“Yes,” said Anya. She slowly stood up. “I’ll put him in the library, in his secret place that everyone knew. We can bury him with the others in the morning.”
“I will take him,” said Merlin. “We talked about his library, and I would like to see it.”
He took Gotfried the owl from Anya’s unresisting hands. She stood looking blankly across the courtyard at everyone working to clear up the horrible mess of battle, fortunately dim in the flickering torchlight.
“Come,” said Tanitha. “Come to the Great Hall, and we will lie down with the puppies, and I will tell you a story.”
“One about the Dog with the Wonderful Nose?” asked Anya. She tried to smile, but found herself crying instead. “But those are for puppies and children.”
“You can never be too old for stories about the Dog with the Wonderful Nose,” said Tanitha. She and Ardent closed up to Anya’s legs and nudged her towards the hall. The princess let her hands rest lightly on their backs, taking comfort from the warm dogskin.
“So our Quest is done,” she said in wonderment. “My sister promise is completed too. Denholm is back to being human. Allies have been found. Duke Rikard has been defeated.”
“Yes,” said Tanitha. “You did it, Anya. I always knew you would.”
“So did I,” said Ardent loyally, his tail thumping.
“Really?” asked Anya. “I didn’t.”
“Well, most of the time I did,” said Ardent, and licked her open palm.
Duke Rikard’s trial was held soon after dawn the next day, because everyone agreed that it was better to get unpleasant things out of the way early. Though no one had been able to find a prism to read the laws in the Only Stone, Dehlia, Tanitha, and Parengoethes between them could remember most of the applicable clauses. The Duke was charged with many crimes, including murder, forcible transformation, and improper cackling.
Bert, Sir Havagrad, Tanitha, Sleipjir, Holkern, and the two wardens sat as judges. They had barely gathered behind the table in the courtyard where the trial was held (since everyone wanted to watch), when the unicorn came trotting through the gate and came to stand by them. She even let Anya pat her neck, though only twice.
Rikard was brought out in chains, the dwarves not being satisfied with mere ropes. He was gagged, but the gag was removed when he sat in the single chair facing the judges. He immediately started to gabble a spell, but stopped and howled instead when Anya held the Only Stone against his back for a split second. In any case, it seemed Merlin was right about him having used up his power, because that partial word hadn’t sizzled or boomed as it left his mouth.
The evidence was quickly presented. There were many witnesses to Rikard’s evil deeds, so many that the counts of murder and forcible transformation were quickly proven, the unicorn confirming with a stamp of her hoof and a lift of her horn that everyone spoke truly. Except for Rikard, of course, when he talked in his own defense. The improper cackling charge was sustained on its own merits, since Rickard couldn’t stop himself even during the trial.
So the Duke was found guilty, and the judges conferred on a suitable punishment. After a few minutes, they called Anya over and asked her if she had any suggestions. The options were limited, given that nearly all the old punishments were no longer possible following the Deluge. No one now knew where the Crystal Prison was, for example, where sorcerers and the like could be held harmlessly in stasis for decades.
“How about banishment?” asked Anya. “Send him to Tarwicce. No, better still, some far, distant island where no one lives. Take him there under guard in stages by flying carpet and leave him there.”
The judges agreed that this was not only just, but merciful. The dwarves agreed that the Good Wizard would lend them a carpet for such a cause, though they declined to take on the job themselves, as they never traveled by carpet, even though they crafted them. Too cold and dangerous, Erzef told Anya with a shudder. But Sir Havagrad and several of the former frogs happily agreed to take on the task.
So Duke Rikard was banished to a remote island where there was very little chance he would ever be able to leave. Unless he got his sorcery back, which was very unlikely.
Though not totally impossible.
The funerals for those slain in battle came next, at the small cemetery on the lonely hill between the castle and the forest, where wildflowers grew between the graves. Hedric and the other druids spoke of the circle of life and death, the bare soil of winter and the green shoots of new life in spring. Then they sang a song that was warm and cold in turns, but ended with a gift of peace. It was all very sad, and everyone left weeping, and thinking deep thoughts, and there were many who came to the Great Hall that night to lie in a heap with the puppies and listen to Tanitha tell stories.
But the next day was a happy celebration, because it was Anya’s coronation. Anya wore her best purple kirtle, her mother’s red woolly, and the Only Stone. Ardent, Smoothie, and Shrub followed behind her as she walked the length of the Great Hall and up to the dais where she expected to be crowned by Hedric, since this sort of thing was normally done by a druid or a priest.
But it was the Good Wizard who stood waiting to put the simple twisted-gold-wire crown of Trallonia on her head. Anya paused for a moment when she saw her in full regalia: hat, snowy white beard, and staff. She smiled and walked the rest of the way to kneel in front of the Wizard.
“This isn’t interfering,” whispered the Good Wizard. She hadn’t taken a voice-changing lolly, which was just as well since that deep bass voice probably couldn’t whisper no matter what. She put the crown on Anya’s head and tapped it a couple of times to make sure it was straight. “Just being neighborly now that all the hard work has been done by you and your friends.”
“Thank you,” said Anya. “Thank you for everything.”
She hesitated, a vision of the vast library under the hill clear in her mind, and added, “Do you think I could still be a wizard? One day?”