From beneath his cloak the Wizard drew his jet black wand. He waved it toward the walls and repeated, in a voice so low that none but himself could hear them, strange words of enchantment. Under their spell, the Cave walls began to draw slowly together, and before long they stood firmly closed across the way by whence he had come.
Replacing his wand, the Wizard turned to where his servants still knelt with guarded eyes. “Arise, and go forward,” he commanded them.
With one accord they sprang to their feet, and without one glance behind to discover what their master had done, they went rapidly ahead of him.
While the Wizard departed in content, Prince Ember made ready to open the dungeon of the Shadow Witch so that she might go free. With her at his side he stood before the thick wall that barred the way to the corridor. He laid his hand upon his fairy sword, and unsheathed it. It glowed and burned with living fire.
With its bright point he touched the wall in that selfsame place where the Wizard was wont to pass through, and on its blackness he traced the scarlet outline of a door.
Breathlessly the Shadow Witch followed with her eyes the moving point of fire, followed it till the outline was complete, and the sword fell back into its sheath. Without a word, but with swiftly beating heart, she waited in her place by Prince Ember’s side to see what wondrous thing that sword could do.
Wondrous indeed, for silently and of itself the door swung open, and the corridor that led to freedom was before her.
Prince Ember took her hand, and together they crossed the threshold, but when they had passed it he paused, and spoke one charmed word. As silently as it had opened, the door closed behind them at its creator’s command, and its outlines vanished, leaving the wall the grim unbroken barrier that it had been before.
“Ah, my good Prince!” whispered the Shadow Witch looking upon it. “What magic is yours!”
He spoke no word in answer, but raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.