Dawn suddenly felt very young and insecure under the scrutiny of the Lady.

“Can you tell me: What is the price for a wish?” She asked, nervously fiddling with her hair.

“Well, that depends on the wish, naturally.” The lady replied coolly, facing her as still as a statue.

“If, for example, you wished to be rich, you demonstrate that you love money. The price might be that ever after you can only love money. You wouldn’t be able to love your parents or your wife or your children. In fact you might forget all about the love you had before.” The lady shook her head and shrugged.

“There is no set price for anything, but I assure you, whatever the price was, it is more than you would have been willing to pay. No one knows that better than me.”

“Why do you do that? Why offer wishes to people that cost them more than they are willing to pay?” asked Dawn, frowning.

The lady sighed. “It is not my wish to do it. The mirror is a trap, and I was the very first person caught in it. In fact, the trap was set for me. But there have been lots of people caught in it since then. Now, I am merely an observer.”

“Why not warn away people, then? And what do you mean it was a trap set for you?”

“It is not within my power to warn people.” The lady lowered her head, her features hidden in shadow. “As I said, I am an observer. I am not allowed to intervene. In fact, if you had taken your wish I wouldn’t even have been able to talk to you afterwards.”

“So you can’t warn anyone away?” Dawn asked incredulously. Then she thought for a moment. “But who has set the trap? And why do you remain here?”

“You might say it is a punishment.” Was the short reply.

“A punishment? But for what? And by whom?”

The lady smiled wryly. “You certainly are full of questions. As for the reason: Your gods and me, we had a difference of opinion. So they set a trap for me. And then I was young and foolish, powerful and so very sure of myself.”

Dawn gaped. Inside her head the questions multiplied rapidly so that she hardly knew which one she should ask first. “You had a difference of opinion with the gods?” The woman had said it as if it was an everyday occurrence.

Now, she shook her head slightly, looked at Dawn fully and asked. “So, you do believe the gods are always right?”

“Well, they are the gods.” Dawn replied, dazed. “It is not for me to decide they are wrong.”

“Yes, that is a very easy answer.” The lady replied bitterly. “Most people never think to question them.”

“But it is only natural.” Dawn protested, taken aback. “They are mighty and wise, they gift us our paths, they know so much more than a normal person. Of course, they have to be right.” Dawn was very confused, never in her short life had she ever thought of questioning the gods.

“And do you think the gods gift people a path out of the goodness of their heart?” The lady asked sharply.

“Well, yes, of course.” Dawn answered. “Why else would they do that?”

“You are very young. And naive. They do it for power. The world turns on power.” The lady sighed and shook her head.

“And I am cursed with observing the world. Always observing, never able to act. This clearing is my prison. Most people that find their way to me are desperate. Desperate for power, for riches…” she fell silent for a moment.

“And after they find me, they only have thoughts for their wish. The rules of my existence are simpIe. I cannot leave. I am forbidden to warn anyone away. Each person can only meet me once. And after they have taken their wish I cannot speak or interact with them. It makes for a very lonely existence.” The lady lifted her head and Dawn instinctively backed away under the full power of her gaze.

“You are the very first person I have had a conversation with in years.” She stated simply.

“But why can’t you just leave?” asked Dawn. There had to be a way, surely?

“Because I cannot find my way out of the mist. Do you think I didn’t try? No matter how often I try to find my way out and no matter in which direction I go, I always return to the pond. I even tried to follow other people, but it was no use. I am stuck here.”

“You said you are an observer? How can you observe anything here?”

“I have my own talents. Even before I made my wish I was a power in my own right. Not that it is of any use to me now. And the mirror of stars lets me see whatever I want in the world. It is my only entertainment.”

“You say the gods set a trap for you? How did they do that?” Dawn didn’t want to believe that. It went against everything she knew and had taken for granted.

“Well, who do you think was the first person to make a wish in the mirror of stars? Oh, it was very cleverly done. Just a rumour about a place of power that granted wishes. Nothing definite. I would have distrusted anything definite, of course. Anything that came too easy. I had to chase that rumour, had to seek information wherever and however I could. It took me months until I found some hints as to the location and more time to finally find my way here. And I found the mirror of stars, to my everlasting regret. Of course, in my hubris then I thought I was very clever.” Her voice was full of resentment and sarcasm, her gaze lost in memories of long ago. “I told you, no one knows the price of wishes better than me.”

Dawn stared at the tranquil little pond uneasily. “So, the wishes are a trap?”

“They can be. In my case it is certainly true. Of course, even yet, after all this time, I don’t know everything.” Now the woman simply sounded tired.

“But whatever did you wish for?” Dawn looked at the lady, curious in spite of herself.

“Can’t you guess? I wished for immortality. I wanted to be young and beautiful forever. As you can see my wish was granted.” The lady shook her head and laughed bitterly.

It took a long moment for Dawn to process the whole scope of that answer. Then she shuddered in repugnance. The thought of immortality. How many people dreamed of that? How simple to ask for it, if you were offered a wish. And then came the price. A whole existence in one place, able to observe but unable to leave, unable to act, mostly even incapable to speak with anyone. In the end, the abyss might be preferable. She looked at the woman in front of her in silent pity.

“I see that you have glimpsed a small part of the consequences. Naturally, you can’t understand the full reality of it. You’d have to live through that to be able to understand. I have long since wished for death. But it is not given to me to die. It is what I wished for after all, to live forever.” A long silence fell in the clearing. The mists which had thinned out before, started to surge up again slowly and crept into the open space.

The lady sighed. “There is not much time left. Soon the mists will swallow me and the mirror up again, and I shall have to wait another eternity for the next fool to stray into my little clearing.” The lady approached the mirror of stars, bent down and studied the surface intently for long minutes.” Then she returned and smiled faintly at Dawn.

“I can see that you have many questions left in you, child of wisdom and foolishness. But we run out of time. It was good to talk to somebody again, even for a short while. So I will offer you some advice. You are free to take it or leave it, of course.”

“You wish for magic. I can certainly understand that. But beware of learning it on your own. Many are the students who tried to study on their own and found only death instead of power. It may be hard to find a teacher. But without one you will gain nothing and certainly lose your life.”

Dawn looked at her and suddenly remembered the headaches she had developed after studying the runes on her own. She had healed herself then, but maybe she would have been a lot worse of if she hadn’t been a healer.

Slowly, she nodded. “I thank you for your advice, Lady,” she said.

“Second. Beware of gifts from the gods. They, too, always come with a price attached.”

“But the Trickster gave me my path. Even before I had turned fifteen. He broke the rules for me, and without my path I would have died lots of times. He helped me!” Dawn protested hotly.

“Did he now? And do you think that came without a price?” the lady asked, raising an eyebrow imperiously.

“Well,” Dawn thought furiously. “I had to leave home afterwards, of course. But even without a path, I would have been forced to do that. My parents wanted me to marry, and I could never have married Beran.”

“The real question is: Would you have succeeded in running away if you hadn’t had your path?”

That question had an easy answer. “No. I never would have made it without the stealth and the healing. I would have died in the wilds.”

“It is much more probable that you never would have run away. You could have avoided marrying by simply refusing to. No temple would marry you in spite of a refusal. In the end no one could have forced you.”

“I guess you are right,” Dawn said slowly. “But it would have been very hard to go against my parents and Beran, and pretty much the whole village.”

“That’s as it may be. But it always was an option.” The lady sighed. “And afterwards your little demon problem, what about that?”

“What about it?” Dawn asked, bewildered. She thought back to her first time in the ancient city. “That was my own fault. I burned the eggs, stupidly thinking the demons wouldn’t notice or care.”

“And you did think of that all on your own? I believe there was the little matter of a quest?” The lady’s raised eyebrow clearly expressed what she thought of that.

The quest! It was true that it had given her the idea of fighting the demons. Of course, she had known the grown ones were too powerful for her, but burning the eggs, that, she had seen as an easy victory.

Dawn’s head was spinning. Had she been manipulated by that quest? In hindsight she couldn’t truly say.

“I see I have given you food for thought. Just remember, so-called gifts from the gods come with a price attached.”

She raised a hand to stop Dawn’s reply and continued.

“And third, watch out for your father’s family.” She pointed to the ring on Dawn’s finger. “That is not only a ring of holding, you know. It has other capabilities, too.”

“What do you mean?” Dawn exclaimed, but in that very moment the mists surged up heavily and the lone figure of the lady rapidly started to disappear.

“You said you’re called the lady of wishes, but do you have a name?” She asked loudly into the deepening fog.

“Once, long ago, my name was Sandrine.” The reply sounded remote.

Out of the mist, a shadowy hand reached out to Dawn once more and the lady gently touched her finger to Dawn’s forehead.

“And last, a small gift, as a thank you for the first conversation and company that was granted to me for many years.”

A trickle of chill radiated out from Dawn’s forehead where the lady’s finger had touched her.

“A gift? But what is it?” she called out into the mist. But she was too late. The mists had already swallowed up the lady and the mirror of stars. Once more Dawn was standing alone and blind in an isle of fog in the forest.