“We can leave the cart here,” she said. “No one will find it for days. By then we’ll be long gone, deep into the forest.”
I hopped off the cart. Wolfgang arose, as limber as if he hadn’t spent the last three days posing as a statue. For him, stepping off the cart was not much more than for a boy to step off a stool. It took but a moment for the three of us to push the cart into some bushes, out of sight of any casual passer-by.
Gwendolyn led the way into the forest. The dirt path quickly became a faint trail winding through the immense trees of the forest. Those trees! Never had I seen anything like them, so huge they were, and so densely packed. Every variety of tree, to boot, evergreen and hardwoods mixed together with no rhyme or reason that I could see.
Crazy he might have been, but Wolfgang had an uncanny ability to discern a person’s thoughts.
“Don’t try to figure out the ecology of the Grimwald, Benvenuti. Can’t be done, you know? The scholars gave it up long ago, after my great-grandfather Kirkpatrick went mad in the attempt. Locked him up, poor man, after he started babbling at the annual meeting of the Philosophical Society that the Grimwald was the last surviving remnant of the primeval Eozoon. Such a brilliant naturalist! I’m quite partial to his theory of the nummulosphere, myself. You’re familiar with it, of course?”
I shook my head.
“What? Never heard of Kirkpatrick’s theory?” He grimaced. “Such a horrible state modern education’s fallen to! Not surprising, of course, in Ozar. You Ozarines are such incorrigible rationalists. But even here in Grotum the children are not instructed in the theory of the nummulosphere. And such a marvelous theory! Kirkpatrick claims the whole world was built up, bit by bit, by the action of single-celled forams—amoebas, sort of. Claims you can see their fossils everywhere, if you just look closely enough. Unfortunately, he’s been the only one able to look closely enough, so they say he’s a crackpot. Too bad, really. His theory’s so much more imaginative than all this dry stuff about tectonic plates. Can there be anything more boring than igneous rock? Forams, now—there’s a lively basis for world-building!” And on he droned, making absolutely no sense at all. But I had gotten accustomed to shutting out his prattle.
By nightfall, we had penetrated a fair distance into the forest. Gwendolyn apparently knew where we were going—I myself was hopelessly lost—for when we entered a small clearing, she said: “This is it. We’ll camp here for the night.”
The next morning, Wolfgang announced that we would have to part company.
“I’ll be going that way,” he said, gesturing vaguely to the northeast. “Got to catch up with the wizard, you know, and you two are off to quite different parts.”
Gwendolyn looked at him, hesitated, then spoke.
“I will ask you again. Why are you—and everyone else in the world, it seems—so interested in this wizard?”
A look of pure innocence came upon Wolfgang’s face. “Me? Interested in Zulkeh?”
Gwendolyn exploded. “Don’t lie to me, Wolfgang! It must have taken you years to build those secret rooms and tunnels under the death house. And all so you could spy on this Zulkeh! Why? And why is everyone else so concerned with him? Why did Hildegard send me off on this wild goose chase? Why?”
“I’ve been interested in Zulkeh and his doings for years,” responded Wolfgang, a rare tone of seriousness in his voice. “Impossible to explain why, in any terms that would make sense to you. But it’s my main project in life, actually. It’s because of Joe, of course.”
Seeing the fierce frown on Gwendolyn’s face, Wolfgang sighed.
“You are so unreasonable about this, Gwendolyn! Don’t you think you should take the Joe question a bit more seriously, seeing as how everyone else does—friends and foes alike? Or do you really think the Fangs of Piety—not to mention Hildegard—are all as crazy as me?”
“They’re crazier,” snapped Gwendolyn. “At least you admit you’re a lunatic. Hildegard lives in the clouds. Oh, I love her dearly. And she’s a friend to the underground, I’d be the last to deny it. That’s why I agreed to carry out this mission for her. I owe her plenty of favors—the whole movement does, for that matter. But she’s still nuts! She claims to correspond with God!”