Know that My Love is Set in Stone
by Stephen Wyatt Clifford
I'm afraid one day someone will come to me and speak the right words. Afraid that the curse will be finally broken and all Hell will break lose, quite literally.
It's not like I wished this to be my fate, my eternal doom and destiny. I was just desperate to prevent the wizard from winning, is all. There was no time to think; just do, or do not. It wasn't even the fate of the world I considered, only protecting my love.
I never wanted my betrothed to apprentice to Halsberd the Decrepit. The ancient wizard was not to be trusted, no one in their right mind would agree to serve him and his dark intentions. But there was very little a poor shepherd boy could do in that time of blight, and Alfred so wanted to be able to care for me and any family we hoped to raise one day. Especially when Halsberd gave him the choice of either serving him or tending to the lump of stone he threatened to turn me into if Alfred refused.
So, my poor, sweet, boy of a man agreed to toil for the harsh wizard. Tending the mange's forge, fetching his potion bowls, gathering the noxious herbs and minerals in the black forests and hills outside our village. Anything the wizard needed to cast his spells, lay his charms, and send out his curses.
I kept the old man's house clean and meals cooked, trying to stay out of his way during the day while caring for my betrothed in our small room in the attic at night.
The decrepit warlock ruled over us both with an iron hand and a wicked tongue. That tongue I grew to fear most of all, for a wizard's words, his magical incantations, were more powerful weapons than the sharpest steel and heaviest club. And he kept the deadliest words in readiness for use against me, knowing that what Alfred feared most was not what the mange would do to him but what he would cast towards me.
Alfred made the mistake of once- once! - challenging Halsberd's threats towards me, and I almost paid the ultimate price.
"Doubt that I can render your lover into stone?" the wizard roared. "Never doubt my power again- watch what your impudence will do!" And he opened his mouth to utter forth words black as pitch, syllables from the deepest, darkest eldritch realms. He pointed the head of his twisted staff towards me where I stood terrified near the cooking pot.
All went quiet and still around my body, though winds seemed to sweep into the room and whirl about the mange and my love. I saw Alfred's eyes widen in fright as his gaze cast down towards my feet. I looked down, though I hadn't felt anything happening. Then I saw that my feet, visible beneath the ragged hem of my skirt, had gone ashen. Then gray, gray as granite! I no longer felt the boards of the floor beneath those feet, nor could my muscles move them. The gray swept up my legs, swept over the fabric of my skirt and rose up the length of my body. I felt nothing; no pain, no cold or warmth, no sensation at all. Just the horror of seeing my lower body go gray and solid as the spell travelled upwards and my body and clothing turned to solid stone!
"Master, I beg you, NO!" Alfred turned and pleaded with Halsberd. I reached out my hand to Alfred and tried to cry for help, but my breath was already solid in my chest and I saw the gray creeping up my arm.
Halsberd smiled, nodded his head and seemed to whisper a single word. Immediately I saw my arm return to living color, and all the sensations of a living body slammed back into my form. I cried out in pain now as the flesh reawaked and Alfred caught me as I pitched forward. We wrapped our arms around each other and sobbed until the old wizard strode to us and grabbed Alfred to his feet with a surprising grip of steel.
"Never challenge me again, you pathetic boy!" Halsberd hissed malevolently. "Remember that only I know the right word to stop the transformation, and I will never utter it loud enough for you to learn it. Enrage me enough and I will never utter it at all! And lest you think you can just turn that spell back upon me, it is tied to HER and will only transmutate HER! And only I will know the counter measure to bring her back!
"Now, stoke my forge white hot, I need the fires of hell for my incantation tonight! And you, girl- move those lazy limbs and prepare me a decent supper for once, or you'll never move again!"
It went like this for years, the evil magician making us toil under threat of pain and torment. It turned into a game for him, finding transgressions on Alfred's part to justify using the spell on me to start the transmutation, waiting for Alfred to beg forgiveness and plead to spare me. I steeled myself to ride the process, trying to give the wizard as little reaction as possible to enjoy. Tried to get used to the pain of living again; and tried to love Alfred even more than ever so I wouldn't start to blame and hate my love for this torment.
Alfred did as his master bid, assisting in the dark magician's spell work, especially learning the eldritch phrases that went into those spells. The wizard never taught Alfred enough to be a threat to the man; but Alfred did hope he could learn enough of the dark arts to maybe one day find a way for the two of us to escape the wizard's house of horror.
At night, alone and curled up tight together in our attic bed, he would tell me about such spells and incantations the wizard had taught him so Alfred could assist in some of the more mundane magic work. I was so intrigued with this work that he even taught me some of the more amusing spells, careful to warn me never to try them against Halsberd as the wizard had long ago made it clear he had warded himself from such untrained novices as the two of us.
Then one night he confided in my ear that there was one thing he was studying the hardest of all. Every time the mange spoke the spell that tortured me, Alfred has focused his attention on the man's mouth, waiting until he whispered the WORD that would reverse the spell. Alfred thought he had learned enough of the eldritch words from the dark scrolls the wizard kept that he could gleam which of them was THE WORD. And he told me of his plan to spare me further agony?
We waited. We did as the evil warlock bade us to do; we didn't have to goad him to act. He always got around to his favorite game. It was no surprise when one day he chose to be unhappy with Alfred more than usual and he turned to me with the usual menace in his eye. I acted with my usual fright and pleading moans, backing up towards the door of the cottage as close as I could before he chanted the black curse once more. I waited as the transmutation swept up my body once more, keeping my eyes on Alfred as we waited to see how far this time the wizard would let the process go- Then Alfred smiled lovingly at me and whispered a single word at me.
With a rush, I was myself again. Alfred leapt forward, spinning me and pushing me towards the door. Halsberd roared out the incantation again; I heard my love speak the counter spell word again and I was able to grab the door and start to draw it open as the warlock lowered his voice and calmly but emphatically spoke the spell a third time?
Alfred just as calmly uttered the rescuing word again. And again, then over and over in terror as he saw the gray sweep up me unhindered. He was screaming in desperation as I saw the gray creep down my arm, over my hand, and even start to spread from my fingers over the wood of the door as my eyes clouded over and went dark!
I felt nothing. All was still and black in my mind, as if I slept. I felt I was still alive, but cut off from all life. Strangely, though, I could hear the world outside of me. Halsberd and Alfred must have been close to my stone body, even if I could not sense their presence. But I could hear my love's sobbing and the evil magician's satisfied speech.
"I knew you would try that one day," the fiend gloated. "You are a cleaver lad, could have been a great wizard yourself one day. It was inevitable that you would learn the correct word I was not really trying to hide from you and attempt to save your worthless girl from me? But for all the trivial crumbs I've allowed you to learn about magic, I kept the real facts from you. Facts, such as, whatever spell you choose to cast, it is up to you to choose its counter measure. And you can change that counter measure EVERY time you cast the spell?"
"I selected that word in my mind before I spoke the incantation. I used the same one all this time to test you, and set you up to fail. Once I heard you use the old counter measure, all I had to do was select a new one in my mind and curse your lover once more.
"Here, let's see if you still have some magic in you right now. Let me whisper the new word in your ear so you can free this wench from her stony state. I warn you, as you can see, this time the resurrection will take just a bit longer."
I waited, then close by to what must have been my ear I heard a new eldritch phrase. As black and evil as that word was, it was spoken in as loving a tone as my Alfred could muster.
As the wizard hinted, life came back slower and more measured than usual. I thought it had to do with being fully cast into stone for once. It was strange to see light come back into my eyes and my head fill with free thought and sensation. As my eyes focused, I saw the door in front of me, with my still granite hand pressed against it. The wood of the door was also stone, and I watched as the surface turned back to wood as the gray receded from it. Then as the gray started to flow back from my fingertips and washed backwards on my body, I fully came back into myself and collapsed in pain to the floor.
"I was surprised the spell reached beyond her body to encompass the door like that," Halsberd mused as he stood over me. "I guess I put a little 'English' into the words that last time. Now, what to do with the two of you. I must say Alfred, as much as you have been useful to me, and this wench has had her own uses, there comes a time I feel I should perhaps invest in a new apprentice-"
Alfred was ignoring the fiend, kneeling beside me to envelope me in his arms. "Forgive me, "he sobbed "I never wanted you to suffer so. I love you so much? Know that my love is set in stone?"
My head snapped up to stare into his eyes. My mind grasped a plan, and it choose the WORDS.
"Burn this hovel to the ground, then RUN!" I whispered.
Then I leapt up, pushing Alfred away and pressing myself against the wizard's body. I wrapped one arm around him and hugged hard, while I clamped the other hand over his mouth before he could enchant. Then I opened my mouth and screamed the incantation I had heard repeated so much these last years with as much venom and 'English' as I could!
I felt the gray wash up my limbs and envelope my body; my body and then Halsberd's. I heard him screaming behind the hand I clutched over his mouth; whether curses or cries of terror or desperate pleas I do not know. But they fell still and cold quickly enough, and I knew the warlock was as still and stone as I was. We were now trapped within our own minds, for as long as stone can last. It doesn't matter what words he tried to cast within his void, they would never be the right WORDS to break the spell.
I could hear Alfred, even if I couldn't otherwise feel him. He cried and sobbed forever. Then he desperately chanted every eldritch word or phrase he had ever learned from Halsberd, trying to guess what one or ones I had chosen as the counter spell to my curse. Finally, he spoke his love and gratitude to me for even longer. Eventually, from what sounded to me must be outside the cottage and at a good distance, he emitted one of the enchantments he had learned from the fiend. It must have been a powerful one, for what I heard next was an explosion and the sound of raging fire. I felt nothing of its heat, but I am sure it must have reduced the structure to ashes.
He returned now and again, as time passed. Passed for him, there is no time for me. He described how he found another wizard to apprentice to, a good man who only evoked positive light and love. That man visited me with Alfred a time or two, telling me about how good and powerful Alfred himself had become. This wizard also addressed Halsberd, telling the stone effigy how much his legend had grown infamously. Then in later times when Alfred returned to speak to me, he informed Halsberd of how much his late master's reputation was still growing while the warlock was now forgotten.
I felt giddy for the first time in decades at that news. And I could almost hear a faint cry of despair somewhere off in a neglected void.
It was also at this time that Alfred said he was giving me a gift. He knew he could never free me from my chosen prison, no matter what magic he had now. He said he was distressed by the rough nature of the stone that was now my form; I barely resembled the peasant girl in the raggedy clothing I was when alive (and the wizard I clutched was in even worse shape, he assured me). But he could use his magic to "carve" that stone into a beautiful image of me, dressed in the garb of a Greek goddess. And Halsberd he would erase and replace with a visage of an Adonis? which would just "happen" to resemble himself.
Then he would enchant the rough forest that had grown up around our stone forms into an enchanted grove, leaving a statue that would forever be a testament to our love.
So here I have stood, for centuries now, a monument of unknown origin that stands forever to inspire true love for all who visit. Many beautiful but also outlandish legends have been invented to explain what I am? what we are, for all who visit see the perfect loving couple. And I have heard those legends repeated over and over by visitors, and find them most amusing. They especially speculate why the goddess has her hand over her lover's lips; what was he about to whisper to her and why is she so amused as she gazes into his eyes.
Many have tried to guess what the secret was she had sealed behind his lips, and they have spoken those guesses out loud in my presence. And that is what worries me?
I'm afraid one day someone will come to me and speak the right words. Stumble upon the right combination to reverse the incantation. Afraid that the curse will be finally broken and all Hell will break lose, quite literally. For while I am content to stand here forever, as inspiration for love and lovers, I know that the wizard in my tight embrace longs for the day to be set free. And he would cast his vengeance.
But I have hope that those words will never be guessed. They are not comprised of eldritch phrasing, full of evil and hate. The words I chose that day were the last my love ever spoke to me.
"Know that my love is set in stone."
END