They were not attacked, which Gull thought just as well. One and all would have surrendered just to rest.
But even in his logy afternoon dreams, Gull framed questions to Towser. Dozens of questions that robbed his mind of rest.
Supper was quiet. Felda groused she couldn't find anything, and what she did find was bent or broken. Stiggur wore a path to the new wagon fetching things and shifting loads.
Gull folded his salt pork and pickles into a half loaf of bread and worked as he ate. Hobbling, bent as an old man, he checked hooves, smeared salve on lion scratches and branch scrapes and strap chafes- smeared some on his own scrapes and wounds- checked the wagons for large damage. He skipped many items, for he wanted spare time before bed.
It was still late when he approached Towser.
The wizard sat in the back of his wagon. The flap was up, the first time Gull had ever seen the interior. It was gaily painted inside as out. There were, as Lily said, boxes and boxes, of books and stinkpots and little clockwork engines, all framed along the walls, and glassed-in lamps that let him work at night, though one had cracked in the battle. In addition, an ornate bed that folded against the wall lay wide enough for three people: the wizard and two dancing girls.
Gull recognized a few things Towser had evidently picked up. A grimy bone, perhaps plucked from a zombie. A hunk of mushroom from the beast. A long gray hair, perhaps from the nightmare.
But Gull wasn't interested in Towser's habits or work. Only "Towser, I would have some answers." Gull knew he sounded surly, for he was angry. Further, having grown up in a village of equals, he knew not how to defer to "betters."
The wizard didn't look up. By yellow lamplight, he sketched with a quill in his little book of magic: the grimoire chained to his belt of pouches. He averted the page lest Gull see. "And why need I give you answers? Do you work for me or the other way around? And do you realize that princes give whole fortunes to wizards for answers to their questions?"
His tone was lofty, aloof. Gull suspected he'd practiced these words-indeed, had anticipated his coming.
Stubborn, the woodcutter was not put off. "There are things I do not understand, things you do, or I suspect you do. Things-"
Towser blew on the page to dry ink. "Can you understand this? I mind the answers, you mind the stock and wagons-"
"-I need to know to continue in your employ. Otherwise, I take my sister and my pay and go. We can find our own way out of these woods."
Towser rolled his eyes and sighed, as an adult will at the prattling of children. "Very well. I need a freightmaster. Ask and be quick about it."
Gull was surprised he acceded so quickly, but again it felt rehearsed. Was this wizard that much smarter, and dumb as the horses? Whatever, he asked.
"Last night, I saw the centaurs from the battle at White Ridge. Helki and Holleb. She cried they were captives, forced to fight. You sent them home to their steppes. But have you enslaved them to fight for you, now?"
Shaking his head, the wizard flipped through his book, stopped at a different page. He rubbed his stomach as if it hurt, and Gull remembered he had troublsome bowels, or imagined he did. "The centaur-folk of Broken Toe Mountain in the Green Lands are mercenaries. Parceled all over the Domains. Every wizard uses them: they are superlative fighters. But if I conjured them, 'twas accidental. Probably they've sold their allegiance to some other wizard and become part of another army."
Gull shook his head back. "I don't understand. Why claim they were captives?"
"Perhaps they are." Towser stopped fidgeting and stared Gull in the eyes. The woodcutter couldn't look away, as if he were a chicken hypnotized by a hawk. "Mayhaps the party they joined was captured. They prosper by ransom. My bringing them here and then returning them to their home in the steppes would have freed them. No doubt they'd thank me."
Frowning, Gull pondered that magic was beyond him. He tried another question. "Did you fell those zombies with a weakness spell? And was it the same spell that felled so many villagers-and my family-in White-"
"I have no weakness charm, for it's too cruel a spell. I used an unlife spell on the zombies. It doesn't steal life, just returns it whence it belongs, leaving them inanimate corpses again. It has the advantage of not driving mana from any human or beast in the area-you'll notice there were no dead birds near the zombies."
Dead birds? wondered Gull. What had that to do with anything? He was mixed up. Towser continued to stare. With the light behind him, his eyes glowed like an owl's even as his finger drew queer circles on a page.
"Well, never mind," the woodcutter acceded. He shifted his feet. "Uh… what's an avatar? You used that word-"
"A projection of your persona at a distance. I thought we fought an actual wizard in that armor. Turns out the wizard stayed at some distance and worked the armor from there. And gave voice. Like a simulacrum. A handy spell I wish I knew."
Me too, thought Gull inanely. Then he could be elsewhere, out from under this burning stare. "Uh… what was that mushroom-monster?"
A small shrug, and the first sign of reticence from the wizard. "A… fungusaur. As you say, a mushroom-monster. They live underground."
Gull could have sworn. Of course. He was so tired he was stupid. "Why did that wizard-or avatar-try to kidnap my sister? What is she to him?"
Another shrug. "Why did the black knight carry off Lily? Men have needs only women can satisfy. The wizard could not know your sister is simple. Not that it would matter, for his purposes."
Before that insult could penetrate Gull's fogged mind, Towser said, "It's late, Gull. We must get an early start. Why not retire?"
Suddenly, Gull felt a weight descend on him, almost press him to the ground. He gasped. He'd barely crawl to his bedroll, he was so exhausted. "Y-yes. Good idea… Good… night…"
"Good-night, son," smiled the wizard, as the woodcutter trudged away yawning.
Gull peeked in on his sister, asleep curled in her shawl like a cat, and then crawled under the wagon. Lily waited in his bedroll. "Did you get any answers from Towser?"
She scooted aside as Gull crashed down and yawned. "Yes… I found out… everything…"
"I doubt that. Towser's got questions himself. I know he wonders about that mushroom beast."
"Eh? What… about it?"
"You didn't notice how it vanished? No? It was strange. When Towser conjures a thing, it twinkles like stars on a summer night. True?"
Gull groaned, "Whatever, dear…"
"And when that armored wizard conjured and banished, his pawns withered to ashy things and blew away. Yet when the mushroom-beast appeared and disappeared, it flooded with colors from the ground up, like a big plant growing! That's neither Towser's magic, nor the other wizard's, else the monster wouldn't have attacked him. So you know what that means!"
"No." It ached just to say that much. Gull hurt all over, so tired he couldn't lift his head. His lion wounds burned and itched.
"It means some other wizard conjured it, someone close by!"
"The astrologer, perhaps. Or the bard. Don't they do magic, little bits? She can even ride a horse… And that reminds me…" Despite his fatigue, Gull propped on his elbows. "Lily, why did Towser hire me as freighter? Chad's a bastard, but he's a better wrangler than I. Jonquil's the same. I saw that today. Why did Towser need me?"
The girl frowned in the dark. "Jonquil told me she told you I love you. Is that true?"
"What? Hunh?" Gull's mind reeled. What had happened to his question? "Um, yes, she mentioned it."
"And what do you think of it?" She leaned over him in the dark. He could smell perfume in her hair, mint on her breath.