Morning came quickly and the paved path continued through the forest. Konrad insisted on walking. I countered with a slow pace. He laughed and matched my pace.
Hours passed to the clopping rhythm of the two horses and the lighter tread of our boots. The easy path, sunshine, and birdsong lulled me. It seemed to lull all of us. Peter dozed in Demuth’s pocket. Demuth had a far-off look. Even Konrad walked in silence, though he’d long since replaced my slow pace with a mile-eating long stride.
“Konrad,” I said. “I’m worried about this path. It seems too safe. What do you think?”
“Mostly nonsense.”
I stopped and turned. “What?”
“You asked what I think? Mostly nonsense, with a bit of hopeful wishing mixed in.”
“Wishful thinking won’t keep us safe. We need to be aware.”
He flicked a knife from his belt. It skewered a falling leaf against an oak trunk. “I am aware.” He retrieved the quivering blade from the trunk. “But I also won’t spend my energy on worrying when I should be spending it on healing.”
“Do you need to rest?” I asked. “You shouldn’t have been walking this long.”
Konrad held up his hand and laughed. “This pleasant walk is good for healing, and not nearly as jostling on my wounds. But do you know what is one of the best balms for healing?”
I shook my head.
“Laughter.”
“Is that your answer to everything?”
He pulled out three knives and began to juggle them. “Laughter is like the rhythm that keeps these blades in a smooth cycle. Without that rhythm I’d slice my hand, or worse.”
“So you laugh, instead of worry?”
“Not instead, but beside it. And beside despair, anger, and any number of soul-slicing emotions. I still have to juggle those emotions, but laughter keeps me from being injured by them.”
“You feel all those other emotions?”
He added a fourth knife to the spinning circle. “Daily.”
“And what happens when those emotions become too much or too many?”
He added his last two knives, tossing and catching them as he walked along. “Then I get cut, and I try to be more careful the next time.” He caught each knife and slipped them back into his belt.
“How did you get to be so wise?”
He lightly tugged the belled cap that I still wore over the short bristles of my growing hair. It jangled. “By being a fool.”
“And I suppose you were born with this skill?”
“No. I’ll teach you now; the only cost is a laugh a day.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Even if I wanted to, I do not laugh on command.”
“I’ll accept late payment. You already used one of the secrets of the fool when we faced the owl’s riddles. You asked, ‘If you ate a friend, would it kill you?’”
I grimaced.
The back of Konrad’s hand brushed against mine. “It was a good question. A fool must never ignore a possibility, no matter how ridiculous it seems.”
I glanced at Demuth, and whispered, “So the possibility that Demuth is falling in love with a toad?”
“That is not as ridiculous as you’d think,” he whispered back. “Peter is a good man.”
“I know. I wish—”
“We’ll find a way for them, too.”
Demuth glanced at us, as if realizing we spoke of them.
I coughed and pushed one of the cap’s bells from my face. “Lesson two?”
“Watch for distracting information and use it to your advantage. The owl distracted us with many details about the lava trap and the tools we had. But Demuth noticed the wording that showed the sure escape. Semantics, and the multiple meanings of a word, are oft-used tools in foolery. For example, ‘What loses its head in the morning and gets it back at night?’”
I scratched my scalp beneath the belled cap. I’d picked up one of Konrad’s mannerisms. “A wraith or other undead?”
“Think semantics. Is there another way to look at it?”
“Dandelion? It loses its seed head to the wind and then grows a new one.”
He nodded. “You are expanding your thinking.”
“But it’s not right?”
“Where is your head at night?”
“On my shoulders.”
“Thankfully, yes. And where else?”
“In dreams.”
“And?”
I grimaced again. “On the hard ground.”
“And when you were in the palace?”
My thoughts drifted to soft mattresses, down comforters, and pillows—clean sheets smooth against my skin and a plump pillow cradling my head. Head, pillow, night. I snorted. “When I lie down, my pillow gains a head, and when I rise, it loses it.”
“Well noticed.”
We walked again in silence. The path turned onto a low stone bridge spanning a burbling stream. Beyond it, the forest turned into an orchard. Cherries hung in bright clusters from each branch.
Demuth glanced upward. “We should stop to eat, and fresh fruit will be good to add to our meal.” She reached for a cluster.
“Wait, Demuth!” Konrad caught her hand.
“They’re not poisonous. These are common cherries.”
“But they may be magical,” Konrad said. “Peter, are they safe?”
Peter poked his head from Demuth’s pocket. After a moment he gave a short croak. “They aren’t magical, but he is.”
“Who?” I looked along the path and around at the trees, but couldn’t see anyone.
“He’s up in the tree,” said Peter. “Over on the right. See his red leggings.”
At the far end of the orchard, bright red leggings showed along the lower branches of a tree. Singing carried faintly back to us.
“Is he safe?” I asked.
“He feels harmless.”
“Good, because the path takes us past him.”
Demuth and Peter swapped places, and the two men walked down the path, while I trailed behind, guiding the horses and carrying Demuth in my pocket.
The singing became clearer. Bits of leaves and twigs fell from the tree.
A cherry a gold piece,
a bushel a copper.
An orchard for a song.
I am the keeper,
The mud and branch leaper.
No bird will stay too long.
“He sounds insane,” I murmured.
“Crazy as a loon,” Peter said.
The red leggings leaped down. A small man dressed all in red and with a cowled cap landed in front of us. He held large shears. “Crazy, you said? You be right. I’m crazy about cherries. But it be a difficult job to be evening their shadows.”
“Why do you want to even their shadows?” asked Peter.
“Why, to watch out for thieving crows and robber robins. My master don’t like his fruit being stolen.” He blanched. “He’s fae cold about theft. If the trees’ shadows be all even, then I’ll see the birds.”
I shuddered. He was another of the sorcerer’s servants. What test would we have to pass with him?
“But won’t the shadows change as the sun moves?” asked Peter.
He stomped his foot. “So that’s how they are doing it. Just waiting for the shadows to move. But I’ll catch them. I’ll trim the trees so I can see their shadow no matter what way the sun shines.”
Would we have to help him solve his insane problem? Trimming the trees so he could see the bird’s shadows was as challenging a riddle as any the owl gave. Maybe we could give a different solution. “Could you get a dog to bark at them?” I asked.
“No, no.” He shook his head. “I must be evening the shadows. That is the only way. I’m crazy about cherries, you know.”
“Can we help you?” Demuth said from my pocket.
He peered at us and smiled. “A talking toad. Toads don’t eat cherries. Welcome, welcome. I thank you for your offer, but you have no hands, and I only have one shears. Thank you. Now I must be back to evening the shadows.” He climbed back into the tree and began to sing as the shears snipped.
“We’ll leave him and his cherries alone,” Konrad said.
“Don’t we have to help him?” I asked.
“Sometimes the best help is to accept someone's refusal for help.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shrugged. “Will you trust me on this?”
I nodded, and we followed the path out the other side of the orchard. Maybe that test was to leave him to his insanity. Maybe.
* * *
Five days we traveled the paved path from early morning until the last of the evening died to darkness. We met no one else. Each night, by the flickering fire, Demuth checked Konrad’s wounds until she proclaimed them healed, with no chance of reinfection.
Each day, Konrad taught me more about being a fool, from unraveling riddles, to looking beyond the expected, to finding the connecting points in contradictions.
“Life is a paradox,” Konrad said, as we walked side by side along the tree-shaded path. “The scientists try to order each thing into categories, and thus to define all with sweeping generalizations. All cats have long tails, soft fur, and distrust water. Except when they don’t. Some cats have no tails, others have no fur, and still others love swimming. The very categories meant to help us understand, limit us from seeing what doesn’t fit.”
“But without taxonomy, everything would be a confusion,” I retorted. “It gives a framework.”
He tilted his head. “True, and much good has come of that framework. But much blindness as well.”
“How do you organize life?” I asked.
“By seeing individual creatures, things, and most of all, people, as uniquely themselves. That a man or woman can be many things at once. Even conflicting things. A gentle-natured man can be a butcher. A scholar can have a violent temper.”
“Or the fool can be wise.”
He laughed. “Seeing paradoxes and allowing that something may be many things at once is one key to wisdom.”
“Are there others?”
“Many. When we faced the owl, you found safety in creating an incompatible statement. You gave an answer to his death riddle that invalidated both possibilities. As court fool, I’ve created incompatible statements to guide the king into seeing a better path than the one he pursued.”
“When is one time you did this?” I asked.
He grimaced. “Do you remember when the king was angered by a cousin who plotted against him? He proclaimed that cousins could not be trusted, and all the cousins in the kingdom would be stripped of their titles and ranks.
“I stood beside the scribe who wrote down the edict and as he drew to the end, I said, ‘Be sure to add that King Ludewig is stripped of his title and rank.’
“The king bellowed at me, but I explained, ‘All cousins, as you have proclaimed, and if your cousin is cousin to you, then you are cousin to him.’
“The king laughed, and ordered the edict to be torn up, and instead punished only the one man who’d committed treason.”
I did remember. Though I hadn’t realized what he was doing at the time. I’d thought him the silly fool who’d made my father laugh and unknowingly had distracted him from a foolish edict. But Konrad had much more thought behind it.
“I see,” I said. We walked in thoughtful silence. “Will you give me another riddle? I’m getting better at unraveling them.”
He rested his chin on his fingers, then his amber eyes lit. “I’ll give you three. Demuth, you know these, so no hints.”
“I’ll not tell.” Her voice filled with delight.
“What grows larger the more you take away?” Konrad asked.
It sounded like an impossibility. But so did adding something to a barrel to make it lighter. I needed to look at it differently. What grew larger the more you took away? I walked musing as Konrad, Demuth, and Peter talked about other things. If you took away food, hunger would grow. Took away money in taxes, a serf’s debt could get bigger. That fit the riddle. “Debt grows larger the more you take a person’s money in taxes.”
Konrad raised his brows. “An excellent and unexpected answer.”
“It’s not right?”
“It is very right. And fitting to come from one who will determine those taxes.”
“What was your answer?”
“A hole.”
I laughed. It was such a simple answer.
“Second riddle,” said Konrad.
“Oh, don’t say it that way,” muttered Peter. “It brings back bad memories of an owl.”
“Fair enough. Mary’s mother had four children: April, May, and June were the first three. What’s the name of the fourth?”
I laughed again. This time I knew. “You are using distracting information and categories. By the month names I should say July. But it isn’t. It’s Mary.”
“You are learning. Are you ready for the last?”
I smiled. I was learning, and perhaps I’d get this last one as quickly.
Konrad’s face turned serious. “You are in a stone room with no windows or doors. The only openings are three one-by-six-inch slits in the ceiling to let in air. The only thing you have is a mirror and piece of wood. How do you get out?”
Mirror and a piece of wood. I needed more information. There had to be hidden hints. “How thick are the stone walls? Is the floor also stone?
“A foot thick. The floor is stone.”
“What shape is the wood?”
“A hand span by a hand span by two hand spans.”
“Any sharp points?”
He shook his head.
A blunt piece of wood and a mirror. Even if I broke the mirror, would the glass be sharp enough to dig away at the mortar between the stones? “Is the wall mortared or stone set smooth on stone?”
“Squared stones set flush to each other without mortar.”
“I could hammer at the stones with wood. If I could remove at least one stone, then I could remove others much more easily.”
He inclined his head. “Each stone is a one-foot cube, weighing one hundred seventy-five pounds.”
“I wouldn’t be able to hammer it with a piece of wood. The glass won’t help.” I bit my lip and puzzled as we walked along. When we stopped for lunch I shrugged. “Konrad, I can’t see any way to get out with the specifications you gave.”
“See is part of the answer.”
“I can’t think in riddles anymore. Just tell me the answer.”
He nodded. “You look in the mirror and see what you saw, take the saw and cut the piece of wood in half. Put the two halves together to make a whole, then just crawl out through the hole.”
“That’s not a fair riddle!” I cried. “The answer is impossible.”
“The impossible is sometimes an answer.”
I snorted. “I like your other riddles better.”
“To be wise as a fool, you must be flexible to think even in the impossible and the ridiculous.”
“I’ll leave the fooling to you.”
“For today at least.” He handed me a piece of dried meat. “We’ll have another lesson tomorrow.”
“If tomorrow we don’t reach the stone horse.”
* * *
We reached the stone horse three days later, in the early morning. It stood beside a moss-covered cottage, and was about as big and mossy as the cottage. The horse stood on three legs and raised the fourth, as if ready to step from its rocky confines.
An old woman rocked in a chair by the front door. Wrinkles folded over wrinkles, so her whole face was like a shriveled apple. “Welcome. Have you come to feed my horse?” Her voice crackled like dry leaves.
“We are journeying to find the sorcerer’s heart,” Konrad said.
She rose from her chair. She was tiny, only coming up to my shoulder. Her face creased into a frown. “Most often they come for magic and power, and pay with their hearts. But you come to retrieve a heart?”
I shuddered. Who would ever sell their heart, even for magic and power? But that must have been what Johannes did.
“Yes, to retrieve a heart,” Konrad said. “And we will not sell our own.”
Her frown deepened. “If you are determined to go, then you must feed my horse to cross the flames and ice.”
“How do we feed it?” I asked.
She turned to me. “One of you must knock out your front two teeth and place them in his mouth. You may take your time to decide.”
We huddled together.
“Do you think it is another riddle?” I asked. “One where teeth represent something other than our teeth? Perhaps it means two ideas? Two biting riddles? Two—”
The old woman cut in. “It means teeth. No riddle.”
We let out a collective sigh.
“It would be easier if it was hair. That grows back,” said Demuth. “I haven’t given anything up yet on this journey. I’ll give my teeth.”
“No,” I said. “Maybe we could knock out the front teeth of one of the horses.”
“Human teeth,” said the woman.
“It was a good idea,” Konrad said. “This part of the path requires sacrifice. I’ll—”
“I’ll give my front teeth,” Peter said from Demuth’s pocket. “I don’t use them as a toad.”
We looked at him.
“He has a good point,” I said.
Demuth rubbed her finger along the top of his head. “I don’t like it.”
“You wouldn’t like it for any of us to give up our teeth,” I said.
Demuth’s jaw trembled as she pulled Peter from her pocket. “Do you really want to do this?”
“No, but I will.”
“I’ll do it instead,” she insisted.
“Demuth.” Konrad laid a hand on her shoulder. “Let him sacrifice for you.”
After a long moment she nodded and tenderly kissed Peter.
I turned my back as Konrad knocked out Peter’s front two teeth. His cry carried through my covered ears.
“It’s done,” Konrad said.
Peter stood holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Blood stained the white fabric. He blinked back tears.
The old woman nodded. “Very good. Now place them in the stone horse’s mouth.”
Konrad stood on the tips of his toes to reach the horse’s mouth. He placed the two teeth in it. The stones rippled, and the moss fell away. The horse lowered its leg and bent down its head. It tore up the grass.
“Peter,” Demuth said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Will it be easier if you are a toad again?”
He nodded and kissed her. His mouth still bled in toad form.
Demuth dabbed his thin lips with a damp cloth. “Thank you.”
“Quickly,” said the woman. “Mount the stone horse.”
“How can we mount it?” I asked. “The horse is taller than any of us.”
“Kneel,” said the woman.
The horse knelt, folding its stone legs beneath it. Konrad, Demuth, and I climbed on. The horse’s back was broad, but not too much to sit across. And it was plenty long for the three of us.
“But what about our supplies? Our food, our water, our blankets.” I asked.
“They’d burn. If you survive, you’ll reach your path’s end by nightfall.”
“Burn?” I said. “How are we to survive?”
“Though you will feel the pain of the fire, if you don’t make a sound through the flames, the fire will not injure you,” she said. “However, if you utter a word, or even cry out while in the flames, your protection will end, and you will burn to ash.” She took the reins of one of our horses. “I’ll keep your horses fed until you return.”
“What about the icy slope?” asked Konrad.
“Same rules. You will ride through a cold that will cause your bones to ache, but you must not speak or you will freeze solid.” She patted the stone horse on the rump.
The horse lurched to its feet, and the world swayed.
As we galloped away, the old woman called. Her voice carried like the echo of a distant storm.
Hearken.
Fruits of insanity.
Death twined.