THE LAST ENCHANTRESS
H
by HENRY HERTZ
ear now of the Last Enchantress, a tale of love, heart-rending woe, and mighty deeds. Long ago, when the stars were brighter and the hills taller, noble Lord Trient lived in a high castle by the sea. His beautiful wife, Lady Valeria, was the most powerful enchantress in the wide world. Perhaps it was not by chance, then, that the trees of their lands always bore sweet, juicy apples, the goats multiplied unblemished, and a hillside mine yielded peerless rubies. The pair ruled their prospering province wisely, treating the farmers and villagers like members of an extended family. The lord faithfully paid the king’s annual taxes, and the lady used her powers to help others—healing a badly broken leg here, ensuring a waterproof roof there. All were content… except the king. For the king had a heart as dark as his royal pennant—a red skull upon a black field—a heart filled with distrust, even of the trustworthy. So he thought, “Trient’s people are loyal to him, and his ruby mine makes him wealthy. Wealthy enough to hire mercenaries to some day overthrow my rule.” His craven counselors advised him to banish the pair, seizing their castle, their land, and all the riches it bore. When the royal banishment order arrived, Trient knew well that if he disobeyed, the king’s soldiers would soon arrive to enforce the unjust decree. His loyal folk would fight for him, though armed only with woodman’s axe and farmer’s scythe. But Trient loved them, and did not wish harm to befall them, neither from resisting the king’s soldiers nor slaving under a tight-fisted tyrant. Valeria proposed to her husband a strange but clever plan. The following day, Trient held a gathering of all the people of his province, for he would only be accompanied into banishment by the willing. As with one voice, his guards, servants, and townsfolk proclaimed their loyalty. They would follow him to the ends of the world. Trient and Valeria exchanged somber smiles. “So let it be,” he declared. “Return to your homes and there remain until the Lady’s enchantment is complete.” Valeria ascended to the loftiest room in the castle. She mixed rare herbs with a drop of her blood. Into the evening she chanted, tracing glowing symbols in the darkness. At midnight, she released a potent spell, the mightiest magic ever summoned, before or since. Such was her exertion, she fell into a deep slumber. A tremendous rumbling like a thunderstorm shattered the night’s stillness. The land fissured as if by an earthquake. Trient’s entire province, from the fishing village on the coast to the nearby castle to the hills and eastern orchards, rose from the earth. As if scooped by a god’s shovel, a gargantuan slab of dirt and bedrock drifted seaward like a fog bank. With it went Trient, Valeria, six-hundred and eleven loyal subjects, and all p left in their wake. 12
