“What about my carpet?” asked Ardent.
“It will be there,” said the Wizard. She looked around and beckoned to the air with a crooked finger. “Jeremy, make sure a good Thirty-League Carpet is brought to the back door.”
“I will come and see you off,” said Bert. She stood, settled a full quiver on her back, and took up her longbow, tapping the six-foot wych elm stave. “There were at least two assassins we saw among the weaselfolk, and they might try a long shot. But none can shoot as far as I.”
“Or so well,” added Dehlia, leaping to Bert’s shoulder with a flap of her pale wings.
The sitting dwarves looked at one another and, as one, pushed their plates away and stood up, reaching behind their chairs to pick up battle-axes and swords.
“If any of Duke Rikard’s creatures lie in wait, they will not to do so for long,” said Erzef. She flipped her axe high in the air. It revolved three times as it fell, and she caught it by the haft. Anya flinched with every revolution and shut her eyes on the final thwap as the dwarf’s hands closed on the weapon. It looked extremely heavy and extremely sharp and not at all the sort of thing that should be thrown around.
“I’ll go get Denholm,” said Anya. “Ardent, you fetch Smoothie.”
Ardent was halfway to the stair by the fireplace when Anya shouted after him, “By fetch I mean tell her to come along!”
“I will!” barked Ardent.
Anya pushed back her chair, slowly at first and then with great determination. Visiting the Wizard had provided a welcome respite from the rigors of her Quest, but now it was time to once more go Questing!
The back door was reached by a very long tunnel. It seemed like a normal passage at first, paneled with the same warm reddish timber as the hall, but after a while the paneling stopped, revealing bare gray rock. Except it wasn’t rock, but the petrified flesh of the dragon, and the white vertical supports and overhead beams were bones, bones that became thinner and more curved as they went along, the tunnel also narrowing.
“Dragon’s tail,” said the Wizard when Anya asked about the bones. “Very long, handy for a secret back exit. Quarter of a league from the front, and comes out in a little dell, hidden from view.”
Eventually, the tunnel became so narrow they had to walk in single file, with the Wizard leading. There was no obvious source of light, and though it had grown darker as they walked, it didn’t actually get dark. It took Anya a while to realize that the bones around them were faintly luminous.
There was a door at the end of the tunnel. The Wizard took a key out of her sleeve, but after a moment looking at the door, put it away again.
“Hmm,” she said. “Unlocked already.”
She pushed on the heavy oak and the door swung open, admitting a shaft of bright sunlight that washed out the pale light of the dragon bones.
“Should it be unlocked?” asked Anya.
“No,” said the Wizard, though she didn’t seem particularly perturbed. She walked out, with the princess close behind, looking over her shoulder. “He’s just forgotten to lock it after him, that’s all.”
“Who?” asked Anya.
“Me,” said someone as the Wizard and Anya emerged blinking into the sunlight.
Anya jumped several feet, almost dropping Denholm’s cage. Her heart beat superfast as she looked wildly around for whoever had spoken.
The back door led out into a small dell, a narrow valley with a gentle slope that ran down to a marsh that was probably connected in some way with the river out the front of the Wizard’s demesne. Behind them, the slope was steeper, rising up above the door to the top of the low ridge that marked the dragon’s back.
Next to the door, there was a stone bench, and sitting on the bench was a very old man. He was completely bald, his yellowed skin was stretched and thin, and his eyes were very deep set and half-closed. He had a heavy woolen cloak with a fur collar wrapped tight around himself, even though now that it had stopped raining and the wind had died down, it was quite warm outside.
“My predecessor,” said the Wizard. “Known to many as Snow White.”
“No great snowy beard now,” said the old man, fingering his smooth chin.
“You could wear the detachable one if you wanted,” said the Good Wizard.
“Too hard to get off,” answered the old man with a sly cackle. “Isn’t it?”
“You should know—you made it that way. What are you doing out here?”
“Came to see the girl, didn’t I?” said the old man. He opened his eyes wide. They were surprising. Bright green with a strong hint of mischief in them. They did not look like old, tired eyes.
“You mean me?” asked Anya.
“Of course,” said the old man. He pulled a walking stick out from under his cloak, a short staff of rough bog oak, complete with the seven silver bands of a wizard, and used it to help himself up. “Not every day I get to meet the Frogkisser!”
“That’s just something a Gerald the Herald thought up,” said Anya with considerable embarrassment.
“How do you think I got called Snow White in the first place?” asked the old man. “Some long-nosed herald suggests a catchy name, and before you know it, everyone’s using it.”
“But your real name is Merlin, isn’t it?” asked Ardent, who had come out and was sniffing the air. “I remember it now.”
The old man smiled, and slowly bent to scratch Ardent’s head.
“Yes, I was Merlin for a long time,” he said. “But I have had other names. Once, even longer ago, I was known as—”
“There’s something in the grass,” interrupted Bert, raising her bow and nocking an arrow. “Over there.”
There was a disturbance in the tall grass on the southern slope, something moving through it in a stop-start way. Whatever it was, it was small and almost completely concealed by the grass, which was generally knee-high, with taller tufts here and there.
“Don’t shoot,” said Merlin. “It is just a bird of some kind. I have been waiting for him to come closer. He is injured, I think, and cannot fly.”
“The Duke has raven spies,” Anya pointed out.
“True,” said the old ex-wizard. “But this is not a raven. I have not seen him yet, but I heard him earlier, and came out to see what was going on.”
“You heard a bird from inside?” asked Ardent, evidently impressed by this feat of listening, as impressive to him as the Dog with the Wonderful Nose’s feats of smelling.
“Not with my ears,” said Merlin. “Lower your bow, Roberta. Let him approach. It is the Frogkisser he wants, if I’m not mistaken.”
“You have been mistaken on several occasions,” said the Good Wizard. She smiled. “Though not this time, I suspect. Ah, here is your carpet, Ardent.”
A rolled-up carpet, showing a bright red-and-blue pattern, appeared out the door, undulating through the air without visible support. It sagged in the middle, indicating that it was being carried by only two invisible servants, who were finding it a bit heavy.
“It does not move entirely like a natural bird,” said Dehlia, who was standing on Bert’s shoulder, watching the tops of the grass shifting as whatever it was hopped in a curious zigzag way towards them. “Are you sure you should let it approach?”
“I think we are guarded well enough here,” said the Good Wizard drily, glancing around at the heavily armed and armored dwarves, Bert with her bow, and who knew how many invisible servants besides the ones carrying the carpet. And, Anya suddenly noticed, however many more were carrying the large sack that hung in the air near her. It smelled very strongly of onions and was far too big for her to even pick up, let alone carry anywhere.
“I don’t think I need that many on—” she started to say, when Ardent sniffed twice very deeply and barked.
“It’s Gotfried!”
“Gotfried?”
Even as she spoke, a small owl emerged from a clump of grass and wearily dragged itself into the open, trailing one wing. Anya and Ardent both dashed
forward, ignoring Bert’s cry that it might be a trap.
Within a few moments, Anya was cradling the small injured owl to her chest while Ardent helpfully leaped around her in circles.
“Gotfried!” cried Anya again. “What are you doing here? Are you hurt?”
“Yes,” said the owl. “I am hurt. Badly hurt. I have been pecked near to death by the Duke’s ravens. And obviously I was looking for you.”
“Oh, Gotfried!” said Anya. She turned him over, checking for terrible wounds. But apart from one wing that was lacking a few feathers, he seemed to be all right. “What’s happened?”
“What’s happened? Everything!” cried the owl. “Most of it bad, I’m afraid to say.”
He put his head under his undamaged wing, clearly about to gather his thoughts.
“But what exactly has happened?” asked Anya.
Some muffled and unintelligible speech came from under the wing. Anya lifted it up and saw Gotfried had tears in his eyes. As normal owls cannot cry, this was quite alarming.
“What has happened?” asked Anya again, very slowly and clearly. It had to be shockingly bad news, she knew, if Gotfried had come to seek her out.
“Morven is very sick,” gabbled out Gotfried. “You have to come home.”
“What?”
This was not what Anya was expecting. And Gotfried’s voice didn’t sound quite right.
“Morven is sick? What with?”
“Plague,” said Gotfried. “Er … and swamp fever. Or possibly hen ague.”
Anya thought about this for a few moments. Ardent stretched up, sniffing at the owl in her arms, his expression severe.
“Gotfried,” Anya said heavily. “How did you know where to find me?”
It was Gotfried’s turn to be silent for a while. Finally, he managed to squeak out, “I asked around. The heralds, they told me.”
“He’s lying,” said Ardent with an angry woof. “I c-c-can smell the lies!”
Gotfried burst into full-blown crying, which was even more alarming.
“Tell me the truth,” said Anya, firmly but kindly.
“The Duke made me,” sobbed Gotfried. “He said if I didn’t then he’d turn me into a skeleton on the spot and stick it on a spike. I’m not brave like you, Anya.”
“What happened to your wing, then?”
“I just pulled some feathers out myself,” cried Gotfried. He started to struggle in Anya’s arms, trying to get free. “Put me down and have that archer shoot me! I’m a traitor!”
“Don’t be silly,” said Anya. “You’re a librarian who is unlucky enough to work for an evil sorcerer, that’s all. What’s really happening back home?”
Gotfried stopped struggling and tried to put his head back under his wing again.
“Tell me,” said Anya.
“It is bad,” whispered Gotfried. “That’s another reason I was so afraid.”
“Tell me,” said Anya.
“Moatie died the night you left,” said Gotfried. His voice was so quiet Anya had to lean right down so his feathery head tickled her face. “Simply from old age, or so the cats said. He came out of the moat, roared that he was finally going to eat the Duke, and then he just … rolled over. That was that.”
Anya sat down slowly, lowering Gotfried into her lap. The world seemed to have stopped for a moment, everything suddenly quiet, the sunshine cold. Ardent licked her ear, meaning to give comfort. Anya reached out with her free hand and scratched his head.
“The dogs left in the night,” continued Gotfried. “I don’t know where. Most of the servants left too, as soon as they realized the dogs were gone. The cats have gone into hiding in the top attics.”
“Where did the dogs go?”
Ardent shuffled at Anya’s side, but he didn’t say anything.
It was difficult for Anya to speak, but she managed it. She told herself nothing had really changed. Moatie had been very old; it had always been likely that he would die, or that the Duke would grow strong enough to overpower him with sorcery. Perhaps, in his last great shout, the moat monster had believed he was killing the Duke and saving the princesses. So he would have died happy.
“I don’t know,” said Gotfried.
“What?” asked Anya, whose thoughts were still on the ancient moat monster. He had always been such a friend to the two little girls.
“I don’t know where the dogs went,” repeated Gotfried.
“And Morven?” asked Anya. “She’s not sick? That was just the Duke trying to lure me home?”
“She’s fine. She probably won’t even realize anything’s amiss,” whispered Gotfried. “As long as Prince Maggers sings to her, that’s all she cares about. And Bethany will never leave her, so she’ll still be waited on hand and foot. I’m sure she’ll be all right.”
“I don’t know,” said Anya anxiously. Without Moatie or the dogs, Morven had to be at risk. Even if she didn’t realize it herself.
“Put me down, Princess,” said Gotfried. “Have your guards execute me. I deserve it.”
“They’re not my guards,” Anya replied. “That’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and the current Good Wizard, and … some other friends I’ve found along the way.”
“Snow White? The Seven Dwarves?” mumbled Gotfried. “Oh woe! To meet in such circumstances.”
He struggled out of Anya’s arms and bowed deeply to the old man and the dwarves. His trailing wing, though lacking a few feathers, seemed to have miraculously recovered.
No one bowed back.
“So you’re the Trallonian librarian who wanted to be a sorcerer and botched your own transformation,” said the Good Wizard. “And now you’re some kind of henchman for Duke Rikard?”
“Not on purpose, Your Honor,” said Gotfried miserably. “As you heard, I couldn’t go through with it anyway. But better to be killed quickly than turned into a skeleton by the Duke and put on display in his white room.”
“You won’t be killed,” said Anya. She looked at everyone else. “What was it in the Bill of Rights and Wrongs? ‘No person shall be transformed, fined, deprived of liberty, executed, or otherwise punished save under the ancient laws as set within the Stone.’ ”
“You have remembered it well,” said Dehlia. “That is good.”
“The Bill of Rights and Wrongs?” asked Gotfried. “The old charter? And what’s this about a stone?”
“Dehlia and Bert can explain it to you.” Anya looked at the Good Wizard and said sadly, “Can you keep him here overnight? I can’t take him with me. He just can’t say no to the Duke.”
“Make it at my invitation,” said Snow White quickly to the Good Wizard. “So he won’t need an appointment, and nothing on the books.”
“Then as with any guest, he may stay a night and a day,” said the Good Wizard.
“I want to talk to young Gotfried anyway,” said Merlin, surprising everyone. “Come up to my shoulder, owl. I think I knew your great-grandfather. Did you know owls run in your family? And incompetent transformations?”
“Um, no,” said Gotfried. He turned his head almost completely around to face Anya, while keeping his body straight, which always gave the princess a sympathetic twinge in her own neck. Owls, of course, can do this all night without difficulty. “Princess, can you forgive me?”
Anya bent down and lifted him so he could step onto the ancient ex-wizard’s shoulder.
“Of course I forgive you. But do stay away from Duke Rikard. When you leave here, go and find the dogs. We’ll meet up sooner or later.”
Ardent growled something, but desisted when Anya gave him a stern look.
“I’m sure,” quavered Gotfried. “How … how goes your quest?”
“I can’t say,” said Anya. She hesitated, before reluctantly adding, “You might end up back with the Duke after all, and you couldn’t help but tell him. So it’s better you don’t know. Oh, by the way, the Good Wizard has a truly amazing library here.”
“We do,” said Merlin. “Let’s go and look a
t it.”
The old man went to the door, but just before he passed through, he turned back to offer Anya some parting advice.
“Good luck, Princess. Be wary of the witches. While you can trust their word, you need to listen very carefully to whatever they agree. Or don’t agree. What is unsaid is as important as what is said.”
“Thank you,” said Anya. She wondered what he meant by that. Surely what was unsaid was difficult to consider, since it hadn’t been said in the first place. But she filed his words away carefully in her mind, making sure they wouldn’t be smothered by the excitement that was building up in her.
For the first time since leaving Trallonia, she felt somewhat confident about her Quest. She was clean, rested, well fed, and wearing new, better clothes. And she had a plan, which was a lot more than she’d had when she’d started out.
Anya also had a flying carpet, even if it technically belonged to Ardent. It was being unrolled on the grass right at that moment. Considerably larger than Anya had expected, the carpet was at least eighteen feet long and ten feet wide. Though primarily red and blue it had some touches of black, all woven into a very attractive pattern of repeated, overlapping squares, with lines of different thicknesses. Right in the middle, there was a diamond of solid red bordered by a thick black line.
“Before you lie down, I’d better tell you the carpet’s name and the words of command,” said the Good Wizard, addressing both Anya and Ardent. “Make sure no one hears you using them, because otherwise they could steal the carpet by flying away with it. Of course it can be stolen simply by carrying it off, but if someone does do that, you can call it back with the correct phrase. It won’t matter where it is, it will hear you and come along. Eventually. As I said, they can be temperamental. But if you treat it courteously, brush it from time to time, and don’t mess it up with mud or spill coffee on it, it should be fine. Now, let me see.”
The Wizard settled her gold-rimmed glasses more firmly on her nose and peered down at the corner of the carpet. Anya couldn’t see anything there that was any different from any other corner, but the Wizard was clearly studying something.