knew who Mistaya was. How could he not? Everyone who had even the smallest link to the royal court knew of the King’s only daughter. Her physical features were striking and hard to mistake. Her history was common knowledge. They knew what she looked like and they knew her history. Crabbit should have figured it out by now. If so, then why was he keeping it a secret from everyone, especially from Mistaya? This bothered Abernathy because he knew it meant that Crabbit was up to something.
Finally, he was troubled that Questor had managed to sneak in and out of Libiris without being caught. This was a terrible thing to admit, but he knew that the odds against the frequently inept wizard successfully bypassing the wardings and locks that the overlord of the library would have set in place were huge. Crabbit was too smart. Abernathy suspected that he had deliberately allowed Questor to come and go, and that meant, once again, that he was up to something.
So went the soft-coated wheaten terrier’s thinking.
He mulled matters over for an entire day before he finally came to the conclusion that he had to say something to someone.
The question was, To whom should he speak?
He did not want to alarm Ben and Willow; he needed his listener to have a clear head about what he was going to say. The depth of his concern for Mistaya’s safety suggested he should bypass the King and Queen. The kobolds, Bunion and Parsnip, were good choices, but their judgment in these matters was suspect. Bunion, in particular, would favor a full-fledged frontal assault on Libiris and her caregiver.
That left Questor Thews, but speaking to him openly might prove awkward—especially if Abernathy questioned his wizarding abilities.
But he decided to take his chances, and following breakfast on the second day after coming to his decision to speak up, he sought the other out. He found him in his workshop, cataloging chemicals and compounds in his logbook and humming absently to himself. Abernathy stood in the open doorway for several long minutes, waiting to be noticed. When it became obvious he might stand there the rest of the day, he knocked loudly to announce his presence and stepped through.
Questor looked up, clearly annoyed. “I am quite busy at present, so if you don’t mind …”
“But I do mind,” Abernathy interrupted quickly, “and unless you are on the verge of making a breakthrough in your efforts to find a way to turn me back into a man, perhaps you ought to listen to what I have to say. It concerns Mistaya.”
He sat himself down on a stool next to the wizard and proceeded to tell him everything. Well, almost everything. He chose to leave out the part about the suspicious ease of Questor’s entry and exit from Libiris and focus on the rest. Irritating the wizard probably wouldn’t do much to help his cause, whether what he had to say was valid or not.
“What are you suggesting we do?” the wizard asked when the other was finished. He pulled on his ragged white beard as if to free up an answer on his own. “Are we to try to persuade the High Lord that he should change his mind and go fetch Mistaya back?”
Abernathy shook his head, vaguely annoyed that the action caused his ears to flop about. “You promised the Princess that you would do the exact opposite. I think you should keep that promise. Sending the High Lord would only cause trouble for everyone. I think we should go instead, just you and me.”
“To have a closer look at things?”
“Without attempting to bring the Princess back home unless we encounter problems with Craswell Crabbit. Which I am almost certain we will. Call it intuition, but there’s something going on there that we don’t know about. Once we determine what it is, then we can decide whether or not to tell her she has to come home.”
Questor sighed. “I don’t fancy a trip back to that dreary place, but I see the wisdom in your thinking. Sometimes you quite amaze me, Abernathy. You really do.”
“For a dog, you mean.”
“For a court scribe, I mean.” Questor Thews stood up. “Let’s make something up to explain our absence and pack our things. We can leave right away.”
At about the same time that Abernathy and Questor Thews were deciding on a course of action, two ragged figures were trudging north along the western edges of the Greensward, bound for a home they didn’t particularly care to reach. Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel had been walking since early the previous day, when High Lord Ben Holiday had satisfied himself that they had told him everything they knew about the Princess and had released them with a stern warning to go home and not come back again anytime soon. The G’home Gnomes, used to much worse punishments, had considered themselves lucky to be let off so lightly. Shouldering the food and the extra clothing they had been given for the journey, they had set out with an air of mingled happiness and relief.
