Mercedes Lackey - Sleeping Beauty

She froze, as she heard a growl behind her, and smelled hot, doggy breath.

"What's that?" Desmond said sharply.

She knew not to move. That growl had been deep and menacing.

"My hound seems to have found a spy, sire," the Huntsman replied, in a growl not far removed from the dog's.

"Well that you set him to watch then," replied the Prince, and uttered a few guttural words in a language she didn't recognize. "Now you can call him off."

She heard a whistle, and the dog padded away.Now! she thought, ready to run for it, and —

Couldn't move. Not a muscle. She couldn't even make a sound.

She was barely able to blink and breathe.

"Let's see what little mouse we've caught," said Desmond, his voice full of cruel amusement. Two dark figures approached her where she was stuck, leaning against the stable wall. The light from a shuttered lantern flashed into her face, and she heard the Huntsman's swift intake of breath, and then Desmond's slow chuckle.

"Well, well, well. It looks as if you have managed to snare me my quarry after all," Desmond said. He tore off the magical bracelet Lily would have used to find her, and threw it on the ground before uttering another handful of words. And that was all she knew....

...until she woke up.

She was not in the stables of her Palace. This place was cold, and it was dank. It smelled like wet stone. It was so dark that at first she was in a panic, thinking she was blind, and she lurched to her feet, fell, smacked her head on stone and saw stars.

That was when a shutter in a door she could not see until that moment grated open, and a light shone in on her, proving that at least she wasn't blind.

"You're awake!" It was the Huntsman, and he sounded surprised. "His Highness told me you wouldn't be awake for half a day yet!"

"Well his Highness doesn't know everything, then, does he?" she snapped. Her head hurt. Where was she?

The Huntsman laughed. It was the sort of laugh that put cold chills up her back.

"Bold little Princess. Not that it will do you any good. Desmond is the best sorcerer in his generation. He is patient, and thorough, and you are where you cannot escape and cannot communicate with anyone or anything. Not even a mouse or a spider. Every way in which a magician can see at a distance has been eliminated."

She gulped, the pain in her head forgotten. So that was why they had never caught the Huntsman doing anything other than what he was supposed to! Desmond...

"Your Godmother will not find you a second time, Princess. And in case someone is listening as well, somehow, you may be sure that neither of us will say where you are within your hearing. I myself have been geased against doing so."

Her blood ran cold. It sounded as if Desmond had thought of everything.

"He is still at the Palace, of course. When your loss is discovered, he will be as horrified as anyone else."

Of course he will.

"I, of course, will be the logical suspect. When searchers are sent out, he will come here. No one suspects him of anything. Unlike some of the others, no one will demand he take a partner."

It was logical. There would be no reason to suspect Desmond.

"When he returns here, he will proceed to envelop you in magic. He has specialized in the kinds of magic that well, to put it simply, make it possible to control one other person. He has studied these things for years. Such spells take a great deal of time to cast, but that does not matter. He will have all the time he needs to make them work on you as there is very little chance that anyone will discover this place. If they do, there would be no reason to think you are here. If you are sought here, this cell is well hidden. His Highness will have sufficient time to wrap your mind in so many, many spells that not even the urge to eat and sleep will be your own. Then, when you are completely his thrall, he will 'rescue' you." The Huntsman laughed again. "Perhaps he will put you to sleep, and wake you with a kiss. You will be overjoyed to be with him by then, and he will reveal to your people that he is the answer to your problem, that his magic can control the enemies of this land and set them against each other instead of Eltaria. You will adore him, and be overjoyed to wed him. Who knows, you might even actually feel those things. You will probably be very next to an imbecile when he gets done draining you of magic, but that won't matter."

The slide clattered shut, then abruptly opened again. "There is a bucket of water and a dipper at the rear and to the right of this room. There is an empty bucket in the left. Food and water will be left here when you are sleeping."

The slide clacked shut, leaving her alone in the dark.

Panic rose in her, and she gave it room to run for a while. That was something she had learned from Lily; when things were at their worst, if you had the space, let the panic run out. Besides, they were expecting this. If she were calm, they would suspect her of being strong, or of having some secret way to get help. If she acted like one of the helpless things they expected, they would underestimate her.

That, she had learned from Siegfried.

So she screamed, cried herself hoarse, permitted herself hysteria.

The stone cell echoed with the noise of anguish. She sobbed helplessly as she felt her way around the stone cell on her hands and knees and begged the Huntsman to let her go. She offered immense bribes, and cried some more.

She knew he was out there, listening. She could hear him moving occasionally, or laughing quietly. And when the hysteria ran out, when her eyes were so raw she could hardly see, she felt her way to the pallet she had found and lay down on it.

She hadn't recognized the language that Desmond had used for his spell-casting...but that didn't actually matter. Lily had not been teaching her narrowly defined or restricted magic of the sort that those tied to rituals did.

Lily had instead been teaching her how magic worked.

She had learned how to see the constructions that magic made around the person or object a spell was cast upon. It was entirely appropriate to say that a spell was "woven," because that was what such things looked like, an intricate interlacing of something between thick yarn and thin rope. Desmond had been very careful and very clever not to weave any powerful magic back at the Palace, nothing that he could not have been given by some tame wizard to help him with the trials, or she and Lily would have seen it. Probably he had made arrangements to meet the Huntsman in the forest. Now, however, he was free to weave as many spells as he cared to.

She strongly suspected that The Tradition had a great deal to do with spells working. If it were only following exact ritual that worked, then how could the improvisational magicians get anything done? Yet exact ritual was much, much more powerful than extempore work.

Unless you knew the principles behind how magic worked. And unless you could see completed spells.

"There are many more magicians who work by what they have memorized than there are those who work by knowing the principles of magic," Lily had said. "There are plenty who can't see it, and rely on the ritual to do the manipulation for them, rather like a blind person threading a maze that he has memorized. All the Fae can, which is one reason why Fae magic seems so unpredictable to many human magicians. If they need to, the Fae can cast and unmake spells without using any sort of ritual at all!"

Lily did use spells and cantrips all the time, she said — and certainly Rosa had seen her do so. Was that because it was easier? Or was it because The Tradition said that they worked, so — they worked? Did it even matter? No it doesn't. My mind is spinning in circles again.The point was, she could see magic. With patience, she could unravel it —