That night, the massive oak door protecting the Master's dim chamber creaked open. An ogre escorted in a muscular yet well-proportioned young woman, wearing a woolen kilt and a gleaming breastplate. Golden locks billowed from beneath her plumed helmet. Her steel-grey eyes, cold from witnessing too much violent death, frightened the servant and he scampered away.

Was she to be punished? The gargoyles on the walls laughed at her. Spooky shadows mocked her from the weeping stone walls. Candlelight danced on her armor. The apprentice sorceress grasped the hilt of a broadsword buckled to her hip for reassurance. Upon a skull throne sat a gnarled man who ignored her while he read from a crumbling scroll.

She contemplated the tortuous path, which had led her to the spooky castle atop the highest mountain in Harvonia, a forested country dominating the Emerald Sea. Her soldier father had badly wanted a son but got her instead. She became a tomboy and relished the fencing lessons he had given her. Enchanted by the stories her father told her of his glorious battles, she dreamed of being a warrior maiden and ignored her suitors. Before he died, he willed his sword to her and encouraged her to enlist into the King of Harvonia's Escort as a guardswoman.

Although she had enjoyed slaying the regent's would-be assassins, she now longed to embrace the occult arts. Her military pay was only a few coppers a week. But she had heard that wizards ate steaks and dressed in expensive furs. So, last month, she attempted to enroll in the Harvonian Academy of Magic.

But she had no gold for her tuition. The Master, however, had a vexing problem: although he was a famous yet fiendish magician, his notoriety required him to exercise discretion when dispatching high-placed enemies. He had no warriors, nor could he trust his sorcerers to keep silent.

He needed a competent henchman for assassinations or kidnappings. Someone loyal and dependable. Someone who would do anything to become a magician. A smile broke through his twisted face when he reread Greshelde's application.

Greshelde coughed. "Ye told me to come armed, Master." She kneeled before the ermine-gowned wizard. "But, beggin' yer pardon, what does an apprentice need weapons for?"

"Do you like it here, my dear?" His crooked finger beckoned her to rise.

"Aye, sire, but 'tis hard at times." Her pretty face, marred only by a scar running down one cheek, reddened. She was mortified that her demon had escaped this afternoon, trashing the village in the valley below.

"A student's first underworld guest can be trying, but you . . ."

"Me humble apology, but yer ogre said 'twas urgent."

"Yes, my fierce student, I do have a wee job for you."

She bowed. Her frigid eyes gazed into his evil countenance.

His eyes blazed with Hell fire. "Prince Ronegeld, the King's spoiled son, has stolen my daughter, Drusella, from my castle." His body trembled with rage. "The swine has penned her up in his castle and means to torture her into revealing my secrets. You are to return her. Unharmed!" he bellowed. "Tonight!"

"Aye, sire." Kidnapped . . . or trysting, she wondered, having heard about the lusty wench. She wisely kept her tongue.

"The King would banish me if he knew I had aided her `escape.'" He leaped from his seat and nervously paced. "Therefore, I cannot use magic." "But you, an ex-guard of His Majesty, might be forgiven by him."

"I'll put out a tale that my daughter beseeched you to rescue her." He began chuckling. "Everyone knows that under your armor beats a chivalrous heart."

"Ye be too kind," she retorted sarcastically.

"For this job, I will allow you to wear a Grundyl." She shivered as if a frigid wind had blown through. Only graduate sorcerers could command the powerful talisman; for others to try, it meant their deaths.

The magician removed a diamond-and-ruby encrusted golden ornament from a pocket and draped it around her neck. She dropped the hellish charm inside her breastplate. She shivered and her skin tingled as the magic melded with her mind. Whatever she needed, it would make happen.

"Do this, Greshelde, and I will, ah, forget your unfortunate mishap last week." He grabbed her solid shoulders. "Return her, and," he contemplated his white beard, "I'll tutor you myself."

"Why, thank ye, Master," she stammered, bowing her head. She imagined herself clad in white furs, wearing a sorcerer's beaver hat and medallion, and possessing a huge chest bursting with gold.

"Fail me and . . ." He smashed his hazelwood cane against the arm of his oak throne. "You know the consequences. Now go!" He flung a rolled scroll at her feet. Humiliated by the knowledge that Drusella had purloined his personal Grundyl, he was unable to inform Greshelde of its loss. Could the swordswoman overpower his crafty daughter? Did she remember the correct spells? He shuddered at the thought of her failure.

She whipped out her sword and saluted him. Wordlessly, she picked up the parchment and sheathed her weapon. The thought of failure chilled her spine and she blinked away an image of herself as a snake.

Greshelde was no coward. But she knew powerful sorcerers protected the prince. As she ambled down the darkened passageway leading to the animal pens, she pondered her adventurous days with the King's Escort.

She should be swilling ale with her comrades and lopping off heads, not messing around with smelly potions and unholy incantations. But her emaciated purse caused her to lust after wealth. She had grown up poor, was still in poverty, and vowed to die wealthy.

The wizard's henchwoman rapped on the dragon-keepers door. "It's late! We're closed. Go away!" a gruff voice answered.

"I be needin' ye t'night," Greshelde shouted. "Open up, toad, or ye'll be meetin' me steel." The door slammed open and an angry man confronted her. She thrust her parchment at him.

He was not intimidated by her bravado. The Master forbade students from taking midnight joyrides. But he trembled when the chief wizard's handwriting almost stopped his heart. Then he poked his head into the hall and bellowed, "Fetch a dragon and be quick about it."

"Not so fast!" she hollered. "It'll not be one of them infernal beasts for me. I'll be wantin' a griffin, instead." Unlike the other students, she hated the sulfur-belching reptiles.

"But, m' lady, it's . . ."

She partially withdrew her blade. "Silence, ya dog, or ye'll be missin' an ear."

"Whatever her Royal Highness wants," he sneered. Wanting revenge for being intimidated by a mere apprentice, he ordered Elbert to be saddled up.

"It's the only one available," laughed the dragon-keeper. He hoped the elderly, winged lion would have a coronary and plunge her into the gorge below.

Undaunted, Greshelde spurred Elbert into the moonlit skies. He almost faltered, but after she summoned the power of the Grundyl, he rocketed away. A thousand wing-beats later, they soared over Castle Ronegeld. Spying the flying Valkyrie, the archers notched their crossbows.

The rampart guards crumpled after Greshelde stared at them. A wave of her mailed hand ripped the window bars of Drusella's room apart. Soaring in, the female warrior dismounted and towered over a startled beauty.

"Hurry! Gather yer things." She savored the sweet taste of gold.

Drusella turned her back. "Sorry, I'm not going back." She glanced at an oil of a handsome man on the wall. "Prince Ronegeld loves me, and I him; so, you can tell my murdering father . . ."

"Silence, girl!" Greshelde shouted. "Ye'll be comin' with me and I'll not be havin' yer lip."

A cord miraculously popped into the air and began winding around Drusella. As she struggled, the rope mysteriously dropped to the tile floor. The sorcerer's daughter smirked and removed her stolen Grundyl from her lace bodice. Not a fighter but sensing a battle, Elbert fled behind a sofa.

"My father must be desperate to send his thug."

"Ye may know a few tricks, but ye never graduated from the Academy," Greshelde lectured, her golden dream vanishing. "Ye might be yer father's child, but he would chop off yer pretty head for stealin' one of his Grundyls."

"Since I have his treasured Grundyl, the most powerful of all his amulets, it is he who should be fearing me." The harlot clenched her fists. First she would smash this insolent brute and, then, she would teach her father a lesson he would never forget.

Greshelde was smashed to the floor and invisible hands began to choke her. Her Grundyl weakened as the stronger talisman drained its potency. She had no strength left to withdraw her father's weapon. Before she fainted, she recalled the only spell, which could invigorate a failing Grundyl. She mouthed the words.

Slowly, the would-be rescuer's Grundyl warmed her chest again. She lunged at her opponent and, as they wrestled, the Grundyls embraced. A thunderclap and blinding light emitted from the gems as they shattered. The women were hurled to the floor, stunned.

Greshelde recovered first. "I be losin' me patience with ye." She jerked the feisty brat to her feet and backhanded her.

Spitting blood from a split lip, her prisoner still had fight left. She surprised Greshelde by punching her in the stomach and dashing to a wall. Drusella grabbed an heirloom sword from a sword-and-shield display. "Magic may have failed me, but this steel won't."

"Ye don't want to do this, girl," wheezed Greshelde, massaging her abdomen and glimpsing her future fading.

Sparks flew as their blades clanged. Greshelde, distracted by her failed rescue, narrowly missed having her left arm hacked off by someone who had received some instruction in swordplay. But the former guardswoman hadn't won over a hundred duels by being a fool and she quickly recovered her wits. Agony soon marred Drusella's ravishing face as she crumpled, her bloody hands grasping her ripped-open midsection.

The victor heard shouts outside. Then two guards battered down the door. The sight of an assassin brandishing a crimson sword and the red-smeared heap on the floor enraged them. Drawing their weapons, they rushed the murderer.

Greshelde fought back tears. She was having a bad hair day. The Master would expel her . . . or worse! "Might as well have me some sport before we depart," she told Elbert. She would flee with him and join another King's Escort. Where she belonged! The griffin watched the slaughter.