Marva was patiently waiting by the river. The mermaid arranged the meeting and the princess started trembling with joy when she thought about the possibility. Could it be true that Prince Gustaw, the handsome, artistic, and sensitive prisoner of her palace’s prison, could fall in love with her?
‘Marva?’, she heard a squeaky voice, ‘Are you Princess Marva?’
‘Yes witch, where are you?’
‘I’m right next to you.’
Marva looked around and saw a head sticking from the water. It was the head of an elderly woman: wet, wrinkled, with weed falling from her hair and a moving alive fish attached to her ear.
‘Oh, I imagined that you will be...’
‘Prettier? And you say it yourself? You’re not the most handsome type, my girl. Why did you want to meet me?’
‘I’ve heard that you can perform magic. The mermaid told me that you turned her once into a human woman. I want to be turned into a human woman as well. But a beautiful human woman, exactly the woman that prince Gustaw would instantly fall in love with.’
‘And you are willing to devote your royal background, all privileges that come with being the Princess of Goblins, your talent, and craft? For a man?’
‘For a man.’ Marva was desperate, ‘I’ve never been in love before.’
‘The price is great, my princess. But there’s a catch to the transformation. During the day you will be a lovely beautiful lady, whom Gustaw would adore, but at night you will change into old Marva.’
‘I will change back into a Goblin?’ Marva raised her eyebrows.
‘Yes, at night you will be your old self.’
‘Fine, then. I agree with your terms. I can be myself at night, it doesn’t make any difference. I’m myself at all times and it didn’t make Gustaw fall in love with me.’
‘If you ever change your mind, just find me here, by the river.’
‘I won’t change my mind. Should I wait for any magic trick? When will I change?’
‘They all say so, dear Princess. And then they come back like tamed beasts, mostly hurt. Wait until the dawn. You will see...’
The witch disappeared and Marva turned back from the river with an anticipating smile.
Edwin, Lilet, and Gwidon jumped on horses and run as fast as they could from the mines. Gwidon sat Gustaw on the saddle before him. On the way, Edwin and Lilet turned themselves back into humans, helping Gwidon return to his usual form, and ensuring that they were not being followed, stopped to rest.
‘Gwidon?!’, Gustaw was surprised, ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were the Goblin’s general. Who is this woman? Who is this old man?’
‘This is Lilet and this is Edwin, they have magic powers and they are with me. Gustaw, how much did you tell Goblins about the state of the king's army?’
‘Not much. To be honest, I don’t know that much. I didn’t even have to lie. I don’t know what Vandarok was telling me about most of the time.’
‘Quite fortunately, they don’t know yet that we are in a hopeless situation and there’s no chance we are going to win this war,’ Gwidon said, ‘As if that was a consolation...’
Lilet looked worried.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I know what I saw and I know how exhausting the war with the Turks was on us. Our troops are being decimated at the borders. We have literally no one to protect us in the kingdom. If we are to be attacked from the underground, it’s going to be the final battle. Final for us, I’m afraid.’
‘We should rush to the king and inform him as quickly as possible,’ Edwin jumped in the conversation, ‘I need to see my brother and we need to return this little ignorant boy back where he belongs...’
Gustaw ignored the comment. Edwin looked at him exactly like Erwin the Royal Wizard did with his white pupils when he passed him in the corridors of the castle. With constant surprise and confusion, even though he was almost entirely blind.
‘You are a beautiful woman, Lilet,’ Gustaw tried to start a conversation on a different topic, sensing that he is not able to win with wizards and knights ‘Have I ever seen you in the castle? I would definitely remember such a subtle face...’
‘We rescued you from the Goblins and you only start you amours?!’ Gwidon was suddenly overwhelmed with emotions, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?! You were kept hostage, for the love of God! You might have been killed! You could have revealed our most securely kept secrets!’
He didn’t pinpoint the outburst of fury to the fact that he didn’t like any man to be around Lilet. Especially, someone with a reputation of many women’s hearts breaker.
‘Oh, why so angry? I’ve heard that you are going to marry my sister, you should be in a different mood. Karina must be radiating with joy! The father promised you her hand and the kingdom!’
‘What?!’ Lilet was shocked by the last statement, ‘You are engaged?’
‘How do you know?’ Gwidon avoided looking at Lilet.
‘They already know! Goblins have their spies. But don’t worry, Vandarok wants Karina for himself. He won’t share his trophy with some insignificant knight!...’
Their way to the castle was awkward, to say the least. Lilet, hurt, didn’t speak to any of the men. Gwidon, ashamed and offended, rode his horse two meters in front of the group. Gustaw, patronized by the wizard, was trying to flirt with Lilet, but there was no reaction at all on her side as if she was blind to his usually admired appeal, which behavior he didn’t understand at all. Only Edwin didn’t take part in the lover’s conflict but sang a song, and even though he was a poor singer, he went on, screaming his lungs out:
I was once in love with a witch
She turned out to be a bitch
She turned me into a rabbit
It was in her habit
To hit me with all her might
As if she was a knight!
She boiled me in the pot,
She punched me quite a lot,
She used me just as much,
She had a devil’s touch!
She pulled my ears, I cried,
She almost made me die!
I was once in love with a witch!’
No one discussed the theme of the song, but it only thickened the atmosphere and, literally, no voice was heard when they arrived at the castle. The king was glad for getting his son back, but the news about Goblin’s strength worried him to the extreme.
‘It looks hopeless!’ Gwidon confessed, ‘Their weapons, their armors, this training... I’ve never seen such a well-prepared army. We are like a mouse against a bear, my King!’
The king was walking from one wall to another, pondering on solutions, whispering some ideas, recalling names. In the meantime, they decided to move from his chamber to the courtyard, because the stench caused by the remains of the prophetic heap of bones and entrails was revoltingly unbearable and no one wanted to stay inside.
‘You know how it is with mice, Gwidon, they might be smaller but they are more cunning than the biggest bears. I want you to go with Edwin and Lilet and collect others from the list I gave you. I believe that you will encourage them to help us. I have to pull some strings of mine and refresh some old friendships.’
‘And me, father?’ Gustaw acted in a brave manner, possibly because of Lilet’s presence.
‘You will be a burden for them, my son. It’s better for you to stay in the castle.’
Gustaw looked disappointed. Gwidon smiled. Lilet glimpsed at Princess Karina passing in the courtyard, who greeted Gustaw, but seemed to ignore Gwidon. Lilet tried to magically wipe out the dirt from her clothes. The princess was a beauty and her blue dress was from a completely different fabric than Lilet’s dress. The princess herself was made from a different material, which made Lilet feel something she couldn’t yet define. Yes, Lilet might have been a beautiful witch, but she was far from being a princess with a kingdom of her own and an army for Gwidon to be in charge of. The witch looked at Gwidon from time to time to see whether he was attracted to the princess, but he seemed to be deep in his thoughts, which for Lilet seemed to be incomprehensible. She was poor at reading minds. Otherwise, she would have been more merciful to these eighty men she had turned into rabbits and ferrets nearby her home. She would have been aware that they had only come to watch her bathe naked in the lake and simply couldn’t resist but to admire the extraterrestrial beauty of the famously most dangerous witch.
‘Before we go, I need to visit my brother! He might be aware of the whereabouts of one dear friend of mine’ Edwin announced, the king gave his nod of approval and Edwin ran back into the castle to find the Royal Wizard.
The camps were divided. Gwidon, Edwin, and Lilet rode away on rested and fed horses with everything the king was able to give them to make their tasks easier. The king, Erwin, two royal siblings, and the rest of the royal servants stayed in the castle to prepare for the raid. In the meantime, the majority of soldiers were waging bloody battles with the Turks at the borders and the Goblins were putting finishing touches on their plan of taking over the kingdom and spreading all over the human world.
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