“Oh, can’t I?” She whirled, and Forral saw too late that she held her staff in her hand. The floor seemed to drop away beneath him, and a loud roaring filled his ears. His vision exploded in a burst of colored lights and he gasped with pain as a brief wrenching sensation tore through his body. Then the ground came up to hit him, hard.
Forral opened his eyes gingerly. He was lying on a smooth carpet of turf—on the other side of the bridge. He stared across the calm waters at the island with its tower and gave himself up to some serious swearing. The child came running across the bridge, her bare feet echoing on the planks. She skidded to a halt beside him.
“She threw you out, then.’-^iShe didn’t sound in the least surprised, but he read anxiety in her face. He sat up and groaned.
“What the bloody blazes was that?”
“An apport spell.” Aurian sounded proud of knowing the right word. “She’s good at those—it’s how she moved all the soil into the Valley. She’s had a lot of practice.”
“An apport spell, eh?” Forral frowned, running his fingers distractedly through his curling brown hair. “Aurian, how far could she move me with that spell?”
The child shrugged. “About as far as she did, I think. You’re heavier than the loads she usually moves. Why?”
“I want to be sure she can’t hurl me right out of this valley. It’s an unpleasant way to travel!”
“I think she expects you to ride the rest of the way,” Aurian said seriously, and Forral burst out laughing.
“I just bet she does! Well, she’s in for a surprise. Aurian, how would you like to help me set up camp?”
The child’s face lit up with incredulous delight. “You mean you’re staying?”
“It’ll take more than a few wizardly shenanigans to chase me off, lass. Of course I’m staying!”
Aurian had the happiest afternoon of her life. She and Forral set up his camp in a copse of sturdy young beeches that grew to the left of the bridge. She worried about his choice of spot, knowing he’d be safer out of her mother’s sight, but Forral simply laughed. “This is exactly what I want, youngster. Whenever Eilin looks out of her windows she’s going to see me —right here. I intend to be a thorn in your mother’s side until she gives up this nonsense.”
The camp looked good, Aurian thought. She wished she could live here. Forral had slung a rope between two sturdy trees and untied a rolled sheet of oiled canvas from behind his saddle. He hung this over the rope so that both sides reached the ground, then pulled the two sides apart and weighted them with stones to form a rough tent.
“But the wind will blow through,” Aurian objected.
Forral shrugged. “I’ve put up with worse.” He was cross, though, when she told him that he couldn’t burn any of the wood in the Valley. Her mother had set. spells to protect it, and brought in fuel for the tower from outside. Aurian had a terrible time convincing him of the danger, but to her relief he finally gave in, though with ill grace. “I can live without a fire for now, but Eilin had better hurry up and come to her senses before winter,” he growled.
When her mother called her in at dusk there was trouble, of course. Eilin, gazing tight-lipped out the window at Forral’s camp, forbade Aurian to speak to him, or go anywhere near him. But the swordsman’s cheerful defiance had filled Aurian with newfound courage.
> “I will talk to him, and you can’t stop me!” she blurted out. Eilin stared at her in amazement, her face darkening with anger. Aurian’s rebellion earned her a thrashing, but it only increased her determination. When it was over she turned on her mother. “I hate you!” she sobbed, “and you won’t stop me from being friends with Forral no matter what you do to me!”
Eilin’s eyes blazed. “Don’t count on it. He won’t be here for long.”
“He will! He promised!”
“We’ll see about that,” Eilin said grimly.
Early next morning, Aurian let herself out of the tower and crept across the bridge. She had bread tied up in a cloth for Forral’s breakfast, and cheese from her mother’s goats that grazed the lake shore. When she reached the copse, she stopped dead. The swordsman’s camp had vanished beneath a dense cluster of bristling vines that had sprung up overnight. Her mother’s work, of course.
“Forral,” Aurian called frantically, tugging at the unyielding creepers, “Forral!”
After a moment, there came a rustling from within the thicket, followed by copious swearing. It took the swordsman the better part of a morning to hack his way out. When he finally emerged, green and grimy, the vines began to collapse in on themselves, and within minutes they had withered away to dust.
Forral looked at Aurian. “This is going to be tougher than I thought,” he said.
The following morning the vines were back. Aurian stole Forral an axe from her mother’s storeroom. The next day it was a blackberry thicket with long sharp thorns. Forral suggested that Aurian gather the berries before they vanished, and when he had hacked himself free, they had them for breakfast. It began to turn into a game between them, and Aurian’s loneliness vanished in her new friend’s company. In those few days she found herself laughing and smiling more than she had done in her life. She introduced him to her animal friends. Shy birds, elusive deer, or fierce wildcats from the forest—they all flocked happily to Aurian and she reached out to them with her mind, relaying their simple emotions to Forral. She was disappointed that he couldn’t communicate with them himself, though. She thought everybody could do that.
The swordsman could do many other things, however. He was a genius at inventing games, and had a fund of stories about his life as a soldier, or about princesses and dragons and heroes. Forral was Aurian’s hero, and she adored him. She never told him how her mother had beaten her, in case it made more trouble, but to her relief, the Mage had decided to ignore the swordsman’s presence and Aurian was no longer forbidden to see him. Instead, Eilin found many long and onerous tasks in the garden to occupy her daughter’s time, but they went twice as fast with Forral helping. Aurian knew better than to broach the subject with her mother, and contented herself with stealing food for him whenever Eilin’s back was turned.
The Mage, however, had not given up. On the fourth day, Forral’s shelter was surrounded by a forest of stinging nettles. Forral looked very grim when he emerged, and Aurian, handing him dock leaves for his stings, was afraid he would decide to leave after all. But as he rubbed the soothing leaves over his blotched hands and face, the swordsman glared at the tower. “We’ll see who gives up first,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “She’s bound to run out of ideas sooner or later.”
As autumn gave way to the first frosts of winter, matters continued in a similar vein. Eilin’s specialty was Earth-magic, and she tried to dislodge her unwelcome guest with all the powers at her command. One night the level of the lake rose mysteriously, and Forral’s camp was flooded. One afternoon he and Aurian returned from a walk to find the goats eating his blankets and gear. Eilin even tried to set the birds that roosted in the grove to attack him, but Aurian scolded them firmly and soon put a stop to that. She had jess success with the ants, however. The day they struck, it took hours to get them out of Forral’s clothes and bedding.
One gray, chilly morning, Aurian went out with Portal’s stolen breakfast and a flask of her mother’s blackberry wine to help him keep out the cold. As she reached the other side of the bridge, an anguished yell came from the camp. When Aurian arrived, panting, there was no sign of the swordsman. Trembling, she peered into his shelter.
Forral was sitting bolt upright, paralyzed with terror and covered in hundreds of writhing snakes which were so thickly intertwined that it was impossible to tell where one began and another ended. Aurian, wondering where her mother had found them all, felt sorry ipr-.fhe poor things. It was too cold for them to be out and about, and not surprising that they clustered around the one source of heat—Forral’s body. But the swordsman was her friend, and he needed her help. Aurian sighed and reached out with her mind to the serpents. “Shoo,” she said firmly, speaking aloud for Forral’s benefit. One by one and with great reluctance, the snakes disentangled themselves and slithered out of the tent.