"If she doesn't interrupt, I'll tell you." Trouble was plainly enjoying all the attention. "I didn't see any trace of Mendanbar, so I asked the gargoyle in the study-the one that answers the magic mirror-if it knew what happened.
Apparently, the wizards didn't notice that it was intelligent, so they did quite a bit of talking in front of it."
"What did they say?" Killer asked with the air of someone interested in spite of himself.
"Oh, this and that. Most of it wasn't very interesting."
Kazul put one forearm down next to Trouble and flexed claws that were almost as long as the cat's tail. "Little one, tell your story without these digressions, or I may lose what little patience the Society of Wizards has left me."
"If you insist." Trouble stretched, to show that even a dragon couldn't impress him, then went on. "The gargoyle said I was right about the robes: Zemenar and his group lost four wizards before they managed to corner Mendanbar. The gargoyle knew about it because they all came into the study afterward to decide what to do next. Seems that the wizards found out that they couldn't kill a King of the Enchanted Forest outright without messing up what they were doing to the forest. And Zemenar didn't want to just hold him prisoner, because he was afraid we would come back any minute." Trouble shook his head in admiration. "You know, Mendanbar's almost as good as a cat."
"At what?" asked Morwen. "Oh, never mind. What did they do with him?"
"Zemenar put him in storage," said Trouble.
"What does that mean?" Cimorene asked once Morwen had translated this.
Trouble shrugged. "He sent Mendanbar somewhere where he couldn't make any difficulties while the wizards finished up with the forest. 'I'll put him through a door and then hide the door,' is what the gargoyle heard him say. Too bad Zemenar didn't work the spell in the study where old wooden-head could watch, or I might have been able to tell you what it means."
"This doesn't make any sense." Cimorene sounded thoroughly frustrated.
"Of course it doesn't make sense," Scorn said. "Wizards don't have sense. If they did, they wouldn't make all these problems."
Morwen did not translate Scorn's comment. Instead, she asked Trouble, "Where did the wizards do their spell? Could you tell?"
"Piece of cake," Trouble said. "In the Grand Hall. The place reeked of recent spell casting, and-" "Did you check the rest of the castle?"
Morwen interrupted. "The Grand Hall is where Telemain did his wizard-liquefication spell, and you may have been sensing the residue from that."
"Give me credit for some sense," Trouble said. "Besides, it's not that hard to tell Telemain's magic from a wizard's. Even though they used some of his equipment."
"I still don't understand," Killer complained. "And-" "And you're hungry," said Scorn. "We know."
"I don't understand either," said Cimorene. "What does 'put him through a door and then hide the door' mean?"
"Telemain?" said Morwen.
"Mmmm. It sounds as if someone did a partial transportation spell, looped it, bound the residual to a temporary construct, and then-" Kazul cleared her throat pointedly. Telemain paused, frowned, and said crossly, "I don't know any other way to explain it."
"They used a transportation spell to send Mendanbar somewhere, only they stopped in the middle," Morwen suggested.
"No, that would be unstable," Telemain said. "The field would collapse unless they looped it and bound the ends to something. It's theoretically possible, but it takes an enormous amount of power."
Cimorene glanced over her shoulder at the destruction that surrounded the castle. "As much power as you'd get from soaking up a big chunk of the Enchanted Forest?"
"I think they used most of that for the shield spell," Telemain said.
"But if anyone could have done a looped transport, Zemenar could.
After all, he was Head Wizard of the Society of Wizards."
"I don't care if he was First Minister to the Grand Poobah of the Great Cathayan Empire," Cimorene said. "How are we going to get Mendanbar out?"
"We can't," Telemain said.
"What?"
"To dismantle the spell, we would need to be inside the castle. To get into the castle, we would have to get through the wizard's shield spell. The only thing-besides the Society of Wizards themselves-that can take down that shield spell is Mendanbar's sword. And none of us can use it."
Cimorene looked appalled. "Then Mendanbar's stuck forever."
"Or until he starves to death," Killer put in gloomily.
"Not necessarily," Morwen said. Everyone turned to look at her. "In the first place, if Telemain is right about what they did, Mendanbar won't starve. A looped transportation spell makes it temporarily unnecessary to eat."
Telemain nodded, pleased. "Hershenfeld's experiments proved it. They were quite definitive."
"In the second place, it is only true that none of us can use the sword yet. "Morwen pushed her glasses firmly up and gave Cimorene a significant look.
"What-oh, Morwen, you can't mean the baby/" said Cimorene.
"Sounds reasonable to me," said Killer.
"It would," said Scorn.
Telemain frowned. "I don't think it will work, Morwen. The sword requires a certain level of deliberate control, and I doubt that a baby could provide coherent directions."
"We'll wait for him to grow," Kazul said. "It won't take long."
"Maybe not by dragon standards," Cimorene said. "But fifteen or sixteen years is a long time for people. I don't want to wait. And what if he's a she?"
"That shouldn't make any difference," Telemain said. "What's important to the sword is the bloodline and the-the personality. Or perhaps it's attitude that counts. I've never actually seen the linkage process that enables someone to use the sword, so I can't say for sure."
"No," said Cimorene. "Absolutely not. It would take too long, and it's too iffy. And what if one of the wizards decides to come back and sneak into the castle to finish Mendanbar off?"
"Have you got any better ideas?" Kazul asked.
"How about lunch?" Killer said pointedly. "Aren't people supposed to think better when they've eaten? I do."
"It wouldn't take much," Scorn said. "You're a rabbit."
"Not anymore." Killer's ears went limp and his wings drooped at the thought. "Now I'm a-a something else."
"Lunch sounds like a very good idea to me," Kazul said. "Especially since we needn't rush right in to rescue Mendanbar."
Looking suddenly uneasy, Killer backed away from the dragon. All at once, he stopped and his eyes got very big. "You can't eat me! I'm insubstantial."
His muzzle twitched. "I never thought there'd be anything good about that."
"I'm not interested in eating you," Kazul said. "What I want is six gallons of Morwen's cider and a big helping of cherries jubilee."
Morwen frowned. "I thought you were full."
"I'm never too full for dessert," said the dragon. "And chasing wizards is thirsty work."
"I suppose we might as well," Cimorene said. "It doesn't look as if any of you will make much sense otherwise."
"Does that mean someone is going to fix me?" said Killer.
"I thought you wanted to stay insubstantial," Trouble said with a sly glance in Kazul's direction.
"Not if it means I can't eat."
Since this was an eminently reasonable attitude, and since Killer had been very patient, all things considered, Telemain agreed to take a look at the spells afflicting Killer. While Kazul called in various dragons and fire-witches to set up lunch, Telemain unloaded a large number of peculiar-looking implements from his pockets and began stalking around the donkey, muttering under his breath. Morwen, after a moment's consideration, chose to help Telemain rather than assist with lunch. It gave her a fighting chance of keeping the magician from getting so absorbed in studying the interconnecting layers of enchantment that he forgot about removing them.