The Vanishing Sculptor Read online

  “I can’t help it,” she gasped. She fumbled for a rational explanation for her laughter. “I’ve never been on a quest before.” She hiccuped. “And it’s exciting.”

  The wizard harrumphed.

  “And I just thought about riding on a dragon…”

  Bealomondore said, “The idea makes me queasy. Humorous is not a description I would apply to such an ‘adventure.’ ”

  “It will take us two days to reach the Sunset Mountains,” said Verrin Schope. “We’ll overnight in Cambree.”

  He started to close the door, but Fenworth stuck his foot out. “Just a moment, young wizard.”

  Librettowit stirred. “What are you up to, Fen?”

  “Just a cloud suspension, nothing fancy.” He climbed down the two steps to the road.

  Librettowit followed, grumbling. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

  “Necessary.”

  “Luxury.”

  Tipper leaned out of the carriage window to watch the two men.

  Fenworth scowled at his librarian. “Don’t be such a worrywart, man!”

  “Don’t you remember the last time?”

  “I might.” Fenworth pushed back his sleeves, dropping a lizard and a string of beetles. The lizard licked up a couple of bugs before slipping away. “Then again, I might not. Memory is never a reliable thing on a quest.”

  Librettowit put his hands on his hips. “There are some who would argue that we are not properly on a quest as of yet.”

  “There are some,” Fenworth bellowed, “who would argue that the sky is not blue.”

  “There are some who would use a flimsy excuse to do something foolhardy and then not accept the consequences of their folly.”

  Fenworth tromped the few steps to stand directly in front of Librettowit. He leaned over so his straight, pointed nose pressed against the shorter man’s bulbous snout.

  “There are some,” said the wizard in low tones of rumbling thunder, “who would arrive at their destination battered and bruised by the very seat they sat upon. Pummeled by the walls meant to protect them from the elements. There are some who would not deem to use an innocuous solution because of slim possibilities of error.”

  He suddenly grinned and clapped Librettowit on the shoulder, turning him to face the coach. “Done!”

  Tipper looked down. What looked at first like a dust cloud surrounded the wheels of their vehicle up to the hubs. She blinked and remembered the wizards saying cloud. Yes, the turmoil beneath their coach looked like a billowing, stormy cloud. Smaller, of course. And flatter.

  Librettowit clambered aboard. “Let’s get going before this convenience becomes decidedly inconvenient.”

  Chuckling, Fenworth mounted the steps and entered the carriage. He sat and peered out the window. “Move, Verrin Schope. Librettowit is correct in saying we should make haste. Close the door and take your perch.”

  Tipper’s father gave the old man a slight bow of obeisance as a servant to his master and closed the door.

  When Beccaroon spotted his friends’ coach, he thought the vehicle kicked up an amazing amount of dust. As he drew nearer, he realized the disturbance under the wheels stopped at the back and didn’t trail off as road dust should. He narrowed his eyes. Some trick of the wizard’s, no doubt. He continued to examine the phenomenon as he approached. Just as he leveled off to fly beside Verrin Schope on the driver’s seat, he decided it was not dust at all but something like a cloud in the sky, a very turbulent cloud.

  “What are you doing?” he called to his old friend.

  “Floating.” Verrin Schope grinned, clasped his hands behind his neck, and leaned back.

  “Awk!” He looked down once more and decided to make no more comments on the cloud. “The Ciskenner Bridge is out. You’ll have to turn at Daynot Corner and go south to the Moot Mooring. They’ll ferry you across.”

  “That’ll be a delay.” Verrin Schope frowned and sat up. He peered over the edge.

  “Is that a bad thing?” asked Beccaroon.

  “Could be.”

  “Why?”

  “Fenworth’s manipulations have a habit of taking on unexpected characteristics.”

  “I knew it!” Beccaroon flew off to find a tree to roost in, a sip of warm nectar, and perhaps a few nuts. For the moment, he could not help those in the coach. “That wizard will do us in.”

  16

  Baaa!

  The detour to Moot Mooring required that they spend the night in Fox Ears instead of Cambree. The people of Fox Ears demonstrated a distinct distrust of the strangers.

  “Why are they so standoffish?” Tipper asked Beccaroon.

  He ruffled his feathers. “They’ve had kidnappings of their youth in this area. Everyone is on edge.”

  Tipper nodded toward a sinister-looking man standing near the door of the tavern. “I don’t like that sheriff hanging around and giving us suspicious looks.”

  “He’s doing what he should. If he were under my command in the Indigo Forest, I would commend him for a job well done.”

  In the morning, Tipper noticed the man scowling at them from the edge of a crowd that had gathered to see the strange visitors. She could almost feel the curiosity among the townspeople heighten as the wizard approached with what appeared to be a vine trailing off his robe.

  Beccaroon strutted around the carriage, inspecting the wheels and avoiding the cloud. The grand parrot received a few glances, but most of the villagers were fascinated by the sight of more than one minor dragon in one place. The colorful dragons stretched their wings, zooming over the spectators, swooping down on Fenworth, and putting on quite a show.

  As the wizard drew near the coach, the door popped open on its own accord. The crowd gasped. Fenworth ignored them and climbed in. “We’re late.”

  “Make haste,” said Librettowit. He put his hand on the back of Bealomondore’s arm and urged him toward their conveyance.

  Verrin Schope bowed to the watching sheriff and then to the crowd. Following her father’s lead, Tipper curtsied. He took her hand and placed it on his arm. They walked to the carriage like a lord and his daughter.

  Tipper’s heart skipped a beat. She could not remember a time when she had paraded before a crowd as the daughter of the esteemed Verrin Schope. She grinned up at him, and he doffed his hat first to her and then with a gesture to the villagers.

  Inside, she relaxed against the cushions as the horses pulled the carriage out of the small village.

  “I have a feeling,” she said, “that we are going to have a glorious quest. This day is the beginning of a great adventure.”

  Librettowit uttered what sounded like a growl. Surprised, she turned to look at him and felt her eyes open wider at the stern look on his face.

  “Whatever is the matter?” she asked.

  “The cloud’s wet.”

  “The one underneath us?” asked Bealomondore.

  “The very same.”

  Tipper leaned a little toward the window and looked down. “Aren’t clouds supposed to be wet?”

  Fenworth nestled back against the soft cushions of the carriage seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “My librarian is worried.”

  Tipper almost relaxed. By her observation, the librarian carried a load of anxiety with him. But on the other hand, the wizard often seemed out of touch with reality. She tensed. She had a lot of experience with what happened when a person in authority didn’t correctly interpret her surroundings. Tipper’s mother was capable of causing all sorts of difficulties.

  Librettowit glared at Fenworth. “You should be too.”

  “Should be what? Wet?”

  “Worried.”

  “Why?” asked Tipper and Bealomondore in unison.

  Librettowit broke off his glare at the resting wizard to explain. “The cloud absorbed water as we crossed at Moot Mooring. Last night, the coachman had no idea he should keep the carriage at a distance from any body of water and left it smack-dab between the stream and the water well. The c
loud took on even more water.”

  “Will that slow us down?” asked Bealomondore. “Because of the weight of the water, I mean.”

  “No,” said Fenworth emphatically.

  “Not because of the weight, Bealomondore,” explained Librettowit patiently, “but because of the irregularities that are bound to erupt because of the changed nature of the cloud.”

  Apprehension crowded out the last lingering pleasant feelings that had bloomed in Tipper’s heart as they began this leg of the journey. “I don’t understand.”

  Librettowit sighed, leaned back against his seat, and closed his eyes. His voice sounded weary. “When Wulder creates a cloud, He has all things in control. Everything. In total. No room for variance. Complete control is not possible for a wizard.”

  Fenworth snored. Amazed, Tipper studied him to see if he had actually fallen asleep. He certainly appeared relaxed, and the nasal breathing continued. The man was a paradox she could not explain.

  Bealomondore peeked out the window. “What do you think might happen?”

  The sour look on Librettowit’s face deepened. “Who knows? Thunder. Lightning. Whirlwinds. Hail. Mayhem of some kind, for sure.”

  The day passed without incident. Occasionally Tipper felt a buzzing in her feet. If she lifted them off the carriage floor, the sensation ceased. As the day progressed, a drone accompanied the feeling.

  She sang for a while to mask her discomfort. Hue and Librettowit joined her. The librarian had a fine voice and shared a few songs from Amara. As she listened to Hue and the older tumanhofer, she had the odd sensation of remembering tunes she could not possibly know.

  Librettowit laughed. “Hue is delving into my mind to get the words and music and sharing them with you. It is part of his talent. He would be able to remember for you the lyrics of songs you have forgotten.”

  “He did that the other night.” Tipper looked at the small purple dragon with amazement. “It was a lullaby Papa sang to me before he went away.”

  Librettowit stroked Hue with a finger. “It’s a soothing talent but not one of the more practical ones.” He looked Tipper in the eye. “Practicality is not always the most important element in a situation.”

  Their day of traveling stretched through long hours.

  Bealomondore looked out the window and down at the road beneath them as often as Tipper did. His constant vigilance reawakened her apprehension each time she caught him peering downward at their buffer. The haze remained beneath them, and their ride was as smooth as boating on a calm lake. Only the darkening of their cloud caused Tipper concern. But surely dirt mixed with vapor would naturally be dark.

  She couldn’t ask Fenworth since the old wizard slept. She didn’t want to ask Librettowit. Once he ceased singing, his dour attitude resurfaced. A pessimist would not relieve her fears. And her strained relationship with Bealomondore prohibited a chatty discussion of impending doom.

  The sun dropped beyond the rolling hills, the air cooled, and field flowers gave off an intoxicating fragrance. Tipper leaned against the side of the coach with her face close to the window.

  For long periods of time, her exciting adventure seemed more like a pleasant dream than an important life-or-death quest. When she remembered the rocks and the tree, she had to push away panic. Her father seemed healthier and happier than when he’d first returned, but the whole situation was odd and unsettling.

  Her niggling doubts arose. A sleeping wizard might be leading them to an unpleasant destiny, her father might be ensnared by some evil influence that occurred while he was dealing with these men’s foreign ideas, and Bealomondore might be in cahoots with art thieves. Anything horrendous was possible, including a storm manifesting itself between the wheels of their carriage. She fluctuated between ease and dread as the day drew to a close.

  She heard the bleating of sheep and a shout from their coachman. The carriage came to a stop.

  Bealomondore leaned out and reported. “There’s a narrow pass between two cliffs. A shepherd is moving his flock through. Why didn’t he go over the hill? Isn’t that what sheep usually do?”

  The wizard snorted and sat up. “Sheep?”

  Librettowit cast him a nasty glare. “Wool!”

  “Static.” Fenworth pulled his hat off his head and plunged his fist into the depths of the crown. “Blast!”

  As annoying as the brooding silence of the librarian and the snore-punctuated snooze of the ancient wizard had been, this agitated air between them made Tipper’s skin crawl.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “Lightning,” said Librettowit.

  Fenworth tilted his head and raised both eyebrows. “Maybe not.”

  Librettowit rolled his eyes and reached for the door handle. “I, for one, am not going to wait and see.” He hopped out of the carriage, then turned to extend a hand to Tipper. “Coming?”

  Tipper took his hand, holding her long skirt aside with her other hand, and descended. As her feet passed through the cloud surrounding the steps, a chill swept up her legs.

  With more speed than grace, she climbed a small knoll beside the road. Librettowit continued past her and stopped on a higher mound. From her vantage point, Tipper watched the fluffy backsides of the sheep crowd through the gap between the cliffs. The hill looked like it had split in half, one side sliding away from the other and sinking into the ground. She contemplated for a moment how such a rock formation could happen, but the plight of her father and the coachman distracted her.

  She cupped her hand to her mouth. “Papa, are you coming?”

  Verrin Schope waved at her. As she watched, he faded and reappeared in less than ten seconds. Was it right to say he was getting better? Could one get better at limping, or coughing, or this physical disposition of coming apart and reforming?

  Bealomondore joined her. She shifted her attention away from her father. He and the coachman didn’t seem worried about their predicament. She smiled at the young tumanhofer. Her nose crinkled against a disagreeable odor. “Their smell is a bit strong.”

  Wizard Fenworth labored up the incline. “I told you quests were unpleasant. Odors. Beasties carrying odors. Not exactly wild beasties, however.”

  The din from bleating sheep increased.

  He covered his ears. “Noise. Raucous. Beasties or not, the bleating is bothersome.” He frowned at Tipper. “Better than bellowing or roaring, I suppose.”

  Bealomondore straightened and peered around. “It seems to me that the cacophony is coming from more than one direction.”

  He turned toward the crest of the knoll, and Tipper followed his gaze.

  Dozens of fluffy heads appeared first. The heads were, of course, attached to heavy bodies. At the bottom of each wooly leg was a dark, hard hoof. From directly in their path and looking up, Tipper decided these animals were huge.

  The sheep charged down the hill.

  She grabbed her skirt with one hand and Fenworth’s sleeve with the other. “Run!”

  17

  Baa-Baa-Boom!

  With a strong grip and a jerk, the wizard pulled Tipper next to his chest. She gasped but was so surprised that she didn’t struggle. He wrapped his arm around her so that the wizard’s cape he wore enveloped her.

  “Steady, girl.” His voice rasped in her ear. “None of your theatrics.”

  Before she could protest the slur against her character, air began to circulate as if a wind wound itself around them. The little she could see dimmed to darkness. She smelled biscuits and the flowering vine outside her bedroom window. She heard whistling and water pouring into a glass.

  “There, there now.” The wizard patted her arm. “We’re almost there. Hold on a second, and we’ll make a grand landing.”

  With a start, she realized her feet did, indeed, dangle into nothingness. The wind ceased, and she dropped with the wizard. A hard surface jarred her soles, and she sat down hard. Her vision cleared, and she found herself on top of the carriage, seated on a trunk, behind her fathe
r and the coachman.

  “What are we doing back here?”

  The wizard sat beside her on another trunk. He patted her back. “Better here than under the hoofs of rampaging sheep.”

  Shock registered on the hired mans face, but her father smiled a greeting. “Rampaging?” He frowned at Fenworth. “Do sheep rampage?”

  Fenworth nodded decisively.

  Tipper looked back to where she had just been standing. Bealomondore struggled to stay on his feet as the sheep plunged down the hill around him.

  “Tut, tut, oh dear,” said the wizard. “I seem to have forgotten something.”

  A large ram clouted Bealomondore’s side. He spun and lost his balance, toppling forward. A full-coated ewe broke his fall. The tumanhofer wrapped his arms around her middle and kept himself from falling beneath the hoofs of the throng of sheep.

  “Do something!” Tipper pulled on the wizard’s sleeve.

  “Something besides sitting?” asked Fenworth.

  She let go of his robe and growled, “Oh, you!” She grabbed her father’s shoulder. “Bealomondore is in trouble!”

  Verrin Schope nodded. “I see that.”

  The minor dragons screeched and hopped into the air, batting their wings but doing nothing helpful.

  Tipper stood and peered around. The carriage swayed under her. She spotted Librettowit, sitting on a round boulder at the top of another hill. With his hands folded between his knees, he calmly watched the drama being played out on the adjacent slope.

  A shepherd and a younger version of himself came over the top of the hill, and for a moment, a surge of relief flowed through Tipper. But when the shepherd spotted the ewe plodding down the hill with Bealomondore clinging to her back, he dropped his staff and bent over double, laughing and slapping his knees. The son fell on the ground, rolling back and forth. Two dogs bounced beside the shepherd.

  The herd reached the bottom of the hill. With the encouragement of another herding dog, the sheep turned toward the narrow way through which the road passed. In a moment, they would sweep past the carriage.