Snow White and Rose Red (31 page)
Read Snow White and Rose Red Online
Authors: Patricia Wrede
“I’ll to my books at once,” Dee said, brightening a little. “We’ll find some way to accomplish this removal. Belike the spirit of the crystal—”
“Enough!” Kelly shouted. “God knows, you’re as bad as this spirit that troubles me. Next time I’ll heed it when it says, Come away and drown!”
“Nay, Ned, you must not!” Dee said. “‘Tis some evil wight that seeks to do you injury.”
“‘Tis injury enough to stay here!” Kelly snapped. He strode to the door of the study and threw it open with a crash that made Dee wince and gave a moment’s pause to the invisible John outside. “I’d rather drown than hear more of this prating.”
“I will not let you go,” Dee said, grabbing Kelly’s arm.
Furgen, who had been watching all this through the lamp, chose this moment to exert its influence. Whether Kelly stayed or went mattered little to the water creature, but it was clear that if Kelly left now he would not take the crystal with him, and Furgen’s time was growing short. So, grimacing with effort, Furgen made one final try at getting Kelly to scoop up the crystal and take it with him.
John reached the open door and peered through it just as Kelly lurched backward three paces, wrenching his arm from Dee’s grasp. Dee went after him, determined to keep him in the room by force, if necessary. On the far side of the room, the crystal sat in the center of the gazing table, light dancing and shifting in its center. The sight attracted John’s attention immediately, and he recognized at once the similarity between the glow at the heart of the crystal and the shifting light of the Faerie border. He felt a surge of excitement, and since the doorway was now clear he ignored the scuffle on his left and started forward.
He could not pass the door. John, whose blood was half of Faerie and who wore Faerie magic on his finger, was barred from John Dee’s study by the same spells and inscriptions that kept Madini and her friends at bay. Though he fought with all his might, he could not cross the threshold. He stared at the crystal in chagrin, sure that it was what he had come for and unable to reach it.
Furgen’s face appeared in the crystal, contorted in agony. John jerked back in surprise. The vision winked out, and the light within the crystal dimmed to a glowing pinpoint. Simultaneously, Kelly ceased his struggle with Dee and said in tones of deep relief, “‘Tis gone!”
“Praise Heaven!” Dee replied. He was panting and disheveled, and rather more the worse for wear than his companion. “Now, come away and rest, and tell me your tale in full. We’ll work no more until the morrow.”
“Nay, I’m fit for it,” Kelly said, but he gave the crystal an uneasy look as he spoke, and he did not resist as his companion drew him toward the door.
John recovered from his surprise in time to move out of the way before Dee ran into him. He hesitated briefly, then followed the two men. The object of his search was in the study, where he could not venture, but he might still learn something from the wizards’ conversation.
Rosamund and Blanche, watching the mirror intently, knew at once when John broke off his hunt to investigate the study. They saw the door fly open as John approached it, though they did not hear Kelly’s shouting; their enchanted mirror could not reflect sound. At the sight of the two sorcerers struggling, Blanche started and nearly struck the viewing bowl in her surprise. Rosamund’s cry of warning was drowned by a howl from Hugh.
The heads of both girls jerked in the bear’s direction. Hugh was rocking back and forth on his haunches, shaking his head as if to dislodge a bee. “Hugh, what is it?” Blanche cried, but all he could do was whine.
Rosamund glanced back at their scrying mirror and clutched Blanche’s arm. “Look!”
The mirror, which should have reflected all of John Dee’s study, showed only the crystal. Light shifted and flowed in its center, swirling around a central point from which three tendrils reached out. Two of the tendrils were only partially visible; their ends vanished off the edges of the mirror, out of sight. The third seemed to rise impossibly out of the surface of the mirror, connecting the image of the crystal to Hugh with a thin, almost invisible cord of light.
“No!” Blanche cried, and she leaned forward and knocked over the bowl that held the mirror.
The tendril of light that was the link between Hugh and the crystal vanished from sight as the direct connection forged by the scrying spell was broken. The sudden change upset the balance within the crystal, and Kelly, still fighting Furgen’s spell with all his will, was able to break free at last. The recoil from the two links, one severely reduced, the other completely shattered, surged down the sole remaining link and overwhelmed Furgen. For a brief instant, the crystal reflected the water creature’s agony; then the image vanished, having been seen by John alone, and Furgen slumped lifeless over the melted remains of the lamp he had been working through.
In the instant between Blanche’s instinctive action and Furgen’s death, the air of Faerie trembled with the faint, tingling vibration that heralds the presence of great power. The Queen of Faerie felt it, and her eyes narrowed dangerously, for such strong spells may never be cast in Faerie without the knowledge and permission of the Queen. Madini felt the tremor, too, and, suspecting something of its cause, she impartially cursed John and Hugh, her fellow plotters, and the fate that kept her bound to the court for another day. All she could do was to hide her anger and misgivings, and hope that she could retrieve the situation once her service at the court was done.
CHAPTER ·NINETEEN
“When the dwarf saw what they had done, he screamed, ‘You toadstool! Wasn’t cutting off the end enough for you? No, now you have to slice off the best part! How can I let myself be seen, disfigured this way? I wish you may run the soles off your shoes!’ Then he took up a bag of pearls which he had hidden among the rushes and left without saying another word. ”
WHEN BLANCHE BROKE THE SCRYING SPELL, HUGH’S spasms stopped at once. The girls stayed with him long enough to be certain he had not been harmed, then gathered up their things and left. Much subdued, they headed home to wait for John, hoping his story would explain at least some of what had happened.
They did not have long to wait. John arrived barely an hour later, his expression grim. He and Rosamund disagreed almost at once over who was to tell his story first; each of them wanted to hear the other’s tale before telling his own. The Widow intervened when the argument seemed about to deteriorate too far, and decreed that Rosamund and Blanche should begin. Rosamund showed a tendency to pout at this decision, but Blanche accepted it without demur. She gave John a quick summary of the strange behavior of the scrying mirror, its apparent effect on Hugh, and her own instinctive reaction and its result.
“The crystal filled the mirror entirely?” John asked when she had finished.
Blanche and Rosamund nodded.
“And all you saw within was light? Are you certain there was no image?”
Blanche looked doubtful, but Rosamund shook her head positively. “There was no image, only light, until Blanche overset the bowl and broke the scrying spell. I am sure of it.”
“This is strange indeed,” John murmured. He shook himself, then gave a straightforward account of his own experiences.
“And since I could learn no more where I was, I followed the wizards,” he finished.
“And did you learn more?” Rosamund asked pointedly when John showed no sign of continuing.
“‘Tis conjecture, in the main, pieced together from their conversation,” John said. “The wizards have stolen Hugh’s magic, and ’tis prisoned in that crystal that you saw. I think they do not know what they have done, for they spoke only of ‘Faerie power’ and never of Hugh, and they guard their workroom against all Faerie. ’Tis why I could not enter and take back the crystal while they fought; there is enough of Faerie in me to give their warding spells some purchase.”
“Then Blanche or I must find a way,” Rosamund said, as if it were the obvious solution. “We’re only mortal; spells to frustrate Faerie will not ward us off.”
“No,” said the Widow with absolute finality. “I forbid it. Neither thou nor thy sister will go near the house of Master Dee, now or in the future, and there’s an end on’t.”
“But, Mother—” Rosamund started.
“No! Thou‘st done more than is wise already; this time I’ll not be swayed against my better judgment.”
“How else may we free Hugh?” Blanche asked with a calm and overly reasonable air that betrayed her inner tension. “We cannot abandon him now, and I see no other way to help him.”
“Aye, and ‘twill be the end of all this business,” Rosamund added swiftly. “Will it not, John?”
“Nay, ask me not to add my voice to yours,” John said. “In this, I agree with your mother. And I think there is one other path still left to try, ere we are driven to such desperate measures as you propose.”
“What path is that?” Blanche asked warily.
“One that’s mine to deal with,” John answered. “Nay, hear me out! I fear we’ve learned all that we can from Masters Dee and Kelly, and I doubt that we can steal the crystal from them. Their skill’s not small, and they are well protected. But the wizards are not our only rivals in this matter.”
“The oakman, who stole the lamp!” Rosamund interrupted in sudden enlightenment.
John nodded. “And the water fay whose image I saw in the crystal. There’s more here than we know, and till we learn it we may do Hugh more hurt than help by descending on the wizards alone.”
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