'You don't suppose I could find a Prince about to awaken a Beauty Asleep and trade girls with him, do you?' he asked her. If only it were that easy! 'You know, get him to leave the Beauty alone and come wake up the Shieldmaiden for me? Or maybe...do you suppose I could just hunt around for a wandering prince, then when You Know Who turns up again, shove him across the fire?'
'That's a puzzler. No one's ever tried,' she replied. Then — 'Hark!'
The bird was always saying things like 'Hark!' and 'Lo!' and when it did, Siegfried generally found it advantageous to peer ahead up the trail...or as in this case, into the clearing they'd come upon. And at first he thought it was Doom-Woman again, because yes, there was the ring of magic fire, and the ring of flowers, and the stone slab. But before he turned to run, he took a closer look.
It wasn't a woman on the slab; it was a really beautiful maiden. She was blonde, but she wore a gown, not armor. She didn't look frail, but she also didn't look like the sort that would be inclined to don armor and go whack at things on a daily basis. And she was asleep. He could scarcely believe his eyes, or his luck.
'Get her, Siggy!' chirped the bird, and nothing loath, he was halfway across the clearing before he noticed the sorceress.
And the other man.
Chapter 6
Now was the moment to do some real magic. The spell to nullify the slowing potion was actually a lot more like a religious ritual, since it involved a great many symbolic components. First, Rosa had to be on something like a bier, to symbolize death, which was in turn a symbol for slumber.
One Princess on a stone slab, courtesy of some extremely strong Brownies.
She had to be illuminated by rays of sunlight, which symbolized the first rays of sunlight at dawn and the spring sun that brought the earth to life.
One Princess, bathed in a beam of sunlight streaming down through the surrounding trees.
There was the ring of rose petals and violets around the slab, which was supposed to symbolize the quickening of the earth in spring.
There was the flower crown for Rosa, which was supposed to symbolize any one of a hundred Goddesses of Spring, who would emerge from their winter slumber.
To symbolize the slowing effects of the potion, ideally one would want something that hibernated. Snakes and frogs were the easiest. After some consideration, she used a serpent-shaped ring on her finger, and one on Rosa's. She would create a circle of fire around the slab, to invoke both the cleansing power of fire to burn the potion away and the awakening power of the sun's rays.
And lastly, sprinkled all over the rock were various cleansing herbs, and the grit used to polish metal, which symbolized the cleansing of Rosa's body of the potion. Just for good measure, symbolizing itself, Lily had added the actual antidote to the potion, which would counter it, if the person in question had been awake and able to swallow it when they tasted it...which would have taken about a week.
They didn't have a week. Lily needed to get Rosa back to the Palace. If the King fell in battle, or even died of natural causes...it would be a race to figure out what to do next, at the very least, and having the actual, legal heir there would buy them some time.
She had just lit the ring of fire and begun the incantation part of the spell, when she spotted the two men,
one on either side of the clearing — and the moment she saw them, they spotted each other.
The one on the right must have been from the north, farther north than Eltaria's northward neighbor. He was kitted out in the 'hearty, fears-nothing' style that a lot of them favored up there — bronze breastplate, greaves and armbands, and not much else in the way of armor, short-sleeved brown leather tunic and leather trews that didn't quite match, brown fur boots, a huge broadsword slung on his back instead of at his side as was common here, and no shield. He was blond, with his hair just on the attractive side of shaggy, a ruggedly handsome face with a square chin, high cheekbones and a broad forehead. He was also tall, incredibly muscular, and with that powerful aura that told Lily 'The Tradition is going to pound this lad into his Fate like a blacksmith pounding a horseshoe.' And if it weren't for the fact that there was acute intelligence in those guileless blue eyes, she would have dismissed him without a second thought except for how to get Rosa awake and out of there as quickly as possible, because he was going to be a complication. A Prince most likely. And not a stupid Northern Barbarian one. But probably a penniless one. A complication, and one she and Rosa did not need right now.
The first thing that struck her about the other man was the look in his eyes; the minute she saw him, she knew.This one is trouble. 'Trouble' of the rakish sort. There was a merry devil in those green eyes, and the carefully tousled look of his long brown hair, the dashing set of his battered hat, only reinforced what instinct told her. For the rest — he was as rakishly handsome as the other was ruggedly handsome. He was somewhat lighter in frame than the blond, but then, nearly every man she had ever seen would be. His clothing had been very, very good once, but had seen a lot of hard wear. So, another Prince, probably, but one just as penniless as the first one. And on top of that, the sort of fellow who brought a swarm of problems in his wake. Another complication, and more dangerous than the first.
Had The Tradition at that moment appeared before her in a material form, Lily would happily have beaten it with a stick. Here they were, drawn in without a doubt by The Tradition itself, and without a doubt they both wanted Rosa. They wouldn't listen to reason and how many more problems were they going to create besides the ones they brought with them? She didn't know which Paths they were following, and inserting themselves into all the problems of this Kingdom could bring down disaster on everyone!
The two men saw her, then saw each other. Since she looked like herself, she was clearly not a threat, and for the moment, they dismissed her. But both of them recognized a rival when they saw one. Their reaction was instantaneous; they both rushed for the stone slab where Rosa was.
When the blond recognized that the dark-haired one was likely to get there first, he put on a mighty effort, jumped like a horse heading over a fence and threw himself in the air. But not at Rosa; at his rival. He managed to tackle the man just as he was about to cross the circle of fire and both of them went tumbling into the underbrush.
Lily continued the spell, because the last thing she wanted for either of these fellows was to awaken Rosa with a kiss. Once awakened by her spell, Rosa would be much less vulnerable. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the two men wrestling each other; they rolled around on the grass like a couple of boys — this is more like a tussle than a serious fight. It seemed that neither of them wanted to hurt the other, so their efforts were confined
