Dragonspell - Donita K. Paul [90]
A voice roared through the air. “What is this, a camp?”
Kale jumped to her feet, knocking down one side of the tent. She had to battle her way through the cloth to get outside. Brunstetter stood with his hands on his hips, eyeing a scraggly tree and a stump that had appeared between where Dar prepared a meal and the resting dragons.
“Do you not hear me?” The voice was louder, so loud Kale covered her ears. Still the words sounded like thunder and were hard to distinguish. “I asked a question. Question. Quest. Not a camp. A quest. Tut-tut-tut.”
Kale heard muttering and then the booming voice again.
“A tree? I am not a tree. I’m a wizard.”
More muttering.
“I am speaking softly. Have to, you know. Scare the creatures not accustomed to wizards if you don’t treat them gently. Oh dear.”
Kale strained to hear the reply but could hear only a murmur.
“I am not a tree. Quit saying so. You, however, do seem to be a stump. Tut-tut.”
The wizard’s form had become more o’rant and less treelike as the argument progressed. The wizard tilted his head toward the shorter man. “Do you hear thunder?”
Now his face pulled together in a furious scowl. “Me. Me! I’m not roaring like thunder, and I am not shouting!”
The volume of the last words knocked all but Brunstetter off their feet. The wizard stopped roaring. A muttering of two voices replaced the bellow.
Kale lifted her face from the grass and watched the tree turn into a tall, willowy old man with a long beard. Leaves and twigs clung to his wrinkled robes. Beside him, the stump transformed into a short, round man who came up to the older man’s waist. His brown clothes bagged around his small stature, and Kale recognized the style of clothing as that of an academician.
From where she’d fallen on the ground, Kale drew herself up on her elbows for a better look. The short man might be a teacher from The Hall. And the wizard is definitely the man I saw in The Bogs.
The little man was a tumanhofer, one of the mountain people. A little taller than Dar, with a florid complexion and short black hair, the man growled between clenched teeth. His bushy eyebrows closed over his nose as he scowled up at his companion. Glasses perched on his bulbous nose. Small, dark eyes squinted behind the frames. A tiny pointed beard accented his pointed chin. A thin line of mustache crossed over pouty lips.
Dar hopped to his feet and ran to meet the two.
He swept a deep, courtly bow. “Wizard Fenworth, we are delighted that you have joined us. And is this the famous Librettowit? You are spoken of highly in all the universities of Amara.”
The two men turned as one to glare at the doneel.
“Humph!” they said in unison.
“Tea?” offered Dar.
34
MISLAID CASTLE
Dar served sandwiches, fresh fruit, sweet pastries, and, of course, tea. Before they sat down to eat, the tumanhofer went around to each person and introduced himself as Trevithick Librettowit, a librarian. Fascinated by the wizard, Kale watched Fenworth eat with gusto everything the doneel placed in front of him. During the entire meal, the old man said little besides an occasional thank-you and many requests to pass one dish or another. Midway through his second helping, the wizard reached into his tangled beard, pulled out a mouse by its tail, and set it on the ground. The tiny creature scampered away.
Kale barely kept from laughing out loud. She coughed to hide the gurgle that rose in her throat. She wouldn’t want to offend the man. He was someone who fell into shouting easily. She looked to see the reaction of the others in her party. Everyone looked busy, almost too busy, as if they were purposely not watching Wizard Fenworth.
Perhaps it’s rude to notice when a wizard does something strange.
The tumanhofer ate more slowly, occasionally scribbling a line or two in a book he balanced on his knee.
“Well then,” said the wizard, standing and brushing crumbs from the front of his robe. He also dislodged brown, dried leaves, a nest of beetles, several moths,