A Princess Of Landover Part 6

"I can do this by myself, thank you. Besides, I have Haltwhistle."

"That's right. You have the a.s.sistance of your weird little dog. Clearly, he is a better friend to you than I am."

"What are you talking about?" she snapped.

"Well, you trust him enough to take him along, but not me. He probably knows the truth about what you're doing, doesn't he?"

Her mind was racing. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"Then allow me to enlighten you. Maybe it slipped your mind, but you are running away."

"I am not!" She tried to sound indignant. "If you don't give me my bag right now, I really will stop being your friend!"

"Sneaking out of the castle at night, having me meet you with clothes and travel stuff you could have carried out by yourself, and then telling me you intend to go somewhere mysterious alone? Sounds like someone running away to me."

She regretted ever thinking it a good idea to give her bag to this ferret-faced idiot. But it was too late for regrets. She had thought herself so clever, letting Poggwydd do the hauling. That way, she had reasoned, she wouldn't be burdened with the extra weight and if caught could argue that she was just going for a walk.

"You better tell me the truth about this right now!" he insisted. "If you don't, I'm going to start yelling."

"All right, don't do that!" She sighed, resigned to the inevitable. "My parents and I have had a disagreement. I am going to visit my grandfather for a while, and I don't want them to know where I am. Okay?"

Poggwydd looked horrified. He leaped to his feet, arms waving. "You really are running away?"

"Not exactly. Just ... taking a vacation."

"Vacation? You're running away! And I'm helping you! And after you're gone, they're going to find out about me, and they're going to say that it is all my fault!"

She held up her hands in an attempt to calm him. "No, they're not. Why would they blame you?"

"Because G'home Gnomes get blamed for everything, that's why! And I'll get blamed for this! Someone will remember that I was the last one to visit you. Someone will remember that I left carrying a bag of clothing. Someone will tell that kobold, and he will come after me and hang me from the tree again!"

"No, he won't. Bunion promised-"

"It doesn't matter what he promised!" Poggwydd snapped, cutting her short. He was beside himself, hopping up and down in agitation and dismay. "This is all your fault! You're leaving me behind to pay for your bad behavior! You used me to help you, and now you are leaving me! Well, I won't stand for it! I shall alert the watch immediately and then they can't blame me!"

He started to turn away, heading for the castle, and she was forced to reach out and grab his arm. "Wait! You can come with me!"

He tried to jerk his arm free and failed. "Why would I do that?" he demanded, stopping where he was. "Why would I come with you?"

"Because we're friends!"

That silenced him for a moment, and he stood there looking at her as if she had just turned into a bog wump.

"Friends don't leave friends behind," she continued. "You were right about my decision to leave without you. I was being selfish. You should come with me."

He seemed suddenly confused. "I was was right, wasn't I? I knew I was. But ..." He stopped again, trying to think it through. "You're going to see your grandfather? The River Master? You want me to go with you to the lake country? But they don't like G'home Gnomes there. They like them there even less than they do everywhere else." He paused. "Except maybe in the Deep Fell, where the witch lives." right, wasn't I? I knew I was. But ..." He stopped again, trying to think it through. "You're going to see your grandfather? The River Master? You want me to go with you to the lake country? But they don't like G'home Gnomes there. They like them there even less than they do everywhere else." He paused. "Except maybe in the Deep Fell, where the witch lives."

"We're not going to the Deep Fell," she a.s.sured him, although suddenly she was thinking that maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. With Nightshade still not returned from wherever her misguided magic had dispatched her almost five years earlier, the Deep Fell was safe enough. Well, maybe not all that safe, she conceded.

"I think this is a bad idea," he continued. "You shouldn't leave home like this. You should tell someone or they will worry and come hunting for you. If they find you, they'll find me and I'll get all the blame!"

She was ma.s.sively irritated with his whining, but she recognized that there was a reason for it and that she had brought the whole thing on herself by involving him in the first place.

"What if I write you a note?" she asked him.

"A note? What sort of note?"

"One that says you are not to blame for this. They would know my handwriting. They would know it was genuine."

He thought about it a moment. "I think I will just come with you and take my chances," he said finally.

She almost started arguing against it, then remembered it had been her suggestion in the first place. "Well, that's settled then. Can I have my bag now, please?"

Grudgingly, he released his grip and shoved it toward her. "Here. Take the old thing. Do what you want with it." Surly and grumpy-faced, he lurched to his feet. "Let's get going while we still can."

She started off without speaking, already determined to get rid of him at the first opportunity.

MISERY LOVES COMPANY.

Whatever reservations Mistaya might have harbored about her decision to allow Poggwydd to accompany her on her journey to the River Master were quickly proved insufficient.

He started to annoy her almost immediately by talking without taking a breath. He didn't appear to have any idea at all that it was possible to travel in silence. It began to seem after the first hour that his mouth was somehow connected to his feet, and that if one moved, the other must naturally follow suit. He talked about everything-about things he was seeing, about what he was thinking, about his worries and hopes and expectations, about his aches and pains, about his struggles to get by in life, but mostly about the undeserved lot of all G'home Gnomes.

"We have been set upon relentlessly, Princess," he declared, shaking his finger at her as if she were somehow to blame. "We are persecuted from the day we are born until the day we die, and there is never any letup in the effort. All creatures feel it is their bound duty to make our lives miserable. They do so without compunction and without reason. I think it is a game with them-an evil, malicious exercise. They consider it a pastime, an activity in which all must partic.i.p.ate and from which great enjoyment is to be gained. They see us as toys-small playthings made for their amus.e.m.e.nt."

She tried to slow him down. "Perhaps if you-"

"There is no 'perhaps' about any of it," he continued, cutting her short. "Do not try to change the reality, Princess, with encouraging words and empty promises of better days ahead. We Gnomes know better. It is our lot in life to be abused, and however unfair and arbitrary, we have learned to accept it. Teasing and taunting, sticks and stones, beating and flaying, even the burning of our homes"-this one slowed her down a bit, since G'home Gnomes lived in burrows in the ground-"are all part and parcel of our everyday lives. We bear up n.o.bly under our burden. You will not see a G'home Gnome flinch or hear him cry out. You will not witness a moment of despair revealed in our faces."

She could hardly believe what she was hearing, but she decided not to get into an argument about it. "Yet you continue to steal what isn't yours, which just encourages your mistreatment by others?"

"We do what we must to survive, nothing more." He sniffed with obvious indignation. "Most of the accusations of theft are baseless. Most are the product of overactive imaginations and willful resentments. When a G'home Gnome takes something that doesn't belong to him-a rare occurrence, as you know-it is usually because there is no clear owners.h.i.+p discernible of the thing taken or because there is a starving, homeless child to be cared for by a parent trying to do the best he or she can. I, myself, have witnessed this on more than one occasion. But do our persecutors take this into consideration? Do they give one moment's thought to those helpless children so in need of food and shelter? Sadly, no."

"If you kept to your own territories-"

"We are citizens of the world, Princess," Poggwydd interrupted her again. "We are nomadic travelers of all the parts of the land, and we cannot be confined to a single patch of ground. It would destroy us to do so. It would contradict and diminish centuries of Gnomic lives gone before, make mockery of all that we are, belittle our heritage-what little we have-a travesty of unparalleled proportions ..."

And so on. And so forth.

She endured it stoically, all the while plotting his demise. If she could drop him into a pit, she would. If she could feed him to a hungry tiger flunk, she wouldn't hesitate. She would welcome lockjaw in any form. She kept hoping that something would happen to cause him to turn back. But nothing suggested this was about to happen, as was apparent from his a.s.surances between his endless tales of Gnomic persecution.

"But we are not like them, and so I shall stay at your side, Princess, and do what I can to see you through this trying time." He puffed up a bit at this p.r.o.nouncement. Apparently, he had forgotten his stand on the matter some hours earlier. "No danger, however dire, shall force me to leave you. We G'home Gnomes are a strong-hearted and determined people, as you shall see for yourself. We do not abandon or mistreat our friends. Unlike some I know. Why, not two weeks ago, there was a farmer with a pitchfork ..."

And so on. And so forth.

They walked steadily through the moonlit night for several hours, traveling south out of Sterling Silver's boundaries and into the wooded hills that fronted the lake country. All the while, Poggwydd talked and Mistaya gritted her teeth and tried not to listen. Even Haltwhistle, ever faithful, had disappeared from view, obviously not any happier with the irritating Gnome than she was. She tried turning her attention to her surroundings. The sky had been mostly clear at the beginning of their journey, but now it began to fill with clouds. Moon and stars disappeared behind their heavy screen, and the dry, warm air turned damp and cool. By midnight, it had begun to rain-lightly, at first, and then heavily.

Soon the young girl and the G'home Gnome were slogging through a downpour.

"I remember another storm like this, perhaps a couple of years back. Much worse than this one. Much." Poggwydd would not give it up. "We walked for days, my friend Shoopdiesel and I, and the rain just kept falling on us as if it were tracking us for personal reasons. We huddled under old blankets, but it just seemed another instance of how everything works against you if you're a G'home Gnome ..."

Just shut up, Mistaya thought, but didn't say. She wondered momentarily if magic might silence him, but she had resolved not to use magic of any sort on her journey to her grandfather unless she was absolutely forced to do so. Using magic was like turning on a great white light that everyone who had a connection with magic could see from miles away. She was trying to stay hidden, not broadcast her whereabouts, and there was no surer way of alerting her father.

So she couldn't use it to do anything about Poggwydd or the rain and the cold, either, and she had to content herself with trying to ignore the Gnome and pulling the collar on her cloak a little tighter around her neck and choosing a path that kept her under the tree canopy as much as possible in an effort to deal with the weather.

Poggwydd, for his part, tramped along as if it were a sunny day, ignoring the rain as it streamed off his wizened face and leathery body, his lips moving in time to his feet in a steady, nonstop motion.

Such dedication, Mistaya thought irritably. If only he could apply half of that effort to avoiding all of his bad habits and irritating ways, he might manage to become at least reasonably tolerable.

At some point during the seemingly endless trek, she caught sight of the cat.

She wasn't sure what drew her attention-a small movement or just a sense of something being there-but when she looked, there was this cat, walking along in the rain as if it were the most natural thing in the world. What a cat was doing in the middle of the forest in the midst of a rainstorm escaped her completely. It didn't look feral or lost or even damp. It was slender and sleek, its fur a glistening silver save for black paws and a black face. It was wending its way through the trees, staying parallel to her, but keeping its distance. She waited for it to glance over, but it never did.

She looked away, and a few minutes later when she looked back, it wasn't there.

Maybe she had imagined it, she thought. Maybe it was Haltwhistle she had seen, mistaking the mud puppy for a cat.

Maybe it was a wraith.

When she had walked as far as she could, gotten as wet and cold as she could, and endured the elements and the incessant chatter of her traveling companion for as long as she could, she called a halt. She found shelter under the branches of a closely grouped clump of giant cedar, then took up a position on a dry patch of ground to wait for things to improve. Haltwhistle joined her, curling up a few feet away. Poggwydd chose a dry spot that was some distance off, yet still close enough for him to be heard should he choose to keep talking through the night. Mercifully, he seemed to have run out of steam and was rummaging through his rucksack, searching for food.

Food held no interest for Mistaya. She sat hunched down within her cloak in the rain and the darkness, rethinking what she intended to do. In retrospect, her plans seemed foolish. What made her believe the River Master would welcome her? Grandfather or not, he was a difficult and unpredictable creature, a once-fairy who had no use for her father and little more for her mother. Nor, she had to admit, had he shown much interest in her, at least of late. At best he had exhibited some small pleasure in having her as his granddaughter-much the way one enjoyed having a pet. It hadn't been so when she was younger, but things had changed. Why did she think he would give her any special consideration now, when she was no longer little and cute?

She chided herself for not visiting him more often and certainly sooner than this.

Even more distressing was her growing certainty that she could not avoid being discovered by her father before she was ready. There was no hiding from the Landsview, which could find anyone anywhere in Landover. Unless, of course, they were in the Deep Fell or in Abaddon, home of the demons, and neither was a reasonable alternative to the lake country. She might try using her magic to conceal her presence, but she didn't think she could afford to rely on a spell she had never used. She had to expect that she would be found out and confronted about what she was doing.

She grimaced. A favorable outcome did not seem likely. Whether her grandfather rejected her or her father found her, she would be humiliated and revealed. A physical confrontation with her father was out of the question, so what was left to her? If flight and concealment were not available, then she would almost surely have to settle for a protracted exile to Libiris and a life of drudgery and boredom. Her father would win, she would lose, and it would be business as usual.

She reached into her shoulder duffel and pulled out a quarter loaf of bread, gnawing on it absently. It seemed dry and tasteless amid the cold and damp. But there would be nothing better until she got to her grandfather's, so she might as well get used to it. She should have done a better job of thinking through her escape plan, she told herself. She should have found some reason for going to her grandfather that did not involve running away, and once she was there she could have found a way to make him let her stay. Now she was forced to hope she could persuade him in a matter of hours rather than days. Why was she so stupid?

"Why am I so stupid?" she repeated, whispering it to herself, inwardly seething.

"That is difficult to say," came a reply from the darkness.

She jerked upright and looked around to see who had spoken. But there was no one else present but Poggwydd. She waited expectantly, and then she said, rather tentatively, "Is someone there?"

Poggwydd replied, "Of course I'm here! What does it look like? Did you think I would abandon you?"

"No, I didn't think that, but I-"

"G'home Gnomes do not abandon those who depend on them in times of need, Princess. It is a characteristic of our people that even in the worst of circ.u.mstances, we stand firm and true. Forever faithful, that is our motto and our way of life, carried bravely forth ..."

And off he went with a fresh spurt of verbal energy, chattering away once more. She could have kicked herself for giving him a reason for doing so, but there was no help for it now.

She took a moment to consider her options before pulling out her travel blanket, wrapping herself up tightly, and lying down with her head on the duffel. She gazed sideways out into the trees, listening to the sound of the rain and smelling the dampness. Things weren't so bad, really. She shouldn't imagine the worst just because the future seemed so uncertain. She had faced difficult situations before and overcome them. She would overcome this one, too. She would be all right.

The last thing she saw before she fell asleep-and this was just as her eyes had grown so heavy that her vision was reduced to little more than a vague blur-was that strange silver-and-black cat.

When she woke, it was morning. But the rain was still falling, the air was still damp and cold, and trailers of mist were drifting through the trees like snakes in search of shelter. The only good thing she could point to was a silent, sleeping Poggwydd.

She looked for Haltwhistle, but he was gone again. She whispered his name, the way she knew she had to if she was to keep him close, never forgetting that she would lose him otherwise.

Then she saw the other G'home Gnome.

At first, she thought she must be mistaken, that she was seeing things, a mirage formed by the damp and the mist, perhaps. She blinked to clear it away, but when she focused on it again, it was still there. A second G'home Gnome, right there in front of her. Watching her, no less. She couldn't believe that this was happening. The only thing worse than one G'home Gnome was two.

She lifted herself up on one elbow for a better look. The Gnome raised one hand and wiggled his fingers at her. He was an unbelievably odd-looking fellow-there was no disputing that. He seemed to be younger than Poggwydd, less wrinkled and wizened looking, less hunched over. His ears were enormous appendages that stuck out from the sides of his head like bat wings. Thatches of reddish hair bristled from between them and in a few instances from inside them. The round blue eyes were in sharp contrast with the red hair, and the nose was a tiny black b.u.t.ton that looked as if it belonged to someone else. He was short and squat, even for a G'home Gnome, and made up almost entirely of bulges.

He smiled rather bashfully and said nothing as she scrutinized him, seemingly waiting for something.

Then Poggwydd woke up and things really got weird.

"Shoopdiesel!" he screamed excitedly as he caught sight of the other. "You're here!"

He gave a wild howl and leaped to his feet. The second Gnome jumped up, as well, and the two rushed at each other in a flurry of waving arms and wild exclamations. On reaching each other they went into a crouch, hands on knees, and began to chant: One, two, three, together we'll always be!

Three, four, five, as long as we're alive!

Six, seven, eight, because we're really great!

Eight, nine, ten, we'll always be good friends!

Then they began clapping hands and thumping chests and exchanging bizarre, complicated handshakes in a practiced ritual that Mistaya was certain held no meaning for anyone but them. She stared at all this, fascinated. Several things occurred to her about what she was witnessing, but none of them required acting on, so she contented herself with just watching the show.

"Princess!" Poggwydd called to her when the show was over and the two G'home Gnomes were embracing warmly. "This is my greatest and most loyal friend in all the world. This, Princess, is Shoopdiesel!"

He said this in a way that suggested it was an important announcement and meant to be taken seriously. She did her best to carry it off. "Very nice to meet you, Shoopdiesel."

The Gnome replied with a deep bow and a grin that consumed the entire lower portion of his lumpy face.

"Might one of you explain what that greeting was about?" she ventured, turning back to Poggwydd.

"That is our ritual secret greeting," he replied, grinning almost as widely as his pal. "No one knows how to perform it except us. That way, no one can ever pretend to be us."

He seemed to think that this was very clever, and she thought it would be heartless to point out that no one would ever want want to pretend to be them. "How did you find us, Shoopdiesel?" she asked instead. to pretend to be them. "How did you find us, Shoopdiesel?" she asked instead.

The newcomer whispered intently in Poggwydd's ear for several long minutes before the other then turned to her and proclaimed, "It was a stroke of good fortune, Princess."

Though she had every reason in the world to doubt this, she nevertheless listened while he explained that Shoopdiesel, having done little but worry about Poggwydd after his abrupt departure several weeks earlier, had come looking for him and found him yesterday sitting on the ground in a stand of Bonnie Blues with an old sheet clutched between his legs. Not certain how to approach him-which had something to do with Poggwydd's leaving in the first place, although it was not made clear exactly what-he sat down to think things over. Then Mistaya had appeared and spoken with Poggwydd for a very long time, and afterward the pair had gone off together, walking south, away from the castle. Having nothing better to do with himself, he had followed them.

"It was difficult for him to keep up with us during the storm without letting us know he was there, but he managed it. He is very unsure of himself, Princess, very shy. It is a fault he is trying to correct, but he couldn't overcome it at Sterling Silver. Then, this morning, he summoned the courage to come into our camp and reveal himself."