Magic Three of Solatia (17 page)

“I give you what is most precious to any—man or bird,” said Bred. “For these my friends, I give you my life.”

T
HE WIZARD STILL SNEERED.
But deep in his hollow eyes, for the first time there was fear. It was fear born of certain knowledge.

Lann felt his heart contract with pain and relief. He felt ashamed of such a feeling and glanced at the others. He read the same thoughts in their eyes.

The wizard reached down for the bone flute that hung at his side. And while the horrified friends watched, the flute grew in size until it was as large as an ax and as sharp.

“No!”
cried Lann. He leaped toward the wizard and Bred. But he was too late.

With a swift, vengeful movement, Bleakard brought the sharp edge of the flute down on Bred’s bared neck. At the blow there was the red of blood and the black of night. And the entire castle moved as if shaken by an invisible hand.

When the darkness cleared, Lann looked around him in amazement. Of giant or dwarf, of goose or gander, of the wizard and his bone flute, there was no sign. The castle itself was changed. No longer were the rocks gray-green in color but a soft, warm brown. And instead of being on the cold tower walk, Lann was lying on a fair bed hung with velvet curtains.

Slowly he set his feet on the floor and got up. A small arched window beckoned to him. He walked over to it and peered out. Instead of night it was noon, and the sun’s light was warm and full. The lake had disappeared and in its place was a great meadow with cows and sheep grazing and a company of herdsmen nearby.

Lann looked about him again, wondering if it had all been simply a seeming after all, a tale to while away an afternoon, a magic entertainment planned by his mother. But then, on a chest at the foot of the bed, he saw the pieces of his broken instrument. Picking the pieces up sadly, he shook his head. His life, he felt, was as broken as the lute. His friend’s solitary death was, indeed, a consequence he could scarcely bear.

It was then Lann saw the open door. He went through it and found himself in a long hall hung with rich tapestries.

At the hall’s end was yet another door. And when he opened it, Lann found himself in a large pleasant room filled with well-dressed people. As he walked through the door, the people all bowed.

“Hail, Lann, Sianna’s son,” they said at once.

Lann looked about him wonderingly and approached the people. For surely someone there could explain the things that had happened to him and help him find his company of friends.

Yet as he approached, the people fell back, bowing and opening up a pathway. At the end of the path was a throne. On the throne sat a kindly man who seemed tall as a giant, for he sat straight and proud. He was dressed in royal robes, yet beneath his golden crown was a face that was familiar.

“Jared!” cried Lann.

“It is indeed I,” said Jared.

To his right stood a small man in robes of blue. A gold medallion hung around his neck. He was a counselor who looked at Lann with an expression he recognized at once.

“Coredderoc, too?” asked Lann.

“Cored one,” said the counselor. “Both in one head.”

Lann could contain himself no longer. He ran over to the two and threw his arms around them. There was a gasp from the people and Lann drew back, suddenly remembering that Jared was a king.

But the noise from the crowd was not for that. They were drawing apart to let a beautiful girl step through. Her hair was as soft as feathers and her face as gentle as the wind.

“This is my daughter,” said the king, “whom I had thought lost forever. Bridda.”

But Lann had not waited for her name. He had already gone to her side.

It was then that Cored explained what had occurred. “It was, as you have probably guessed, mostly
seeming.
We have all been enchanted, for our own folly or the follies of others. The king, the prince, the princess and I in our own sad states in which you found us; the lords and ladies and cooks and stableboys as the gray-green rocks on which Bleakard’s castle was built. For he was so evil, he could only build upon the wreckage of others’ lives.”

All the people gathered in the room nodded at this and whispered “How right” and “So true” each to his neighbor.

The king broke in then, saying, “We would have remained forever thus if you had not come by. With love and courage you inspired us to great deeds.”

“But it was Bred who saved us all,” protested Lann. “It was his sacrifice.”

“Yes, in the end it was Bred, my son, who gave his life for us all,” the king agreed. “Gave it without knowing who we all were—except that we were friends.” He looked around at the assembly of people and then stood up. “Brave men do that, that others may live. And it will always be my special burden to know that at the moment of asking—though I guessed what it was that was required of me—I could not do it. I was not as brave as my own son. That is a piece of knowledge that will guide me when I must judge others.”

Lann turned to the princess. “But if you are of royal blood, then I fear what I hope for may not come to pass. For though there was never a one such as my mother, she is of the blood of peasants, and so am I.”

“Lann, my friend, my son,” said Jared, “you are ever as dear to me as the son I had for only a moment and lost. Marry my daughter and rule in my place. For any son of a woman as wise as Sianna of the Song is more than worthy to be a king. And Cored and I will serve as your counselors whenever such a need shall arise.” And, taking the crown from his own head, he placed it on Lann’s. Then Jared knelt before the minstrel-king. “Your servant and your friend till death,” he said.

“May that be a good long time,” said Lann.

“I sincerely hope so,” replied Jared with such fervor that the two friends at last were able to smile.

So Lann and Bridda married with the blessings both of her father and of his mother, who came with her minstrel-husband to the wedding. The young king and queen shared in the ruling of the kingdom. Jared was ever at their side, leavening their judgments with his caution and wit. And Cored, too, served them well, as wise as two men, always seeing two sides of any question and balancing them both in any answer.

It was said that every night a silver bird with a blood-red ring around its neck visited the castle tower. King Lann played it songs on his lute. Queen Bridda fed it red berries, green salad, and wine. They called it Brother Gander and swore that it brought them news of all the people, great and small, who lived under their rule. Or so it was said in the kingdom—but many things are rumored, and not all are true.

What is true, though, is this: from that day on, no one within the kingdom was allowed to draw bow against any bird that flies in the sky or swims in the streams. And a flock of geese still lives contentedly in the palace courtyard, petted and beloved as any friends.

Here ends Book IV

I had a dream about the magic buttons of Solatia. It is one of three books I have written that began with a dream. (The other two were also fantasy novels:
The Wild Hunt
and
Uncle Lemon’s Spring
, set in a magical house and on an Appalachian farm, respectively.)

That dream, though, was the easiest part of telling the story. It was just an idea, an itch, a tiny buzz in the head.

After that, the real work began. All the folk and fairy tales I knew came together in my mind and I sorted through them, added a combination of a Bar Mitzvah and a Quaker meeting—two things with which I am well acquainted being both Jewish and Quaker—and sent my characters off on their story.

Jane Yolen

I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!

We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father was stationed in London running the Army’s secret radio.

When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a house in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.

I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book,
Owl Moon
—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.

And I am still writing.

I have often been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of America,” something first noted in
Newsweek
close to forty years ago because I was writing a lot of my own fairy tales at the time.

The sum of my books—including some eighty-five fairy tales in a variety of collections and anthologies—is now well over 335. Probably the most famous are
Owl Moon
,
The Devil’s Arithmetic
, and
How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?
My work ranges from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction, to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. I’ve also written lyrics for folk and rock groups, scripted several animated shorts, and done voiceover work for animated short movies. And I do a monthly radio show called
Once Upon a Time
.

These days, my work includes writing books with each of my three children, now grown up and with families of their own. With Heidi, I have written mostly picture books, including
Not All Princesses Dress in Pink
and the nonfiction series Unsolved Mysteries from History. With my son Adam, I have written a series of Rock and Roll Fairy Tales for middle grades, among other fantasy novels. With my son Jason, who is an award-winning nature photographer, I have written poems to accompany his photographs for books like
Wild Wings
and
Color Me a Rhyme.

And I am still writing.

Oh—along the way, I have won a lot of awards: two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, two Christopher Awards, the Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among many accolades. I have also won (for my full body of work) the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master Award, the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal, the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award, the University of Southern Mississippi and de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection’s Southern Miss Medallion, and the Smith College Medal. Six colleges and universities have given me honorary doctorate degrees. One of my awards, the Skylark, given by the New England Science Fiction Association, set my good coat on fire when the top part of it (a large magnifying glass) caught the sunlight. So I always give this warning: Be careful with awards and put them where the sun don’t shine!

Also of note—in case you find yourself in a children’s book trivia contest—I lost my fencing foil in Grand Central Station during a date, fell overboard while whitewater rafting in the Colorado River, and rode in a dog sled in Alaska one March day.

And yes—I am still writing.

At a Yolen cousins reunion as a child, holding up a photograph of myself. In the photo, I am about one year old, maybe two.

Sitting on the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park in New York in 1961, when I was twenty-two. (Photo by David Stemple.)