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Fess nodded again, and crowded up against the tree, to block the rain from Kelly's doorway.
The two older boys shot through the window. The unicorn pulled up short at the doorway. Cordelia sprang down, and hammered on the panel. It swung open, and Geoffrey stood there. "Who would it be, calling at this time of the day? Eh! We have no need of your ware!"
"Oh, be not so silly!" Cordelia ducked in through the doorway, hauling Gregory with her. She stopped and looked around in surprise. "Doth none live here then?"
"If one doth, he is not at home." Geoffrey looked around at the empty interior. Gregory scuttled past his hip.
Cordelia turned to look up at the unicorn. "Will you not come in, then?"
The unicorn tossed her head and turned away, trotting back toward the wood.
"Come back!" Cordelia cried.
The silver beast turned and looked back, tossing her head and pawing the turf. Then she whirled away, trotting off among the trees.
"Hath she left again, then?" Geoffrey said hopefully.
"Oh, be still!" Cordelia turned back, tilting her nose up. "She doth but seek her own form of shelter. I misdoubt me an she doth not trust housen."
"Nor do I." Magnus was looking around the hut with a frown. "How can this chamber be so much larger than it seemed from the outside?"
Cordelia shrugged and went to sit on a three-legged stool by the fireplace. "All houses do seem smaller from without."
"Yet 'twas not a house—'twas but a hut of sticks! And here within, 'tis a solid house of timbers, with walls of wattle and daub!" Magnus went over to the table set against one wall and frowned up at the shelves above it. "What ma
"They are the things of magic," Gregory said, round-eyed.
Magnus nodded somberly. "I think that thou hast the right of it. And they are not the cleanly things, such as old Agatha doth use when she doth brew potions, but foul and noisome." He turned back to his brothers and sister. "This is a witch's house, and worse—'tis a sorcerer's!"
The door slammed open, and a tall old man hunched in, face and form shrouded by a hooded robe. A yellowed beard jutted out of its shadow, wiggling as he swore to himself, "What ill chance, that such foul weather should spring up! What noisome hag hath enchanted the clouds this day?" He dropped a leather pouch on the table in the center of the room. "At the least, ere dawn, I gained the graveyard earth I sought —so the trek served its purpose." He yanked off his robe, muttering to himself, went to hang it by the fire—and stopped, staring down at Cordelia.
She shrank back into the inglenook, trying hard to make herself invisible.
The old man was tattered and grubby, wearing a soiled tunic and cross-gartered hose. His face was gaunt, with a hooked blade of a nose and yellowed, bloodshot eyes beneath stringy hair that straggled down from a balding pate—hair that might have been white, if he had washed it more often. Slowly, he gri
"Stand away from my sister!" Geoffrey cried, leaping between them.
The sorcerer straightened, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Eh! There's another of them!" He turned, saw Gregory and, behind him, Magnus, hunched forward, hands on their daggers—but he saw also the fear in the backs of their eyes. He laughed, a high, shrill cackle, as he whirled to slam the door shut and drop a heavy oaken bar across it. "I have them!" he crowed, "I have them! Nay, just the things, the very things that I'll need!"
"Need?" Dread hollowed Magnus's voice. "What dost thou speak of?"
"What dost thou think I speak of?" the sorcerer spat, whirling toward him. He stumped forward with a malevolent glint in his eye. "What ma
Magnus swallowed heavily and said, "A sorcerer's."
"Eh-h-h-h." The sorcerer nodded slowly, a gleam in his eye. "Thou hast sense, at the least. And what doth a sorcerer do, lad?"
"He doth… doth brew… magics."
"Well! So thou knowest that little, at least! Yet the better sorcerers do seek to discover new magics—as I do. For I am Lontar, a sorcerer famed throughout the countryside for weird spells and fell!"
The children stiffened, recognizing the name of the man who had cursed old Phagia.
Again, the gap-toothed grin. "And I've found one that will give me power over every soul in this parish! Nay, further— in the county, mayhap the whole kingdom!"
Gregory stared up at the old man's eyes and thought, He is mad.
"Hush!" Magnus hissed, clapping a hand onto his shoulder, for Gregory had not cast his thoughts in their family's private way. But Lontar's grin widened. "Patience—he is young. He knoweth not yet that all witch-folk can hear one another's thoughts. But I…" he tapped his chest. "I am more. I can make others hear my thoughts—aye, even common folk, lowly peasant folk, with not one grain of witch-power in their brains!"
The children were silent, staring at him.
The sorcerer cackled, enjoying their fright. "Yet 'tis not thoughts alone I can send, nay! For years I have studied, trying and trying, again and again, whetting my powers with one weird brew after another—yet I have learned the craft of it, aye, learned it until I can work this spell without drinking even a drop of the potion, nor a whiff of its fumes! First with mere earthworms, then with the robins who came for them, then with field mice, rabbits, wolves, bears—all, all now cower before me! All shrink and howl, turn and flee, when I do cast this into their brains!"
"Cast what?" Even Geoffrey could not quite disguise the dread in his voice.
"Why… pain!" The sorcerer cackled with high glee. "'Tis pain, pure! Pain, searing pain, as though thy head did burn, and thy whole body did scream with the stings of a thousand bees! 'Tis pain, pain, the root of all power—for pain doth cause fear, and fear doth make all to obey! Yet!" He speared a long, bony forefinger straight up. "My work is not done! I ca
"And what task is that?" Magnus's voice trembled in spite of all his efforts; he could feel the feared answer coming.
"Why, people! Casting the pain into the minds of real people! With bears I have done it, with wolves, but never with people!" The sorcerer's eyes glittered. "To make human brains flame, to make mortal folk scream at my mere thought! And why have I not? Why, 'tis that I've never found folk with whom I could attempt it! Long have I sought some, to use for my learning—yet never did they come, strangers and alone, into my wood. Ever, ever did they come accompanied, three or four grown ones together—or they had folk who would seek them, an they did not return!"
"So have we!" Geoffrey said stoutly. "We too have folk who will scour this forest, an we come not home!"
"Thou dost lie." The sorcerer leveled a forefinger at him. "Never have I set eyes upon thee before; thou art not of this parish; thou art come from afar. And thou hast come without parents! None do so—save orphans! Or ones who do flee!" He cackled with glee at his own cleverness. "Nay, none will come seeking thee—and if they did, who would know where thou hast gone?"
"But the count!" Magnus cried, grasping at straws. "The count would call his men out against thee!"
"The count!" Lontar crowed. "Nay, there is no count! Dost thou not know? A giant did seize him! A giant did break down the door of the count's castle in the darkest hour of night, did thrust the count and his family into a bag, and commanded all
the knights and men-at-arms to put down their swords on pain of their lord's death! Then he clapped all those proud warriors in the deepest, dark dungeons, and hauled the count and his family away into his own hidden prison. The count? Ah, the count shall do naught! Nor can he, when I've learned to use my torture spell to its fullest! He, even he, shall not resist me—nor shall Groghat the giant! Even him shall I humble, even him shall I bring to his knees, screaming with the pain that sears through his brain! None will resist me; all will bow down!"