"I will not stand here to be insulted by you, hedgepig," Mangiz fumed.
"Then stand somewhere else and I'll insult you there, featherbag!" -- Brian Jacques, Mattimeo
As it turned out, the Magician didn't cast any more curses. He appeared in person.
It was late in the afternoon, as the day was turning to evening. Rigmor had finished recounting her story for the umpteenth time. Queen Maibrit had started drawing up plans of how to attack the Magician, helped by interjections from King Severin and Solvej. Hjalmar and Rigmor found themselves sitting on the windowseat, listening to everyone else airing their opinions.
Hjalmar felt he ought to say something. He just didn't know what.
"Are you--" he began, then changed his mind. "Do you feel better?"
Even as he said it, he saw how ridiculous that question was. He turned red and wished he hadn't spoken.
Rigmor smiled. It was a rather wan smile, but still, it was a smile. "Much better, now that there's no one else in my head."
There was nothing he could think of to say to that.
"What's happened since... since?" Rigmor didn't need to explain what she meant. "I know you broke the curse, but how?"
"Solvej did it." Hjalmar thought back over the last few months. "She made a cloak that turned her invisible, then she flew around eavesdropping on the Magician."
Rigmor stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "She did what? How can a cloak make her invisible?" She paused, thinking this over. "On second thoughts, that's not much more unbelievable than some of the other things that have happened recently. I heard that Solvej turned the stairs into a slide. Did she really do that?"
Hjalmar winced. "Yes. She had almost every child in the palace sliding down the banisters. I think they turned it into a competition to see who could go down fastest."
"Oh, down the banisters!" Rigmor looked relieved. "I thought she'd actually transformed the staircase into a slide."
Hjalmar considered what the King and Queen would have said if that was what Solvej had done. It didn't bear thinking about. "No, she wasn't mad enough to do that. And then--"
He broke off. His eyes widened as he stared at something behind her.
Rigmor paled. She knew what she would see before she turned to look.
She was right. The Magician glared at her through the window.
There was a shout from behind her as her parents and Solvej realised they had a visitor. The Magician's eyes swept over the occupants of the room, his mouth twisted into a sneer.
"So, you think you've broken my curse?" he growled.
There was a muffled exclamation as the King tried to say something, only for the Queen to cover his mouth with her hand.
"Yes, we do think that," Solvej said. "And more importantly, we've done it."
The Magician's face turned red. For a moment Hjalmar thought he was going to try to jump through the window. He was riding that monstrous "horse" again. It pranced back several steps as if preparing to take a run at them. Hjalmar jumped away from the window.
Rigmor got up and turned to face the Magician fully. She folded her arms and stared him in the face. "You have no power over me now. I will never be your pawn again. Begone!"
The Magician bellowed like an angry bull. The windows seemed to rattle in their frames. Hjalmar winced and clapped his hands over his ears.
"You will not escape me so easily!"
"Don't stumble on the way out," Solvej said with a cheery wave.
The Magician's face went from red to purple. His eyes practically stood out on stalks. He ground his teeth so loudly that Hjalmar could hear them from the other side of the window. "You-- You--"
He yanked on the reins of his steed. The terrifying creature tossed its head and pawed at the empty air beneath its hooves. If that thing charged through the window, how could they possibly deal with both it and the Magician?
"You have ruined my plans for the last time, witch!" the Magician roared.
"I'm sure you hope so," Solvej said in the condescending tone one would use for a small and rather foolish child.
The Magician didn't seem to hear her. He was frowning fiercely at a spot over her head. Hjalmar followed his gaze curiously, but saw nothing more interesting than the ceiling of the sitting room.
"Witch, I challenge you to a duel," the Magician announced. "We will see then who is the stronger sorcerer."
Solvej's eyes narrowed. She stared at the Magician as if trying to guess what possible motive was behind this extraordinary request.
"Don't accept!" Rigmor cried. "It's some trick!"
"I know it is," Solvej said thoughtfully. "I'm trying to work out what sort of trick, and what he hopes to gain from it."
"Your death," the Magician said bluntly. "If you accept, I will defeat you and kill you. If you refuse, I will kill you."
"You're welcome to try," Solvej replied sarcastically. "But you'll have a hard time trying to kill a ghost."
There was a long silence. Hjalmar's heart pounded in his ears, so loudly that surely everyone could hear it.
"Come back tomorrow," Solvej said at last. "I'll decide whether or not to accept your challenge, and let you know tomorrow."
The Magician growled, but he seemed to realise this was the best answer he would get at present. With an angry exclamation, he turned his horse around and galloped off across the sky. Five pairs of eyes watched him go. The minute he was out of sight, four voices all began talking at once.
"Solvej, you can't--"
"I know the Magician. He'll cheat or--"
"Young lady, you cannot possibly be thinking of accepting this--"
"If he's coming back tomorrow, I'll tell the guards to be waiting with muskets and--"
"Enough!" Solvej shouted. Everyone else fell silent. "Thank you for voicing your opinions. Though I wish," she added with a wince, "that you didn't voice them as loudly. I know the Magician intends to cheat if I accept his challenge."
"So you're going to refuse?" Hjalmar said hopefully.
The ghost shook her head. "I'm going to accept, and cheat first."
"But that's not fair!" Hjalmar protested. He was promptly put on the receiving end of four exasperated looks.
"This is the Magician we're talking about," Rigmor said. "There's no such thing as "unfair" in dealing with him."
Hjalmar had to admit she had a point. But still, the idea of bluntly saying you were going to cheat didn't sit well with him.
"What do you intend to do?" the Queen asked. "Attack him when he comes tomorrow?"
Solvej frowned thoughtully. "...No. He'd be expecting that. What I need is something that will catch him off-guard, something so unexpected that he won't be able to defend against it, something like--"
She broke off. Hjalmar could practically see the lightbulb appear over her head. "I know! The Sky Queen's Sword!"
She was promptly put on the receiving end of three blank looks and one incredulous stare.
"The who's what?" Hjalmar asked, baffled.
"But that's only a myth!" Rigmor exclaimed at the same time.
The Queen looked enquiringly at her daughter. "You know what this sword is?"
"I heard about it when I was researching ways to break my curse. It's an old fairy-tale. There's supposedly a goddess who lives in a palace made of clouds somewhere beyond the horizon, and she's called the Sky Queen and protects the Earth from monsters that would crawl through from the Void, whatever that is. To drive away these monsters, she has a sword made of star iron forged by a dwarf king in the heart of a volcano, and this sword is apparently able to kill everything, even a god." Rigmor shook her head. "I tried to find out if there ever really was such a sword, but everyone I asked said it was just a myth."
"Every myth has some truth in it," Solvej said. "And the story you have just recounted is very nearly the truth. The Sky Queen exists, and she does have that sword and protects the Earth from monsters with it, but she isn't a goddess. She's a fairy. But if I can find her and convince her to lend me her sword, I'll have a chance of killing the Magician."
Rigmor shook her head doubtfully. "That's a pretty big 'if'."
"Have you a better idea?" Solvej asked, planting her hands on her hips.
The princess shook her head reluctantly. "But how can you find the Sky Queen? Are you going to fly around searching every cloud for her palace?"
Solvej laughed. "No, nothing of the sort. I don't know where the Sky Queen lives, but I know a few people who do. Hjalmar, would you mind coming to Athyen with me?"
Hjalmar blinked. Athyen was the country that bordered Vardiholm to the northeast. But why did Solvej want to go there?
"For heaven's sake, woman!" the King exploded. "This is no time to go on holiday!"
"With respect, your Majesty, I'm not going on holiday. I'm going in search of a town of dwarves. They lived in eastern Athyen when I was alive, so I expect they're still there. They'll know where the Sky Queen lives. All the stories agree that the Sky Queen and the dwarves have always been on good terms."
Hjalmar got up from the window-seat. "I suppose I'd better go and pack, then. When are we leaving? How long will it take us to get there?"
"We're leaving right now. And you don't need to pack."
A horrible suspicion dawned on Hjalmar. "Please tell me we're not taking the flying carpet."
"Of course we are! It's the quickest and safest way to get anywhere. Nothing happened to you the last time we used it, so why are you worried?"
~~~~
"I don't like this. I do not like this!"
Solvej sighed in the put-upon way of someone exasperated by their friend's seemingly ridiculous fears. "Hjalmar. We've been through this before. The spells won't let either of us fall off."
Hjalmar glared at her. Far beneath them, the hills and forests of northern Vardiholm whirled by at dizzying speed. "You can talk all you want to about spells, but the fact remains that we are twenty feet above the ground with only a piece of fabric stopping us from falling."
Hmm. Put like that, it did sound rather alarming. Not to mention foolhardy, and decidedly insane. Solvej quickly changed the subject. "Look! I recognise that village! We're getting near the place where I grew up."
"Really?" Hjalmar craned his neck to get a better look at the village, swiftly disappearing behind them. "How can you tell when it's so dark? Wouldn't it have changed a great deal in the last hundred years?"
"No matter how much it has changed, I can still tell it's the same place. Its magic stays the same."
"Magic?" Hjalmar forgot about the village and his fears in favour of staring at her. "What do you mean? How can a place have magic?"
Solvej tried to find the words to explain it. "It's not the place that has magic, it's a residue of magic that has been done there in the past."
Hjalmar looked at her blankly. Solvej sighed. Obviously that wasn't a good enough explanation. "Think of it as being like... cooking. Even after a meal's been made, served and eaten, you can still smell it in the kitchen. It's more or less the same with magic."
"I see," Hjalmar said, in a tone that suggested he still didn't see. "So even after a hundred years you can still smell your magic around there?"
"It isn't really a smell," Solvej began. Then she gave up. Attempting to explain magic to someone who didn't have it was like attempting to explain colours to someone blind from birth. "We've just crossed the border. That's the Oskgalt River." She pointed down at a silvery line cutting across the countryside. "It shouldn't be too much farther to the dwarf city."
Hjalmar shook his head. "Witches, magicians, merfolk, and now dwarves. If my mother knew what I was doing...!"
~~~~
The dwarf city was built into the very heart of a hollowed-out mountain. The clang of hammers rang through the air as Solvej and Hjalmar approached. Lanterns shone merrily on the sides of the mountain. Somewhere underground a group of dwarves were chanting rhythmically, in time with the crash of some heavy machine.
A sentry had apparently spotted them, because suddenly a blinding light shone on the carpet.
"Halt!" boomed an impossibly-loud voice. "Who goes there?"
Hjalmar yelped and instinctively recoiled. For one terrifying moment he was suspended in mid-air, about to topple over the side of the carpet. Then, without knowing how it happened, he found himself safely back on the carpet.
"See?" Solvej said with an unspoken 'I told you so' in her voice. "The spells work."
"Who goes there?" the voice thundered again.
"How can they sound so loud?" Hjalmar wondered.
"They've got some sort of contraption to amplify their voice," Solvej answered. Louder, she shouted, "A witch and her friend, who beg an audience with your king."
"Descend to ground level and we'll see," the voice said.
Solvej guided the carpet down to the ground at the base of the mountain. Hjalmar's eyes widened as he looked around. They had landed in the middle of a wide stone road lined with lanterns that somehow provided light only to the road, while being invisible from everywhere else. Ahead of them loomed the mountain, and at its base two enormous gates stood open.
A group of small figures, indistinct silhouettes against the brilliant lights, made their way towards Solvej and Hjalmar.