“What have you heard about gnarlibars?” I asked. Perhaps I might find out, at last, what the beasts looked like.
“Big,” he said. “And bad. Low, wide beasts they are. They come upon you four at a time, from four directions. Always hunt in fours, no such thing as a single gnarlibar. Contradiction in terms, so I’ve heard. Well, who knows. Somebody told me they’re born in fours, twin ones to each female of a four, so every four is always related. It may be storytelling for all I know. We didn’t stay to see.” And he laughed over the limits to his vaunted curiosity.
I thanked him sincerely and left. There was no traffic at all on the road when I returned, guiding myself by our campfires which gleamed lonely against the dark bulk of the mountain. I found the place quiet, Silkhands busily talking to Queynt. I asked her where Jinian was, and she told me Jinian had ridden out a little time past in company with someone who had brought her a message from her brother Mendost. I went on to the separate fire where Chance squatted over his cookery, readying a bowl for me.
“Well, lad, did you find our way to satisfaction? Did some keen eyed merchant tell you the truth about our journey?”
This led to chaffing him at some length about gnarlibars and his former desire to have me Shift into such a beast. “They come in fours,” I said. “You would have been riding an anomaly had I Shifted into a mere single beast, Chance. Your widow would have despised you for lack of knowledge.”
“Ah, well, Peter, since you say it’s a wide, low beast, it’s as well you didn’t. There’s plenty of tall, dignified beasts what don’t require all that company.”
I chewed and gulped and gazed across the fire to the one where Silkhands sat. There, riding into that light was King Kelver, returning from his errand, face bleary and ill-looking as though he had been stricken with some disease or had been drinking since he left us. Chance saw it, too.
“Ah, now he doesn’t look like he’s feeling crisp, does he?”
“He doesn’t,” I agreed. “I wonder what the problem is?” And then, noting her absence, “I wonder why Jinian hasn’t returned?”
Chance struck his forehead a resounding blow and fished around in his clothing to bring out a sealed message. “Fuss me purple if I didn’t forget it in all this talk of gnarlibars. She left you this message and said give it to you soon as you returned.”
“Chance! I’ve been sitting here over an hour!”
“Well, you got so stiffy about my opening the last message for yourself that I didn’t open this one. What I don’t know the contents of, I can’t be overconcerned with, can I?” He was getting very righteous, and I knew he was angry at himself.
As well he might. The message read, Peter, if I have not returned, it is because I cannot. This is a fool’s errand, but I must find out. Say nothing to Kelver. Find me quickly, or likely I am dead.
For a moment it did not enter my mind as making sense, then I screamed at Chance, “Which way did she go? Tell me at once! Which?”
“Which way? Why, lad, I wasn’t watching! Somebody came and said they were from Armiger Mendost, and she should come along to the person carrying the message. Though that doesn’t make sense.”
It did not make sense. If her brother Mendost had sent a message, it would have been delivered to her in the camp. No need to ride elsewhere. “That was all a trap, a snare,” I hissed at him. “Somewhere this minute she may be dying. Did anyone else see her?”
“They paid no more attention than I did, Peter. They were talking among themselves, Silkhands, Queynt, the Dragons.”
“Not the King?”
“No. He’d gone away with some messenger before.”
I was frenzied, not questioning the frenzy, not questioning why my heart had speeded or my mouth gone dry. I was lost in a panic of fear for Jinian, not thinking that a Wizard should be able to take care of herself.