Sohna and Vivian - My Brother's Keeper

Wolf leaned back in the cushioned carriage, still not quite able to take in the present state of his fortunes. He and Virginia had ridden out from Wendell’s castle five days ago and were rapidly approaching their destination: the ruined dryad castle, tentatively identified as the Basquel royal palace. He had been amazed at how easy it had been to cross the border, especially with the traffic jam of carts ahead of them waiting to be searched for stowaway wolfs (as if most wolfs would care to travel that way, he thought, though he knew it was a possibility for the sick and injured, as well as for mothers with very young cubs). That thought made him look down at his wife, asleep in his lap. A knife jabbed at his heart as he imagined what would happen to her if she were caught the way those young mothers sometimes were - he knew the penalty for fornication with a wolf in the Second Kingdom.

His hand tightened protectively around the very slight roundness at her lower belly. If he concentrated, he could hear the cub’s heartbeat now even over the road noise, a galloping, doubletime staccato to Virginia’s slower pulse rate. Normally his hearing was that acute only during full moon, but the mating bond his Auntie had described permitted him the heightened senses every day, with an extra bonus - free of compulsions - when his cycle peaked. Now that he knew what it was, he actually looked forward to full moon. During the last one, he’d even been able to hear the cub moving around, sloshing in the birthwater.

He and Virginia had been married now for well over a month - two full moons had gone by and then some - and he had never been so deliriously happy in his life. The only real blemish in his joy was the feeling he couldn’t shake that he would wake up one day and find everything taken from him. Just the thought of it was almost enough to bring tears. He blinked and looked out the window at the old familiar countryside.

Wolf was still worried about the curse.

They had all discussed it unendingly, of course, after he and Virginia had returned from their - sigh - honeymoon. Huff, puff, he would never forget that three weeks, he thought. No sirree! But they’d had to come back. Wendell had suggested they call for volunteers from his officers and Tony had offered to go himself, but Wolf had known he had to be the one. The king’s officers were all cowards - they’d proved that so far as he was concerned that night during the first full moon when Wendell had come into the dungeon to investigate the noise. He had no doubt that if they were sent, they’d spend their time away at an inn, then return saying nothing could be found when in fact they’d never tried to look. And Tony ... well, while Tony had improved greatly in the time he’d known him, he was still way too likely to just foul things up. And Wolf could just imagine what Tony would be like under a curse.

But there was another reason that Wolf was the best one of them for the job; a reason no one but himself knew about. He knew he really should have told Virginia, but he wasn’t sure how she’d take it considering what had happened with her mother. At least she had never questioned his authority on magic - either about what he knew or in exactly what kind of school he had acquired the information. But while he would have preferred to go alone, leaving her and the cub somewhere safe, she of course had refused to comply. He hadn’t tried to force the issue, since he knew that it really wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference in the long run: If he became cursed, so could his family be, whether they were with him or not. His aim was to somehow avoid being struck by the curse, if such a thing were possible. He only hoped he was good enough to pull it off: The curse had obviously been placed by someone who was extremely powerful, and Wolf had never made it past the second level in the Wizards’ school. Not that he couldn’t have, or so they’d told him. He’d simply decided that wizardry was not for him. There was too much study involved; too much time spent inside memorizing things. Plus - and he had to admit this - he had been fundamentally afraid of it. He’d simply seen too many wizards for whom the magic had become an addiction. They no longer controlled it - it controlled them. Wolf had enough experience with loss of control during full moon to voluntarily risk more. What he had gained from the time he’d spent in the school was knowledge of how and why the magic worked. That was what he would need to use.

Virginia shifted position. Wolf looked down at her and felt his love for her well up, nearly threatening to break him apart from the inside with its strength and intensity. Curiously, he realized the feeling exactly fit the definition he’d heard in school of what would happen if a wizard lost control of his power: He could be torn apart from the inside. If this was the feeling it supplied, he thought, he didn’t wonder at its addictiveness. And, he was very glad he’d decided not to pursue it.

Virginia leaned back in the warm water of the soaking tub. It felt so wonderful to just sit and soak, no distractions, no interruptions.

But with that thought came a soft knock at the door.

"Ma’am?"

Virginia removed the cloth from her eyes.

“Hmm?” she murmured, then realized where she was and what was planned for that night. “Oh. Yes, I’ll be out in a minute.”

Molly was busying herself laying her mistress’s dress out on the bed. Virginia had chosen it earlier that week, just for this occasion: a dress of black velvet with an ivory silk corset that had rococo red roses embroidered on it. She slipped it on over her head, then walked over to the column, waiting for Molly to lace her up.

She felt the laces move, but they didn’t tighten. Mystified at what Molly was doing, Virginia turned around. Wolf stood there in her maid’s place, his eyes the greenest she’d ever seen them. He leaned in close, inhaling her scent and nuzzling her cheek before turning her around and starting to lace the corset, very slowly. She closed her eyes, gasping with pleasure each time he tightened it, tingling at the feel of his hands on the small of her back. She could feel his hot breath on her neck and heard him growl softly. When he finally tied the corset off, he ran his hands down the smooth sides, feeling the curve of her waist. His fingers passed the lower edge of the corset then and traveled on down to her hips, and finally to her thighs.

She tried to turn around, hungry for him, but he held her fast, cradling her between his arms as his teeth nibbled at her neck, giving her goosebumps. She shivered ...

“Virginia? Are you in there?” she heard her father say from outside in the hallway.

She sat up with a start, still in the tub. Had it all been a dream, she wondered with a sigh of disappointment?

“Yes, I’ll be out in a minute,” she called as she stood up and looked down at what she perceived as the sluglike shape of her body in dismay.

“Well, no corset for you,” she told herself grimly. “That’s for sure.” Her eyes looked into the full-length mirror across from her. Ugh, she thought. I don’t even look pregnant, why is that? I just look dumpy. It’s not fair. Her waist had filled out some on the sides, and her lower abdomen stuck out a little bit, but not enough to signify her as obviously pregnant to someone who didn’t know. She’d given up on trying to hold her stomach in a couple of weeks ago, when it just became too difficult. Her hand went to the slight rise beneath her navel. She stared at herself a moment longer in resignation, then leaned over to get out of the tub and slipped ...

Wolf caught her as she jerked and sat up. He could hear her heart racing with the terror at her dream and tried to calm her.

“Virginia, it’s all right.” He caressed her arm and touched his hand to her cheek. “It’s all right.”

She hugged him.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just dreamed I started to fall, that’s all.”

Something in her voice and in the way she was still hugging him tightly made him think it wasn’t ‘all’, but he wasn’t going to force her to say anything she didn’t want to. Not right now, anyway. Still, there was one thing he did need to find out.

“You weren’t dreaming about anything to do with where we’re going, were you?” he asked.

She sat up and looked at him.

“Oh,” she said, “No. Nothing like that.”

But she stared out the window and didn’t look at him. He put his arm around her and snuggled close. She smiled wanly at him for a moment, then continued her examination of the countryside. Fortunately it wasn’t long before they reached the inn.

It was an expensive inn for where it was, but he knew the reason: They were now deep in wolf country and the owners used cost as a means to keep any potential wolf customers away. In this way, they were able to offer upscale travelers the promise of a wolf-free premises. Not that any wolf would have been foolish enough to openly travel as what he was - he would have been killed immediately - but the local population was well aware that wolfs were often disguised. He was going to have to be very careful.

“I know this place,” he told Virginia. “Whatever you do, try not to call me Wolf while we’re here.” He told her what would happen to them if the owners found out what he was.

“Well let’s not stay here then,” she said reasonably.

“There isn’t any other place,” he announced, which was quite true. There was one inn on the southern road - a simpler place of lodging with tiny whitewashed rooms - but it was too far. And, they’d have to pass the cutoff for their destination in order to reach it anyway. Sleeping outside as wolfs usually did was also out of the question. The obvious wealth their carriage conveyed would make such an act suspicious in the extreme: wealthy people didn’t sleep outside. Plus, Wolf had a more personal reason for wanting to spend the night at an inn. It was quite cold outside now - the temperature would be well below freezing by morning - and he didn’t want his pregnant, non-wolf wife sleeping outside in the cold any more than was absolutely necessary.

He steeled himself and opened the wooden plank door.

For all his worry, the evening had passed without incident. The bed had been soft, the food delicious - and he had managed to behave himself quite well even though he had been hungry. Of course their obvious affluence helped a lot, as did letting Virginia do all the talking. He smiled to himself at the memory of how she’d icily stared the proprietress down when the woman had started becoming too nosey about their destination. Wendell had taught her that aristocratic trick before they’d left, and she’d learned it well, he thought. No, handling the innkeeper and her family hadn’t been hard at all. What had been difficult was the night he’d spent with Virginia. She’d been in a dejected state, he thought, ever since she’d had that dream in the carriage. And, while for awhile he’d thought she’d gotten over it - she’d seemed almost her old corky self while managing the old biddy who ran the inn - when they’d finally retired to their room for the night, it had come back. He’d asked her again what was wrong, and she’d, of course, said nothing, but had hugged and then cuddled with him in such a needy way that he’d known it was really something.

Any other time he’d have been quick to reassure her, but it was very obvious to him that nothing but a full physical mating would have done it - and he couldn’t comply for fear he would start howling and give them both away. Virginia’d said she understood, but he didn’t think she had, not really. She’d just turned over on her side, away from him. He’d been miserable all night, thinking how miserable he’d made her. But that wasn’t the whole of it, either.

He knew that what had started her to feeling bad was her dream. She’d been just fine - happy and contented - before it. And he knew that any dream with a lingering effect was just plain bad news. Magic was nearly always involved in some way, and as powerful and insidious as the forget spell had been, he couldn’t help but suspect the same source now.

It should be impossible, he knew. At this distance, the curse could not work without affecting other people: the innkeeper, her family and staff, for instance. Unless, he thought, he and Virginia had somehow already become targets. The thought chilled him, but he didn’t consider turning back. If they were targets, it was already a fact. They might at least find what they were looking for. He just hoped he was mistaken.

The present road conditions, however, did nothing to reassure him. Although he could detect no sign of recent previous passage ahead of them, their going was just too easy: he knew instinctively that it should have been much more overgrown. As it was, he never had to leave the driver’s seat, where he’d been sitting with Virginia beside him since they’d parted company with their driver and footman at the cutoff to the ruin.

The two men had each taken one of the four horses, leaving two to pull the coach the rest of the way. Wolf had told them how to get to the next inn, where they would wait for the couple’s return. He’d asked them to wait a full week before returning to King Wendell with the news that they were lost, but wondered if they’d really last that long. Certainly, he’d known better than to try and convince them to accompany him to the ruin. The curse was said to only affect anyone who entered the main building, but he knew that wouldn’t satisfy the men. He and Virginia would only end up stranded there if the men got too frightened and made off with their transportation during the night.

“How much farther is it?” Virginia asked suddenly.

He transferred the reins to one hand and put his arm around her.

“Not too,” he said. “We should be getting there pretty soon. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she said quickly, then amended it to, “Well, I’m cold.”

He hugged her tighter and rubbed her arm.

“Why do you keep asking me if I’m all right?” she demanded.

He was saved from having to answer by the sudden sight of their destination. He gestured to it and she stared, transfixed.

“What do you think?” he asked her after they had unharnessed the horses and built a fire in one of the great hearths that stood at each end of the stablehouse.

It took her a moment to answer.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s kind of creepy, but sad too, in a way. I guess it’s just because I can imagine what it must have looked like before this happened to it. It must have been beautiful.” She looked at him ruefully. “Sorry,” she added then in her best matter-of-fact voice. “Being pregnant must be making me melodramatic. It’s just an old building. Is what’s left structurally sound?”

“That depends what form the curse takes,” he replied absently, privately ruminating over her initial reaction. She would be used to dismissing such impressions, with the lack of magic in her world. He, on the other hand, would be foolish to ignore them. She was the daughter of a powerful witch, and that sort of power was often inherited. Not always, it was true, but since the time they’d first met, he’d seen her react to places her mother had long frequented, as if she had a special ability to sense ... what was it called again? Cripes, he couldn’t think of the word! Fretfully, he scratched his temple and stared into the fire. Residue! he thought. That’s it! She has a special ability to sense residue.

“Wolf?” he suddenly heard her ask.

“Hmm?”

“I asked you what exactly the curse is supposed to do.”

“Oh!” he said, chagrined that he hadn’t heard her the first time. “Well, there are a lot of different things said about it, but probably most of them are exaggerations based on people’s fear. It’s pretty much agreed, though, that it has no effect unless you go inside.”

“How are we going to find anything without going inside?” she asked reasonably.

“Well ... um ... there are some versions of the curse which say that it only affects those who remain inside after dark ...”

“Okay ...”

“They’re probably true,” he hastened to add.

“Yes, fine,” she said. “But suppose we get cursed. What happens to us? I mean, what exactly is the curse supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. Something bad.”

“Then how can you be sure there really is a curse?” she wanted to know.

“There just is.”

She sighed.

“Okay,” she said, obviously humoring him, “Fine. Look, it’s one o’clock now. If we make sure we’re out of the building by four thirty at the latest, we should be fine. That gives us three and a half hours to start looking.”

“You want to start right now?”

“I don’t want to sit around here thinking about it,” she replied.

Nevertheless, at the door she hesitated, staring at the huge mound of rubble heaped near what had been the southwestern corner of the building.

“It looks like a bomb went off in it,” she commented. He had to agree that it certainly didn’t appear to have merely failed with age. The remaining portions of the palace were still somewhat intact.

As she turned back to the door, her hand suddenly went to the baby. That simple gesture gave him second thoughts. What am I doing? he wondered. What kind of father am I anyway? But it was too late to turn back. Virginia had gone inside.

A grey landscape spread out before them, the thick layer of dust covering all like newfallen dingy snow, lit by the winter light filtering in through the high window overhead. Virginia had stopped to stare at it, her posture tense and wary.

“What is it?” he asked her. His own voice sounded perfectly normal to him; he didn’t know why, but he had expected the sound of it to be somehow absorbed by their surroundings.

Virginia shook her head distractedly.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Is someone else here? Can you smell anything?”

He realized at once that that was what was the matter. There was no scent of anything inside the building, not even of the dust, which he could plainly see. He told her so.

She gave him a look which told him she didn’t like that any more than he did.

“Well, there aren’t any tracks,” she observed.

“Not that we can see,” he informed her. “But I don’t think this dust is natural either. There hasn’t been any glass in these windows for a long time, but it’s completely undisturbed, as if the air were perfectly still.” He pointed to a pile of dead leaves laying in a corner. “Those would have made some mark in the dust when they blew in, but there is none.”

“Great,” she said grimly. “Well, I guess we’d better get started. If we’re methodical about searching, hopefully we won’t miss anything.”

She started into the large room to their right, but then stopped and stared at the passage that branched off to the left at the base of the great staircase. Wolf swallowed. That passage was calling him, too.

The hole in the wall behind the massive upright chest gaped at them menacingly.

“Welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly,” quoted Virginia.

Wolf winced and whined, wishing she hadn’t said that. Everything was bad enough already without being reminded of that story, no matter how appropriate the reference was.

“Can we find something to wedge between this chest and the wall?” she asked. “You know, to make sure it stays open?”

“Well, sure,” he told her, “But couldn’t whoever or whatever wants to close it just move what we put there our of their way?” He didn’t add that they might only succeed in blocking their own way to a quick escape.

She regarded him with mock disgust.

“Why do you always have to be so logical about it?” she asked.

When they had lit their lanterns, he took her by the hand and stepped through. They found themselves on a dank stone staircase that spiraled up and down into darkness. The same feeling that had brought them both to that room now invited them to go down. Wolf took a deep breath and, squeezing Virginia’s hand, began the descent.

“Is this another magic mirror?” Virginia asked when they’d reached the room beside the cave-in.

It was propped up against the far wall, so that it faced the door, reflecting their images as they entered the room, a full-length rectangle about the same size and weight as the traveling mirror, but with a frame carved with an ivy vine instead.

“I imagine so,” he told her. There was a chance it wasn’t, of course, but he didn’t think it very likely.

“I wonder what it does,” she said.

“Best not to find out,” he advised. He noticed then what made it stand out: It was the only thing in the room not covered with the ubiquitous dust. That discovery gave him even a worse feeling about it than he already had. “Let’s stay away from it,” he suggested.

Virginia, however, had other ideas.

“Could there be something behind it?” she asked.

He wanted to just say no - and he almost did - but he realized then that she was right. The pull of attraction he felt was not to the magic of the mirror (if it had any) but to something behind it. He set his lantern down and, trying not to touch anything on its frame, carefully slid the glass over out of the way. A short door, such as the kind used for attic access in a small cottage, was revealed behind it. He glanced back at Virginia. Then, gritting his teeth, he opened it.

A narrow, dust-free staircase led down along the outside wall of the room. It was wide enough for only one person, and although the ceiling was as low at the start as the door that led onto it, it remained at a level height, so that near the bottom, Wolf could stand. But what he found when he got there made him stop abruptly in the doorway.

“What?” asked Virginia from behind him.

Reluctantly, he entered the room so she could see.

It was a sitting room, complete with a fireplace with carved mantel, and curtained windows on the other three walls. Only, instead of windowpanes, - they were far below the surface of the ground by now - mirrors cast their own flickering reflections back at them. The room was furnished quite luxuriously in a style Wolf didn’t recognize, though it blended perfectly with the natural ornamentation: Living stalagmites, stalactites, and columns, somehow placed in perfect positions to act as natural partitions and compliment the living space without getting in the way. And despite their moist surfaces, the room was not at all damp, though no fire crackled in the grate. Oddest of all, the place seemed untouched by the passage of time.

Virginia walked out into the middle of it, the same look on her face he’d first seen when she’d been detecting the presence of her mother during their adventure. He walked over and put his arm around her. She shook her head to clear it, then looked at him.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just had a feeling that this place was so ... sad. Like someone waiting for someone to come home and they didn’t. No, that’s not quite right. Like it had just been so long it had given up all hope.” She laughed, suddenly embarrassed. “Boy, that sounded stupid,” she said.

“No, it didn’t,” he told her. He meant it, too, but she merely glanced at him as if he were humoring her, then picked something up off a table.

“Wait!” he exclaimed. “You shouldn’t touch anything!”

“Too late,” she replied, holding out her discovery and biting her lip. “What do you think of this?”

It was a signet ring, with the crest carved into a clear green gemstone, not cast in metal as was the common practice. The motif was the same as a bas-relief carving over the fireplace: a dragon with outspread wings, wrapped around a sword and holding a shield.

“Do you think it’s an emerald?” she asked.

“Probably,” he surmised. “Don’t put it on.”

“I’m not going to,” she replied as if she’d never had any intention of it. He was glad to hear it. His memory of her reaction to the invisibility shoes hadn’t dimmed any. “Why do you think it’s here?” she asked.

As if to answer her question, a beam of light suddenly shot out from the ring’s stone. Virginia shrieked and dropped it. The light vanished and it rolled harmlessly against a nearby pillar.

“What was that?” she asked, her voice shaking.

He bent to retrieve the ring.

“Wolf!” she exclaimed.

He ignored her entreaty and held the ring up in approximately the same position. Nothing happened. He moved it slightly to the side and the beam appeared again.

“I think it’s just picking up the light from the lantern,” he announced.

“How can it? The lantern is behind you.”

“From the mirror,” he explained. “No. From all three mirrors. Look.”

He gestured to where the focused beam came to rest: On the dragon’s shield of the fireplace carving.

“You think that means anything?” she asked.

He shrugged and walked over to the fireplace. The carving looked solid, as if it were all of one piece. Gingerly, he put a finger to the shield ... and the entire bas-relief crumbled at the touch, turning to dust and gravel. Behind it was a shallow cavity. The corner of an envelope stuck out of the remains of ruined carving, like the arm of a drowning man. He fished it out and looked at it.

The room swam before him, then steadied. He blinked, but there seemed to be no difference in anything around him. Virginia was still staring at the envelope he held, her expression curious.

“How long have we been here?” he suddenly wondered.

“It can’t have been that long,” she commented, and looked at her watch. Her cry of dismay confirmed his worst fears. “It’s going crazy,” she elaborated. “The numbers all keep changing and they don’t make any sense!”

He didn’t waste time replying to her, just took her by the arm and propelled her up the stairs. She didn’t need any more encouragement. They were both winded by the time they reached the main door to the palace, but it was already too late: The sky was completely dark. Wolf hoped the stories about the curse that he’d heard were exaggerations - it was possible, after all - but when he at last made it outside, what he saw froze his heart: Rising ghostly white against the night sky was the old tower that had long ago crumbled into a mound of rubble. They were cursed.