"Oft the hawk will feather the shaft that fells itself." - Frylia Wintersbreath

In the Hall of Tale-Fires Cain the Story-teller recounted a legend for the townsfolk of Tristram:

"If I could but see thy countenance," lamented the sightless harper, "Yet I know thy dulcet voice and recognize thy scent of honeysuckle and am content."

"And if I could but hear thy song," replied the deaf maiden Amoret, discerning the words from eyeing his lips. "Yet I have thy caresses and am likewise content."

And there in the autumnal glade he took up his harp and sang a lay of two lovers: the one, unable to behold the other's visage, and Amoret, incapable of hearing the harper's skilled minstrelsy.

"Bittersweet," sighed Gillian.

Now within the raveling forest of Eldritchwood stood a garden-maze of high hedges, cunningly laid out and perilous to wend; at the heart of which grew the Tree of Hebe. It bore apples that could remedy physical afflictions or restore youth."

"Like the healing apples of Samarkand in the Arabian Nights," interjected Pepin. "Or amrita, the fabled elixir of immortality."

Each harvest it put forth but three fruit only; therefore was the Tree jeolously warded by a sorceress, Ligea. Ancient in the reckoning of men, she coveted these apples for their restorative properties. Lest an intruder enter unbeknownst to her, three servile familiars kept a vigilant watch. Two were pitch-black and the third a luminous red. Ligea's voice could deceive the unwary and lead them into baited traps and oubliettes; brier, thorn thicket, or tendrils of ivy wherein the entangled would perish piteously...fettered by strangling foliage. And could she shape-shift and assume the form of man, beast or fiend. In the guise of a hideous, viper-tressed Medusa might she turn men into adamant...stoned cursed perpetually. A score and ten petrified figures stood like statuary before that Tree.

"Part Siren, part Gorgon," said Adria the Witch. "And with the ability to shape-shift like Proteus."

Now Amoret resolved to brave the labyrinth herself, win through to the Tree of Hebe and secure an apple for the sightless harper to partake of. Being an able archeress she meant to slay the vile familiars ere her intrusion was detected. Her deafness serving to thwart the fell enchantment of the sorceress.

Through a darkling wood of hoary oak, elm and ilex stood the entrance to Ligea's Maze. Creepers of ivy and bindweed festooned an arched threshold that exuded malevolence. There the harper was to await her. The two kept a loyal hunting-hound that oft would serve as the man's eyes; the keen hearing of the canine would alert Amoret to anything untoward. She also bore a concealed item, circular like a small shield. Now did he attempt to dissaude Amoret from venturing within but she was resolute.

Umbrageous were those living aisles and the wane moonlight did not mitigate the gloom. Here Dread held tenure. The enormity of Ligea's Maze had been devised with diabolic ingenuity and forthwith did she lose all bearing. Bowered archways draped with corrupt green and endless corridors leading into themselves or to nowhere. Lurid shapes appeared making as if to waylay Amoret who was seized by spasms of fear. Though she expended many an arrow they proved incorporeal...phantoms without substance.

Anon, Amoret came to a locked gate of wrought-iron, russet with corrosion and enmeshed with moonlit webs like silver filigree. The ears of the hound started and she notched an arrow. Suddenly, pinioned shadows went scudding overhead. Two pitch-black familiars having wings of hide without quill or feather then fell upon her. The pair darted and swooped, assailing the archeress with talon and fang. Sorely pressed she exhausted her cache of arrows, but Amoret's marksmanship was true and in the familiars' dying throes they let fall a key. Fixing it to the lock the gate opened upon groaning hinges...

Within was a greensward dappled with livid lilies and spectral rigid figures, alabaster in the moonlight. Petrified effigies with pallid blank gazes and sad, noble countenances...some enveloped with trailers of clinging ivy. Transfixed in stone like the half man, half marble Prince of the Enchanted City or Niobe in Greek myth. And beyond the cursed statuary...the branching Tree of Hebe. The maiden trembled and averted her gaze lest she beheld Ligea.

Then would Amoret have uncovered the concealed item she bore; but the hound stirred excitedly as when canines greet their master. For there upon the greensward stood suddenly the harper.

"Nay, my love!" said Amoret bewildered. "Thou should have stayed without! How and why hast thou come here?"

But her vexation turned to abject horror as his features tranformed into that of the hideous Gorgon Medusa with hair of writhing vipers...

~~~

Without the Maze the harper awaited Amoret listening for her return; nought could he hear but the pre-dawn murmers of Eldritchwood...mistle-thrush, warbler and throstle. Strands of mist hung about the tree-boles and found the hollows. Suddenly he discerned a rustle of undergrowth! Something approached...

Lo! it was the unaccompanied hunting-hound. The canine fell to nuzzling him as if agitated.

"Hath she become ensnared?" the man agonized. "For I have with me a keen hunting-knife the which to loose her. Or hath she fallen into an oubliette? For within my satchel I have thought to bring rope the which to deliver her."

Between love and peril there was no choosing. So the harper fared into the recesses of the Maze guided by the hound upon a lead. Forthwith did the loyal companion find Amoret's trail, returning at grey-dawn nigh the place of the encounter with Ligea.

The greensward was shrouded in mist. Within the pall of white vapor was a ruddy light. Before man and hound, contesting their passage, hovered a luminous familiar casting a hellish red aura; the canine snarled. With a screech it sped at the sightless harper. There was nought he could do but slash and stab futilely with his poniard into empty air. The foul Hell-kite cruelly scathed him with razor-talons, reeling and diving but lo! the hound leaped and catching a pinion in its maw grappled the familiar to the ground, gripping tenaciously. The harper heard shrill outcries and a beating of wings, then a piteous yelp...and silence.

The two combatants lay one upon the other. The familiar slain and the hound wounded grievously by envenomed fang. He found his faithful companion stretched out upon the ground, its breathing labored.

There was a soft insideous laughter.

"Hast thou come to join thy Lady?" queried a voice.

For there stood the shape-shifting Ligea in the guise of the Gorgon.

"Long will I savour thy aimless attempts at escaping the wiles of my maze," she chortled. "For thy thieving Lady and bitch-hound canst lend thee no aid. Thou shalt feed the carrion, an apt end for a wretch like thyself; but will I grant a kiss of parting...if thou can but find her," she laughed maliciously.

Then to her bemusement the harper stumbled and groped seeking Amoret. Finding each of the cursed statuary one after the other.

"Here!" he said finally with assurance, "Here is my love." And he pressed his lips to those of the statue that were cold as death...

And this single kiss overcame the fell enchantment of Ligea...love being the more potent magick. And to the bewilderment of the sorceress Amoret instantaneously reverted back to a living, breathing woman. Now did the maiden seize up the concealed item she had borne, uncovering it whilst averting her gaze; and lo! it was no shield but a clear burnished mirror reflecting Ligea's image back to herself...

The sorceress beheld her hideous countenance, gasped, and her face transfixed in a contortion of horror as she turned into solid stone!

"Oft have I heard the Guildmistress of the Rose say: The mirror is the cruelest of beasts," said Adria.

"Bah!" scoffed the boy Wirt. "How did he know which had been her?"

"The condensation or lack thereof revealed Amoret to him," explained Cain. "The other figures having been damp with the night's duration, whilst she had stood there but an hour."

Now did Ligea's evil magery fall away like the pall of mist being burned off by the sun. And all those cursed, save Ligea herself, were restored and stood dazed in the clear light of morning. But no thought did maiden or harper give to them; for hand in hand they had sped to the Tree of Hebe and plucked the three apples, which were round and golden, and hurriedly found the barely conscious hunting-hound laying upon the greensward.

Those apples were sweet and tasted of sunshine and the harper fed it portion by portion to the animal until it slowly revived. And did Amoret partake of the second who then discerned for the first time the singing of birds, and laughter, and the voice of her lover. But at the last she hesitated to give him the third apple for fear that seeing her he might somehow love her the less.

"Dearest," he said, " 'tis for thy voice, thy sweet scent, and the greatness of thine heart that I adore thee...not thy visage."

Then did he eat of it and gradually began to perceive contours and hues...the sunlit dew upon the greensward, the morning of milk and rose, and the beauteous countenance of Amoret...

"But that is impossible," exclaimed the exasperated Wirt, "Shape-shifting, elixirs, being turned into statues...I don't believe a word of it."

"It is the stuff of legends," smiled Cain, "The fabric of dreams. And though impossible ...every word of it is true."

~~~

Glossary

amoret = a love-song. dulcet = sweet to the ear, melodious. eldritch = weird or strange. (Scot.) familiar = a supernatural being in the shape of an animal. Often in servitude to a witch. forthwith = immediately, without delay. Hebe (pronounced "Hebi") = goddess of youth, restorer of youth and vigor to gods and men. Ligea = the name of a Siren in Greek myth. oubliette = a dungeon. pinion = wing. poniard = knife. Proteus = a character in Greek legend famous for his power to assume different shapes at will. scudding = passed over quickly (archaic). umbrageous = filled with shadows. wile = trick or stratagem intended to deceive. without = outside.