Whatever had happened, here she was, alone and lost in the forests of Aldagmor, and Adar was gone. She had only herself to depend on.
Despite her night’s rest she was still worn and weak from witchcraft overuse.
She needed food and drink. She pushed herself up on one elbow.
A squirrel chittered overhead; startled, she looked up. The animal was sitting on a branch above her. Desperate, she managed to summon the strength to catch its attention, to work a quick little spell.
The strain was more than she had expected for so small a piece of witchcraft; she lay back and shut her eyes, recuperating, unsure whether the magic had worked.
It had; a moment later she was showered with carefully-hoarded nuts. Relieved, she rolled over and gathered a handful, then cracked a walnut on an exposed root and ate the meat.
Even that tiny morsel helped; she ate another, and another, as the squirrel above her realized it had been tricked and protested loudly.
Within an hour she had found a small brook, and was no longer worried about whether she would survive, but only about how long it would take to return to inhabited lands.
With her witchcraft to guide her she reached the Blasted Pine by noon the next day. The innkeepers-the two women and an old man whom she hadn’t met before-were startled to see her again, and greeted her enthusiastically.
They didn’t inquire after Adar, and she didn’t volunteer any explanation.
She ate a proper meal, and as she ate she spotted the spriggan peeking out from behind a nearby table, watching her anxiously.
She smiled at it.
The little creature grinned back, then ran out and leaped up on her lap. She petted it, soothing its nerves, as she ate. Although it babbled incoherently, she could see that it had been terrified, had had no idea what was going on.
It was very relieved to have her back; it had more or less adopted her as its protector.
She grimaced slightly at that. She hadn’t been much of a protector for poor Adar.
When she felt sufficiently fed and rested she gathered up her pack, put the spriggan up on her shoulder, then picked up Dumery’s trail and headed off along the south highway.
She wasn’t really very interested in Dumery any more, but what else could she do? Adar was gone; there was nothing she could do about that. She was still supposed to be fetching Dumery safely home for his parents-it would complete her apprenticeship and make her a full-fledged journeyman witch. She would follow the little nuisance and find out what he was up to, and then she would go home and figure out what to do about what she had learned about warlocks.
It did not escape her attention that Dumery appeared to be heading directly for the Warlock Stone.
Nor that she was heading toward it herself.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Someone cleared his throat, and Dumery turned away from the window to see Kensher standing in the doorway. He was wearing green wool instead of brown leather, but it was unmistakably him.
“It really is you,” Kensher said. “The kid from Ethshar.”
Dumery blinked, but didn’t answer.
“You have got to be the stubbornest little idiot I ever saw in my life, following me all the way up here from Ethshar!” Kensher said, marvelling.
“Itold you I didn’t need an apprentice, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” Dumery admitted, “but I thought that if I showed you how determined I was you’d change your mind.”
Kensher snorted. “Not likely! With eleven kids of my own? You’d need magic to change my mind.”
“Well, I didn’t know you had eleven kids-you never mentioned that when you turned me down! And if I had magic, I wouldn’twant to change your mind!”
Dumery replied hotly.
“Exactly my point,” Kensher said. “Following me here wasstupid. Do your parents know you’re all right? Do they have any idea where you are?”
“Yes, they know I’m all right,” Dumery said. “They bought a spell and checked. A sixnight ago, I think it was-the second night after we left.”
“Well, that’s good, then,” Kensher said. “That’s one less thing we have to worry about. Now all we have to do is get you safely back home.”
Dumery shook his head. “I’m not going home,” he said. “Not until I’ve served an apprenticeship.”
Kensher glared. “I just told you, boy, I’m not taking you on! No apprenticeship! No way! You’re going home!”
“And if I go home, do you know what I’ll do?” Dumery shouted. “I’ll tell everyone on Wizard Street that Kensher the dragon-hunter isn’t a hunter at all, that you raise dragons, and you have all the blood they’ll ever need right here for the taking, and then what’s going to happen to your precious family farm?”
Dumery caught himself, horrified. He hadn’t meant to make the threat so bluntly. He’d been thinking exactly that, that he could force Kensher to keep him on here by threatening to expose the secret, but he’d meant to do it subtly, gradually, not in a single angry outburst.
Kensher stared at him coldly. “Not much,” he said. “For all I know, half the wizards in Ethshar already know we run a farm and not a hunt-maybe theyall know. Haven’t you ever heard of divination spells? You can’t keep secrets from wizards, boy, not unless you’re a magician yourself.”
“But why would they have looked?” Dumery asked. “It probably never occurred to them to check!”
“Oh,” Kensher said, “I suppose nobody would ever have noticed that three-fourths of the dragon’s blood in the Hegemony all seems to come from one hunter. Nobody would ever have gotten curious about that. Nobody would ever have noticed how steady our supply is. No, in two hundred years, no wizard would ever think of that!”
“Oh,” Dumery said.
Kensher glowered at him. “If I were you, Dumery of Shiphaven,” he said, “I’d be a little more careful about what I said, and I wouldn’t argue this. We don’t need any blackmailers around here, nor anyone who makes threats to the people who took him in and sheltered and fed him, instead of leaving him to die. For all anyone back in Ethshar knows, if your parents haven’t checked in a sixnight, you might already have died lost in the mountains somewhere-and if you want to exchange threats, well, you might yet die lost in the mountains somewhere if you aren’t careful!”
“I’m sorry,” Dumery said contritely, and he was partly sincere. He hadn’t wanted to anger anyone.
He just wanted an apprenticeship.
“You should be,” Kensher answered, calming somewhat. “Besides,” he added, “I thought you wanted to apprentice to a hunter, not a farmer.”
“Oh, I don’t care which,” Dumery said, “just so long as it’s dragons.”
“You like dragons, then?”
Dumery hesitated. That hadn’t really been what he meant; he was far more concerned with the value of dragon blood than anything about the beasts themselves.
On the other hand, they were pretty interesting.
“Yes,” he said. “Very much.”
“You were watching them out the window just now, weren’t you?”
Dumery nodded.
“Do you think you’re fit enough to go outside? We could go take a closer look at them, if you like.”
“I’d like that,” Dumery said.
After all, if he was going to work with dragons-and he would find a way, somehow-it was never too soon to start learning more about them. Besides, he wanted to ingratiate himself with Kensher. He’d gotten off to a bad start, offending the man with his silly threats, and this might be a chance to get back on better terms.
Five minutes later, wrapped in a fur cape Korun Kensher’s son had loaned him, Dumery followed Kensher out the back door of the farmhouse onto the stony ground of the little plateau.