Ella and the Panther's Quest

by Lisa Anne Nisula

  There had to be some kind of horse. I looked around the clearing, expecting to see some great charger tied up somewhere that would make me feel foolish for not having seen it, but there definitely wasn’t one.

  The knight kicked the battered knapsack and a large coil of rope toward the trees, clearing more space by the fire for his guests. “It’s not much, as you can see, not what one of such nobility might expect, but I hope it will do.” The knight gestured to the fire.

  “We shall be quite comfortable for the night,” the panther answered and sat in the newly cleared space.

  I didn’t think I was being consulted, not that I had anything to add. I was more interested in why the knight had thought we were noble, but I didn’t ask. I sat beside the panther. Footstool curled up between us.

  The knight leaned over the fire, looking at the contents of the battered iron cauldron hanging over the flames. “I wasn’t planning on guests, but I think we can make this stretch.” He squatted beside the fire and took the spoon from the pot.

  Then something else bothered me, how had he been following us and preparing the food at the same time? Unless the iron cauldron functioned like a slow cooker. But surely it couldn’t be safe to leave a fire unattended for a good part of the day. Even someone as camping illiterate as I was knew that, or thought I did.

  Then it hit me. Maybe the horse had run away. That would explain it. If the knight had run after his horse, he could have forgotten about the fire, and that could explain why he’d been twenty minutes from his camp. More, really, since we’d heard him by the stream which, even turned around as I was, was clearly farther away. Hunting for his horse explained everything, except why he’d given up when he met us and brought us here.

  I watched the knight adding things to the pot, dried leaves and some kind of powder. Herbs and spices, no doubt, but part of my mind couldn’t stop wondering: why add it now that he knew he had guests? I kept my eyes fixed on his hands, trying to see where he was getting the things he was adding. If I could just see a little better … I edged closer to the knight. I needed an excuse to be there. “I don’t think I introduced myself. Ella Peterson.”

  He ignored me.

  “Ella is short for Eleanor.”

  Still nothing. I thought the knight could use some ear holes in his helm.

  I felt another pair of eyes on me. I looked around and saw the panther staring at me with another one of his expressions I couldn’t begin to understand. When I looked at him, he turned away. I heard a small grumble and thought I could make out the words, “Not again.” Then the panther looked directly at me and I knew he’d meant for me to hear it.

  My knitting bag was leaning on a rock near him. I went to it and pretended to look for something. “What is it?” I hissed at the panther.

  “What do you mean, Ella Peterson?”

  I glared at him. I didn’t think he was going to answer my question, but after staring past me for a few minutes, he said,

  “It’s a fine way to thank him for his offer to help us, with such obvious mistrust.”

  “You don’t find him odd?”

  The panther stared directly at me. “I need a hero to complete my quest. He is a knight, therefore a hero. I need his help, so I will accept his oath.” The panther turned away, pretending to watch Footstool as he explored the perimeter of the camp.

  I sat down a few feet away from the panther. The panther was right. He needed this knight. He knew more about heroes than I did, I could tell from the way he had accepted the oath. What did I know about how knights acted? This could all be perfectly normal, trustworthy behavior. The panther seemed to think it was.

  I watched the knight stir the pot. Ignoring the doubt in the back of my mind, I took a deep breath and said, “Thank you for helping us.”

  The knight said nothing. He didn’t even turn in my direction.

  I raised my voice a little. “It’s kind of you.”

  The knight turned to me and stared, as if he were expecting more.

  “Letting us travel with you, it’s very kind of you.”

  “You are welcome, my lady. As they say, a hand for a hand, a maid for a maid, a hurt for a hurt.” He turned back to the food.

  I couldn’t make any sense of his response. I glanced at the panther, but I couldn’t tell if he was appeased, and he made no effort to speak to me again.

  The silence stretched, giving me time to wonder more about the knight and feel very uncomfortable. The panther sat very still, lost in his own thoughts. The knight kept an eye on the pot. Footstool stopped exploring and nestled against my leg. “At least someone remembers me,” I thought, and leaned against him.

  I liked having Footstool there, knowing he was on my side. I understood why the panther liked having him around. He must have been quite a comfort during the waiting and the dashed hopes, like when the giant from Upper Zancor, wherever that was, had been able to reach the keys, only to fail to open the lock. Whenever a hero left in defeat, really. I wondered if I was the first to come back. Watching the knight at his preparations, I rather thought I was, if this knight was typical of heroes. He did not seem to be the sort to brood over a pair of sad eyes and a cursed castle. But then I didn’t trust him either, and that certainly colored my view.

  Footstool nudged me. I glanced down and saw he was looking at the panther. Footstool looked up at me, then back at the panther several times. I smiled a little. “Do you want to go to him? It’s all right. I like having you here, but I’ll be fine.”

  Footstool shook no, then gestured toward the panther again. He seemed to want me to see something. I watched the panther. Now that I wasn’t so annoyed with him, I saw that his shoulders were slumped and he had the same miserable air about him I remembered from the cell. “Do you think I should go to him?”

  But I couldn’t interpret the look Footstool gave me. I could tell when he gave up and slumped down himself.

  I looked over at the panther, just in time to see his back heave with a sigh. I got up and wandered toward him, giving myself plenty of chances to change my mind before I reached him. But the closer I got, the more certain I was he needed someone there. I sat down beside him.

  The panther spoke first. “You can see the castle through those trees.”

  I followed his gaze and saw a dark patch of sky around the castle; then the towers formed themselves out of the shadows. “It doesn’t seem that far.” Saying it made the quest feel doable, less of an impossibility. It was a distance I could imagine us crossing.

  The panther snorted, his ears twitching. “It is an illusion. I told you, it has been placed so I see it. If you were not near me, you would not be able to see even the top of the tallest towers.”

  I wondered if it was too late to turn back, to run through the mirror and leave the panther and his footstool to do the best they could with the knight. I probably should have done that back at the entrance to the maze, leaving them to figure out how to get in, or to wander around in circles until they’d worn a ditch around the hedge.

  But I would have had to ask one of them to take me through the mirror. Panther had implied that I couldn’t work the magic myself. I might have slipped away alone, when I was scared and the panther was acting like this, but asking to be released from the quest, even though I knew release would be granted willingly now that he had his hero, was not something I could do. Certainly not with the memory of those sad green eyes watching me.

  I heard a sigh beside me and realized the panther was still sitting there. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t move away from me either. Before I could decide whether or not to say something else to him, the knight clanged his spoon against the side of the cauldron and the moment was broken. Both the panther and I jerked to attention. As we returned to the fireside, the panther ignored me completely.

  The knight was stirring the contents of the cauldron. “Perfect. I hope duck with mushrooms is acceptable.” He picked up a stack of plates and started dishing out the food. He handed me the fi
rst plate, stacked high with mushrooms, then he held a plate out to the panther.

  The panther stared at it but made no move to eat.

  “Well, if he doesn’t like it,” I thought to myself.

  The panther raised his paw toward the food, but changed his mind and tried to make the gesture look like he was rubbing his ear. He lay down and rested his head on his paw. I recognized that look from the cage too, and realized he was nervous, uncomfortable. I picked up a piece of mushroom and understood in a flash. I popped the mushroom into my mouth and took the panther’s plate from the knight, placing it on a flat rock near where I’d been sitting. The panther stared at the plate, his eyes darting first to me, then back to the plate. I understood and sat down a few steps away, turned slightly away from him, giving my full attention to my own food.

  The duck was good, although I was hungry enough to make anything taste good. I didn’t even notice that no one spoke until the knight broke the silence. “I am sure you have many questions you would like to ask me.”

  I could think of several, starting with why a knight traveling alone had three plates.

  “But first, arrangements must be made. As you no doubt know, his minions are everywhere.”

  I wanted to ask whose, but the knight went on without stopping.

  “I will, of course, stand guard this evening while you sleep.”

  The panther interrupted, “I will take one watch, of course.”

  I swallowed. I wasn’t quite sure how to take a watch, but it seemed like I should offer. “I will, too.”

  “No.”

  “No, my lady.”

  I sank back, surprised by the vehemence of their responses. They obviously didn’t think I could handle a watch. I kept my eyes on my food as the panther and the knight argued over the arrangements for the watch. Night was falling very slowly, the light getting fainter and fainter until it was finally black with little points of starlight winking between the leaves.

  By that time, the food was gone and the panther had agreed to watch the first half of the night, then wake the knight for the dark of the night. I picked up the panther’s empty plate. Before I could ask what to do with it, the knight had grabbed both plates and turned away.

  “You will take the bedroll, my lady.”

  I prepared to protest, but the panther looked at me, and I could feel him wondering why I had to argue with every decision. I sighed but said, “Thank you.”

  I slid into the bedroll and watched Footstool make himself comfortable in a mossy indent at the foot of a tree. The knight spent a little time over the fire, then lay down on the other side. I rolled over and tried to get comfortable. The night was darker than I had expected. As I pillowed my head with my arm, my first thought was, “At least at North High I went home to a hot bath and a soft bed every night.”

  Was it really as bad as that? Was I wishing for that miserable place? It was not something I felt like dealing with right then; thinking about it would keep me awake all night. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing.

  But I couldn’t sleep. The ropes under the bedroll were poking me in the back no matter how I turned. Even worse were the sounds: wind howling through the trees, branches sounding like voices, insects humming on the edges of the firelight. Somewhere, an animal made a sound the like of which I’d never heard. I tried pulling the blanket over my head to block the noise, but it did nothing to make me feel safer. I could still hear branches scraping against each other and sounds that could have been twigs falling or footsteps.

  The panther had been right. He needed a hero, and I was no hero. Just a bit of a coward with a weakness for sad eyes. I rolled over so I was facing the fire and away from the unknown. I opened my eyes just enough to see the panther’s form, darker than the shadows, the firelight glinting off his claws. As I watched, he got up from his post and stretched, then started walking. I kept watching him pace around the clearing. The last thing I saw before I drifted to sleep was the panther’s glowing eyes gazing over the camp.

  *

  I was dreaming about drowning. I was just rolling over, trying to struggle to the surface, when I discovered I really couldn’t move. The feeling of suffocation was so real, it woke me up. I tried to push the top of the bedroll, but it was stuck. I was stuck. I couldn’t move my arm more than an inch. I tried to feel what had caught me, and I understood why I had dreamed I couldn’t breathe. I had been bound tightly by ropes knotted over the bedroll.

  Then there was a clanging noise. I felt the ground fall away and I was flung over a shoulder, the edge of a piece of metal pressing into my stomach. I moaned as I bounced into the bit of metal. The sound went unnoticed. My captor moved into the forest, crashing through the trees, heedless of both the noise and the branches that clawed at us.

  First I tried to figure out where we were going, but I could only see twigs and darkness, so I closed my eyes to protect them from the leaves and dirt. Since there was nothing to see, I switched to trying to work out what was going on. All of the metal and the fact that my kidnapper ignored any small noises I was making told me the who almost at once, but the why was harder. Why take me? I didn’t like any answer I came up with.

  Since wondering why was too disturbing, I tried to figure out our route, to listen for signs that could lead me back to the camp and the panther if I was able to get away. I knew that was crazy in so many ways, not the least of which was the fact that everything in the forest sounded the same to me.

  I quickly gave up on that too. Instead, I tried to focus on staying still. I hadn’t been harmed yet; if I let him think I was still asleep, maybe it would buy me some time, enough to come up with a good plan to get back to the panther. I refused to listen to the voice in my head that was wondering if the panther was also unharmed and why he hadn’t already stopped the kidnapping, if he was able. Or why my captor would keep me alive and bother with a prisoner at all. None of those answers seemed comforting.

  Now that I was concentrating on staying still, all I could think about was fidgeting. It took a lot of control not to brush aside the branches that kept springing into the path or flinch as I was splashed by the stream my kidnapper forded.

  After my captor had crossed another stream, splashing me as he stomped through, and found a path again, one particularly hard jolt made my knee bang against the metal of his back, my elbow hit his sword hilt, and my stomach crash against his shoulder. This time my cry of pain got his attention.

  “You’re awake. About time.” It was the knight. Knowing I’d been right was not very comforting. He dumped me back on the ground and pulled out a short dagger.

  I tried to roll out of the way, but he wasn’t trying to stab me. He cut through the ropes binding my in the bedroll. I tried to think of a distraction, a way to struggle out of the blanket and run toward the camp and the panther. Before I could come up with something, the knight had rolled me onto my stomach and was kneeling on the small of my back. I could feel the weight of his sword against my side and understood it was a threat.

  “I’ll let you out of the blanket when I’ve got your arms out and behind you.”

  I felt the sword edge closer. I drew out my right arm first, hoping I could do something with it while the knight was distracted by my left, but the knight grabbed my wrist in his cold iron glove and squeezed, not letting go until my left arm was out and clutched in his hand. I tried to struggle, but I couldn’t get a grip on him; my fingers just bounced off his armor. He bound my hands together tightly, and then I felt his weight lift off my back. I had time for a few deep breaths while he tossed the bedroll away before I was dragged to my feet.

  If he was leaving my feet unbound, there was a chance I could run, or so I thought.

  The knight was still in front of me. I flinched as he drew closer, his broad shoulders blocking even the feeble moonlight. I shrank back against a tree. He kept approaching, a dark shadow blocking out the forest. I felt the cold metal of his armor through my sweater as his hands slid along th
e sensitive skin inside my arms and wrapped around my waist. I struggled, but I had backed as far away as I could, trapped by the tree that had seemed so safe a moment ago. Forward would only move me deeper into the knight’s cold arms. The knight drew a thick rope around my waist and knotted it tightly in front. He stepped back and tugged. I stumbled forward. “Come on then.” He wound the other end of the rope around his hand as he walked into the trees.

  The knight led me deeper into the forest. I followed quietly, letting my mind race wherever it wanted to. Surely the panther would look for me. Maybe he could sniff out the trail, like a dog. That gave me hope. I remembered his instinctive move to protect me on the path. If I could slow us down enough, the panther might be able to find me and help me. I made myself focus on the surroundings. The path we were on was barely more than a deer track, a place worn down by animals looking for the stream. It was easy enough to find a patch of damp leaves, easy enough to slip on it and stumble, making the knight stop while I regained my balance. He glared at me but said nothing, merely gave the rope a sharp tug, jerking me forward. As I trudged on, I wondered how long it would take Panther to find the trail. If only I could point him in the right direction, give him something to follow. Calling out to him would be best, but that was clearly out if I didn’t want the knight to notice.

  I was distracted as I noticed a puddle of mud on the edge of the trail and let my foot slide out from under me. There was a tug at the rope, pulling me on. I slammed my foot down to anchor myself so I wouldn’t be pulled forward to the ground. There was a loud crack as my foot landed on a fallen branch, breaking the wood in two. I almost smiled.