Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [77]
Ellie pursed her lips and shook her head. “That hardly seems the way to make friends.”
“I doubt it ever crossed their minds to make friends with the people of Chiril.”
“No?”
“Paladin gave them the task of explaining the ways of Wulder to the people of Chiril. It would have been a better method to ask the urohms to come and help in any way they could, to serve the people.”
“Is that how Wizard Fenworth, Librettowit, and Verrin Schope told you about Wulder?”
He laughed. “They didn’t tell me much at all. We were busy saving the country. They talked among themselves about Him. But basically, they never laid out rules and facts at all. I became intrigued by the way they acted and how they helped one another … and me.”
“So how did you learn about this Wulder?”
“Once my curiosity was aroused, I began to listen more carefully, then I asked questions, then one of them gave me a copy of Wulder’s Tomes. Actually, a set. There are three of them.”
“Do you have them here? May I see them?”
“I left them outside the bottle. Of course, I would have brought them with me had I known I was going to be trapped in Rumbard City. But I had just walked over to find a spot to paint. My moonbeam cape, my books, my luggage, and all my personal effects are in the cart beside the road I traveled.”
He walked for a moment in silence. “That was over two months ago. I’m sure someone has taken the horse and cart to the nearest town.”
Ellie ignored his lament over the horse and his things. “What is a moonbeam cape?”
The memory made him smile. “The cape was presented to me by Winkel, one of the matriarchs of a kimen village. It’s woven from the fibers of a moonbeam plant and has the impressive property of camouflage. If you remain still, you blend into your surroundings, except in bright sunlight. And inside they sewed hollows, deep pockets where anything can be stored.”
He looked at her puzzled expression and knew he had to do more explaining. “Anything that fits in the opening of the hollow disappears. When you wear the cape, you can’t feel the weight of all that the hollows hold. No bulges or lumps or sagging material give away the fact that you carry weapons and food and clothing. Librettowit once produced a raft out of his hollow. In pieces. We had to put it together.”
Ellie remained silent.
Bealomondore let out an exasperated swoosh of air. “You haven’t gone back to not believing me, have you?”
“I … I believe you, but I would like to see these marvelous things. My mind would more easily picture such a thing. Seeing would make it easier to believe, but I do believe you, Bealomondore. Don’t you understand that I could imagine these marvelous things if I had at one time seen something like them?”
“Not necessarily.” Bealomondore noticed a movement at the corner of the next building. He slowed down. “I wore the cape and would forget its ability to hide me. I would put things in the hollows, which just looked like pockets, and then marvel over the lack of evidence that the items still existed. Many times I plunged my hand back in to draw the object out just to prove to myself that it hadn’t disappeared.”
He edged closer to his companion and spoke quietly. “Ellie, I think we have finally found the children. At least one. Ahead of us, at the corner of the music hall.”
Ellie looked ahead. “I see her. I think I’ve seen her another time. Yes, I noticed her before when I was the guest of the children.”
Bealomondore made no comment about her use of the word “guest.” She’d been abducted. Right now he focused on not allowing that to happen again.
Ellie’s voice came in a breathless whisper. “She’s smaller than the others, and I thought perhaps she was younger.”
“She must be small for her age. She’s still taller than either of us.”
“True.”
The girl came out in full view and sat on the edge of the wide step into the large hall. The front of the building had huge glass-covered posters of programs. The child watched them approach. Bealomondore