Sohna and Vivian - My Brother's Keeper

He hadn’t wanted her to watch, but she’d insisted and he’d finally given in, kissing her and regarding her with an expression full of reproach. But as he’d looked away, his countenance had changed to one of grim determination. Looking at it, she suddenly had no trouble believing that her Wolf was capable of wielding magic, something she’d found difficult to imagine only moments before. The realization sent a chill down her spine, and with sudden clarity she understood that this was what he hadn’t wanted her to see.

He took a deep breath and faced the moon, throwing his head back and bathing himself in her light. Though she was too far away to tell, Virginia somehow knew his eyes were closed. Then, his posture and stance altered, and he stood tall and straight, his right hand pointed out and down. Electricity snapped in the air; she smelt ozone. A silvery course of light shot from Wolf’s hand to the ground. He turned, and the light continued, unwinking, until he had drawn an invisible circle in the snow surrounding him. The light shut off. She saw him look up, the cant of his head proud, waiting.

He didn’t wait long.

Virginia’s ears popped as three men materialized in flashes of golden light just outside of the circle her husband had drawn around himself. He seemed surprised, but stood his ground. The one directly in front of him raised his hand.

“No!” Virginia cried involuntarily. It did no good; she watched helplessly as Wolf recoiled under the invisible attack. Yet he didn’t submit.

The other two wizards added their power to that of the first. She heard her husband gasp and for the first time, saw the circle he’d drawn glow with power. Something about their wordless attack angered her and she ran out into the snow-filled garden in outrage - and collided with an invisible wall.

Momentarily knocked senseless, she had no recollection of exactly what happened next; one moment she was running towards the head wizard, the next she was sitting on the ground in the snow, her skirts soaked through and the sky split open. There was a blinding flash of light, then darkness all around except for a single strange man who walked up to her and held out his hand. She took it and got to her feet, squinting at him to get a better look. A gutted torch by a snow-covered garden bench to her right flared to life and she saw him: old, his never-attractive face turned to leather, white tufts of hair like sprigs of unplucked feathers on his liver-spotted head, ears like Dumbo, mouth shrunken in toothlessness. But within this vessel of ugliness and age his eyes danced with joyful life. He turned to Wolf and released her to him.

“Here ye go,” he said, his voice like a rusty hinge. Wolf took Virginia’s hand and bowed deeply.

“Master!” a strange voice called. “Master! He injured Vannik!”

The old man glanced towards the call. So did Virginia. The two lesser wizards were bent over their prone companion. “That filthy wolf attacked him!” one of them snarled. “I knew it would happen! I always knew it! We should never have let him into ...”

His words were abruptly cut off as all three vanished from sight. The old man turned back to the two of them, but said nothing. Virginia could feel her husband shaking, as much from apprehension as from whatever had happened that she’d missed; whatever had injured the wizard that had just been dispatched away. She heard him start to whine. Evidently, so did the old man.

“Well?” he prompted in a tone that said he didn’t have all night. With a shock, Virginia realized he was waiting for the explanation of why Wolf had summoned him.

“It’s in the house,” she croaked out.

“It?”

“Yes, the ... uh ...”

“The death-watch,” Wolf finished for her after he’d apparently realized he wasn’t going to be dispatched along with the others.

The old man cocked an eyebrow.

“Death-watch?” he rasped. “Take me to her.”

Inside the house, he contemplated it silently, then looked up at Wolf.

“Ye’ll have te go,” he declared.

Virginia started to pull her husband from the room, but he didn’t budge, just sighed, “I know,” and she realized then that the old wizard meant he must go with him. She started to protest, but he seemed to read her thoughts.

“Ye kin come too,” he told her, then thought a moment and added, “All of ye.”

Wolf glanced upstairs doubtfully. “But she ...” he began.

“I ken who she is,” came the response. Then, to Millie, who’d been hanging back in the shadows, he said, “And aye, him too, as yer thinkin’. The innocent victim.” Wolf’s aunt turned and hurried briskly back into the depths of the cottage.

The old man returned to regarding the gold watch.

“W-what is it?” ventured Virginia, wondering as soon as she’d spoken if questions were allowed.

Apparently they were. He glanced up at her sadly and said, “The curse.”

Less than five minutes passed before Wolf and Virginia found themselves virtually alone in a corridor of the Wizards’ Citadel. Aunt Millie and Queen Red, Wolf knew, had doubtless been whisked off to some other location, most likely the infirmary, at the same time that Grandmaster Roscoe had brought Virginia and him to the main hall. Predictably, a swarm of people had collected around the old wizard to inquire as to his needs. He’d briefly introduced the both of them as his guests, then vanished without further explanation. It hadn’t taken long for the sycophants to disappear themselves, although they did it more mundanely.

“How can they just ignore us like this?” asked Virginia for about the third time.

Wolf didn’t answer. By now he knew her question was rhetorical, and that the reason - that he was a wolf and everyone knew it - hadn’t satisfied her. “Let’s hurry up and see if we can find Tony,” he said instead, starting briskly off down the corridor they’d wandered into after winding up alone in the receiving hall. Virginia put her hand on his arm and stopped him.

“Wolf,” she said, her voice serious. “Dad will wait. Tell me what’s going on.”

He looked down at her sweet face, her enormous blue eyes both knowing and so trusting of him. He swallowed, sighing heavily. Finally, he said, “Virginia, when I summoned them, I ...” then swallowed again, before continuing, “I mean I didn’t really summon them, I just ...”

“You just what?” she prompted.

“I just cast a spell,” he finally said. “It’s not allowed - I’m not allowed to do it, so I knew they’d come - well, actually I knew they’d just take me, which is why ...”

“Wolf,” she said. He quieted and looked at her. “Slow down. You’re saying you didn’t really summon them, you just did some magic to get their attention?”

He nodded.

“And that they’d have just ... um ... teleported you here by yourself except that you did something to keep them from doing that?”

“Yes!” he nodded emphatically. “Yes, I drew that protection circle - and that took enough magic that they noticed.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “But why is this a big deal?”

“Because it’s not allowed! It’s very bad, what I did. Once someone who’s learned how to cast spells decides to leave, they can never use their magic again. If they do, there’s a penalty ...”

Her eyes bored into his, alarmed. “What kind of penalty?”

“It depends on the severity of the offense,” he told her. “It’s decided at a trial. Oh, Virginia, right now I should be in the dungeon, so I think really that just being ignored is okay.”

“You deliberately did something you knew would get you thrown into a dungeon?!” she exclaimed incredulously.

“Huff puff, I had no choice!” he insisted. “It was there! No one could touch it and it wasn’t going to go away. We had no idea where it came from in the first place and Queen Riding Hood wasn’t in any condition to tell us ...”

Virginia’s eyes widened a bit more. “Queen Riding Hood?” she asked. “Yes, that was her. Didn’t you recognize her from Wendell’s coronation?”

She shook her head as if trying to clear a fog from it. “Never mind,” she finally said. “So why aren’t you in the dungeon now?”

“I think because Grandmaster Roscoe told everyone we were his guests,” he surmised. Then, anxious to change the subject, he quickly added, “Let’s go find Tony.”

Tony and Samantha’s time alone with each other had, unfortunately, been short-lived. It seemed to Tony as if all the wizards in the Citadel needed to see for themselves that Samantha’d broken free from the curse she’d been under and they’d come dribbling and drabbling in, some just to stare, others to officiously grill her on her experience, and a few who acted as if they were her doctor, touching her forehead and feeling for a pulse. She took it all a lot more calmly that he would have, and in fact, the only thing stopping him from giving them all a piece of his mind was her hand squeezing his, imploring him to just be patient. He did the best he could, but what really irked him was when she’d explained - after the first person asked her how she’d gotten free of the curse - that Tony had kissed her awake, and the guy’d essentially told her she must have had a delusion. Tony’d wanted to grab him by the throat and throw him through the window, but she’d clamped her hand down on his fingers so hard that it hurt and he’d managed to let it pass. After that, she’d simply said she had no idea how she’d gotten free and Tony had plastered a false smile on his face, behind which he not-so-secretly wondered when everyone was going to shut up and go away.

He was nearly to the point where he was going to just blurt the question out loud when the ten or so wizards that had crowded into the chamber looked suspiciously at the air surrounding them. A few minutes later, there was a momentary flash of light, and another man stood in their midst - an old geezer, Tony noted, with a leathery, liver-spotted head and no teeth, wearing a pair of ragged overalls and a stained shirt. But despite his rustic appearance, it was obvious that the others deferred to him. One of them even came forward, bowed, and called him ‘Master’, reminding Tony eerily of Murray. The geezer, Tony noted with satisfaction, regarded the toady with a vague contempt.

“What’re ye’ll doin’ heer?” he muttered.

All of them looked distinctly uncomfortable at his words. Several in the back, nearest the door, fled. Tony smiled. He was going to like this guy.

“Git,” he added.

They got.

Once the room had cleared, the old guy regarded the two of them somberly, chewing his tongue.

“Whar’s yer dotter?” he finally asked.

Tony blinked.

“Virginia?” he said. “I don’t know. Is she here? I thought she was at Wendell’s ...” Tony trailed off when the old man seemed to stop listening and start staring at the wall. After a moment, he realized the wall was beginning to glow.

“Wolf, I don’t think I want to walk up all those steps unless I know for a fact that Dad’s up there,” he heard Virginia’s voice say. Her face appeared as if projected on the wall immediately afterwards.

“Oh, well, I could run up and see,” Wolf’s voice replied. The viewpoint changed to show him, as if a camera on the both of them had pulled back. They stood at the bottom of a flight of narrow, curved stone stairs that wound upwards out of sight, holding hands. Virginia’s free hand absently stroked her very swollen belly. Tony gasped out loud; she looked huge. How long have I been here? he wondered suddenly.

Wolf’s head suddenly jerked as if he’d heard something.

“What?” asked Virginia.

Her husband smiled. “You won’t have to walk up all these stairs,” he told her. “Grandmaster Roscoe’s going to take us right there.”

No sooner had he spoke than they appeared in a flash of light similar to the one in which the old wizard had arrived.

“Dad!” exclaimed Virginia, running up to him and giving him a hug. He embraced her warmly, then held her away from him for a good look.

“Have I been here that long?” he asked.

“Two months,” she told him, patting herself on the tummy, “But I know. I’m really big for six months pregnant.”

“That’s six months pregnant?” he asked, incredulously, then, more quietly added, “It’s not twins, is it?”

“They don’t think so,” she managed to reply before Roscoe interrupted them.

“Ye’ll be over thar,” he said to Virginia, pointing to the far corner of the room. “And ye,” he said to Wolf.

Surprised, Virginia shrugged and walked over to where he’d indicated. Tony started to follow her, but the old wizard stopped him.

“No, stay w’ her,” he said.

He sat back down on the bed next to Samantha and took her by the hand. She squeezed it without looking at him and he felt warmth pour out of the contact and into him.

“‘S an artifact,” Roscoe stated as a preamble before a gold watch appeared, hovering in the air above the bed. Tony had only enough time to briefly wonder why it seemed surrounded by a haze of light before he felt Samantha shrink away from it with a gasp.

“What?” he asked, worried. When she continued to cringe, whimpering, even after the old guy’d made the watch-thing disappear, the notion suddenly came to him that she might suffer a relapse. He drew her to him and stroked her on the back like a child. “It’s gone,” he whispered. “It’s okay, it’s all gone.”

After a moment she drew a ragged breath and gave him a tight squeeze before looking up at her superior.

“Well?” was all he asked.

Tony opened his mouth to tell the old fart what he could go do with himself, but this time Samantha stopped him by laying her finger softly on his lips.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “It was the same. That was the same power that had trapped me.”

Virginia leaned back into the warmth of Wolf’s arms in the oversized, overstuffed chair in the corner of Samantha’s sickroom, feeling the child within her roll and tumble, stretching first one way and then bumping about in another. Wolf’s hands rested on her swollen abdomen, and she knew he could feel it too. Her chest ached with joy; incongruously, it reminded her of the silly cartoon about the Grinch and how his three-size-too-small heart had finally grown larger than any other. It was exactly how she felt now. Was my heart too small before? she wondered. Is that why I thought I never wanted any of this? The love she felt radiating from herself threatened to shake and overwhelm her in its intensity, almost as if her body were too small and fragile to contain it. She turned to her husband and squeezed him hard, burying her face in his shoulder, her eyes squeezed shut, tears of happiness burning them.

“Are you all right?” he half-whispered, the baritone of his voice rumbling softly in the sounding board of his chest.

She nodded.

“Perfect,” she murmured, nestling her face into the crook of his neck and sighing with contentment. He hugged her closer and stroked her back.

Across the room, rising from the background murmur of voices she’d paid scant attention to since Roscoe had banished the death-watch, an act which had seemed to trigger the swelling of her heart, Samantha’s voice rose in a grim counterpoint to her elation:

“Upon a hill in the world of old
Sleeps a story that remains untold;
Sit back, you must learn this lesson well -
Of a kingdom cursed by a great spell....

Imagine a land, fair and serene
Where lived the dryads, gentle has been;
But the peace there was to end quite soon
Come Midwinter's Eve, full of the moon.

Of the kingdom that once had thrived
In the end, not a creature survived;
The land turned barren, desolate, dry,
Out of the dark came a piercing cry.

The Basquel Queen, near her time to end -
A broken heart that would never mend -
By her hand, seeing her love's great pain,
Determined to save what did remain.

In whispered voice, with her final breath
The grim promise she sealed with her death -
She gathered her strength, her eyes now closed
And wove these last words, so full of woe:

“My love, my hate with this one last spell
I curse your people and hide them well;
And I promise you with all my heart
But a child twixt two may break apart.”

“That’s what we know of the curse,” the necromancer added.

The anguish and sheer destructive power described in it made Virginia suddenly catch her breath. The rush of love she’d felt - and still basked in - held a vast, unbridled power. If turned to hate and unleashed, especially by someone with the ability to focus it with magic, it would be impossible to withstand. She shivered at the thought, while at the same time her heart ached for the sad Basquel Queen and the agony she must have felt to enable her to cast such a terrible curse.

“This line,” said Roscoe, “‘I curse yer people an’ hide ‘em well’ - What make ye o’ that?” Evidently the question was rhetorical, since he continued almost immediately with, “The death-watch, the directed hunts, even the reason’s bin given fer the war - ever’thin’s bin aginst the half-wolfs.”

In her arms, Virginia felt Wolf suddenly stiffen.

“You think the half-wolfs are the people she cursed?” asked Samantha curiously. “How? By causing the other peoples of the kingdoms to hate them or by making them into half-wolfs?”

Virginia stroked Wolf’s arm and looked up at his face. He seemed to be staring intently at the three people across the room, except that his eyes had a somewhat glazed appearance.

“He said,” he began, but his voice failed and he had to start again to project it loudly enough for them all to hear, “That doctor said I was human, according to the tests he did.”

Virginia sat up straight, astounded.

“That’s right, he did!” she exclaimed, looking over at her father, “Dr. Oberon ran some tests on Wolf’s genes and he said he was as human as the rest of us!”

Her father blinked.

“You’re kidding.”

“No, really!”

“You mean this werewolf thing really is a curse, just like in all those bad movies?” asked Tony.

Was it? she wondered, looking again at Wolf, who was now staring silently into the corner. If so, what would happen to him when it was broken? Would he transform suddenly into an ordinary man? How much would he change? Her exposed heart suddenly quailed, panic seizing her. What if ... No, stop it, Virginia. He loves you. It won’t make a difference. She forced herself to stop dwelling on the subject, but the small seed of doubt remained, nonetheless, whispering only wolfs mate for life ...

“... nearly succeeded,” Roscoe was saying as she came out of her mental wanderings. “And might still; she’s doin’ poorly, an’ w’ the father’s bein’ pissessed ...”

“What?” Virginia whispered.

“Queen Red,” her husband murmured into her ear. “Her baby, it was ... it was Rafe’s.”

She turned to stare at him incredulously. “Rafe’s?!” she hissed, “As in: your brother Rafe?”

His eyes regarded her with an apologetically pleading look, which she took for a yes.

“But how could ... I mean, she’s the queen of the Second Kingdom!”

“Yeah.”

“Exa-tly the point,” Roscoe turned and informed her. “Who hates wolfs more? What makes it hardist te break?”

“Oh, my God,” she murmured. He had to be right, she thought. The member of royalty whose child would break the curse had to be Red Riding Hood the Third. And it seemed ironically obvious now that the father of her child would of course need to be a half-wolf.

Dr. Oberon closed the door to his office behind him after gesturing for Virginia to be seated. She perched herself nervously on the edge of a cushioned chair as she watched him cross to his desk, where he plunked himself down, facing her.

“You’re wonderfully healthy, Virginia,” he told her. “As always. The baby’s heartbeat is fast, but still within the normal range - and considering the vitals I took from Wolf, probably exactly normal.”

“You ... said he was human ... somehow?” she ventured.

“Yes, the genetic samples I took from him were consistent with that.”

She looked away, unsure how to phrase what she wanted to say. They’d asked her to get him to come help Queen Riding Hood, but she had no idea how to ensure he’d agree.

“This is the first visit you’ve had where he hasn’t come with you,” he observed. “Is he all right?”

“Oh! Oh, yes, he’s fine. Completely recovered,” she assured him. “He, um, broke a rule at this place and he kind of has to stay there and help them with stuff for awhile, but it’s no big deal.”

She hoped that would explain it. She especially didn’t want Dr. Oberon to start out with a negative opinion of the Wizards’ Council, but she also didn’t want to go into the long, detailed explanation of exactly what Wolf had done and why and what it all meant to the wizards. At least, she didn’t want to if she could help it.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked her. “Anything I should know about ... now?” He gestured vaguely around his office, where they were able to speak privately.

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” she assured him. “In fact, I feel wonderful.”

“Good,” he said. “Baby not too active for you then? I noticed it was quite lively during your exam.”

“Oh, no, she’s like this most of the time,” Virginia stammered, her words coming in a rush. “It doesn’t bother me, though. I like the feeling, actually.” She bit her lip, absently stroking her bulging abdomen and its restless resident.

“You’ve been saying ‘she’,” he noted. “Is there something you know that I don’t?”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, looking up, “Oh, yes, this wizard - I think my father is dating her now, but of course he wasn’t then (why am I babbling suddenly?) - had some kind of spell she did that said it was a girl.”

“Oh,” he said.

They sat in silence for a moment. She scratched the side of her neck.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked pointedly.

“No.” The lie came to her lips automatically. “Well, um ...”

He waited as she stared down at her enormous stomach.

“I just wish I knew why I was so huge,” she murmured, almost inaudibly. “I know it’s stupid; I know you can’t tell me either. But I’ve had a couple of people ask me if I’m past my due date yet and I’m only six months pregnant.” To her horror, she started crying. This isn’t what you’re here for, Virginia! she mentally scolded. And he can’t do anything anyway! What is the matter with you?

He opened the medical file he’d laid on his desk and glanced at the contents. “I can tell you that you are definitely not the size of a woman about to deliver,” he told her. “You measured thirty-one centimeters today - that’s just short of about eight months pregnant, which I know may not reassure you much, but it’s still pretty far from forty. And you’re at twenty-six weeks, which is actually six and a half months pregnant.”

She rubbed the tears roughly from her eyes and nodded.

“Okay,” she said, staring down at her midsection.

“These wizards - they can’t tell you anything about this?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Just that it’s a girl and a single baby, not twins or anything. And it’s nothing that happens to half-wolfs, either - Wolf’s aunt is a midwife and I look too big to her, too.”

He tapped the desk and stared thoughtfully at a corner of his blotter. Finally, he said, “I’m not disagreeing with you, but I guess I don’t understand why a wizard midwife, for instance, wouldn’t be able to tell.”

She looked up, astonished that the subject she needed to discuss had managed to come up all on its own.

“Because they don’t have any!” she told him. “Wizards are kind of like priests, I guess. They don’t have children, so they don’t need midwives. Which actually is why I’m here ...”

He smiled.

“You weren’t here for your appointment?”

“Oh, well, that too,” she admitted sheepishly, before going on to tell him about Queen Riding Hood and the curse.

“So, will you come?” she asked.

He’d gotten up midway through her speech and stared out the window, at what she thought was the park below, if she hadn’t gotten her directions mixed up inside the building. Her question hung in the air a moment before he finally turned back to face her.

“Sure,” he said, in an odd tone, as if he had no choice in the matter. “This afternoon? When I’m finished with the rest of today’s patients?”

She nodded.

“Thank you,” she told him.

When she left, he was staring out the window again.

The young wizard who had been assigned to guide them to Wendell’s castle and back again stood up nervously when they finally stepped through the mirror and raised his hand, preparatory to casting the teleportation spell.

“Wait!” cried Virginia. “I want to ...”

“... talk to Wendell first,” she continued lamely as they arrived in the reception hall of the Citadel.

“I’m sorry, there wasn’t any time,” he told her. “We may have waited too long as it is.”

“Too long for what?” she asked, bewildered.

Grandmaster Roscoe entered the room, this time in a mundane walk, accompanied by her father and Samantha, who, she noted, were holding hands.

“Cas’le White is under siege,” he informed them, then turned to the young man who’d been their escort. “‘S all right, Brandon. Ye were charged with yer task aforehand.”

Brandon nodded and bowed his head, then turned to her.

“The wizards’ non-interference policy prevents us from interacting with any of the parties during war,” he explained. “We bent it in the first place by sending you back, but at the time the situation was not so critical. Now, however ...” he trailed off uncomfortably and glanced over at his superior.

“Ye’ll have te wait till the siege ends te go home,” Roscoe finished for him.