| |
––––––––
“You’re sure we shouldn’t move him?” asked Ferris.
Hubley Mims’s shadow flickered across her younger self as she leaned over the bed. Loose strands of her hair cobwebbed the sleeping child’s face with pale gray lines.
“Avender’ll be much better off here,” she answered. “You know as well as I do, the more he sleeps, the quicker he’ll heal.”
“What about you?” Ferris nodded toward the Hubley that actually felt like her daughter. “What we need to do will be much easier in Tower Dale. And Giserre will want to help, too. For someone who hates magic, she’s become quite good at this sort of thing.”
“We have everything we need right here. You and I will do fine.”
Ferris made a disapproving face but didn’t argue. The last few days had shown her daughter to be a far more powerful magician than she or Reiffen had ever been.
Her mouth pursed at the thought of her dead husband, but the feeling of regret passed quickly. That mourning had been over and done with long ago.
“You know,” she said, “there are still a lot of things you haven’t explained. I’d love to know how you got into Castle Grangore to rescue Avender without Reiffen catching you.”
Hubley Mims looked at Ferris through the tops of her eyes. “I could have gotten into Castle Grangore any time I wanted, Mother. Father’s alarms have never worked on me. But they would have told him if Avender had left, so I couldn’t free him until after Father was gone. That’s the beauty of the Timespell—you don’t have to do things in order. If you went up to Castle Grangore right now, you’d find Avender is still buried. I won’t be digging him up for a couple more days. After that, I still have to reattach his hand, and feed him up till he’s back to full strength. It’s going to be months before I can send him back to rescue me.”
“Why do you have to reattach his hand? Doesn’t he have a Living Stone?”
“Yes, but he lost his hand before Father gave him the Stone.”
Ferris nodded, a little closer to understanding her daughter’s complicated plan. Living Stones only preserved what was already present. Just as she couldn’t save Wellin with a Stone once the queen’s sickness had begun, so also a Living Stone wouldn’t regrow a hand that had been cut off before the Stone was swallowed.
“How did you get his hand?”
“The Timespell, Mother. I was there the night it all happened. That’s where I got that silver coin I showed you. The spell of return worked even after Mindrell cut it off. All I had to do was travel back to Valing and pick it up, along with the reliquary you’d put his finger in, then bring it forward to the same time I dug up the rest of him. I knew that once you discovered the reliquary was stolen, you’d think it was something Father had done.”
“As I did.” Ferris pushed a lock of the sleeping Hubley’s hair back from her face. “Can you also explain how he got so old? Avender should be the same age he was when he swallowed the Stone.”
“He was worse when I dug him up—he looked like he was ninety. But he’s been getting younger ever since. I think what happened is that his body went through a lot of stress while he was buried, and the Stone only did what it had to to keep him alive. Keeping him young was more than it could manage. Now, however, it’s healing him completely.”
The explanation made sense. Ferris had never wanted to know much about Living Stones, to keep their temptation as far away as possible.
“I don’t suppose you’ve thought about how you’re going to explain this to everyone,” she said. “How there just happens to be a powerful magician running around who no one’s ever seen before. Or do you want everyone to know about the Timespell?”
Hubley Mims shook her head. “No. That wouldn’t be good at all. I’m going to make them think Fornoch trained me. I’ll tell everyone how he started teaching me magic after the fall of Ussene, but that I turned on him just like Father once I learned everything I could. Sending me to steal Hubley was the last straw. How could I possibly do anything so horrible to Giserre’s grandchild after all the kindness Giserre had shown me in Ussene? It was only natural I chose to rescue her granddaughter instead.”
“How will you ever get anyone to believe that?”
“I won’t even try. Grandmother will do it for me. She’s the only one who’ll recognize me.”
“And what about Hubley? What are you going to tell her?”
Hubley Mims looked down at her sleeping self. “As little as possible. She can know about the Timespell—she’ll figure out soon enough that she almost cast it once. But she shouldn’t know who I am.”
Ferris sighed. It had all been so complicated, and seemingly so unnecessary. Why go to such extreme lengths to try and fix something if you already knew what happened? Why not just go back to when it all began, and change that? Destroy the mander egg when it was first brought to Issinlough, or reveal Martis and Cuhurran as the Gray and Black Wizards the first time they appeared in Wayland and Banking? Wouldn’t that have been easier?
Not for the first time, and not for the last, Ferris remembered what her daughter had told her after they used the Timespell to visit the dead queen. “Better not to know the future at all,” she had said, “than be forced to follow it.”
***
When Hubley woke, the first thing she saw was a small spider spinning against the cottage wall. Its strands shone like silver, the ends disappearing into the shadowy nooks around them as if the sunlight were the only thing holding the delicate web in place.
This time, instead of being terrified, she only felt relief at finding herself in Mims’s cottage.
“Feeling better?”
Relieved that her hearing had returned, Hubley was surprised when her mother sat down on the bed beside her instead of Mims. Her mother’s thimble and wedding ring clicked together as she settled her hands in her lap. Mims loomed smiling behind her, her long gray braid uncoiled and draped across her shoulder.
“How did I get here?” Hubley asked.
Mouth pinched between joy and tears, her mother brushed back her daughter’s hair. “Mims brought you. I came later, when we found you weren’t where you were supposed to be in Vonn Kurr.”
“Is Avender here too?”
Mims pointed up at the loft. “He is, but I thought you’d prefer sleeping downstairs. The salves I’m using on him smell pretty bad.” She waved a hand back and forth in front of her nose.
“Is he going to be all right?”
“Of course. He’s got a Living Stone, doesn’t he? You know that, you’re a magician. I’ve given him something to help him sleep, but he’s still in a lot of pain.”
Her mother patted Hubley’s hand. “Another few days of rest, and he’ll be fine, sweetheart.”
“And the mandrake?”
“Don’t you remember?” Mims flipped her braid back over her shoulder. “We blew him to pieces.”
Hubley remembered, but she’d had to make sure. All the same, she would have brought the Wizard back to life in an instant if it meant she could bring her father back too. Trading one parent for the other was not what she’d had in mind when she decided to trust Avender the last time she’d been in Mims’s cottage.
“Did you find anything that looked like Father?” she asked.
Mims sadly shook her head.
“Not even his Stone?”
“We looked.” Her mother took Hubley’s hand in both her own. “A lot of the creature was flung into the Abyss by the explosion. We think your father’s Stone must have gone that way, too.”
Not wanting to think any more about how much she already missed her father, Hubley asked why the Wizard had done it. “Why’d he turn himself into a mander?”
“He didn’t want to turn himself into a mander,” Mims answered. “He wanted to do that to your father. But we were wrong when we thought this was about us. Fornoch wasn’t really concerned with humans at all, but with the Dwarves. They’re the ones whose sudden appearance ruined his plans back when your great-grandfather was king. Fornoch taught your father magic because he wanted humans to be strong enough to fight the Bryddin.”
Hubley frowned. “Why would we want to do that? The Bryddin are our friends.”
“Yes, but some humans steal lamps and other things from them just the same. It’s human nature to be selfish. Angun’s distrust of us isn’t entirely wrong. What Fornoch hoped would happen was that he would get your father into the mander, and that the mander’s nature would take over and your father would murder all the Dwarves. You’ll understand how that could happen once you start casting transformation spells. Even when you turn yourself into something as inconsequential as a mouse, you tend to forget what it’s like being human.”
Hubley remembered the mandrake’s greedy eye staring at her in Vonn Kurr, as if the creature had wanted nothing more than to devour every living thing in sight. Not a human’s hunger. Or a Wizard’s, either, she supposed.
“Fornoch wanted to make us just like him,” said her mother. “Selfish and cruel, and not caring about anything in the world but ourselves. Your father died helping us stop him.”
“I know.” The idea that the wizard had wanted her father to kill Dwarves made her think again about what had happened at Vonn Kurr.
“What about Findle? Is he all right?”
“We don’t know yet. Uhle and Dwvon are still digging. But I’m sure they’ll find him.”
Mims didn’t look nearly as confident about what the Dwarves would find as her mother did.
Sitting up, Hubley looked around the rest of the room. Several pots simmered on the hearth, though the table didn’t seem set for a meal. A white cloth covered the end nearest the fire, several gleaming tools laid out on top. Hubley recognized a few of them as the sort her mother used when she was doing the particularly messy bits of her doctoring.
“Are those for Avender?” she asked uncomfortably.
Her mother pursed her lips.
“They’re for you,” said Mims firmly. “With your permission, of course.”
“Me? Aren’t I all right?”
“Yes,” soothed her mother. “But we still have to undo what your father’s done. Unless you want to stay ten forever.”
Hubley didn’t have to think long about that. Despite all the magic she knew, everyone still treated her like a child. She’d never really be able to use her power properly until she grew up, and that wouldn’t happen unless her mother removed her Stone.
The corners of her mouth tugged down. “Will it hurt?”
“Only a little,” her mother answered. “If Giserre were here, she’d tell you the pain goes away after about a week. Though you’ll still be sore for a while.”
Hubley’s empty stomach growled. “Can I have something to eat first?”
“No food,” said Mims. “Your Living Stone’s in your belly, remember? I don’t want to have to hunt through half-digested pieces of egg and curdled milk when I’m trying to find it. And you’re more likely to get sick if there’s food in your stomach once we start poking around.”
“You’re always in such a rush, Hubley,” said her mother. “We have other things to talk about, too.”
“We do?” Hubley scooted back on the bed nervously. “Did something else happen in the Stoneways? Did someone else get hurt?”
“No.” Taking her daughter’s hand, Ferris rubbed it tenderly. “You know everything that happened. You saw it all, which is more than I can say. I didn’t even know our trap had failed until I came here looking for you, and Mims told me what happened. It was a brave thing you did, getting Fornoch out of Vonn Kurr. Otherwise he might have slain us all.”
“Avender told me to do it,” said Hubley. “I’d never have thought of it on my own. I was too scared.”
“That’s not true.” Using her apron to protect her hands, Mims removed one of the steaming pots from the fire and set it on the table beside the tools. “Don’t underestimate yourself. Avender didn’t tell you where to go, you did that. If you’d acted without thinking, you’d have brought Fornoch right to Castle Grangore. And if that had happened, we’d never have been able to stop him. No, you did the best thing possible. You and Avender both.”
Looping her arm around Hubley’s shoulders, her mother hugged her tight. “You were wonderful. Whatever else happens, you should never forget that. Merannon would have died if you hadn’t been there. Though it’s also true you should never have been anywhere near Vonn Kurr in the first place.”
“Avender said it was all right.”
“That’s not what I meant. You were only there because of what your father did to you. You shouldn’t have all that power any more than you should have stopped growing. You’re only ten. For someone your age, you know far more magic than is good for you. If you really want to come home, you’re going to have to give up the magic as well as the Stone.”
“Give up magic!”
Hubley’s mother pushed her gently back onto the pillows.
“Not all magic, dear,” she said. “Just what your father taught you while I was gone.”
“You know your mother’s right,” said Mims. “You do have all those memories, but they’re not the same as having lived thirty-one years. They don’t add up. They only sit there, side by side, like bacon in a pan. Except no one ever put the pan on the fire, so it’s not done. You may have as much power as your mother and me, but you don’t have any of the wisdom that should go with it.”
“But won’t it be enough if you just take the Stone out and let me grow up?”
“Eventually. But there’s no guarantee you’ll live that long. You know perfectly well you wouldn’t have made it past today if I hadn’t shown up. I won’t always be able to do that, you know.”
Hubley felt she should resent what Mims was saying, but she knew it was true. She hadn’t been able to help Avender at all when he’d tried to kill the mandrake.
“So you’re saying I can’t keep my memories?”
“Yes.” Unwrapping her arm from her daughter’s shoulder, her mother looked Hubley in the eye. “That’s exactly what we’re saying. Your father should never have done this to you. It wasn’t fair. Not then, and certainly not now. If you keep on this way, you’re just going to get in trouble.”
Mims shrugged. “Who knows? Things might even have worked out better at Vonn Kurr if you hadn’t been there.”
“Don’t say that.”
Her mother looked crossly at the older woman, but it was too late. Mims had voiced Hubley’s greatest fear. Already Hubley was thinking about how Mims had looked so grim when she’d asked about Findle. If Findle was broken, it was because Hubley hadn’t been able to save him. It might not be her fault the Dwarf had shown up at the bottom of the deep at just the wrong time, but that didn’t make her feel any better. Maybe Mims and her mother were right. Maybe she really wasn’t old enough to handle so much magic, or the responsibility that came with it.
“I know it feels like it was your fault,” said Mims more kindly, “but it isn’t. Some day it might be, however. Especially after I leave.”
“You’re leaving?” cried Hubley in dismay. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’ve been here long enough. I’ve been watching your parents, and you, for years.”
Ferris’s forehead wrinkled. “You have? Since when? I never saw you until three days ago.”
“That’s because I kept out of the way. And I didn’t watch you nearly as much as I did Hubley and Reiffen. I wasn’t as worried about you.”
“I never saw you either,” accused Hubley.
“Yes, you did. I brought vegetables to castle Grangore now and then after your father shut you in. Not as often as I would have liked, or he and Mindrell would have gotten suspicious.”
“That was you?” Hubley tried, but couldn’t recall the goodwife’s face. Her father had never let her meet the woman, though she’d often watched longingly from the top of the Magicians’ Tower as the farmwife crossed the open meadow to the castle gate.
“Sometimes,” said Mims. “But I’ve been here long enough. I only came to do what I had to. Someday you’ll understand how difficult it is to stand by and watch horrible things happen to everyone you love. But you don’t know that yet, which is one of the reasons you shouldn’t have so much power. It takes a while, and a few mistakes, to know better than to try and interfere. You’re far too young for such horrible lessons. When you need to learn them, I’ll come back. But, as you grow older, the temptation to fix an imperfect world will be too great. Much better for you to let me take that temptation away entirely.”
“So take it then.” Hubley prepared herself for a good long sulk. “Take my memories. Father used to do it all the time.”
“Hubley—” started her mother.
“I’m not your father, Hubley,” said Mims. “I won’t take them from you. You have to give them up yourself.”
“And if I don’t?”
Mims shrugged again, as if the matter was entirely out of her hands. Hubley tried to think of what she wanted more, to be a marvelous magician, or a child. What had happened in Dinnach a Dwvon and Vonn Kurr hadn’t been nearly as exciting as she’d expected. Mostly it had just been terrifying. And what if Findle’s fate really was her fault? What if someone else might have found a better way to rescue him if she hadn’t interfered?
“How many memories are you going to take?” she asked.
“All but this last year. That’s when things finally changed.”
“Will I get them back?”
“You’ll have them the whole time.” From behind her back Mims produced a large pink shell.
“Is that mine? The one father gave me on my last birthday?”
“Yes. I brought it from the castle.” Mims’s iron thimble glinted as she returned the gift.
The shell felt cool in Hubley’s hands, as if the warmth in the room had no effect on it. “It’s my best present ever.”
Mims nodded. “I know. That’s one of the reasons I brought it. But it’s not even close to being filled yet, so I thought we’d put your extra memories inside. That way you’ll always have them nearby.”
Hubley frowned. “But won’t that mean I’ll be able to get them back whenever I want?”
Mims shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not until you figure out how to open it, which you’re not going to be able to do for a long time. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t even know how to control the sounds yet, right?”
“Father said I had to figure it out myself.”
“Exactly. Just like you’re going to have to figure out how to get back your memories yourself, too.”
“So, you’re not taking me back to that cave with the mussels?”
“No.” Mims’s voice was calm and reassuring. “No mussels.”
“All right.” Hubley cradled the shell against her chest. “It’s not like I’m really losing them.”
“No, dear,” said her mother. “You’ll have them with you all the time.”
Telling Hubley to lie back on the bed and close her eyes, Mims slid forward till she was sitting beside her. Ferris held her daughter’s hand. Hubley felt the older woman kiss her once on the forehead, and place her fingertips gently on Hubley’s temples. The rest of the room drifted away.
Her mind wandered while she waited for the spell to start. She remembered the mandrake rising out of the darkness on black wings to spit tongues of fire at Issinlough, his long tail flicking in rage. She remembered the thump of Avender landing on the airship beside her and the cries of the sissit as he threw them over the side. She remembered the look on her father’s face, angry and impatient and hurt, before she ran away from him in the mussel cave.
The last time she’d ever seen him.
She almost leapt up then, almost refused to let the memories go. The years alone with her father were all she had left of him. Never again would they share another meal, another lesson, another spell. Never again would they share anything at all.
Only Mims’s assurance that she would get it all back kept Hubley in her place. Eyes squeezed tight to hold back her tears, she tried to remember everything she could, to hold on as long as possible to every minute she’d ever spent with him.
Her birthdays flew away. And the gifts her father had made for her: books that flapped their leaves like butterflies and hovered in the air, snapdragons that nipped at cats like snakes, fish that swam through the earth like scaled worms. Riveted by her father’s skill, she watched him as the long days faded. The autumn sun sank red behind Ivismundra’s bronze shoulder; the night darkened. The hollows in Hubley’s memory filled with quiet earth and settled back to stillness.
***
“We are here, Father.”
Brizen let go his son’s and Trier’s hands. The magician bowed slightly.
“I believe the guests are assembled outside, Your Majesty,” she said. “They have been lucky in getting especially fine weather for this time of year.”
“Thank you, Trier. You must be eager to see old friends.” Merannon waved his hand cheerfully toward the door. “I can help my father from here.”
The King’s Magician raised an eyebrow in a look that managed to be both stern and questioning at the same time. Brizen winced. Ever since Wellin’s passing, Trier had been assuming more and more the tone of his nursemaid rather than his adviser. Not that he could blame her.
“Very well,” she said. “I have brought you to the room of return, which is situated on the first level of the cellar. Follow the corridor to the right and you will come to the stairs.”
“We remember the way,” Merannon replied.
Bowing again, Trier left. Brizen and his son followed at their own pace. Now that he was older, the king found the shock of traveling to be much more tiring than in the past. Sometimes he wondered if his heart was likely to stop on one of these trips. Had anyone but Ferris asked him to do this, he would have refused. As it was, he had arrived out of breath and with his heart hammering.
“You brought the gift, Father?”
Brizen nodded and patted his chest pocket. Ribbons hung from his uniform and braid from his shoulders. Neither he nor Merannon had met with Hubley since she saved the prince’s life at the bottom of Vonn Kurr, so this was more than a social visit. Hubley was a hero now, as much as her father before her, and king and prince had come to pledge their thanks as well as their good wishes. So much he owed the child and her family. Still, no matter how much he had envied Reiffen’s fame when he was younger, Brizen had long since decided that limiting one’s opportunities for heroism was much the better path, at least judging from the way Reiffen’s life had played out. He and Ferris had lost so much.
They paused to rest on the middle of the stair. “You know, there was a time when I thought Hubley would be my heir,” said Brizen.
“It is a good thing Mother finally had me, then.”
“A very good thing. She would have been very proud of you.”
Merannon looked up, confused. Sometimes, when certain emotions played across his face, Merannon looked too much like his mother for Brizen to bear.
He missed her so much.
“How so, Father? I have done nothing. Had the magicians’ daughter not saved me, I would be dead now. There is hardly anything to be proud of in that.”
“No, but you did not hesitate. You and Findle went straight to the heart of the danger the moment you heard what had happened.”
“We had no choice. Not after what everyone told us when we docked at Grimble’s workshop. And Findle was quite confident he could handle the creature. All the same, I am glad Avender spotted us when he did.”
“All Wayland and Banking are glad.”
Arriving at the top of the stairs, they found themselves in the middle of a great commotion. The kitchen, as Brizen recalled. A woman he guessed was the cook was shouting, the scullions and potboys grinning at her behind their hands. Before Brizen could see what was happening, someone noticed him and announced, “The king!” Everyone stopped what they were doing and bowed. Brizen, long used to this sort of thing no matter how much he tried to stop it, waved his hands for them to rise.
A red-brown hill came forward. The Shaper. “There you are,” he said. His red tongue hunted for bits of apple pie in the vicinity of his nose. “Ferris sent me to greet you.”
“She most certainly did not!” The cook’s livid face appeared behind Redburr’s giant haunch. “I told Ferris I’d quit if you set foot in my kitchen ever again, and so help me that’s just what I’m going to do!”
Untying the strings, the irate woman hurled her apron to the ground and stamped out. The bear ignored her. Instead he eyed the several undercooks she’d left behind.
“Who’s in charge now?”
Fingers pointed at an unfortunate young man, who shook his head vigorously. Redburr bared his yellow teeth.
“All right, Barks. They need more cake and beer at the party. Especially beer.”
“Y-yes, Redburr.” The new cook pulled at the neck of his apron, as if he had thoughts of quitting too. “R-right away.”
“Come on, then.”
Wagging his shaggy head for the king and his son to follow, the Shaper headed outside. Brizen leaned carefully on Merannon’s arm and did his best not to slip on the pie-covered floor.
“Is it true?” Merannon asked the Shaper when they were out in the sharp sunlight. “Has Hubley forgotten everything?”
“No. Only the parts she didn’t need. Don’t make the mistake of thinking she doesn’t remember anything from the last few days. She knows she’s a hero, and she’s reveling in it.”
Rounding the tower, the small party ambled down the stone path toward the lake. Even on a dull autumn day, Brizen told himself, Valing was the most beautiful place in the world. Solitary pines soared high above the ridgeline like slender giants. Sailboats cut the dark blue lake like the tips of gleaming knives.
“How is she feeling?” he asked.
The bear snuffled an acorn off the path. “About as good as can be expected, with that belly wound Ferris gave her taking out her Stone.”
“And are the other rumors true, that you have all been aided by some mysterious magician whom no one has ever heard of before?”
The bear nodded his massive head. “That’s what they tell me.”
“Is she here?”
“Not yet. But she’s supposed to come soon.”
The path emerged into a meadow but, instead of following the trail to the edge of the cliff and down the steps to the dock below, Redburr led them toward the sunny northern edge. What Brizen’s old eyes had first thought to be a cluster of sheep turned out to be the party. The iron chairs and tables usually set out in the tower garden had been shifted to the edge of the lake. Guests milled around them, plates of cake and glasses of beer in their hands, mostly local folk whom Brizen didn’t recognize. And there were children, too, which surprised him. Except for Wilbrim, few children had ever attended Hubley’s birthday parties.
As it had in the kitchen, the noise stopped at the sight of the prince and king. Everyone bowed, at which point Brizen spotted Baroness Backford waving her cane at him from a seat close beside Hubley’s. Her son stood behind the child’s chair like a courtier, holding her plate. Hubley waved also from the middle of a chair stuffed with pillows and blankets, her grandmother at her side. Though the child tried to stand as Brizen approached, Giserre gently pushed her down.
“Grandmother,” she scolded as Brizen and Merannon joined them. “I’m not an invalid.”
“You may stand.” Ferris appeared with glasses for her royal guests. “But no curtsying. Those bandages Grandmother put on you this morning will tear.”
Ferris offered Brizen her hand. He kissed it gallantly.
“Your Highness,” she said. “Merannon. Welcome to Tower Dale.”
“It is our honor to be here,” Brizen answered. “As has happened so often before, we are in your debt.”
Ferris dismissed his gratitude with a wave. “You know perfectly well, if we ever got down to counting, the ledger would be full on either side. Are you already forgetting how Merannon rescued Hubley first?”
The prince inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment. “Actually, milady, Findle and I failed. It was Avender who rescued your daughter at the Bavadar Lamp. Without his daring leap, the sissit would have kept their prize.”
“Really, Merannon,” Ferris laughed. “Sometimes you’re too much like your father. Your mother, on the other hand, knew better than anyone the right time and place to toot her own horn.”
“It is why we loved her,” said Brizen.
“Really?” said Durk. The king noticed the stone had a prominent place among Hubley’s pillows, a large pink seashell nearby. “I thought it was because she was so beautiful. I never saw her myself, of course, but everyone always said so. Queen Loellin’s mother was quite the beauty in her day, too. Have I ever told you the story of how we met once? She wasn’t married to King Grinnis yet—”
Hubley covered the stone with another cushion. Muffled protests sounded from underneath the embroidery and down.
“You’re just in time for the games,” she said, sliding carefully off her chair. “We’re going to start with Pin-the-leaf.”
“Will you permit Merannon and me to present you with our gift first?” inquired the king.
Hubley’s eyes lit up. “Another present?”
“Do not be greedy, Hubley,” said Giserre.
The other guests clustered around, especially the children, all of them eager to see what a king’s gift looked like. Hubley accepted the small box Brizen offered her with a swift thank you, then tore off the wrapping with nimble fingers. Inside she found a fish-shaped brooch with chipped tourmalines for scales and small, topaz eyes.
“It was Wellin’s,” said the king. “She wore it when she was ten, I think.”
Hubley held out the brooch so Brizen could pin it on her dress. The nearer guests oohed and ahhed as the child showed it off.
Proudly wearing her latest present, Hubley led the party on to the games. Brizen was disappointed there was to be no magic; he had always loved the displays at Castle Grangore, rockets exploding and impossible animals cavorting around the garden. There had been something with talking cats, once, he recalled. But he understood why that particular tradition had been abandoned, at least this year. The magical displays had always been more Reiffen’s gift than Ferris’s.
It did not take much to cajole him into the game. Giserre tied the blindfold around his face, but only Hubley was bold enough to spin him. The other children looked on in awe. He shuffled unevenly on his feet, dizzy after a single turn. Taking pity on his age, Hubley led him to the large beech they were using as a target. Tears started behind the light cloth binding his eyes as he remembered playing this game with Merannon years ago. For all Wellin’s faults, he had been fortunate to share her life.
“Not there, Your Majesty.” Hubley laughed from close beside Brizen’s hand. “You’ll trip over the chair. This way.”
Fingers fumbling along the bark, he fastened his leaf to the tree. The other guests clapped and cheered. Lifting his blindfold, he discovered he had pinned his token far around the side of the trunk from the robin’s nest that marked the target. But others had placed their leaves farther away than his. For an honorary grandfather he had not done badly at all.
Hubley’s turn was next. He bound the handkerchief securely around her face, peering with weak eyes to make sure the knot was tight. The children darted in to spin her around many more times than she had spun him but, even with no one helping, she pinned her leaf directly on the nest. Laughter followed, and good-natured teasing.
“Cheat!”
“She used magic!”
“His Majesty didn’t tie the blindfold tight enough!”
Then Hubley tugged the handkerchief off her head and pulled on the edges to show it had been knotted securely, and her new friends accused her even more loudly of having used magic. And more cake was served, and Ferris brought out a jug of cider, and the king, exhausted by the hue and cry, settled wearily into an iron chair beside Giserre, Merannon attentive at his side.
Now that he was close enough to get a good look at her, Brizen thought Giserre had aged since the last time he had seen her, her stern, dark beauty finally gone.
Hubley raced back to them, almost knocking the glass from Brizen’s hand.
“Mims and Avender are here!” she cried.
The king looked where the child pointed as she dashed away one more time. A stout woman was approaching across the meadow, accompanied by a limping man.
“Here comes the real hero in all this,” said Merannon. “I look forward greatly to hearing his tale.”
“Yes, we all have a lot to thank him for.” Brizen placed a fond hand on his son’s arm.
As the two figures came closer, the king saw the woman wasn’t so old as he or Giserre, though she was old enough to have hair as gray as theirs. Looking more like a goodwife than a magician, she stumped her way forward. Hubley danced at her and Avender’s hands.
Beside him, Giserre gasped.
“My goodness,” she said. “It’s Spit.”