WIZARD AT LARGE. Terry Brooks

“Look, the little girl… uh, what’s her name?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Yeah, Elizabeth said you had to get to Virginia. That right?”

Abernathy nodded, his mouth full of sandwich. He was starved.

“What do you have to go to Virginia for?”

Abernathy considered his answer. “I have friends there,” he said finally.

“Well, can’t we just call them up?” the other asked. “I mean, if you need help, why not just give them a call?”

Abernathy was confused. “A call?”

“Sure, by phone.”

“Oh, telephone.” He remembered now what that was. “They don’t have a telephone.”

Davis Whitsell smiled. “That so?” He sipped at his beer and watched while Abernathy finished his food. The dog could feel him thinking.

“Well, it won’t be easy getting you all the way to Virginia,” he ventured after a moment.

Abernathy looked up, hesitated, then said, “I have some money to pay my way.”

Whitsell shrugged. “Maybe so, but we can’t just put you on an airplane or a train and ship you out. There would be all sorts of questions about who or what you were. Uh, pardon me for saying that, but you got to understand that people aren’t used to seeing dogs who dress up and walk about and talk like you do.”

He cleared his throat. “Other thing is, the little girl said something about you being held prisoner. That right?”

Abernathy nodded. “Elizabeth helped me escape.”

“Then this might be dangerous business, me helping you. Someone’s going to be pretty unhappy once they find you gone. Someone’s liable to be coming after you. That means we have to be extra careful, don’t it? ‘Cause you’re pretty special, you know. Don’t find dogs like you every day. Sorry. Men like you, I mean. So best to get in quick, get out quick. Make what we can off this, eh?” He seemed to be thinking his way through the matter. “Won’t be easy. You’ll have to do exactly what I tell you.”

Abernathy nodded. “I understand.” He drank the last of his milk. “Can you help at all?”

“Sure! You bet I can!” Whitsell rubbed his hands briskly. “Best thing for now, though, is to get some sleep, then we’ll talk about it in the morning, come up with something. Okay? Got the spare room down the hall you can use. Bed’s all made up. Alice won’t like it, doesn’t like anything she can’t understand, but I’ll handle her, don’t you worry. Come on with me.”

He took Abernathy down the hall to the spare room, showed him the bed and the bath, provided him with a set of towels, and got him settled in. All the while he was thinking out loud, talking about missed opportunities and once-in-a-lifetime chances. If he could just figure out a way to make things work, he kept saying.

Abernathy pulled off his clothes, climbed into bed, and lay back. He was vaguely bothered by what he was hearing, but he was too exhausted to give the matter proper consideration. He closed his eyes wearily. Whitsell switched off the light, stepped outside, and pulled the door shut behind him.

The house was very still. Just outside, the branches of a tree brushed against the window like claws.

Abernathy listened for only a moment. Then he was asleep.

Jericho

It was approaching nightfall when Questor Thews, the kobolds, and the G’home Gnomes arrived at Rhyndweir. The sky was hazy blue-gray with tiny strips of pink where the sun still lingered as it fled from the encroaching darkness. Mist clung to the Greensward in gauzy strips, turning the land to shadows and blurred images. Rain still fell, a thin veil of damp that seemed to hang on the air. Sounds were muted and displaced in the murkiness, and it was as if life had lost all substance and drifted bodiless.

Bunion led the way cautiously as they crossed the bridge spanning the juncture of the rivers that fronted the towering plateau on which the fortress castle of Lord Kallendbor had been built. The town beneath was closing down for the day, a jumbled mix of grunting men and animals, of clanging iron and creaking wood, and of weariness and sweat. The little company passed down the roadway through the shops and cottages; the buildings were dim, squat mounds in the mist, from which slivers of candlelight peeked out warily. The roadway was rutted and muddied from the rain, a morass that sucked at their boots and the horses’ hoofs. Heads turned to watch them pass, evidenced momentary interest, then turned quickly away again.