I wished she hadn't mentioned being hungry. Until then I'd almost forgotten that I hadn't eaten since breakfast. But there wasn't any food inside the hedge, and I wasn't going to try opening it. I'd already done enough experimenting for one day, and besides, it was getting dark.
"Your turn. What are you doing in the Enchanted Forest?" Shiara asked when I didn't say anything.
"I don't know," I said.
"How can you not know?" she demanded. "I told you why I came!"
So I explained about Mother and the wizard. Shiara was very interested.
"I want to meet your mother," she said. "After I learn how to use my magic. Do you think she would teach me how to melt a wizard?"
"I don't know."
Shiara thought for a minute. "I don't see how you can find out what you're supposed to be doing just by wandering around the Enchanted Forest."
"Well, you're planning to wander around until you find out how to use your magic, aren't you?" I said. "I don't think I really see the difference."
"I know what I'm doing," Shiara said. "That's the difference."
"If you knew very much about the Enchanted Forest, you wouldn't have gotten caught by this hedge."
Shiara scowled, then looked suddenly thoughtful. "Is it more dangerous to wander around the forest alone than with someone?"
"It depends," I said. "Two people attract more attention than one, but sooner or later everyone in the Enchanted Forest runs into something dangerous.
And when you do get into trouble it's sort of nice to have someone around to help."
"Why don't we stay together, then? After we get out of this stupid hedge, I mean. As long as neither of us knows exactly where we're going, we might as well wander in the same direction."
"All right." It sounded like a good idea, especially since it's hard to run into someone completely by accident in the Enchanted Forest.
Then Shiara made me describe Antorell in detail, and she decided that he wasn't one of the wizards who had kidnapped her. I wasn't sure whether that was good or bad. Shiara was nice when she wasn't mad, and I was beginning to like her. But if we were going to stick together, we would have two sets of wizards looking for us, and that didn't sound too good. Shiara was still curious, so I wound up telling her about the sword and the lizard and everything.
"The Sword of the Sleeping King," she said thoughtfully when I finished.
"Well, it sounds important. Can you do that spell again? I'd like to watch. Maybe I could figure it out."
"I could do it, but I won't," I said. "Once was enough."
"You scared or something?" Shiara said scornfully.
"I'm not scared, I'm being sensible. That was no minor magic I set off.
Are you trying to attract attention?"
"No, I suppose you're right. Will you let me see the sword, at least?"
"Sure, if you promise not to take it out of the sheath or say any spells at it or anything," I said. I stood up and started trying to unbuckle the belt. It was hard to do in the dark. Finally Shiara got tired of waiting and came and helped. It still took a while, and my elbows got in the way again, but finally we managed to get the sword belt off. Shiara took the sheath and squinted at the parts of the sword that showed.
"I can't see anything," she complained.
"There isn't much to see," I said. "Besides, it's dark. Maybe we should Wait until tomorrow."
"I wanted to see it now. Oh, all right." She handed it back, hilt first. I took it and nearly let go again right away. The tingling was back, the one that reminded me of a bee, and it was a lot stronger than it had been before.
"Watch out!" Shiara said. "You almost dropped it."
"It's tingling again," I said.
"It is? Let me see." I handed the sword back, and Shiara touched the hilt. "I don't feel anything. Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure." I reached out and put my hand on the hilt, next to Shiara's.
"Ow!" I said, and Shiara went, "Oh!" and we both dropped the sword.
We looked at each other for a minute.
"What did it feel like to you?" I asked finally.
"Like something pulling at me." Shiara eyed the sword warily. "You can have it back now. I don't want to look at it anymore."
I picked up the sword and put it back on. I still wanted to know what it was doing, but I wasn't going to mess around with it in the dark.
Shiara and I talked a little, but we were both tired, and finally we decided to just go to sleep. We would have plenty of time to experiment in the morning if we still felt like it.
Spending the night in the Enchanted Forest sounds awfully exciting, but it isn't really. Either you stay up all night so the wolves and nightshades and things won't get you and they don't, or you fall asleep and they do, or you find someplace safe and sleep there and never know.
We slept all night-at least, I did-and when we woke up in the morning the hedge was still there.
By that time I was really hungry, and since there wasn't anything to eat inside the hedge I was ready to leave. So was Shiara. She was still worried about the Society of Wizards. We brushed most of the moss off our clothes, and I checked the sword, just to be safe.
"Will you quit fussing with that and come open this stupid hedge?"
Shiara said.
I walked over to the bushes. They looked very dense and very prickly.
"Excuse me," I said to the hedge. "I would like to thank you for keeping the wolves and things out all night, and I would very much appreciate it if you would let us through now."
"That's the dumbest-" Shiara began, and the bushes rustled and parted.
I grinned and stepped through. The branches shut behind me with a snap. "Ow!" said Shiara. I turned around. She was still on the other side of the hedge.
"What happened?" I yelled.
"What do you think happened? And you don't have to shout. I'm not that far away."
"Sorry."
"Make it open up again!"
"I'll try," I said doubtfully. I addressed the bushes again. "Excuse me, but you seem to have a friend of mine inside, and she can't get out. Will you please let her through?"
The bushes rustled smugly and didn't move apart at all. "I'd really appreciate it if you would let her out," I said. "She's nicer than you think."
The bushes rustled again. This time they sounded skeptical. They still didn't open.
"Well?" said Shiara's voice.
I sighed. "They won't open up. I'm afraid you'll have to apologize."
"Apologize? To a bush?" Shiara sounded outraged. "I won't! I'll burn this hedge to cinders! I'll-Ow!"
"I really think you'd better apologize," I said. "Otherwise you probably won't get out before the wizards come."
There was silence for a while. Finally Shiara said, "Oh, all right.
I'm sorry I said you were a stupid hedge." She paused. "Now will you please let me through?"
Reluctantly, the bushes pulled apart. Shiara sighed with relief and stepped through.
She almost didn't make it. The bushes closed again so fast they caught a piece of her tunic.
"Hey!" she said. "Stop that!"
"I hate to mention this," I said as I helped Shiara work her tunic free, "but you really ought to be more polite."
"To lizards and bushes? Ha!" She jerked her tunic free and glared at the hedge.
"I mean it," I said. "It only gets you into trouble when you're not."
"I'm a fire-witch," Shiara said sullenly. "People are supposed to be polite to me."
"I thought you didn't like having everyone scared of you," I said. I turned to the bush. "Thank you very much."
The branches rustled politely. I turned back to Shiara, who was watching me with her mouth open. "If you act that way all the time, I don't think people would like you much even if you weren't a fire-witch. Good-bye." I turned around and started walking.
"Wait!"
I stopped. Shiara ran up beside me. "I-I'm sorry. I guess I'm not used to being
nice to people."
"That could really get you in trouble in the Enchanted Forest," I said.
Shiara looked back over her shoulder at the hedge and shuddered. "No kidding. Well, I'll try."
"All right. Let's find something to eat."
That was easier to say than do. We found a bush that had some berries on it, but half of them were blue and half were red. I wasn't quite hungry enough to take a chance on them, and neither was Shiara.
"If my fire magic doesn't always work, my immunity to magic might not always work, either,"she said. "I'd hate to turn into something awful just because of a few berries." I thought that was very sensible. We kept going.
Eventually we found a clearing full of blackberry brambles. It was so ordinary that it looked very odd sitting there in the middle of the Enchanted Forest. The berries were full of seeds, but we ate a lot of them anyway. I picked some extras and tied them up in my handkerchief for later. When we finished, we started walking again.
It wasn't a very exciting walk. The trees didn't get any smaller, the moss still covered the ground, and every once in a while there was a peculiar bush growing next to one of the trees. It would have gotten boring if Shiara hadn't been there. It was nice to have someone my own age to talk to. I'd never had any friends. Most people don't want their children getting close to the Enchanted Forest, so Mother and I had never had any visitors except the princes and heroes and so on. I told Shiara about living at the edge of the forest, and she told me about the town she lived in. I thought it was very interesting.
By the middle of the morning we were both hungry again. Blackberries don't stick with you for long. We stopped and ate the berries I'd saved in my handkerchief. They were squashed and messy, but they tasted fine.
When we finished, we walked some more. It was a warm day, and by the time we saw the stream we were both very thirsty.
"Water! Oh, great!" Shiara said as we reached the bank. It was a small stream, ankle deep and a little too wide to jump. I could see the pebbles on the bottom. Shiara knelt on the bank and reached down.
"Wait a minute?" I said. "You shouldn't just drink that. You could turn into a rabbit, or lose your memory, or disappear, or something."
Shiara looked at me. Then she looked at the stream. "I don't care," she said finally. "I'm thirsty." She leaned toward the water again.
"But what if-Watch out!" I grabbed Shiara and pulled her away just as a huge swirl of muddy water came rushing down the stream. She scrambled back and stood up, and we watched the stream for a minute.
It was now almost a river, deep and fast and angry.
Shiara looked at me. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. I guess we'll have to go back-" I started to turn back toward the woods and stopped. There was dark water on that side of us, too. We were standing on an island. A very small island. It was getting smaller every minute.
I stared at the churning water, and my hand went to my sword. I don't know why-most swords aren't any good against floods. As soon as I touched the hilt I knew that it wasn't in the nature of this particular stream to do this sort of thing. I didn't know how I knew, but I was sure someone was creating the flood.
Right about then I heard a chuckle. Not a nice chuckle. I was looking around for the chuckler when Shiara grabbed my arm. "Daystar! Over there!"
I turned. A man was leaning against one of the trees. He had blue robes and black hair, and he held a wizard's staff in one hand. I didn't like the way he was watching Shiara.
"Well, little fire-witch, I seem to have caught you again," he said.
"You leave me alone!" Shiara shouted. "Or I'll burn your staff, too."
The wizard chuckled again. He really had a nasty chuckle. "Oh, I don't think so. I've taken precautions, you see." He waved at the water that surrounded us and smiled patronizingly. "Or weren't you aware that fire magic won't cross water?"
"Magic may not cross water, but we can," I said. I was beginning to share Shiara's dislike of wizards. "Come on, Shiara. It can't be very deep."
"Where did you find the hero?" the wizard asked. Shiara just glared at him. The wizard laughed. I didn't like his laugh any better than his chuckle.
"I should give him something to do, don't you think? A monster, perhaps.
Heroes like monsters." He waved his staff in the general direction of the flooding stream.
The water on one side of our island bunched up and began to solidify rapidly. I didn't even have time to step back before the thing finished growing.
When it was done, it looked sort of like a giant snake's head that dripped. The outlines kept changing because it was made out of water that wasn't completely solid, but it was pretty clearly a snake.
It lunged at me. I dodged, barely in time, and drew my sword. Shiara yelled, and steam puffed from the snake head. The snake didn't seem particularly hurt. Some of the stream water bunched up around it, but that was all. I heard the wizard laugh again.
"I'm afraid that won't work very well, young lady," he said. "You'd have to boil the whole stream away to get rid of my monster, and I don't think you can. Pity, isn't it? Be patient. You'll have your turn in another minute, and then the Head Wizard will owe me a favor."
The head lunged again. By now I was ready for it, but it was awfully fast. I dodged and struck at it with the sword, even though I wasn't sure what good it would do me to wound something that wasn't even alive.
The sword made a humming noise. I heard the wizard shout, and then a sound like an explosion. The snake head made a bubbly noise and collapsed in a wave of muddy water that swept over the little island Shiara and I were standing on, soaking everything. In another minute, the flood water drained away, leaving a lot of wet moss. And Shiara yelled again.
I whirled around. Shiara was pointing. It took me a second to realize what she was pointing at. It was the big tree that the wizard had been leaning against. A couple of short branches were lying at the foot of the tree.
The wizard was gone.
4
In Which They Learn the Perils of Inspecting a Wizard's Broken Staff
I stood where I was, panting, and dripping. When I got my breath back, I went over to the tree. There was no sign of the wizard, except for the "branches" I'd noticed. There were three of them, and they weren't branches. They were pieces of a staff.
I looked at Shiara. "That's two wizards' staffs you've broken.
They're really going to be after you now."
"I didn't break it," Shiara said indignantly. "You did."
"I did not," I said. We looked at each other for a minute.
"If neither of us broke it," Shiara said finally, "who did?"
"Me," said a voice. I looked up. A little man was sitting in the branches of the tree. He was about two feet tall and dressed entirely in green. His eyes were black and very bright, and his ears were slightly pointed. He had to be an elf.
"I think you mean 'I,'" I said automatically.
"I shouldn't wonder if you're right." The elf tilted his head to one side.
"Does it matter?"
"Can you get down from that tree?" Shiara said. "You're giving me a crick in my neck."
The elf looked from me to Shiara and back to me again. "Introduce me to your charming companion."
"Oh, excuse me," I said. I told the elf our names and thanked him for taking care of the wizard. I was a little curious about that. I'd never met an elf, but they didn't have a reputation for altruism. I wasn't sure I wanted to trust one, either. Elves can be very tricky.
"You're welcome," the elf said. "I've never cared much for wizards.
Unfortunately, it's very difficult to do anything permanent to them.
This one will be back in a day or two."
"If there is anything we can do for you in return, I would like to hear what it is," I said. If someone in the Enchanted Forest does you a favor, you have to offer to do one for them. Well, you don't have to, but if you don't, things seem to go wrong a lot after that. You have to be careful,
though. If you promise to do a favor before you hear what it is, you can end up in more trouble than you started with. I wasn't going to promise anything without finding out first what I was promising.
"Consider the debt canceled," the elf said politely. I thought he sounded disappointed, and I didn't like the way he was looking at my sword. Suddenly I was very glad Mother had told me about making promises in the Enchanted Forest.
"Thank you," I said. "You did a very neat job." He had, too; the staff had been sliced cleanly into thirds. I began to wonder how he had done it. I hadn't thought elves were powerful enough to break a wizard's staff. I didn't want to offend him by asking about it, though.
"You may have the staff, if you want it," the elf said, waving at the pieces.
"What good is a busted wizard's staff?" Shiara asked. "You can't do anything with it."
"Nonsense," said the elf. "Wizards' staffs are just as powerful in pieces as they are whole, and they're fairly easy to put back together.
Please, take it with you."
I didn't like the way he kept suggesting that, though it sounded reasonable enough. "Are you sure you don't want it?" I asked finally.
"What would an elf do with a wizard's staff?. If you don't take it, I'll just have to get rid of it somewhere."
That sounded reasonable, too, but I wasn't going to commit myself. He was too insistent. "Thank you for the suggestion," I said. "We'll think about it."
"Do," the elf said. His black eyes twinkled. "Perhaps I'll see you later.
Good-bye." Before I could say anything he had disappeared into the treetops.
Elves move very quickly.
"What was that about?" Shiara demanded.
"I don't know about that elf," I said slowly. "I think something funny is going on. He was trying too hard to get us to take that staff."
"Well, we have to do something with it," Shiara said.
"Why?" I said. "We didn't break it. And I don't want to mess with a wizard's staff, even a broken one."
Shiara frowned. I made a gesture toward the pieces and realized that I was still holding the sword in my hand. I started to put it back in its sheath, then stopped. The sheath was as wet as everything else I was wearing. I couldn't put the sword in that. I mean, not all magic swords are rustproof, and even if you have one that is, putting your sword away without cleaning it is a bad habit to get into. I checked my pockets, just in case, but even my handkerchief was wet.
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