Dragonspell - Donita K. Paul [91]
Librettowit put his book away and stood. “Yes.” He looked up at the wizard with a cautious expression. “But first, home to prepare.”
The stout tumanhofer sighed his relief when Fenworth accepted his suggestion. Shimeran made a gesture to his fellow kimens. They scrambled to take down the tent and prepare a litter. Dar doused his fire and packed his culinary tools.
Fenworth paced for a few minutes, deep in thought. Abruptly, he turned to Kale. “You can’t go, of course. You’re too big.”
Kale’s disappointment at the announcement overcame her reluctance to talk to someone as important as the bog wizard. “Too big?”
“Yikes!” Fenworth rapidly crossed the distance between them and stopped to tower over the o’rant girl. “Who are you?”
“Kale Allerion, sir. We met in Bedderman’s Bog.” Kale remembered clinging to the cygnot planking, trying not to slide through while the wizard stood by saying, “tut-tut” and “oh dear.” Then she remembered the bird. “You didn’t help me. And you pretended you weren’t even there!”
And now he said she couldn’t go on the quest because she was too big. Paladin had said she could go on the quest, and she was going to go.
“I’m not too big!” she shouted.
“Of course, you’re not too big. What are you talking about?”
“You just said I’m too big.”
“What nonsense! As if I couldn’t tell you’re just the right size. Best size for an Allerion. Best size for an o’rant. Best size for a girl. Why are you complaining? Questing is no place for whiners.”
“You said I couldn’t go. I’m too big.”
“You’re not too big! Quit saying so!”
Kale had to cover her ears now. The wizard’s voice was taking on thunderous volume.
The tumanhofer came up beside his distraught companion and spoke clearly, pointing behind Kale as he did. “You said the urohm can’t go and is too big.”
Kale glanced behind her to see Brunstetter standing by the dragons and grinning. Annoyed that she’d misunderstood Fenworth and been trapped in a ridiculous argument, Kale glared at the gleeful urohm.
“Of course he’s big,” roared Fenworth. “He’s a urohm, Librettowit. Happened centuries ago at the Battle of Ordray. Not to him, of course, because he is younger than that, but to his people. A good thing, too. Urohms come in handy at times, but not in The Bogs. Dragons aren’t welcome, either. No dragons, no urohms, but little girl o’rants can enter at any time. That is, if they are questing. And this one is questing.” There was a pause as the wizard tugged on his beard and glared down at the tumanhofer. “Where did I leave the castle?”
“In a pumpkin patch.”
“Ha! That was a diversion. The times are perilous. I changed my mind and moved it.” Fenworth put his hand over his chin, closed his eyes, and frowned.
“A beehive?” suggested Librettowit.
The wizard shook his head. A score of bees flew out from his hair and zoomed away.
“A lily pad?”
Fenworth groaned and frogs dropped from the sleeves of his robe. “Do be sensible, Wit. I left it someplace safe.”
“You’ve left it on a lily pad four times in the last month,” grumbled the tumanhofer.
“Aha!” Fenworth snapped his fingers and opened his eyes. “Feather on a bird.”
“And you remember which bird?” Librettowit did not look hopeful.
“No, but he is to come to me when I give the secret signal.”
“And you remember the signal?” The tumanhofer sat down and pulled out his pen and book once more.
“Well…no.”
“You wrote it down somewhere? You left yourself a clue?”
“See here, Wit, you are not to be difficult about this.”
The tumanhofer shook his head and began writing in his book, evidently giving up on an immediate departure of the questing party.
The kimens and Dar slowed their preparations to leave. Fenworth strode back and forth, occasionally stopping to converse with a butterfly or a plant. Kale sat down beside Leetu and projected the images of the odd man’s afternoon antics into her sleeping friend’s mind.
Fenworth sat in the grass and a dozen rabbits gathered around him as if having a conference. He spoke to each one of them. Wondering what language they used, Kale was