1. The challenge

A piece of paper went up in smoke. It had travelled over many miles and even more bows. The arrow it had been tied to was in a deplorable state as it reached the intended recipient of the note.

"They just don't get it," the wicked witched sighed as she picked up her tea-cup.

The goldfish did not react, they had heard this often enough and knew what was coming.

"They keep at it like the rabbits and each time they try to make me wild about the idea of becoming a Godmother. Me!"

The paper had carried the seal of prince Jordan and princess Snow-White and revealed that their fourth child had been born.

"Good luck with that menagerie," Hilda muttered, "I am not cut out to be a Godmother. We have plenty of witches available that are up for that task. But not me."

The witch took a sip of her tea. "Perhaps they should ask Magrat Garlick. Now there's a thought!" She laughed out loud at her own joke.

The goldfish frowned at each other. This was a new one, but they did not know Magrat.

Twok.

Hilda looked annoyed. "Another letter? Can't a witch get some peace and quiet in the morning..."

"This one is important," said the house. Since it had been painted it was much more talkative, and Hilda sometimes wished it would pipe down a bit.

"So now we're reading other people's mail, eh?" She hoisted herself to her feet and headed to the door. She gave way to the yawn, then opened the door and yanked the arrow out.

The door closed itself as she went back to the table. Hilda picked the paper from the arrow and started reading. As she reached the end of the note, she compacted her entire assortment of feelings about it into one word. "Crap."

The note was from king Herald, her longtime adversary. He had once more sent her a challenge, to get into the arena against Lamador, his sorceror. A challenge, as usual, to the death. And as usual, Hilda did not feel up to that. Death was interesting, but only if she herself was just indirectly involved.

"Now how am I going to handle that this time..." A challenge like this had reached her more than once already, and Hilda would not be Hilda if she did not try to think of a new way to counter it.

A dirtroad, in a place that many would consider no man's land. The road consisted mainly of sand, light brown, mixed with pebbles and rocks. On either side of the road there was the promise of grass, but it looked like a promise that nature could not keep. There had not been enough rain in the past weeks for anything but the trees to survive with relative ease.

The trees had suffered from the lack of precipitation also, as many of their leaves had turned yellow and were curling up, as if to protect themselves from the merciless sun that did not want to relinquish, not even for a day.

A man sat with his back against one of the trees. Sunlight was falling on the item in his hands. He was reading a large book, bound in leather. It was not merely large, it was also old. Originally there had been large letters on the leather, in gold foil, applied by hand as far as the man knew. Now there were only faint traces of the gold remaining, and only the difference in colour on the leather showed the words, as the influence of daylight had changed the leather's appearance where the gold foil had not protected it.

For the man that held it, it was a book full of power, as it talked about magic. That was one of the reasons why he treasured the book. It had cost him a lot to acquire it, and the magic in it had helped him come through many a difficult day and night.

He ate some of his food, he drank some of his water too. Before reading on however, he carefully cleaned his fingers. The paper that the pages were made of was old and many of the pages were already stained, he did not want to add to that. The book was too precious to get more smears. The words in the old book were hard to read, so he had to trace every line with his finger as not to lose the spot to where he had progressed.

The man moved his lips in silence as he read a magical spell that was in the book. With an uncertain grin and an unbelieving shake of his head he read the spell again and said it out loud. Then, with baited breath, he waited.

"I never thought it would work," he then admitted to himself, a grin following the words. "I am not made of the proper magical stuff for things like this. I'll have to contend myself with my own forms of magic, common as they may be."

Carefully he closed the book and took the silk scarf that he had bought especially for it. He wrapped it around the book and shoved the package in a leather pouch that was decorated with a few stars and pentacles. There was time for a little nap before he had to go on.

Hilda paced the room. There had to be a way around this challenge. Taking it on was not on her mind. The 'to the death' part still bothered her, for obvious reasons. Perhaps, she suddenly thought, the way to do this was by being creative with the message. It was written in a very compact way, which usually meant nothing more than it said. And exactly this could be turned into an advantage.

She tapped the paper, where it said 'to the death'. One thing was however not specified. It did not say whose death.