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EDGEWOOD DIRK

Mistaya stared at the cat, and the cat stared back, its green eyes luminous. Had it really spoken to her or had she just imagined it?

“Cat got your tongue?” the cat asked after a moment’s silence between them.

She nodded slowly. “I don’t guess you’re any ordinary cat, are you? I guess you must be a fairy creature. But you look like an ordinary cat.”

“I don’t guess you’re any ordinary girl, either,” the cat replied. “I guess you must be a Princess. But you look like an ordinary girl.”

She nodded again. “Ha, ha. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you to come out and talk with me. We have a great deal to discuss, you and I. We have plans to make. We have places to go and people to meet. We have a life to live that extends far beyond these woods and your grandfather’s rule.”

“We do, do we?” She dropped down on her haunches and regarded the beast more closely. She ignored the cool damp of the night air and the silence of the darkness. She didn’t even think about the possibility that her grandfather’s guards might be watching her talk with this cat and wondering why. Her curiosity pushed all these considerations aside as she studied the cat’s inscrutable face. “We have all that to do, you and I?”

The cat lifted one paw and licked it carefully, not looking at her. When it was satisfied with the result, it put the paw back down and blinked at her with an air of contentment. “Allow me to summarize. You have been dismissed from your school and sent home. Your father is unhappy with you and your mother, disappointed. Consequently, they seek to find a way to channel your considerable talents into a project that will further your truncated education. Thus, they choose to send you to Libiris. You view this as punishment, particularly in light of your father’s response to Lord Laphroig’s marriage proposal, and so you flee to your grandfather in hopes that he will better understand your dismay. But he refuses to let you stay and in the morning intends to send you back to your parents.”

It paused. “How does all this sound to you? Have I left anything out, Princess? Would you care to add, subtract, or amend my words in any way?”

She shook her head no. “I think that about covers it, Mr. Cat.” She gave it a sharp look. “How do you know all this?”

“It is my job to know things,” the cat said. “Cats know lots of things about the world and its creatures, especially people. Cats watch and listen. It is what they do best.”

“So you have been watching me?”

“Haven’t you noticed me?”

“Once or twice on the way here. Not before then.”

“Which points up how unobservant people are when it comes to our place in their lives. We wander about freely, and no one pays much attention to us. It allows us to go almost anywhere and discover almost anything without anyone realizing what we are doing. We know so much about you, but no one ever considers what this means. Cats are highly underrated in this regard.”

“Well, I admit to not seeing you before yesterday. But I don’t understand why you would want to know anything about me in the first place. What is the point in knowing all this stuff?”

The cat regarded her silently for a long moment and then yawned deeply. “I should think it would be obvious. I am here to help you.”

She was aware of a growing stiffness in her legs from her prolonged crouch, and she stood up carefully, rubbing her muscles. “Could we continue this conversation on the porch so that I can sit properly in a chair?”

“So long as you don’t expect me to go into the cottage, we can. I prefer open spaces to cramped ones.”

She walked over to the porch and sat down in one of the old rockers that bracketed the front door, wrapping herself in a rough blanket that was draped over one arm. The cat padded its way onto the first step and sat down again. All around them, the night remained deep and silent, and no one appeared to interrupt their conversation.

“How are you going to help me?” she asked after they were both comfortably settled.

“Well, that depends,” the cat answered. “For starters, I am prepared to take you away from here. Tonight.”

“You can do that?”

“Of course. If you really want to leave and not go home to your parents, I can take you somewhere else and your grandfather’s guards will not be able to prevent it. If that is what you really want.”

“It is,” she said. “Assuming you can do as you say.”

The cat said nothing, but instead went back to cleaning another paw—or perhaps it was the same one—licking the fur this way and that, worrying the pads with careful attention to the spaces between, acting as if there were nothing more important in all the world.

“You must possess considerable magic,” she said.

“Your father thought so.”

“You know my father?”

“And your mother. I have helped them, too, in the past, before you were born. Have they told you nothing of me?”

She shook her head. “I think I would remember you, if they had.”

“They should remember me, too. They should remember me well. I did much to help them avoid a rather unpleasant end when the old wizard, the one before Questor Thews, tried to regain control of Landover’s throne from your father and very nearly killed him in the bargain. Your father was in flight, too, at the time, wandering the countryside, searching for answers. Very much like you, Princess.”

“I didn’t know that. They never said anything about it.”

“Parents don’t tell their children everything, do they? Some things they keep to themselves because they are private and don’t need to be shared. Or perhaps people think these things are best forgotten, a part of a past that has gone by and won’t—with luck—come around again for a visit. When all this is over, you might not want to talk about what is going to happen to you, either.”

“What is going to happen to me?” she asked quickly.

The cat blinked. “We shall have to wait and see, won’t we?”

She frowned. “Why should I agree to go away with you?”

“Do you have a choice?”

“Of course I have a choice!” She was suddenly irritated.

“A choice that does not involve going back to your parents?” The cat sounded rather smug. “Besides, you might well ask why I should agree to go away with you, don’t you think?”

“But you just offered!” she snapped.

“Yes, but cats have a habit of changing their minds rather quickly, and I might be in the process of changing mine. You seem to me as if you might be in a lot of trouble, given your rather independent streak and your uncertain temperament. Not to mention all the baggage you carry.”

“Baggage?”

“The daughter of the King and Queen of Landover, their only child, on the run in the company of a pair of G’home Gnomes? Yes, I would say you carry more than a little baggage with you. I might not want to burden myself with all that. I might want to rethink my offer to help.”

She regarded the cat carefully, studying its inscrutable cat face. “But you won’t,” she said finally. “You won’t because you have a reason for coming to me like this in the first place.”

“Perhaps.”

“You won’t because you are a cat and cats are curious and your curiosity has something to do with you being here and you haven’t satisfied it yet.”

“Curiosity comes and goes,” said the cat.

She nodded. “What’s your name?”

The cat looked away for a moment, studying the blackness beyond them as if it had just discovered something of immense interest. “I am like all cats when it comes to names,” he said, speaking to the night. “I have as many names as I do lives. I don’t even know what they all are yet. The one I prefer now is the one your father knew me by. Edgewood Dirk.”

“I like your name,” she told him.

“Thank you. Although it doesn’t matter one way or the other, you realize.”

She took a deep breath. “Does your offer to help me still stand? Will you take me away with you?”

Edgewood Dirk blinked. “All you need to do is gather your belongings, wake your companions, and follow me. No one will see us. No one will stop us. By morning, we will be far away.”

“Far away,” she repeated, liking the sound of it. Then the rest of what he had said caught up with her. “Wait a minute. Did you say I should wake my companions? Those Gnomes? I don’t want them coming with me! I didn’t want them coming with me in the first place!”

“Well, we don’t always get what we want in life,” said Edgewood Dirk.

“Well, they’re not coming with me, Dirk, so you can just forget about me not getting what I want in this case!” She glared at him. “Is that all right with you?”

“Perfectly all right,” he answered, his cat voice as calm as still waters. “Of course, leaving them behind means that when the River Master finds you gone, he will have to find someone to blame, and those two unfortunate G’home Gnomes might turn out to be his first choice.”

She stared at him, speechless.

“Not that this should matter to you, of course,” he added.

She knew he was right, and she hated it. She sighed wearily. “All right then, they can come.”

“If you are quite certain it is all right, Princess?”

She ignored him, finding him increasingly annoying and suspecting that he would become more so as they traveled. She looked around guardedly. “We just walk right out of here, do we? Right through my grandfather’s guards and all the once-fairy who live in the swamps? You know the way out and won’t get us lost?”

The cat stared at her, saying nothing.

“Do you mind telling me where we are going?” she pressed.

The cat did not answer.

She put her hands on her hips and bent closer. “Why won’t you answer me?” she demanded.

A small noise from behind caused her to straighten up and turn around. Poggwydd was standing there with Shoopdiesel peering over his shoulder, both of them looking bewildered. “Why are you talking to that cat?” the former asked hesitantly. “You know cats can’t talk, don’t you, Princess?”

He gave the cat an interested look. “But some of them are rather good to eat. Do you suppose this one belongs to anyone?”

Shoopdiesel licked his lips and looked eager.

Her belongings gathered and her mind made up, Mistaya set off through the fairy-born city of Elderew with Edgewood Dirk leading the way and a reluctant Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel bringing up the rear. Neither understood what was happening, and Poggwydd, on behalf of both, had complained loudly about it on being informed. As a result, she had expressly forbidden either G’home Gnome from speaking one single, solitary word until she gave them permission, threatening that if they did not do as she said she would leave them behind to face her grandfather’s wrath when he discovered she was missing. Frustrated and out of sorts, they trailed along like restless children, shuffling and snuffling and generally acting as if they had an itch they couldn’t scratch. She never looked back at them, and Dirk never looked back at her. In this fashion, single-file and keeping their distance from one another, they passed without notice into the deep woods.

Mistaya couldn’t have told anyone why she was doing this. It made almost no sense to trust the cat, even if you got past the part where you accepted that it wasn’t all that strange that a cat could talk. This was Landover, after all, and all sorts of things talked that didn’t do so in other worlds. The dragon Strabo was a prime example; his vocabulary was both extraordinary and colorful. Not that there were a whole lot of other dragons to compare him with, but that didn’t refute her point about creatures that talked. She had grown up in Landover, so a talking animal didn’t surprise her, even if it would have shocked the girls of Carrington.

But trusting a talking cat—now, that was something else. Cats were not the most reliable of creatures, talking or not. They were independent and self-centered, prissy and devious, and she had no reason to think that this one was any different. Yet here she was, trailing along behind him, ready to believe that he not only knew the way out of Elderew but could actually get clear of the city without being detected. No one else could do this, so why did she think he could?

She guessed it was because she wanted so badly to escape the fate that awaited her if she stayed around until morning. Being sent back to her father would be the ultimate humiliation, and her embarrassment at her grandfather’s rejection was quite enough already. Better that she take her chances out on her own than be stymied even in this small gesture of defiance. Better that she trust a talking cat with dubious motives than sit around and do nothing.

She kept silent until they were out of the city and wending their way back through the swamp and quicksand before she tried speaking to him again. She was aware that the Gnomes were listening in, so she kept her voice at a whisper until she grew frustrated and voiced her questions more loudly. But it didn’t matter. Dirk ignored her, acting as if he hadn’t heard, further convincing Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel that she was suffering from a delusion regarding the abilities of cats.

In the end, she gave it up, and they walked on through the night. By sunrise, they were clear of the woods and had emerged into a broad stretch of grasslands and hill country east, facing into the rising sun.

At this point, Edgewood Dirk came to a stop. Sitting back on his haunches with his tail curled about him, he began to clean himself—an undertaking both meticulous and seemingly endless.

Mistaya couldn’t help herself. She had endured enough. “Look here,” she said to the cat. “You did well in helping us escape the fairy-born. But now you have to tell us where we are going.”

Dirk, predictably, said nothing.

“Stop pretending you can’t speak!” she said. “I know you can!”

She glanced over her shoulder at the G’home Gnomes, who were shifting their gazes from her to each other and back again. “Princess, I don’t think the cat can—” Poggwydd began.

“Be quiet!” she snapped at him. “I know what I’m doing!”

“But, Princess, cats don’t—”

“Did I give you permission to speak?” she demanded, wheeling back on him. “Did I?”

Poggwydd shook his head dejectedly.

“What did I say I would do with you if you did?”

“Leave us behind. But we’re safely away now. No one can hear us out here. Besides, you’re talking, aren’t you?”

She glared at him. “Just don’t say anything, all right?”

“But what are we doing out here, following that stupid cat?” he whined miserably. “Cats don’t know anything and aren’t good for anything except to eat!”

She pointed a finger at him in warning and turned back to Dirk, who had finished cleaning himself and was now staring at her rather accusingly.

“Well, what do you expect me to say?” she demanded.

He continued to stare at her, and she could tell just by the nature of the look what he was thinking. “Oh, all right,” she said. She sighed and turned back to the Gnomes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. I’m just frustrated by everything.”

And suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps the cat wouldn’t speak to her unless they were alone. Hadn’t that been the way things had worked last night? “Poggwydd, would you and Shoopdiesel wait for me over there by the trees?” She gestured toward where she wanted them to go. “Just for a few minutes.”

The G’home Gnomes trooped off obediently, and she knelt down in front of the cat rather like a humble supplicant. “Now will you speak to me? Please?”

“Since you ask so nicely,” said the cat, “I will do so. But not in front of anyone else. You would do well to remember that in the future. That way we won’t have to go through this charade again.”

“Believe me, I’ll remember.”

“Excellent. Now then, what is it that you want to talk about?”

She took a deep, steadying breath, submerging her lingering thoughts of strangling him. “Where is it that we’re going?”

He cocked his head. “That would be up to you. I promised to take you safely away from Elderew and your grandfather, and I did. I assumed you had a plan. If so, now is the time to implement it.”

“Well, I don’t have a plan!” she snapped. “I just need to go somewhere my father can’t find me while I think this thing through! Mostly, I need to get out of the open!”

She was frustrated and angry by now, suddenly afraid that Edgewood Dirk had taken her from the frying pan into the fire. Dirk, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned.

“Princess,” he said quietly. “While you are with me, no one can find you by use of magic. Because I am a fairy creature, I am able to shield those who travel with me. Your father can look for you until next winter, and he will not be able to find you while you are with me unless he comes looking for you himself.”

She stared at him. “Are you sure?”

“Cats are always sure. Look at me. I seem an ordinary cat at first glance—though of a particularly lovely sort. But I am much more. I am a Prism Cat, Princess. We possess special magic and are of a unique character.”

She frowned, not knowing whether he was serious or not. “I don’t think I understand. Can you explain?”

“I can, but I don’t choose to. Another time, perhaps. Now, back to the plan you don’t have. Where is it that you want to go?”

She sighed. “Somewhere I won’t be found, whether you are with me or not. How’s that?”

“Poorly conceived and expressed. You will be found quickly, if you are not with me. Which means, you must encourage me to come with you by showing some modicum of intelligence in making your choice of where you might go. Otherwise, I am wasting my time on you.”

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded indignantly. “Why do I have to encourage you?”

“Because, Princess, I am not here by chance and I am not bound to stay. I chose to help you in the same way I chose to help your father and your mother. But I need a reason to stay. Cats are curious creatures, you might have heard. But if we lose our curiosity about something, we tend to move on to other, more interesting things. At the moment, I am curious about you. But that could change if you don’t find ways to keep me interested.”

She sat back on her heels, seething. “I have to keep you interested in me?”

“You do. How do you plan to do that?”

“The pleasure of my company isn’t enough for you?”

“Please be serious.”

“I have other friends, you know,” she declared. “I have lots of other friends, and they would all be happy to help me.”

“You have two G’home Gnomes, and neither has the least idea what to do about your situation. You have no one else. You don’t even have your mud puppy anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

She stared at him in disbelief, and then after looking around quickly began calling for Haltwhistle. But the mud puppy did not appear.

“Where is he?” she demanded, a bit frantic.

“I sent him home to the Earth Mother,” said the cat. “It wasn’t difficult. You forgot to speak his name, so he would have left anyway.”

He was right. She hadn’t spoken Haltwhistle’s name at all yesterday, and she knew what that meant. If she failed to speak the mud puppy’s name at least once each day, he would leave and go back to wherever he had come from. She didn’t even know where that was because she had never thought about it. She had always been careful to say his name so that she wouldn’t have to worry. But last night, absorbed in her own troubles, she had forgotten.

“Well, I can find him again,” she declared bravely.

“Not before your father finds you.” Dirk’s remonstrance was maddeningly calm. “Now tell me where it is that you are going.”

“I don’t know,” she said miserably.

“Somewhere you won’t be found …,” he nudged.

“Why won’t you just stay with me? Then it wouldn’t matter where I went. Why won’t you do that?”

Edgewood Dirk licked his chops and closed his eyes. “I know myself too well to make a promise I cannot keep. My nature requires that I be interested in your actions. For that to happen, you have to make interesting choices. Now think. Where could you go that would interest me?”

She shook her head helplessly.

“Put it another way. Where is the last place your father would think to look? Because sooner or later he will give up on talismans and wizards and come looking for you himself.” Dirk paused. “Or perhaps he will send someone in his place, someone more effective at finding what is hidden. Perhaps he will send the Paladin looking for you.”

Mistaya froze. She knew about the Paladin, of course, even though she had never seen him. Everyone knew about the Paladin. They whispered of it when they thought she couldn’t hear, and Questor Thews had talked of it quite openly. They were all proud of its service to the throne, but they were also quite afraid of it: huge and dark of purpose, all armored and armed astride its charger. There had never been anything in memory that had been able to stand against the Paladin.

The last thing she wanted was something as implacable as that searching for her.

“Think, Princess,” the cat pressed. “Where will your father look last for you?”

She thought. The Deep Fell was a good choice because magic couldn’t penetrate its mists.

“The Deep Fell?”

“He will look there first.”

“The Fire Springs!”

“He will look there second. He knows how the dragon feels about you.”

“Not Rhyndweir? I won’t go there!”

The cat waited. Suddenly Mistaya realized what answer he was looking for. “No!” she said at once. The cat cocked his head. “No! Absolutely not!” she repeated.

“When you wish to hide, the best place is always the one those hunting you are certain you will avoid.” Dirk gave her one of those patented looks. “Isn’t it?”

“You want me to go to Libiris,” she declared.

“I don’t necessarily want you to go anywhere. It isn’t up to me. The decision is yours. Please make it. I grow bored with this.”

She saw the logic to Dirk’s reasoning. Her father would never think of looking for her at Libiris. He would look for her almost anywhere else before he looked for her there. But if she went, she was doing exactly what he had asked her to do in the first place. What sort of sense did that make?

“At least you would be going of your own choice and for your own reasons,” Edgewood Dirk offered, as if reading her mind.

She toughened her resolve so that she could accept what she now realized she must do. “All right, I will go to Libiris with Poggwydd and Shoopdiesel.” She paused. “Are you coming with us or not?”

The cat took a moment to study the countryside, emerald eyes filling with a distant look, as if gone somewhere else entirely. Then he looked back at her. “I believe I will,” he answered softly, and then he began to purr.