Chapter 10

Deep in the middle of decanting a tincture, Elena heard the sound of something crunching in the garden, just outside the window of the stillroom. "Crunching" was not the sort of sound you wanted to hear coming from the kitchen garden. She looked up, already prepared to yell at whatever was out there.

She was not sure just what it would be—there was supposed to be a barrier that kept things like rabbits and deer out, but sometimes the spells failed. And such spells did nothing to keep out other visitors, some of whom seemed to be of the opinion that the garden had been planted for their benefit.

There was a Unicorn in the garden, eating the new peas, daintily taking each pod and munching them up between his strong white teeth with every evidence of enjoyment. Elena thrust her head out of the window, indignantly.

"You!" she shouted at him. "Shoo! I put out an entire flower bed of lilies for you lot, go eat those!"

The Unicorn looked up, and focused his attention on her. Then went cross-eyed with the immediate onset of the stupefied devotion every Unicorn was overcome by when in the presence of a virgin. His big brown eyes misted over, his ears swiveled towards her, and his ivory horn began to glow with magic. Unicorns, like the Fair Folk, were practically made of magic; Elena made a note to ask one of the mares later if the stallions who kept coming around would be willing to allow her to siphon some of it off. If they were going to plague her and eat her garden, the least they could do was to contribute to the cause, so to speak.

It was no use asking the stallions, of course. They went entirely idiotic at the sight of her. The mares went idiotic, too, of course, but only for virgin boys. Fortunately, those were in even shorter supply than virgin girls....

"Don't like lilies," he said, absently, around a mouthful of pods he had forgotten to chew the moment he spotted her. Half chewed pods fell out of his mouth as he spoke. He had, of course, also forgotten that he was supposed to look noble. "Like peas."

"Well I don't care!" she snapped in irritation. "You'll eat the lilies, and you'll learn to like them."

"Ah," the Unicorn replied, then dreamily turned and looked at the bed of pastel lilies on the edge of the garden. He turned his bearded head back to look at her. "If I eat the lilies, may I lay my head in your lap?"

"No, you may not—" she began, then at the sight of his ears drooping with dejection, changed her mind. She could spare a minute or two. "Oh, all right."

The Unicorn's head and ears came up, and his tufted tail flagged. He trotted over to the lily bed, and began eating with unbridled—well, of course, unbridled—enthusiasm.

A Unicorn would do just about anything that a virgin asked of him.

Elena finished her potions and dried her hands, before going out into the garden with a feeling of resignation. This was the fourteenth Unicorn loitering about, eating up the garden this spring.

The first one had taken her breath away, and it was only after an entire afternoon spent petting him that she realized that he had destroyed the roses. She'd been warier at the second. She was getting tired of them now. Why had there never been Unicorns when Madame Bella was the Godmother here?

Maybe because she didn't qualify as a Unicorn extractor....

As soon as she sat down on the wooden seat that Robin and Lily had fitted around the trunk of the apple tree, the Unicorn knelt at her side and his head dropped into her lap, his round, brown eyes gazing up at her soulfully. With a sigh, she stroked his head and scratched behind his ears, while he moaned in ecstasy.

"Shouldn't you be making those sort of noises at a mate?" she asked, crossly. What was it about virgins that made them go so idiotic?

"Not until autumn, Godmother," the Unicorn replied, shivering all over at her touch. "Oh. Uh, I was sent. I'm supposed to tell you something."

She waited, still scratching. Unicorns were not the brightest of beasts at the best of times—they tended to remind her of highly inbred lapdogs, to tell the truth, all beauty and no brains. There was no point in rushing him while the stray thought fluttered around in his thick skull like a butterfly in a box, and he tried to catch it.

At least once you told one something, he never forgot it. It might take him a while to remember what it was, but he never actually forgot it.

"Questers," he said at last. "In Phaelin's Wood. For the Glass Mountain. Three Princes. They came just after Karelina left. There's no one there to guide and test them."

Ah. That explained why he was here; she'd had a message yesterday morning by way of Randolf that the Witch of Phaelin's Wood was off attending to a difficult birth that had a lot of Traditional potential behind it. Twins, if you please, which meant that someone had to be there, not only to make sure that mother and babies survived the birth, but to figure out just what The Tradition was going to try to do with them. Karelina had the same problem with Unicorns that Elena had. She too had a Mirror-Slave, inherited from her Grandmother the previous Witch, and she had sent a message by way of Randolf this morning that she was going to be out of her Wood for a while. Well, this meant that no one would be able to meet the Questers at the crossroads and test them unless Elena took the task herself. "Did Karelina send you?" she asked.

Karelina might be away from her mirror, but she was never far from a Unicorn.

The Unicorn gave another faint moan of pleasure, but answered, sensibly enough, "Yes. We came and told her that they had gone in, and she sent me to you. She's put the tanglefoot on their path until you can get to the crossroads."

The "tanglefoot" spell would make sure that all three of the Questers would travel in circles without realizing it, and without meeting each other, until Elena got into place. Small wonder that the woods that Questers entered always seemed to be much bigger than they had thought!

At least in this case, she was going to have no crisis of conscience over the quest. King Stancia of Fleurberg had only one child, a daughter, and he was old. He was understandably concerned that the husband she took be clever, intelligent, and kind, as well as strong, iron-willed, and tough, because he knew that he was probably not going to be around for very much longer to protect her from the consequences of a bad choice. He had a great many neighbors, most of whom had several sons—and he also wanted to be sure that whoever wedded his daughter would rule his Kingdom as Stancia would have wanted.

So he had obtained the services of a powerful Sorcerer, and placed her in a tower atop a mountain—

The mountain wasn't really glass, or at least, it wasn't man-made glass, and the tower was hardly a place of imprisonment. The mountain was volcanic; there were obsidian boulders and shards everywhere, and it would take a very strong man with immense stamina merely to endure the path to the top. To complicate matters further, there were many tests and trials for anyone who wanted to earn the reward of her hand and throne. As for the tower, it was the Sorcerers'

own home, and the Princess was, by all reports, having a delightful time exploring it.

The King and the Sorcerer had been very careful in deciding what trials the Questers would face. Unless a man was very stupid, or exceedingly stubborn, there was no chance that anyone would actually die along the way—not unless he kept trying until he perished of exhaustion or did something monumentally foolish. Everyone understood The Tradition in this case, and making it work for them. The Sorcerer had a great many truly dreadful tests of courage, intelligence, quick-thinking, and so forth set up once the Questers set foot on his mountain.

But the first of these trials was the simplest, and it weeded out any seeker who was not kind, generous, and unselfish. There were at least a dozen magicians who were tasked to provide this particular test, and for once, it was something that Elena had no second thoughts in agreeing to, not now, and not when she had first heard of the Quest.

She gave the Unicorn one last scratch, and pushed his head out of her lap, gently. "All right,"

she said. "The sooner I get on my way, the sooner I get this over with. And you can't lie here in my lap all day, either. Now, shoo."

The Unicorn heaved a final, sorrowful sigh, got to his feet, cast a last, longing look at her, and slipped off into the forest.

Elena stood looking after him for a moment, shaking her head. "Unicorns!" she said, to nobody at all. "I'm not surprised they're easy to hunt. It's a good thing for them that the bait is so hard to find."

Then she went back into the cottage to get her stoutest walking shoes and a staff.

Poor old Dobbin had finally dropped dead of extreme old age last February, and she still hadn't replaced him, so she was going to have to get to where she needed to go by walking.

Well—sort of.

She pulled out her wand—the simple one today, anything else would be drastically out-of-character for the old peasant woman that she was going to appear to be. She released a tiny packet of power, and sent it into the path ahead of her, concentrating on where she was now, and where she wanted to be—the crossroads in the middle of Phaelin's Wood, which would be where she would meet and test the Questers. She held up her staff. "Shorten my way, please," she told the path.

The glowing power circled over her head like a swarm of tiny star-bees, then dropped down and zoomed down the path, out of sight in a moment. The forest became very still for a moment.

And then she felt the path shiver beneath her feet, and braced herself. She knew what was coming. She hadn't necessarily expected this, but this was a forest that the Fair Folk as well as many other magical creatures lived in, and when that happened, even inanimate objects and bits of landscape could take on a life of their own.

The path rose up about a foot beneath her, and suddenly began to move.

She'd done this before, when Bella was still the Godmother.

She remained perfectly still, but the path was carrying her along on top of a little mound, at a pace that a horse would be hard put to equal. The last time she'd cast the Way-Shortening spell, the path hadn't moved, but every step she'd taken had covered a dozen yards. And the time before that, she'd apparently reawakened the remnants of an "All Forests Are One" spell, because she just strolled down the path a few yards and found herself where she wanted to be.

It was a chancy thing, living in a magical forest. Things tended to get minds of their own. Not long after Bella turned over the position to Elena, one of the few true Fairy Godmothers had paid a call, and had told Elena that the cottage and the forest had once been the home of another of the original Fairy Godmothers, and had hinted that this uncanny semi-intelligence of the very forest itself was a common thing where the Fair Folk dwelled. Elena had not precisely gotten used to it, but she was no longer surprised by what happened.

She had also taken to saying "Please" and "Thank you" when the forest responded with something to help her. Anything that allowed her to conserve power was a fine thing, and if the forest was going to help her, she was willing to let it help her in its own way.

Bella had never stood for that sort of thing; when she'd cast a spell, she by-Heaven wanted the same spell to do the same thing, every time, and no free-will nonsense. But that took a lot more power—and perhaps because of coming from a childhood where the next meal was not taken for granted, Elena did not feel at all comfortable with simply using all the power that was available to her. instead, her style was to use the minimum possible to get the result she wanted, and if the means to that result was a bit unnerving now and again, well, that was the chance she was willing to take.

Elena leaned forward a little, into the wind created by her passing, and the path responded by speeding up still more. She hoped that there was no one else actually on this path—if she came up on them before they had a chance to get out of the way, they'd be bowled over like tenpins.

As it was, there were half a dozen small animals left scattered to the right and left of the path in her wake.

Still, it was a novel form of transportation, and peculiarly enjoyable—like running, but without the effort. She was almost disappointed when she felt the path begin to slow, recognized the landmarks, and knew she was nearly at journey's end.

The path dropped her gently where the road that would ultimately lead out of Otraria crossed the one that led to the Kingdom of Kohlstania. And Kohlstania was, presumably, where the three Princes were coming from.

Elena stepped out into the road and sat down on a stone at the crossroads, taking a little book out of her pocket. Now this was a very useful bit of conjury that she had worked out for herself, and she was terribly proud of it. Working with the spell that allowed a Godmother or other powerful magician to copy his or her chronicles to the libraries of other magicians, this little book was able to repeat what was on the pages of every other book in her library, if she knew what to ask for.

She opened the blank pages, waved the head of her staff over them, and let a little sparkle of power drift down over them. "The current Royal Family of Kohlstania, please," she ordered.

Something appeared, like blurred writing beneath a smudge; a moment later, the writing resolved itself, and so did the smudge, and she saw an image of the stern visage of a man who appeared to have never laughed in his life. King Henrick of Kohlstania, read the caption beneath the picture. Widower, three sons—

Yes, those would be the Questers—

— has held the throne for twenty-seven years. Took the crown in— She skipped the rest, and moved on to the next page. Three more smudges resolved into three more drawings. Three young men. Octavian, Alexander, Julian. Well, it was easy enough to see where this tale was going. Octavian and Alexander looked like hard, uncompromising men formed in the image of their stern father. Julian, however, must have taken after the now-gone mother; while no one could possibly say that he looked soft, he certainly looked softer, and there was a very gentle and humorous look to his eyes that Elena liked quite a bit.

"Laws, attitude and recent history in Kohlstania regarding magic, magicians, and Godmothers, please," she said aloud, and the pages filled with notations. She read through it all swiftly; nothing there to be particularly concerned about, although there had not been any magical intervention in a major way in the Kingdom for three generations. There was, in fact, no one alive there who had any experience of any magician more powerful than a Witch, much less a Godmother, and Witches and Hedge-Wizards were creatures that the country-folk depended on, not city-dwellers, and certainly not the upper crust of nobility.

For the King and his family, magic was probably a thing of nursery-tales, and this did not seem like a family in which nursery-tales were encouraged.

On the whole, that was not a bad thing at all. It meant that none of the young men would even guess she was testing them. She closed the book and put it back in her pocket.

Now, because Elena liked to conserve power as much as possible, she had a number of clever ways to do things using a minimum of magic that Bella would have accomplished with several spells. And the next item she pulled from her pocket was a false nose.

It was a particularly beaky object, carved and colored by Robin, and held onto her face by means of two pink ribbons that tied in the back. Ludicrous, one might say—until she put it on.

For the nose was ensorcelled with a spell of illusion; whoever put it on would appear as an old crone or an old man. In this way, Elena only ever had to cast one disguise spell; thus conserving her power and allowing her to disguise other people as well, if there was need. She was rather proud of herself for coming up with such a thing.

She tied on her false nose over her real one, and although she felt no differently, anyone looking at her would have seen a bent and feeble old woman with a great beak of a nose and a dowager's hump. Her hair had gone from golden to white as snowdrops; her face was a mass of wrinkles and her hands were spotted with age.

Although she was standing straight, she would appear to have a dowager's hump, and her clothing aged just as she had. The colors faded, the seams took on the look of having been unpicked and resewn as the cloth was turned and turned again, and the hems looked tattered.

Now she was ready.

She looked down at the crossroads at her feet; there were conventions that any Witch would have followed, the more especially when she knew that someone else would have to take up the task in her place. Karelina had, as expected, cast the tanglefoot spell from this very crossroads.

There were three threads to the skein, one for each Prince, ending in a knot practically at her feet.

She took her staff and touched it to the knot. Tradition must be served; eldest must be tested first. "Octavian," she said aloud, and a little spark of power jumped from the wand and ran down the thread to release him from the spell and bring him to her.

Prince Alexander of Kohlstania was hot, thirsty, and exasperated, it was quite bad enough that he found himself on this ridiculous "Quest," though he could certainly understand his Royal Father's reasoning, but to have been wandering in this stupid forest for days was outside of enough. Now he was sorry he had ever agreed to this—

But I had to, he reminded himself. All of Kohlstania's immediate neighbors were, if not allies, at least not overtly hostile, but King Henrick had not held his throne for this long by being naive.

King Stancia did not particularly care about the politics of the man who would win his daughter and his throne, so long as that man would treat daughter and country alike with care and gentleness. How he treated his neighbors did not matter a whit to Stancia, although he certainly would never actually come out and admit that.

Father is right. We can't just sit by and hope that whoever won the girl would follow Stancia's policies. King Henrick could not take the chance that some enemy would win girl and country, and then proceed to sit on Kohlstania's border and cast covetous eyes on what Henrick ruled as well. Stancia's land was prosperous, and could easily afford to field a large army. This would never do.

He had gathered his three sons before him the moment that he got the messenger from Stancia throwing open the contest to any and all comers. "You will go to Fleurberg, and one of you will conquer this so-called 'Glass Mountain' and win and wed the girl," he ordered. "If it is you, Octavian, all to the good; we can unite the Kingdoms into one. If it is you, Alexander, that will be excellent too, since it will give you a Kingdom of your own. If it is you, Julian—which, may I add, I do not anticipate—" he had cast a jaundiced eye on his youngest son then "—at least we will be spared having to try to find something for you to do with your life."

Alexander also understood why his father had given his youngest son such a poisonous look.

Julian was considered by the King and by his eldest brother to be a fool and a dreamer.

Alexander, nearer in age to Julian, was not so sure of that, but he doubted whether Julian had the necessary abilities to go through whatever tests Stancia was going to put in front of them.

Most likely he would be eliminated at the first. Poor Julian; he seemed content enough with his lot, but Alexander wondered, sometimes, if it was all a facade. But maybe he simply didn't have any ambition at all, and was perfectly happy with his books and his horses.

Octavian had been the first out of the gates, somewhat to Alexander's chagrin. He would have thought that being heir to one Kingdom was enough, but apparently not. With the prospect of not one, but two Kingdoms within his grasp, one of which he would not have to wait for (or at least, not very long, since Stancia was well over sixty), Octavian had ordered up his provisioning and been in the saddle within an hour.

Alexander had taken longer; he hadn't left until later that afternoon, for he had been taking careful consideration of what he should and should not pack, and had decided to forego speed for preparation. He had a packhorse tied to the back of the saddle of his destrier. He did not intend to fail one of the tests because he lacked, say, fifty feet of rope, or a storm-lantern that the wind could not blow out.

When he had left, Julian was still not ready, and oddly enough, he seemed to be taking as little as Octavian. Furthermore, he wasn't taking any armor, and in fact, was carrying little more than his sword and a bow by way of weapons.

For a moment, Alexander had considered staying long enough to advise him, but he shrugged the impulse off. Octavian would probably fail this Quest for lack of preparation; well and good, he was the heir, and he already had his Kingdom guaranteed. Julian would fail because of foolishness, and too bad for him; well and good, that would get him out of Alexander's way.

He had trotted off on his best warhorse in a very positive frame of mind. This "Quest" should cause him no great difficulty; he was prepared for every possible eventuality. He was the one, after all, who had been sent to military school, and had learned everything there was to know about tactics and campaigns. Octavian, though the elder, could not best him on that score, and Octavian's haste and greed would probably be his undoing.

Not that he blamed Octavian. Their Royal Father showed no signs of shuffling off the mortal coil any time in the near future, and Octavian was not the sort of fellow to enjoy sitting about, kicking his heels, as the King-In-Waiting. Not that any of them wanted the King to die—or at least, Alexander didn't think either of the others did—but it was hard to be trained to rule but not actually get a chance to do so.

As for Alexander, he had long ago resigned himself to playing Commander-In-Chief to the Army of Kohlstania under his brother's rule for the rest of his life. He wanted a Kingdom of his own, and although he would rather it had come without the need to marry some brainless bit of fluff probably spoiled into uselessness by her father, he would put up with the girl to get the throne. This opportunity was not going to slip through his fingers; Princesses and thrones for the taking were not presented to one on a platter every day, even if one was a Prince himself.

He thought that he would be generous once he had won, and find Julian some pretty young heiress to marry, once he had settled into the position. He liked Julian well enough—certainly more than Octavian did, and Julian would be much more comfortable in Alexander's court than in Octavian's.

And far more comfortable than under Father's eye.

He had been full of these plans right up until he got well into these cursed woods and found the first night falling without any sign that he was going to get out of them before darkness fell.

And without any sign that Octavian was on the road ahead of him, either, though initially that didn't worry him as much as the coming of darkness.

Of course he had made camp—an excellent camp—long before the last of the twilight had faded. And because he had made careful provisioning, he had not gone hungry or cold, either.

But he had gone to sleep seriously concerned. For where was Octavian?

He had a map, of course, and a compass, so he could not be lost, and at any rate, the road simply didn't branch at all until it came to a marked crossroads. Therefore, Octavian must have somehow strayed off the road, unlikely though that seemed. There was, of course, the possibility that he could have been waylaid, but Alexander had interrogated peasants outside the woods very carefully before he went in, and they had all assured him that there were no bandit bands living in Phaelin's Wood. There might, they said, be a robber or two, but there were no groups of outlaws. And no single robber could have overcome Octavian, even Octavian only lightly armed.

Besides, there had been no sign of a struggle anywhere. Octavian would never have given up without a fight.

He had gone to sleep still worrying over the problem, and not really even thinking about the fact that this Wood, which he should have crossed in a few hours, was still all around him.

However, the longer he traveled the next day, the more he began to think that there was something more going on than met the eye. He had certainly been thinking about that very problem when he camped for the second night.

He had gotten out his map and compass at first light, and gone over them, and then his irritation had only increased. The road on the map ran straight and true right to a crossroads in the middle of the Wood. The road he had been following had twisted and turned like a snake in its death-throes. The road on the Map represented a journey of no more than half a day to cross the Wood entirely. He had been here for two days now, and there was still no sign of the crossroads!

Which left only one answer. And it wasn't that he was lost.

"Magic," he said aloud, savagely. Someone was plaguing him with some sort of magical impediment.

He did not like magic. It was not logical, it was not ordered, and any sort of riff-raff could use it. It might have been a very useful weapon in war, but the trouble was, the only time that the so-called "good" magicians would consent to do such a thing was when you were fighting against an "evil" magician. You could employ an "evil" magician, of course, but you could never trust him not to turn on you, and anyway, the moment you made use of such a tool, every "good" magician for hundreds of leagues around would come fight for your enemies because you were using an

"evil" magician.

And then there were the other things that were associated with magic—beasts and birds and things that were neither, people who did not answer to any laws that he recognized and could not be depended upon to act logically. He didn't like any of them. When you fought a man, you should be able to use straightforward tactics on him, and not have to wonder if he was going to set fire to you. When you met a woman, you should be able to tell at a glance what her station in life was, and know what to expect from her, and not have to wonder if she would seduce you or let you think you were seducing her, and then wake up turned into a pig.

No, he did not like magic at all, and if this was King Stancia's idea of a good first test—

It might well be, too. He'd heard a rumor that Stancia had got the aid of a Sorcerer in setting up this Quest. Sorcerers had a habit of showing complete disregard for such niceties as borders.

The Sorcerer might think it amusing to set the first "test" in Phaelin's Wood, on the Kohlstania side of the border.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He packed up his camp, seething, and mounted his destrier in a foul mood. Magic! It might as well be cheating!

Wretched magicians. Stupid, senile old men who depended on them. Well, he would show them! From now on, he would depend on his compass and not the map, if he had to cut his own road to do so.

He took his compass out of the saddlebag and opened the case with a smirk that swiftly turned to a teeth-clenched frown.

For the compass needle was spinning merrily, with no sign that it intended to stop.

Magic!

Elena waited, sitting on a rock in the concealment of a dense clump of birch-saplings, just before the crossroads. She had the advantage that the crossroads itself was on the far side of a relatively cleared space in the forest; she was able to get a good long look at the Questers as they emerged from the denser growth. The first Prince, Octavian, approached on a great bay warhorse looking rather the worse for two nights spent in the forest. He was wearing light armor, but he didn't seem to have a great deal of kit about him, and it showed in his appearance. From the look of him—moving stiffly, dark circles under his eyes, twigs in his hair—he'd spent both nights on the ground, under the stars, with his saddle for a pillow. All three boys had reminded her of animals, actually—Julian an amiable hound and Alexander an arrogant and rather sleek fox. This one was the gruff wolf, and the resemblance was only heightened by his state.

She waited on her rock, quietly, to see if he'd notice her. She saw his eyes flicker towards her, then saw, just as clearly, that he dismissed her as unimportant.

Oh, yes, do that. She waited until he was just passing her before speaking up.

"Have ye a crust of bread, milord?" she whined. "They've turned me out as too old to work, and I'm perishing of hunger."

He ignored her. She raised her voice. "Please? Milord? Please, good sir?"

Nothing.

Now, at this point, he could have stopped, offered her something, and asked for directions.

She would have given them to him. She would not have told him the keys to the puzzles that the Sorcerer was going to set him, but at least he would have gotten to the Glass Mountain.

He did neither; he rode on as if she was of no more importance than a beetle.

Fine, she thought, and touched her staff to the path again as he rode out of sight under the trees.

"Twist me and turn me, and bring me to grief.

Muddle my pathway and give no relief.

Send me to wander a month and a day,

Give me no guidance and keep me astray.

Then when a month and a day will have sped,

If I am kinder and my pride's been shed,

Then send me on homeward. But if I'm too high

Then keep me astray till a year has gone by."

There, that would take care of him. He'd stumble along in Phaelin's Wood—and possibly several others, if Karelina decided to invoke the "All Forests Are One" spell against him when she got back—and he'd do so while his provisions ran out, spring thunderstorms deluged him, and every possible minor disaster that could would arise to plague him. After a month and a day of this, if he'd learned his lesson, he'd finally come out of the Wood right where he went in. If he was smart, he would go home again. If he wasn't—well, Karelina would have to decide what to do with him. Hopefully, he would come out a humbler and wiser man than he'd been when he went in a mere month, because otherwise he'd be stumbling around for the next year.

Smiling to herself, she touched her staff to the path again, on the knot representing the tanglefoot spell. "Alexander," she told it, and the spark of power leaped from the wand and raced down the tangled skein of the spell.

It was not more than an hour later that she heard hoofbeats on the road, and saw her quarry approaching. And she had to give him a few points for preparation, anyway. Unlike his brother, he not only was fully armed but he had a packhorse laden with armor and apparently quite a bit of other luggage as well. From the look of things, he had not been spending his last two nights huddled next to a pathetic little fire. She hid behind her sapling screen and waited to get a good look at him before he could see her.

Elena parted the branches of the birches and peered through them as the sound of hooves on the path stopped. And there he was, framed by two of the saplings, looking exactly as he had when she'd seen him in the book. He had stopped at the edge of the clearing that held the crossroads, frowning.

Truth to tell, she hadn't paid a lot of attention to his appearance, other than to make sure she wouldn't mistake him for some other Prince-errant, or one of his two brothers. Now, as he paused staring at the crossroads, his frown turning into a scowl as he tried to make up his mind which way to go, she studied him.

And she didn't much care for what she saw. Not that he wasn't handsome enough; he was all of that. His wavy brown hair, thick and shining, fell down past his shoulders, giving him a very romantic appearance, especially combined with the rakish tilt of his cap, and the fact that he was much better groomed than his older brother. Of course, part of that was due to the fact that he hadn't been sleeping in the open, but still....

Vain, she thought to herself, cynically. I've never yet seen a longhaired man who wasn't a popinjay. And clean-shaven, too. He must spend as much time in his valet's hands as any primping girl.

As for his face—square chin, chiseled cheekbones, broad brow—well, it was shapely enough, even if his nose was entirely too aquiline to suit her.

He could plow a field with that nose.

But the regular features were spoiled entirely by the unpleasant frown, and the furrowed brow, and the air of unbending rigidity about him that, together with a tunic that managed to suggest a military uniform without actually being one, made her think that this was a man for whom there was, always and for everything, One Right Way from which he would never deviate.

Even when it was wrong.

Well, this isn't going to be much fun, she thought with resignation. And with a sigh, steeling herself for unpleasantness, she stepped out onto the path. If The Tradition held true to form, the first Prince had been merely rude and haughty—this one would be haughty and rude and arrogant and aggressive.

His frown deepened the moment he saw her, if that was possible. What was more, he added suspicion to the emotions of irritation and arrogance on his face.

Suspicion! What could he possibly suspect her of?

"Have ye a crust of bread to spare, good milord?" she quavered, holding empty hands out towards him. "They've—"

"I have naught to spare," he interrupted. "Get from my path, old hag."

Well! Not that she'd expected politeness, but that really was more than a bit much. Still, she kept hold of her temper, reminding herself that she was the Tester here, and she could make sure he got sent down an even longer path to wander than his brother. "But, milord," she whined pathetically. "They've turned me off as too old to work, and I'm—"

"Then find work or die," he said, now turning his frown away from her and looking about, as if trying to find something that might be hidden. "Those who cannot work, will not be fed. We'll have no beggars here."

You wretched little— Once again she caught hold of her temper. But something like this could not go unpunished, and wandering around for a month or even a year was not going to teach this arrogant lad what he needed to learn. No, this was something that needed a more imaginative punishment.

Still, she would give him one more chance. But if he failed this time, she was going to take his lessoning into her own hands. "But can you—"

He ignored her, as his brother had. Instead he touched the spur to his horse's flank, and rode straight at her at a canter, so she had to scramble out of his way or be run down.

Now she was angry. What if she had been a poor old woman? She could have been hurt, or even killed! What right had he to run people over as if they were nothing?

Oh, that tore it. As he passed, she whirled, and took her staff in both hands. "You!" she cried out in her own voice, pointing it at him.

Startled by the change in her voice, he pulled up his horse and turned in his saddle to stare at her.

She did not bother with a rhyme this time; the force of her anger was more than enough to shape the power. She aimed her staff at him, like an accusation. "You are as ill-mannered, as stubborn, and as stupid as an ass!" she shouted, "So BE one!"

The power exploded out of her, coursed down her arm, and shot from her staff in a stream of red-gold light. If he'd had eyes to see it, he'd have been terrified. It hit him full on, covered him, enveloped him in a single moment, hiding him from sight inside a great globe of light that held him and the horse he was riding on.

He cried out in fear, though, as he felt it take him. And in the next moment, the cries changed, deepened, and hoarsened. The globe pulsed; once, twice, and on the third time, there was another flash of light.

There were three beasts on the path now, not two. A great bewildered warhorse, the packhorse tied to its saddle, and—

—and a donkey, standing petrified, all four hooves splayed, still trying to wheeze out a terrified bray.

"Hah," she said, looking at him with satisfaction. "I need a donkey. You'll do."

He was clearly in a great deal of shock, too much so to move—though likely if he had tried, he'd have fallen to the ground, for he was not used to moving on four feet instead of two. She had plenty of time to rummage through his packs, find the rope she was sure was in there, and fashion a crude nose-pinch halter and choke-rope, and get it on him before he even began to react to his much-changed situation.

And by the time he did, she had him right where she wanted him. If he tried to rear, she could choke him at the neck. If he tried to bite, she could pinch off his nose and choke his breathing from that end.

He tried both, not once, but several times, until she finally picked up her staff and pointed it at him again.

He froze.

"You will behave," she told him, "Or I'll take your horse instead of you, and turn you into a frog."

At that, his ears flattened against his head, but it was clear he didn't doubt either her ability or her willingness to do so. Instead he allowed her to lead him, stumbling, into the cover of some bushes and tether him there, the horses beside him. She wasn't going to take any chances, though; she used more of the rope for hobbles, and tethered all four feet.

She waited until she was back on the road before she took a deep breath, paused, and steadied herself. She was still angry with him, and that was no mood to be in to Test the last of the Princes. She counted to ten twice, took another deep breath, and let the anger run out of her.

When she was sure she was steady again, she shook herself all over, and took her staff in hand.

Besides, this would be the easy one.

"Right," she said aloud, to the empty air, and touched the staff to the knot of the tanglefoot spell. "Julian."

And for the third time, the spark of light sped away.