‘Stop this pretence,mother. Leave Allalanllea alone. She is your loyal servant, as amI. Ask me your questions and I will answer them.’
‘You may leaveAllalanllea,’ said the Queen.
‘Miranda, I have heardwhispers about you associating with a wizard.’
‘Then your sources arecorrect. I have been associating, walking, talking, working,fighting, laughing, crying, eating, drinking, hugging andeverything else I can do with a wizard, without making love to him,but I wishing I could.’
‘So you’ve foundsomeone you like. Do you love him?’
‘How do I know, mother?I don’t know what love is. You’ve always stood in my way. Blockedmy every chance and made it impossible for me to know anyone. Ifwhat I feel for him is love then maybe I do love him.’
‘Does he love you?’
‘I don’t know forsure.’
‘Did you tell him aboutyour curse?’ asked Snowbelle.
‘Yes. He is cursed aswell. Neither of us can touch each other.’
‘Well this isunexpected. How strange fate is. What is his curse?’
‘He is a newman spiritin the body of a slime creature.’
‘You love a slimecreature? That’s obscene!’
‘Don’t let yourimagination run away with itself mother. He can shape change to hisnewman form. His spirit is strong and powerful but gentle andcaring. Unfortunately, his body is unresponsive to mine. That ishis curse.’
‘Dump him and I willnot harm him. Forget him. He cannot possibly fulfil the conditionsto lift your curse. He will only cause you grief and sorrow.’
‘Well it is grief andsorrow that I shall weather, mother, for I have no intention ofdoing anything other than helping him. Now I’m tired, I need rest,as we have big challenges ahead of us.’
‘You’ll get no helpfrom me!’
‘I expected nonemother. We will survive by our own means and be stronger because ofit.’
‘I will not let youmake a fool of yourself for a wizard,’ screamed her mother and sheattempted to dominate Miranda’s mind. Miranda felt it coming andimagined it as a ball and hand attack and succeeded in fending itoff. But her mother immediately attacked again as a cat, so Mirandaformed her defence as a cat and they fought mind to mind. Theheadstrong young cat against the headstrong older cat. They hissedand spat and leaped and rolled and jumped and struck at each otherfor an indeterminable time, until Miranda collapsed withexhaustion.
Snowbelle staggered toa chair and ordered a strong drink and sipped it while waiting forMiranda to return to consciousness. Finally Miranda stood up andsaid:
‘All right mother, youwon this time but I’m still going and if you try to stop me I’llfight you again.’
‘I’ll not stop you.He’s taught you well. I think you’ve finally found someone whomight have a chance to remove that damn curse.’
‘What do you mean? Ithought you could remove it,’ said Miranda.
‘I’ll admit it was myidea to put it on you, but something went wrong in the ritual. Itended up much more powerful than I anticipated. I prayed to theLady about it and sometime later I received a dream, which set outthree conditions for its removal. The first seemed so trivial thatI never bothered telling you. The second worried me so I purposelydidn’t tell you and the third you know. Anyone who wishes to liftthe curse must first defeat me in a mental challenge, and I amundefeated.’
‘What are the other twoconditions?’
‘Oh no. I will onlytell those to your slimy would-be lover after he has defeatedme.’
‘Mother, he is nolonger a slime creature, he was killed by an assassin this morningand I reincarnated him using the final charge in your favouriteflower pendant. He is now a bear.’ She smiled, knowing her mother’slikely reaction, and fled to her retreat to avoid the fallout.
She teleported to thegateway, passed through it back to Mudrun, ran out through thewaterfall, shape changed to her eagle form and flew up to hersecret hideaway in the cliff face in the southern wall of theU-shaped gully.
When Miranda was achild she had spent countless hours in the gully with thewaterfall. She knew almost every rock, for she had picked them upand turned them over looking for small creatures. Running along thesouthern wall of the gully thirty paces from the ground was a twopace wide ledge, and about half way along the ledge was a crack, athin crevice, in the gully wall. She had often wondered what laydown that crack.
She had been initiatedinto the order of druids as a young teenager, and as soon as shehad learnt to fly as an eagle she had flown up to the ledge andexplored it. It wound into the cliff face about fifty paces beforeending in a cave, which was supplied with air from another crackthat went above. Fresh water was also available, which filteredthrough a fault line in the rock. Immediately she found it, she haddeclared that this was her private domain. This was Miranda’sRetreat.
From that momentonwards she had gone there when she had an argument with hermother, or when she wanted a period of contemplation. Over theyears she had upgraded it with sleeping equipment and a stash offood. There was a very traumatic period when a family of cavespiders had invaded it. As a good druid she had tried for a wholeweek to coax them to leave. In the end in a fit of rage she hadswept through and killed the lot of them, two adults and nineteenhatchlings.
After the rage she hadgrieved for a week, praying to the Lady for forgiveness. Yearslater she would have done the same thing again and thought nothingof it. For by then she had learnt that all creatures need a placeto call their own, a territory, a hollow, a cave where they couldfeel safe and above all, a place which they would fight to thedeath to keep as their own.
She lit the lanternthrew herself down on the slightly damp bedding and cried her heartout. She had a few days before Aquitain would be up and around. Shehad some time to think. She was confused, emotional and tired. Morehad happened in the last few days than in the past ten years. Shecouldn’t remember experiencing so much emotional turmoil duringsuch a short period of time. In the last few minutes
