Ftangu got dressed the next morning in some clothes that Mysen and Sgensar loaned him. They spent the morning moving their most important gear from the great hall into a couple of unoccupied rooms in the nobles’ quarters. Some of the bulkiest things were still in the great hall, or out in the courtyard, in tarp-covered crates. Once everything was stowed to Sgensar’s satisfaction, he exclaimed: “All right! Ftangu, let’s see what you can do!”

Ftangu swallowed nervously. He walked a short distance from the room where they’d stashed their gear to the storage room where Princess Tailiki lay sleeping, the others following and crowding into the room behind him. He knelt down beside her, then froze, feeling extremely self-conscious, and glanced up at Sgensar and the others.

“I suppose at least one of you needs to be an objective observer,” he said. “But do all of you need to be here?”

“Good point,” Sgensar said. “And it’s best if we don’t confront the poor girl with too many unfamiliar faces at once. Do you have any preference about who should stay?”

Ftangu thought. “Dripota, I suppose. She’s the most fluent of us in Tupaskai.”

“That makes sense. Mysen and I will be right outside.” Sgensar and the sorcerer left the room, while Dripota leaned against the wall by the door and smiled indulgently.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“This feels wrong,” Ftangu said as he started to bend down toward the princess. “Kissing someone I’ve never met or been introduced to, while they’re asleep… someone barely two-thirds of my age…”

“It’s the only way to wake her,” Dripota pointed out. “I see what you mean, but consider that she may not feel the same way. People had different ideas about consent in those days. And age differences. I think she’d rather be kissed by a man nine years her senior that she’s never met than sleep forever.”

“Maybe,” Ftangu muttered. With the way the princess was lying, on her side with her face only a few inches from the open trunk, he was going to have to rearrange her to kiss her. For a brief moment he remembered that Mysen had said he could stroke her breast or thigh instead – she was bare-chested like many of the other people in the palace – but he pushed the thought firmly away, and carefully cushioning her head with one hand, he took her by the shoulder to gently roll her over.

Mysen had said it had to be an intense kiss, which Ftangu interpreted as involving at least a little tongue. It helped that the girl was the second-prettiest girl in the palace (after the scullery maid), and bore a vague resemblance to Ftangu’s first crush, back when she was younger than Princess Tailiki had been when she fell asleep. The nagging feeling that he was doing something wrong wouldn’t go away, though. After a long kiss, he came up for air and waited to see if she would wake up.

For a moment nothing seemed to be happening. Ftangu sighed and bent to kiss her again. But the moment she begin to stir, he sat up and scooted a few feet away.

He and Dripota held their breaths as they saw the girl yawn, stretch, and open her eyes. Then she sat up straight, wiped her mouth with her hand, and started talking fast. Ftangu couldn’t make sense of it at first. Then Dripota started talking, more slowly and calmly. Ftangu understood her, at least – “You’ve been asleep for a long time” – but the girl furrowed her brow for a moment before replying.

This time she spoke slower, and Ftangu could parse what she was saying. “Who are you?” She seemed to speak a different dialect from the Tupaskai that Ftangu had learned in Dripota’s course; some of the vowels were different, but the consonants were the same.

Ftangu said in his best Tupaskai, “We are scholars from a distant city. We have broken the curse that you lay under.” He hoped she could understand him. “I am Ftangu, and this is Dripota.”

She groped around on the floor of the chamber, perhaps looking for the harp-like instrument that they’d found lying beside her. It was packed up in a crate along with various other artifacts. “What curse? I found an interesting thing in this chest – was it cursed? Where did it go?”

“Did no one ever tell you of what the Generous Ones said at your naming ceremony?”

“What? There were Generous Ones at my naming ceremony?”

So she had apparently been kept in the dark, Ftangu surmised. Perhaps the very concept of instrumental music had been kept from her, so she wouldn’t know what she was missing. She had found the harp, somehow overlooked in the purge, had not known what it was, and been curious and experimented… Ftangu felt a kinship to her.

“Come with us if you please, Your Highness,” Dripota said. “Your family and friends and servants will be waking soon. We will explain more, and perhaps your father or his sorcerer can explain further when they wake.” She moved slowly toward the door, and Ftangu stood up, offering his hand to help the girl up.

She accepted his hand and followed them out the door of the storage room, only to pause for a moment when she saw Sgensar and Mysen.

“May I introduce to you my husband, the leader of our expedition, Sgensar of Kosyndar,” Dripota said. “And our colleague Mysen, a sorcerer.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the princess said. “Why is it so quiet?”

“When you fell asleep,” Dripota explained, “so did everyone else in the palace. Now that you’re awake, they’ll wake soon, Mysen tells us.”

The princess gasped, apparently having noticed the sleeping servant woman lying at the far end of the corridor beside her broom. She hurried on past the archaeologists and into the sitting room where her father, several other nobles, and a couple of servants were sleeping.

“What happened?” she exclaimed, turning to the archaeologists as they followed her into the room. “You said something about a curse…”

“Your parents apparently didn’t see fit to tell you,” Ftangu said. “It was placed on you at your naming ceremony…” He and Dripota told her the story, and by the time they finished, one of the older women in fine robes was beginning to stir. So much for the archaeologists’ plan to seclude themselves while Tailiki laid the groundwork for their introduction.

Princess Tailiki knelt beside her. “Aunt Datai! Are you all right?”

It was a few moments more before the woman opened her eyes. “Tailiki? I must have fallen out of my chair… Why is everyone else asleep? – And who are those people?”

“We’ve been under a curse,” Tailiki explained, “and these good people broke it.”

“Aunt Datai” – King Taisko’s sister-in-law, Ftangu surmised, probably the Duchess of Spethun? – glanced rapidly at each of the archaeologists and said with a sigh, “Which of you young men do I have to thank for waking my niece and me? And why are we the only ones awake?”

Just then, they heard voices from somewhere else in the palace, toward the great hall.

“Everyone will wake soon,” Mysen said in Laipan. He was not very good at Tupaskai.

“Mysen is our sorcerer,” Ftangu explained, gesturing to him, “and Dripota is our scholar of ancient languages. They figured out what kind of curse you all lay under, and how to break it. I am Ftangu, a scholar of royal descent. My great-great-grandfather was a king.”

“Ancient languages?” the woman gasped. “Then – how long has it been?”

“A thousand years,” Dripota said. One of the servants, the one who’d dropped the platter and goblets of wine, yawned and sat up, then looked terrified and scrambled to her feet, apologizing frantically as far as Ftangu could tell.

“Don’t be afraid,” Dripota said to her. “You’ve been asleep, but so has everyone else. No one will punish you for falling asleep on duty.”

The princess said something else to her, too rapid for Ftangu to follow it. The woman nodded and, picking up the platter and goblets, left the room. A couple of the others started to stir and yawn then, including King Taisko.

Princess Tailiki rushed over to her father and talked rapidly at him as he opened his eyes and sat up. He responded more slowly, probably due to lingering sleepiness, so Ftangu understood most of what he said. “What are you saying?”

She repeated herself more slowly, and as the king looked around, taking in the strangers in their futuristic garb and the other nobles and the servant who were still asleep, on the floor or slumped over in their chairs, he nodded slowly. Ftangu wondered if nodding meant affirmation or negation or something else in ancient Tupaskai. Toward the end of her speech, Tailiki introduced each of the archaeologists, giving her best approximation of their names.

King Taisko said to Ftangu, “So you are the man who saved us from the curse. What will you have as your reward?” He spoke slowly and enunciated clearly, probably for the benefit of the foreigners.

Ftangu was startled, not having thought of that. Then he realized that King Taisko still didn’t know he was no longer king of anything but this palace and the Thornwood – and once the government of Huresh noticed that the trees and underbrush had lost their magical thorns, they would lose no time in asserting sovereignty over that, too. “I woke your daughter, Your Majesty, but I could not have done it alone. Sgensar is the leader who brought us here, and without Dripota’s knowledge of languages and Mysen’s knowledge of sorcery, we would not have known what to do or how to wake you all.” He pointed out each of his colleagues as he mentioned them.

“I thank you all,” the king said, turning to Sgensar. “My daughter says that she told one of the first servants to wake to gather everyone in the dining hall. Once I have learned more about the situation, I will make a proclamation. How far around the palace did my subjects fall asleep? And how much time has passed?”

The archaeologists answered, the remaining nobles and the other servant waking up one by one as they talked. As they gradually, gently informed the waking people of their situation – that Taisko’s kingdom had been fought over by his cousins, and annexed centuries later by Huresh, which in turn, centuries later, had overthrown its king to become a republic; that nobody in the modern world spoke Tupaskai or Laipan except a few scholars; that, in short, he had no status or power beyond this palace. They did not go so far as to mention the agreement among their patrons to divide up the artifacts in the palace; best to limit the amount of bad news he had to take in at once. One or all of those entities might generously agree that the situation was changed since the original owner and inhabitants of the palace were still alive, but some, Ftangu suspected, might insist on their rights.

Taisko asked questions about the state of the modern world, but he did not have the mental framework to comprehend how much things had changed. Ftangu could tell by how much difficulty he seemed to have wrapping his brain around the concept of a republic that covered what had been six kingdoms and independent duchies in his day – there had been republics in his time, but they were far away and no larger than a city-state. Or the idea that the airship that had brought the archaeologists over the Thornwood to the palace used magic only to hover more steadily than it could otherwise do, not for its lifting or motive power. Or that most of the creatures from which the most powerful spell ingredients were derived had gone extinct, but that modern humans still lived longer, healthier lives on average than all but the most powerful sorcerers in their time. The princess, her aunt, and the other nobles who woke and listened quietly to the king’s dialogue with the foreign archaeologists seemed to be having just as much trouble.

After those general questions about the state of the world, Taisko moved on to questions about Ftangu and his family. He answered, telling them how he was descended from the last king of Huresh, but his family had been exiles in Kosyndar for generations, and had no great wealth or power now. The king seemed dissatisfied with this.

“Why did your great-grandfather not make an alliance with the king of Kosyndar to take back his father’s throne?” he asked. “By your account, he should have been next in line for the throne after these rebels killed his father and brothers.”

“The royal family of Huresh had made themselves unpopular not only with their subjects, but with their neighbors,” Ftangu said, not bothering to explain that Kosyndar hadn’t had kings for centuries before Huresh got rid of theirs. “My knowledge of such recent history is not as deep as my knowledge of ancient history, but I don’t think he would have gotten such help if he had asked for it. Maybe from one of the kingdoms of Khareush, but they would have had difficulty sending an army across the sea – I don’t know if any of the ones that still had monarchies also had many ships.” (He couldn’t think of the Tupaskai word for “navy”.) “My great-grandparents thought it safest to live quietly and tell no one they were of royal blood. If they had not, spies from Huresh would have killed them, I would never have been born, and your people would still be asleep.”

When everyone in the room had woken up, and Ftangu had answered more questions about his family, Taisko led them all to the great hall, where the servants and the other nobles were gathered. The erstwhile king ascended the dais, indicating that Tailiki and Ftangu were to follow him. Ftangu glanced at Sgensar, who nodded and joined Dripota, Mysen, and the other nobles at one of the tables.

Taisko did not speak so slowly, simply and clearly as he’d done with the foreigners, so Ftangu couldn’t understand everything he said. He hoped Dripota was understanding a lot more and could tell them what the king had said later. But when Taisko talked about how the curse they had tried to avert had fallen on them despite their best efforts, Ftangu could see that some of the younger people were as confused as Tailiki had been when she first woke up. Apparently, not only the princess but everyone else who was a child or not born yet at the time of the curse had been kept in the dark about it. The older people nodded sadly as the king spoke.

Then the king started talking about the archaeologists, and Ftangu in particular, and at last he grasped Ftangu’s hand and raised it, eliciting a loud cheer from the gathered people. Dripota looked startled, even alarmed, and Tailiki blushed, looking away from her father and Ftangu.

Dripota started whispering to Sgensar, who was also looking concerned, but Ftangu barely had attention to spare for them. He asked the king, “Could you please repeat that last part for me more slowly and in simpler words, Your Majesty?”

“I was just telling everyone about you and your companions,” Taisko said in a low voice with careful enunciation. “And about your betrothal to my daughter. But I haven’t yet –”

“What? But I –”

In hindsight, it should have been obvious, even though there was nothing overt about it in the chronicle or in Mysen’s analysis of the spell. Taisko frowned and continued as though Ftangu hadn’t interrupted. “– told them the bad news. So let me finish.” He turned back to the gathered crowd of courtiers and servants and started talking louder, with somewhat clearer enunciation than he’d spoken before.

“But a very long time has passed,” he said. “Much longer than we expected. Our rescuers tell me that it has been a thousand years. Kingdoms have fallen and risen; the people of Tupaska no longer know me or my authority. Tupaskai and Laipan are no longer spoken in the area around us; we will have to learn new languages. But with the help of my daughter’s betrothed and his friends, we will learn what we need to know and take our rightful place in this new world.”

I can’t marry Tailiki! Ftangu thought. She’s too young to marry someone my age by the laws of Kosyndar, and probably Huresh, too… and besides, I only met her an hour ago! Lost in panicked thought, he didn’t hear everything else the king said; he probably wouldn’t have anyway, as the king gradually sped up, forgetting to speak slowly for the foreigners’ benefit.

At last the king dismissed the servants and the lesser nobles to their duties and summoned his brother and a few courtiers to a meeting with their rescuers. They met in one of the rooms off to the side of the royals’ quarters. On the way there, Dripota managed to get close enough to Ftangu (who was walking with Tailiki and Taisko, and wondering how to get out of this) to say in Kosyan, “How much did you understand of what he said?”

“He said he expects me to marry her,” Ftangu whispered back. “I can’t! She’s too young!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out. He has no real power to make you, remember.”

“Let’s get a second opinion from Mysen. I mean, are they all going to fall asleep again if I don’t marry her within a certain time?”

Taisko asked, politely but pointedly, “What are you talking about?”

“She is telling me what you said,” Ftangu replied carefully. “She is more fluent in Tupaskai than I am.”

They reached the meeting room and after Taisko sat down at the head of the table, everyone else sat on two benches alongside it.

“We need to consider food and drink,” Taisko said. “How many days’ worth of food do we have, Kiskai?”

“A little over a week. More if we only eat bread and porridge for some days after that.”

Taisko turned to Sgensar. “I presume you must have brought food for yourselves, but it won’t go far spread among so many?”

“We have about ten days’ worth of basic food for the four of us,” Sgensar said. “When the weather clears, the airship will return for us. But it’s a small one and can’t carry many passengers besides us. How many people live in the palace, including all the servants?”

One of the courtiers said, “Fifty-three.”

“Within a few hours, it should be safe to go out in the forest,” Mysen said. “The thorns are receding and should be gone by now. Though we probably shouldn’t have people start walking out of the forest until tomorrow, when they would have more hours of daylight.”

“We will send out hunting and scouting parties tomorrow,” Taisko said. “Do you know if the roads are still passable?”

“If there are traces of them left, we could not tell from the air,” Dripota said.

“And I don’t know if you’ll be able to find any sizable game animals,” Mysen said. “Those thorns were apparently as deadly to large animals as they were to humans. It may be months or years before large animals migrate into the forest again.”

Ftangu was still internally panicking, but he told himself that the need for food for all these people was more urgent than him getting out of this betrothal. The discussion about getting food to the palace or getting the people to somewhere beyond the forest where they could get food continued for a while; when they came to a decision, to send out hunting and scouting parties the following day and begin the mass migration when the scouts returned, Ftangu cleared his throat and said:

“Your Majesty, now that that is decided, may I bring up another concern?”

“You may,” Taisko said.

“When I… woke Princess Tailiki, and thus the rest of you, I did not intend to propose marriage to her or enter into a betrothal. In my country, men of twenty-five do not marry or even propose marriage to girls of sixteen. I believe the law of Huresh, in which your palace lies, is similar on this point.”

Taisko’s face grew red. “Do men in your country kiss and fondle girls they have no intention of marrying?”

Ftangu had no intention of explaining modern dating and courtship to Taisko right now. “It wasn’t like there was any other way to wake you up,” he said. “And I didn’t fondle her, I just kissed her.”

“I was there,” Dripota said. “I watched and made sure he did no more than absolutely necessary to fulfill the conditions of the curse and wake her.”

“The curse could not be broken without doing things that only a betrothed couple could be permitted to do,” Taisko said. “If your laws will not permit them to marry yet, then the wedding will have to be postponed. How long, then?”

Dripota said, “If either party is under twenty-five, then the younger cannot be less than four-fifths of the elder’s age. Ftangu is twenty-five and Tailiki is sixteen, so the earliest they could marry by the laws of Kosyndar would be…” She pursed her lips, and it was Mysen who solved the system of equations fastest:

“When she’s twenty-five. She won’t be four-fifths of his age until she’s thirty-six and he’s forty-five, but by then it won’t matter.”

“Nine years!” Taisko exclaimed. “She will waste half her childbearing years waiting!”

Ftangu sighed with relief. A lot could happen in nine years. Really, all he had to do was stay on Taisko’s good side until they were free of this place; once out in the real world, he would have no authority.

“Nonetheless, that is the law and custom these days,” Sgensar said, glancing sympathetically at Ftangu.

“Princess Tailiki is actually a thousand and sixteen years old,” said the man Mysen had identified as the sorcerer, a bald man wearing a sky-blue robe and more jewelry than anyone except the king.

“Not in the way that counts,” Sgensar said firmly. “Are there any other matters to discuss?”

When no one said anything for a few moments, Mysen said in Laipan, “I would like to speak with your sorcerer, if I may.”

The sorcerer, who introduced himself as Thailospa, agreed to meet with Mysen afterward and discuss professional matters. The meeting broke up.