23
LAST-MINUTE CHANGES
The sun burned away the morning mist.
Paladin had said they would leave this morning. But for now Paladin sat with Wizard Fenworth and Wizard Cam, Librettowit, Lee Ark, and Leetu Bends. Kale resisted the urge to listen in on their conversation using her mindspeaking ability.
I’m glad we’re leaving. I’m not sure I could stand this waiting much longer. Kale looked off toward the wood. But I’m not sure how I feel about going to Prushing.
“I get to go with you?” Toopka asked again.
“Yes.” Kale gave the doneel’s solid little body a hug. “Paladin said you would be helpful in the city. Dar knows about the aristocracy, and you know about the street people.”
“I’m going to call Dar ‘uncle,’ but I am not going to call you ‘aunt.’ No one would believe you’re my aunt. You could marry Dar and be my aunt, but that wouldn’t be believable either.”
“Why wouldn’t that be believable?”
“You’re so different. You’d fight all the time.”
“Not necessarily.” Kale tried to remember something she had read in one of the textbooks at The Hall. Something about Wulder making people different so they could work together more efficiently.
Toopka tugged on Kale’s sleeve. “You don’t know how to cook or sew or play music. Dar can do all those things.”
“Wulder gave different talents to people. Imagine if Dar and I fought over who would fix our meals, what a mess that would be. This way I leave him to do what he does best, and he leaves me to do what I do best.”
“What do you do best, Kale?”
The question stunned her. I was a good slave. A hard worker, obedient, quick. And I really liked taking care of the children.
Kale looked into the trusting eyes of the young doneel on her lap. With a grin growing on her face, she said, “Tickle!” and gently dug her wiggling fingers into Toopka’s sides, making her squeal and squirm.
The two toppled over on the grass, and Kale pinned Toopka.
“You’re fun, Kale. You’d make a good mommy.”
“I’m a long ways away from being a mother.”
“Wulder could fix it so you could have babies now.”
“Yes, but Wulder wants us to get ready to do a task so we’ll be counted good workers—like Dar and Bardon practice for battle. Wulder would want me to learn more before being a mother. He would also want me to have a husband.”
Kale let Toopka sit up. Kale smiled as she watched the little girl smooth her blouse and pick grass off her breeches, reminding Kale of Dar’s fastidious attention to grooming.
Toopka looked at Kale and wrinkled her nose. “Rules! Wulder should just cross out some. That would make it easier to remember the important ones.”
Kale laughed. “Fenworth says Wulder made His rules for good reasons. He doesn’t ever rearrange His rules on a whim.”
“On a wind? Like a sandstorm? Sittiponder said sandstorms are fierce. They’ll shred your skin like sliding down a gravel pit.”
Kale tried to capture an elusive memory. “I’m sorry, Toopka. I don’t remember who Sittiponder is.”
“He’s the blind wisdom speaker who lives alone under the stairs at the warehouses in Vendela. I used to bring him food, not just because of the stories he’d tell, but because I liked him.”
“How did he get so wise if he lived alone? Did he go to school?”
“He said if he was still, he could hear the words spoken in The Hall, and at night he collected wisdom while he dreamed.”
“Someday I’d like to meet Sittiponder.”
“So Wulder uses wind to change things when He wants to?”
“What? Where did you get such a strange idea? Oh no! I said, ‘whim,’ not ‘wind.’ A whim is a careless idea, one you didn’t think about very much, and it is likely to get you into trouble.”
“Well, Wulder wouldn’t go around thinking whims. I’ve decided you can’t marry Dar.”
Bardon’s shadow fell across them. “Marry Dar?”
Toopka grinned. “But Kale could marry you, Bardon. Then you could adopt me, and Dar could still be my uncle.”
A look of horror destroyed Bardon’s usually guarded expression.
Toopka, you said that on purpose.
“Of course I said it on purpose. How can you say something on accident?”
I mean you said that deliberately to embarrass Bardon—and me!
“Kale is t-t-too young to marry,” Bardon stammered. “And I, I have no profession.”
“You’re a servant of Paladin.” Toopka planted her fists on her tiny hips. “Isn’t that a pro-fes-son?”
“I was training.” Bardon ran his hand along the side of his head, smoothing the dark hair that never seemed mussed or at all uncombed. “I never got to the important preparation.”
Toopka stepped closer to him. “Paladin said I could go on the quest because I would be useful. I didn’t have any training. So if I am useful, you must be tons useful.”
Dibl came and landed on Bardon, next to his muscular neck. Bardon jerked and turned his head to eye the bright dragon perched on the brown material of his tunic. The warrior took in a quick breath, and as he released it, his face softened. He smiled. Then his shoulders shook gently, and a laugh escaped his lips. He patted the indignant doneel on her furry head and looked to Kale.
“I came to ask you,” he said, “if you’re ready to go. Paladin says there’s no gateway inside the city. We’ll have to enter the countryside.”
Kale stood as Dar approached with two packs slung over his shoulders. Librettowit followed.
The tumanhofer nodded to Lehman Bardon. “I’m not needed on the Creemoor expedition. Cam will watch after Fenworth. I asked to return to my library, but Paladin sends me with you instead.” Librettowit shrugged, shifting the load on his back. “No matter. I believe the rare book shops in Prushing will be worth the bother of trailing a miscreant meech.”
Regidor trotted over to join them. “I’ll be able to sniff him out. What better person to find a meech dragon than another meech dragon?”
Toopka clapped her hands and bounced on her toes. “A sneaky little doneel. That’s me.”
Bardon scooped the child into his arms. “You are to stick like a rock pine cone to Kale and stay out of trouble. I am your commanding officer, and you are to obey orders.”
Toopka’s eyes grew big. “You’re in charge of all of us?”
“No, Dar is, but I outrank you, little ninny-nap-conder.”
Regidor cleared his throat. “I don’t believe I’ve seen that word in any of Librettowit’s dictionaries.”
“Ninny-nap-conder refers,” said the librarian, “to one who appears to be a ninny, and one who seems to sleep through what is happening, unaware of what is going on. But in actuality, it means a con artist, one who manipulates those around her. In this case, ninny-nap-conder is a term of endearment. Bardon is saying Toopka is a little scamp.”
Toopka cocked her head and frowned. “I don’t think I like being endeared that way.”
Kale chuckled as she snapped her fingers to draw the foraging minor dragons’ attention. “Then you’d best deal more honestly with your friends. Gymn, Metta, we’re leaving.”
The dragons, including Dibl, flew to Kale and pushed their way beneath the folds of her cape to find their pocket-dens. Kale stooped to roll up her bedroll.
In a matter of minutes, the party of questers lined up before Paladin. The second company of adventurers, who would go to Creemoor, stood beside them.
“One more thing before you go,” Paladin said. “Kale, I must see the dragon eggs you still have in your keeping.”
Kale swiftly lowered her pack to the ground and removed the eggs from the pockets sewn into the moonbeam cape. The three minor dragons came out, chittering excitedly.
Paladin crouched on the other side and slowly examined each of the five eggs Kale lined up along the top of her bundle of belongings.
“This one,” he said, picking up the middle egg. He handed it to Kale. “Place this one in your hatching pouch.”
The small dragons zoomed into the air and did somersaults above the assembly. Dibl dove into Wizard Fenworth’s beard and did not reappear.
“Here now,” protested the old man as he patted his beard. “Come out of there. You’re eating, aren’t you? Take care you eat the bugs and not my buttons. I’ll not have my robes falling off because some inexperienced glutton devoured bone buttons instead of beetles. You could be useful while you’re at it and eat that drummerbug that keeps me awake at night.”
A bumblebee buzzed out of the curtain of gray hair at tremendous speed with Dibl right behind it. The dragon snatched it, chewed, swallowed, and gave out a trill of joy.
“Quite!” agreed the wizard and nodded knowingly at those around him. “Sweet. A delicacy. Very filling. But they tickle on the way down.”