“I was not always a raven,” said Dehlia. “I took this shape for a number of reasons, many decades ago. They do not matter. Yet still I am a warden, even though the High Kingdom is no more, and still I uphold the All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs and seek to enlarge others with the knowledge of it.”
“Please tell me,” said Anya. “I would like to know.”
The raven twisted her head as if to look at Anya with her left eye. But there was no bright orb there, only a mass of scars around an empty socket. Anya’s own eyes twinged. She blinked and wanted to look away, but managed not to. After a second, Dehlia turned her head, fixing her good eye on the princess again.
“First!” said the raven, her voice loud in the theater. Only then did Anya notice that the musicians had stopped playing and everyone was looking up at the ancient warden. Except for Ardent, who was chewing one end of the bone he’d managed to carefully wedge between Anya’s feet.
“First,” quoth the raven, “all folk are free, and may never be property, or used as such, and may stay or leave any employment at their own will.
“Second, no person shall be transformed, fined, deprived of liberty, executed, or otherwise punished save under the ancient laws as set within the Stone.
“Third, no court shall sit without a unicorn, true mirror, or oathbound seer to discern the truth of things spoken at trial.
“Fourth, the Crown shall not set, assay, or gather any tax without the assent of the Moot.
“Fifth, the Rights and Wrongs of the Bill, and the Laws Set in Stone, shall be supported, upheld, and maintained by the wardens, rangers, castellans, and dogs of the High Kingdom.”
“That’s us,” said Ardent indistinctly, since he didn’t stop chewing. “The dogs of the High Kingdom.”
“I thought you were just the royal dogs of Trallonia,” said Anya.
“Many a good dog drowned when Yarrow was flooded,” said Dehlia with a gracious dip of her beak towards the gnawing dog. “But the summer kennels were at Trallonia, so there were survivors there. And some few senior hounds made it out of the inundated city, so the line continued. In fact, your ancestor ‘King’ Norbert of Trallonia was actually the second assistant kennel-keeper.”
“No!” exclaimed Anya.
Bert and Dehlia looked at her silently. Anya thought about it for a while, then reluctantly conceded, “I suppose that does make sense. I always wondered why we had the huge kennel and the dog tunnels and everything … But this is all just history. What’s it got to do with me? The High Kingdom is gone. Who cares about the Bill and the … the Laws Set in Stone—whatever they may be—and all the rest of it?”
“We care,” said Bert, gesturing towards her band of robbers.
“I care,” said Dehlia.
“So do we,” said Ardent. He let the bone drop out of his mouth as if he wasn’t sure how it had got there in the first place. “The dogs. One of the first things Tanitha tells us as pups. One day we’ll be c-c-called on, to help put everything back together. The High Kingdom, the Bill, all that.”
“But it’s not possible,” protested Anya. “There must be hundreds of small kingdoms now, not to mention all the bandits and evildoers and no-goodniks and monsters and evil sorcerers like Rikard and the Grey Mist and their society. How could anyone even start to put it all back together?”
“You start small,” said Dehlia. The raven had a very particular stare. Her single eye, bright with moonshine, was focused on Anya in a very alarming way. “With a Quest to save one of those small kingdoms, and set it to rights, and have its ruler swear to uphold the Bill. Then you go on from there.”
Anya looked from the raven to Bert, then back down to the robbers. They were all staring at her too.
“Oh no!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “Don’t look at me. I’ve got enough of a Quest already!”
“It’s all part of a bigger Quest,” said Bert. “And we’ll help with all of it. So you have found your first allies against Duke Rikard already.”
“Second,” corrected Ardent. “After us dogs.”
“Even if I wanted to help, I could never get Morven to agree to uphold the Bill and to not raise taxes without the Moot agreeing,” said Anya. “And what’s a Moot anyway?”
“The Moot was the ancient parliament of the High Kingdom,” said Dehlia. “Two hundred representatives gathered from all walks of life, sniffed out by the royal dogs for wisdom, patience, and cunning, tested by unicorn for truthfulness, and bound to serve their term of office by the Stone.”
“The stone with the laws in it?” asked Anya.
“Yes,” said Dehlia. “The Only Stone. A unique—”
She was interrupted by a sudden cry from the terrace below. The bright orange bulk of Shrub emerged from under a pile of cut ferns. He’d been practicing sneaking up on people, with considerable success.
“Did you say the Only Stone?” asked the newt. “I was going to steal it from the League of Right-Minded Sorcerers and give it to Bert, only that went wrong. Princess Anya should get it to protect her from being transformed! I could steal it for her. I’m sure I’ll do better next time—”
“The Only Stone does not merely provide protection against sorcery to its wielder,” interrupted Dehlia. “All the ancient laws are codified within it, including many that have been lost or forgotten. We must regain it from the sorcerers at some time. But that will be, I think, another Quest. It is beyond our power now. As Bert has said, we must start small—with Trallonia, and Princess Anya.”
“All I want to do is get the ingredients for the lip balm, get enough allies to defeat Rikard, and go home!” Anya protested. “I’m not signing up to rebuild the High Kingdom, and I’m not the heir to Trallonia, so you’ll have to talk to Morven about the Bill and all that.”
“Oh dear,” said Bert. “I guess that means we’ll have to rob you after all.”
“Can’t you just rob me later?” asked Anya. She felt very tired all of a sudden. It had been a long and difficult day, and the prospects for tomorrow looked even worse. “Or in the morning, at least, if you absolutely can’t put it off till I finish my Quest?”
Bert saw Anya’s hand go up to smother a yawn. She looked across at the raven, who dipped her beak in agreement to the robber leader’s unspoken question.
“Yes,” she said. “We will talk in the morning. The day may bring a different view, as so often happens. The ferns are fresh cut; gather them closer together for your bed, and here is a blanket. Rest.”
Anya had turned into a frog. A big, very bright green frog. She was looking at her reflection in the moat, wondering how she had become a frog, and why one so bright green? She dipped her head into the water, felt it wash over her cheek—and woke up.
Ardent was licking her face urgently.
“Wake up!” whispered the dog. “I c-c-an smell weasels. Or maybe stoats. Mixed up with people. It all smells wrong.”
“What?” asked Anya blearily. It was very dark. The silver moon was long gone, and the blue moon wasn’t doing much for illumination, though the sky was clear, so the stars did help.
“Weasels!” said Ardent. He let out a short, sharp bark.
“Weaselfolk,” said another voice. Bert loomed up next to Anya, a dim silhouette against the starry sky. “Weasels turned into people-size soldiers. Lots of them. We have to get you out of here!”
Anya scrabbled around for her staff, frog cage, and bundles. She had just managed to get the load balanced on her shoulder when there was a cry from somewhere high on the edge of the theater, a shout of very human pain. It was followed by the blast of a horn nearby, the sudden clash of weapons, and many decidedly nonhuman squeals, frenzied snarls, and screeches.
Bert took Anya by the elbow and hurried her down to the stage. Robbers leaped past them up the terraces, swords and axes drawn, towards the horrible screaming battle that was taking place above. Ardent turned back too, growling the fiercest growl Anya had ever heard from him, wanting to join the fray.
> “No! Ardent! Stay with me!” ordered the princess. The dog growled again, but spun about to follow. Bert hustled Anya to a doorway in the low wall at the back of the stage and pushed her through, Shrub darting past her legs.
“Take the path down the hill! Shrub will show you the way to his father,” Bert said very quickly. “I will meet you there. If I am … delayed, don’t go to Rolanstown. There are no trustworthy alchemists there, and it is a dangerous place. Head towards the Good Wizard!”
Then she was gone, sword in hand. A question about where exactly the Good Wizard was located never came out of Anya’s mouth; instead she stumbled down the steps beyond the stage, and from there to a narrow path between thornbushes. Shrub lolloped ahead, an orange beacon to show the way. Ardent came close at Anya’s heels, turning every dozen paces to look and smell behind, the hair on his back raised in a ridge, as if he had become a razorback boar.
The sounds of fighting lessened as they reached the forest edge at the foot of the hill. Anya lost sight of Shrub for a moment and stumbled into a branch. She gasped in fright, thinking for a split second she’d been attacked, her fingers clutching at the hilt of her knife.
“Come on!” said Shrub, reappearing near her feet.
“There are weaselfolk coming down the side of the hill,” Ardent reported, half growling his words.
“Come on!” repeated Shrub.
“I can’t see!” Anya protested.
It was even darker under the trees.
Ardent thrust his head against her and gave her hand a comforting lick.
“Hold my collar,” said the dog. He sounded less excitable than usual, more like one of the older dogs. “I can see well enough to follow Shrub.”
Anya thrust her fingers through his collar. Her hand shook a little, but she quelled the tremors. She didn’t want Ardent to think she was afraid, though to tell the truth, she was terrified. The darkness made everything worse, and the very idea of weaselfolk was horrifying. Which parts would be weasel, and which human? Maybe each weaselfolk was different …
These feelings of dread were intensified by the hideous yowling and screeching she could still hear faintly from the arena. Not to mention the shouts and screams of the wounded—possibly even dying—robbers. Anya grimaced and tried to put all that out of her mind. You need to focus, she told herself. Concentrate on what’s important. And what’s important right now is getting away.
“Go on, Shrub,” she said quietly, though it took a great effort to keep a telltale quaver out of her voice. “Go on.”
Shrub led them quickly through the forest, his pace not quite at a run but significantly faster than a walk. Anya still stumbled, and occasionally got scratched by a smaller branch, but with Ardent’s help she didn’t actually run into anything serious.
An hour, or perhaps two hours, later—Anya had no real feel for how much time had passed—the sun began to come up, its soft yellow light filtering in through the canopy of leaves. Anya shivered, not because she was cold, but simply because she was relieved to be able to see properly again. No matter how much she’d tried not to, she’d been thinking constantly about some half-weasel, half-human thing dropping on her in the darkness, or suddenly looming up in front of her, jaws snarling, claws reaching …
“We’re almost there,” Shrub reported. “Pity Dad doesn’t make soup like Ma.”
Anya slowed down and shifted her staff to her other shoulder.
“Can you smell anything, Ardent?” she asked anxiously. “Ahead or behind?”
Ardent lifted his snout and circled his head, sniffing the breeze.
“Nothing unusual,” he said. Then he stiffened for a moment, frozen in place save for his nose, which quivered mightily. His head went down and forward, and he stepped one paw ahead, his tail quivering straight up.
“What is it?” whispered Anya.
“Rabbit!” barked Ardent, and he was off, a tan streak against the green of the undergrowth.
“Ardent!” Anya called hoarsely, trying to make it a whispered shout. Which isn’t really possible, but people do try.
“He won’t catch it,” said Shrub. “Big warren around here, those rabbits have got tunnel entrances all over the place. They go out on the downs during the day. Come back into the forest at night.”
Shrub was correct. A bedraggled Ardent slid out from under a sprawling but stunted hawthorn a few minutes later and plopped himself down gasping at Anya’s feet.
“We’re on a Quest, Ardent,” Anya chastised severely. “Probably pursued by weaselfolk. This is no time for chasing rabbits.”
Ardent’s ears lowered and his tail drooped.
“Sorry, Princess,” he said. “I’ll try to remember.”
He looked so woebegone that Anya forgave him. She knew that rabbits were very, very hard for a dog to resist chasing. When Ardent was older, and had more practice, he should be able to watch a fleeing rabbit with equanimity, merely lifting an ear or making a small harrumphing noise. But not now. Bending down, she scratched his head and rubbed his ears.
“You did a good job leading me in the dark, thank you,” she said. “Now, we need to go get our first ingredient from Shrub’s dad. And maybe have breakfast. We can eat the ham.”
Even as she said that, Anya felt a twinge in her shoulder, the kind of twinge that says it is not as bad a twinge as it could be, because the burden that shoulder is supporting is lighter than it should be.
Anya looked back urgently.
The ham was gone. For a terrible second Anya thought the frog basket was as well, before her silk-scarf bundle swung a little to the right to show Denholm’s prison securely behind it, farther up the staff. The frog looked at her and emitted a mournful croak. It was no life being locked up in a wicker cage and only occasionally sprinkled with water and fed moths or bugs (which were rarely the best things a frog might choose for himself).
“I must have left the ham back in the robbers’ arena,” said Anya sadly. She felt a sudden pang of hunger as her stomach caught up with the news.
“I should have c-c-caught the rabbit,” said Ardent, equally sad.
“Plenty of bugs about,” said Shrub, crunching up something, its wings falling out one side of his mouth as he swallowed.
“We’ll just have to find food later,” said Anya firmly. “Take us to your father, Shrub.”
Shrub nodded and set off again. He hadn’t gone very far before the forest began to thin out, the trees farther apart, the undergrowth more sparse. The morning sun went from sliding between small gaps in the canopy to flooding in, making everything brighter and warmer. Soon there began to be open spaces where wildflowers grew, and the trees were widely separated. Through one such gap, Anya saw they really were at the edge of the forest. Beyond lay long, low rolling hills of yellow-green grass, with only the occasional copse of trees clinging on here and there.
These were the downs, a landscape Anya had never seen before. Even the forest was somewhat familiar, but this was not. She felt both a thrill of excitement and a shiver of fear at the sight. The downs promised excitement and possibility but also danger. She hadn’t forgotten the almost overwhelming terror of the weaselfolk attack in the night.
“There’s my old pop!” Shrub lifted a claw and pointed to a particularly resplendent chestnut tree that overtopped several lesser companions nearby. Following his own direction, he ambled over to it and tapped several times upon the trunk.
“Pa! Pa! You got visitors!” shouted the newt.
The upper branches of the chestnut shivered in sudden movement, and not from any breeze.
“A princess!” bawled Shrub. “And a royal dog and a frog prince.”
The branches moved again, making a whispering noise that Anya almost thought could be words.
“Come and put your hand … or paw … against the trunk,” said Shrub. “Makes it easier to hear.”
Anya and Ardent drew close to the tree and reached out to touch the grooved gray bark.
“Elisandria at home?
” shouted Shrub. “No? Popped out for a bath at the spring?”
Anya almost thought she heard the ex-druid’s reply to his son, the whisper of the branches louder, but still on the edge of her perception.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Princess Anya of Trallonia, and I need your help.”
“Have to talk louder than that!” shouted Shrub. “He’s a deaf old tree!”
“I am not, you rude boy!”
Anya heard that clearly, though it was still a strange whisper in the air, without any obvious source. She made a warning gesture to Shrub, not wanting him to annoy his father before she even asked for four drops of sap.
“I beg your pardon for intruding upon your peaceful … um … treeness,” said the princess. She did lift her voice a little, but didn’t shout. “I am on a Quest, seeking the ingredients for a magical lip balm that will let me transform this frog prince and your son, Shrub, back to their human forms. One of these ingredients is four drops of blood from a retired druid.”
“Hmm,” said the tree.
It was not a promising “hmm,” the kind you hear before someone agrees with you or gives you a present. It sounded more like the kind of very doubtful “hmm” you get before being shown the door, which the doorkeeper regretted opening in the first place.
“Prince Denholm was transformed by the evil sorcerer Duke Rikard,” said Anya hastily. “Just as Shrub was transformed by the evil Grey Mist. So you would be helping strike back against these evil sorcerers.”
“Ah,” said the tree.
Anya wasn’t sure what this meant. Or if it had even been the ex-druid responding, because a slight breeze had come up, and now the branches of all the trees were moving and whispering.
“Just four drops,” she said. “That’s all. Please.”
There was a long silence. Shrub cleared his throat as if to say something, but subsided as Anya gestured at him again.
“Go away,” said the tree. Even via the whisper of branches, it sounded petulant.
“It is very important,” said Anya beseechingly, still in a louder-than-normal voice.
“What’s very important?”