Anthology - Realms of Magic Part 9

"Good boy," the old man said to me. If I weren't already so upset, I might have been offended. "Hold him while I administer the Universal Solvent."

A potion, I thought! After escaping, then chasing, and finally losing track of the men who took Dauna, we had found a wizard to help us. Wizards are often ornery, but once he had ensorcelled the pepper out of King's eyes and nose, I'd ask him a boon, and he would help save my sister.

But instead of producing some glimmering phial of magical fluid, the old man took his cup of water and gently poured it across King's weepy eyes. King balked, but I held him tight.

"There, my old friend. That should take the sting away.

Nothing like a little rain to clear out the gutters." King whimpered once more, this time less pathetically. He nuzzled the old man's hand.

"But you said 'Universal Solvent,' " I protested. "I thought you were a wizard." I knew it was wise to be polite to wizards, but my disappointment was quicker than my wits.

"And what's that, but water? Any mason worth his sand will tell you that. And I've been a wizard and a mason for longer than ..." He drifted off, and his mouth worked wordlessly as he thought about it.

"I've run out of things to compare to my age," he decided. "Except perhaps for King."

"Are you King's master?" I asked.

"Oh, no. King's his own master. We're old, old friends. As you count in dog years, we're nearly cohorts." He chuckled, then sobered, as if the thought at first cheered, then saddened him. "Two old dogs of the city," he sighed.

"If you are a wizard, then you must help us. King tried to help me, but when the kidnappers went over the fence with Dauna, one threw pepper at him. Then ..."

"Wait! Back to your drawing, boy."

"My what?"

"You can't build a house without a drawing," he said. "And you can't crave a favor without an introduction."

"Ohil'mJame."

"And I'm Amba.s.sador Carrague. Well met, young Jame."

"Carrague! They said you died!" Father had read the obituary aloud from the Trumpeter, then griped about who would replace Carrague as city building inspector.

"Dead? Pish posh. Those fools couldn't tell the difference between a corpse and a handsaw. Merely sleeping! Good thing I woke before they'd boxed me up. Eh?" King nosed Carrague's leg impatiently.

"Ah, yes, yes. Dauna's been kidnapped, has she? Who is this Dauna?"

"Dauna's my sister. They tried to get me, too. But I was playing in the street, and King ran up barking when he saw them carrying her. That scared them off, but they held on to Dauna. King and I chased them."

"Why would someone kidnap her?"

"We're rich," I explained. "They want my father's money."

"Have your parents alerted the watch?"

"Father's returning from Sembia with silks and wine for sale. He won't be home for days. Mother died years ago. And Chesleya"our stewarda"he doesn't believe anything I say! He thinks I'm just telling stories again. But King saw it all, and we nearly caught the kidnappers."

"But now they've given you the slip, eh?"

"Yes," I replied sadly. King growled in affirmation. "If I'd been faster, I could have seen where they went. But by the time King got under the fence and I climbed over, they were gone. King couldn't find their trail with his nose full of pepper."

"I daresay not. Even King has his limits." King looked up defensively at Carrague. "Now, now. There are just some things you're better built to do, King." The terrier looked miserable.

"If King were a man, he could have climbed that fence in no time. Then we'd have saved Dauna."

King's gaze turned to me, his red and weary eyes large and full wounded by my remark. His jaw dropped in a remarkably human expression of astonishment at a sudden attack from a friend.

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way, King. No man could have picked up their trail the way you did. You did the best you could, for a dog." King crossed his front paws and laid his head down with a whimper. I knew I'd said the wrong thing again. Something about King made you feel he understood your words, not just your tone.

"You don't know King's secret, then. Do you, Jame?"

"I know he's the smartest dog in Raven's Bluff! Why, he's saved people from drowning, foiled robbers and killers, too, and ..." Now that I thought about it, even the smartest dog in the world couldn't do half the things King did.

"Oh, all that's true enough. But it's only the facade. There's a deeper story underneath. King's foundation, as it were."

"What's that?"

"Better to show you. That is, if King doesn't mind my telling his secret." Carrague looked down, as if expecting an answer. "It could be a way to help Jame's sister," he prompted.

Lifting his head, King looked at each of us in turn. He sat up with an air of a judge deliberating on a man's life, his whiskered mouth thin and tight. Carrague returned the look, a bit of the caprice gone from his own gray face. They looked at each other a long time, 'the old dog and the old wizard. Then King made a very human nod.

"To my office, boys." Carrague lifted his stick like a general directing his troops. "To my office."

The Ministry of Art a" the home of the city's most powerful wizards a" stood well down the road from the mayor's palace. "Afraid we might blast a hole in the castle," complained Carrague. "Ridiculous notion. We're not mere apprentices. There's hardly ever an explosion."

With this and other remarks, Carrague had me terrified of the place before we arrived. It looked grand, ornate, well guarded, and thoroughly daunting.

"Your office is here?"

"Yes, yes. They moved me here when they realized I hadn't died. But they gave my job away. Just like that!" He snapped his fingers. "And that ridiculous gnome they hired! Ah! Ah!" The old man shook his walking stick, began to stumble, then caught himself with it once more.

Carrague gripped the railing as we ascended the marble steps. The guards let us past, though one gave me a questioning glance. King barked a friendly greeting, and the guard winked back. Everyone knew King.

Carrague rested a moment from the short ascent. Wizard or no, he was an old, old man. I wanted to offer help, but I feared he wouldn't like that.

A rich red carpet ran far down the hall, and colorful tapestries rose into the gloom of the high ceiling. We walked slowly past woven griffins and leviathans, unicorns and sprites, airs.h.i.+ps and painted soldiersa"all fantastical things I'd never seen for myself. Can-ague barely noticed them, since he must have seen even more wondrous sights in his life. I caught myself gazing at them in awe and wist-fulness. Then I guiltily remembered our reason for being here.

"What are you going to do to rescue Datura?" I asked.

"Why nothing. It's King who'll rescue her. He's the hero. I'm the wizard. And you're the boy, so watch more and talk less."

We had stopped by one of the many doors that lined the hall. Carrague's symbol marked the door. He spoke a word that I couldn't remember two seconds after he'd spoken it, and the door opened.

The whole world was stuffed into that office. I guessed you could search for months through there and find one of anything you'd ever want. I expected stuffed owls, unicorn horn and pixie wing in gla.s.s jars, bubbling beakers, and roiling cauldronsa"and there was some of that there. But there were also feathered masks, jeweled statues, framed paintings, and enough furniture for ten houses. There stood the bust of a man I dimly recognized as a king across the Sea of Fallen Stars. From the ceiling hung a pair of thin wings on a wooden skeleton, and under a huge oak table moved something that kept just out of sight each time I stared at it. In a large gla.s.s globe swirled green seaweed, through which a tiny manlike figure peered at us. A parrot flew down from the window to light on King's back, until the terrier snapped at it and sent it flying back to its perch.

"d.a.m.n that woman anyway," cursed Carrague. "She's cleaned while I was away!" I looked at King, and he at me. Neither of us could see any signs of cleaning.

"I need the willow wand and the purple dust of Raurin," He opened the drawers on a big desk that served as a laundry table rather than a writing board. "No, no. That's not right. It's the yellow dust of the doppleganger we need." He turned his attention to a cabinet. "Here," he said after six slams of the tiny drawers. He held up a small black pouch. "The yellow dust."

Carrague looked all around, then finally slapped a wand at his belt. "Ah, had it with me all the time. Now to business." King already sat in the one chair clear of any obstruction. "Are you ready, old friend?"

King made that same human nod.

"Ready for what?" I asked. "What are you going to do to him?"

"Undo to him. I will change him back to his original self."

"His original self?"

"Rote learning is useful for clerks, my boy." Carrague rapped the wand smartly on my hand. "But we're dealing with wizardry here. Real magic. Don't repeat what I say."

"What do you mean by King's original self?" I hoped the question was different enough to avoid another rapping, but I kept my hands behind my back just in case.

"Why, his self before he was turned into a dog."

"Turned into a ..." I stopped myself just in time. "What was he before?" I looked at King carefully for a clue. His eyes were bright and intelligent, but so were those of many dogs. Could he be a dragon hiding as a dog? Or could he be...

"A man, of course. A hero, in fact." Carrague untied the black pouch and began sifting yellow dust over King's silvery coat. King shook himself and looked at the wizard reproachfully.

"Now be still, King." Carrague continued with his dusting, and King endured it stoically.

"If King used to be a man, why didn't you change him back years ago?"

Carrague whirled around to point at me, yellow dust spilling down to form a half-circle around him. "Now that is the first intelligent question you've asked." King woofed in agreement or impatience.

"He never asked before," answered Carrague plainly.

"Woof!" interjected King, scratching at the dust in his fur. He clearly wanted to be done with whatever magic Carrague promised to cast.

"Patience, King," chided Carrague. "If the lad's to learn anything, there's a matter of history to relate."

"Huh!" disagreed King.

"You're right. We are in a hurry, since Dauna's in danger," conceded Carrague.

"You can understand him?" I asked, astonished.

"No better nor worse than you could, if you listened carefully," said the wizard. The abbreviated story is that King, while still a man, offended a witch. She killed his companions but turned him into a dog, as you can see. Luckily for him, he escaped and came to Raven's Bluff, where he's become the most famous hero of the city, man or dog.

"And now, King," the amba.s.sador said gravely. "Is this what you want? Shall I turn you back into a man so you can rescue young Jame's sister?"

King's nod never seemed so utterly human as now.

Carrague nodded back at him. "Very well," said the wizard.

Then Carrague raised the willow wand and spoke some more of those words that won't stick in memory. I braced myself for a flash of light, some thunder, maybe even a howling wind that would toss about the contents of the room (which, I reasoned, would explain their current state). King just sat there under Carrague's chanting and wand-waving, patiently awaiting the transformation.

But nothing happened.

"Nothing happened," I pointed out helpfully.

"No?" Carrague frowned at the wand. "Hmm. Maybe it was supposed to be the green powder of shapechanging," he mused.

King growled, then opened his mouth wide.

"Yaah," King yawned. Then he sat up suddenly, his front paws held out before him daintily, as if they were wounded. They began to swell, and his whole body stretched with a rubbery, creaking sound.

"Oh, my," said Carrague. He stood back from King and his chair. I followed his lead.

King's snout retracted, and all the hair on his face sank back into his flesh. His ears slid down either side of his head like sails vanis.h.i.+ng over the horizon. His awful yawning whine grew deeper and louder.

"Rraaii!" he howled, then roared as his voice changed.

Fingers flexed where claws had been, and his broadening back bent forward in pain or ecstasy. I grimaced and shut my eyes, only to open them immediately. The sight was horrible, yet fascinating.

A naked man sat where King had been. His unruly hair gleamed silver as the dog's coat had been, and he had the same, large, intelligent eyes. While he remained muscular and fit, his skin was thin as old parchment. Though not as ancient as Carrague, King was still an old man. He squinted at us.

"That is why I never asked you to do this before," croaked King. "It hurt even worse the first time."

Carrague only nodded.

Carrague easily found clothes for King; he conjured them. If I had any lingering doubts about his wizardry, they vanished when he flourished his fingers, speaking both the arcane words of Art and some mundane descriptions of fabric, color, and size. A variegated aura appeared, then darkened and shrank to form real fibers in the air. Faster than spider legs, Carrague's fingers wove them into breeches and tunic, boots and cap.

King fetched up a sword from Carrague's cane rack, hefted it, then grunted his approval. "It feels good to hold a sword again," he p.r.o.nounced. His voice rumbled, rich and pleasant.

"Now don't run off to fight first," warned Carrague. "You have the power of speech again, and that's no mean tool. You'll need more than a blade to prevail against kidnappers."

"Believe me," said King. "I've lived long enough without a sword to know how to use my wits. You've got to do a lot of thinking when you're a dog in a city of men."

Carrague nodded, then peered at his cloak rack and plucked off a small green cap and handed it to me. "That looks about your size, boy. Try it on." I tugged it onto my head.

"It's tight," I said. Carrague smiled at me, but King's mouth opened as wide as I'd ever seen it when he was a dog. He looked a quick question at Carrague.

"Pixwhistle's cap of invisibility," said the amba.s.sador proudly.

"What?" I looked down at my arms. They were plenty visible to me. "I am not invisible."

King nodded at me, then sniffed. "You're invisible all right. I can't even smell you."

"Actually, you probably couldn't smell him unless you were very close," said Carrague. "Your nose isn't the fine instrument it was."

I looked around for a mirror while the two old men discussed olfactory, auditory, gustatory, and a few other -ory functions that didn't interest me. After elbowing past some mannequins and digging through baskets and bins, I unearthed a full-length mirror framed in carved oak.

"Hey, I'm invisible!" I exclaimed. I took off the hat. "I'm visible again!" While King's transformation and the conjuration of his clothing was more spectacular, this particular magic was much more personal. It worked on me.

Carrague and King finished their discussion and turned to me. "It's time to find Dauna," said Carrague.