Modern Magick

The Wonders of Vale: 13

 'How about unicorn trader, then griffins?' growled Wyr.

'Sorry,' I said briefly. 'No unicorn, no unicorn trader.' Not that I wouldn't have been happy to get rid of Wyr and his attitude, but he was useful. Sometimes.

And I wasn't yet sure how to dispense with him without compromising Addie.

Wyr grumbled something incoherent, and jammed his hat further down on his head. 'You've some nerve,' he informed me.

'What are you going to do, steal my shoes?'

'How about that scroll-case you mentioned?'

'Oh?' I considered his carefully bland face. 'Valuable, is it?' I hadn't mentioned the jewels. Only the fact that it was defaced by a map — drawn by Furgidan.

Wyr opened his mouth, and shut it again with a snap. 'You I dislike,' he said.

I ignored him. Jay had found his feet, and his regular height to boot. To my relief, he was looking somewhat recovered from his Wayfinding marathon, and less grey about the face. Hopefully he could tank five or six sandwiches without throwing up, but I kept a little distance between us just in case. 'The, uh, object in Emellana's possession might be of use,' he said obliquely. 'With the scroll.'

I nodded. I'd drawn the same conclusion from Emellana's words. Could she find traces of Torvaston, with the use of a magick-drenched lyre, her talent for tracking old magick, and the scroll-case to help her? I hoped so.

But first, the griffins.

Finding Griffin Heights proved to be a lot easier than it had in Old Farringale, to my relief. This particular hill had no interest in playing coy, or concealing itself, at least not from a near distance; it loomed over Vale, suitably solid and stationary, and we slogged through the crooked streets of the town in pursuit. There really weren't many people living there, I judged; Wyr was right. Few of the properties we passed had a residential air about them. Many were clearly commercial properties, with at least a minimal shopfront opening onto the street, and workshops or warehouses behind.

The streets had a way of moving about. They were not doing so either for our benefit or for our inconvenience, I thought, but rather according to some purpose of their own. Roads bulged under our feet, forming slopes and little hillocks, only to dip again farther along, dropping us down and down into impromptu valleys. Sometimes they writhed like snakes before us and reconfigured themselves, curving to this side or the other of a house, and racing around corners.

One imaginative street rerouted itself right through the middle of a tall, green-painted house — with the house's assistance, I might add, for an arched walkway blossomed around us, complete with stocky pillars.

'How does anybody find anything around here,' I said after a while, when the street we were following took a sudden, gleeful curve and apparently doubled back on itself.

Wyr gave a low, rather smug chuckle. 'You'll see,' he said, in a tone I did not at all like.

Emellana drew nearer to me. 'I believe there's mischief afoot,' she said softly.

'Undoubtedly, with that one,' I sighed, regretting my decision of half an hour before. Was Wyr useful, or a liability? 'That hill really isn't getting any closer, is it?'

'No.'

'It's not getting farther away, maybe?' I said, thinking again of Farringale.

'No.'

Miranda was so busy studying the distant griffins' flight patterns, I doubted whether she had noticed our navigational difficulties. Jay, though, had developed that dark frown of his, the one that means someone's in trouble.