Witches’ Brew by Terry Brooks

Dog Dreams

When Abernathy woke the next morning, having slept particularly well considering the trauma of yesterday’s events, Questor Thews was sitting in a chair across from his bed, staring at him like Death’s coming. It was very disconcerting. Abernathy blinked, reached for his glasses, and gave the wizard a long, slow deliberate look.

“Is something the matter?” he asked.

The wizard nodded, then shook his head, unable to decide. “We have to talk, old friend,” he announced wearily.

Abernathy almost laughed at the solemnity of the declaration. Then he saw the look in the other’s empty eyes and felt something cold settle into the pit of his stomach. Questor Thews was deeply troubled.

“Well,” he said in reply, and went still again, as if that one word had addressed the matter and disposed of it without the need for further conversation.

He rose to a sitting position, taking a moment in spite of himself to admire the smooth line of his arms and legs, pausing then to give critical consideration to the look of his fingers and toes. His fingers were long and slim, but his toes were all scrunched up like those gummy things he had recently acquired a taste for. Elizabeth kept a bag of them down in the kitchen and was forever offering him one. He didn’t care for the idea that they reminded him of his toes.

He cleared his throat. “What would you like to talk about?” he asked, hoping it was something other than Poggwydd.

Questor Thews bestirred himself sufficiently to rise from the chair and pace to the window, a tall, bent scarecrow with the stuffing coming out at the seams. He parted the curtain and looked out, squinting against the light. The day was sunny and warm, the sky cloudless, the world coming awake. “Let’s go down to the yard and sit in the shade of those trees,” he suggested, sounding cheerful in a forced sort of way.

Abernathy sighed. “Let’s.”

He showered, shaved, and dressed, and in the middle of doing so it occurred to him that what Questor Thews wanted to talk about was the book. Theories of Magic and Its Uses. Abernathy had forgotten about the book, all caught up in Poggwydd’s unexpected appearance at Graum Wythe and resultant capture, the G’home Gnome another outcast from Landover, trapped now as he was, the difference being, of course, that Poggwydd really didn’t want anything at all to do with this world, while Abernathy was growing steadily more comfortable with his exile.

Which meant, he concluded, that the book had revealed something to Questor about leaving. That was why the wizard was still awake: he had found the answer he was looking for and was trying to decide how to tell Abernathy, who he knew wasn’t as keen to be getting back. Although, he argued to himself, he really was, because he understood as well as Questor that the High Lord needed them, Mistaya was in the hands of Nightshade, and something awful was going to happen if they didn’t get back in time to prevent it.

But what? What was going to happen? He wished he knew. A little certainty in the matter certainly wouldn’t hurt.

He finished pulling on his shoes and went out of the bathroom to stand before Questor. The wizard faced him, seemed startled by what he saw, and quickly turned away.

“Well, thank you very much, I’m sure!” Abernathy snapped. “Are my pants on backward? Are my shoes the wrong color?”

“No, no.” The other put a hand to his forehead, pained. “In fact, you look quite sartorial.” The wizard waved vaguely at the air. “I’m sorry to be so rude. But I’ve been up all night reading, and I didn’t particularly care for the end of the story.”

Abernathy nodded, having no idea at all what he was nodding about. “Why don’t we go on down and get started with this talk,” he pressed, anxious to get it over with. “We can see if Elizabeth is awake and ask her to join us.”

But Questor quickly shook his head. “No, I’d rather this discussion was just between you and me.” He looked down, then bit at his lower lip. “Indulge me, please.”