Who might work such a spell? Shimrod cast among the persons known to him, but none would seem to have reason to beguile him with so strangely beautiful a maiden.
He returned to the workroom and tried to cast a portent, but the necessary detachment failed him and the portent broke into a spatter of discordant colors.
He sat late in the workroom that night while a cool dark wind sighed through the trees at the back of the manse. The prospect of sleep brought him both misgivings and an uneasy tingle of anticipation which he tried to quell, but which persisted nevertheless. "Very well then," Shimrod told himself in a surge of bravado, "let us face up to the matter and discover where it leads."
He took himself to his couch. Sleep was slow in coming; for hours he twitched through a troubled doze, sensitive to every fancy which chose to look into his mind. At last he slept.
The dream came presently. Shimrod stood on the terrace; along the beach came the maiden, bare-armed and bare-footed, her black hair blowing in the sea-wind. She approached without haste. Shimrod waited imperturbably, leaning on the balustrade. To show impatience was poor policy, even in a dream. The maiden drew near; Shimrod descended the wide marble stairs.
The wind died, and also the surf; the dark-haired maiden halted and stood waiting. Shimrod moved closer and a waft of perfume reached him: the odor of violets. The two stood only a yard apart; he might have touched her.
She looked into his face, smiling her pensive half-smile. She spoke. "Shimrod, I may visit you no more."
"What is to stay you?"
"My time is short. I must go to a place behind the star Achernar."
"Is this of your own will where you would go?"
"I am enchanted."
"Tell me how to break the enchantment!"
The maiden seemed to hesitate. "Not here."
"Where then?"
"I will go to the Goblins Fair; will you meet me there?"
"Yes! Tell me of the enchantment so that I may fix the counterspell."
The maiden moved slowly away. "At the Goblins Fair." With a single backward glance she departed.
Shimrod thoughtfully watched her retreating form... From behind him came a roaring sound, as of many voices raised in fury. He felt the thud of heavy footsteps, and stood paralyzed, unable to move or look over his shoulder.
He awoke on his couch at Trilda, heart pumping and throat tight.
The time was the darkest hour of the night, long before dawn could even be imagined. The fire had guttered low in the fireplace. All to be seen of Grofinet, softly snoring in his deep cushion was a foot and a lank tail.
Shimrod built up the fire and returned to his couch. He lay listening to sounds of the night. From across the meadow came a sad sweet whistle, of a bird awakened, perhaps by an owl.
Shimrod closed his eyes and so slept the remainder of the night.
The time of the Goblins Fair was close at hand. Shimrod packed all his magical apparatus, books, librams, philtres and operators into a case, upon which he worked a spell of obfuscation, so that the case was first shrunk, then turned in from out seven times to the terms of a secret sequence, so as finally to resemble a heavy black brick which Shimrod hid under the hearth.
Grofinet watched from the doorway in total perplexity. "Why do you do all this?"
"Because I must leave Trilda for a short period, and thieves will not steal what they cannot find."
Grofinet pondered the remark, his tail twitching first this way then that, in synchrony with his thoughts. "This, of course, is a prudent act. Still, while I am on guard, no thief would dare so much as to look in this direction."
"No doubt," said Shimrod, "but with double precautions our property is doubly safe."
Grofinet, had no more to say, and went outside to survey the meadow. Shimrod took occasion to effect a third precaution and installed a House Eye high in the shadows where it might survey household events.
Shimrod packed a small knapsack and went to issue final instructions to Grofinet, who lay dozing in the sunlight.
"Grofinet, a last word!"
Grofinet raised his head. "Speak; I am alert."
"1 am going to the Goblins Fair. You are now in charge of security and discipline. No creature wild or otherwise is to be invited inside. Pay no heed to flattery or soft words. Inform one and all that this is the manse Trilda, where no one is allowed."
"I understand, in every detail," declared Grofinet. "My vision is keen; I have the fortitude of a lion. Not so much as a flea shall enter the house."
"Precisely correct. I am on my way."
"Farewell, Shimrod! Trilda is secure!"
Shimrod set off into the forest. Once beyond Grofinet's range of vision, he brought four white feathers from his pouch and fixed them to his boots. He sang out: "Feather boots, be faithful to my needs; take me where I will."
The feathers fluttered to lift Shimrod and slide him away through the forest, under oaks pierced by shafts of sunlight. Celandine, violets, harebells grew in the shade; the clearings were bright with buttercups, cowslips and red poppies.
Miles went by. He passed fairy shees: Black Aster, Catterlein, Feair Foiry and Shadow Thawn, seat of Rhodion, king of all fairies. He passed goblin houses, under the heavy roots of oak trees, and the ruins once occupied by the ogre Fidaugh. When Shimrod paused to drink from a spring, a soft voice called his name from behind a tree. "Shimrod, Shimrod, where are you bound?"
"Along the path and beyond," said Shimrod and started along the way. The soft voice came after him: "Alas, Shimrod, that you did not stay your steps, if only for a moment, perhaps to alter events to come!"
Shimrod made no reply, nor paused, on the theory that anything offered in the Forest of Tantrevalles must command an exorbitant price. The voice faded to a murmur and was gone.
He presently joined the Great North Road, an avenue only a trifle wider than the first, and bounded north at speed.
He paused to drink water where an outcrop of gray rock rose beside the way, and low green bushes laden with dark red riddleberries, from which fairies pressed their wine, were shaded by twisted black cypresses, growing in cracks and crevices. Shimrod reached to pick the berries, but, noting a flutter of filmy garments, he thought better of such boldness and turned back to the way, only to be pelted with a handful of berries. Shimrod ignored the impudence, as well as the trills and titters which followed.
The sun sank low and Shimrod entered a region of low rocks and outcrops, where the trees grew gnarled and contorted and the sunlight seemed the color of dilute blood, while the shadows were smears of dark blue. Nothing moved, no wind stirred the leaves; yet this strange territory was surely perilous and had best be put behind before nightfall; Shimrod ran north at great speed.
The sun dropped past the horizon; mournful colors filled the sky.
Shimrod climbed to the top of a stony mound. He placed down a small box, which expanded to the dimensions of a hut. Shimrod entered, closed and barred the door, ate from the larder, then reclined on the couch and slept. He awoke during the night and for half an hour watched processions of small red and blue lights moving across the forest floor, then returned to his couch.
An hour later his rest was disturbed by the cautious scrape of fingers, or claws: first along the wall; then at his door, pushing and prying; then at the panes of the window. Then the hut thudded as the creature leapt to the roof.
Shimrod set the lamp aglow, drew his sword and waited.
A moment passed.
Down the chimney reached a long arm, the Color of putty. The fingers, tipped with little pads like the toes of a frog, reached into the room. Shimrod struck with his sword, severing the hand at the wrist. The stump oozed black-green blood; from the roof came a moan of dismal distress. The creature fell to the ground and once again there was silence.
Shimrod examined the severed member. Rings decorated the four fingers; the thumb wore a heavy silver ring with a turquoise cabochon. An inscription mysterious to Shimrod encircled the stone. Magic? Whatever its nature, it had failed to protect the hand.