bring him to Karleah Kunzay because he knows her and doesn’t want to go to the castle.” Flinn waved his hand. “I can’t just leave Dayin here by himself!”
The dwarf said stubbornly, “Why not? He survived the last couple of winters just fine without you.”
“We’ve come this far, Braddoc,” Jo noted. She added sensibly, “It can’t be much farther.”
The dwarf looked uneasily from Jo to Flinn and then to Dayin. His eyes roamed the trees around him. “There’s something about… about this place that’s giving me the willies. The-the… trees want us to leave. Can’t you hear their whispers?” Braddoc’s voice cracked, and Jo looked at Flinn in sudden alarm.
The warrior moved next to Braddoc and gripped the dwarf’s arm. “Braddoc!” he said in a low, authoritative voice. “Calm yourself! The whispers-”
“There’re so many, so many!” Braddoc’s eyes darted to the woods again.
Flinn slapped the dwarf. “The whispers are just Karleah’s wards trying to drive you away! She doesn’t like dwarves, but fight against the charm and it’ll stop.”
Braddoc’s eyes dimmed, and he tugged nervously at his beard. The dwarf coughed suddenly and looked up at Flinn, his eyes clearer. His expression was grim. “I knew there was a reason why I hate wizards.” He laughed wryly, and the others joined in.
“Flinn,” Jo asked when the laughter subsided, “how did you know about the ward against dwarves?” She spurred her horse next to Flinn’s griffon. They continued slowly down to the center of the snow-filled valley. The cold wind was dying down.
Flinn found his thoughts slipping nearly fifteen years into the past as he told Jo, Dayin, and Braddoc the story of how he had met crazy Karleah Kunzay. He’d been recovering in the castle’s rose gardens one day after his battle with Verdilith when, unexpectedly, an old crone approached him. She was dressed in filthy rags and smelled of dust, and Flinn had sneezed three times during his greeting.
The old hag had come straight to the point. She told Flinn that she had dreamed of the battle between him and the dragon. On three nights afterward she’d had a dream of a second battle between them. In the first, Flinn had died while the dragon won. In the second, the reverse had occurred. In the third dream, both man and dragon died. Karleah told Flinn that, for a small fee, she would dream a fourth time and divine the true future for the next battle. Flinn laughed, handed the old woman a coin, and told her that he knew who would die: Verdilith.
Flinn chuckled as he relived the incident. “Although I saw Karleah Kunzay after that, she never did tell me if she’d had a fourth dream or not. And I never asked her,” Flinn finished his tale as they reached the valley floor.
“Why didn’t you ask?” Jo asked curiously. Dayin echoed the question. Braddoc was still eyeing the woods suspiciously and paid little attention to Flinn’s story.
The warrior shrugged. “I prefer not to know my fate.”
Flinn lapsed into silence, his thoughts returning to the strange wizardess.
Once, in the middle of the night, he had walked onto the parapets of the castle and found Karleah there. She told him she was settling in the hills northeast of the castle and that she wanted advice on how to protect her home. Flinn readily complied, telling her the kinds of defenses he would create. Snow that could conceal tracks after their creation had been one of his suggestions, and he was flattered she’d taken it.
Abruptly, as though he hadn’t interrupted his tale earlier, the warrior stated, “Unfortunately, word got out about Karleah’s ‘prophecy.’ First it was rumored that Verdilith would die.” Flinn shook his head. “People actually prayed for the dragon’s return so I could kill it.”
“When did the prophecy change?” Jo asked.
“After my fall from grace. People said then that I would die if I was to meet up with Verdilith. The same ones who prayed for the dragon’s return so I could kill it now prayed for its return so it could kill me.”
Suddenly the animals jerked to an abrupt halt. Ariac squealed and flapped his stubby wings, and Carsig and the ponies whinnied. Dayin and Jo were thrown from their mounts, while Flinn and Braddoc had to fight to keep their seats. Fernlover panicked, fell to his knees, and then was still. Flinn lightly heeled Ariac in the flanks. The griffon quivered and tried his best to take a step forward, but he couldn’t move. Flinn looked back at Jo, who was kneeling by Carsig and pushing the snow from the horse’s hoof.
“Can you see anything?” he asked the young woman. He and Braddoc were still mounted, and each had drawn his weapon. This defense of Karleah’s certainly seemed effective, thought Flinn.
Johauna dug out a large ring of snow from her horse’s foot and called out, “Carsig’s hobbled by vines, lots of them. There must be something growing underne-ohhh!” Jo’s cry cut through the air, and Flinn saw dark, shiny green vines snake up around her legs and arms. He could hear the sudden rustle of greenery moving beneath the blanket of snow, and he saw the top of the snow quiver. I applaud your defenses, Karleah Kunzay, Flinn thought.
“Jo!” he shouted. “Are you all right?” He turned sideways in the saddle and prepared to leap toward her.
“Y-yes,” Jo said, tugging on the vines. “I’m not hurt, but I sure can’t move. How about you, Dayin?”
The boy stood beside his pony. Dayin struggled to lift his left foot and then his right, but could not. He shook his head and answered, “I’m fine, but I can’t move, either.”
Braddoc called out, “Can you reach your knife and cut the weeds, Johauna?”
“Cut my pets and I’ll cut you off at your knees,” a querulous voice shouted from the spruces behind them. Flinn and the others whirled in that direction, but they could see nothing in the dense underbrush.
“Come out and show yourself!” Flinn challenged.
“And why should I?”
Flinn was startled. The second call had come from immediately behind him, in a grouping of large stones.
“I only want to speak to you. We wish you no harm-” Flinn began.
“Spare me the details. Everyone who goes through my valley wishes me no harm. But they always do something, like cut my vines.” This time the voice came from behind Braddoc.
“We were only going to cut the vines because they trapped us,” Flinn said crossly. “If you will make the vines release us, we’ll harm nothing in your valley, Karleah Kunzay.”
“Humph,” said the voice again, only this time it came from a body. The wizardess stood halfway between Flinn and Johauna.
Karleah Kunzay looked exactly as Flinn had remembered her: a wizened old woman, so ancient her body was nothing more than dry leather over bones. She had bowed shoulders, lank gray hair, and an ashen face creased with myriad wrinkles. She wore gray sackcloth ornamented with gray basswood twigs. Thin green vines held the dress together. A faint, shimmering aura surrounded her, blurring the outline of her body. She carried a rough wooden staff, which she now leaned against for support.
“Humph,” the ancient woman said again. “So you know my name, which is more than I can say for most, but knowing my name doesn’t mean you’ll not attack my pets. Without assurances, why should I let you go?”
Flinn sighed, realizing she had forgotten their acquaintance. “Because I’m-”
“Because it’s vail vine,” Dayin interjected suddenly, and all eyes turned to him, “and it won’t hurt us if we give it a few coins to buy passage over it.” The boy smiled sweetly.
The old woman’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline, and she harrumphed a third time. She pushed her staff before her, and the blanket of snow parted just enough for her to pass through it; it closed immediately after her. She walked stiffly over to Dayin. She was very short, standing only slightly taller than the boy before her. She reached out with a bony finger and jabbed Dayin in the chest.
“I know you,” she said crisply. “Follow me.” The ancient wizardess tapped the boy’s feet and turned around. She began walking back the way she had come, Dayin studiously following her.
Next to Flinn the woman stopped and peered up at the still-mounted warrior. “Seems like I know you, too.” Karleah looked Flinn up and down and then smiled a large, toothy grin. Her teeth, though crooked, were extraordinarily white. “Yes, I remember you. You fought a green dragon once; I saw it in a dream. You can come, too. The others will have to stay where they are, or they can pay the toll and make camp outside my valley. The vail vine needs to be fed, you know.” She turned and began moving leisurely away.
Dayin looked up at Flinn and whispered, “Throw down a coin for Jo and one for each animal, too, or the vine won’t let them go.” The boy scurried after the old wizardess.
Flinn pulled out six silvers from his purse, throwing one in front of the animals and another at Jo’s feet. A distinct slithering noise followed and Jo hurriedly mounted up on her horse. “You and Braddoc make camp where we
