A Princess of Landover

“We do what we must to survive, nothing more.” He sniffed with obvious indignation. “Most of the accusations of theft are baseless. Most are the product of overactive imaginations and willful resentments. When a G’home Gnome takes something that doesn’t belong to him—a rare occurrence, as you know—it is usually because there is no clear ownership discernible of the thing taken or because there is a starving, homeless child to be cared for by a parent trying to do the best he or she can. I, myself, have witnessed this on more than one occasion. But do our persecutors take this into consideration? Do they give one moment’s thought to those helpless children so in need of food and shelter? Sadly, no.”

“If you kept to your own territories—”

“We are citizens of the world, Princess,” Poggwydd interrupted her again. “We are nomadic travelers of all the parts of the land, and we cannot be confined to a single patch of ground. It would destroy us to do so. It would contradict and diminish centuries of Gnomic lives gone before, make mockery of all that we are, belittle our heritage—what little we have—a travesty of unparalleled proportions …”

And so on. And so forth.

She endured it stoically, all the while plotting his demise. If she could drop him into a pit, she would. If she could feed him to a hungry tiger flunk, she wouldn’t hesitate. She would welcome lockjaw in any form. She kept hoping that something would happen to cause him to turn back. But nothing suggested this was about to happen, as was apparent from his assurances between his endless tales of Gnomic persecution.

“But we are not like them, and so I shall stay at your side, Princess, and do what I can to see you through this trying time.” He puffed up a bit at this pronouncement. Apparently, he had forgotten his stand on the matter some hours earlier. “No danger, however dire, shall force me to leave you. We G’home Gnomes are a strong-hearted and determined people, as you shall see for yourself. We do not abandon or mistreat our friends. Unlike some I know. Why, not two weeks ago, there was a farmer with a pitchfork …”

And so on. And so forth.

They walked steadily through the moonlit night for several hours, traveling south out of Sterling Silver’s boundaries and into the wooded hills that fronted the lake country. All the while, Poggwydd talked and Mistaya gritted her teeth and tried not to listen. Even Haltwhistle, ever faithful, had disappeared from view, obviously not any happier with the irritating Gnome than she was. She tried turning her attention to her surroundings. The sky had been mostly clear at the beginning of their journey, but now it began to fill with clouds. Moon and stars disappeared behind their heavy screen, and the dry, warm air turned damp and cool. By midnight, it had begun to rain—lightly, at first, and then heavily.

Soon the young girl and the G’home Gnome were slogging through a downpour.

“I remember another storm like this, perhaps a couple of years back. Much worse than this one. Much.” Poggwydd would not give it up. “We walked for days, my friend Shoopdiesel and I, and the rain just kept falling on us as if it were tracking us for personal reasons. We huddled under old blankets, but it just seemed another instance of how everything works against you if you’re a G’home Gnome …”

Just shut up, Mistaya thought, but didn’t say. She wondered momentarily if magic might silence him, but she had resolved not to use magic of any sort on her journey to her grandfather unless she was absolutely forced to do so. Using magic was like turning on a great white light that everyone who had a connection with magic could see from miles away. She was trying to stay hidden, not broadcast her whereabouts, and there was no surer way of alerting her father.

So she couldn’t use it to do anything about Poggwydd or the rain and the cold, either, and she had to content herself with trying to ignore the Gnome and pulling the collar on her cloak a little tighter around her neck and choosing a path that kept her under the tree canopy as much as possible in an effort to deal with the weather.

Poggwydd, for his part, tramped along as if it were a sunny day, ignoring the rain as it streamed off his wizened face and leathery body, his lips moving in time to his feet in a steady, nonstop motion.

Such dedication, Mistaya thought irritably. If only he could apply half of that effort to avoiding all of his bad habits and irritating ways, he might manage to become at least reasonably tolerable.

At some point during the seemingly endless trek, she caught sight of the cat.

She wasn’t sure what drew her attention—a small movement or just a sense of something being there—but when she looked, there was this cat, walking along in the rain as if it were the most natural thing in the world. What a cat was doing in the middle of the forest in the midst of a rainstorm escaped her completely. It didn’t look feral or lost or even damp. It was slender and sleek, its fur a glistening silver save for black paws and a black face. It was wending its way through the trees, staying parallel to her, but keeping its distance. She waited for it to glance over, but it never did.

She looked away, and a few minutes later when she looked back, it wasn’t there.

Maybe she had imagined it, she thought. Maybe it was Haltwhistle she had seen, mistaking the mud puppy for a cat.