The Christening Quest Read online

  Now here he was, heading into this fearsome border country, accompanied only by his horse, a hawk, and hound borrowed from Roland’s castle, where he had spent the night. He was readying himself to face a witch. Admittedly, she was supposed to be on his side, but nevertheless, she was a person of formidable power. He remembered Bronwyn’s tale of her quest very well, and, at the moment, the part where this particular witch had tried to drown his sister figured prominently in his recollections. Also on his mind were the opinions of his Wasimarkanian friends. Wasimarkan had little magic and less regard for it, and the attitudes of the people who had most recently raised him influenced him sufficiently that he felt he was being put on his mettle to deal with a witch.

  * * *

  For her part, the witch was dealing with a great many other problems of a distressingly mundane nature, and would have preferred, as she had explained to the village seamstress only the day before, to be almost anywhere else dealing with almost anything else. But she had her responsibilities. The villagers were used to a magically clean manor and plenty of food on the board, something Carole’s mother, Maggie, with her hearth magic, had always been able to provide with what seemed to Carole unthinking efficiency. For Carole, whose own powers consisted of being able to whistle or hum objects, people, and animals into dance, maintaining the same standards as her mother took a great deal of thinking and considerably more work. She could not simply wish a thing clean, but had to whistle a broom into an appropriately useful motion, a dust cloth into yet another, and the dishcloth, ladles, spits, polishing rags, and so on, each into its own movement. Chopping knives were a nightmare, and mending had more than once produced some bizarre results when she neglected to stop the needle in time.

  And unlike her mother, she could not simply expand existing supplies of food but had to locate new ones as provisions ran out. Maggie had left in such a hurry to travel to Great Aunt Sybil’s bedside in the Northern Territories that she hadn’t reckoned properly what would be needed for the duration of her visit, which moreover had turned into a more extended one than she had anticipated. Consequently grain, fruits, and preserved vegetables were getting low and the villagers were complaining mightily about the extra ration of fish in their diet, since Carole was totally unwilling to whistle anything less cold-eyed and more furry to its demise on a supper table. Her father, Colin Songsmith, the noted minstrel, had attended the first town council where the villagers had mentioned their dissatisfaction with the arrangements. Thereafter, he hastily recalled an important seminar at the Royal Minstrel’s Academy, far to the south and safely away from the valley whose government he was supposed to administer.

  Then, of course, there were her other duties, those she had taken on with her vows as priestess. There weren’t too many weddings in Wormroost, for most of the inhabitants were the age of her parents or older, but many sickbeds and deathbeds to attend, and officiating at the holidays, which, Mother be praised, were mostly past now with no more due until surely, surely, her own mother, Maggie, had safely returned.

  Sometimes Carole had a sneaking suspicion that Aunt Sybil, who saw into other people’s lives even as they were happening, had gotten sick simply to make sure Carole had enough to do to take her mind off the treacherous defection of her erstwhile suitor, Sir Brendan, formerly a knight at Castle Rowan, a week’s ride from Wormroost, presently residing with his new bride in Queenston. Not that anyone cared, the witch reminded herself, hoisting her dip net and throwing on her cloak. Queenston was an overrated bore, full of lovely, costly goods and impractical activities and people silly enough to spend too much money on them. She had tried it once, fostering there between her fifteenth and seventeenth years, and had found herself longing for the valley and the villagers, who were unpretentious, if demanding. And here her magic powers ran only a close second to her parents’ powers, her mothers hearth craft and her fathers persuasive musicality, rather than being lost in the smoky explosion of the grandiose and exotic abilities abundant at court.

  When her parents were home, there was naturally less call for whistling things about, but her priestess work was necessary. She had ample time to swim in the talkative Blabbermouth River, enchanted by a previous witch occupant of the valley for companionship. She also liked to visit Sebastian, the amiable white beast who guarded the glaciers on the far side of the valley. She had often explored the ruins of the ice castle, without disturbing the sleeping ice worm whose breath in winter covered the town in mist. And there had previously been occasions when she rode to Castle Rowan for a party or weekend outing with Roland and his wife, who were dull but at least close to her own age. She liked watching the unicorns when they came to bless the river with their horns, rendering it not only pure but capable of sensible conversation (otherwise it did nothing but gossip and utter trite drivel). She liked seeing Wulfric, the wolf who was formerly a were, lope across the valley as he sometimes did when the moon was full, pausing to howl in greeting from a safe and lonesome distance.

  She could do with a bit of a howl herself, she thought, dismounting her black mare beside the loop of the Blabbermouth furthest from the village. She set her net aside while she stripped off her cloak and brown gown to reveal her bathing costume. A blue velvet shift, decently opaque, long of sleeve, with a divided skirt. The mermaids she had met when she was a girl would laugh at it, but her mother would settle for no less decorous attire. The villagers were easily shocked, and certainly would have been by the standard mer costume of flashing tail and lots of hair with everything else bared to the waves. Sometimes she wished she had stayed with the mermaids, as they had desired, but though the singing was nice, she simply couldn’t manage to develop a taste for drowning sailors. Besides, had she done so she would have missed out on the rest of the quest that was, except for priestess training—and she supposed she had to count Sir Brendan—the last interesting thing that had happened to her.

  The hole she had hacked in the ice with a hand-ax had grown ice whiskers around the edges, but she was still able to plunge in, net and all, through the narrow opening into the chattering black waters.

  * * *

  Rupert, riding through the worms-breath mist to the mumbling river, knew at once he had found the witch he sought. Who else was likely to be rising dripping wet and calm as you please from a river frozen solid? Her jet mare paced near enough for her to catch the tail of the patient beast and haul herself, whistling, from the hole. She hadn’t the humanity even to shiver. Holding his rowan shield firmly before him, he flipped his hawk from his other gauntlet to circle her head, while the hound barked and whined. That should stop her from extending a witchy forcible swimming invitation to him, should she be inclined to do so. He would have had no doubt about handling an ordinary woman, but a certain nervousness around witches was, he felt, entirely justifiable.

  The witch clung to the horse’s tail and watched the hawk for a moment before blasting three short notes that sent the bird fluttering back toward Rupert. Its far-seeing eyes were crossed with confusion.

  “Excuse me,” she said, waving with her free hand, “Yoo-hoo, you there on the horse. Keep that creature on a leash, will you? Or jesses, or whatever you call them. The village won’t be at all happy if I let some strange bird fly off with their supper, even if it is only fish.” And she flopped a net full of them up on the ice and finished climbing out after them.

  Rupert quickly swung down from his horse and gave her his hand, which she accepted in lieu of the black mare’s tail.

  “You were fishing?” he asked. “In there?” He looked over her dripping shoulder into the steaming hole behind her.

  “Yes,” she said. “Ice fishing. I realize it looks a bit peculiar, but water doesn’t bother me much, even very cold water. Mer blood on my father’s side, you know. But if you’ll excuse me now, once outside the water I freeze as quickly as anyone, and you’re between me and my cloak.”

  The last was punctuated with the clicking of her teeth and he snatched the cloak from her
saddle, wrapped it around her, and watched as she rubbed the hood briskly against her hair and the cloak over her shoulders and arms before mounting her horse.

  “I’ve come on an urgent mission, lady,” he said, mounting his own and wishing to establish his credentials at once.

  “Undoubtedly, since this is hardly the season for tourists. But excuse me, it’s also urgent that I get myself and these fish to the hall.” And the horse trotted smartly away. He caught up with her well before they arrived at the hall and followed her inside. “Make yourself at home for a bit while I dry off, will you?” she called back and disappeared through a side door to reappear with her brown hair sleeked back from her strong-featured and rather saturnine face. She was clad sedately in a brown tunic, skirt, and wrapped boots not half so becoming as the wet blue velvet.

  “Do I have the pleasure of addressing the Honorable Lady Carole Songsmith-Brown?” he asked, knowing he did.

  “I sincerely hope you’ll find it pleasant,” she replied. “But I suppose that depends on who you are and what it is you want.”

  “I was about to say that,” Rupert replied, taken aback by the witch’s directness. “If you’d be kind enough to let me get to it.”

  “Sorry,” she said, not sounding so.

  He smiled down at her. She was probably still rattled at having such a very large stranger as he was accost her alone in the wilderness. Though he could certainly be forgiven for not noticing, since she seemed quite a lot calmer than he felt. “I am your cousin, Rupert Rowan, fourth child and third son of His Majesty and—er—also Duke of the Eastern Salt Marshes.”

  She blinked twice, staring, to his satisfaction, with her mouth open, and sat down, belatedly extending a hand to indicate that he do the same. “My,” she said at last. “What a pleasant surprise. You’re little Rupert, are you? Pardon me if I failed to recognize you. I think you were about four years old when last I saw you. You’ve grown.”

  He nodded.

  “Didn’t I hear that you were abroad somewhere?”

  “I was. Wasimarkan. I’ve learned all they have to teach me now, however, and am, as I mentioned, on an urgent mission for my lady sister.”

  “Bronwyn? You’ve seen her? How is she?”

  “Sick with grief,” he said, and told her the story of the kidnapping, adding a few sword thrusts on his part and deleting the role of the nurse.

  “Didn’t waste any time, did they?” she asked with a brooding look into her mug of herb tea. She had prepared both of them a mug while Rupert spoke.

  “Not even long enough to have the child christened, which seems to be what distresses Bronwyn the most. She was ready to ride over here in her nightgown to ask you to help her see that the child has full protective rites.”

  “But you came instead?”

  He nodded.

  “Let me throw together some food and get my cloak,” she said, rising.

  “You don’t understand. They’re already in Miragenia by now. It will be a long and hazardous quest.”

  “Oh, but I do. I’m quite prepared now, unless you’re weary from your journey and want to rest for the night?” Carole tried to sound merely cooperative rather than eager, but inwardly she praised the Mother for delivering her from the tedium of the past few weeks. And though the witch was sorry, in a somewhat abstract way, for the trouble that had befallen Bronwyn’s household, she was not surprised and was certainly not displeased at the excitement Bronwyn’s misfortune promised to generate. Not that Carole was enjoying the trouble exactly, just the opportunity to help her cousin out of it, as she had previously done when Bronwyn’s curse had been a royal pain in the neck for herself and everyone else.

  What marvelous timing. Just when she was about to march the entire village into the river, which no doubt would have made everyone very cross with her, Bronwyn provided her with a perfectly lovely excuse to chuck it all and venture forth to aid a beleaguered baby. No, not an excuse. A sacred duty. A family trust. A dire, drastic emergency. Even if one were extremely reluctant, one would have had to respond, of course, both as priestess and family member. Anyone would understand that. On the other hand, no one, especially the Prince, was likely to take kindly Carole’s unseemly delight at the prospect, so she controlled her face and modulated her voice a full three octaves below the tones of squeaky excitement she was apt to emit if she wasn’t careful. “You did say it was urgent, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose I did. I just thought you’d need more persuading.”

  “Under the circumstances, I can hardly quibble. Just let me drop those fish off at a certain town councilman’s cottage on the way and I’ll delay you no longer.”

  As she was grabbing her cloak, however, the long narrow windows of the hall began rattling and the massive furniture quivered. Presently there came a great noise, a periodic booming, as of some huge drum, passing overhead and quitting just as it cleared the manor house. A horse screamed. Rupert was on his feet at once, his hand to his sword hilt. Carole touched his arm.

  “It’s nothing to worry about. Just one of the dragons. Since I managed to persuade the council not to butcher the cow I set aside for her, she won’t trouble your horse. Not unless she’s unusually hungry that is.”

  Unreassured, Rupert raced for the door and around the building. In the farmyard was indeed a dragon, daintily covering with a loop of her tail a charred carcass from which she was chewing a haunch. She looked up, and belched, and to Rupert’s amazement, blushed. He could tell she was blushing for her color deepened so that the lightest shade of pink in her scales, which was as delicate as the inside of a seashell, turned the same deep rose as her darkest shading. Her eyes were as large as his shield and the color of lilacs. They blinked slowly and incredulously, watching him.

  “Ah, Grippeldice,” Carole said, a pace or so behind him. “Good to see you. Meet my cousin, the Prince.”

  The dragon’s eyes grew, if possible, larger, and then the delicately veined lids drooped shyly over them and didn’t look back up again. Her head dipped toward her rosy wing. Rupert knew the look, though he had never seen it on a dragon before. He didn’t pause to wonder how Carole communicated with the beast. She was a witch, after all. He assumed she used witchcraft. He bowed his most elegant and courtly bow and said, “I had no notion we bred dragons so fair in this land, cousin,” and, in a quick whisper from the side of his mouth added, “You can tell her I said so. You did say it was a lady dragon, did you not?”

  Carole nodded. “Grippeldice is on mountain patrol this month. We provide her with stock in payment for her services.”

  Grippeldice emitted a low, hoarse growl, producing a cloud of steam. Carole nodded, and turned back to Rupert with an expression of amusement and a slightly raised eyebrow. “She wants to know where you’ve been all her life.”

  “I’ve been—see here, I’ll pay you if you’ll give me that spell you’re using to talk to her. I’ve never spoken to a dragon before.”

  “Sorry, but it’s no spell. It’s Pan-elvin, a magical language that takes years to learn. It’s all in the silent letters, you see. So when I use it, it sounds like Argonian to anyone else but the creature I’m addressing, who hears the magical silent letters in its own tongue. When the dragon replies, she uses the dragonese version.”

  Rupert, who hadn’t quite caught all that, scratched his head and shook back the curl dangling so charmingly over his forehead. “I must get you to teach me this language then. I really have to learn to speak with dragons.”

  “We have unicorns hereabouts, too, but they’re shy unless—I don’t suppose you’re… no, silly of me, never mind.”

  Rupert was about to protest that she must tell him what she meant by that, too, until it dawned on him that he knew with whom, according to legend, unicorns were most friendly. He grinned and winked at her. “No, I’m afraid I wouldn’t qualify in that respect, though I’m sure I could convince a unicorn of the purity of my intentions if only you’d provide the introductions.”


  Grippeldice, piqued at being left out of the conversation, breathed a slightly sulfurous puff in their direction. Carole made a quick reply. The dragon batted her eyes at Rupert again twice before launching herself upward, cow and all, and disappearing into the glacial peaks.

  “That fish will be nasty if we don’t get it delivered soon,” Carole said, cheerfully linking arms with him. “And it might be wise to leave before the dragon forgets her cow and decides to take you instead. They’re rather impetuous creatures, dragons.”

  Chapter II

  The town councilman was far less pleased than Carole with her present and the knowledge that Wormroost would just have to cope without its resident witch and spiritual adviser for the time being.

  “But won’t that be hard on them?” Rupert asked as they left, very quickly, while the front door of the councilman’s cottage slammed behind them.

  Carole grinned a grin worthy of the Wasimarkanian version of a witch. “On the contrary, I think it will be very good for them. No doubt the Mother planned it that way. Still, we need to be well away from here quickly. I’m sure the stableman will be glad of the loan of a hound and bird for company and old Bernard may even remember how to hunt with them.”

  “Do you have the power of flight to transport us?” Rupert asked suspiciously. He did not mind taking her along, but he didn’t much care for the way she was already trying to manage things.