The Last Days Of The Edge Of The World (2 page)

“We’ve thought it over carefully,” said Coronado, “and we think there’s one chance. Not a clay’s ride from here is the home of Sirion Hilversun, a place called Moonmansion. He was one of the enchanters banished by your great-grandfather, but prior to that banishment they were friends. I don’t think the enchanter took it too hard—I think he understood (King Rufus I’s) reasons. But the point is that he has a daughter—a very young daughter. By all accounts the lands of magic aren’t what they used to be, and it may be that Sirion Hilversun could be persuaded to return, under the right circumstances, and the right circumstances might involve making a reasonable marriage for his daughter. Do you see what I mean, sire?

King Rufus Malagig IV bounded to his feet and thumped the table. “Of course I see what you mean, you loathsome toad!” he bellowed. “You want to marry Prince Damian off to a witch!”

“Please calm down, sire,” urged Coronado. “We must try to be sensible and level-headed about this. I assure you that the girl doesn’t have green scales or purple wings or warts, or even a black cat and broomstick. She’s very beautiful, and it’s rumoured that she has very little magical talent—which is another reason why Sirion Hilversun might think it a good idea to find her a secure place in the Western World. I’m afraid, sire, that things being as they are you don’t have a lot of choice. Prince Damian is the only asset we have left—the kingdom’s only hope. If he doesn’t make this marriage, he might not be a prince much longer… and you might not be a king.”

Hallowbrand drew from the vast pocket of his cloak a letter, already sealed. “We have taken the liberty, sire,” he said, ponderously, “of preparing the proposal. If you will give your approval now, I will send it at once.”

The king looked down at his seated ministers. They were all so calm and so deadly serious. The rage ebbed out of him, and his face went quite grey.

“Is it really the only way?” he whispered.

“The only way,” intoned Coronado.

“Have you told Damian?”

The prime minister shook his head. “We thought… a job for his father.”

“Oh,” said the king. He sagged rather than sat back down into his chair. “Oh, of course.” His eyes fell, until he was staring down at the bare tabletop. “It’s impossible,” he murmured.

Then he remembered who he was, and he looked up again.

“For the good of the kingdom,” he said, sternly. “Send it.”

CHAPTER TWO

“I won’t do it,” said Helen, firmly.

Sirion Hilversun peered at her over the rims of his bifocals. His expression was very serious.

“It’s a very polite letter,” he said. “And I don’t see why it’s such a terrible idea. Most girls would be quite attracted to the idea of marrying a prince.”

“I’m not most girls,” she said.

“No,” murmured the enchanter, “you aren’t.”

There was a long pause. They stood together in the north-west tower, looking out of the windows at the lands of World’s Edge—its forests and its hills, its valleys and streams, its ruined cities and sunken roads.

The enchantments that overlaid the land weren’t really visible to the ordinary senses, but they were nevertheless real, and no one with a hint of magic in his (or her) eye could possibly be ignorant of them. Curses and spells

and hauntings sat upon the good earth like a miasma of decay. Moonmansion was a tiny haven in a world of dark coverts and corners, shadows from another existence. The land was dying, although it was frozen in time. There was little that was good and bright out there now.

In the far west the sun was sinking towards the towers of Heliopolis, which lay beyond the horizon. It would still be lighting the cities of the New World, standing high above the Western Empire, bright and beautiful in a coach of fine, white clouds.

“Look,” said Sirion Hilversun, softly. “Here we stand by the world’s very edge, forgotten people in a forgotten land. To the east there is the great cliff, and chaos… a grey emptiness that walls us in. To the west there are whole continents free from all the terrors and uncertainties that haunt our land–-“

“It wasn’t like that once,” said Helen, interrupting him.

The enchanter smiled. “Perhaps,” he said. “But that was before either of us were born. You and I came into a world that was already lost, already wrecked by the wars of enchantment. It’s the only world you and I have ever known. It’s the only magical world there is, now. Perhaps, once, there was a Golden Age… but when you get to my age you’ll wonder. To me, it doesn’t matter. I’ve lived my life as I chose. But for you, I think there has to be something better. Something brighter.”

“But don’t you see,” said Helen, “your kind of life is the kind of life I want to live. It’s what I choose. I love Moonmansion. I want to stay here.”

“But it’s all you’ve ever known,” said Sirion Hilversun. “How can you know?”

Helen looked out of the window. She leaned over the sill, looking out towards Methwold forest, searching the

deepening evening for the shadows of the forgotten city of Ora Lamae. There, it was true, was decay and desolation. It was not a pleasant place. Nor, for that matter, was Methwold itself, which was dark green from without and black and dry within. Such places no longer existed in the Western World, save as myths and legends and the stuff of nightmares. She couldn’t honestly say that she liked them, but she was used to them. She knew them. They were real.

“I don’t want to go away,” she whispered.

“You owe it to yourself,” said Sirion Hilversun. “You must look beyond these horizons. Perhaps, as you seem to believe, the Western World is not what people claim. But you must go to see. You can’t just stay here and reject it out of hand. You’re young. All this is bad for you…. I should have sent you away years ago.”

“No!” she said, sharply. Then, knowing that he meant well, that he was sincere in everything he said, she repeated it in a softer tone, almost a pleading tone: “No.”

The enchanter looked down again at the letter in his hand, reading it for the fortieth time, though he had not forgotten its contents.

“I don’t want to marry,” said Helen. “Not a prince, not anyone. I don’t believe that life is just a matter of attaching oneself to a man—the most highly placed man available—and then drifting along in his wake. I’d rather make my own way in the world, in command of my own life.”

“It’s not that easy,” said the enchanter. “Not even with magic to help.”

“You’re always so very sure that nothing’s easy,” she said. “The trouble with you is that you won’t try. You give up and let things go the way they are. You have magical power and skill and knowledge. Perhaps if you were willing to try we could do something here in the magic lands. We could fight the decay, give the land some of its life again. If you weren’t always so determined to let events flow over and around you we might not be trapped the way we are.”

She seemed very close to tears. Sirion Hilversun didn’t know what to say. She turned away from the window and from him, looking through moist eyes at the ancient furniture which crammed the room: magic carpets eaten away by magic moths, tables with broken legs, clocks with broken hearts, cracked crystal balls and magic mirrors which had long ago turned in upon their own reflections. He watched her stir at the dust which overlaid a gryphon-skin rug with her slipper.

“The powers I have are no match for those that made our world what it is,” said the enchanter meekly. “Only Jeahawn the Judge could begin to sort things out after the war, and he could do no more than put all the released forces under check. He couldn’t undo the damage which had been done—that would have taken more than a hundred years, and the most powerful spell ever written. There’s none alive now who could ever make such a spell. The decay will have to run its course, and in likelihood these lands will be sick for ever and ever.”

“I know,” she said. “You remember it all as if it were tomorrow. There’s no hope. What will be will be.”

Now he was close to tears, too. She realized this, and relented.

“I don’t mean to be unkind,” she said. “I’m sorry, I really am. But you don’t realize how much you’re asking of me. What’s this prince like? I might not like him. Why is the king of Caramorn suddenly offering me his son anyhow? It’s been three generations since a king of Caramorn last talked to you, and that was to tell you to get out of his kingdom or else.”

“He didn’t put it quite like that,” said Sirion Hilversun, trying hard to remember. “He was decent enough, as kings go. It wasn’t his idea, really, though he had no love for magic in himself. It was popular demand. The peasants were always prejudiced against us—too many hedgewizards and charlatans making a pest of themselves, I suppose. I dare say the common people never got much joy out of magic—none that they could count in their wallets. And they were always afraid. Rufus made himself very popular by expelling us all, as I remember it. He always did want to be remembered as a king the people loved.”

“All right, then,” said Helen. “So why is his great-grandson trying to re-import magic into the realm?”

The enchanter shrugged. It didn’t seem to him to be a very important question. The important question was how to persuade Helen that this really was all for the best.

“I’m going to invite the king, and the prince, and his ministers over for a banquet,” declared the enchanter. “It’s the only thing to do. You can see Damian and he can see you. And if all is satisfactory arrangements can commence. That’s what we’ll do. And it will all come out right____Just you see if it doesn’t.”

Helen shook her head, but decided that it was wiser to say no more. Time would tell. There was no harm in having a look at the prince. And then… Well, she would think of something.

You have got to be joking,” said Damian to his father. It was not a wise remark. King Rufus Malagig IV was not in a good temper, and the crown prince always seemed to bring out the worst in his temper, even when it was

at its best.

“This is no joke,” said the king, through gritted teeth.

“The future of the kingdom depends on this. My future; Your future. Just for once you are going to do as you are told and you are going to do it right.”

“I don’t want to marry a witch,” said Damian. “I’d rather marry a kitchen-maid than some horrible hag with magical powers. I don’t care if we are bankrupt. I’ve been bankrupt for years, since you cut off my allowance I’m used to it. Furthermore, dear father…”

“Shut up!” roared the king.

A group of starlings sitting on the palace roof took flight in panic, although the king and the prince were in the throne room three floors down. Rufus Malagig had often been complimented on the magnitude of the royal roar.

Damian sniffed. “There’s no need to be like that about it,” he said. Although he was a rather sickly youth, and puny to boot, he had long since given up cowering before his father. He had grown used to the roar over the years and he knew that the king was too soft of heart to back it up with any real action. Damian had long since learned that endurance was all that was required to win family arguments in the court of Caramorn.

“If your majesty pleases,” said Coronado, who was standing to one side, “perhaps I could explain to the prince the reasons of state which make this marriage necessary.”

“Never mind the reasons of state,” snorted the king. “It’s not his place to demand explanations. He’ll do as he’s told.”

“I will not,” said the prince, with an air of martyred innocence. “And it ill becomes you to suggest that I should.”

“She only has a few magical powers, dear,” put in the queen, desperately trying to pour oil on the troubled waters.

“That,” said Damian, “is like saying that she only has a few measles, or a slight case of the plague.”

“Perhaps,” interposed Coronado cunningly, “the young highness is afraid of magic.”

“I am not!” said Damian. This was a lie, of a variety which he told often. His one passionate belief was that discretion was the better part of valour. He had never been known to say “boo” to a goose, or even to a larger-than-average duck.

“Oh, well,” said Coronado slyly, “perhaps it’s just women that he’s afraid of.”

“I am not!” repeated Damian, turning red and stamping his foot. Though he lacked the volume, he had obviously inherited something of his father’s talent for bellowing.

“Ah,” said Coronado, “such courage. And for the sake of his country, too. The people will love you for this,

young sire.”

Damian furrowed his brow, trying to remember whether anything had slipped out that shouldn’t have. “Now wait a minute,” he said. “I didn’t say that…”

“It’s not everyone,” Coronado went on, “who would stand up forthrightly and say: ‘If my country needs me, I shall not flinch. I am not afraid to do what has to be done.’ You’re not afraid, are you?”

“Well,” said Damian, “no… but let’s not rush into anything. I mean, we don’t know anything about this girl, and… well, there may be perfectly good reasons.”

“Oh, precisely, sire,” said Coronado. “You take the words out of my mouth.”

“Do I?” said Damian, by now hopelessly lost.

“And I couldn’t agree more,” Coronado hurried on. “Exactly as you say. We need to know more. And that is why we are all going to dine at the enchanter’s home tomorrow evening. Then we can, as you have so shrewdly observed, find out more about the girl, and whether she is really worthy to marry your august self.”

“Oh,” said the prince, slowly. “Yes, well… I’m glad you see it my way. Sensible, that. We’ll go check up on them. But I warn you, I’m very suspicious of this whole affair. Very suspicious indeed. It’s not that I’m afraid … not in the least. Not of anything. But one has to cautious, you see. Very cautious.”

Still trying to figure out exactly where the conversation had taken him, the prince left the room.

Coronado and the king exchanged troubled glances.

“He’s not going to co-operate,” said the king.

“The thing I worry about,” said Coronado, “is whether she’ll co-operate once she’s clapped eyes on him.”

“What a terrible thing to say,” complained the queen. “Is that any way to talk about the prince? Rufus? Are you going to let him talk about our son that way?”