THE LAST ENCHANTRESS

by HENRY HERTZ

HearnowoftheLastEnchantress,ataleoflove,heart-rendingwoe,andmightydeeds.

Longago,whenthestarswerebrighterandthehillstaller,nobleLordTrientlivedinahighcastle 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 multipliedunblemished,andahillsidemineyieldedpeerlessrubies.

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… excepttheking.

For the king had a heart as dark as his royal pennant—a red skull upon a black field—a heart filledwithdistrust,evenofthetrustworthy.Sohethought,“Trient’speopleareloyaltohim,andhisruby minemakeshimwealthy.Wealthyenoughtohiremercenariestosomedayoverthrowmyrule.”

His craven counselors advised him to banish the pair, seizing their castle, their land, and all the richesitbore.

When the royal banishment order arrived, Trient knew well that if he disobeyed, the king’s soldierswouldsoonarrivetoenforcetheunjustdecree.Hisloyalfolkwouldfightforhim,thougharmed only with woodman’s axe and farmer’s scythe. But Trient loved them, and did not wish harm to befall them,neitherfromresistingtheking’ssoldiersnorslavingunderatight-fistedtyrant.

Valeriaproposedtoherhusbandastrangebutcleverplan.

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 proclaimedtheirloyalty.Theywouldfollowhimtotheendsoftheworld.

Trient and Valeria exchanged somber smiles. “So let it be,” he declared. “Return to your homes andthereremainuntiltheLady’senchantmentiscomplete.” subjects, and all their buildings, crops, and livestock. People gaped at a crater twenty miles long, five mileswide,andahundredyardsdeep,leftintheirwake.

Valeria ascended to the loftiest room in the castle. She mixed rare herbs with a drop of her blood. Intotheeveningshechanted,tracingglowingsymbolsinthedarkness.Atmidnight,shereleasedapotent spell, the mightiest magic ever summoned, before or since. Such was her exertion, she fell into a deep slumber.

Atremendous rumbling like a thunderstorm shattered the night’s stillness.The land fissured as if byanearthquake.Trient’sentireprovince,fromthefishingvillageonthecoasttothenearbycastletothe 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,andallpleftintheirwake.

When news of the thaumaturgy reached the king, his face flushed. “Trient has taken what is rightfully ours! We cannot allow him to flout our rule, for other lords could follow his faithless example.” He swore a terrible oath for himself and all his descendants, ‘til vengeance be wrought or the worldend.Hiscourtshudderedtohearit.

Valeriaawokewiththecolossuswellouttosea.Sheeasedthemassontothecalmoceansurface, her spell imbuing it with buoyancy. It rode the water like an enormous raft. Valeria caused three-hundred-yard-long tentacles to burgeon like seaweed around the underside of the floating island. Thesemightylimbssteeredandpaddledinresponsetohermagic.ShenamedthelandCyanea.

Life went on mostly as before.Valeria wrapped the villagers in a cloak of love. She kept Cyanea far from the king’s lands in temperate regions with plentiful rainfall to drink and to irrigate their fruit trees, vegetable gardens, and lush pastures. Small ships fished with nets and harvested kelp.The herd of goats provided milk and meat, the chickens, eggs. The only food the Cyaneans lacked was flour, for grain fields would have covered too much of their arable land. It became a jest between Trient and Valeriathatinsavingtheprovince,shehadcasttheirbreaduponthewaters.

Valeria bequeathed magic to her eldest daughter, and in time, she to hers, though the sorcerous powers diminished with each generation. Successive first daughters commanded the swaying of enormoustentaclestokeepCyaneaincalmseasfarfromtheking’sshores.

Meanwhile, the evil king bequeathed his grudge to his son, and later, he to his.Their wrath grew witheachgeneration.Sothecenturieswinged.

One clear-skied day, six galleons flying pennants with a red skull on a black field anchored off Cyanea’sshorenearthecastle.Theylaunchedsquadronsofrowboatsfilledwithsoldiers.

The ruling Lady of Cyanea ordered the castle catapults to hurl rocks, but their numbers were too few and the distance too great. She shared a knowing look with her husband. They nodded. Love for theirpeopleleftthemwithbutasingleoption.Atearrolleddownhercheek.

The lady ascended to the loftiest room in the castle. She mixed rare herbs with a drop of her blood. She traced glowing symbols. Her feverish chanting evoked no response. Pain blazed in her arms, but she would not halt, for her people’s lives depended upon her.Through a desperate effort of will, the enchantress mastered Cyanea’s mighty tentacles. Upward they writhed, a tempest smashing rowboats andgalleonstoflotsam,drowningsoldiersandsailors.

Thelady’ssouldepartedherfleshattheeffortfarbeyondherstrength.

The last enchantress saved Cyanea. But without a lady to steer, the island drifted on the currents, neveragaintobeseen.

The king’s descendants ordered ever more warships built to hunt Cyanea, until an invading army offur-cladbarbariansfromthenorthconqueredtheirundefendedlands. Thusdidvengeanceextractitsheavytolluponall.

End

Author’sNote:Cyaneaisagenusofjellyfish,afittingnamegiventheappearanceofthefloatingisland.