"Three hours. Right." Trouble yawned and put his head down on his paws.
"I thought regular witches were supposed to have black cats," said Brandel, looking from Trouble to Scorn. "Unless-are you a fire-witch, too?"
"No," said Morwen. "But I don't see why that should limit me to black cats."
Brandel started to ask something else, then stopped, frowning. "No.
I'll ask you about that later. Right now, you're here and you're all settled, and I want my explanation. Before something else happens."
"First, I'd like to know how you feel about wizards," Morwen said.
"I've never met one," Brandel replied. "And I'm not sure I want to.
They don't have a very good reputation."
"Good," said Cimorene. "It's like this…" And she launched into the explanation.
Brandel listened with interest, but when Cimorene reached the end of her tale, he frowned. "How did you get by the invisible dusk-blooming chokevines? I thought I'd gotten all the openings near the tower filled in."
"Kazul burned a path through them."
"Mmph. Must be handy, traveling with a dragon."
"Sometimes," said Morwen. "Other times it's an inconvenience."
Suddenly, Scorn's ears pricked up and her whiskers twitched forward.
"Well, well. What's this?"
Morwen glanced sideways to see what Scorn was watching so intently.
On the top step of the staircase, a large, fluffy cat stood gazing at the newcomers. He was mostly black, with a white chin, white front paws, and a white tuft at the very end of his tail, and his expression was wary and disapproving.
"So you've finally decided to come see what was going on, have you?"
Brandel said to the cat.
"Mrrow," said the cat.
"We have visitors," Brandel said. "Morwen, Cimorene, Killer, this is my cat, Horatio."
"Well, hell-lo, handsome," said Scorn. Her tail lashed once each way, and she sat up and began washing her face with great unconcern.
"He doesn't look that great to me," Trouble snarled.
"Behave yourself," Morwen said sternly. "We're guests."
Horatio eyed the group a moment longer, then came slowly forward.
Halfway across the room, he stopped, studying Scorn with an intensity that matched hers. "Mmmrrr," he said at last. "Mrow yow eiou?"
"No, she won't!" Trouble shifted uneasily, as if longing to jump up and pounce on this intruder. Then Morwen caught his eye, and he settled back into place on Telemain's chest, muttering under his breath.
Scorn looked from Trouble to Horatio and made a show of considering.
"You don't need me for anything right now, do you Morwen?"
"No," said Morwen.
"Then I'll be happy to look around," Scorn said to Horatio. "See you later, folks."
"Watch your step," Trouble growled. "You can't trust him."
"I should hope not," said Scorn. "After all, he's a cat." Tail high, she sauntered over to Horatio. The two cats exchanged sniffs, then Horatio led the way to the staircase and they disappeared.
"She's going to regret this," Trouble said. "So is he, as soon as I-" Morwen caught his eye again, and he stopped short. "I don't expect to have to warn you twice," she said.
"All right, all right, but you wait and see."
"Quiet," said Morwen. "Brandel, we've told you what we're doing here.
Now suppose you tell us what you're doing here."
"Living," said Brandel. "Staying out of trouble. At least, that's how it was supposed to work," he added sourly.
"Of course," said Cimorene with considerably more patience than Morwen could have mustered. "But how did you come here in the first place? The middle of a swamp is an unusual place to find a fire-witch."
Brandel sighed. "It's a little complicated. I come from a family of fire-witches.
Both my parents are fire-witches, and so are most of my aunts and uncles and cousins. My eldest sister is a fire-witch, and my younger brother.
Everyone, in fact, except my younger sister, Rachel."
"That must have been difficult for her," Cimorene said. "Being the only different one in the family is hard."
"My parents thought the same thing," Brandel said. "So when Rachel was very small, Mother brought her to the sorceress who lived in this tower, to be apprenticed."
"A sorceress chose to live in a swamp?" Cimorene said skeptically.
"They like inaccessible places," Morwen said. "Though I'll grant you, this is a little extreme. Go on, Brandel."
"The sorceress agreed to take Rachel in and teach her magic, and once every five years or so we would come and visit. Since there wasn't a door in the tower, the sorceress lowered a chair on a long rope and hauled us up to the window one at a time." Brandel shook his head.
"The laundry basket is a lot safer; it's not so easy to fall out of.
"In any case, the sorceress asked us to keep the arrangement a secret, and we tried, but that sort of thing always seems to get out somehow.
Some of the rumors were pretty wild: one of the stories said my mother sold Rachel to a wicked witch in exchange for some vegetables."
"I think I've heard that one," Cimorene said.
"Anyway, there wasn't much we could do. By the time Rachel was sixteen, all sorts of people were showing up in the swamp to rescue the beautiful princess from the wicked witch."
Cimorene nodded. "I know what that's like. When I was Kazul's princess, the knights and heroes made themselves a dreadful nuisance.
You wouldn't believe how stubborn some of them could be."
"Want to bet? They're still coming around, and half the time they won't listen when I say she isn't here any longer." Brandel looked down.
"That's what I thought you were, at first: a group of heroes."
"Sounds like a reasonable description to me," said Trouble.
"Is your sister beautiful?" Morwen asked.
Brandel shrugged. "She's pretty enough, I suppose. For a while, she was flattered by all the attention, but the constant interruptions just irritated the sorceress. Finally, she gave the tower to Rachel and moved somewhere else, just to get away from it all."
"I can't say I blame her," Cimorene said, nodding.
"I don't know," said Killer, who had been listening with great interest.
"It must have taken a lot of work to build a place like this. Couldn't she have just kept them away somehow?"
"They're very persistent," Cimorene said. "You have no idea."
"And besides, heroes weren't the only problem with this location," Brandel said. 'Just the main one."
Killer snorted softly. "I still think-" "About the tower," Morwen said to Brandel. "The sorceress gave it to your sister…"
"And she lived here for a while, until she couldn't stand having strangers stand outside and shout, 'Rachel! Rachel, send down the chair' any longer. Half the time they didn't even get her name right.
So when Arona started making life difficult for me, she-" Morwen stiffened. "Hold on a minute. Who did you just say was making life difficult for you?"
"Arona Vamist." Brandel's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. "He is the meanest, lowest, most obnoxious, narrow-minded, opinionated ..." With every word Brandel's voice rose, until he was shouting at the top of his lungs. Then, abruptly, his hair burst into flames.
After a shocked instant, Morwen relaxed. Fire-witches were supposed to be immune to fire, among their many other gifts, and she found this demonstration extremely interesting. Cimorene, too, seemed more surprised than frightened, but Killer was not so sanguine. He reared back in surprise, forgot to allow for his wings, and almost overbalanced. To keep his footing, he had to flap several times, filling the room with the wind from his wings.
The flames brightened briefly, but then the breeze distracted Brandel from his angry tirade, and a moment later his hair went out.