“Do you think Mother and Father are in danger, Abernathy?” she asked him when they were alone, her face and voice impossibly serious.
Abernathy considered a moment, then shook his shaggy head. “No, Mistaya, I do not. And even if they are, it will not be the first time. When you are a King and Queen, there is always danger. When you wield power of any kind, for that matter, there is always danger. But your parents are very resourceful people and have survived a good many things. I would not worry for them if I were you.”
She liked his answer and nodded agreeably. “All right, I won’t. Are you and Questor staying with me once we reach Elderew?”
“Only for a day or so. Then we must go back. Your father will have need of us. We cannot be away for very long.”
“No, of course not,” she agreed, rather pleased that she would be on her own. Her grandfather knew magic as well. She wondered what he could be persuaded to teach her. She wondered if he would let her experiment a bit.
A shadowy form crept out of the trees to one side and melted into some bushes that ran along the edge of the lake. Mistaya and Abernathy were seated on a cluster of flat rocks elevated above the bushes and could see anything trying to approach. Neither missed the furtive movement.
“Bog wump?” she asked in an excited whisper.
Abernathy shook his head. “Some sort of wight. Neither very old nor very bright, judging from its lack of circumspection.”
She nudged the scribe lightly. “Bark at him, will you, Abernathy? A good, loud bark?”
“Mistaya…”
“Please? I’ll not pull your ears for the rest of the trip.”
The dog sighed. “Thank you so much.”
“Will you?” she pressed. “Just once? I want to see it jump.”
Abernathy’s jaws worked. “Humph.”
Then he barked, a quick, sharp explosion that shattered the twilight silence. Below, the wight jumped straight out of the bushes in which it was hiding and streaked back into the forest as if launched from a catapult.
Mistaya was in stitches. “That was wonderful! That was so funny! I love it when you do that, Abernathy! It just makes me laugh!”
She gave him a big hug and pulled lightly on his ears. “You make me laugh, you old woolly.”
“Humph,” Abernathy repeated. But he was clearly pleased nevertheless.
The fish cooked up nicely, and dinner was delicious. The members of the little caravan ate together, and everything was quickly consumed. It was better than a picnic, Mistaya concluded. She stayed up late swapping stories with the King’s Guards despite Abernathy’s clear disapproval, and when she finally rolled into her blankets—refusing the down-filled pad brought along for her personal comfort (the King’s Guards, after all, didn’t use them)–she was asleep in moments.
Without knowing why, she woke when it was still dark. Everyone around her was sound asleep, most of them, notably Questor Thews, emitting snores that sounded like rusty gates. She blinked, sat up, and looked about.
A pair of eyes stared back at her from only a few feet away, reflecting bright yellow in the last of the dying firelight.
Mistaya squinted, unafraid. The eyes belonged to a mud puppy. She had never seen one, but she knew what they looked like from the descriptions given by Abernathy in his endless lessons on Landover’s native species. She waited a moment for her vision to sharpen to make sure. The mud puppy waited with her. When she could see clearly, she found herself face to face with an odd creature possessed of a long body colored various shades of brown, short legs with webbed feet, a vaguely rodent sort of face, great floppy dog ears, and a lizard’s smooth, slender tail. Sure enough, a mud puppy, she thought.
She pursed her lips and kissed at it. The mud puppy blinked.
She remembered suddenly that mud puppies were supposed to be fairy creatures. They were rarely seen anywhere in Landover and almost never outside the lake country.
“You are very cute,” she whispered.
The mud puppy wagged its tail in response. It moved off a few paces, then turned back, waiting. Mistaya rose from her blankets. The mud puppy started off again. No mistaking what it wanted, the girl thought. What luck! An adventure already! She pulled on her boots and crept through the sleeping camp in pursuit of her new companion. The mud puppy made certain never to get too far ahead, deliberately leading her on.