THE KNIGHT OF LIONS
PART 4
By Cretin De Twonk
Yvan sat up and bawled.
"Why?" he cried in between hiccuping sobs. "Why did she have to be so cruel? She could have given my heart back before she banished me!"
He dragged himself upright, and drew his sword, hesitating. Changing his mind, he dropped it and ran to the spring, plunging his head under the water. He made himself stay there, fighting the urge to breathe.
Luan saw this attempt towards the end of despair and knew what to do. He grabbed the fallen sword between his teeth and pulled it to the tree, where he propped it up against the trunk blade upwards. He fixed it there with a log, and stood on the log ready to drive himself down onto the point. He waited.
At last Yvan burst out of the water with a litany of gasps, gags, chokes and sobs. Before he could try to drown himself again, he saw the composition of sword and lion, and stopped in horror.
"What are you doing?"
Luan simply looked at him. "I could ask you the same question."
"Isn't it obvious? Life isn't worth living for me any more. I'm not even alive."
"I see," Luan said coldly. "Did you pause to think you might not be able to drown? And did you pause to think that if you were gone, my life would be empty?"
Yvan wiped the water from his face and hair, unsure how to answer that question. All he knew was his lion friend had a point, but how to admit it?
He was saved from having to reply by a woman calling for help.
Luan flicked an ear. "Sounds like a woman calling for help."
Yvan listened. "It's coming from behind those pines."
Together both beast and man crept through the trees until the forest ended. Opposite them stood a small, tumbledown stone chapel, no longer in use, and the cries emanated from that, or more specifically, from the bottom of the chapel.
Luan sniffed around the walls. "Here."
Yvan joined him. They were looking down at a gap in the stones of the wall at ground level, and a shadow gazed up at them from it.
"Lunette! Is that you?"
"Of course it's me, you halfwit."
"But...what are you doing here? I thought you'd gone back to bring the Moon?"
Luan wrinkled his nose in confusion.
"I was going to," Lunette sighed. "But then Lady Lauden's men had me arrested for tricking her into having it off with her enemy."
Yvan put a hand to his sword-hilt. "What enemy?"
"You, stupid. They're going to burn me to death tomorrow at noon, unless someone gets me out of this mess."
"Can't Gawain help you?" Yvan said, offended by being called his true love's enemy. "He seemed rather smitten with you, as I recall."
"He can't come. He's off rescuing the Queen from some sort of abduction attempt."
"Right," Luan said, swishing his tail. "We'll save you."
Yvan frowned. "We will?"
"Did that lion just speak to me?" Lunette gasped.
"I did," Luan said. "You're not the only being trapped in the wrong shape, you know."
"How are you going to get me out?" Lunette asked.
She had a point. There was no door leading to the chapel crypt from the outside, and when they tried to open the main door, it was padlocked tighter than a poppy head when it's gone to seed.
"We can't just run off with you," Yvan said, thinking. "If we did that, we'd be kidnapping you or absconding with a known criminal. No, in order to free you we'll have to clear your name."
"How?"
"Tomorrow noon, I'll have to fight your accusers," Yvan sighed. He took no pleasure in fighting, now it was so easy and there was no chance of being hurt. He turned to leave.
"Won't you wait with me?" Lunette called. "What if something happens to you?"
"Things are always happening to me," he said without looking back. "It's called life."
Back in the trees, Luan said, "Is it possible to burn a shadow to death?"
"I didn't think so." Yvan was doubtful. "But if she's a shadow, she can just slither out of the chink in the bricks, can't she? There must be a reason she's trying to get me involved, an ulterior motive."
"You think she's trying to trick you again?" Luan said, who had been told edited highlights about Yvan's misadventures in Brocelliand. "Another part of the curse on her needs lifting, perhaps?"
"Maybe."
The pair walked on in frowning silence, until the trees thinned again and they came upon a desolate wasteland. In its centre rose a stone castle, blackened and gutted from fire but still standing. The moat was boiled dry.
"Good," Yvan said. "A place with a roof. We can spend the night in here, instead of getting rained on and chilled to the core."
"You're forgetting something," said Luan. "I'm a lion."
"You'll have to pretend to be my pet, then."
"A pet?"
"Yes. Follow me around but don't talk."
As they neared the rearing stone edifice they passed crowds of people wandering about looking miserable, or standing in murmuring knots looking miserable. Their clothes were singed rags, some held on to various belongings, others had none. Some were burned or otherwise injured. No one answered when Yvan asked what disaster had occurred, and every person there refused to meet his eye.
When they saw Luan, there was no uproar as Yvan half-feared there might be. A couple of younger children backed behind their parents' legs, wide-eyed, and a few people froze, but that was the extent of the panic.
"Whatever was done to them," Luan muttered, "they're still in shock."
They continued over the burned plain, climbed down the dry banks of the moat and out the other side, until they came to the castle entrance. The wooden door was a charred mess held together by melted iron bolts. Before they could knock a sad-faced, gaunt man opened it to them.
On seeing Yvan, the man's mouth lengthened into a ghoulish parody of a smile, and he greeted them in a bright, brittle voice.
"Travellers! So good to see you! Welcome...please, come in..."
He left them, leaving the door gaping. There was clearly something disturbing his mind. Despite being dressed like a prince in silver armour with a red surcoat on top, his hair was a nest of grey rat's-tails, and he moved like an old man.
Apart from their host, the place was quieter than a midday desert.
"Do you not have servants?" Yvan asked in concern. "Or family?"
The man cast them a grave look in response. "You can sleep on the benches in the Great Hall. That's the only room that escaped the fire. I'm sorry you have to put up with such Spartan accommodation, we are in trying circumstances. I am Lord Akila, and this is the land I was in charge of...until the Giants came."
"Giants?"
The question was brushed aside. "There's still some wine stored in the cellars, I'd imagine. I'll bring it up."
Then he was gone, still with that clownish smile on his lips.
"Something's not right," Luan said when they were alone in the Hall, which was built of large blocks of stone with a fire pit running down the centre, now black and empty. "Why is everyone grieving, yet the Lord of this place pretends to be happy when talking to us?"
Lord Akila returned with three flagons of wine.
"I'm sorry if I appear stressed," he said, and drained one of the flagons.
Luan looked at the wine and licked his lips.
"That's all right." Yvan started to reach for a flagon, but stopped when Lord Akila drank that one as well. "Something's happened here, a big fire. Please, tell me how I can help."
Lord Akila drank the last flagon, and Luan looked away, disgusted. "Yes. No. Oh, I don't know...it's the Giants, you see. They came and ate all our crops, and they ate the trees. They squashed every building into the earth and set light to the castle, and everything else. Luckily our sentry spotted them coming and we were able to start evacuation procedures, so nobody was killed. But my sons...my four sons were abducted by the King of the Giants, Ben-Hoblin. One moment they were helping me evacuate the castle, the next, snatched."
"Sorry," Yvan said lamely. "I didn't know."
"That's not the worst part." Lord Akila shuddered and closed his eyes. "He's coming back tomorrow morning. Their King says if I want my sons returned alive, I have to hand my daughter over to him, and not for eating. Something far, far worse than being eaten."
"Oh," Yvan said. "Oh...dear."
"My wife and daughter are holed up in the cellar," Lord Akila said. "Come and meet them, then perhaps you'll realise the full extent of my problems..."
They followed him down through the winding depths of the castle, until Yvan could tell by the damp feel and smell that they were underground. Lord Akila lit a torch, revealing a small door made of old planks. Once opened, at the bottom of a set of stone steps stood two women.
"Darling?" the eldest one called. "Is it the giant?"
"Does he look like a giant to you?" Lord Akila said, peeved. "This is an honoured guest, Sazney. He's -- what did you say your name was?"
"I didn't," Yvan said, and hesitated as Luan lightly nudged his leg. He understood the lion's meaning. Here, so close to Lady Lauden's valley, Yvan son of Uhrience might be more than an outcast, more likely an outlaw. Instead of telling the truth he said, "It's Luan the Fourth, son of...ah...well, his name is difficult to pronounce."
Lord Akila nodded. "Sir Luan. This is my wife Sazney, and this impudent whelp is my daughter, Tull."
Tull stared at Yvan without blinking her large, grey eyes, possibly adding the hint of a glare. Her mother did a tiny curtsy, but she refused to budge.
"I think you're lying," she said.
"Tull!" her mother admonished.
"I can tell a liar when I meet one," the young woman said. "Doesn't mean I dislike him."
Yvan had been expecting a girl barely out of childhood, or a teenager, not this twenty-something beauty with judgemental eyes and blazing intelligence. Her face had the mark of suppressed unconscious fury.
"This is the girl King Ben-Hoblin will carry off tomorrow unless you do something about it," Lord Akila said to Yvan.
"Me?"
"I'm not a girl," Tull muttered. "Nobody's asked me what I want."
Only Yvan seemed to hear her.
"I'm afraid," he replied quietly, "that I have a prior engagement--"
"I knew it!" Lord Akila threw his hands in the air. "I just knew it. We never get any help from anybody. When we had that plague of goblins, did the Council get rid of them? No, not unless we made sure to leave them out on Thursday morning by six a.m. in green bins. And what about that plague of pyxies? And the plague of...er...plague? And now there's Giants afoot and does this man want to help? No-oo, he has a 'prior engagement'!"
"If you'll let me finish," Yvan said. "Yes, I'll have a word with the King of the Giants on your behalf, so long as he arrives before noon tomorrow. If he's late, I can't stay longer."
"Very good." Akila spoke wearily. He turned to climb the steps. "I really need a lie down."
Once he was alone with Sazney and Tull, Yvan said, "You're Gawain's sister, aren't you? The youngest one."
"Yes." The lady was in her late thirties, and kept her hair hidden underneath a red bandanna. She didn't quite look him in the eye, and her dough-coloured cheeks tinged pink. "I think I know who you are, really, though I've not seen you since I was a youngster. I heard about what happened with Lady Lauden. I am sorry."
"You haven't done anything to apologise for. It must be difficult when your own brother can't aid you."
"We don't need aid," Tull snapped. "The giant's going to come, I'll get my brothers back, and I'll leave with him. I've got my things packed already."
"Wait a moment," Yvan frowned. "You actually want to go?"
"Duh," Tull duhhed. "I've been wanting to leave this old dump for ages. I'm not going to sit around sewing and waiting for my parents to 'marry' me off to some old snob."
"Dear, think of the opportunities marriage would--" Sazney began to protest.
"I'm not buying that." Tull held a palm in front of her mother's face. "Nowadays, marriage is a nice, cosy word for selling women into slavery. I'd rather go and live with the Giants."
"But think about it for a moment," Sazney said. "They might...I mean, they'll..."
"I won't let them do that, whatever it is," the young woman snapped. "Because I will be their Queen, and whatever I tell them, they'll have to do."
"But--"
"Queen of the Giants," Tull murmured dreamily.
Yvan shrugged, and left the cellar. Luan followed him.
It was a quarter to twelve the next morning. Luan paced up and down, up and down on the burned plain in front of the castle. Yvan nibbled his nails, gazing at the horizon, then grimaced at the taste of metal and realised he was wearing gauntlets.
"He should be here any minute now," Lord Akila was saying, as he had said for the last half an hour. "It's not like Giants to be late -- they can see for miles, after all."
"I'll give it another five minutes," Yvan said. He smiled in an apologetic way at Sazney, who looked at the ground. "Then I really must be going. If I don't keep this appointment, somebody is going to die a rather warm death."
"It's good of you to wait," Lord Akila said with a glint of desperation in his eyes.
Five minutes passed.
"I've got to go now," Yvan said.
"Yesss," Tull hissed in fierce glee. Luan glanced up hopefully.
"Oh, no...please...stay...another couple of minutes..." Sazney pleaded.
The ground began to shake. They staggered and clutched each other for support as the tremors grew in intensity. A tall shadow eclipsed the sun.
King Ben-Hoblin, the largest, most impolite Giant in the land, had arrived. His head was a mass of dark red, curling hair. He had a well-trimmed beard to match, a Roman nose, and a smile so dashing it broke the speed limit.
Tull stared, two pink spots blossoming on either cheek. The fact the Giant was only clad in a loincloth and boots might have had something to do with it.
"I'm here!" she shouted, picking up her bags. "Ready when you're ready. Hello?"
King Ben-Hoblin moved aside, and four starved, dirty, ragged boys ran to Sazney and Akila from behind the Giant's legs.
"Mum! Dad!" the youngest, a lad of eleven, yelped. "I thought we'd never see you again!"
Tull glanced at her brothers in brief scorn and began walking towards the Giant King.
"Wait, wait, wait," Ben-Hoblin boomed. "We should do these things properly. Who the bloomin' 'eck is this?" He pointed at Yvan.
"I am Sir Luan," Yvan said. "Knight of the Lions."
"I see." King Ben-Hoblin scratched his chin with a sound like an orchestra of nail-brushes sliding down a blackboard. "H'm. I suppose you're here to defend the poor hapless maiden from me, thereby killing me, eh?"
"That was the idea," Yvan said, feeling sheepish.
"We may as well have a fight, then!" Ben-Hoblin cackled. "The sun's at the right height, the weather's fine. Name your weapons."
"Um. I have a sword, and a lion."
"I've got me two bare hands." The King of the Giants thrust out a pair of fists the size of two small hills. "Where shall we dance?"
"Erm...er..."
"I don't want you to fight for me," Tull said. "It's kind of you to offer, Sir Luan, but I do want to go with this Giant. He's...he's been writing me letters for months. We've been in touch for months. I like him."
The Giant blushed to the roots of his hair. "Cor."
"But, darling...you never said...why didn't you...think of us!" Lord Akila begged.
"I'll come back and visit!" Tull's voice called faintly. She was already making herself comfortable in the Giant's palm. He bowed to them, farted, and strode away.
Yvan glanced at the position of the sun. "I need to borrow a horse."
One of the ragged boys led out a black stallion, and Yvan swung himself into the saddle, saying, "I can't say more than goodbye!" drawing his sword in readiness and galloping back into the forest.
"But...but..." Lord Akila did an excellent impression of a goldfish learning to sky-dive.
"Oh, change the record, will you?" Luan sighed. He ran after his friend, leaving the family gaping at his retreating back.
"Did that creature just speak to me?" Akila said.
"No," Sazney said firmly. "No, it was our grief talking. Come inside."
Yvan and the lion arrived at the chapel in the woods just as Lunette was about to be lit like a Roman candle. A small crowd had gathered to watch, including Lady Lauden herself. She was even better than Yvan remembered her.
"Yvan!" Luan hissed from a few paces through the mass of spectators. "Concentrate!"
He shook the wispy thoughts out of his head and elbowed his way to the front of the chapel, where Lunette stood tied to a pole on top of heaps of fresh-cut timber. She was fastened in place with some sort of magical chain. It was translucent and sang when it moved.
"You took your time," Lunette said. "And nearly all of MY time as well!"
Yvan wheeled about, scanning the faces before them. "Who accused this being of treason against Lady Lauden? Speak now!"
Three men came forward. The word 'men' is used loosely here. They walked on two legs, but one of them had duck's feet, the other had tusks growing from his collarbone, and the one in the middle had one arm and one white wing. They possessed similar facial characteristics, and were dressed in golden armour.
"We did," Duck-feet said simply. "This girl tricked our leader into accepting the heart of an evil blackguard, and now there is no one to defend the forest from stormbringers."
"Why don't you do it?" Luan said.
The man pointed to his feet. "I'm disabled."
"How is having duck's feet a disability? Ducks do very well with them."
"Yes," the man said with patience. "But I'm not a duck. It makes me slow and unsteady. No shoe whatsoever fits me."
Yvan turned to the one-winged man. "And you -- why can't you defend the spring?"
One-wing waved his wing, sending a couple of feathers spiralling down to the earth. "Fairly self-explanatory, don't you think? I'm right-handed, or at least I was. Now I can't hold a sword."
Yvan looked at the last man. "And what's your excuse?"
The third man gestured to his tusked chest. "These impede me. And if an opponent in battle got hold of them, they could flip me to the ground. They're like a pair of handlebars."
Yvan searched, found Lady Lauden's face, and stared at it. "Why don't you defend your forest, my Lady?"
There were several sharp intakes of breath. Somebody belched, and apologised.
"You can't address her like that!" Tusk-man shouted with indignity.
Yvan ignored him, stared at Lauden for enough seconds to know she didn't recognise him, and clambered up to the stake. He sliced through the chain with one sword-stroke, and it screamed at such a shrill pitch that everyone's eyes watered.
"What are you DOING?" Duck-feet demanded.
"I'm setting her free," Yvan said. "I was going to fight you for her life, but seeing as you're all too incapacitated to lift a weapon, we'll be on our way. I'd have won in any case."
"But...but..."
"But nothing. Only a person able to defend their claims with arms is able to make an accusation stand. It's in King Arthur's treaty on chivalry. Good day."
Lunette slid her hand into his on the way down the woodpile, and withdrew it leaving something cold and round in his palm: the ring. Once they reached terra firma, he slipped it on and crept out of the crowd's way. The shadow flitted away so fast no one could track her.
While he waited for the people to disperse in disappointment Yvan gazed at Lady Lauden. She gave orders for the three men to be locked in the crypt below the chapel, but gave no sign of knowing he was there. Once everyone had gone and he made himself visible, she was not surprised.
"You are a fine gentleman," she said. "Why not stay in my court for a while?"
"I can't do that until I've gained the forgiveness of my lady," he said.
"She must be a dreadful person to please, if saving one life isn't enough to satisfy her."
"Yes," Yvan said with barely-suppressed venom. "She flimmin' well is."
Lauden's green-golden eyes widened, and he thought she knew him. However, she was staring over his shoulder. On seeing her horror, he turned to find the tusk-chested man lurching towards him, a rusty axe in his hands.
"How did you get out?" Lauden whispered. She screamed, "Guards!" forgetting that the three new prisoners were her guards.
The tusked man hefted the axe, ready to cleave Yvan in two from the head downwards--
And was met by a blur of tawny, roaring fury.
"Aargh!" the man articulated. The axe plopped to the ground, and he fell over backwards, a frightening, furred ball of rage worrying at his throat.
"Luan!" Yvan saw blood matting the lion's mane and felt helpless.
The lion dragged himself off the tusked corpse and collapsed in front of them, one tusk broken off and lodged in his rib cage, his own blood leaking out of the wound.
"I'm...sorry..." he choked.
Yvan knelt. One of Luan's paws ended up between his cold, tired hands. It was warm and alive. It had a pulse. Yvan missed having a pulse.
"There's a town nearby with doctors," Lady Lauden said, sensing his distress. "It lies a couple of miles to the east."
Lunette materialised once Lauden vanished into the trees. From the crackling, snapping noises it sounded as if she was gathering firewood.
"So you're still here," Yvan murmured so he wouldn't be overheard. "Like me."
"Yes," she whispered. "Still waiting to be released. Perhaps I didn't fulfil one of the conditions of the curse properly."
"Don't tell her who I am," he warned.
"She won't hear it from me."
"But..." Yvan bit his lip. "Keep a place for me in her mind on my behalf, would you? Faeries can be so forgetful, and I want my heart back sometime."
Lauden emerged from the trees with a stocky, brown horse dragging a makeshift litter made of branches lashed together. They lifted Luan onto it, and Yvan climbed into the saddle.
He didn't look back as he rode away. It would have been too painful.
The horse walked on, tireless, on one side of the night and through to the other. With the sunrise ahead, the trees thinned and Yvan saw he was riding along a narrow goat-track. After a while it widened into an unpaved road, with a sign that said "Pesme Avantur 2 miles."
Pesme Avantur turned out to be a tiny, grey town full of bored, grey people. One face out of all the inquisitive crowd was alive with urgency, and it belonged to a middle-aged woman with white-blond hair and a leather whip coiled through her belt. She ran into the path of Yvan's horse. He had to yank hard on the reins to avoid mowing her down.
"Do you mind? I've got a wounded...person here."
"I've been here before," the woman said. "There's a white witch I know who'll heal him for no payment except a story. I'll take you to her."
He was mollified. "Oh. Lead me, then -- er, what is your name?"
"Claris. I journeyed far to find you, Knight of Lions."
"You know me?"
"I come from the village of Noir-Espyn, and I need help. You see, my father is a learned man, and he lost a game of tiddlywinks with Death--"
"Tiddlywinks?"
"He didn't feel like playing chess. Anyway, my father lost, and his life was forfeit. My older sister decided to keep both our inheritances and not let me have mine, so I travelled to King Arthur and was told the Knight of Lions might be able to help me."
"Who told you that?"
"Sir Gawain. He said he was told that you faced a Giant and convinced it to remove a troublesome niece of his."
Yvan raised his eyebrows. "Oh yes?"
"Yes. I followed your trail, and it took me days...then I realised I'd overtaken you, and here we are. When your lion is healed, will you help me get my inheritance? It's the principle, not the money, you understand."
He sighed wearily. "I expect so."
The grey people continued to stare balefully as they walked down the street. A few of them spat in front of the horse's hooves.
"What's wrong with these folks?" Yvan asked.
Claris shrugged a shoulder. "They treat all newcomers like this. I got the same when I first came here as a teenager. It's nothing personal."
They turned a corner. A man shouted, "We aren't happy to see you here, ya know!" then the heckling started in earnest. If Yvan had still owned a heart, it would have been galloping in his chest. Instead, he was icy calm.
A couple of children threw stones. A cabbage sailed through the air from somewhere, rotten and stinking. Luckily, they had reached the witch's house.
It had a red-painted door, with three white steps and a wooden rail. Claris leaped up the steps and knocked.
A short, brisk woman answered. Her grey hair was drawn into a tight bun, her blue eyes large and slanted.
"Claris? Is it you again?" She blinked at the crowd throwing rotten foodstuffs.
"If you don't mind," Yvan said, dismounting and removing a soggy carrot from his neckline, "we would like to come in. Claris, you must aid me in carrying the litter. Take that end."
Claris did not appear afraid or apprehensive about going so near a lion. Yvan decided he liked her.
The woman professing to be a witch closed the door on the crowd and noise. A welcome silence descended.
"Take him to the main room."
They were standing in a long, dim corridor with a couple of rooms leading off it. One was a bedroom, the other a combination of a kitchen and sitting-space. The witch took them in, scraped a wooden table to one side to create space for the litter, and they manoeuvred Luan inside, ducking past strings of herbs and a rabbit carcase dangling from the rafters.
"Hmm," she said, surveying the bony tusk protruding from the lion's pelt. "I see."
"Can you save him, Miss..?" Yvan said.
"Kendra. My name is Kendra. No Miss, no Mrs. I am The Kendra." As she spoke her eyes never stopped tracing Luan's form. "I can save him, yes. However, that's not his body."
"It isn't?"
"No. I don't suppose you brought his real body with you?"
Yvan exchanged glances with Claris. "Er, no. Sorry. I was of the opinion he only had the one."
"He's not an actual lion. He's a man. I see this with my inner eye, when I view him. This is a shape he's been forced to keep...a curse."
"Not another bloody curse."
"It is possible to save him, if you pull the foreign body out."
"Me?" Yvan said. "He'll bleed to death!"
"Not if it is removed by a close friend. It is a two-way spell. The man is doomed to remain a lion unless he saves a person's life and has his own life saved in turn." The Kendra pushed Yvan forward. "Therefore you must pull it out. I will show you how to stitch the wound. Do not be afraid."
Luan was still unconscious, or lying still and quiet to appear so. Yvan knelt next to the shaggy, leonine head and placed a cold hand in the warm fur. Gritting his teeth until they ached, he grasped the base of the tusk and yanked it straight out.
There was a low snarl, and the eyes flicked open, yellow. The yellow melted into green, and around the sudden human irises the hair sank into skin, the mane disappeared, and Yvan was kneeling next to a naked man with green eyes and unkempt, sandy hair.
Yvan's gaze fell on the wound, or the place it had been. There was nothing there, just a pale, scrawny flank.
"Doesn't need stitches," he said, dazed.
"I know," The Kendra said. "I only said about the stitches to reassure you."
"Who are you?" Yvan demanded of the man as Claris took off her shawl and draped it over what needed covering.
"My name really is Luan," Luan said in the lion's voice. "I'm a shapeshifter."
He sat up, hunching on his haunches, and pulled the shawl tight around himself. Yvan was of the opinion that Luan spent a long time as a lion. He gave the impression of a very cold man who'd lost all his body hair at once.
The Kendra took a clay pot from the hearth and passed it to Luan. He drank, and the tension eased a little in his shoulders.
"Can we stay here for a while?" Claris asked. "I don't want to be rude, Kendra, but Luan's not well, there's no clothes for him, and there's a horrible mob outside."
"That horrible mob consists of my neighbours," the grim lady replied. "They're gone now. It's all an act to repel visitors."
"Are they xenophobic?"
"No." The Kendra sighed, took the clay pot and set it back on the hearth. "In this town, high on a hill, is a house. It is a grand house, very rich. And it's haunted."
"Oh..." Claris sighed.
"There is a geas on the people of Pesme Avantur. Which means you can't spend your first night in my home, I'm afraid. I have to send you to the haunted house. There are two demons there, which you must fight. Defeat them, and set the White Ladies free, and the house will reward you with your life and fifty thousand pounds in gold."
"My life?" Yvan said.
"Fifty thousand pounds?" said Claris. "I won't need my inheritance if we won that."
"What happens to the other visitors who tried to kill these demons?" Luan asked weakly.
"Oh, they simply died of fright," The Kendra said.
"Y'know..." Yvan sighed. "Incredible. Another flipping curse. Or geas, whatever. Who's making all these curses? Eh?"
"I was bespelled by another shapeshifter who was also a sorcerer," Luan said. "This was three hundred years ago, so it can't be the same person." As he spoke Yvan noticed the mark of the feline about the man sitting next to him. He had high, broad cheekbones and a large-ended nose. "I was a prince, I think, but I don't remember what country I came from. Anyway, the sorcerer, he was my friend, or I thought he was, and we fell out over a lioness while we were both wearing lion-shapes. He changed back into a man quicker than I could, and cast a magic on me to make me remain a lion until I found a friend better than him."
There was a short pause. A lump grew in Yvan's throat. He swallowed it, and stood.
"Well, Kendra," he said. "You might as well show us the way to the house. These demons...they don't restore hearts, do they?"
"You would have to ask them, sir."
TO BE CONTINUED...