The Vanishing Sculptor Read online

  “I want to believe you.”

  “Was I dreaming?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  7

  In Disarray

  Beccaroon perched on the back of a chaise longue and surveyed the view from the nearby window. Moonlight bathed the veranda, muting the pinkish tinge so that the marble took on a bluish-gray color. He sighed over the sharp contrasts showing in the dark vegetation of the rain forest beyond. He’d much rather sleep in the canopy. At least Tipper had opened the window so the night fragrances danced in with the slight breeze.

  His girl gave an indelicate snort and shifted position where she lay on the chaise. She had intended to stay awake and await the arrival of her father.

  To occupy the time, Tipper had sung for him. She played a harpenstead, holding it across her lap and strumming chords or plucking the strings. Her soft, clear voice filled the lonely room with cheer. Beccaroon knew she had no idea how her music calmed those who heard her. Or if she sang a rousing tune, her audience responded with vigor. With proper training, her talent would outshine the greatest singers on any metropolitan stage.

  Her tunes became mellower. Her voice deepened with emotion. At last, she put her instrument down and chose conversation. After three hours of small talk and yawning, she’d finally succumbed to natural fatigue.

  The moonlight touched her as well. Her pale blue dress fairly glowed with the lavish luminosity from the sky. Her fair skin and hair glistened as if kissed by a shimmer of starlight.

  Beccaroon sighed. Tipper’s gift of voice and musical ability astounded him. The best warblers in his forest did not surpass her. He doubted she comprehended the extent of her talent. She should have been given the opportunity to excel, not left under the guidance of an old bird in a tropical jungle.

  Circumstances could not be changed. Bringing up the sweet child without the aid of a fully witted parent in residence had been a trial, but Verrin Schope had charged the big bird to stand in his stead should something happen to him. Three days later, the artist had disappeared.

  The parrot clicked his black tongue against his beak, then preened, cleaning his chest feathers. He stopped midmotion and tilted his head toward the door. Voices in the hall approached Tipper’s bedroom.

  Beccaroon stretched his wings. The two minor dragons in the room roused from their slumber. Junkit shook his head as if to force himself awake. Zabeth came to her feet and arched her back like a cat before settling and staring at the door.

  The handle rattled and clicked as the latch released. Three indistinct figures walked through and paused in the semidarkness. The two dragons hissed. Junkit batted his wings, threatening attack.

  “You said she was expecting us?” A rumbling voice came from the shortest and roundest of the three.

  A lean figure in voluminous robes twitched his hand in the air. “Lights, lights, a bit of starlight and moon glow.” The air in the room suddenly held bits of shining material giving off miniscule beams. One orb the size of a fist floated over the empty bed. It looked exactly like a small full moon, right down to the gray shadows along the face.

  In the light, Beccaroon recognized the third person as his missing friend. He opened his beak to speak, then clamped it shut. Had Verrin Schope returned in the company of friend or foe?

  “Oh dear, tut, tut,” said the old o’rant who produced the twinkling lights and miniature moon. He shook a finger at Junkit and Zabeth. “Behave and greet friendly visitors with some vestige of courtesy.”

  The dragons chittered and relaxed as if reassured by the gruff command.

  Beccaroon watched with narrowed eyes. Perhaps these were friendly visitors, perhaps not.

  The tall man gestured, and lunar moths escaped from his sleeve. The flimsy bits of pale gray fluttered about the room before following the moonbeams out the open window. The man seemed not to notice the insects and addressed the chittering dragons. “Much better. You have good manners, and I deeply regret that you are summarily ignored by most people. But of course, I am not most people. What is it, Librettowit?”

  He bent to listen to the shorter man’s interruption. “Harrumph!” He turned and bowed to the dragons. “My sincere apologies for startling you.” He gestured toward Tipper. “There’s the girl and a bird. This is the guardian, I take it. Pleased to meet you, Sir Beccaroon.”

  The parrot inclined his head but managed to pin Verrin Schope with a glare. His voice scratched the night air. “Welcome home, Verrin Schope. It’s been a long time.”

  The emerlindian spoke softly. “Unavoidable.”

  Beccaroon waited for more information, but his friend remained silent.

  As if the old o’rant could read Bec’s thoughts, he jumped into the lull in conversation. “Yes, exactly, explanations!” he said. “Tut, tut, oh dear. We’ve disturbed the natives.”

  Verrin Schope strode across the room and knelt beside his daughter. He gently touched her shoulder. “Tipper, wake up.”

  She stirred and sat up, directly into her father’s arms. He held her for a moment with his eyes closed, breathing deeply as if the scent of her replenished his soul. Beccaroon blinked his eyes and wondered at the love between them after the extended separation.

  After a long, quiet moment, Verrin Schope stood, taking his daughter by the hand and pulling her to his side. He beamed at the assembled company.

  “Gentlemen, this is Tipper, my daughter.” He gestured to the guests. “These esteemed scholars have aided me in returning to you. Wizard Fenworth and his librarian, Librettowit.”

  Tipper curtsied.

  Verrin Schope inclined his head toward the grand parrot. “And as you have guessed, this is Sir Beccaroon, a cherished friend of the family.”

  Librettowit and Wizard Fenworth bent at the waist, acknowledging the introduction.

  Beccaroon bowed. “My pleasure.”

  “Papa, the lights.” Tipper’s face reflected the wonder of the miniature night sky suspended in her room.

  “Fenworth is a renowned wizard in his country, Amara.”

  Tipper gasped. Her mouth dropped open, and she closed it with a snap. “That’s on the other side of the world. How—?”

  “Through a contraption they call a gateway.”

  “A gateway,” Beccaroon repeated the unfamiliar word. “Where is this gateway?”

  Verrin Schope rubbed his chin. “Actually the gateway is in Lady Peg’s closet.”

  “Mother’s closet?” Tipper glanced around the room, peering at each of the men. “You came through Mother’s closet?”

  Beccaroon watched the two strangers nod. The librarian’s face showed his embarrassment. The wizard shook leaves from his straggly gray hair.

  The parrot cocked his head and quickly analyzed his response to the situation. Of course, he was pleased. His secret concern that Verrin Schope had met an untimely end vanished. The artist breathed, of that Beccaroon could testify.

  He felt relief that Tipper had not hallucinated the visit from her father. The thought that perhaps the daughter had begun to exhibit the eccentric tendencies of her mother had crossed his mind.

  But these strangers? Who were these unusual men who claimed to be from Amara? The hazardous journey to the other side of the world virtually cut off communication. Knowledge of civilization from that distant shore consisted mostly of seafarers’ wild tales, speculation, and a generous dose of fabrication, all for the sake of a good yarn.

  The men held Verrin Schope’s esteem, but could it be that his old friend was enthralled by some magic? The elderly man scattered tiny stars into the air with a flick of his fingertips. Could he also scatter a normally intelligent man’s wits?

  “Papa.” Tipper pulled on Verrin Schope’s sleeve. “We must make our guests comfortable.”

  Beccaroon did not miss the quick, searching look Verrin Schope cast at the wizard.

  The old man nodded. “We’ll stay. Have to, don’t we? The three of us shattered the gateway when we came through. Probably Librettowit’s wi
dth, wouldn’t you think?”

  The tumanhofer librarian sputtered. “A gateway’s an unreliable portal when the base has been disrupted. That’s why we came, isn’t it? To restore the base?”

  The wizard’s expression stretched lengthwise into a mournful mask of woe. “Disrupted the universe by tying the ends to a piece of stone destined to be carved into statues. But how were we to know? How? It’s as much Verrin Schope’s fault as our own.” He twisted his sorrowful expression into a glare and aimed it at his librarian.

  “Don’t you go accusing me! I’m not the sculptor. I’m a librarian, not a wizard either. Seems you should have surmised the danger.”

  Fenworth glowered. “Wizards do not predict the future.”

  Librettowit scowled. “But it was a wizard who chose the anchor for the gateway. If I had anything to do with it, it was only that I did as you told me. ‘Hold this tight!’ ‘Stick this through that loop.’ ‘Twist this together with that.’ Do I even sound like I know what’s going on? No! And I don’t. Theory, I understand. Application is all up to you, Fenworth.” He shuddered. “Don’t give me any of this ‘we’ disturbed the universe.”

  “Excuse me,” said Beccaroon. “Could we start at the beginning?”

  “Good idea!” The wizard shuffled toward the vanity bench. “Mind if I sit while you explain?”

  “No, not at all,” said Tipper. “May I get you a drink?”

  He turned a speculative gaze upon his hostess. “Do you have any water dripped through a mannacap shell with a twist of pure parnot in a tall Izden glass?”

  “No.” Tipper shook her head, looked at her father, and raised an eyebrow.

  Verrin Schope shrugged and whispered, “Don’t worry overmuch about it.”

  The wizard sank to the bench, sighing. Beccaroon thought he heard twigs snapping as the man bent. Fenworth reached into his robe. “Never mind. It seems I remembered to bring my own.”

  He pulled out a yellow glass containing a bubbling liquid. He took a sip, swished it around in his mouth, swallowed, and smiled.

  “Now,” he said, “the bird was going to explain. From the beginning, I believe. I’m ready.” He nodded benevolently at Beccaroon. “You may begin.”

  “Are you related to Lady Peg by any chance?” Beccaroon asked.

  “Never met her. Of course, we could be related without ever having met. But no, I believe we are not, other than we are both dwellers of the world we inhabit.” He frowned at the parrot. “Are you stalling?”

  “Not at all. I have no intention of beginning.”

  “Then why am I sitting? Why am I drinking?” He held up a finger. “Don’t tell me. I know. I am sitting because I am old and tired. I am drinking because I am thirsty.” He let his hand drop to his knee. “Enough about me.”

  Librettowit sat on a short footstool in front of an upholstered wingback chair. “Fenworth, the parrot is not the one explaining but the one asking for an explanation.”

  “I thought he might want to tell us what has been happening here.”

  The librarian sighed. “I’ll explain.”

  Verrin Schope and Tipper sat down on the chaise.

  Librettowit glanced at the wizard, who was occupied picking a tangled lizard out of his long beard. Apparently satisfied that he would not be interrupted, the librarian began. “Twenty or so years ago, Fenworth and I endeavored to construct a gateway that would reach farther than any had ever reached before.”

  “Ambitious,” muttered the wizard. “Tumanhofers are known to be ambitious.”

  Librettowit twisted his mouth in an annoyed grimace at his cohort but continued. “At Fenworth’s insistence, he took my architectural drawings and applied them to a complicated weave, which he further elaborated upon.”

  “Ended with a preposition,” said the wizard as he let the lizard go. “Scholar and all, and he still ends a sentence with a preposition.”

  “Fenworth anchored the gateway to a stone,” Librettowit explained.

  Verrin Schope cleared his throat. “An exceptionally fine piece of marble.”

  “The weave was too tight,” said Librettowit.

  “The stone was too loose,” said Fenworth.

  “The marble tumbled into the gateway and landed in my studio,” said Verrin Schope. “I thought it had been delivered while you, your mother, and I were away visiting her relatives.”

  Librettowit looked apologetically at Tipper. “Fenworth and I were called away on a rather urgent bit of business for Paladin and didn’t immediately discover the accident.”

  Fenworth dipped his finger in his drink and pulled out a twist of fruit. “Thwarted a plague.”

  Librettowit shook his head. “Brought rain to the farmers.”

  Fenworth popped the bite in his mouth and sighed, “Plague.”

  “Rain.”

  “Plague.”

  Librettowit turned back to Tipper and Beccaroon. He mouthed the word rain.

  The wizard blew puffs of cloud out of his mouth like smoke rings. They formed into letters spelling plague and floated above his librarian’s head. Librettowit took off his oversized hat and waved it through the word, dispensing the small clouds.

  “Bah!” He slapped the soft, mangled cap back on his head. “We didn’t get back for a couple of years, and soon after we did, Verrin Schope stepped through the gateway.”

  “Only part of him,” corrected Fenworth.

  “True. Only part of him.”

  “The gateway was functioning at a substandard efficiency,” put in Tipper’s father. “The entry had slipped, moving from some point in my studio, through the house, and stopping in your mother’s closet.”

  Tipper turned to look at her father. Her eyes widened. “You’re becoming transparent.”

  “Yes, I’m slipping, moving back toward the gateway.”

  Tipper sputtered. “B-but you said the gateway shattered.”

  Fenworth tipped his glass up and drank the last drop. “He should be all right.”

  “Should be?” asked Beccaroon.

  “In theory he will bounce off the closed entry and return here reassembled.”

  “Theory?” whispered Tipper.

  “Goodness, girl,” Fenworth blustered. “We just broke the gateway, so that theory hasn’t been tested yet. Sit tight a minute, and we’ll find out if we’ve got it right or not.”

  Beccaroon turned to ask Verrin Schope for clarification. Unfortunately, his friend had already vanished.

  Tipper jumped to her feet with a tiny screech.

  “Excitable child,” said the wizard. “If he doesn’t return, that’s when you should holler.”

  8

  Healing

  Tipper stood, clenching her fingers into a tight fist, then releasing them to stretch her hand into an open gesture of helplessness.

  “Where is he?” she asked no one in particular.

  No one answered.

  She turned to the wizard. “Should I go to Mother’s room? He could be hurt, right? He could be in the closet, crumpled on the floor, in pain, alone!”

  She started for the door. Junkit and Zabeth flew above her head.

  Fenworth’s voice followed her out of the room. “Great imagination. Creative, like her father. Is there a draft coming from the hall? Shut the door!”

  Tipper picked up her skirts and ran down the hall. She burst into her mother’s dark bedroom and raced to the closet door. Both Junkit and Zabeth screeched. The door swung open and whacked her in the face, knocking her to the floor.

  “Tipper!” Her father knelt beside her. “Are you hurt?”

  The minor dragons landed beside her and shifted nervously as they tried to sidle closer.

  She struggled to sit up. “Are you hurt?”

  “Me? No.” The darkness concealed his expression, but she recognized confusion in his voice. “Why would I be hurt?”

  She sighed and relaxed against the floor, giving up any effort to rise. “That wizard and his librarian didn’t say one word that enc
ouraged me to believe you’d come back alive.”

  “You’ll get used to them. They have an odd way of communicating, but both are extremely intelligent.”

  Tipper felt tears welling up and sternly suppressed them. She would not cry like an incompetent numskull. Instead, she focused on her injury, putting a hand to her forehead.

  Only a narrow path of light invaded the room from the open doorway. Verrin Schope gestured toward the dragons. “Back up a bit, please.” Junkit and Zabeth scooted out of the way. Her father placed his hand over hers. “We need better light.”

  A glowing globe appeared above his shoulder. Tipper gasped. “What? How?”

  “Let me see that bump.” He gently pried her hand away from her forehead.

  Tipper winced as he touched the sore spot, but her eyes studied the eerie light. “Did you do that?”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Not my head. The light.”

  “That’s going to be black-and-blue in the morning. We need some ice.” He reached under his coat into his tunic and pulled out a small, blue pillowlike object. “Hold this on the bump.”

  Tipper took it. “It’s cold.”

  “Yes. Do you feel dizzy?”

  She shook her head gingerly.

  “Let me help you up.” He put one arm around her waist and placed his hand in hers. With seemingly no effort, he had her on her feet. “Pain?”

  “A little.”

  “Where?”

  “On my forehead, of course, and…”

  He let her go and rummaged through his pockets. “Yes, dear?”

  “Well,” she hesitated. This man might be her father, but she really didn’t know him very well. It had been a long, long time since she’d ridden on his shoulders or sat in his lap or had his help changing into her nightgown.

  “Oh,” he said and chuckled. “Shall we say the other pain is on your ‘sit-down cushion? Yours is not very well padded.”

  She remembered this tone of voice, and warm memories flooded her heart. She laughed.

  Verrin Schope glanced at her and smiled, then pulled something from an inner pocket. “Here he is.”

  In her father’s hand sat the smallest green dragon Tipper had ever seen. He was half the size of Zabeth, who was a great deal smaller than Junkit. The two dragons flew into the air, circling her father and eying the petite creature on his palm.