A Princess Of Landover Part 8

She rose, walked over to the window, and looked outside. There would be guards keeping watch, she knew. She would not be allowed to leave if they caught sight of her trying to do so. Not that she could leave Elderew without help in any case, even with the use of her magic. Magic could only get you so far, and in a land warded by magic and magic-wielding creatures, even she was at a disadvantage. But she had to try something. She had to get out of there before morning.

Then she saw the cat again.

It was walking just outside her window, for all intents and purposes out on a nighttime stroll, wending its way through the gra.s.ses and flowers of the little gardens. It was the same cat, she was certain. Silver with black markings, slender and aloof in its bearing, seemingly unconcerned for everything around it.

She watched it a moment, wondering what it was going to do. Then abruptly it stopped, sat down, and looked over at her. She blinked. Sure enough, it was watching her. It hadn't done this before, but it was doing it now. Well, well Well, well, she thought.

Curious, she slipped from her sleeping chamber, went through the common rooms on tiptoe, and eased out the cottage door and around the house to the gardens. The cat was still sitting there, looking at her. She stopped at the gardens' edge, perhaps ten feet away, wondering what to do next.

"Can I help you with something, Princess?" the cat asked suddenly.

And she could have sworn she saw him smile.

EDGEWOOD DIRK.

Mistaya stared at the cat, and the cat stared back, its green eyes luminous. Had it really spoken to her or had she just imagined it?

"Cat got your tongue?" the cat asked after a moment's silence between them.

She nodded slowly. "I don't guess you're any ordinary cat, are you? I guess you must be a fairy creature. But you look like an ordinary cat."

"I don't guess you're any ordinary girl, either," the cat replied. "I guess you must be a Princess. But you look like an ordinary girl."

She nodded again. "Ha, ha. What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you to come out and talk with me. We have a great deal to discuss, you and I. We have plans to make. We have places to go and people to meet. We have a life to live that extends far beyond these woods and your grandfather's rule."

"We do, do we?" She dropped down on her haunches and regarded the beast more closely. She ignored the cool damp of the night air and the silence of the darkness. She didn't even think about the possibility that her grandfather's guards might be watching her talk with this cat and wondering why. Her curiosity pushed all these considerations aside as she studied the cat's inscrutable face. "We have all that to do, you and I?"

The cat lifted one paw and licked it carefully, not looking at her. When it was satisfied with the result, it put the paw back down and blinked at her with an air of contentment. "Allow me to summarize. You have been dismissed from your school and sent home. Your father is unhappy with you and your mother, disappointed. Consequently, they seek to find a way to channel your considerable talents into a project that will further your truncated education. Thus, they choose to send you to Libiris. You view this as punishment, particularly in light of your father's response to Lord Laphroig's marriage proposal, and so you flee to your grandfather in hopes that he will better understand your dismay. But he refuses to let you stay and in the morning intends to send you back to your parents."

It paused. "How does all this sound to you? Have I left anything out, Princess? Would you care to add, subtract, or amend my words in any way?"

She shook her head no. "I think that about covers it, Mr. Cat." She gave it a sharp look. "How do you know all this?"

"It is my job to know things," the cat said. "Cats know lots of things about the world and its creatures, especially people. Cats watch and listen. It is what they do best."

"So you have been watching me?"

"Haven't you noticed me?"

"Once or twice on the way here. Not before then."

"Which points up how un.o.bservant people are when it comes to our place in their lives. We wander about freely, and no one pays much attention to us. It allows us to go almost anywhere and discover almost anything without anyone realizing what we are doing. We know so much about you, but no one ever considers what this means. Cats are highly underrated in this regard."

"Well, I admit to not seeing you before yesterday. But I don't understand why you would want to know anything about me in the first place. What is the point in knowing all this stuff?"

The cat regarded her silently for a long moment and then yawned deeply. "I should think it would be obvious. I am here to help you."

She was aware of a growing stiffness in her legs from her prolonged crouch, and she stood up carefully, rubbing her muscles. "Could we continue this conversation on the porch so that I can sit properly in a chair?"

"So long as you don't expect me to go into the cottage, we can. I prefer open s.p.a.ces to cramped ones."

She walked over to the porch and sat down in one of the old rockers that bracketed the front door, wrapping herself in a rough blanket that was draped over one arm. The cat padded its way onto the first step and sat down again. All around them, the night remained deep and silent, and no one appeared to interrupt their conversation.

"How are you going to help me?" she asked after they were both comfortably settled.

"Well, that depends," the cat answered. "For starters, I am prepared to take you away from here. Tonight."

"You can do that?"

"Of course. If you really want to leave and not go home to your parents, I can take you somewhere else and your grandfather's guards will not be able to prevent it. If that is what you really want."

"It is," she said. "a.s.suming you can do as you say."

The cat said nothing, but instead went back to cleaning another paw-or perhaps it was the same one-licking the fur this way and that, worrying the pads with careful attention to the s.p.a.ces between, acting as if there were nothing more important in all the world.

"You must possess considerable magic," she said.

"Your father thought so."

"You know my father?"

"And your mother. I have helped them, too, in the past, before you were born. Have they told you nothing of me?"

She shook her head. "I think I would remember you, if they had."

"They should remember me, too. They should remember me well. I did much to help them avoid a rather unpleasant end when the old wizard, the one before Questor Thews, tried to regain control of Landover's throne from your father and very nearly killed him in the bargain. Your father was in flight, too, at the time, wandering the countryside, searching for answers. Very much like you, Princess."

"I didn't know that. They never said anything about it."

"Parents don't tell their children everything, do they? Some things they keep to themselves because they are private and don't need to be shared. Or perhaps people think these things are best forgotten, a part of a past that has gone by and won't-with luck-come around again for a visit. When all this is over, you might not want to talk about what is going to happen to you, either."

"What is going to happen to me?" she asked quickly.

The cat blinked. "We shall have to wait and see, won't we?"

She frowned. "Why should I agree to go away with you?"

"Do you have a choice?"

"Of course I have a choice!" She was suddenly irritated.

"A choice that does not involve going back to your parents?" The cat sounded rather smug. "Besides, you might well ask why I I should agree to go away should agree to go away with you with you, don't you think?"

"But you just offered!" she snapped.

"Yes, but cats have a habit of changing their minds rather quickly, and I might be in the process of changing mine. You seem to me as if you might be in a lot of trouble, given your rather independent streak and your uncertain temperament. Not to mention all the baggage you carry."

"Baggage?"

"The daughter of the King and Queen of Landover, their only child, on the run in the company of a pair of G'home Gnomes? Yes, I would say you carry more than a little baggage with you. I might not want to burden myself with all that. I might want to rethink my offer to help."

She regarded the cat carefully, studying its inscrutable cat face. "But you won't," she said finally. "You won't because you have a reason for coming to me like this in the first place."

"Perhaps."

"You won't because you are a cat and cats are curious and your curiosity has something to do with you being here and you haven't satisfied it yet."

"Curiosity comes and goes," said the cat.

She nodded. "What's your name?"

The cat looked away for a moment, studying the blackness beyond them as if it had just discovered something of immense interest. "I am like all cats when it comes to names," he said, speaking to the night. "I have as many names as I do lives. I don't even know what they all are yet. The one I prefer now is the one your father knew me by. Edgewood Dirk."

"I like your name," she told him.

"Thank you. Although it doesn't matter one way or the other, you realize."

She took a deep breath. "Does your offer to help me still stand? Will you take me away with you?"

Edgewood Dirk blinked. "All you need to do is gather your belongings, wake your companions, and follow me. No one will see us. No one will stop us. By morning, we will be far away."

"Far away," she repeated, liking the sound of it. Then the rest of what he had said caught up with her. "Wait a minute. Did you say I should wake my companions? Those Gnomes? I don't want them coming with me! I didn't want them coming with me in the first place!"

"Well, we don't always get what we want in life," said Edgewood Dirk.

"Well, they're not coming with me, Dirk, so you can just forget about me not getting what I want in this case!" She glared at him. "Is that all right with you?"

"Perfectly all right," he answered, his cat voice as calm as still waters. "Of course, leaving them behind means that when the River Master finds you gone, he will have to find someone to blame, and those two unfortunate G'home Gnomes might turn out to be his first choice."

She stared at him, speechless.

"Not that this should matter to you, of course," he added.

She knew he was right, and she hated it. She sighed wearily. "All right then, they can come."

"If you are quite certain it is all right, Princess?"

She ignored him, finding him increasingly annoying and suspecting that he would become more so as they traveled. She looked around guardedly. "We just walk right out of here, do we? Right through my grandfather's guards and all the once-fairy who live in the swamps? You know the way out and won't get us lost?"

The cat stared at her, saying nothing.

"Do you mind telling me where we are going?" she pressed.

The cat did not answer.

She put her hands on her hips and bent closer. "Why won't you answer me?" she demanded.

A small noise from behind caused her to straighten up and turn around. Poggwydd was standing there with Shoopdiesel peering over his shoulder, both of them looking bewildered. "Why are you talking to that cat?" the former asked hesitantly. "You know cats can't talk, don't you, Princess?"

He gave the cat an interested look. "But some of them are rather good to eat. Do you suppose this one belongs to anyone?"

Shoopdiesel licked his lips and looked eager.

Her belongings gathered and her mind made up, Mistaya set off through the fairy-born city of Elderew with Edgewood Dirk leading the way and a reluctant Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel bringing up the rear. Neither understood what was happening, and Poggwydd, on behalf of both, had complained loudly about it on being informed. As a result, she had expressly forbidden either G'home Gnome from speaking one single, solitary word until she gave them permission, threatening that if they did not do as she said she would leave them behind to face her grandfather's wrath when he discovered she was missing. Frustrated and out of sorts, they trailed along like restless children, shuffling and snuffling and generally acting as if they had an itch they couldn't scratch. She never looked back at them, and Dirk never looked back at her. In this fas.h.i.+on, single-file and keeping their distance from one another, they pa.s.sed without notice into the deep woods.

Mistaya couldn't have told anyone why she was doing this. It made almost no sense to trust the cat, even if you got past the part where you accepted that it wasn't all that strange that a cat could talk. This was Landover, after all, and all sorts of things talked that didn't do so in other worlds. The dragon Strabo was a prime example; his vocabulary was both extraordinary and colorful. Not that there were a whole lot of other dragons to compare him with, but that didn't refute her point about creatures that talked. She had grown up in Landover, so a talking animal didn't surprise her, even if it would have shocked the girls of Carrington.

But trusting trusting a talking cat-now, that was something else. Cats were not the most reliable of creatures, talking or not. They were independent and self-centered, prissy and devious, and she had no reason to think that this one was any different. Yet here she was, trailing along behind him, ready to believe that he not only knew the way out of Elderew but could actually get clear of the city without being detected. No one else could do this, so why did she think he could? a talking cat-now, that was something else. Cats were not the most reliable of creatures, talking or not. They were independent and self-centered, prissy and devious, and she had no reason to think that this one was any different. Yet here she was, trailing along behind him, ready to believe that he not only knew the way out of Elderew but could actually get clear of the city without being detected. No one else could do this, so why did she think he could?

She guessed it was because she wanted so badly to escape the fate that awaited her if she stayed around until morning. Being sent back to her father would be the ultimate humiliation, and her embarra.s.sment at her grandfather's rejection was quite enough already. Better that she take her chances out on her own than be stymied even in this small gesture of defiance. Better that she trust a talking cat with dubious motives than sit around and do nothing.

She kept silent until they were out of the city and wending their way back through the swamp and quicksand before she tried speaking to him again. She was aware that the Gnomes were listening in, so she kept her voice at a whisper until she grew frustrated and voiced her questions more loudly. But it didn't matter. Dirk ignored her, acting as if he hadn't heard, further convincing Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel that she was suffering from a delusion regarding the abilities of cats.

In the end, she gave it up, and they walked on through the night. By sunrise, they were clear of the woods and had emerged into a broad stretch of gra.s.slands and hill country east, facing into the rising sun.

At this point, Edgewood Dirk came to a stop. Sitting back on his haunches with his tail curled about him, he began to clean himself-an undertaking both meticulous and seemingly endless.

Mistaya couldn't help herself. She had endured enough. "Look here," she said to the cat. "You did well in helping us escape the fairy-born. But now you have to tell us where we are going."

Dirk, predictably, said nothing.

"Stop pretending you can't speak!" she said. "I know you can!"

She glanced over her shoulder at the G'home Gnomes, who were s.h.i.+fting their gazes from her to each other and back again. "Princess, I don't think the cat can-" Poggwydd began.

"Be quiet!" she snapped at him. "I know what I'm doing!"

"But, Princess, cats don't-"

"Did I give you permission to speak?" she demanded, wheeling back on him. "Did I?"

Poggwydd shook his head dejectedly.

"What did I say I would do with you if you did?"

"Leave us behind. But we're safely away now. No one can hear us out here. Besides, you're talking, aren't you?"

She glared at him. "Just don't say anything, all right?"

"But what are we doing out here, following that stupid cat?" he whined miserably. "Cats don't know anything and aren't good for anything except to eat!"