Mercedes Lackey - Sleeping Beauty

Meanwhile she had preparations of her own to make. A second transformative spell — probably best to make it part of a cloak — something that might break that chain...and something to use if she couldn't break it. Whatever path The Tradition was trying to force, it didn't much matter. Both ended in a spell of sleep. It was a great pity there weren't any Princes lying idly about for this moment, but she would manage. Without a Prince and a kiss, the thing was harder to break, much harder, but not impossible. She stepped through the mirror to her own castle, where she had everything she could possibly need, taking Jimson's mirror with her.

As soon as she stepped across the frame, the castle resounded with a beautiful bell tone, announcing her arrival. She hadn't gotten more than both feet on the carpet of the Hall of Mirrors when she was swarmed by her Brownies, all of them in their typical earth colors.

Brownies were, traditionally and Traditionally both, the servants and helpers of the Godmothers. Being half-Fae, Lily got more than her share of would-be aides and companions. This time she was glad of it, for the ingredients she would need for the sleeping potion were best when gathered fresh.

Brownies were smaller than Dwarves, of a similar build, but less muscular. They tended to look quite pleasant, jolly even, with round little faces and cheerful expressions. So when her crowd of helpers swarmed her, Lily was still more than tall enough to see over the heads of all of them, and direct who to fetch which component.

When they were all gone, leaving her alone for the moment, she pressed one hand to her forehead, trying to concentrate. "Plans," she said, half to Jimson. "We need plans. We can't just keep solving one crisis after another. We have to anticipate what might happen — "

For once, the Mirror Servant's voice was not bored, nor heavy with irony. "My dear Godmother," he said fondly, "you and I have worked together for many years. Centuries, in fact. If you can do without my services while you make your potions, I will try to anticipate all the paths that might be walked, and uncover as many possible solutions for each as I can."

Lily held up the mirror and gazed with astonishment at Jimson's disembodied face. "You would do that for me? After all the abuse I've heaped on you lately?"

Jimson laughed. "When one is trapped in mirrors for so many centuries, one learns which reflections are the true ones. You are the kindest Godmother I have ever served, as well as the one with the most difficult and trying Kingdom to keep stable, and I can tell when it is frustration speaking. Just put me down here, where I won't be distracted, and make your potions and disguises." The corners of his eyes crinkled a little as he smiled. "If you will trust me with this, it will be a pleasure to act as an advisor instead of a mere — reflection."

Lily sighed with relief. She had long known that Jimson was far more than an "ordinary" Mirror Servant; for one thing, she had inherited him, rather than creating him, and he was much, much older than she was. But now, it seemed, he was showing yet another side of himself that she had not expected. "I'd kiss you if you weren't on the other side of the glass," she declared. "I promise never to threaten to smash you again."

Jimson chuckled. "Now there is a reward indeed!"

There was another row of mirrors here, each reflecting a different interior. These did not have to be left covered, since no one but herself and her staff would ever see them. It was a pity they were all one-way, but having that many mirror-passages concentrating their magic within the walls of a single building was dangerous enough without making them work in both directions. She stepped through the one that deposited her just outside her workroom and put Jimson's mirror on a table just outside the door.

Just as the workroom of a worker of darkness stank, the workroom of a Fairy Godmother generally was awash with heavenly scents, and Lily's was no exception. Because each Godmother was a little different, each used a different "signature" base for her potions, and each worked her magic in different ways, you could often identify one of them merely by the scent of her room. Not necessarily the potions themselves, because by the time you got done concocting, the potion was often odorless and tasteless, but definitely the scent of the room.

In Lily's case, the main note was the cool sweetness of April Lilies. Beneath that was mint, just enough to keep the lily scent from being cloying; lavender to cut it further; and a hint of Elflock, which only grew in the Fae realms. Most of her potions used that formula for a base. For Lily, the scent was always that of home, her own comfortable and secure castle.

She stepped inside the room, which was actually two rooms divided by a wall, both heavily warded and shielded against interference of any kind, and against what went on within them. Neither room had windows, and both were lit by an enchantment on the ceiling itself. The Potions Room looked like the still-room in any noble house, save only that there was a great deal more of the apparatus than was ever in such a room — glass vessels, small ovens, crucibles, alembics, beakers, glass pipes, funnels, little charcoal braziers over which a single item could be simmered....Walls and floor were stone, impervious to just about anything that could end up tossed against them. Sometimes there were accidents; a bit of miscalculation, and the next thing you knew, you were looking for a broom. Sometimes...well, sometimes Lily's temper got the better of her, and when things had gone wrong repeatedly, as they sometimes did...a broom was definitely in order.

The other room, entered through a door in the Potions room, was also stone-walled and stone-floored, and completely bare, except for the three magical circles inlaid in the floor. The outer one was gold, the middle, silver, the innermost one, electrum. They were not complete; there were bridge-pieces that could be placed in the empty groove in the floor to complete and seal them. This was a great deal more certain than drawing your circles out in chalk and hoping you didn't scuff them — because there could be something you would contain in there that you really would not want to get out. Or something outside the circles that you really did not want to get in. Lily had not been in either case very often — only a handful of times in three hundred years — but those times had been more than enough to cause her to be happy for such sturdy precautions.

In the right corner was a mannequin, in the left was a cupboard that contained the items Lily needed for spell-casting, and that was all that was in this room.

Now a sleeping potion was one of the easiest to concoct. It was also one of the most common. Virtually any common village witch could make one, and make a good one. There were perfectly good reasons to administer one to someone, if they were unable to sleep.

Of course, that was usually not why someone wanted one. Spouses wanted to be able to sneak out on their mates. Thieves wanted to make their jobs easier. Courtesans wanted to render their customers unconscious to rob them. The list of good reasons was shorter than the list of bad ones, so most of the trade in such things was confined to the...less than scrupulous. Nevertheless, it was something that was in Lily's arsenal, too.

Be that as it may, it was not a sleeping potion, as such, that was wanted here, not this time. At this point, it looked as if the easiest path to manage was the Snowskin Path, rather than the Beauty Sleeping Path. Therefore, what she needed was a potion to simulate death. And that was a far, far more difficult thing to manage.

In the Snowskin tale, the heroine was rendered insensible by a poison of some sort, and it was only the intervention of The Tradition that kept it from actually being fatal. It took alot of magic to do that, more magic than even Lily had at her disposal. So she was going to have to simulate what was wanted, the hard way.