A Princess of Landover

smiling so broadly that for a moment he assumed a frog-like visage. “Yes, yes.”

He put his hand firmly on his scribe’s thin shoulder. “You must find her, Cordstick.” His grip tightened and his eyes narrowed. “Before anyone else has a chance to.”

Cordstick nodded in agreement, shuddering inwardly at the other’s rather hideous smile. “As you wish, my Lord,” he managed before scurrying from the room.

LIBIRIS

It is not true that things are never as bad as they seem or that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence or that there is a silver lining inside every cloud. These are things we wish were true, but which are more often than not false hopes. So it was with little surprise that as Mistaya and her companions crested the final hill leading up to Libiris, she found all her fears of what awaited her fully realized.

“Oh, no,” she murmured, just softly enough that the others could not hear her, and swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat.

Libiris was like something out of a particularly nasty nightmare. It rose against the darkening horizon as if seeking to imitate Dracula’s castle: stonework all dingy and windswept, mortar cracked and in places crumbling, windows mostly dark and shuttered, and parapets spiked with iron lance heads and lined with razor wire. Towers soared skyward as if seeking to puncture holes in the heavens, and the heavy ironbound wooden doors facing toward her were locked and barred in a way that left no room for doubt about how visitors could expect to be greeted. If this building was intended as a library, she thought, the builders had a peculiar way of showing it. Libiris had the look of something that had been built with the intention of keeping people out, not letting them in.

Things didn’t look much better as Mistaya shifted her horrified gaze away from its rugged walls, which oddly enough cast shadows in all directions, a phenomenon she would not have believed possible. Woods surrounded Libiris, dark and deep and unfriendly, the trees leafless and skeletal, the limbs withered, and the forest floor littered with deadwood and bones. She had to look twice and carefully to be certain of this last, but bones there were, some collected in small piles, as if gathered by the wind like leaves. Spiky plants and thorny brush filled in the gaps between cracked and blackened trunks, and the smells were not of fresh greenery but of decay and mold.

It all looked, she thought suddenly, as Sterling Silver had been described to her when under the sway of the tarnish upon her father’s arrival years earlier. How odd.

“Let’s go home,” Poggwydd said at once and backed away.

She was half inclined to take him up on his suggestion. But instead she turned to Edgewood Dirk, who was sitting calmly next to her, washing his paws. “Is this really it?”

“Yes, it is.” The emerald eyes gleamed as they found hers. “Might you be thinking of taking the G’home Gnome up on his offer?”

She frowned. They could talk like this comfortably now because her irritating companions would no longer come near the cat. Neither Poggwydd nor Shoopdiesel approached within a dozen yards after the events of last night. Apparently overcome by either greed or hunger, they had attempted to lay hands on Dirk, probably with the intention of parting him from his skin. The effort had failed miserably. She still wasn’t sure what had happened, since she had been asleep at the time. A flash of light had awoken her in time to watch both Gnomes run screaming into the night. Today, returned from wherever they had fled to, their fingers burned and their faces blackened, they had made it a point to stay well clear of Edgewood Dirk.

“If I were to leave and go elsewhere, would you come with me?” she asked anxiously.

“No, I would not. I have business here that I must attend to.”

“Business? What sort of business?”

“That is for me to know.” Dirk’s voice tone was insulting. “A cat never discusses his business with humans, not even Princesses. A cat never explains and never apologizes. A cat never alibis. You must accept a cat as it is and for what it is and not expect more than the pleasure of its company. In this case, you must remain at Libiris if you wish to share mine.”

She didn’t care to remain at Libiris or to share the pleasure of his company, but she didn’t really have a choice if she wanted to remain hidden from her parents. If she left Dirk, she left also the concealment that being with him offered. Her father would be quick enough to find her if she acted precipitously.

“What did you do to the Gnomes last night?” she asked, changing the subject. She hesitated. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

The cat yawned. “I don’t mind. I gave them a small sample of what it means to lay hands on a Prism Cat. No one is allowed to do that.”