"Thou dost me injustice!" Geoffrey turned on Cordelia, clenching his fists.
"'Tis true." Magnus slid artfully between them. "Thou must needs own, sister, that thy brother doth contain his hunger for fighting 'till he doth find a brawl that will aid other folk!"
"Aye, 'tis true," Cordelia sighed, "and here's a brawl that will aid them surely."
"Then let us to it!" With the children safely sidetracked, Kelly could let his own anger boil up. "The gall of him, to strike at a woman and babes! Onward, children! For we'll find and free that count, and he'll call up his knights! Then may ye aid him in making that giant into a doormat for the town gates!"
"Aye!" the children shouted, and followed the leprecohen.
The boys decided flying was faster, but Cordelia wouldn't leave her unicorn, so they flew down the road to either side of her, with Gregory perched astride the unicorn's neck just in front of Cordelia with an ear-to-ear grin, thumping the poor beast's withers and howling, "Giddyap! Giddyap!"
"Wherefore hath the beast come to tolerate him, yet not us?" Geoffrey called to Magnus.
His big brother caught the blackness of his mood and shouted back, "Mayhap because Gregory is so tiny. Contain thyself, brother!"
Geoffrey lapsed into a simmering glower.
Fess brought up the rear with Kelly dodging between his hooves and howling, "Ye great beast! Tread more softly!"
As they rode, clouds drifted across the sky, and the day turned gray. Kelly lifted his head and sniffed the air. "Sure and it's rain I'm smelling!"
"An analysis of local meteorological conditions indicates a high probability of precipitation," Fess agreed.
Thunder rumbled, not terribly far away.
"Ought we not seek shelter?" Cordelia asked.
"'Twould be wise," Kelly agreed, and swerved off the road into the trees. "Turn, Iron Horse! At the least, the rain will reach us less beneath leaves."
Thunder rumbled again, and the first raindrops sprinkled the road as the children turned to follow Kelly. They thrashed
their way through the underbrush at the side of the road. After fifty feet or so, the forest floor became relatively clear, as the deep shade of the towering trees cut off sunlight from the small growth. There were still roots and saplings, so the unicorn and the robot-horse couldn't really run. They hurried as quickly as they could, though, trotting. Kelly led the way, dodging saplings and vaulting tree roots.
" 'Tis a hut!" Geoffrey cried, pointing.
The children looked up, then swerved off after him with glad cries. The unicorn followed, responding to Cordelia's nudge.
"Nay, children!" Kelly cried. "Will ye not heed? There's something about that hut I like not!"
But the children ran blithely on.
He frowned up at Fess. "Hast thou naught to say? Do ye not also mislike it?"
The great black horse nodded.
Kelly ducked into a hollow at the base of a tree and dropped down, cross-legged, folding his arms. "I'll not move from here! Do as I do, ye great beast—will ye not? Let's bide here without, and watch and wait, so we can spring to their aid if they need us."
Fess nodded again, and crowded up against the tree, to block the rain from Kelly's doorway.
The two older boys shot through the window. The unicorn pulled up short at the doorway. Cordelia sprang down, and hammered on the panel. It swung open, and Geoffrey stood there. "Who would it be, calling at this time of the day? Eh! We have no need of your ware!"
"Oh, be not so silly!" Cordelia ducked in through the doorway, hauling Gregory with her. She stopped and looked around in surprise. "Doth none live here then?"
"If one doth, he is not at home." Geoffrey looked around at the empty interior. Gregory scuttled past his hip.
Cordelia turned to look up at the unicorn. "Will you not come in, then?"
The unicorn tossed her head and turned away, trotting back toward the wood.
"Come back!" Cordelia cried.
The silver beast turned and looked back, tossing her head and pawing the turf. Then she whirled away, trotting off among the trees.
"Hath she left again, then?" Geoffrey said hopefully.
"Oh, be still!" Cordelia turned back, tilting her nose up. "She doth but seek her own form of shelter. I misdoubt me an she doth not trust housen."
"Nor do I." Magnus was looking around the hut with a frown. "How can this chamber be so much larger than it seemed from the outside?"
Cordelia shrugged and went to sit on a three-legged stool by the fireplace. "All houses do seem smaller from without."
"Yet 'twas not a house—'twas but a hut of sticks! And here within, 'tis a solid house of timbers, with walls of wattle and daub!" Magnus went over to the table set against one wall and frowned up at the shelves above it. "What manner of things are these?" He pointed from one bottle to another. "Eye of newt… fur of bat… venom of viper…"
"They are the things of magic," Gregory said, round-eyed.
Magnus nodded somberly. "I think that thou hast the right of it. And they are not the cleanly things, such as old Agatha doth use when she doth brew potions, but foul and noisome." He turned back to his brothers and sister. "This is a witch's house, and worse—'tis a sorcerer's!"
The door slammed open, and a tall old man hunched in, face and form shrouded by a hooded robe. A yellowed beard jutted out of its shadow, wiggling as he swore to himself, "What ill chance, that such foul weather should spring up! What noisome hag hath enchanted the clouds this day?" He dropped a leather pouch on the table in the center of the room. "At the least, ere dawn, I gained the graveyard earth I sought —so the trek served its purpose." He yanked off his robe, muttering to himself, went to hang it by the fire—and stopped, staring down at Cordelia.
She shrank back into the inglenook, trying hard to make herself invisible.
The old man was tattered and grubby, wearing a soiled tunic and cross-gartered hose. His face was gaunt, with a hooked blade of a nose and yellowed, bloodshot eyes beneath stringy hair that straggled down from a balding pate—hair that might have been white, if he had washed it more often. Slowly, he grinned, showing a few yellow teeth—most of them were missing. Then he chuckled and stepped toward Cordelia, reaching out a hand blotched with liver-spots.
"Stand away from my sister!" Geoffrey cried, leaping between them.
The sorcerer straightened, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Eh! There's another of them!" He turned, saw Gregory and, behind him, Magnus, hunched forward, hands on their daggers—but he saw also the fear in the backs of their eyes. He laughed, a high, shrill cackle, as he whirled to slam the door shut and drop a heavy oaken bar across it. "I have them!" he crowed, "I have them! Nay, just the things, the very things that I'll need!"
"Need?" Dread hollowed Magnus's voice. "What dost thou speak of?"
"What dost thou think I speak of?" the sorcerer spat, whirling toward him. He stumped forward with a malevolent glint in his eye. "What manner of house dost thou think thou hast come to, child?"
Magnus swallowed heavily and said, "A sorcerer's."
"Eh-h-h-h." The sorcerer nodded slowly, a gleam in his eye. "Thou hast sense, at the least. And what doth a sorcerer do, lad?"
"He doth… doth brew… magics."
"Well! So thou knowest that little, at least! Yet the better sorcerers do seek to discover new magics—as I do. For I am Lontar, a sorcerer famed throughout the countryside for weird spells and fell!"
The children stiffened, recognizing the name of the man who had cursed old Phagia.
Again, the gap-toothed grin. "And I've found one that will give me power over every soul in this parish! Nay, further— in the county, mayhap the whole kingdom!"
Gregory stared up at the old man's eyes and thought, He is mad.
"Hush!" Magnus hissed, clapping a hand onto his shoulder, for Gregory had not cast his thoughts in their family's private way. But Lontar's grin widened. "Patience—he is young. He knoweth not yet that all witch-folk can hear one another's thoughts. But I…" he tapped his chest. "I am more. I can make others hear my thoughts—aye, even common folk, lowly peasant folk, with not one grain of witch-power in their brains!"