sighed.
'If you are a wizard, then you must help us. King tried to help me, but when the kidnappers went over the fence with Dauna, one threw pepper at him. Then…'
'Wait! Back to your drawing, boy.'
'My what?'
'You can't build a house without a drawing,' he said. 'And you can't crave a favor without an introduction.'
'Ohil'mJame.'
'And I'm Ambassador Carrague. Well met, young Jame.'
'Carrague! They said you died!' Father had read the obituary aloud from the Trumpeter, then griped about who would replace Carrague as city building inspector.
'Dead? Pish posh. Those fools couldn't tell the difference between a corpse and a handsaw. Merely sleeping! Good thing I woke before they'd boxed me up. Eh?' King nosed Carrague's leg impatiently.
'Ah, yes, yes. Dauna's been kidnapped, has she? Who is this Dauna?'
'Dauna's my sister. They tried to get me, too. But I was playing in the street, and King ran up barking when he saw them carrying her. That scared them off, but they held on to Dauna. King and I chased them.'
'Why would someone kidnap her?'
'We're rich,' I explained. 'They want my father's money.'
'Have your parents alerted the watch?'
'Father's returning from Sembia with silks and wine for sale. He won't be home for days. Mother died years ago. And Chesley-our steward-he doesn't believe anything I say! He thinks I'm just telling stories again. But King saw it all, and we nearly caught the kidnappers.'
'But now they've given you the slip, eh?'
'Yes,' I replied sadly. King growled in affirmation. 'If I'd been faster, I could have seen where they went. But by the time King got under the fence and I climbed over, they were gone. King couldn't find their trail with his nose full of pepper.'
'I daresay not. Even King has his limits.' King looked up defensively at Carrague. 'Now, now. There are just some things you're better built to do, King.' The terrier looked miserable.
'If King were a man, he could have climbed that fence in no time. Then we'd have saved Dauna.'
King's gaze turned to me, his red and weary eyes large and full wounded by my remark. His jaw dropped in a remarkably human expression of astonishment at a sudden attack from a friend.
'Oh, I didn't mean it that way, King. No man could have picked up their trail the way you did. You did the best you could, for a dog.' King crossed his front paws and laid his head down with a whimper. I knew I'd said the wrong thing again. Something about King made you feel he understood your words, not just your tone.
'You don't know King's secret, then. Do you, Jame?'
'I know he's the smartest dog in Raven's Bluff! Why, he's saved people from drowning, foiled robbers and killers, too, and…' Now that I thought about it, even the smartest dog in the world couldn't do half the things King did.
'Oh, all that's true enough. But it's only the facade. There's a deeper story underneath. King's foundation, as it were.'
'What's that?'
'Better to show you. That is, if King doesn't mind my telling his secret.' Carrague looked down, as if expecting an answer. 'It could be a way to help Jame's sister,' he prompted.
Lifting his head, King looked at each of us in turn. He sat up with an air of a judge deliberating on a man's life, his whiskered mouth thin and tight. Carrague returned the look, a bit of the caprice gone from his own gray face. They looked at each other a long time, 'the old dog and the old wizard. Then King made a very human nod.
'To my office, boys.' Carrague lifted his stick like a general directing his troops. 'To my office.'
The Ministry of Art — the home of the city's most powerful wizards — stood well down the road from the mayor's palace. 'Afraid we might blast a hole in the castle,' complained Carrague. 'Ridiculous notion. We're not mere apprentices. There's hardly ever an explosion.'
With this and other remarks, Carrague had me terrified of the place before we arrived. It looked grand, ornate, well guarded, and thoroughly daunting.
'Your office is here?'
'Yes, yes. They moved me here when they realized I hadn't died. But they gave my job away. Just like that!' He snapped his fingers. 'And that ridiculous gnome they hired! Ah! Ah!' The old man shook his walking stick, began to stumble, then caught himself with it once more.
Carrague gripped the railing as we ascended the marble steps. The guards let us past, though one gave me a questioning glance. King barked a friendly greeting, and the guard winked back. Everyone knew King.
Carrague rested a moment from the short ascent. Wizard or no, he was an old, old man. I wanted to offer help, but I feared he wouldn't like that.
A rich red carpet ran far down the hall, and colorful tapestries rose into the gloom of the high ceiling. We walked slowly past woven griffins and leviathans, unicorns and sprites, airships and painted soldiers-all fantastical things I'd never seen for myself. Can-ague barely noticed them, since he must have seen even more wondrous sights in his life. I caught myself gazing at them in awe and wist-fulness. Then I guiltily remembered our reason for being here.
'What are you going to do to rescue Datura?' I asked.
'Why nothing. It's King who'll rescue her. He's the hero. I'm the wizard. And you're the boy, so watch more and talk less.'
We had stopped by one of the many doors that lined the hall. Carrague's symbol marked the door. He spoke a word that I couldn't remember two seconds after he'd spoken it, and the door opened.
The whole world was stuffed into that office. I guessed you could search for months through there and find one of anything you'd ever want. I expected stuffed owls, unicorn horn and pixie wing in glass jars, bubbling beakers, and roiling cauldrons-and there was some of that there. But there were also feathered masks, jeweled statues, framed paintings, and enough furniture for ten houses. There stood the bust of a man I dimly recognized as a king across the Sea of Fallen Stars. From the ceiling hung a pair of thin wings on a wooden skeleton, and under a huge oak table moved something that kept just out of sight each time I stared at it. In a large glass globe swirled green seaweed, through which a tiny manlike figure peered at us. A parrot flew down from the window to light on King's back, until the terrier snapped at it and sent it flying back to its perch.
'Damn that woman anyway,' cursed Carrague. 'She's cleaned while I was away!' I looked at King, and he at me. Neither of us could see any signs of cleaning.
'I need the willow wand and the purple dust of Raurin,' He opened the drawers on a big desk that served as a laundry table rather than a writing board. 'No, no. That's not right. It's the yellow dust of the doppleganger we need.' He turned his attention to a cabinet. 'Here,' he said after six slams of the tiny drawers. He held up a small black pouch. 'The yellow dust.'
Carrague looked all around, then finally slapped a wand at his belt. 'Ah, had it with me all the time. Now to business.' King already sat in the one chair clear of any obstruction. 'Are you ready, old friend?'
King made that same human nod.
'Ready for what?' I asked. 'What are you going to do to him?'
'Undo to him. I will change him back to his original self.'
'His original self?'
'Rote learning is useful for clerks, my boy.' Carrague rapped the wand smartly on my hand. 'But we're dealing with wizardry here. Real magic. Don't repeat what I say.'
'What do you mean by King's original self?' I hoped the question was different enough to avoid another rapping, but I kept my hands behind my back just in case.
'Why, his self before he was turned into a dog.'
'Turned into a…' I stopped myself just in time. 'What was he before?' I looked at King carefully for a clue. His eyes were bright and intelligent, but so were those of many dogs. Could he be a dragon hiding as a dog? Or could he be…
