Free The Sword of Darrow by Hal Malchow Page A

her bed.
    An hour later she rose. She looked to the windowsill.
    The moonflower seed had sprouted.

• 12 •
The Enchanted Song

    S
esha, I never doubted you,” Asterux proclaimed, but Sesha hardly heard his words.
    On her tiptoes, she spun in little circles across the room. Though she was fat and awkward, today she floated through the air. When she stopped, she looked back at Asterux, with steady eyes and a confident smile.
    “What next, my teacher? What next?”
    Asterux, who had seen Sesha gripped by the torment of failure each day for four long years, laughed so loud and long that Sesha was at first offended. But soon they laughed together. When their laughter was finally exhausted, Asterux replied.
    “The next step, my dear Sesha, is to make the koowik disappear.”
    “I can do that now,” Sesha teased, grabbing the stuffed animal and hiding it behind her back.
    “Yes, but to make the koowik truly disappear, you will need words.”
    “What words?”
    “I don’t know,” Asterux replied.
    “How can you not know?” Babette asked. “You know everything. ”
    Asterux just laughed. “My dear, you flatter me. The entirety of what I know could be stored in a mustard seed, with room to spare. I know the words that I would use to make the koowik disappear. But the words that will allow you to vanish the poor creature? I’m afraid you will have to find them yourself.”
    “Where should I look?” asked the princess.
    Asterux just smiled back. “The location, my dear, is inside you.”

    “From the depths of the griesonaut’s soul, I command you to disappear!” Sesha practically shouted at the stuffed koowik that sat on the table in her room.
    The koowik was not impressed. Even Thor’s old expression did not work. In fact, for four long weeks, the koowik had endured chants of every imaginable nature.
    “Koo da koo da koo da koo da doodle koo!”
    “Ahhhhmmmm. Ahhhhhmmmm. Ahhhhmmmmm.”
    “Oh, creature of the forest, feel the power, hear the spirit, disappear before me.”
    Yet the wretched koowik remained.
    Lately, Sesha had resorted to cursing the koowik. That brought Asterux into the room to deliver a sharp lecture about mixing bad language with the magic of the good.
    Once again, Sesha despaired.
    Once again, Asterux counseled patience.
    “These words are inside of you, my dear. All good things come in their own time.”
    “But I have tried everything. Everything! I don’t even know any other words.”
    “You might be surprised at what you know. When you find the words, you will know they are the right ones, even before you speak them yourself.”
    But day after day, the koowik remained.
    Sesha searched her memories. What were the kindest words that were spoken to her? She remembered her mother consoling her after one of her father’s rages: “You are like the Meciduous butterfly, purple and brown,” she said, “unlike the rest but more beautiful than them all.”
    So she summoned her power and spoke: “Meciduous.”
    The koowik did not flinch.
    Each time, before she tested her words, she first summoned her powers. She reviewed her life, loved her enemies, and forgave all wrongs. Her body would shake and tremble and the power would surge. And when she had delivered her words, always with failure as a result, she would collapse on her bed drained in both body and mind.
    So, today, after another failed attempt, Sesha lay trembling on her bed. In this state, she entered a dream in which she was walking in the forest when her bird, Principeelia, appeared. The bird began to sing and its song had a rhythm that was haunting and slow. And though Sesha was afraid of the forest, the song pulled her along the trail, away from Asterux’s cabin.
    Suddenly, she stepped out of the forest and onto the plains. In the open landscape, she could see many villages and towns and even the city of Blumenbruch all at once, as though the kingdom had shrunk to miniature size. What she saw frightened her terribly.
    Every