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“Durk? Do you think Mother will be able to come to my birthday this year?”
Hubley took her eyes off the mirror long enough to look at the stone. Her hairbrush, however, continued to brush her hair. Neither hands nor eyes were necessary to keep that particular spell going, though there might be a problem if she tried to walk around.
“Is it your birthday again so soon?” asked Durk from his comfortable pillow.
“Don’t tell me you forgot! This one’s special. I’m going to be ten.”
“Weren’t you ten last year?”
“Last year I was nine.”
“Really? I could have sworn you were ten.”
“How would you know? You weren’t even there.”
“I wasn’t? No wonder I’m confused. I suppose this old cobble of mine is wearing out at last. Ever since your father left me in that box for all those years I haven’t been able to tell an iamb from a dactyl.”
“You know it was only a month before Father found you, and it was only an accident he put you there anyway.”
“Well it felt like a year,” the stone grumbled. “Or maybe three or four. Though I do suppose it’s hard to tell time when you’re buried like that. Either way, I’m getting so old now, soon I won’t even be able to remember the soliloquy from The Anguished Knight.”
“You sound the same as ever to me.”
Durk sniffed, despite the fact he didn’t have a nose. “That’s because this unassuming pebble that fate has vouchsafed me bears no mark of the countless sorrows I have endured. As the poet says:
“So plain a face no other fact can tell;
Both grief and joy lost within its homely shell.”
Hubley snorted. “If you ask me, it’s easy to tell what you’re feeling. All I have to do is listen.”
“Hmph. I don’t always say what I think, you know.”
Rolling her eyes, Hubley turned back to the mirror and shifted her brush to a more tangled section of hair.
“I had another dream last night,” she said.
“You did? Was it as bad as the others?”
“No. This one was about my birthday.”
“That’s not so scary.”
“It wasn’t. But it felt like the others, like it was something that had already happened. Everyone was there, Mother and Giserre and Mims and Grandpa Berrel, and Avender and the king and queen. And Redburr, too, though I think he came later. And he was a bird, not a bear. We ate noodles with butter and green peas and Father made a tree grow in the middle of the garden and it shot up in the air. And when it came down all the leaves turned into my very own grammarye.”
“Oh, yes. I remember that one quite well. Lots of explosions. The best birthday surprise your father ever cast. For once I had some idea what was going on.”
“No you didn’t. I told you, it was just a dream.” Her exasperation caused Hubley’s brush to tug harder at her hair, and she grimaced as it caught a tangle. Focusing her eyes on the mirror, she forced both herself and the brush to calm down.
“This time,” she said when she was done, “the best birthday surprise would be if Mother and Grandmother came.”
“Yes, it would,” Durk agreed. “We haven’t seen either of them in a long time.”
“Father says I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Mother’s at a very important point in her experiment.”
“That shouldn’t stop Giserre.”
“Don’t you remember? Giserre’s helping. And all the apprentices, too.”
“Oh, right. I’d forgotten. It must be some spell they’re working on, to take so many of them. I hope someone tells me about it when it’s done. But what about Hern and Berrel?”
“Father says there’s scrapie in Valing, so they can’t leave either.”
“Everyone’s just so busy, aren’t they? All the same, it’s too bad they can’t make time to visit you. I never had a family of my own, you know, until I was lucky enough to be gathered into the bosom of the acting community. So I know exactly how you feel.”
“I know. You’ve told me lots of times.”
“At least you still have your father. You should consider yourself lucky.”
Her brushing finished, Hubley sat down on the couch. Durk meant well, but what he said often made her feel worse. After all, it wasn’t like losing his family had ended up all right for him in the end, unless you thought being stuck as a rock better than being dead. Her father said that Mother’s and his being apart was all the Gray Wizard’s fault and, until they were strong enough to find a way to slay him, her parents were unlikely to be able to spend much time together. Castle Grangore was safer than Valing, which was why Hubley had to stay with her father. All the same, it didn’t seem fair her mother couldn’t visit them at least sometimes.
Her father arrived a few minutes later, already dressed for the party in Hubley’s favorite cloak, the one with the manders embroidered across the chest. Sometimes, depending on how he moved, the manders seemed to slither and slide across the dark blue fabric on their own.
“Father!” Hubley bounced up from the couch and darted forward.
“Hello, sweetheart.” Reiffen swept his daughter up in a glad hug. “I see you’ve been getting ready for the party. Are you done?”
“Oh, yes. Has Mother said she’s coming?”
Carefully Reiffen lowered Hubley to the ground. His eyes scrunched in sympathy. “Sadly, no. The enchantment she is fashioning is far too delicate to be interrupted. They have reached a critical point.”
Hubley tried hard not to cry. “It isn’t fair. She could have at least come for my birthday.”
“I think she should have come, too, but you know defeating the Wizard is the most important thing now. More important than birthdays, I’m sorry to say, even your tenth. However, she did tell me she would be coming for a visit soon.”
“When?” Hubley crossed her arms stubbornly.
“She didn’t give me a date. But she did send several presents. The first one is for right now.”
Standing, the magician held out his arm. Hubley stepped back to give him room, her hands held expectantly beneath her chin. A dark red dress appeared draped across her father’s arm.
“Oh, Father, it’s beautiful!”
“It’s from the best shop in Malmoret, your mother says.”
“What’s it look like?” asked Durk.
Taking the dress from her father, Hubley held it at arms’ length. “Well, it’s dark red, like roses, with ribbons on the shoulders and a belt to hold the waist. There’s smocking on the top, and long skirts on the bottom.”
“Sounds very grown up.”
“May I see you in it?” asked Reiffen.
Hubley folded her arms across her chest and frowned in concentration.
“Change, change the dress I wear
To the one I throw up in the air.”
As she spoke, she flung the lovely gown toward the ceiling, but it was the plain gray robe she was wearing that floated to the ground. From her shoulders to her ankles the red dress took its place, with only a little tugging and wriggling to make it fit.
Her father stepped back for a better view. “I don’t know which is better, sweetheart, the dress or the spell you used to put it on.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“I wish I could see it,” complained the stone.
“Shall we go down to the party?”
Grabbing a hair ribbon from the top of her dresser, Hubley scooped up Durk, pillow and all, and followed her father downstairs.
Her heart sank all over again when they reached the dining room. Only three places were set at the table. She had hoped at least Nolo or Redburr would come, or even Wilbrim and his mother. With just her father, Mindrell, and Durk, the day wasn’t going to be anything special at all. Even cake and presents couldn’t make it anything more than another long, boring evening in Castle Grangore.
Mindrell, who was already standing at the table, gallantly pulled out her chair. “You look enchanting, princess,” he said as he tucked the seat back in beneath her skirts. “A most becoming shade. Your mother has a dress of nearly the same color, I recall.”
Lifting the silver pitcher from the sideboard, he poured lemonade into her cup. Outside, the sun had finally set, but in the dining room of Castle Grangore magelight flooded from the lamps and chandelier.
“Welcome, Princess,” her father bowed from the seat on her right. “The party is ready for your delectation.”
They ate fresh noodles with butter and peas, just like in her dream. It was her favorite meal. Durk, whose cushion took the place of the table’s centerpiece, did most of the talking. With Mindrell’s occasional assistance, the stone sang songs and cracked jokes that Hubley generally didn’t understand.
When it was time for cake, Reiffen cleared the table with a wave of his hand. Hubley had never actually seen her father wash dishes, but they always reappeared in the pantry cabinets after meals as spotless as if Mims herself had performed the cleanup. Whether it was the magic that did it, or some dishwasher in town her father used spells to send the crockery to and from, Hubley had never discovered. That he was in touch with people in town she had no doubt. He certainly didn’t know how to bake a chocolate cake, and one of the first things she had learned about magic was that you had to know how to do things the slow way before you could use spells to do them quickly. The cake appeared at the second wave of the magician’s hand, a massive concoction dripping with butter frosting and red sugar roses, hovering just above the table until Hubley blew out the ten sparkling candles.
She unwrapped her grandparents’ gifts first. As usual, Giserre had knit her a beautiful sweater of the softest Valing wool. Lifting it from its wrapper, Hubley rubbed the soft yarn against her cheek and imagined she was hugging her grandmother. The smell of lavender and cedar tickled her nose.
Mims and Berrel gave her a patchwork quilt, which she hugged just as tightly as Giserre’s sweater. From the apprentices she received the usual magical knickknacks: a silver thimble, several rolls of colored ribbon, a vial of sneezing powder, and a pot of jellied spider’s eyes.
Last, before his own present, her father handed her a second gift from her mother. A small box, neatly tied in ribbon to match her red dress. Hubley shook it once, but nothing rattled. Her father’s eyes danced as if he had been the one to outwit her rather than her mother. Bursting with curiosity, the child tore the ribbon off and pulled the box open. Inside, two moonstones lay swaddled in a paper nest. Small, jagged lines of red and yellow snaked across their pale surfaces.
Gently, Hubley picked them up. “Just like Mother’s!”
“Yes.” Reiffen smiled indulgently. “Uhle said he would make then into a pendant for you, if you want.”
“Oh, yes!” Hubley cupped the stone pearls in front of her face and watched the streaks of tiny lightning dash back and forth.
“Would you like my present now?”
Hubley nodded. Her father always gave her the best presents, wrapped in magic. For her ninth birthday it had been nine golden finches that looked and sang like regular birds, only much prettier. Darting around the high-ceilinged library, they had looked like sunshine set loose inside the house until her father clapped his hands and each bird swooped down to drop a bit of jewelry into her hand, rings and pins and even a pair of brilliant earrings.
She wondered what he would give her this year.
Her father spread his arms wide. The manders on his robe flicked their tails like lazy fish. Throughout the room the magelight flickered and died. As evening darkened the hall, a last ray of light abruptly pierced the middle window, some trick of the sun reflecting off the castle towers. Its thin beam revealed something curved and fluted lying beside Hubley’s glass of lemonade. Pale pink and alabaster, the shell gleamed as Reiffen picked it up.
“Choose a sound,” he said.
“A sound?” asked Hubley.
“Yes. Your favorite.”
Hubley frowned. “I don’t know. A purring cat?”
A purr swept thickly through the room. Though not loud, everyone heard it clearly.
“When did Mittens come in?” asked the stone nervously. “Remember, it took a week to find me the last time that sly creature knocked me off my pillow.”
“It’s just magic,” said Hubley. She watched her father sweep the shell through the air around him, scooping up a draft of sound.
“What sort of magic?” the stone went on.
“We don’t know yet,” said Hubley.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Reiffen. “Another sound, please.”
“Thunder?” suggested Durk.
The room rocked with the blast, though there was no flash of light. Hubley grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself, but it was only the noise that had startled her. The room remained undisturbed.
“What about the wind in the trees?” asked Mindrell. “Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
This time Hubley reached up to hold her hair in place, but there was no wind, despite the rustle of leaves from the ceiling. As if the sky were breathing, the whispering rose and fell, a sighing tickle to the air.
“Valing Falls,” she said, beginning to get into the spirit of the game.
The hall filled with a second rumble, this one steady as pouring rain. Hubley was sure the floor was trembling beneath her feet. Instead of fading, the sound grew stronger, pressing against her chest and nose and ears. Only when Reiffen had finished waving the shell slowly back and forth did the sound finally vanish.
“Apples falling.”
“Surf.”
“A barking nokken.”
The magician caught them all. Snow falling on firs, a dog greeting its master, songbirds in the morning, and a score or so more filtered into the shell. Hubley listened, enthralled, as each noise cascaded through the room, solemn or loud, creaking or gay. Closing her eyes, she imagined herself in a whirling storm that whipped from place to place across the world. A deep forest. An evening beach. The lip of a well.
“My soliloquy from The Anguished Knight.”
Hubley frowned. Durk, unaware of her annoyance, explained himself further. “It’s my very best, you know. Always moves an audience to tears. As long as we’re picking our favorite sounds, there’s no reason not to mention it.”
“I’ve never heard it,” said the mage. “Perhaps if you recite it.”
“My pleasure.” With a sound like someone drawing a deep breath, the stone began.
“As time, like jagged stones falls tumbling down
Life’s steep, uneven cliffs, my fumbling frown
Doth journey onward, ceaseless as the sea.
Unstopped, it like unstoppered wine doth seep
Away despite my wretched reach to keep
My heart’s desire ever close to me...”
Mindrell coughed into his hand but the stone, unstoppered as his verse, decanted on. Hubley didn’t mind. If the seashell was, as she guessed, a way to hold a few chosen sounds forever, she didn’t mind at all if the voice of a friend mingled with the singing birds and tumbling waves.
“Can you do Mother?” she asked when the stone was finished.
Mindrell’s eyebrows rose.
“I can,” said Reiffen.
For the first time in what felt like years and years, Ferris’s voice filled the library.
“Swim, little pup,
The lake is deep,
The fish are tasty,
The cliffs are steep.
Tomorrows’ for fishing,
Tonight’s for sleep.
So swim little pup
And you’ll never weep.”
Images of her mother singing that song danced at the edge of Hubley’s memory like nokken racing beside a Valing canoe. Eagerly she reached for them, but none would stay. Only the nasty dreams, which she’d been having more and more of lately, lasted long enough to linger these days.
“I think we have enough now,” said her father.
The lights returned, their soft illumination suddenly bright. Reiffen offered his present to his daughter. Hubley accepted the gift with both hands, surprised at how heavy the shell was though it looked so delicate. The outer surface was rough and worn, the inner curve smooth as glass.
“To hear what is inside, you must hold it close to your ear,” her father told her.
She lifted the shell to her cheek. Faintly, as if from the other side of Grangore Vale, she heard geese honking.
“If you want everyone to hear, press the large knob.”
“This one?” Holding the shell in front of her, Hubley raised her thumb over one of the stubby bumps at the closed end of the shell. Her father nodded.
The throbbing drum of Valing Falls flooded the room once more. Hubley wondered what had happened to the geese. Pressing the knob again only made the sound of the waterfall cease.
“How do I make it play what I want?” she asked impatiently.
Her father smiled in that way she knew meant he wasn’t going to tell. “That is for you to discover on your own. If you’re ever going to be a real magician, you will need to learn how to unlock magic’s secrets. What I have given you is more than a toy, Daughter.”
“Thank you, Father.” Hubley curtsied, the way her Grandmother Giserre had taught her. When she looked up she was already fiddling with the shell again, poking at the various knobs and ridges, her mouth fixed in concentration.
“I wish I had one of those,” said Durk. “I wouldn’t need actors anymore if I did. I could just store all the parts myself, then play them back like a piper on his flute.”
“You’d still need someone to push the buttons for you,” said Mindrell.
The party moved on from cake to fruit and cheese. Taking his lute from his shoulder, Mindrell sang a lovely ballad about a little girl who loved her father so much she turned into a stone statue when a prince wished to marry her. Only after the prince had saved her father’s kingdom from the civil war started by the king’s uncle, did the princess’s cold mantle fall away so she could marry her prince. Hubley thought it a rather silly song but, since Mindrell had composed it especially for her birthday, she clapped politely when he was done.
A crescent moon joined the stars in the wide window above the hall. Hubley yawned, concealing her sleepiness behind chocolaty fingers. As with all her birthdays, she didn’t want this one to end, even if there were so few guests to share it with. But being ten was special all the same. A shiver of delight passed through her, and not just because of all the chocolate she had eaten. Her parents had always said her magical training would begin in earnest once she was ten. And her mother was coming home soon.
Wiping her fingers, she raised the shell back to her ear. This time the sound was the jingling of sleigh bells from sleds racing across the snow. Holding the shell close in front of her, she shook it vigorously while concentrating on her mother. So much of magic was about forcing things to do what you wanted, maybe that was all she needed to do here. Instead she heard her father say,
“Hubley, we have one last thing to do to finish your birthday.”
Looking up, she saw the bard and the stone were gone. More time had passed than she thought since Mindrell had finished his song. As usual, she had gotten so absorbed in what she was doing she had forgotten about everyone else in the room.
Happily, she took her father’s hand. They crossed the castle from east to west, magelight hovering in the air before them. At the base of the Magicians’ Tower, Reiffen unlocked the door that led down to the workrooms. Hubley shivered with delight: her lessons were going to start right away! And maybe now that she was ten her father would start teaching her entire spells rather than just parts of them.
At the bottom of the stair, Reiffen opened a second door with a wave of his hand. Following the passage beyond to its end, Hubley was delighted when they stopped outside a room she had never entered. Being ten was already as good she had ever imagined.
The third door slid open as silently as the previous two, revealing an ordinary workroom. With a flick of his wrist, the magician sent his magelight arrowing across the chamber to fasten itself to a cresset on the far wall. Plucking a large key from the air, he inserted it into the lock of the door beside the lamp.
The key turned with a heavy click. Releasing it, the magician twisted his long, thin fingers to set the key spinning slowly in the lock on its own. Left, right, left again. Each time the tumblers clicked, the large key sank deeper into the mechanism and reversed direction. Hubley counted each revolution, wondering if her father was going to test her on it later.
The door opened. The magician stepped back and gestured for his daughter to go first. Hubley stopped as soon as she was inside. A memory she didn’t recognize flashed across her mind, bright as lightning at midnight. Her father steadied her with a touch; the memory faded.
Pointing his finger here and there, Reiffen anchored magelights to several knobs in the stone. Hubley saw at once they had reached a cave unlike the others. This chamber was too rough for Dwarven work: in truth, it looked more natural than carved. Though the room was wide, only in the very center was it tall enough for her father to stand. A stream ran out of the darkness on the right, pooling in the center, before disappearing again into the gloom on the other side.
She began to feel afraid, though she didn’t know why. Her father led her forward. Near the pool, her memory attacked her again. This time she nearly fell as the blaring images blasted through her mind too quickly to understand. Reiffen laid his hand lightly on her shoulder once more and the memories retreated, though not quite as far as before.
She was sure it was the pool causing her unease. The closer she came to it, the worse the memories grew. A clump of large, black mussels fed in the thin current along the bottom.
“Father. I don’t like this place.”
“It’s all right, sweetheart. You’ve been here before. Nothing will harm you.”
“I don’t remember being here before.” Her lower lip trembled. Not even in the strange dreams now clamoring for her attention had she ever visited this place, or anything resembling it.
“Of course you don’t. The magic wouldn’t have worked if you had.”
Trusting her father, she took another step. Perhaps if he had held her hand she might have done better, but he was already examining the pool. The pressure building in her head burst: her dream of the night before came rushing back, only this time it was a nightmare. The smiling faces of her parents turned to howling skulls. Redburr grabbed at her with talons and bloody beak. The moonstones blinked like bloodshot eyes. Then all the sense she had of what was happening dissolved. Her memories, real and imagined, swirled together in a frightening, snapping mass, devouring one another like hawks tearing at pigeons in the sky.
She screamed. Her father’s face loomed against the low ceiling, concern in his eyes.
“Here now, Hubley. Don’t be afraid.”
He reached for her with a hand like Redburr’s claws. Unable to stand the whirlwind in her head any longer, Hubley turned and fled. Back through the small door she ran, through the next room and into the corridor beyond. Her footsteps rattled against the stone like dry bones. Already her head felt lighter, as if she had left all those troubling memories in the cave. She knew her father wouldn’t harm her, but she wanted nothing more to do with that pool. Perhaps if she ran all the way back to the bottom of the stair he would pick her up and carry her in his arms the way he had when she was small. And maybe they could go back to the dining room and he would show her how to call her mother’s voice from her brand-new shell.
A side door opened. Pale light spilled down the passage in either direction. A tall man wearing a Dwarven lamp at the center of his forehead followed the light into the hall.
“This way, Hubley.”
Grabbing her wrist, he pulled her inside. The door slammed shut behind her.