Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) by Vera Nazarian Read Free Book Online

contain the stair hewn directly alongside the main wall rock, and one wrong step could cause them to fall a hundred feet. Lizabette, walking up ahead, appeared to be particularly stiff and pale, for she apparently did not tolerate heights too well.
    When at last they had climbed the parapet to the very top of the battlements, they ended up in the one of the few secure spots where the enemy fire from the outside could not reach, and only the friendly city cannon spat out their fireballs through narrow special embrasures. Several artillerymen nodded and smiled at Grial and the girls with infinite weariness, then turned away and got back to their labor.
    Grial meanwhile, took several paces and stopped in a small clearing well away from the soldiers, so as not to be in their way. Here was the very middle of the great bulwark.
    “All right, everyone, gather ’round!” she said, and then struck a flint and lit both of her torches. Next, she extended both torches to each side and lit the torch in the hand of Lizabette on one side and Niosta on the other. The girls, used each of their lit torches to light the other, and finally both in turn extended their hands to light up Marie’s torches.
    “Well done!” Grial cried out with a smile. She held her torches up, and her face was lit up ruddy and orange on both sides.
    “Now, make a triangle, ladies!” she said. “Remember, exactly as we did last night!”
    The girls nodded with enthusiasm, every one’s expression serious and intent.
    “Lizabette, you stand here to my right and face out in the same direction as that big cannon muzzle.”
    Lizabette nodded and stood so precisely that she was straining.
    “Niosta, you get on my left side, dumpling, and you be sure to look out the same way as that other big old cannon that’s facing thataway.”
    “Yes, Ma’am!” Niosta said with a grin and did as told.
    “And Marie, you stand right here in the middle, close to the wall, sweetie! Don’t be afraid, nothing will fly over it in this exact spot, nothing, I promise you! Now turn and look directly out!”
    Marie, the most timid of them all at this point, took a deep breath and did as she was told.
    Grial gave them a moment to gather their breath. She was smiling lightly, watching them.
    “Now, raise your torches everyone! And repeat after me, three times: Earth, sea, and sky! Guard and keep us safe! ”
    The words were spoken, loudly and enthusiastically. Niosta brandished her torches and even jumped up and down a few times for emphasis. Lizabette stood, fixed motionless, and straight as a board as she spoke each word precisely so. Marie swayed slightly with fear but spoke all of her words nevertheless.
    “Oh, well done!” Grial exclaimed again, and then raised her own torches high, brandishing them, her brimmed hat flopping slightly in the wind. And then, curiously, she did something new that was not done the night before—she turned to each of the girls and named them thusly:
    “Earth!” she spoke to Lizabette. “Sea!” she called Marie. “Sky!” she named Niosta.
    And indeed, each of the girls realized that they had been in fact swaying like the sea, fixed like the earth, or buoyant like the heavenly air.
    “Oh!” Niosta said in wonder. “How did you do that?”
    “How did I do what, pumpkin?” Grial was grinning at her, and the torchlight danced in her liquid black pupils. “Why, it is all your own doing, you know! I’m just standing here watching all three of you do it yourselves!”
    And Marie smiled back, and for the first time forgot to tremble. “Will the magic now keep Letheburg safe, Grial?”
    “One should certainly hope so, at least for the rest of this night!” said the older woman. And then she lowered her hands and stuck the torches into the piled up snow, extinguishing them on the stones underfoot. The girls followed suit.
    “And on that note,” Grial said, “who’s up for some apple pie?”
    “Me! Me!” Niosta and Marie