But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that is going to be Human and isn't yet, or used to be Human once and isn't now, or ought to be Human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet. -- C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

"I was born," Solvej began, "in the village of Gislevik, nearly on the border of Athyen. As I told you before, I was the oldest of seven children. My mother and both my grandmothers were witches, and my father and his father were wizards."

"So magic was your family business," Hjalmar observed.

"Not really. The first thing you must understand is that magic cannot be learnt if you don't have it, and being a witch isn't an occupation as such. Some people, usually people with some Fairy ancestry, are born with the ability to do magic. They will often marry other people with magic, and so their children will -- except in some rare cases -- also have magic.

"Anyway, magic ran in my family. When I was young I would watch my parents brew potions or cast spells; when I was about eight my mother let me help; and when I was fourteen I went to a school of magic. By "school" I mean a class of ten witches and wizards about my age, taught by the oldest, most experienced witch in that part of the country. When a pupil turned eighteen, the teacher tested them to make sure they were skilled enough to practice magic on their own, and if they passed they left the school. If they failed they could retake the test as many as four times, and if they failed all those times then they would never be allowed to practice magic.

"I passed on my second attempt--"

"Not your first?" Hjalmar said before he could stop himself.

Solvej grimaced. "No, not my first, and before you make any smart comments I'd like to see you take that test and pass on your first try.

"I passed on my second attempt, and moved to just outside the town of Ererth to set up shop. I was there for a year before I became bored."

Hjalmar winced at the thought of a bored Solvej.

"Rumours reached me of a suspicion of Elves living somewhere nearby--"

"A what of Elves?"

"Suspicion," Solvej repeated. "It's the collective noun for a group of Elves. Like a murder of crows, or a congress of salamanders."

Hjalmar had never heard of a congress of salamanders, but he dismissed that as unimportant. "Seems a strange word for a group of Elves. It sounds too menacing to mean Elves."

"That shows what you know about Elves. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. 

"I heard rumours that a suspicion of Elves lived nearby, and since I knew very little then of Elves I wanted to learn more. I went in search of them. Even now I don't know how long that search took. I met centaurs, gryphons and even a dragon; I had a rather nasty encounter with a huldrå[1]; I met more of the Fair Folk than I ever wanted to meet; but I didn't so much as glimpse an Elf until I'd given up the search and was on my way home."

"But aren't the Elves a type of the Fair Folk?" Hjalmar objected.

"Yes, with the emphasis on "a type of". Almost every non-human creature is a type of Fairy. Even werewolves and vampires were once Unseelie Fae. It's a bit more complicated with Elves. Think of frogs and toads. They're both the same sort of creature, and they look similar, but they aren't the same. It's like that with Elves and Fae.

"Now, would you mind not interrupting? It'll take us all year to get through this if you interrupt every other sentence."

Hjalmar at once pointed out the logical problem with this suggestion. "But how will I understand what you're talking about if I don't ask?"

Solvej opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. "All right, you can interrupt if you don't understand something. Continuing on... Er, where were we?"

"You didn't see an Elf until you gave up looking for them," Hjalmar said helpfully.

"Oh. Now I remember. I heard music late one night. When I went to see what it was, I found a group of Elves dancing in a field. They do that on nights when some star is behind some planet -- I didn't pay much attention to their explanation. I sat on the grass some distance away and watched them until one of them noticed me.

"Believe me when I say that you do not, ever, want an Elf to notice you. In fact, you're happier never seeing an Elf at all. Their skin is transparent. Not "transparent" in a "trashy romance novel with a sickly heroine" way; "transparent" in a "you can see their organs and bones through it" way. Oh, and the only clothes they wear are capes or jewels -- things meant for decoration and not for covering."

Against his will Hjalmar found himself imagining such a creature. He immediately wished he hadn't.

"Their eyes glow, and when they look at you it's like being skinned alive. You can't keep secrets from Elves. They look right into your mind and see your thoughts."

"You have to be making some of that up," Hjalmar said shakily. "That sounds like one of those ghost stories my grandfather used to tell us to frighten us out of bad behaviour."

"Believe me, I'm not making it up. And, well," Solvej flashed him a brief grin, "this is a ghost story, you know."

Hjalmar resisted the urge to groan at the pun.

"As I was saying, one of the Elves noticed me and spoke to me. He was perfectly polite, if you ignored how frightening he was. We spoke about magic and the difference between the magic mortals and immortals used. I know he told me things that very few other humans ever heard, but I've never been able to remember everything he said. That's one of the problems with approaching the Fair Folk; their presence does strange things to the memory.

"I went home and wrote down everything I could remember him telling me. And when I had finished, I had an idea. I had learned many things about Elves; why not continue, and write an encyclopedia on all magical creatures?"

"Did you?" Hjalmar asked. He wasn't sure what any of this had to do with Princess Rigmor, but it was interesting enough that he didn't care -- for the moment.

"No. I started it, but never finished it.

"I went to Nitrezny, to the Źovca Estuary, where I'd heard a nest of sea serpents laid their eggs each year. That was when I met the Magician, on the banks of the Źovca. Have you ever seen a waxwork?"

Hjalmar blinked, thrown by the apparent non sequitur. "No?"

"What about a particularly life-like doll?"

"I've seen one of those."

Even after eleven years he shivered at the memory. The doll in question had been a gift for Agnethe, courtesy of Uncle Eilert. There had been nothing wrong with the doll itself, beyond looking, well, life-like, but Mathilde had been jealous it wasn't hers, so she told her siblings that the doll came to life every night and would eat their eyes if they didn't hide under the covers all night. Agnethe and Hjalmar had cowered in their beds in mortal terror for a week before Mother learned what was wrong.

Solvej was speaking again. He pulled himself out of his memories to listen to her.

"Picture the most life-like doll you can imagine. Now picture it walking and talking, but walking like a puppet on a string and talking in a monotone. That's what the magician is like."

"He sounds..." Hjalmar paused, searching for a word, "frightening?"

"That's putting it mildly. He is, quite simply, something that should not exist. I don't know what he is, or if he was ever human to begin with, but he's certainly not human now.

"Anyway, he came up to me and spoke to me. He'd heard of my encyclopedia idea -- nothing unusual about that; every witch or wizard within a hundred miles had heard of it and either approved or disapproved, with the disapproving ones being the more noisy -- and he offered to teach me about the more sinister sorts of magical creatures. Hags, Gnomes, Boggles, the people of the toadstools, that sort of thing. I refused. I don't suppose I was very polite about refusing, but he frightened me so much I just wanted to get away from him.

"He wasn't happy about that. He grabbed hold of me and said -- well, I'd rather not repeat what he said. It wasn't very nice."

Somehow, the juxtaposition of the magician grabbing Solvej with the mildness of the sentence "It wasn't very nice" were so absurd that Hjalmar found himself fighting giggles even though there was nothing to laugh at -- rather the opposite, in fact. Solvej noticed and grinned wryly.

"Let me rephrase that. What he said was threatening, disgusting and probably anatomically impossible. Anyway, I told him exactly what I thought of him and that if he didn't let go of me right now I would kick him somewhere extremely painful."

Hjalmar resisted the urge to applaud on the basis that Solvej would never let him forget it if he did -- and besides, her refusal had apparently not gone well for her, or she wouldn't be here.

"I tore free of him, and tore my dress in the process," Solvej continued.

The nonchalant way she said this, as if it didn't matter, horrified Hjalmar. When he said as much, she shrugged.

"It doesn't matter much now, does it? It was a century ago. Though," here she winced slightly, "I'll admit that what happened afterwards was very unpleasant.

"He didn't follow me then. I went home and thought that was the last I'd seen of him. I underestimated just how much of a grudge he can hold. He appeared on my doorstep months later and tried to kill me. I fought back. There was a battle, my home was destroyed -- which I was very annoyed about -- and eventually he killed me. Well, he thought he did.

"As I lay dying, I begged Death not to take me until I got revenge. He obliged. I think he did, anyway; the world turned into a terrible fever dream in those last moments. It might have been Death, but it could just as easily have been the Magician cursing me, or I might have cast a spell myself. Whatever happened, the result was the same. I didn't truly die.

"Have you ever been just about to wake up, but want to stay asleep? You can sense what's happening around you, but you can't be bothered to interact with it. That was what being dead while under a spell was like.

"Eventually I fell into a deeper sleep, and I stayed like that until you came along and woke me up. Thank you for that, by the way."

"You're welcome," Hjalmar said automatically.

"And then my fairy godmother appeared and told me that if I helped you I could get my revenge. So here I am."

Silence reigned for a minute. Hjalmar tried not to think about the incredibly disturbing things Solvej had brushed over, and only found himself thinking about them even more. The lack of detail in Solvej's recounting allowed his imagination to conjure more and more horrifying visions.

"Anyway," Solvej continued, "that's my story. Now, you're probably wondering what this has to do with Princess Rigmor. I can only tell you what I've heard myself.

"It seems the king and queen offended the magician in some way. Every story I've heard gives a different reason for what happened, so if you want to know for sure you'll have to ask Rigmor. But whatever started the quarrel, and knowing the magician it was probably something trivial, he cursed Rigmor to cause the death of any man who wishes to court her, and to die herself if the curse isn't broken by a certain time."

"But how can it be the same magician?" Hjalmar asked. "I mean, he was alive at the same time as you, and I don't think he's a ghost."

Solvej looked at him as if he was incredibly stupid. "He's immortal, of course."

"You never mentioned that."

"It wasn't important at the time."

"It seems like something important to me," Hjalmar objected. "Anyway, how do you know he's immortal? How do you know it's even the same magician? Have you ever seen this one?"

A hint of surprise appeared in Solvej's eyes. "I don't need to see him to know it's him. Every magic user has a different... feel to their magic. I've seen Rigmor. She has his magic all over her. And I know he's immortal because I stabbed him in the heart repeatedly, cut his throat and stabbed him in the eye, and he walked away from all of that."

Hjalmar recoiled. If she had thrown a knife at him, she could hardly have shocked him more. He had known, on some level, that a fight meant both parties were involved, but he had assumed it was a magic fight. The news that Solvej had inflicted such injuries on someone -- even an evil magician -- was startling to say the least.

"Well," Solvej continued, as lightly as if she hadn't just given Hjalmar a terrible shock, "shall we decide how you and Rigmor are going to fall in love?"

There could be only one reply to that.

"WHAT?"

Chapter Footnotes:

[1] huldrå = Vardiholmish word for the forest creature known as a huldra or hulder. Pronounced roughly "HOOL-dreh" ("å" is said like "ai" in "hair").