him. Now farewell. Take care to remember my warning.”
Huge wings flapping with enough force to knock her sprawling, Strabo rose into the sky and soared away, flying east until he was little more than a dwindling black speck against the horizon. Mistaya stared after him, aware of how close she had come to finding out a whole lot more about dragon breath than she cared to.
“Although that was pretty show-offy,” she mumbled as she rose and brushed dirt from her pants.
A sudden movement to one side startled her, and she gave a small cry of delight as a familiar face poked out through a thatch of berry bushes and a pair of soulful eyes gazed up at her. “Haltwhistle!” she cried. “You did come!”
She started to rush over to throw her arms around him in greeting before remembering that you couldn’t touch a mud puppy, and so she settled for dropping down on one knee and blowing him a big kiss.
“I’m so glad to see you!” she said.
The mud puppy gazed back at her with his soulful brown eyes, and his strange lizard tail wagged gently. Mud puppies were among the strangest of all creatures in Landover, and that was saying something. His elongated body, colored with patches of brown hair, sat atop four short legs that ended in splayed, webbed feet. He had a face that was vaguely suggestive of a rodent, long floppy dog’s ears, and that weird reptilian tail. He looked as if he had been put together with spare parts, but he was so ugly he was actually cute. Haltwhistle had been a gift from the Earth Mother, her own mother’s spirit protector and self-appointed guardian, who had anticipated that Mistaya would have need of the magic that a mud puppy possessed.
As it turned out, all of her family and friends had ended up needing the mud puppy to keep them safe.
Haltwhistle sat back on his haunches and regarded her soberly, his tongue licking out briefly in greeting. “I knew you would be here,” she told him, even though she hadn’t really known that at all. “Good old Haltwhistle.”
She patted her thigh to signal for him to follow and set out anew. The appearance of the mud puppy further buoyed her spirits, and she was beginning to feel like everything was going to work out. Her father, while stubborn, was not an unreasonable man. He would listen, weigh, and evaluate arguments carefully. That was what made him such a good King. He didn’t just decide and put an end to discussion. He took his time, and he wasn’t afraid to admit when he was wrong If she argued strongly enough, he would come to see that he was wrong here. He would accept that she belonged in Landover and not in some other world and agree to give up the Carrington experiment as a failed cause.
She marched along briskly, anxious to get back to the castle and begin making her case. Haltwhistle, for all that he looked incapable of moving much faster than a turtle, kept up with no trouble. She loved this little animal, and she determined never to leave him again. She would keep him with her always, close by, her constant companion. All she needed to do was speak his name once each day, even if she couldn’t see him and didn’t know where he was. That was what the Earth Mother had told her when she had given her Haltwhistle, and that was what she knew she must do. She hadn’t needed to do so while she was in her father’s world, but she had done so anyway just because she missed him so much.
She whistled a bit as she walked, a poor effort since she had never learned properly, and after a bit gave it up for singing. One of Landover’s eight moons, the mauve one, hung low in the sky east, pale and ephemeral against the blue, and she sang to it in greeting. The peach moon hadn’t risen yet, but when it did she would sing a song to it, too. Swatches of bright color spread across the valley, fields of grasses and flowers that bloomed in every color of the rainbow. Groves of fruit trees dotted the landscape, their smells carrying on the wind. She breathed them in, and suddenly she was very hungry.
Ahead, just visible now, was Sterling Silver, her ramparts rising in bright reflective shapes from the island on which she sat. She gleamed her greeting, so Mistaya sang a song for her, too.
She broke a branch from one of the Bonnie Blues as she passed by a small grove at the edge of the valley floor, stripped off the leaves, and began to munch on them eagerly. The Blues were the staple of sustenance for Landover’s human occupants. They were trees formed thousands of years ago of fairy magic, their leaves edible, their stalks the source of a liquid that tasted like milk. They grew everywhere and replenished themselves with dependable regularity. Any resident within walking distance was allowed a reasonable culling. Any traveler was welcome to partake.
“Want some, Haltwhistle?” she asked the mud puppy, even though she knew he didn’t. She just wanted him to know she would be willing to share.
She passed on across the grasslands, through a meadow of brilliant firestick, their stalks as red as blood; a field of regal crown, golden flowers on bright green stems; and a long, looping line of pink wisteria that channeled down a border fence for miles. Blue ponds appeared here and there, and silvery streams flowed down out of the higher elevations, a sparkling latticework as they crisscrossed the valley floor. It was all summery and cheerful, a promise of better things.
Though she wished that just once it would snow in
