“Later, I expect, just like everything else,” said Martha. “I’m not any kind of druid, I’ll have you know. I don’t go around whispering to trees or helping hedgehogs with their problems, instead of helping their own sister, I can tell you that!”
“Now, Martha, I have tried—” the druid started to say, but Martha gave him a scowl so intense the words dried up in his mouth. He shrugged and pretended the fire under the soup pot needed tending, adding a few sticks and spreading things around.
Anya decided not to ask about retired druids, at least not immediately. Perhaps after they got some soup Martha’s mood would improve.
“We’d just like to buy two bowls of soup,” said Anya uncomfortably.
“What are you doing with that frog prince if you’re not going to kiss him?” asked Martha.
“Well, I am going to kiss him eventually,” Anya replied. “I have to make a special lip balm first, because, as I said, I’m not his true love. Look, don’t worry about the soup. We’ll just go.”
“No soup?” asked Ardent mournfully.
Anya shook her head and began to walk away.
“Wait!” exclaimed Martha. “You said you had to make a special lip balm to transform him back? Without true love?”
“Yes,” said Anya, not stopping. Ardent followed at her heels. He was still distracted by the smell of pea-and-ham soup, so his nose hit Anya behind the knees with every second step.
“No! Please! Wait!”
Martha scurried after Anya, lifting her apron so she could run faster. “I’ll give you two bowls of soup, if you can help me! It’s a matter of … of gruesome transformation!”
Anya stopped.
The old lady now had her attention.
Anya turned on her heel. Ardent crashed into the front of her knees this time, pretended he hadn’t, and got in a bit of a tangle with Anya’s legs and his own tail.
“What do you need help with?” Anya asked the woman. “Oh, Ardent. Just sit down!”
Ardent sat. Martha wiped her face with her apron.
“I thought only true love could break a transformation spell, and no princess could love my boy, since none ever knew him before he was turned. I mean, how could even the nicest princess fall in love with a newt?”
“You have a boy who has been turned into a newt?” asked Anya.
“My son,” said Martha, kneading the edge of her apron nervously.
“Who turned him into a newt?”
“A spell,” said Martha. She looked away as she answered, and her voice grew a little shifty.
Anya frowned.
“How exactly did this happen to him?” she asked. “I can’t … I won’t help you unless you tell me the truth.”
“He was just lost in the dark and he slipped on the roof—”
“Why was he on a roof?”
“He said he thought there were loose tiles, so he’d better climb up and fix them before they blew down and hurt someone. He slipped and fell down the chimney—”
“How could he fall down the chimney?” asked Anya. “And whose house was this anyway?”
“It wasn’t exactly a house,” said Martha. “At least I don’t think anyone was living in it. More a meetinghouse. Anyway, poor Shrub was blinded—”
“His name’s Shrub?”
“My husband was a druid too,” Martha explained. She looked across at her brother, who was still fiddling with the fire and pretending he wasn’t listening. She scowled. Clearly, druids were not popular with her.
“He liked the name Shrub. It’s better than Acorn, which was his second favorite. Anyway, my poor boy was blinded by the soot from the chimney and bruised by the fall. He was simply trying to find his way out when the thief-taker caught him—”
“He was caught by a thief-taker inside someone’s meetinghouse?”
“It wasn’t his fault that when he was staggering around blinded he ran into a cabinet and it broke and the Only Stone fell out and went down the front of his tunic! He could have been badly hurt if it had hit him on the head!”
“Oh, come on, Ma!” called a strangely squeaky voice from inside the hut. “Tell the truth!”
“Who … or what is that?” asked Anya.
“That’s Shrub,” Martha said sadly.
“He can talk?” Whoever or whatever had transformed Martha’s son wasn’t as thorough as Duke Rikard. Anya looked at Denholm in his wicker cage. It would be handy if he could talk. He could tell her exactly where Gornish was, for a start. She knew roughly, but there were so many little kingdoms …
“Yes, he can talk,” Martha replied. “It really wasn’t his fault … ”
“Yes, it was,” said the voice from inside the cottage. The door creaked open and an enormous newt emerged, his huge bulbous eyes blinking against the sunlight. He was bright orange, the size of a large rabbit, and about the biggest and ugliest lizard-type thing Anya had ever seen.
“I’m Shrub,” said the newt, to nobody’s surprise. “And I was trying to steal the Only Stone. I’m training to be a thief. Or at least I was, until this happened.”
Anya frowned. The Only Stone … She had a faint recollection of reading something about that. She could clearly remember the story of the One and Only Talking Salmon. And the Once and Forever Stone, now sadly destroyed. But try as she might, could not summon up anything useful on an Only Stone …
“What is the Only Stone?” she asked.
“A magical stone that protects the owner against dark magics,” said Shrub. “That’s why I’m so big and can talk. Even just sitting in the front of my tunic it half turned the transformation spell. If I’d been holding it, the spell would have failed completely.”
Anya’s interest was piqued. “Who owns the Only Stone, and who transformed you?”
“The stone is kept in the meetinghouse of the League of Right-Minded Sorcerers in New Yarrow,” said Shrub. “But that’s so no one good can use it. Right-minded just means evil sorcerers. The one that transformed me is called the Grey Mist, because he … or she … or it … is always surrounded by a cloud of choking gray mist. Or actually he-she-it is a cloud of choking gray mist. Are you really a princess?”
“I am,” said Anya. Then she hesitated, wondering whether it was a good idea to reveal her identity or not. Ultimately good manners prevailed, possibly over good sense. “I’m Princess Anya of Trallonia. And this is the royal dog Ardent. We’re on a Quest.”