Excerpt: The Magician's Daughter

Prologue

You did not need hearing as extraordinary as Meneleus’ to hear the heartbreaking keening of the woman, but no one else would have heard the furtive steps of the bairnsnatcher. Meneleus and his companion, Dimitri, reined in their horses on the forest path and paused.

“I think it is heading that way,” Meneleus said, gesturing to the south. “Do you really think there is a chance we can stop it?”

Dimitri closed his eyes in thought for a moment, allowing his inner eye to search the future. “Yes, definitely. But the mother will elude us.”

“Well, that’s to be expected, and perhaps it is for the best.” They both knew that the bairnsnatcher’s spell would soon overpower the keening woman, making her forget that she ever had a child. Such women were a danger when confronted with the evidence that their child had been stolen. Most reacted violently, many went mad. Although they could clearly hear the anguish in the keening woman’s wails, they would soon give way to a temporary catatonia, and then amnesia.

The two knights dismounted, turned their horses loose, and crept through the thick underbrush until it gave way to a shadowy clearing in the woods. They waited silently behind the massive trunk of a decaying ironwood until even Dmitri could hear the bairnsnatcher coming through the leaves.

Neither had ever seen a bairnsnatcher, nor heard of anyone who had. They were rumored to be stunted, animal like men, short and hairy, with long, pointed ears and teeth. No one could even guess what they did with the babies they stole, although everyone seemed somehow sure that they did not eat, or even kill them.

At last they could see it creeping through the bracken, clutching the baby close to its hideous naked body. It was crooning to the baby in a surprisingly soft and sweet voice, and not paying attention to its surroundings at all. It never even looked up before Dimitri’s arrow caught it through its shoulder. It looked up in shock, and received another arrow, this time from Meneleus’ bow. Meneleus did not have the opportunity to register exactly where his arrow struck his quarry, because the bairnsnatcher disintegrated into a steaming pile of ash, leaving the baby squalling on the leaves where it fell.

The two knights rushed over, Dimitri kicking through the ashes, and Meneleus picked up the tiny infant.

Meneleus had never before thought of having a family, but he loved the dark haired baby girl on sight. Dimitri came over and looked down at the bundle in his companion’s arms.

“She has a destiny,” he commented. “A great balance will be swayed by her bravery”.

At that moment, the woods became silent as the wails of grief that had been echoing through the trees suddenly ended. Meneleus looked down into the girl’s tiny face and felt a protective surge of fear sweep over him. “Do not ever tell her that, let her come to it on her own.”

Dimitri nodded.

And that is how it came to be that the Knights of Brevis raised a daughter.