Anya was still very much interested in magic, and wanted to learn more about it and the different kinds that were practiced in Yarrow. But she had lost much of her interest in sorcery. Or so she told herself, denying that small part of her that insisted on whispering deep in her mind that it could all be worth it. Just think of the power, said the voice. Think of the amazing spells you could do—
“I might be interested in becoming a wizard,” acknowledged Anya, banishing that niggling voice from going on about sorcery being so much superior to all other forms of magic.
“Frogkisser to Become Wizard!” bellowed a voice from near the door. “Princess-Wizard-Frogkisser Triple Threat!”
A Gerald the Herald in wet motley stood dripping in his guest slippers by the door. He was holding a raven under his arm, the large black bird surprisingly quiescent.
“Stop that!” called out the Wizard. “I understand you have a message for me?”
“Raven express,” said Gerald. He held up the raven. “Private, not one of our messengers. Only it couldn’t ring the bell, so I … ah … volunteered to help.”
“What were you doing within the bounds of my demesne in the first place?” asked the Wizard.
“Wanted to ask for an appointment, Your Wiseness,” said the herald, wiping his nose. “Following up the Frogkisser story. Want to make a statement?”
“No,” said the Wizard. “Hand over the messenger.”
“What about you, Princess?” asked Gerald. He was a different one from the herald in the forest, Anya noticed. He was taller and his hair and moustache looked real. On the other hand, his nose had been artificially lengthened by a wax extension that was coming adrift after getting too wet in the rain.
“I think you need better glue to hold your nose on,” Anya advised. “You can quote me on that. Otherwise I have nothing to say.”
Gerald pinched his nose to keep it together, and released the raven, which flew to the Wizard.
“Wery vell,” he said, with some dignity. “As you vish. I vill vrite the story vrom over thources.”
“He means he’s going to repeat whatever Duke Rikard tells him,” said the Wizard, who was reading the small scroll that had been tied to the raven’s leg. The raven, meanwhile, was eating a long piece of pork crackling. “So off you go, Gerald. You can take this raven with you. I don’t care for eavesdroppers, human or avian.”
“It’s raining again,” said the herald rather pathetically. “And cold.”
“Give him an umbrella and some food,” said the Wizard to the air. She looked at the raven. “And you can take that strip of fat, Master Corvus.”
The raven ruffled his neck feathers, tapped his beak on the table without letting go of the piece of crackling, and flew to the herald, who was being turned around by invisible hands.
“Wizard’s Invisible Brutes Torment Truth Seeker!” shouted the herald as he was bustled out. The raven stood on Gerald’s head, still eating the fat.
“Who is the message from?” asked Anya.
“Duke Rikard,” said the Wizard. She read it aloud.
“ ‘To the Wizard known as the Good who resides in the Dragon Hill, greetings! Your demesne is Surrounded by my weasel soldiers and I Demand that you deliver to Me my errant stepstepdaughter the Fugitive princess Anya, who has run Away from school. Do so or Else! Duke Rikard of Trallonia, Most powerful Sorcerer.’ ”
“You won’t send me out, will you?” asked Anya very anxiously.
“Of course not,” said the Wizard, her words accompanied by a general round of chuckling from the dwarves. They didn’t seem concerned at all, which made Anya feel a bit less shaky.
“What about his ‘or else’?” said Anya. “And are we really surrounded?”
“Possibly,” said the Wizard. “Let’s see.”
She reached inside her sleeve and took out a small bronze telescope. Pulling it open, she raised it to her eye and looked through it, apparently at the wall.
“There are weaselfolk there, sure enough,” she said. “Have a look. Not for too long, though, or you’ll go blind. Temporarily.”
Anya took the telescope cautiously. “How long is too long?”
“Oh, more than a few minutes.”
Anya looked through the telescope. Though she was pointing it at the wall, what she saw was the field outside the Wizard’s front door, down to the flooded river. The sun was beginning to set outside, washing the underside of the clouds with a dull red light.
There were figures moving about near the river. Anya moved the telescope to center on one of them, and it suddenly leaped into sharper and closer focus as the magic within the lenses came into greater effect.
It was exactly like the weasel creature who had attacked her before. Perhaps six feet tall, and thin. It had an enlarged weasel’s head, all sharp and ferrety, its narrow jaw filled with many sharp teeth. Its arms were long and ended in taloned paws, not fingers. It was covered in short gray fur, but also wore a kind of basic black surcoat that was crudely painted with the letter R in white.
For Rikard, Anya supposed. She couldn’t remember whether her attacker had worn a surcoat; everything had happened so quickly.
The weasel creature looked as swift, deadly, and unforgiving as she knew they were, and there were at least thirty more of them that Anya could see, most crouched down in a line along the river, their sharp, weaselly eyes fixed on the Wizard’s front door.
She lowered the telescope. Her hand shook as she gave it back, and she had to fight against a strong inclination to pull her chin down to protect her throat.
“There is little to fear while you are within these walls,” said the Wizard kindly. “Tell me, was the Duke still breathing when you saw him last? Sorcerers usually only get this arrogant when they’re technically dead but haven’t caught on yet.”
“He was breathing,” said Anya. “But he looked very pale and cold.”
“Hmmm, not in the final stage yet,” said the Wizard. “I suppose we’d better get on with things. All done with dinner?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Anya. “But what about your advice? I want to ask you—”
“We’ll have a look in the Magic Mirror first,” said the Wizard. “That might change your questions anyway.”
She stood up, as did the dwarves. Anya followed suit. The Wizard bowed to the dwarves, who bowed back.
“While I trust my apprentices will see to the usual defenses, perhaps if you wouldn’t mind pitching in, Sygror? I would not wish to become as arrogant as a nearly frozen sorcerer, or perhaps as complacent as a well-fed wizard.”
“Aye, we’d be happy to!” exclaimed Sygror. He smiled broadly, an expression mirrored by the other dwarves. “It’s been too long since I’ve felt the weight of mail on my shoulders and held an axe in my hand.”
“We had arms practice yesterday,” pointed out Erzef.
“Pah! That doesn’t count,” rumbled Sygror.
“Just don’t start anything,” cautioned the Wizard. “But in the unlikely event some of these weasel soldiers manage to get inside … ”
“We’ll see they regret it,” Sygror vowed. There was a chorus of ayes from the other six dwarves, and they turned about, each heading towards his or her own door, evidently to change from pajamas into more warlike clothing.
Anya, Ardent, and Shrub followed the Wizard to a concealed staircase that was entered through a small door behind the great fireplace. It was narrow and tightly wound, descending into the depths like a stony corkscrew. It was dark at first, and forbidding, but as the Wizard took the first step down, the stone beneath lit up with a greenish light. From there on, every third step did the same, the glow only fading after Shrub, bringing up the rear, had slid over the edge.
At the bottom of the stair, there was a vast limestone cave. Or at least it looked like limestone at first glance, but the color wasn’t quite right, or the texture when Anya gingerly touched it with her finger. It took the princess a few moments to realize that it was some kind of bo
ne. Very white, very strong bone.
The cave was dimly lit by thousands of little greenish-white dots on the ceiling high above. They moved about constantly, and Anya felt slightly dizzy when she looked at them directly, her eyes unable to focus until she blinked several times and caught on that the dots were moving not only sideways but also up and down, flying around several feet below the strange white stone.
“Fireflies,” the Wizard explained. “Atmospheric, but not bright enough for what we need. Where’s that otter-maid of yours?”
Anya looked down from the ceiling. She’d thought the dark floor ahead of her was some other stone, perhaps a kind of basalt, but as her eyes adjusted she realized it was the surface of the reflecting pool. Absolutely still water that must also be very deep, to look so black.
The stillness of the dark water was suddenly broken by the ripples of a moving vee that drew closer and revealed the point to be Smoothie’s head. She climbed out of the pool, sleek as ever, but with a look of dissatisfaction on her face.
“I need to be changed back soon!” she said. “This body is terrible for swimming! I could barely catch two eels and a stupid blind fish that was as slow as … as a toad!”
“I’ll do my best,” said Anya soothingly.
“Please stay out of the water now,” said the Wizard. “We must let it settle while I arrange the lights.”
She raised her hand, and the ring on her middle finger flashed brightly. It was answered by a thin flame on the far side of the pool, which slowly gathered strength to reveal itself as a tall candle in an iron candelabra.
“Abra candelabra,” said the Wizard, chuckling to herself. She winked at Anya. “Doesn’t mean anything. I just like saying that.”
The Wizard raised her hand again and the ring flashed. Another candle sprang alight. The Wizard’s hand glided through the air, moving as if she was conducting an orchestra, and more candle flames answered.
With the extra light, Anya could see the extent of the pool. It wasn’t quite as big as she had thought, perhaps fifty feet wide and thirty feet long. It was ringed with a dozen iron candelabras, each of which could hold five candles, but the Wizard wasn’t lighting all of them. She was making a selection, judging the play of light and shadow.
“Almost there,” said the Wizard. “Anya, stand in front of me here, on the silver scale.”
Anya looked down at the strange white stone. There was indeed a silver scale there, like a fish’s, but much larger, bigger than Anya’s outstretched hand.
“Last of the dragon’s scales,” said the Wizard. “The pool lies in his eye socket, and we are standing on his cheekbone.”
“This white stone,” said Anya. “It’s dragon bone?”
“Indeed,” answered the Wizard. “Our hall is bounded by his great ribs, the bathhouse lies under the phalanges of his right wing, and so on. We stand within the bodily remains of the last of the great dragons, Karrazin the Bright, and we honor him and his gift.
“It’s polite to repeat that last part,” added the Wizard in a stage whisper. “Bit of a ritual, dragons never being entirely gone, as it were.”
“We honor him and his gift!” Anya said quickly, followed a beat later by Ardent, Shrub, and Smoothie. The princess looked around as she spoke the words, wondering what the Wizard meant about dragons never being entirely gone. They were standing on his bare dead skull, after all, which seemed pretty conclusive as far as she was concerned.
“Stand on the scale,” repeated the Wizard. “If I’ve got the light right, the pool will show you three things. Something then, something now, and something that may yet come to be.”
Anya gingerly stood on the scale. It felt warm under her feet, even through her fleece-lined slippers.
“How does it work?” she asked.
“Shhh,” said the Wizard. “I’ll tell you later. It is about to begin. Look into the pool!”
Anya looked at the pool. It was still dark, the twinkling reflections of the candle flames not enough to lighten the deep blackness of the water. But as she kept her eyes fixed, it seemed to her the candles burned higher, their light spreading and joining, the surface of the pool slowly becoming brighter … and brighter still. Anya had to squint, and then shield her eyes with her hand. She would have looked away but the Wizard was behind her, suddenly gripping her head with strong fingers. The princess cried out, tears filled her eyes, and even as her cry of hurt and fear echoed through the cave, she saw three things.
The first, a vision from long ago. The hall at home in Trallonia Castle, but a warmer, more comfortable place than it was in Anya’s present time. The tapestries on the walls were clean and bright, and there were carpets on the floor, not just rough flagstones. It was winter, or late autumn, for all the fires were lit, and the big one was roaring. In front of that fire, Tanitha was telling a story to a small mound of wriggling puppies … and a human child. A little girl in a violet robe trimmed with rabbit fur.
A very young Anya, perhaps three years old.
“The Dog with the Wonderful Nose,” said Tanitha. From her tone, it was the ritual announcement of a story. All the puppies barked in excitement, and ceased most of their wriggling. Little Anya clapped her hands. It was obviously a favorite story, or a favorite character.
“The Dog with the Wonderful Nose had a truly extraordinary nose,” said Tanitha. “She could tell from the smell on a footprint how tall a man was, and what he was wearing. She could smell an onion bulb growing underground from a dozen paces off. She could even smell what was going to happen if the wind was blowing the right way. Well, one day the Dog with the Wonderful Nose was padding along, mindful of her own past business and that of others, when—”
The reflecting pool flashed, bright as the sun.
Anya blinked, dislodging the tears that had formed from seeing a happier time, when both her parents had still been alive. Through the rainbow prism of her tears, she saw the next vision form, showing something that was happening right now.
A group of women was gathered together in a big tent. At least at first it looked like a big tent, before Anya saw that it was actually a huge piece of canvas stretched between four tall standing stones, tied on fairly haphazardly with rope. Through one open corner she could see the sun setting through patchy rain clouds, which suggested that this was happening right now.
The women were engaged in setting up a field kitchen. Some were putting out cooking utensils along a trestle table, others unpacking pots and pans and ladles and skewers and big forks, while others sharpened dozens of different knives, while more sorted and arranged boxes, canisters, and net bags of ingredients.
The women looked ordinary enough. Some were young, some middle-aged, and some old. They wore similar clothes to the villagers in Trallonia the Village, though with touches that showed they were wealthier. All of them wore brooches, for example, fancy brooches with jewels, or amber, or gold beads.
There were thirteen women, which Anya thought was significant. Their luggage was stacked up against one of the standing stones, a pile of cloak bags and valises, topped with thirteen round hat cases. This too was probably important.
“We got everything, then?” asked one of the older women, looking down the table at everything laid out on, under, and beside it.
“I think so,” replied the woman next to her. She checked items off on her fingers, and other women nodded or signaled as she spoke. “Pig’s coming tomorrow, but the spit is up and the fire pit is ready, isn’t it, Agnes? Bread will be delivered by noon—Mollie’s lad is taking care of that. Wine is coming—the cart is going slow so as not to upset the claret. Egnetha’s lover boy the wine merchant chose it special, so it should be good. Greens from my own garden. My Gert will pick ’em fresh in the morn.”
“None of that rampion, mind,” said one of the women. “I can’t abide it.”
All the women laughed.
“There is something,” said the first woman. “But I can’t think … we’re missing something. An ingredi
ent? One of the herbs? I just can’t put my finger … ”
Once again, the mirrorlike surface of the pool flashed. Anya screwed her eyes shut against the brilliance, opening them slowly as the intensity of the light faded.
Gradually the third vision, the one of something that might yet come to be, coalesced on the surface of the water.
It was Trallonia again, the village this time, but not as Anya had last seen it. She was looking at the village green, which was not the well-kept square of lawn she was used to, but a small field rank with weeds. The houses across the way had holes in their thatched roofs, and ill-made shutters where once they had diamond-paned glass windows.
A villager Anya recognized, though it took her a few seconds, came skulking by the green. It was Rob the Frogger … but far leaner and more ragged than he had been. He had no staff over his shoulder, no suspended frog baskets, and no shoes. His feet were wrapped in dirty rags.
One of the shutters eased open, and a hoarse voice called out from the unseen darkness within.
“Get any?”
“No,” said Rob, very shortly. “Not allowed anymore. She says all frogs are to be gathered by castle servants and sold in Rolanstown. That’s the latest. We’ll be eating dirt and drinking air.”
He was answered by a groan, and the shutter slowly closed. As it eased shut, the vision faded, leaving Anya staring openmouthed and miserable at the pool, which now once again only showed the reflection of the candle flames and, there in the middle, the blurry image of a distressed princess, staring.
“What did you see?” asked the Wizard quietly.
Anya hesitated for a long moment.
“I think I won’t tell you the third one,” she said. She had been profoundly disturbed by that vision, most of all by Rob the Frogger’s reference to “her.” It forced the princess to confront some of the fidgety doubts that had been crawling around in her mind ever since Bert had asked about whether Morven would be a good queen. Or there was the even worse thought that the “her” Rob the Frogger mentioned might mean Anya herself—that even if she managed to defeat Duke Rikard, she’d end up as a sorcerer, and be as evil as he was anyway, or worse.