thanks for his good skill.
“‘I never was so pleased before
This time I first knew thee.
Play me, sir, this tune once more
Don’t doubt I’ll dance to thee.’”
This produced more peals of laughter as the dwarf pranced around.
“The shepherd said, ‘As I’m a man,
I’ve played from sun ’til moon.
I’ve played as much as ever I can,
My pipe is out of tune.’
“‘To ruin a shepherd, I’ll not seek,’
She laughed beneath the tree.
‘I’ll come back down from town next week
For your pipe I’ll come to thee.’
“She never much as blushed at all
But sweetly played her swain
But ever anon to him she’d call
To play a shivering strain.”
The crowd roared and cheered, some of them wiping tears from their eyes. Then they applauded in Philip’s direction. He nodded, accepting the praise. Constantine had outdone himself. Yet when Philip finally looked in his direction, the artificer did not seem proud or even pleased. Instead he stood at the back of the hall, dumbstruck.
Some inchoate concern tickled the back of Philip’s mind. The dwarf stalked back to the center of the room and started another song. This one was slower and more measured, and Philip did not recognize it.
“In the noble land of Hessen
There resides a family old.
Long composed of men and women,
Fine and wise and true and bold."
Philip nodded, his concern waning. If Constantine had written this one himself, it seemed harmless enough. The dwarf sang on.
“Long ago, they faced a mystery,
One that threatened children fair.
Babes would vanish in the mid-night
Gone as if into the air.”
The guests murmured. Philip’s alarm came rushing back. He looked to Constantine, who was slack-jawed in horror.
“Hessen Landgrave noble Louis
Sent his men to seek the babes.
Many of them died so bravely
Fighting spirits, ghosts and shades.
“In the end, the beaten witches
Promised never ’gain to take
Marburg’s children, changeling switch-ed,
Nor to weeping mothers make.”
Philip was frozen in his chair, unable to believe what he was hearing. This was not Constantine’s doing at all.
“All they asked was when the children
Were with witchly talent born
Then the Landgrave to the sylvan
Coven would he bring them forth.
"Nigh a century did the Hessen
Landgraves keep the cov’nant true
And the witches kept their bargain
Stealing not the children too.”
Now the guests were growing agitated, looking around at each other in concern. Their agitation was not stilled by the look of terror on Philip’s face. The dwarf sang on.
“Yet came Philip, son of William,
Thinking he could spurn the pact.
Know full well he is the villain
And the witches will react.”
Every eye in the room was now fixed on Philip.
“Babe they sought has now been taken,
Carried off into the night.
Will the cov’nant be forsaken
Or will Philip be contrite?
“What may come is not their doing,
But the fault of the Landgrave.
Peace the witches still pursuing
With this false and callow knave.
“Guard your children from the witches?
Threats from them you need not fear,
But those callous rulers vicious?
For your babes they will appear.”
As the song came to an end, the automaton dwarf began glowing with an intense purple luminescence, bright enough to make some of the guests shield their eyes. Then something exploded from within it, a flash of burning light that shot out through the nearest window, seeming to laugh soundlessly at the shocked humans watching it go.
It left pandemonium in its wake.
26.
ARIEL WOKE with a lurch, unsure of where she was. It was dark, and she was cold. Gradually her wolf-sight made things more clear. She was lying on her back in a forest.
Things came back to her quickly. She had come to the spring, and waited. Then someone had appeared in the clearing, and—
There were voices.
She realized suddenly that the fog clouding her mind the entire day was gone. She felt whole and focused for the first time since . . . since she had touched the water in the spring.
And she sensed something she had been missing for the past day as well. The bond with her sister and her husband.
Whose voices she now heard.
Ariel leapt to her
feet. She was perhaps ten yards into the woods from the clearing, and she could see the two of them. Astrid was lying on her back next to the spring, and Erich was holding her.
She ran toward them. Erich, then Astrid looked up as she reached them, and she threw herself into their arms. The three of them held each other for several long moments.
“My God,” Erich gasped. “Where have you been?”
“I . . . I don’t know, exactly. I was confused. But it’s gone now.” She looked down at her sister and took her hand. “Are you all right?”
Astrid sat up, looking down at herself. “I think so.”
“What happened?”
“I touched the spring.”
The two of them looked at each other. Then Ariel noticed something.
“Astrid, your ring. It’s like mine now.”
And it was. Both rings were now shifting slowly from blue to purple and back again. Astrid stared down at hers in amazement.
“What does this mean?” Erich asked.
The memories that were not hers came back to Ariel.
“I think there is something in this spring, someone’s memories that—”
“The witch,” Astrid said. “The witch who took the children.”
Ariel gasped. “You have them too, now?”
Astrid nodded. “Yes. I can see her.”
“She was here. And in Marburg. Doing things.”
“I know.”
Ariel’s head suddenly ached, and more memories—hers, this time—came back to her.
“I saw her,” she gasped.
“What? Where?” Erich asked.
“Here. Tonight. I was sitting here, trying to understand, and she came. But somehow, I could not speak, or do anything. I saw purple, from the spring. I think she tried to enchant me, but instead, it merely drove me backwards, into the woods. There was some conflict in the Flow. I must have fainted.”
Astrid climbed to her feet, looking at herself, then Ariel, then the spring.
“I feel no conflict. I feel better than I have since we came to Marburg.”
Ariel nodded. “As do I.”
She felt better than that, even. There was something new here, something she felt but could not quite identify. It was in fact much the same as the change she had felt upon marrying Erich. She had gained something.
She looked to the spring, then to Astrid. Ariel saw it in her eyes. With their twin magic, deuolhud, their talents were too intertwined to do anything alone.
“You feel it too.”
“Yes.”
“What?” Erich asked.
“I don’t know what it is,” Astrid said. “But our flows have changed. Our talents.”
“How?”
“It must have been the spring. That’s why Ariel has been so confused. It changed her, but not me. That severed our bond somehow. It was repaired when I touched the water.”
“But how are you changed?”
Ariel reached for her sister. They touched hands, then, thoughts in unison, they reached out into the forest. As they did so, Ariel saw streams of purple and indigo energy flowing out of the spring, exactly as she had seen in the witch’s memories. They saw the faerie creatures in the woods around them, charmed by some spell to this spring and the land. But it was a spell that matched their flows somehow.
The sisters called to the erlkings and will-o-the-wisps and other creatures, and they came. One by one, they appeared at the edge of the clearing.
Erich started, reaching for his sword, but his wives’ calm demeanor stayed his hand. Shadow hung between them, watching warily, but did nothing.
The clearing was now lit as bright as midday by an intense violet glow. Both of their rings were miniature purple suns.
“How is this possible?” Erich gasped. “What are you doing?”
“These creatures are charmed,” Ariel said. “Charmed by the witch who rules here.”
“Then how are you controlling them? You are naturalists, not mystics.”
Ariel and Astrid looked to each other.
“I think we are also mystics now,” Astrid said.
IT MADE NO SENSE. But the evidence was undeniable.
“I do not understand,” Erich said as they absorbed this development, still stunned.
He sat on one of the stones as Ariel and Astrid walked around the clearing remembering things they had not done and feeling out the textures of their changed flows. Streams of purple and indigo trailed behind them. Ariel caught the energies in her hands, making them swirl around her.
“You told me once,” Erich went on, “‘one does not chose a school, it chooses you.’ How could you have gained such talent all at once?”
“I know,” Ariel replied. “That is how it is supposed to work. I cannot explain it.”
“I can only surmise that this witch put something of herself into the spring,” Astrid said, “and somehow we drew it out.”
“I am certain of it,” Ariel said. “I know her spells, the things she could do. I remember them as if I did them myself.”
“As do I. What she could do, so can we now.”
Erich looked back and forth between them in concern. “But this witch lives. You met her. What is she going to think about this?”
Ariel tried to sift through the memories to make some sense of this but got nowhere.
“I cannot tell,” she said finally. “The memories are too jumbled. I cannot tell what happened yesterday and what might have happened decades ago. It is all the same.”
“Nor can I,” Astrid said. “I can make no sense of it.”
Erich stood.
“Then we had best leave. If you can see her memories, there is a chance she can see yours. And I am willing to bet she will not be happy about this.”
THEY RETURNED rapidly to Marburg. When they arrived at the gate, Erich prepared to offer another—and what would surely be a larger—bribe to the guards to let them back in. And at first, that appeared to what the guards expected. But when they noticed Ariel and Astrid, a strange look came over them and they opened the gate without another word.
“Did you do that?” Erich asked quietly when they were past the gate.
“I don’t know," Astrid said. "I think the witch must have them all charmed, and they are reacting to us the same way they would to her.”
The square was empty save for a woman in a dark cloak sitting by the fountain. Erich found that the innkeeper had not let their room from the previous night. As none of them had eaten much of anything that day, they settled in the main room and ordered up dinner. Shadow curled up under the table and Erich fed her bits of boiled beef from the stew the innkeeper brought them.
“Explain this to me again,” Erich said as they finished eating. “Your talents for naturalism are not gone?”
“No,” Ariel said.
“Are you sure?”
Ariel glanced at her sister. “I don’t think so. That part of me doesn’t feel any different.”
Astrid reached out for her, and they touched fingers to conjure up a small flame as they often did. The flame came, but—
Both of them gasped. The Flow Ariel could always sense when they cast their spells was suddenly visible, streams of celadon, olive and chartreuse swirling in to feed the flame.
“Do you see it?” Astrid asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s just like the spring, except it’s green.”
“It’s the Flow. We can see the Flow now? How?”
Astrid turned to Erich. “Something has changed. We can see the Flow now, when we cast, it’s . . . ”
Her voice trailed off. Ariel only then noticed the blank look of shock on Erich’s face.
“Husband?”
Erich blinked, then finally looked at her.
“I see it, too,” he said.
Ariel and Astrid stared at him, speechless.
“I saw the purple, at the spring,” he went on, “but I thought it was just the enchantment there. But it’s not, is it? Purple for my
sticism, green for naturalism? I can see the Flow the same as you two. How can that be?”
It was a few moments before either twin could speak.
“Could he have taken on the same talent?” Astrid asked.
“We could try to see,” Ariel asked.
This was a new skill, one that came with mysticism, and Ariel could recall in her other memories using it to feel out targets for enchantment. They did not need to enchant Erich, but this would answer Astrid’s question.
The two of them drew the Flow toward them again, purple this time, and reached out for Erich. Their marriage bond was there, glowing brightly blue, and the familiar bond with Shadow, but that was all. Erich had no new talents.
“There’s nothing,” Ariel said.
“Nothing but our marriage bond,” Astrid added. “Could that be enough?”
“I think it clearly is,” Erich said. “I’m not sure what else the explanation could be.”
“But you could not see the Flow before,” Ariel replied.
“Neither could you. Yet look at your rings.”
He took both their hands and pulled them together. The rings were still shifting back and forth between blue and purple in perfect unison.
“Blue for the marriage bond, purple for mysticism. Something important is going on here, whatever it is.”
Ariel was dizzy. Little of this made any sense, but she was so weary from the long day of wandering that she was out of energy to think about it.
She put her hand on Erich’s and sighed. “I’m tired of this. Can we go to sleep?”
“And then leave this place tomorrow?” Astrid said.
Erich groaned. “Yes.”
Ariel, who had felt disconnected from both of them for the past several days, in fact wanted more than sleep. She worried briefly that Astrid might be reluctant again.
She was not.
27.
The Witches' Covenant (Twin Magic Book 2) Page 18