"Where am I?" Thraxos asked again.
"Mummy and Daddy are…" Her voice trailed off, and she looked as if she might burst into tears again.
Thraxos's scales itched with impatience, but he tried to keep his voice even. "Yes. I'm sorry. Were you attacked?"
She bobbed her head. "Robbers. Mummy told me to hide under the bed in the wagon. I did, and I heard Daddy yelling. Then Mummy screamed, and then the robbers were laughing, and then the wagon fell over and I was under the bed. I almost couldn't breathe. I don't remember anything else for a while. Then I crawled out, and Mummy and Daddy…" She began sobbing again, punctuated by hiccups.
Some part of Thraxos's mind noted that bein knocked unconscious had probably saved the girl's lif The robbers had evidently been in too much of a hun to search the caravan thoroughly. They'd ransacke what they could easily find and fled, leaving the bodic of their victims for whatever scavengers prowled th; land.
The girl had finished her crying and was now lool ing at him more calmly. "Are you a ghost?"
"What?"
"Are you a ghost?" Her tone was matter of fac "Mummy told me this grove and this lake wer haunted. We wanted to get through here quickly, bi our horse went away and we had to wait before gettin a new one."
Thraxos realized that she had no idea of his tru nature. All she saw was the head and shoulders of man protruding above the water. He shook his hea‹ "No, child, I am no ghost. I do not even know where am. Can you tell me?"
This is the Frahalish Grove."
The name meant nothing to Thraxos. "How far ar we from Seros?"
She said nothing, but looked puzzled. Clearly th name meant nothing to her.
Thraxos remembered Narros calling the sea b some other name, the name the surface dwellers i Waterdeep had used. What was it?
The… Sea of… Falling… Fallen Stars. That's i How far from here?"
"A long way." She shook her tresses briskly. "A lonj long, long way. We were going to Cormyr. Daddy tol me we wouldn't get there for days and days an days."
Thraxos looked around him. The lake was really not much more than an extended pond. The far shore, rocky and looking very much like that against which he leaned, was not more than a mile away. He sighed inwardly and tried again.
"How far are we from the Sword Coast?"
She considered gravely. "Ever so far. My Uncle Aelias lives in Waterdeep, and we never see him because Daddy says it's too far away to travel."
Thraxos's heart sank. The passage he'd been through, though evidently not a gate in the precise meaning of the word, had deposited him at incredible speed in this lake in the middle of-nowhere. He was trapped here as surely as if he'd swum into a fisherman's net. The passage behind him was blocked. There might, of course, be an exit elsewhere in the lake, but the gods only knew where it would take him.
The girl was watching him with solemn eyes. "Why don't you come out of the water?" she asked abruptly.
Thraxos ignored the question, and she asked it again more loudly. He turned back to her with a sigh. "Because I cannot. I am a merman."
Her mouth fell open, and several high-pitched squeaks emerged before she got her voice.
"Really? I've never seen a merman. My Uncle Aelias says there are mermen who live near Waterdeep and who help protect it. My friend Andriana says that if you catch a merman by his tail he'll give you three wishes, but I don't think I believe that. I mean, if you caught a merman by the tail you'd have to swim faster than him, and no one can do that, because everyone knows that merfolk swim faster than anything, even than fishes, but I don't know about that because I had a pet fish once, its name was Berf-"
"Silence, child!" Thraxos roared. His head was splitting. The little girl stared at him in astonishment for a moment, then burst into tears again.
"Oh, for Tyre's sake!" Thraxos flipped his tail impatiently. "Child, I did not mean to be angry, but you must understand, I have an urgent message to be delivered to the ruler of our people in the Sea of Fallen Stars. The fate of all Faerun may easily depend upon it, but now I do not see how I am to accomplish this mission."
Bile rose in his throat. "They trusted me! They depended on me. I have let them down. That is what they will say of me! They will say Thraxos was given an important task, and he failed miserably. No one ever even found his body. He was lost somewhere in the distant waters of-'"
"Wait!"
The little girl had stopped crying and was looking at him again, her eyes large. "Why don't we take a mount?"
Thraxos shook his head. The pounding behind his eyes grew stronger. He plunged his head beneath the surface, drawing a deep breath of water before returning to the surface. "What do you mean, child? I have no mount, and even had I the fastest dolphin in existence, it could no more get out of this lake than I can. No, the matter is lost. I shall linger here, despairing, while songs are sung up and down the Sword Coast of my sad fate, and-"
The girl, whose eyes had been wandering about the lake during this peroration, suddenly interrupted. "Why don't you ride a horse?"
Thraxos stared at her, dumfounded by her stupidity. Then, in the voice he might use to address a simpleton, he said patiently, "I cannot ride a horse. I have told you, I am a merman. How would I mount? Besides, a horse would travel far too slowly. I must be in water every hour or so, or I will die. Breathing is difficult for me after even a few minutes. You see-"
The girl shook her head impatiently. "No, no. Not a regular horse-a flying horse. They travel much faster, and you could see lakes from the air. You could take a bath in them and feel ever so much better."
Thraxos snorted. "And where, pray tell, would I get a flying horse?"
The girl nodded solemnly. "Wait there a minute." She dashed over to the wreckage of the wagon, dived beneath a jutting spar of wood, and rummaged energetically.
Thraxos remained where he was, grumbling quietly to himself. An unnatural rustling in the leaves a hundred yards away startled him, and he wondered if the robbers might have come back.
The girl returned, something long and slender clutched in her chubby fist. "It's Daddy's magic rod," she said calmly. "He used it to make a horse when ours died."
Thraxos glanced at the wagon where the corpse of a slaughtered animal lay between the traces. The girl followed his gaze and shook her head. "Oh, no, not that one. We bought that one in town a long, long time ago. Last tenday, I think. But it wasn't a magical horse."
In spite of himself, Thraxos was impressed. "What happened to the magic horse?" he asked.
"It went away, but I can make another one."
"Was your other magical horse a pegasus?" He saw her brow wrinkle in puzzlement and amended hastily, "A flying horse?"
"No, but watch."
She took the rod between both hands and pointed the end toward a dear spot of grass nearby. Thraxos saw that the rod was smooth, wooden, and had some sort of metal wire binding both ends. The girl closed her eyes and bowed her head in concentration. After a moment, Thraxos fancied he saw the end of the rod begin to glow. In another moment he was sure of it.
With a startling suddenness a beam of white light shot from the end of the rod and spread across the grass. It brightened to an intense flash, and Thraxos blinked, spots swimming before his eyes.
When he blinked, the spots went away. In their place was an enormous hedgehog, standing on the grass with an expression of vague surprise. From its shoulders sprouted two slender wings. They resembled those of an emaciated bat and were obviously inadequate to bear the animal's considerable weight. The hedgehog stretched its snout over its shoulder and subjected its unusual appendages to a prolonged snuffle. Having exhausted whatever interest they held, the creature examined its surroundings, grunted cynically, and set off for the woods at a gentle, though earth-shaking trot.