The Tangle Box

He couldn’t finish. He couldn’t bring himself to speak the words. He slumped back against the tree, his bony frame collapsing in on itself like a deflated balloon.

Biggar hopped back and forth between the other’s boot and the tree trunk, hissing like a snake. “You coward! You worm-body! You ridiculous excuse for a wizard! All talk and no action wimp-head! How I ever let myself become involved with the likes of you is more than I can comprehend!”

Something moved behind the tree trunk, barely noticeable, a silent bit of shadow and nothing more, but neither of them saw it.

“Biggar, Biggar, you are not thinking .. .”

“Iam thinking! I am the only one who’s thinking!” Biggar puffed up to twice his size, turning himself into a ferocious black porcupine. “Go on, then! Lie there like a rag doll, a collection of sackcloth sewn up with sawdust brains! Go on!”

Horris Kew closed his eyes and put his hands over his face.

“I’ll not spend another moment with such a coward!” raged Biggar. “Not one, single, further, disgusting—”

A grimy hand reached up from behind the log on which he perched, clamped itself over his beak and neck, and dragged him from sight.

After a moment, Horris Kew opened his eyes again and peered about. No Biggar. Just like that, he was gone. Horris sat forward, puzzled. A single black feather lay rocking on the log.

“Biggar?” he called tentatively.

There was no answer.

The hour approached midnight.

Abernathy sat quietly at the edge of the woods and watched the last of the revelers nod off, leaving a sprinkling of fires and the distant, vague shapes of Kallendbor’s sentries. The darkness deepened all about. Sterling Silver was a vague bulk against the horizon, almost entirely empty of light. Overhead, the sky was clear and bright with several moons and thousands of stars. It was warm and pleasant and under other circumstances might have assured everyone a good night’s sleep.

As it was, Abernathy did not dare even think about sleep, worried sick already over the length of time that had passed since Fillip and Sot had left his side in search of Horris Kew. There had been no outcry, so he didn’t think they had been spied, but he was uncomfortable with having them gone this long nevertheless. There were too many ways for that pair to get into trouble, too many missteps they could take before they realized their mistake. He wished he had gone with them. He chided himself for trusting them to go alone.

He had just about made up his mind to go look for them, to slip down into the camp and steal a concealing cloak and search them out, when they abruptly reappeared. They popped up out of the shadows almost in front of him, causing him to start in spite of himself.

“Where have you been?” he asked, irritated.

The G’home Gnomes smiled, showing all their teeth. They looked exceptionally pleased with themselves.

“Look what we have,” said Fillip.

“Come, take a look,” said Sot.

Abernathy tried to look, for he could see that they did indeed have something—something that appeared to be moving—but they brushed past him without slowing.

“No, no, not here,” Fillip said quickly.

“In the dark, away from the camp,” Sot said.

So they trekked back into the woods, well away from the meadow and its campers, until there was no one anywhere about but themselves. At this point Fillip and Sot turned back to Abernathy once more, and the former proudly held out his hands.

“Here!” he announced.

Abernathy stared. It was the bird, the myna or whatever it was, the one that belonged to Horris Kew. It was clutched firmly in the Gnome’s grimy hands, its neck grasped none too gently, its beak clamped shut so that it could not cry out. Its wings fluttered weakly, but it appeared to have spent itself thoroughly.

Abernathy sighed in despair. “I told you just to look, just to find the bird’s owner and come back to me. I did not tell you to take the bird! What good is the bird to us!”

“Much good,” insisted Sot, undeterred. He prodded Fillip eagerly. “Show him.”

Fillip dropped his fingers below Biggar’s beak and gave a small shake. “Speak, bird.”

The bird did not speak. It hung there limply, pitifully. It looked half-dead. Abernathy felt a throbbing in his temples and sighed.

Fillip glowered. He bent down close to the bird’s face. “Speak, stupid bird, or I will wring your neck and eat you,” he said, and he tightened his clawed fingers meaningfully.

“All right, all right!” the bird snapped, coming suddenly alive. Abernathy jerked back in surprise. The bird’s head twisted wildly. “I’m talking, okay? What do you want me to say?”

Fillip held the bird out proudly. “See?”

Abernathy bent down for a closer look. “Well, well,” he said softly. “You talk a lot better than you pretend, don’t you?”