“What is it saying?” Nora ventured to ask.
“I have no idea. I’m trying to lure it down. Then we’ll find out what this is about.”
The bird spent several minutes preening itself, burnishing its silver feathers. Finally, it flew down to alight on the table in front of Aruendiel. Now Nora noticed a small roll of paper tied to one of the bird’s legs with blue ribbon. Aruendiel’s long fingers pulled on the trailing end of the ribbon to free the paper. He picked it up and read it.
“Well, well,” he said reflectively. “Why didn’t you tell me that the magician Hirizjahkinis is in Semr?” he asked the messenger.
The messenger seemed flustered. “Yes, I believe the Lady Hirizjahkinis is currently a guest of His Majesty.”
“If he has Hirizjahkinis, why does he need me?” Aruendiel inquired, apparently of himself. “But she says I should be there, too. She says that I would want to be there. Merlin’s folly, she could have squeezed another line of explanation onto that paper.” He gave an exasperated sigh and crumpled the paper into a ball. For a moment, he stared into space, considering, and then he turned to the messenger. “All right, your master the king gets his wish. I’m going to Semr—at the invitation of the Lady Hirizjahkinis, not because he ordered me to come.”
“His Majesty will be very pleased.”
With a snort, Aruendiel turned to Nora. “You there, find Mrs. Toristel and tell her that I’m leaving. I’ll start today.” He gave her a hard, rather appraising look that she found unnerving. “And shoo this bird out of here, will you?” The silver bird had found a new perch on the railing of the gallery at the far end of the hall. “Otherwise it’s going to make a disgusting mess. Even magical birds leave their droppings everywhere.”
It was true, Nora saw, glancing at the floor.
In the end, it took both Nora and the castle tabby to get the silver bird out of the house, although that was precisely not the cat’s intention. It meowed angrily at Nora as the bird flew out the door and disappeared, bright as thought, into the sky.
Carefully Nora uncrumpled the tiny ball of paper that she had retrieved from the floor. A few lines in the undulating, enigmatic Ors script went up and down the page. The first word was easy—Aruendiel. Decoding the words one letter at a time, she laboriously found her way to the end of the note. “I know you’re going to say no to the king, so I’m telling you that you shouldn’t. Trust me, you don’t want to miss the excitement. I will see you in Semr. Soon, please.”
When she went back into the great hall, she found the magician talking to Mrs. Toristel near the kitchen door. There was a leather bag at Aruendiel’s feet, and he had changed his clothes: The rough linen shirt he had worn earlier had been replaced by a fine black wool tunic embroidered with gold thread; his cuffs and collar were freshly crisped into a myriad of minute pleats; and his boots looked almost new. Even his ragged black hair had been trimmed, and now fell in a neat curtain just above his shoulders. Perhaps because of the unusual finery, Nora thought his tall figure looked more angular and crooked than usual.
Mrs. Toristel was shaking her head, her arms folded. “No, sir,” she was saying, most uncharacteristically. “You cannot do that. Not after yesterday.”
“I don’t like to go, but something is up in Semr,” he said with an impatient exhalation. “I’ve put on a new spell of deep protection; the other safeguards are in place.”
“That’s not enough, sir.”
“I’m only going away for a few days at most. Perhaps I should make the valley invisi—”
“That’s all well and good, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is her.”
Nora realized two things: That Mrs. Toristel was talking about her, Nora, and that her entry into the hall had gone unnoticed. Aruendiel had his back half-turned, and he was blocking Mrs. Toristel’s view. In such a situation, Nora thought, one can be honorable or one can be practical. She stepped discreetly into the shadow of the great door.
“You won’t have to worry about her,” Aruendiel said. “She’ll be safely restrained while I’m away.”
Restrained? What did that mean—transformed into a donkey? Or a geranium? Nora debated whether to make a run for it right now, before Aruendiel or Mrs. Toristel noticed her.
But the housekeeper was shaking her head again. “No, sir, however well she’s hidden, and I know you’d hide her well, she’d still be here. She’s what drew that thing here last night, and she’ll draw it again. That might not be her fault, but there it is. And how are we supposed to fight off that creature with you gone? The villagers won’t stand for it.”
“I don’t care what the villagers think,” he said restively.
“You can’t just go off and leave her here. It’s only chance that we weren’t attacked while you were away before.”
Aruendiel swore, a long, muscular sequence of profanity. “You mean, take her with me? What on earth would I do with her at court? And it’s impossible. I must travel fast and light. I can fly to Semr under my own power, but she can’t.”
“I’m sure you can find some other way to get there, sir.”
Silence. Did that mean Mrs. Toristel was winning the argument? Nora made a swift calculation and decided to take no chances. “I’ll go,” she said loudly, stepping out of the door’s shadow. “I don’t want to put anyone at risk.”
She walked forward composedly, meeting both Aruendiel’s chilly stare and Mrs. Toristel’s worried one. Aruendiel was clenching his right hand, as though to grasp and crush thick hunks of air—a gesture of frustration, or was he about to transform her into a geranium?
“If I really am Ilissa’s tool,” Nora said, “wouldn’t it be better to keep an eye on me?”
Aruendiel emitted a sound of disgusted assent. “If it will relieve your mind, Mrs. Toristel, then very well,” he said. “We leave in a quarter hour.”
“She needs time to get ready,” Mrs. Toristel said.
“A quarter hour.”
It took less time than that for Nora to throw her only other dress and a change of linen undergarments into a cloth sack. As always before leaving on a trip, she had the nagging feeling that she was forgetting something, but there seemed to be nothing else to forget.
When she came downstairs, she found Aruendiel standing over several large tree branches in the center of the courtyard. Mr. Toristel was nearby, holding a saw. The magician bent to pull the branches into the form of a rough cross, one short piece flanked perpendicularly by two long ones. He put something on the end of each of the longer branches. Nora edged closer to see. Chicken feathers. After surveying the arrangement critically, Aruendiel pulled a penknife from inside his tunic and jabbed it into the tip of one finger. Grimacing, he quickly touched all three pieces of wood, leaving a red print on each, then wrapped a handkerchief around his finger.
“How did it go?” he muttered. “No, that’s not it.” His lips moved silently as he rehearsed something to himself. Finally he nodded curtly, apparently satisfied. But as he moved his hand over the wooden cross, it seemed to Nora that there was something uneasy in his demeanor.
She had little time to reflect on this observation, though. The wooden branches were stretching, growing into one another; each of the cross’s two side arms curved and lengthened; and then suddenly both arms of the cross were covered with a thick coat of feathers, lining up as neatly as shingles. The central piece of the cross was still recognizable as a tree branch, but attached to it now were two stubby-looking wings, fifty feet across. They gave a single, stately flap, stirring up a curtain of dust, and then lowered again, quivering slightly.
“No!” said Nora, horrified. “We’re not going to fly on that thing, are we?”
Mrs. Toristel had come out of the house, carrying Aruendiel’s cloak. “Ah,” she said quietly to Nora. “It’s not as bad as it looks. He had one at Lusul, with a saddle on it, specially made.”
“I wish this one had a saddle. It looks dangerous.”
“Not as dangerous for you as staying here.”
The magician came over to them and took his cloak from Mrs. Toristel. “We’re ready to go.” He gave Nora a sweeping glance, taking in her dusty clogs, the dress that was either a dingy brown or a rusty gray (Nora had given up trying to decide), a bit of chicken fluff clinging to her hem. “She’s hardly dressed for court,” he said to Mrs. Toristel with an air of testy pleasure, as though he had finally found a good reason to leave her behind.
“That’s all I’ve got,” Nora said. “My other dress is about the same.” Although she could say with certainty
