Chapter 11
"So,
how exactly did you kill this Duke?" asked Ian, hacking bushes and other
foliage out the way so Pandora could pass with ease.
"Well,
I didn't kill him, exactly," said she, stepping gingerly in Ian's wake of
destruction. "I couldn't have killed him if I wanted to. He was my
father."
"Your
father?"
"Yeah,
see, before he inherited his land from his father, the duke was very much in
love with my mother, who was at the time the daughter of the High Priestess of
the Nymphs of Alkin Forest."
"Where
we are now," said Ian, orienting himself in the conversation.
"Right.
Anyway, love never counts when matters of royalty are at stake, so my father
was forced to marry the daughter of the Marquis Rule." Pandora shrugged.
"Of course, matters of royalty don't count much when matters of pregnancy
are at stake, so I was born."
"My
father would've given anything to have me stay with him, I'm told, but I chose
to stay with my own mother than join the Duke's family and just visit from time
to time. The new duchess was treated me with the same respect as my true
mother, even though she knew I was illigitimate, so I was always welcome.
Mostly, I acted as liason between my mother and father, since he couldn't go to
her and she never leaves the forest."
"It
was the sheer hatred my half brother Gerald the Panderer..."
"The
Panderer?" echoed Ian.
"It'll
make sense in a minute," said Pandora. "His hating me is what caused
all the trouble in the first place. He was part of the reason I never lived in
the castle with my father. Wealth spoiled him, and the fact that I never acted
as horribly as he just made him more angry. By the time he grew up, just seeing
me made him furious. He grew up thinking that women were meant to be used like
cigars; for occasional pleasure and as gifts to friends. Only the late Duke
Elwood, my father's father, believed that." Ian laughed aloud.
"What?" she asked.
"Elwood,"
he smirked.
"It's
my father's name, too. Probably why he named his own son Gerald." She
giggled a little herself, then went on. "Anyway, my father's decision to
keep Alkin Forest under his protection for my mother's and my safety was the
last straw. He decided to make all the nymphs of Alkin, including my mother,
into love slaves. Naturally, my father told him no, but Gerald tricked me into
believing that he had granted him permission. I told my mother and she
immediately sent me with the message that the Duke could forget it and that my
father was an animal for even asking. She vowed never to speak to him
again."
"My
father died from a broken heart and my brother blamed it on me by saying I was
the last person to see him, so I must have cast some spell over him. He became
the new Duke and his first order of business was to have me killed, then to
have my mother and any nymphs that could be found in Alkin brought to him
within the week. I escaped, but the soldiers you rescued my from caught me
before I could get very far."
"Well,
I've got some friends I'm travelling with and we can help you get to your
mother safely," Ian assured her. "By the way, you're not a witch or
sorceress, are you?"
"No,
why?"
Ian
nodded. "Just didn't want to have to kill Lokey today, that's all. Killing
friends is no fun."
Pandora
frowned. "Perhaps you'd better tell me about your friends before we meet
them," she said seriously.
Crystal
stretched and yawned sleepily as she awoke. She'd had such a vivid dream about
a crow and an evil sorceress that it borderlined on reality. And, as she looked
around her, her horror slowly growing, she realized why.
Either
she was still asleep or her dream had come true. And something told her the
first explanation wasn't the one.
She
lay in the bottom of a huge jar on a table in a room full of vials, powders and
potions. Ian, Drianna, Lokey, Magbert were no where in sight and neither was
the forest she'd obviously been abducted from. In the corner of the room sat a
perch with a large black crow on it. The crow eyed her curiously, then rose and
flapped off into the hallway.
Crystal
immediately checked her back for her wings and breathed a huge sigh for one so
small at finding them whole and undamaged. She flew up to the open top of the
jar, but stopped herself when she saw the vague lines criss-crossing the top.
From a distance, the jar seemed open, but a web stretched across the edges, no
doubt the same type of web she'd been trapped in before. Trapping herself again
would definitely be a bad move right now.
Alright,
she thought, stay calm. Maybe this witch has underestimated you and you
still have a chance to escape. Then you can find everyone and hopefully get
them out, too, she thought, assuming they were all in the same fix.
She
began singing a disrupting song that caused the walls of her jar to shudder
violently, then finally shatter around her. She had to dodge to miss getting
caught under the web that fell toward her, but she cut herself in the shower of
falling glass in the process. She gingerly brushed the broken glass from her
body, then checked her injuries. She had a few smaller cuts on her legs and a
larger one across her forearm that stung painfully. Her wings remained
miraculously untouched.
She
bit back tears of pain, fear and general disorientation. This is not the
time to start blubbering, she thought. I have to find a way out of here.
She
began flying toward the door and was immediately arrested by the sight of the
witch.
She
knew it was the witch because of the power the woman exuded, but she was a far
cry from Crystal's image of her. This woman was rather young looking and
extremely pretty. She looked more like royalty than an evil sorceress.
"Oh,
but I am," said the woman, reading Crystal's mind. "Otherwise, I
wouldn't go by the Evil Sorceress Katherine."
Crystal
thoughts froze so quickly in shock that her wings stopped moving altogether.
She would have fallen to the ground if not for Katherine's outstretched hand
catching her. "It isn't wise for a little sprite such as yourself to stop
moving in mid-air like that," said Katherine gently. "I'll be needing
those wings soon and they shouldn't be anymore damaged than you until your
friends arrive." Her voice was so kind and gentle sounding that had
Crystal not heard the remark about her wings, she might have changed her mind
about the woman. As it was, her terror doubled.
"Y-You
can't k-keep me here," stammered Crystal, trying her best to be defiant.
"I
can and I don't wish to get into a semantical argument about it." She
quickly brought a cupped hand down over Crystal, who was too surprised to even
shriek, then moved it again. It seemed to Crystal that she was now standing on
a curved, but smooth surface, unlike Katherine's palm. She tried to move, but
found herself trapped in an invisible sphere that was slightly larger than
herself for more comfortable accomodation. No amount of pushing or shoving
would break the walls of her prison.
"No!
Let me out of here!" shouted Crystal, suddenly feeling the panic of the
enclosed space bearing down on her. "I won't be able to breathe!"
"The
force field will let air past through without difficulty as long as I let it.
And don't think your menial spritely magic will change anything about that.
It's been completely negated, anyway," said Katherine indifferently.
Crystal
opened her mouth to sing and found the notes wouldn't come. Impossible!,
she thought, trying again. She can't stop me from singing! But try as
she might, Crystal found herself completely unable to produce one note. All she
could do was speak the words of her songs and that did nothing without the
magic of the song.
"Now,
if you're quite finished," said Katherine, rolling the sphere in her palm
until Crystal lost her balance and fell, "I don't have time to waste on
insignificant magic bugs. I have to prepare for the arrival of your
friends." Crystal jumped up, putting her hands on the sides of her sphere
in a ditch effort to escape or protest, but Katherine slipped the sphere into a
pocket and suddenly everything went dark.
Furious,
afraid and feeling completely helpless without her magic, Crystal sat at the
bottom of her prison, shaking as she tried to hold back the tears.