Ben fought off the sudden lurch in his stomach. What did this mean, he wondered? “Where is she now?” he asked instead.
Questor shook his head. “Her trail leads north into the Melchor.” He hesitated. “Bunion says she appears to be traveling toward Mirwouk!”
Mirwouk? Where the missing books of magic had been hidden? Why would she go there? Ben felt his frustration increase.
“There is more, High Lord,” Abernathy interjected solemnly, ignoring the warning tug on his tunic sleeve from Questor. “Strabo and Nightshade are at hunt — presumably for you. Willow, and the bridle. And a demon — a huge, flying thing, a thing that answers to no one, it seems — is rumored to scour the whole of the valley. Bunion saw it last night.”
“Meeks’ pet,” Ben whispered, remembering suddenly the monster that had appeared at the dance of the River Master’s nymphs and destroyed them. His face tightened.
Edgewood Dirk and the matter of dreams were forgotten. He thought now only of Willow. “We have to reach her before they do,” he announced, his voice sounding hollow in his ears as he fought down the fear that raced through him. “We have to. We’re all she has.”
Everyone reacted. Abernathy barked sharply at the G’home Gnomes and turned the kobolds about once more. Questor put a reassuring hand on Ben’s arm. “We will find her. High Lord. You can depend upon it.”
Quickly they departed into the wastelands, the stranger who was High Lord, the wizard and the scribe, the kobolds and the gnomes.
Edgewood Dirk sat quietly and watched them go.
Mirwouk and Flynt
Willow felt the glare of the midday heat on her face through breaks in the forest trees and was suddenly thirsty. She made her way gingerly around an outcropping of rock that jutted from the ever-steepening slope, climbed to a shelf of tall grass and brush that disappeared ahead into a grove of deeply shaded fir, and paused to look back. Landover spread away below, an irregular checkerboard of fields and forests, hills and plains, rivers and lakes, swatches of blues and greens with brush strokes of pastel interspersed like webbing. Sunlight poured down over the valley from a cloudless blue sky and deepened the colors until they blinded with their brilliance.
Willow sighed. It seemed impossible that anything could be wrong on a day such as this.
She was deep within the Melchor now, past the threshold of hardwood forests, past the higher plateau of pine-wooded foothills, a fair distance up into the main peaks. The sun was sharp and hot this day where the shade failed to screen away its light, and the climb was thirsty work. Willow carried no water with her; she relied on her instincts to find what she needed. Her instincts had failed her these past few hours since leaving the foothills, but now she sensed water to be close again.
Nevertheless, she stayed where she was a moment longer and looked out across the valley in silent contemplation. Far, far distant to the south she could just catch a glimpse of the misted island that was Sterling Silver, and she thought of Ben. She wished he were here with her or that she understood why it was that she wasn’t there with him. She looked out across the valley and felt as if she were all alone in the world.
What was she doing here?
She felt burdened by the weight of the woolen-bundled harness she wore draped across her right shoulder, and she shrugged it off and let it drop into her hands. A burst of sunlight flashed sharply from a stray bit of trapping that slipped from beneath the covering folds. The bridle of spun gold clinked softly. She covered it over and shifted it to her other shoulder. The bridle was heavy, the woven threads and fastenings more cumbersome than she would have believed. She adjusted it carefully and straightened She had been fortunate that the dragon had agreed to give it to her. All the fairy songs, music, tears, and laughter had been potent magic indeed. Strabo had been charmed She was still surprised that the ploy had been successful She was still mystified that she had known somehow that it would be. Dreams, visions, and hunches — such were the vicissitudes that had driven her these past few days, a stray leaf blown by the wind.