Questor cringed. “Yes, High Lord.”
Ben sat back without a word, glanced at Willow, then glanced at the kobolds. No one said anything. The room was still, the sounds of the night distant whispers. Ben wondered why these things always seemed to happen to him.
“We have to get the bottle back,” he said finally. He looked at Questor. “And when we do, you had better find a way to exchange it back again for Abernathy!”
The wizard’s face screwed into a knot. “I will do my best, High Lord.”
Ben shook his head hopelessly. “Whatever.” He stood up. “Well, we can’t do much until sunrise. It’s too dark out there to try to track down those confounded gnomes now. Even Bunion would have trouble. Hardly any light at all—clouded over, no moon. Damn the luck!” He strode to the windows and back again. “At least Fillip and Sot don’t know what they’ve taken. They think of the bottle as a pretty possession. Maybe they won’t open it before we find them. Maybe they’ll just sit there and look at it.”
“Perhaps.” Questor looked doubtful.
“But perhaps not?” Ben finished.
“There is a problem.”
“Another problem, Questor?”
“Yes, High Lord, I am afraid so.” The wizard swallowed. “The Darkling is a very unpredictable creature.”
“Meaning?”
“Sometimes it comes out of the bottle on its own.”
Not a dozen miles from where Ben Holiday was staring in horror at Questor Thews, Fillip and Sot lay huddled together in the concealing blackness of the night. They had scooped out an abandoned badger den and backed their way in, two chubby, furry bodies disappearing inch by inch into the earth until nothing remained but pointed snouts and glittering eyes. They crouched within their makeshift warren, listening to the sounds that rose about them, as still as the leaves hanging limp from the surrounding trees in the windless, peaceful air.
“Shall we take it out one more time?” asked Sot finally.
“I think we should keep it hidden,” replied Fillip.
“But we need only take it out for a moment,” argued Sot.
“That might be one moment too long,” insisted Fillip.
“But there is no light,” persisted Sot.
“Some need no light,” declared Fillip.
Then they were quiet again, eyes blinking, noses sniffing. Somewhere distant, a bird cried out sharply.
“Do you think the High Lord will miss it?” asked Sot.
“He said he wished he had never seen it,” answered Fillip. “He said he wished it would disappear.”
“But he still might miss it,” said Sot.
“He has many other bottles and vases and pretty things,” said Fillip.
“I think we should take it out one more time.”
“I think we should leave it where it is.”
“Just to look at the dancing clowns.”
“Just to give someone else a chance to steal it.”
Sot hunched down irritably, squirming in a way that would leave no doubt in his brother’s mind as to how he felt about the matter. Fillip ignored him. Sot squirmed some more, then sighed and stared out again into the night. He was thinking of the tasty meal and the warm bed he had left behind at the castle.
“We should have stayed with the High Lord until morning,” he said.
“It was necessary that we leave at once with the bottle,” replied Fillip, a tad weary now of the other’s talk. His nose wrinkled. “The High Lord was disturbed by the presence of the bottle. It gave him great pain even to look upon it. It reminded him of the dog. The dog was his friend—although I admit I will never understand how anyone can be friends with a dog. Dogs are good to eat, but have no other purpose.”
“We should have told him we were taking the bottle,” argued Sot.
“That would only have caused him more pain,” rebutted Fillip.
“He will be angry with us.”
“He will be pleased.”
“I think we should look at the bottle again.”
“Will you stop…?”
“Just to be certain that it is still all right.”
“…asking that same…?”
“Just to be sure.”
Fillip sighed a deep, wheezy sigh that sent dust flying from their burrow entrance. Sot sneezed. Fillip glanced at him and blinked. Sot blinked back.