The Magicians' Daughter, page 34
“We’ll never make it all the way into town like this,” said Avender. “Sooner or later we’re going to run into a dog.”
“The spell never works with dogs,” said Hubley.
“I know. You’re father told me that a long time ago.”
Making sure no one saw them reappear, Hubley removed her spell. A lazy hawk circled the sky high above, but, if Reiffen was the hawk, he didn’t show it. The party made it the rest of the way to Grangore unmolested.
They found the town much larger than it had been thirty years before. Most of the streets and buildings they remembered had been torn down to make room for new ones. Granglough, however, hadn’t been moved, and they found it after only a few wrong turns. A pair of sentries guarded the entrance just as they had when Avender had first visited the place forty years before. Their black armor was the same too, though Avender assumed the men inside had changed. Had they been standing guard outside Castle Grangore he wouldn’t have been so sure of that at all.
“We’ve come to see Huri,” he said when the guards asked why they wanted to go inside.
“A lot of people want to see Huri. That doesn’t mean they get in.”
Hubley subjected the two guards to her haughtiest stare. “I’m the magicians’ daughter. In case you’ve forgotten, my father’s been keeping me prisoner up at the castle, so it’s very important I get to see my mother. Ferris, you know. If you don’t let us in, I’m going to tell her to turn both of you into toads.”
The guards exchanged glances but, when neither of them started hopping, they snickered behind their visors.
Hubley clenched her jaw, which reminded Avender of both her grandmothers at the same time. “Rust,” she said. The guards laughed some more.
Without another word, she marched right past them. Expecting the worst, Avender leapt after her. The guards tried to stop them but, stiff as statues, toppled to the ground instead.
“Very impressive.” Mindrell stepped over them as the guards rocked awkwardly back and forth in feeble efforts to stand, their armor locked tight as rusted pipe.
Once inside, they had no trouble finding Huri. A boy escorted them to the Minabbenet, then ran off to fetch the Dwarf. Avender’s lamp provided enough light to lead them down the steps into the large cave, but it wasn’t enough to interfere with the glow of the gems arranged in patterns on the ceiling like the stars in the summer sky.
Huri recognized Mindrell and Hubley at once when he joined them, which was enough to persuade him to contact Issinlough on the Granglough mirror. But Avender had changed enough that the Dwarf only accepted who he was on the word of the other two humans.
The curious gathered as Huri went off to make his call, mostly humans but a few Dwarves as well. Though Mindrell had been seen from time to time by the women who had brought food to the castle, Reiffen had kept himself and Hubley locked up so long that most of Grangore wasn’t sure they even existed. Hubley, who hadn’t been around so many people in years, cowered by the table in the middle of the room as Avender and Mindrell held back the crowd.
A lane opened through the hall as a woman appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Mother!”
Hubley dashed across the room. Ferris met her in the middle, her daughter leaping into her arms. As if trying to make up for all they had missed in the last thirty years, they kissed a hundred hundred times. Desperately, Hubley clung to her mother’s neck; Ferris wept with open joy.
Avender found himself sniffling too, and saw more than a few other eyes glistening in the crowd. Beside him, Mindrell cleared his throat several times.
Only after giving her darling another ten score kisses did Ferris greet anyone else, and that only because Hubley dragged her over to Avender by pulling on her dress.
“Aren’t you even going to say hello, Mother?” said the child. “Avender’s the one who rescued me.”
The light bright against Ferris’s face, Avender shaded his lamp with his hand, but the magician didn’t recognize him at all.
“Avender? Is it really you? Have you come back too?”
“It’s me.”
“You must have quite a story to tell.” Ferris hugged her daughter once again. “Too bad we don’t have time to hear it. I still have to get Hubley safely back to Valing. Are you coming with us?”
“Where else would I go?”
“We have to bring Mindrell too,” said Hubley, her arms still wrapped around her mother’s waist. “He’s on our side.”
Ferris considered the matter. Avender saw that, like Mindrell, her eyes were the oldest part of her, with years and years of sadness bottled up behind them.
“All right,” she said. “Mindrell’s done what Giserre asked him to. He can come as well. Let Reiffen just try to get you away from me now.”
She offered Avender and Mindrell her hands. The humans in the crowd shuffled back a few steps in the face of the magic they knew she was about to cast. With Hubley holding one hand and Avender and Mindrell the other, Ferris carried them home.
Giserre and Redburr were there to greet them when they arrived. Hubley hesitated for a moment, clutching her mother’s skirt, unsure who this old woman with steel gray hair might be. Avender was also surprised. No one else he had met had changed at all, and to finally see someone who had was a shock. Giserre’s beauty and bearing, however, were just the same. Recognizing her grandmother as soon as Ferris told her who she was, Hubley rushed to give her a hug. A quick embrace for the bear as well, and she was back at her mother’s side.
In the meantime Avender let Durk out of his knapsack and set him in the middle of the nearest table.
“It’s about time,” huffed the stone. “And just as things were getting interesting, too. But, I tell you, I don’t believe a word of it. Reiffen, holding his own child prisoner? Preposterous. Maybe in one of the more improbable melodramas you might get away with that sort of thing, but never in real life. Am I right? Excuse me, but is anyone listening? And what are you all going on about, anyway?”
When Durk, and everyone else, had quieted a bit, Giserre approached the bard. His dry amusement at all the sentiment being displayed around him vanished the moment the lady offered him her hand.
“I thank you for your service,” she said simply. “Any gift that is in my power to grant is yours.”
Bowing deeply, the bard brought her ladyship’s fingers to his lips. “The opportunity to serve you, milady, is reward enough for me.”
Avender grimaced. Unlike Giserre, he wasn’t nearly as inclined to forgive Mindrell for what he’d done.
“And my son?” she asked as the bard let go her hand.
He shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in two days.”
“Have you?” The regal old woman turned to Avender.
“We’ve been running away from him, milady, not looking for him.”
Giserre regarded Avender and Ferris with serene surprise. “Do neither of you find it odd that Reiffen has let Hubley get away so easily? Or that he is not paying us a visit at Tower Dale right now?”
“I do,” said Avender. “I was thinking the same thing when we left the castle. But once we got safely away, I stopped worrying.”
“Reiffen has made his own bed,” said Ferris. “Let him lie in it.”
“No, Mother.” Hubley, who had gone back to Ferris’s side the moment she left Giserre, looked up into her mother’s face. “We have to find Father. What if something terrible’s happened to him? What if the Wizard has him?”
Her mouth pinched, Ferris looked away. Giserre moved closer. Avender searched the magician’s face closely for a sign of what it was she didn’t want to say.
“If you know something, Ferris,” said Giserre, “you must speak.”
Ferris glanced at Avender as if for help, her eyes flickering between him and Hubley. “I’m not sure what I can say.”
He understood her problem at once. “You met Mims, didn’t you. I’m not sure how much you can say, either. But can you at least tell us what she told you about Reiffen?”
The bear lumbered forward. “That much ought to be safe.”
“Who’s Mims?” asked Durk.
“The magician who helped Avender rescue Hubley,” said Ferris. “The one Redburr and I found when we tracked her to Gray’s Pond.”
“She’s very powerful,” said the child. “And a little scary, too.”
“Perhaps if Hubley left the room,” suggested Giserre, “you could speak more freely.”
“I’m not leaving.” Hubley looked defiantly at her mother. “If you’re going to rescue Father, I want to help. I’m remembering new magic all the time. Avender, tell them how we got past Huri’s guards.”
Kneeling, Ferris took her daughter firmly by the shoulders. “You’ve done enough already, dear. You need a bath, and dinner, and then maybe a long nap. But, whatever we decide, you’re not coming with us. I love you far too much to let you take any more risks.”
“Come, dear.” Giserre reached for her granddaughter’s hand. “Your mother is right. This is a discussion you cannot share. But Ferris, if I ever learn you did not help Reiffen when you could, especially when he has not been himself for so long, I think I will be angrier with you than I have ever been with him.”
“That’s right, Mother,” agreed Hubley. “Just because Father’s been mean, he’s still Father.”
Their point made, grandmother and granddaughter marched out of the room.
Redburr was the first to speak after they were gone. “I’d be on your side, Ferris, only this may be the best chance to kill Fornoch we’re ever going to get. Giserre’s too old to come with us, but otherwise, if Reiffen is already with him, we’ll be the same crew that killed Usseis.”
“Oh?” said Mindrell. “I’ve volunteered, have I?”
Ferris gave the bard a scornful look. “None of us have, yet.”
“What did Mims tell you?” asked Avender.
“That we would be seeing Fornoch again before this was all over.”
“And Reiffen?”
The bear settled back on his haunches and licked his paws. “She said nothing about him. But we all know only one thing could keep Reiffen away from Hubley once she showed up in a place he could travel to.”
“The Wizard.”
“Yes,” said Ferris. “The trouble is, she didn’t tell us where he is, or I’d have taken every one of the magicians I’ve trained over the last thirty years and gone after him then and there. Instead I’ve scattered them all over the world trying to find him.”
Avender raised his left hand. It was a moment before either of his friends noticed the thimble, and another before Ferris thought to ask the obvious question.
“Where does it go?”
“To Fornoch. At least that’s what Mims told me. And if she told you we had to see the Wizard before this was over, I’d advise doing it. She knows what she’s talking about. Hubley and I had a lot of trouble, but it all came out fine in the end. I take it she told you who she is.”
“Yes.”
“And where she’s from,” growled Redburr.
“Well she hasn’t told me,” said Durk.
Avender looked at the stone for a moment, then put him back in his pocket. “Durk’s the last one we should tell any of this to. If he knows, everyone’ll know.”
Ferris agreed. “The last thing we need is every magician trying to figure out the Timespell for themselves. It’s bad enough I had to tell them humans can make Living Stones.”
“Timespell?” Mindrell’s eyebrows rose. “And who is this Mims you keep talking about?”
Avender checked to see if Ferris agreed before he went on. She nodded. He supposed the bard had as good a right to know what was going on as anyone if he ended up coming with them. And, if he didn’t, Avender would make sure he never told anyone anyway, now that Hubley was no longer in the room.
“She’s Hubley,” he explained. “An older Hubley, who knows how to travel through time.”
“Travel through time?” Not inclined to disbelieve anything after thirty years of living with magic, Mindrell took a moment to think about what Avender had said. “Does that mean she already knows how this all turns out?”
“She gave us no guarantees, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Ferris. “Hubley may know what happens, but I don’t.”
“She’s very careful,” said Avender, “to say nothing about that sort of thing. She says that knowing about what’s going to happen always makes it worse, especially if it’s bad.”
“Whatever we do,” said Redburr, “we need to make up our minds. If Reiffen has been taken by Fornoch, the sooner we get to him, the better.”
Avender remembered the feeling of cold, dry earth falling over his face. His wrist throbbed. He had no more urge to forgive Reiffen than he had to forgive Mindrell. Nor did he wish to rescue him from Wizards a second time. But Hubley expected it of him, both grownup and child. And Giserre expected it too.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“You agree with Redburr?” said Ferris. “You really want to do this?”
“If I can think we should rescue Reiffen after what he’s done to me,” said Avender, “I think you can too.”
“How dare you! He cut me off from my child for thirty years!”
“He cut me off from everyone for thirty years.”
Like a shaggy boulder, the Shaper rolled between the quarreling friends. “Enough. This isn’t about you two, it’s about Hubley and Giserre. They’re the ones we’re doing this for. And would either of you really just leave Reiffen to the Wizard? Would you do that to anyone?”
Avender wanted to say yes, but he knew it wasn’t true. There were worse things than being buried alive.
“Fine,” said Ferris.
“Do we even know for certain Reiffen’s with the Wizard?” asked Mindrell. “From what you’ve said earlier, I gather you’re only guessing.”
“Do you think we’re wrong?” Ferris gave him her most patronizing stare. “After you’ve lived with him for thirty years?”
“If he isn’t with Hubley,” added Avender, “that’s the only other place he could be.”
“Are you with us?” Redburr asked the bard.
Mindrell glanced at the door that had closed behind Giserre. “If you insist. I never did want to live forever. But I’ll need a sword. Preferably heartstone.”
“Me too,” said Avender.
“There are several on the bottom shelf.” Ferris pointed under the desk that ran along the workshop’s northern wall.
When the men were armed, everyone grasped Avender by the hand. His fingers were already on the thimble when he remembered Durk.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said, removing the stone from his pocket and placing him on the table, “to make Durk come too.”
“Of course not,” answered the stone. “But it’s even more unfair to keep putting me in your pocket every time you talk about something important. Where are you going, anyway?”
“To fight Fornoch.”
“Really? Well, good luck to you. Quite right to leave me be—”
The stone’s last words were lost as Avender twisted the thimble off his finger and whispered, “Return.”
***
Grumbling, Hubley followed her grandmother down the stairs. At least there were new things to see out the windows: waterfalls, the shimmering blue lake, pigs rooting through the orchard. The views of Aloslomin and Ivismundra from Castle Grangore, so spectacular to most people, had been boring her for some time. At least now she knew why.
“Bath or dinner?” asked Giserre.
Despite a sudden yawn, the gnawing in Hubley’s stomach prevailed. “Dinner.”
When they entered the kitchen, an enormous man, almost as large as the bear, stood up from the table. Soup dripped from his mustache.
“Hubley?” he asked. “Is it really you?”
“Yes.” Hubley frowned severely. “Who are you?”
“Baron Backford,” he said. “Willy.”
Her lower lip trembled. For the first time she realized just how much things had changed. Everything she remembered was gone. Her grandmother might have become an old woman, but then Giserre had been an old woman from the start as far as Hubley was concerned. What had happened to Willy was much worse. Willy was her friend, and was supposed to be her own age. They should have grown up together, gone to dances and weddings and balls. But here he was, an old man with gray hair and more than a little bit of tummy bulging over the top of his breeches.
Burying her face in her grandmother’s apron, she began to sob.
“I’m sorry.” Baron Backford knocked over his chair as he backed hastily from the table. “I didn’t mean any harm. I just thought, if you really had escaped, I might be able to say hello. All the magicians have gone, and I guess I should have gone too.”
Giserre waved Willy back into his chair. Sitting beside him, she pulled Hubley onto her lap and rocked the child back and forth, crooning a wordless song. A nod to the cook brought more bowls of soup and sliced bread with butter. Baron Backford fidgeted uncomfortably, no more sure what to do for Hubley now than he would have when he was twelve.
She stopped crying after a while. Feeling more like a child than she had since she was at least five, she rubbed her nose on the back of her hand.
“It’s not your fault,” she told the baron. “Everything’s just so different.” Pulling at the bridge of her nose, she fought off another surge of tears.
Giserre wiped her granddaughter’s cheeks with a handkerchief. “And how is Lady Breeana?” she asked, turning to the baron. “As hale as ever?”
“Mother is doing wonderfully,” said Willy, glad of the chance to talk about something different. “She’ll be thrilled to hear you asked about her. She’s three-score seven next spring, you know.”
“Does she still practice her archery?”
“Every day. How good of you to remember, milady.”
“I remember too,” said Hubley. Plucking the handkerchief from her grandmother’s hands, she blew her nose. “Especially that time she won the contest on your ninth birthday. That was the best ever, the way she showed all those stupid men she was just as good as they were.”
