“Maybe the day after,” said Anya, accepting that she did want to be queen after all, though some small niggling thoughts were lurking in her mind about the possibility of doing other things as well. “We have to have the trial first.”
She looked down at Rikard. He twitched, wriggled, and bent his baleful stare upon her. But Shrub dug in with his claws, pressing his tough and probably poisonous belly farther into Rikard’s mouth, so there was no chance he could speak a spell.
That reminded Anya. Shrub’s curious silence and surprising anti-sorcery properties needed to be resolved.
“I think I know why I couldn’t transform you back,” said Anya sternly to the newt. “And why the Duke’s spells failed. You’ve got it, haven’t you?”
“Got what?” asked Ardent.
The newt nodded, still not speaking.
“Time you handed it over, boy,” said Merlin.
Shrub gave the retired wizard a what-business-is-it-of-yours look.
“I made it in the first place,” said Merlin.
Anya looked at the ex-wizard. “You did? The Good Wizard said it was her predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor.”
“I’ve retired before,” said Merlin. “And then came back. So that was me. Some of us take it in turns to be the Good Wizard.”
He looked sternly at the newt.
“So come on. Cough up!”
Shrub tapped his forefoot against Rikard’s head a couple of times.
“Oh yes, he needs to be silenced,” said Anya.
Bert came forward and cut a strip off the sorcerer’s robe. When the newt moved off, she quickly gagged the Duke with it.
Everyone watched in fascination and Cook raised her lantern high as Shrub waddled a few steps away, opened his mouth wide, and slowly regurgitated a cube of white stone the size of Anya’s fist. It was covered in newt saliva, but even so the thousands of tiny silver letters etched in every surface could easily be seen. It also had a hole bored through its middle, for a leather strap to be put through, so it could be worn as an unruly, oversize medallion.
“So that’s what it looks like!” Anya’s eyes were goggling out in amazement, almost as much as the newt’s did normally.
“Yep,” said Shrub unhappily. “The Only Stone.”
There was a collective gasp from everyone as he said the name.
“You told me to forget about it … but I saw it planted back in the path under that gloating chair again, and I couldn’t help meself, but I was going to give it to Bert like I always planned, honest I was.”
“I’m sure you were,” said Anya. “Come here.”
Shrub tentatively approached. Anya took out the small pot of lip balm and applied some to her lips, then very carefully kissed the newt on the driest patch of hide she could see.
There was a flash of greenish light and the newt exploded. In his place was a red-haired, sharp-featured boy who was rather undersized if he really was ten. He grinned and flexed his lock-picking fingers, the grin immediately displaced as Martha emerged from the watching crowd and took him by the ear.
“Stealing again when you’ve been told not to!” scolded the witch. “You’re going to write on your slate a hundred times ‘I must only steal what I’m supposed to steal’!”
“Martha, please don’t punish him,” said Anya. “He’s done something very important. We need the Only Stone to protect us against the other four sorcerers.”
She looked up. The silver moon almost sped across the sky, the blue moon high above. It was probably only two or three hours until dawn, when the four sorcerers would arrive, and undoubtedly attack.
Merlin gingerly picked up the Only Stone and wiped it on Rikard’s robe, which was coming in handy for all kinds of things. The sorcerer cringed away from the Stone—as much as he was able to with Ardent sitting on him—and made small whimpering noises.
“Oh, I doubt they’ll turn up now,” said Merlin. “Rikard has used up almost all his sorcery, you see. Including what was needed to keep the bone ship flying.”
“So it will just fall out of the sky?”
“Perhaps,” said Merlin. “More likely the magic is fading, feathers falling, bones coming unstuck. The sorcerers aboard will survive in any case. Like Rikard they surround themselves with many spells of protection. So I doubt they’ll attack tomorrow. The members of the League of Right-Minded Sorcerers do not like taking real risks, and they will fear—quite rightly—that whatever or whoever defeated Rikard could do the same to them. That is not to say that they won’t attack later, if they can fix the odds more in their favor.”
“What will you do with the Stone, then?” asked Anya.
“That is for others to decide,” said Merlin. “You among them. I am retired, after all.”
He took a slim gold chain out of an inside pocket of his fur-lined robe and threaded it through the hole in the Stone. Then he fastened the chain around Anya’s neck. The Stone sat on her breastbone and, despite its size, didn’t feel as heavy as she’d thought it would.
“And this has all the old laws written on it?” asked Anya, turning the stone and peering at the tiny silver letters. “But they’re too small to read … ”
“You need a special prism and the sun,” said Merlin. “You hold the Stone and the prism properly between the light and a whitewashed wall, and a phantasm of the writing will appear, writ large. There were quite a number of prisms about in the old days. Every warden had one. I expect you’ll be able to find one in due course.”
“Let’s get this foul sorcerer tied up properly,” said Sir Malorak. “And there’s still a lot of cleaning up to be done. With your permission, Frogkisser?”
“Yes,” said Anya. “Please do.”
She looked down at Gotfried’s quiet body.
“Were there … have many of our people been killed?” she asked quietly.
“A dozen at least,” Sir Malorak reported solemnly. “And another score badly wounded. But we are fortunate that Princess Saramin is a true healer, and Prince Denholm has proved surprisingly useful as a nurse. It could have been many more, Anya. It would have been many, many more, save for your owl there. He will be remembered.”