approached, but he stood quietly, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
Safar laid his head against the horse, stroking the sensitive nose. 'Were you there?' Safar whispered.
'Did you see?'
Khysmet huffed and stamped his feet, switching his tail back and forth.
Leiria called out. 'Is something wrong, Safar?'
'No, Leiria,' Safar answered. 'Nothing's wrong. Go back to sleep.'
He stroked Khysmet. 'Syrapis,' he whispered. 'Syrapis.'
Palimak was bored. Day after day he rode with the small group of wagons making up the Timura family caravan with little to do but get into mischief. The roadside scene passed so slowly and with so little change that the smallest thing became major entertainment. A rodent dashing across the track, an ox lifting its tail to defecate and birds taking a dust bath were among the more stirring sights he'd seen that day.
It wasn't so bad for the older children, he thought. They got to run around the wagons, or dash off into the fields to explore and play games. Sometimes they'd disappear all day and wouldn't catch up to the main caravan until nightfall. Oh, how he wished he could go with them. Why one of his cousins had seen a bear and her cubs just the other day. Now, wouldn't that've been something to see? Maybe he could've made a pet of one of the cubs, or at least played with it a little, What really offended him was that his cousin was a girl. This made life seem even more unfair.
There was little privacy when on the road, so he couldn't play with Gundara and Gundaree as much as he'd like. The Favorites hated it when so many people were around and tended to be grumpy when he summoned them. Always complaining that people could peek into the covered wagon anytime they wanted.
To Palimak it seemed as if he was always getting into trouble, especially when he played with his magic.
Although he never meant any harm, sometimes things just didn't go as planned and he was always being scolded as if he'd done it on purpose.
He was still sulking over an incident earlier in the day. After his grandmother had put out the wagon fire he'd explained quite plainly that he'd only been trying to help. But she didn't listen-they never listened! — and he'd gotten the scolding of his life and was banished to the smelly old supply wagon.
'Now, let's see what mischief you can get up to in there, Palimak Timura,' his grandmother had said in her most scornful tones. 'I'm sorry there's nothing but moldy flour and wormy corn to occupy your Lordship. Now maybe you'll have time now to think about all the heartache and worry you're causing me.'
'I'm sorry, Grandmother,' he'd said in his most contrite manner. Unfortunately, she wasn't so easily soothed.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' she mocked. 'When I'm in my grave from the worry you've caused me
Palimak poked a finger at a damp floursack. He didn't know what she was so upset about. It hadn't been that big of a fire, after all. And he could easily have put it out himself. If he could've remembered the fire putter outter spell, that is.
He still didn't know what had gone wrong with his experiment. The whole idea had originated with his grandmother's and aunts' complaints about how dark it was in the wagons. There was always a lot of mending to be done and they said they were going blind from sewing in such dimness. Because of the danger of fire and the roughness of the road no one was permitted to burn an oil lamp while the wagons were moving.
Bored as he was, Palimak became intensely interested in their difficulties. Interest turned to a child's concern for his loved ones. What would his grandmother do if she were blind? And his aunts, what if they couldn't even see their children to kiss them? So he'd turned his agile little mind full force on the problem.
Instinctively, he went at it backwards. What was the result he wanted? That was easy, he wanted light without having to burn anything. There were two ways to go at that, he'd decided. The first would be to take the light out of the fire and throw the fire away. You could then pour the light into bowls, or something, or even glass jars with stoppers on them so the light couldn't escape if it were so inclined.
Probably the jars would be best, he thought. For reasons he couldn't explain he imagined light might be pretty rebellious and would always be trying to run away.
The second method would be to somehow trap the light. You could catch it in some kind of net, or whatever, as it ran away from its source-the sun or a campfire-then you could store it in great big casks with spigots like wine barrels. Then whenever you needed some light all you had to do was turn the spigot and fill up a jar.
He could envision his grandmother and aunts with jars of lights all around them, sewing away with no trouble at all and praising him for being such a smart and thoughtful little boy. The image pleased him immensely and he worked even harder.
He'd quickly dismissed the idea of trapping light and storing it. The trouble with light was that it was even runnier than water and much thinner so you'd have to have really big, big barrels, maybe even bigger than a house-which was the largest object he could imagine-to hold just a little bit. Which wouldn't last very long either, so that was really stupid. Fine, then. He'd try to separate the light from fire and see what happened.
This feat proved to be surprisingly easy. Oh sure, Gundara and Gundaree helped, but it was his idea and he'd done most of the real work. One night after everyone had gone to sleep he'd filled a bowl with oil, lit it with a candle, then summoned his Favorites. After a few false starts due to the usual quarrels between the two, he'd cast the spell.
'Come out, little light,' he crooned. 'Come and play with Palimak. We'll have lots of fun and good things to eat and you won't have to smell that stinky oil all the time. Come out, little light. Come out and play with Palimak.'
He scooped his hands forward, skimming across the wavery fire and to his amazement he suddenly had a double palmful of light spilling onto the tent floor. It made little glowing puddles with scattered drops all around. Then the light began to fade-running away, as Palimak thought of it-and he quickly turned a jar upside down over the largest puddle. Inside the jar the light was only a soft glow at first, then it suddenly became much brighter.
Palimak clapped his hands with glee. He'd done it! He looked over at the bowl of oil. There was no light coming from it now. But he could smell the burning oil and when he put his hand close he could still feel the heat of the fire.
That night Palimak slept the peaceful sleep of a smart little boy, a kind little boy, a boy who'd just saved his grandmother and aunts from blindness. He'd smiled to himself as he slept, the jar of light clutched in his arms, dreaming of all the hugs he'd get and all the nice things they'd say about him.
When he awoke the light was gone. Palimak was in a panic trying to figure out what had happened. The stopper was on tight. The spell he'd used to enforce the jar's light-holding properties was still strong.
Then he'd looked at the bowl of oil and saw that it was empty and the invisible fire was no longer burning.
Palimak frowned. It seemed obvious that although he'd separated the light from the fire, some connection had remained. When the fire had burned up its fuel the light in the jar had gone out. Well, that was no good. You still had the same problem as before, which was that you can't have a fire in a moving wagon.
But, wait! Nobody said anything about
Palimak had labored until late that night working on the solution. The next morning-this very morning, in fact, this most boring of all days with its almost squashed rodent, stupid oxen and dusty birds-he'd put his plan to its first, and final, test. A brass burner was suspended beneath a rarely used wagon. A fire was lit, a small one so no one would notice. Light went into a jar. And the jar was hidden under Palimak's coat until the caravan set off and he was alone in the wagon. Then out it came, glowing very nicely, although maybe only enough for one person to sew by. So what? That was no problem! He could make a jar for each of them, being sure to hang the same number of burners under the wagon. Then when the light got dim all somebody had to do was jump off the wagon, toss more fuel into the burners and the light would be strong again. Palimak figured he'd volunteer to do the jumping off to start with. Later on someone else could do it, like that cousin of his who thought she was so smart because she'd seen a bear with its cubs. As if anybody couldn't do that!
It would have worked just fine too, Palimak thought, if the driver hadn't gone over that bump. And the bottom of the wagon had caught fire. Real fire you could see and smell and which could burn everything up! Palimak was trying to think of a spell to put it out when his grandmother came running from her wagon and beat it to death with
