The Maiden of Moonfane Forge

The path wound its way beneath the trees on a track nearly as gnarled as the limbs overhanging it. As hours passed, Lily understood just how far her panthegrunn had carried her away from the road in her Slumber in order for them to arrive at the healing mage’s home. It wasn’t until the sun was cresting the sky directly above that they arrived on the main track of Bannerman’s Wood once again. With reins held carelessly in her fingers, Lily sat stiffly in the saddle and let Fae choose her own easy pace up the road. As sorrowful as she felt at losing Vetch to another woman and departing without him, having made her choice and to now be following it eased some of the tension within her. It seemed the farther away from the cottage she and Fae went, the lighter and more clear-headed Lily felt.

Next, she would need to find her way out of the forest and south to this Pasanhal town. Vetch had mentioned a castle of black stone surrounded by wheatfields; that was where he believed Marigold had been taken. While Lily could not guess how he had gleaned that information, she trusted it.

Another thing that seemed to be ebbing as she went along the road was the subtle misting of magic that hung about the forest like an invisible noose. She could still feel it, but it bothered her senses less, and she was glad to be escaping it. Known magic excited Lily, but unknown magic frightened her. She hoped that by the time she left the forest behind entirely, she would have left behind its disconcerting magic with it, like brushing bits of hay off her clothes after feeding the goats and leaving their pen.

It was this gradual lifting of the forest’s perpetual magic that allowed Lily to first sense the lifeform above her. She turned her eyes up to the trees almost before her wits conceived of why she did so. And, there! Hopping branch to branch, following her and Fae, was the red bird, Scarlet. Unnerved, Lily watched as the bird kept pace with them high up out of reach, its fathomless black eyes watching her fixedly.

Just when she thought to shout at it and scare it away, abruptly it hopped to a higher branch, leapt off, and flew away. Lily turned in Fae’s saddle to watch it go, steadying herself with a hand on Fae’s head, between her horns.

Suddenly, she felt bolstered. The pall of magic upon the forest seemed to clear and, unmistakably, Lily sensed a spell being cast, back in the direction from which she had come. It was a powerful spell, and not only could Lily sense its Casting clearly, but she knew its nature and origin without question. She clenched her fingers into Fae’s shaggy fur and took in so sharp a gasp that stars scattered before her eyes. Why was she leaving? Why had she left him there? Quickly, and with her entire body trembling with adrenaline, Lily reined Fae around and put heels to her flanks.

“Go, Fae! Run, girl!”

The panthegrunn grunted and shook out her great head before heeding Lily’s command and stretching her powerful pantherine muscles. Her hooves pounded back up the road and then took them crashing through the underbrush onto the smaller, nearly hidden track back to Hayleigh’s cottage. Lily kept her head tucked down, letting Fae’s wide horns clear away the low branches before them, as tears of anxiety and fear were torn from her eyes by the wind.

She wanted to scold herself as a fool for not having put together what was being done in that cottage from the moment she had arrived there. Then again, the magic that had been cast on her, by its very nature, made that next to impossible. She knew that, but she still hated it. It was only now that she saw and sensed everything with perfect clarity, because the spell was no longer being directed at her. Now, it was being cast on Vetch alone, and he had no magic of his own to let him sense the ill being done and so gird himself against it.

Lily hurried, yet as swiftly as Fae could eat up the path back to the cottage, it felt to her as if it took a lifetime to arrive again at the docile little forest dwelling. Lily saw it now for what it truly was: a spider’s lair.

Fae’s hooves put dents in the planks of the little bridge over the stream. Once across it, Lily slid down from Fae’s saddle before the big panthegrunn had even entirely arrested her run. Fae gave voice to a grunting roar and stomped the ground with her hoof, puffing hard, caught up in her companion mage’s sense of alarm. Terrified, angry, determined, Lily shoved the cottage door wide open and stood on its threshold looking upon a scene that, to her eyes, was intimate, yet to her sense of magic was abhorrent. Vetch lounged back in his chair before the fire, torso bared, his face a picture of infatuation. Above him, with one knee lifted salaciously up on the chair between his thighs, Hayleigh perched. She was naked, her generous flesh paler where normally covered by her clothes, her hair hanging down in curtains around Vetch’s face. She held his cheeks in her hands, cradling his chin atop her large breasts.

As Lily entered the cottage, the woman was just in the act of drawing Vetch’s mouth up to her own, her lips brushing his in the prelude to a kiss. And all around them, like an overly-strong perfume, was a haze of untamed magic, such that Lily felt she pushed her way into a dense, stifling fog. This was not healing. It had never been healing magic. Lily had read about this kind of mage years ago in her studies: Emotion-Casters. Even now, the very concept made her shudder, as it had back then. Everything made sense to Lily, now that the repugnant magic was not leveled at her. Hayleigh had cast a wide magical net out across the forest. She drew in those she wanted, while those she did not, she compelled to leave, and all by impressing emotions upon them. Lily recalled her sudden despair beside the pond ... and the pressing feeling that she had been imposing upon lovers that had coerced her into leaving. All of that power was directed into Vetch now.

Despite all Lily understood now, still her heart wrenched in her breast upon witnessing the momentary tableau of her Vetch in a lover’s embrace with another woman. The sight, and the feeling, passed in an instant, as the sound of the door banging against the cottage wall startled Hayleigh. She whipped her gaze over to Lily and her face showed shock, then outrage.

“What are you doing? Get out!” she cried. There was as much surprise in her voice as there was anger. The skin of her face and throat were still flush with desire and for a moment, she looked like any normal person interrupted in the midst of such a vulnerable act. But her hands remained on Vetch’s skin and the magic still swirled. “How dare you!” she yelled, recovering herself enough to summon more strength and awareness into her words, even though it made her concentration on the magic waver. “Get out of my home and leave us be!”

“Take your hands off him, witch!” Lily demanded. “Vetch, do you hear me? She is not a healer!” Lily dared not take her eyes off of Hayleigh, so she could not tell if her words reached Vetch at all.

“Witch?” Hayleigh spat the word as if she’d been struck. “How dare you. How dare you!” She slid back from Vetch in his chair and advanced on Lily, chin tipped up in proud indignation, caring not at all about her nakedness, but seeming almost to taunt Lily with it, as if to flaunt what had won the handsome soldier away from her. “You would name me what women with magic have been profaned with for centuries? Because we have power that could be wielded rightfully upon men who would only belittle and betray us otherwise?”

The moment the emotions mage removed her hands from Vetch, Lily noted an ebbing of the spell being cast on him. Vetch blinked his eyes and appeared aware of Lily’s presence for the first time. Lily was encouraged by this, but in another instant sadness welled up in her. Aware of the magic’s nature now as she had not been before, Lily could identify the spell invading her emotions and redirecting them. Even prepared for it, there was no way to stop it. The imparted desire to leave this place caused her to begin backing out of the cottage and away from it. But while her feet retreated, she steeled her resolve and forced sureness into the words she flung back at the other woman.

“It’s the rightful name for a mage who uses her magic to ensorcell and manipulate someone. You don’t deserve to practice magic.”

“Why?” Hayleigh asked calmly. She stood on the door’s threshold now. Briefly, she spared a glance back into her house at Vetch. The magic moved, keeping him in check as well. To Lily’s senses, it was a wild and uncaged magic with an erratic focus. Something was off about it. The woman’s next words told her what. “Because I am untrained? Because I had no master mage, like you, and had to make do begging lessons off of traveling Journeyers? I deserve the magic I worked for as much as anyone! And I deserve Vetch,” she added throatily. “After my husband left me for another, I deserve a man who devotes himself only to me. Vetch loves me. Don’t you, dear soldier?” she cooed back at him. In his chair, Vetch nodded dumbly, his eyes glassy and fixed on her.

Then he blinked again, and a look of confusion stole over his face. He stood and came toward them. “What? ... Lily?”

With an imploring smile on her face, Hayleigh set her hand on Vetch’s shoulder. Again, the magic shifted. Its focus left Lily and surrounded Vetch. Skin contact. That was the key. She couldn’t cast her untrained magic well without it, necessitating the healer ruse.

“You love me, don’t you, Vetch? Don’t you want her to go away and leave us be?”

The drunken smile that came over his face pierced Lily. He looked at the woman with eyes full of desire as he spoke. “I do. I love you, my dear. Tell her she should go elsewhere and leave us be.”

When Hayleigh touched Vetch, she had to release some of the spell of sadness being cast at Lily. Lily could not tell how much of what she felt now was real, and what was residual magic. It didn’t matter. Either way, it rent her heart to hear Vetch speak those words to another woman before her.

“You heard him. Leave,” Hayleigh said. She smiled still, but it was strained. She had Vetch firmly ensnared with touch, but she struggled to juggle that spell with the one that kept Lily in doubt. Already, the artifice was lifting. Lily wondered if she could outlast the woman, wait until she overextended herself and passed out into Slumber. Or, could she push her way through the magic discouraging her and take one step forward, then another, and knock the woman flat on her back?

“I won’t let you do this to him!” She gritted her teeth and took a step, fighting every inclination to turn around and leave this place behind. That feeling wasn’t real. She would not leave without Vetch, would never abandon him. “Take your hand off him now! He and I are leaving. Together.”

The emotion magic whipped and snapped through the air, invisible to sight but like banners violently thrashing about in storm winds to anyone with magic. Hayleigh’s gaze became dark as Lily took another half step forward. The mocking smile left her face and a hitch of fear made the corner of her mouth twitch. Her words were stilted and unsteady.

“No. Never again will a beautiful young maiden take my man away from me. He’s mine. Scarlet! Scarlet!” She cast her gaze all around at the surrounding trees, calling for the bird in a desperate voice. Lily felt the same flash of magic she’d experienced the first time she saw the strange bird. To her astonishment, the feathered charge-beast seemed to appear out of thin air mid-flight above Hayleigh, to alight on her bared shoulder. Instantly, it was like the woman was reinvigorated. Her face broke into a smile of relief as she raised fingers to stroke the bird’s red-plumed head, cooing to it, “There you are, Scarlet, my brilliant ruby boy.”

The moment the strange charge-beast was in physical contact with its companion, Lily felt the woman’s magic flare and re-align itself. Lily knew that charge-beasts were said to lend magical strength to their companion mages, yet she had never imagined that that contact could be utilized in such an extreme way. Hayleigh’s magic was both magnified many times and condensed into pinpoint focus. She didn’t need to touch Vetch anymore. Untrained or no, with the bird lending her its inherent magical strength, she could cast emotion spells to almost the same degree that a master mage could. Lily sensed all this in one horrifying moment.

Hayleigh dropped her hand from Vetch’s shoulder and he remained standing there grinning like a fool, love stricken. She held Vetch in this state with ease, but at the same time directed the lioness’s share of her Casting at Lily. An impossible wave of sadness crashed into her. Any sense of her own emotions, or that these were not of her own heart, was swept away like doomed mariners from the deck of a storm-tumbled ship. She stumbled backward, her entire body shaking.

“Who was it?” Hayleigh asked softly, following Lily as she backed toward the stream. “What makes you so sad?”

Lily’s legs buckled when she reached the edge of the water and she dropped to the ground in a heap there. Images of her lost family assailed her, memories of all the happy years, buried now beneath grave dirt. She had not loved them enough, not spent enough time with them, not been a good daughter and sister. All the other memories she should have made with them when she had the chance, she had not. They were dead in the cold ground forever. Her mother, her father ... “Matty,” Lily whispered, and her shoulders heaved on a choking sob.

“Matty,” Hayleigh confirmed, her face a picture of blank concentration as she stood above Lily and wove despair around her like ribbons around a maypole. “That was his name, wasn’t it? You let him down and it will never be made right. You can’t bear that sadness a minute longer. The only thing in the world you want now is for it to end. For you to end. You could go into the stream, Lily. It would not be so bad, to take the water into your lungs and never feel sorrow again. Drown yourself. Like my husband drowned himself.”

It would be so easy, Lily decided. The notion came to her as if it had been her own, a way to flee the anguish that must surely stay with her forever, just let the water wrap its chill tendrils around her like loving arms, breathe in, and never more would despair touch her. There was no path forward through such sadness. Only fleeing would free her of it. She wanted it more than anything, the cold and soothing water filling her lungs until she blacked out. She had been staring through her tears into the stream. Hayleigh had ceased speaking, yet the magic that Lily no longer sensed as magic embraced her and amplified every pang of sorrow that could ever be. To herself, she nodded. It was her decision alone. She would take it. It was easy.

She slid one boot into the stream; the water burbled over the leather and its chill reached her toes. Yes, she would slip into the water, end the pain, leave Vetch to the better woman. He deserved better than herself. He always had. This, she would do for him. Bracing her hands on the mossy soil, Lily eased her other boot into the stream. The hem of her skirt touched the water, which began to soak upward through the fabric. Cold. But inviting. Like contemplating one’s sorrows. Her fingernails dug into the soil as she stepped down and then the water was at her knees. She stood there for a moment, hesitating, shivering, her tears spattering the backs of her pale hands. Lily looked up and saw Vetch through those tears. He looked not at her, but at Hayleigh, his eyes radiating love and adoration, while his smile was that of a simpering boy. When she saw his eyes looking upon another in that way, the sorrow that was shredding her heart from the inside out redoubled, a blast so powerful it was like a physical force she must obey. She stood upright and moved backward, boots wobbling on the slick, stony streambed as, step by step, she walked out into the brisk current. The water reached barely above her waist here. She had only to submerge herself and breathe in. The idea was almost alluring now.

Heavy thuds resonated on the streambank as, quicker than a beast of such immensity had any right to be, Fae charged and butted the broad top of her head into Hayleigh’s chest. With a pained oof of displaced breath, the woman was knocked bodily to the ground. She had been so engrossed in her Casting that she’d not even braced herself. Her red bird took to the air as his companion fell, flapping wild circles around Fae and screeching in indignation. Fae gave her broad skull a shake, brandishing her horns and scraping the dirt with a heavy hoof.

With the wind knocked from her, and robbed of contact with her charge-beast, Hayleigh’s spell dropped. Lily felt both her sadness and the magic recede from her like clouds clearing away from the peak of a mountain. More importantly, she could sense the magic as magic again, and know how it had tempted and invited her into the stream with the intent to end herself. She looked up through cleared eyes. Vetch stood by the cottage door, numb-faced and confused. Without appearing to know why, he reached back inside the open door for his sword, which had stood against the wall there since his arrival. Yet, even when he had his blade in hand, he seemed not to know what to do with it, nor even how to draw it, he just stared dumbly down at it in its scabbard.

Fae turned away from the toppled Emotion-Caster and came splashing into the stream to push her head into Lily’s arms. Lily dug her fingers into her panthegrunn’s thick hair and was pulled by the great beast back up onto the streambank. She fell to her knees there, still recoiling from what had been done to her. Recognizing how the manipulative magic had been slinking through her innermost self revolted her. But as she clung to Fae, her strength and mastery of herself returned quickly. It was subtle, not like what the strange red bird did for Hayleigh, but Lily could feel how her own beloved charge-beast revitalized her, magically and emotionally, through proximity. This was why Marigold had paid nearly all the coin she’d had to her name in order acquire the calf for Lily years before.

As Lily regained herself, Hayleigh also was getting to her feet, holding her hand to her bruised breast. Her emotion magic rose with her, but it was weakened without her bird. Even as the thought came to Lily that she must do everything in her power to keep the two separated, Hayleigh took in a pained breath and called for her charge-beast. The gleaming red bird wheeled around and swooped down to her.

Lily gasped and pushed herself to her feet. She raised her arm to cast a Barrier. There was no time to focus or concentrate, no time to consider that she would Slumber and Vetch would not know what to do with her, nor was there time to worry that her Barrier may fade before she woke, leaving her helpless at the feet of the Emotion-Caster. She would cast it, and they would run. That was all. Translucent gold began to shimmer in the air between Hayleigh and the descending bird. Yet, before Lily could move her hand and cast the spell, Fae shoved her aside and charged a second time. The beginnings of the Barrier wavered and disappeared, and Lily watched in amazement as the panthegrunn leapt up and neatly caught the bird out of the air in her mouth. Her hooves impacted the ground and, like a housecat worrying a mouse, she clamped her grazer’s teeth down and shook her head back and forth. There was a snap, then Fae tossed her head and flung the bird away. Its body smacked limply against the side of the cottage and dropped to the ground, dead.

Hayleigh screamed. “Scarlet! My Scarlet! You’ve killed him!” Wild-eyed, she clawed at her face and hair. Lily felt the sharp stab of agony that burst forth from the woman, but the strength had gone completely out of her repellent emotion magic. Even without direct contact, much of her focus in her magic had been lent to her by the powerful bird. Magic still flowed from her, but it found no target. To Lily’s senses, it whipped about like grapevine tendrils ripped from their trellis by strong winds. Hayleigh’s own emotions were thrown into that blind Casting, and Lily knew instinctively how the woman would burn herself out and Slumber long.

A grunt from Fae drew Lily’s attention. The panthegrunn advanced on Hayleigh and dropped her head to ready her horns. She also felt the wild magic, and still meant to protect Lily from it ...

“Fae!” Lily shouted breathlessly. “Stop, Fae! Stop.”

Fae did. She halted short of the wailing sorceress and raised her head. She stood grunting and puffing her anger through her nostrils a moment, then turned away and came to Lily. Hayleigh went to her bird, stooped, and picked it up. Its brilliant red feathers still gleamed iridescently while it hung limp in her hands. Despite everything, Lily still felt a pang of legitimate sympathy for the mage who had lost her charge-beast, for she knew how broken she herself would be if she lost Fae. But her feelings of sympathy were brief. This woman had tried to murder her and ensorcell Vetch.

Vetch. Lily looked to him. The man still stood dumbfounded, though the look of confusion on his face was genuine now. He drew his sword and stared at the strange scene before him of Hayleigh, naked and weeping over her lifeless bird. The woman stood up and looked from Lily to Vetch and back, still holding her bird before her, as though she offered up an atrocity to them. Her lips moved, but she spoke no words and she swayed on her feet, stumbling to one side with a faraway look in her eyes. Lily knew the signs of encroaching Slumber.

Lily swallowed, mustering her courage. “You should go inside before you fall into Slumber,” she suggested, not so much as a kindness as simply desiring to have the woman out of her sight. Absently, she wondered how many days of Slumber so much venomous magic casting would cost her.

It was unclear if Hayleigh comprehended Lily’s words at all. Rather than going back inside her cottage, she sat down in the dirt and slowly sank onto her back. With her precious bird clutched to her breast, she lay down as if in a featherbed, closed her eyes, and dropped into the uncanny state of Slumber. Lily watched the dead bird’s body rising and falling with the woman’s steady breathing.

She was startled by the sound of Vetch returning his blade to its scabbard. She looked at him and met his eyes. Unveiled in them was such a mix of emotions that her heart ached. She held her hand out to him.

“A moment,” he said huskily. He went into the cottage and in short order returned dressed and with his boots on and carrying his things. He walked to Lily, but before he reached her, he paused. He turned back and Lily wondered if he meant to go to Hayleigh, to speak some farewell to her. Instead, he stepped around her Slumbering form and reached up beneath the eaves of the cottage. From them he took down a couple game birds recently hung there. Lily mounted Fae, as he returned bearing these and stowed them in Fae’s saddlebags. Lily held her hand out to him a second time and this time he took it. As she handed him up onto Fae behind her, she saw him in his eyes again. She saw Vetch. The fear that had so infused Lily evaporated.

Grunting once against his still-painful wounds, Vetch settled himself as comfortably as he could on the panthegrunn behind her saddle. Lily touched Fae’s flanks with her heels and wordlessly they departed.

For how long the Emotion-Caster would Slumber back before her open cottage, naked and exposed to the elements, Lily did not know and did not care.