In a Weary World

Chapter XVIII: Confrontations

She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, feared at tea-parties, hated in shops, and loved at crises. -- Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

Solvej's immediate reaction was to jump back and look around wildly for somewhere to hide. It took a moment for common sense to overcome her shock. She realised then that the Magician was not actually in the room with her. He was standing on the windowsill, glaring in at her, and behind him, floating in mid-air, was one of the most bizarre monsters she had ever seen. Under other circumstances, she would have been very curious to know what sort of creature was shaped vaguely like a giant dog, with eyestalks and multiple legs. The Magician, however, could not be ignored for a cryptozoological investigation.

"How can you be here?" the Magician hissed. The windowpane muffled his voice. She warily took a step closer so she could hear him better. "I killed you!"

"And I did my best to kill you," she returned. "Obviously, we're both too stubborn to die."

He hissed again, sounding like a snake that had just been trodden on. "You did die."

"Well, yes," she conceded, "but I don't intend to let a little thing like that stop me getting revenge."

He growled like an angry lion. She wondered if he spent his free time practicing animal noises. Perhaps he had learnt to communicate with animals. He was on roughly the same mental level as the lowest of them, she thought with a great deal of spite.

"This engagement is some plot of yours," the Magician said, pacing back and forth. At first she thought he was walking on the windowsill. Then it dawned on her that he was, in fact, walking on thin air. "You are using the Princess as bait to draw me out!"

Solvej almost attacked him there and then, her lack of weapons and the window between them notwithstanding. She restrained herself by thinking that that was exactly what he wanted.

"Unlike you, I don't use people as my puppets. This engagement only happened because of me, I admit. But I arranged it to break your spell, not to draw you out! Anyway," she finished with a dismissive sniff, "there was no need to draw you out. You came running in a panic at the first sign your dastardly designs were in danger."

She felt quite proud of herself for that last sentence. It had been great fun to say. What a pity she'd never had a chance to say it before!

The Magician glared at her. Behind her, his extraordinary pet -- or whatever it was -- did the same.

"All your plans will come to nothing," he said. "I will win, and when I do..."

He trailed off. Solvej said nothing, but she thought a great deal.

~~~~

Rigmor, after a lifetime of living under the Magician's thumb, had learnt how to tell when he was nearby. When the temperature plummeted, when the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end, and when the atmosphere suddenly became still and tense in some hard-to-define way... Those were all sure signs that he was there.

Her instinctive reaction was to run and hide. She forced herself to stand her ground. Where would she run to, anyway? He would catch her before she could get far.

All the same, nothing prepared her for the reality of him appearing outside her window, riding some enormous monster.

"There you are," he said, baring his teeth in a parody of a smile. "How nice to see you again."

Rigmor suppressed the urge to run away screaming. "I could say the same to you, but my parents told me not to tell lies."

His eyes narrowed. He gave her a look that could have burnt her to a crisp on the spot.