There were twice as many stories about Magician Crow than there were about any other magician in the world, and this tells us two things: one, Magician Crow was the stuff that legends are made of, and two, Magician Crow was more than a little elderly. Magician Wolf was the youngest of all registered Magicians at a spry ninety-three.

Magician Crow, however, was more than three hundred years old when she wandered up through the sunrise into the town of Ayaylis with a rather enraged goose under one arm. She'd been wandering from town to town for around a year by then, and she and the goose were both a uniform shade of gray from traveling solely by dirt roads.

There was a small boy sitting by the well in the town's main courtyard when Magician Crow and her goose stopped to drink. He was no more than six, with dusty blonde hair and big brown eyes that were decidedly unimpressed.

"What're you doing with that duck?" he asked.

Magician Crow exchanged a confused glance with the goose. "What duck?"

The boy rolled his eyes. "The duck you're holding, stupid."

"First of all, you shouldn't talk to your elders like that," Magician Crow said severely, "and second of all, what business is yours what I do with my duck?"

The goose, in a fit of pique, wiggled right out of her arms and would have fallen on its beak had Magician Crow not caught it with a thought.

Now the boy was impressed. "How'd you do that?" he demanded, staring at the goose that was floating, upside down, in midair.

"How'd I do what?" Magician Crow asked. The goose squawked indignantly and the boy reached out to touch it, perhaps to ascertain that it wasn't floating by means of some kind of trick, and this time Magician Crow wasn't quick enough. "Don't touch it!"

"I just want to see--" The little boy's hand stuck fast to the goose's plump body, and he tried to pull away without success. "What's happening? Let me go!"

Magician Crow sighed, but made a motion of gratitude to the little gods that the town court was abandoned this early in the morning. "You don't listen well, do you, child?"

"I'll scream!" the boy warned, glaring up at her fiercely. "I'll kick you!"

"You shouldn't threaten old ladies," Magician Crow said, crossing her arms and glaring back down at him. "And you shouldn't touch things that aren't yours. You're old enough to know better, aren't you?"

"I said I'll scream!" the boy shouted, and then made good on his threat. Magician Crow touched her fingers to her temples; this was not the best day of her long and illustrious career.

"Just remember this, child," she said, raising a hand to the sky. "You asked for it."

The boy's shrieks were cut off by a flash of light that was almost nothing like lightning, and the goose and the old woman were gone. But when his mother rushed into the courtyard, along with most of the rest of the town, she was startled to see that her son's hair had been changed from blonde to a deep, rich brown, curling down over the tips of his ears.

She was even more shocked when she attempted to trim it, and nothing--from scissors to shears to saw--could sever even one hair from his head.

………

A Bell-Shaped Hat

………

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away...

(but closer than you'd think)

...a young man with no particular aspirations or goals happens to spy the most beautiful hair in the world, not knowing his destiny's been sealed...

...a young woman whose life has been ruled by magic sets out to make magic work for her...

...an oracle begins the journey that will bring her world-wide recognition and set her above all other seers...

...two wanderers, caught up in a spell they can't break, unknowingly put themselves in the path of the one individual who can save them...

..and a princess sits in a lonely tower, held captive by her kingdom's love, losing all will to live as the days go by and no challenge is set before her indomitable spirit...

...but Kit wasn't aware of any of this. All he wanted to do was to chop his head off.

"Have you thought this through all the way?" Herrin, the blacksmith, asked. "Because I don't really see the point of dying just so you don't have to comb your hair.”

"This is not about combing!" Kit shrieked, swinging wildly in Herrin's grip. He tried kicking the back of the man's knee, but Herrin was very possibly part mountain. He probably didn't have nerves.

Kit's mother was sitting on the anvil, watching her son's struggles with a mild expression. "It's just that cutting your head off seems counter-intuitive, Kitling. You can't cut your hair, so it's off with your head?"

"I don't want it," Kit growled, and tugged at Herrin's arm again. "Let me go! It's my head; I can do what I want with it!"

"It's not normal, though, the way he's bouncing around and not even a hair's broken loose," Herrin commented, and shook Kit around a little more. If it had been even a year earlier, Kit's mother might've flinched, but by now she wasn't surprised to see that her son could be held off the ground with a strong grip on his hair. It didn't even seem to be hurting him.

"Tie him up to the rafters and let your arm rest," she advised, ignoring all shrieks and insults. "Kit, can we discuss this rationally?"

"Of course, Mother, just as soon as you untie me!"

Herrin sighed. "He is right, Ma’am, with respect. We can't keep him tied to the rafter forever, and if he really wants to cut his head off, how're we going to stop him?"

"I don't understand what the problem is," Kit's mother said, brushing a loose lock of her own hair behind her ear. "What real disadvantages are you facing, Kitling? It's thick, strong, doesn't even burn--"

"Mooootherrrrr!"

"--it drops gold every couple of days, and it's beautiful," she continued, undeterred. "You've said yourself that it never feels heavy, and it rarely causes you to overheat. It's not evil magic."

"Of course it's evil!" Kit shouted, kicking out at her and missing by several feet. "I don't want it, and it won't go away! How can it be good?!"

"If only we could trim it, or make it stop growing," his mother sighed. Kit's hair, at thirteen years of age, fell to his ankles. She had a private fear that he'd be swallowed by it before he was twenty. Braids only went so far in containing it, and piling it up under a hat--Kit's preferred method--only kept it under control for so long.

"With respect, Ma'am, we can't know if it's evil magic without knowing why Kit's under the spell," Herrin said. "It could be that the hair itself isn't evil, but it's purpose is."

"It's purpose is to drive me insane," Kit said in a surprisingly calm, reasonable tone.

"And if it's got a purpose, well, it's not going to let your boy chop his head off. He's got to do what it wants him to do, or it won't ever let him alone," Herrin finished. Kit started swearing and flailing around again, but his mother stared at Herrin thoughtfully.

"Then Kit should search out the Magician who's done this to him?" she asked slowly, and before Herrin or Kit could answer, jumped to her feet and clapped her hands together. "Of course! Kitling, you have to find the Magician and ask her what you have to do to fulfill the spell! You must go on a Quest!"

Kit, still hanging four feet from the ground by his hair, stared at his mother in horror. "Mother. Ayaylis hasn't had a Quester for years.”

"Because you, my son, my first and only child, are Ayaylis' Quester," she interrupted, tears coming to her eyes. Herrin, a broad smile stretching across his face, untied Kit's hair and hugged him hard enough to choke all the air from his lungs.

And that (besides the impromptu celebration thrown by the town, the two-day search for the Quester coins that hadn’t been used in a century, and Kit’s abortive attempt to saw through his throat with a butter knife) was that.

………