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escape in that direction. In front of it there was now a semicircle of hostility -- Harshak, Grimspite, Pewtermane, Ironclaw, Thornbeak, Felix, Betony, Turpsik, Nimby -- and a nervy bunch of colts, each trying to outdo the others in bravado.

Grimspite stepped forward. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. "I'm not Architrex, Snakeweed," he said.

Snakeweed looked skeptical.

"You heard Harshak," said Grimspite. "Harshak has no reason to lie about this. The sinistrom known as Architrex has been dead for some time. My given name is Grimspite, and I am a free agent. You have treated me like dirt for the last year. I am bound to no one, least of all
you."

For once, Snakeweed looked totally and utterly astounded.

"Which one of us gets to kill him?" inquired Pewtermane. "He was responsible for the poisoning of my daughter."

"He's kidnapped
my
daughter," said Thornbeak, "and I don't know where she is."

"He murdered my best friend," said Ironclaw.

"He turned my parents to stone," said Felix.

"He treated me with contempt," said Harshak. "Me, Harshak, the most horrible of the horrible."

"He insulted my poetry," said Turpsik.

Snakeweed had recovered his composure by now, and he laughed at her. "You don't have the guts to kill anyone."

Turpsik produced a knife from her pocket and drew it

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from its sheath. The blade was long and thin, and it looked fearsomely sharp. "Wrong," said Turpsik, "it's
you
who won't have the guts by the time I've finished. This is my favorite filleting knife; I take it everywhere. Never know when it might come in handy."

"You can't
all
kill him," said Nimby.

Snakeweed raised his wand a fraction. "How true. And I'll take as many of you with me as I can."

No one seemed to know what to do. Although some of them would have liked to go ahead whatever the consequences, they didn't want to endanger the others. Felix thought it looked as though someone had freeze-framed the whole scene -- there was an air of unreality about it. Then the lid of one of the panniers behind Snakeweed began to lift, and a pink pimply head appeared. Still nobody moved, although Thornbeak's eyes widened.

"I suggest you simply let me go," said Snakeweed smoothly. "Then nobody gets hurt."

Fuzzy stretched her neck to its fullest extent. Then, like an elastic band snapping, she aimed the most vicious of pecks at Snakeweed's wand-arm. The wand tumbled to the ground and broke into thirteen pieces. The scene unfroze as everyone made a move toward Snakeweed.

"You promised me a fish!" Fuzzy squawked, her wing stubs flapping with fury.

Snakeweed whipped around, grabbed Fuzzy by her scrawny neck, and held her at arm's length. Everyone

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stopped dead again -- except for Harshak, who didn't give a bent wand about the chick's safety.

"No!" shrieked Thornbeak, and she leaped at Harshak, seized him by the scruff of his neck with her beak, lifted him high into the air, and shook him violently from side to side.

Felix heard the snap of his spine -- and then, quite suddenly, the sinistrom simply wasn't there anymore. He had just vanished, the way all shadow-beasts did when they died.

"She's killed him," said Betony, in an awestruck voice.
"Thornbeak's killed Harshak."

"That's one less, then," said Snakeweed. He was now on the fire-breather, Fuzzy tucked underneath one arm, her neck still grasped in his hand. "Let me leave, or I'll strangle her."

"Let him go," said Thornbeak.

The semicircle parted in the center, and the fire-breather broke into a run. They all just stood and watched as it reached takeoff speed, spread its leathery wings, and launched itself into the air. It banked sharply and headed off in the direction of Andria, rapidly becoming a dark speck against the heavy gray clouds that were gathering in the east.

Everyone looked at Thornbeak.

"We'll let him get a bit of a start, so that he thinks he's got away, and then we'll follow," she said. "There's a storm brewing, and my feeling is that it's going to be a bad one."

"Hang on," said Felix, remembering the storm-oracle in his pocket. He took it out and cupped it in his hands the way he'd seen Jahim do it, but it obstinately refused to cooperate.

[Image: Storm-oracle.]

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He gave Betony the little manual.

"You've got to get the right finger movements," she said and gave him step-by-step instructions.

At last the crystal clouded and changed color -- but this time it went right through the red until it reached the purple.

"Snakeweed won't be able to fly through
that,"
said Thornbeak. "He'll have to land and take shelter, and that's when we'll strike. He'll have to let go of Fuzzy at some point -- he has to eat and drink and sleep...." She broke off, too choked to go on.

"Fuzzy's quite something, isn't she?" said Ironclaw proudly. "Imagine going for Snakeweed like that. She really can peck, can't she?"

Thornbeak brightened slightly. "It's thanks to her that Snakeweed doesn't have a wand anymore. That's going to help. But I'm afraid that Ironclaw and I are too large to creep up on them." She looked at Grimspite.

"It'll be a pleasure," said Grimspite. He turned to Pewtermane. "I know you wanted to dispatch Snakeweed yourself, but it isn't practical now. Will you lift the blocking spell from me and allow me to act on your behalf?"

Pewtermane dipped his silvery head in consent. "I will," he said and recited the incantation.

The leader came over and gave his neigh of approval,

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which made the raising of the spell permanent. Afterward he studied Grimspite for a little while. Then he said, "Tell me, sinistrom, what are you going to do after all this is over?"

Grimspite shrugged. "I don't really know. I'd like to finish my cookbook ... but after that, I'm not sure. I don't think I'd want to write another one. It's not really ... well ..."

"Challenging enough?"

Grimspite nodded and looked embarrassed.

"I think you'd be ideally placed to offer some interesting insights into free will. After all, you've seen it from both perspectives -- not having it, and then getting it. Would you like to live here? We could teach you some meditation techniques."

Grimspite gulped. "Yes, please," he said.

The leader turned to Turpsik. "We could do with a good poet here, too. The colts would benefit from some proper instruction on assonance and alliteration."

Turpsik beamed. "You offering me a cave here as well, then?"

"There are more than enough to go around."

"Then I accept," said Turpsik. She glanced at the river. "Get a lot of fish in there, do you?"

"Schools of them. Beyond your wildest dreams." Turpsik sighed with pleasure.

"Right," said Thornbeak. "Now all that's settled, I think we should make a move. If you're going to travel with us, Grimspite, you'll have to change into lickit form."

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"He could ride on Nimby, with us," said Felix. "We're all going in the same direction, aren't we? I've got the vial of water from the prediction pool, and I've got the spell -- but I would like to know that Fuzzy is safe before I go back to my own world."

"I'm really not at all sure about the name
Fuzzy,"
said Ironclaw to Thornbeak. "It's a bit flimsy for a brazzle. How about Ironbeak?"

"We've been through all this before," snapped Thornbeak.

"Granitefuzz," suggested Betony. "In memory of Granitelegs."

The brazzles looked at each other. "Granitefuzz it is," said Thornbeak.

Felix reckoned they were a quarter of the way to Andria when the storm hit. To begin with, the passengers on the carpet just noticed the tree canopy swaying more vigorously than usual. Then their hair began to whip across their faces, and the brazzles started to do interesting tilts with their wings to remain on course. The sky darkened to slate gray, tinged with a sickly yellow toward the horizon. The clouds raced westward, piling up one upon the other until there was no definition between them anymore, and the faint moaning of the wind became a howling gale. The slate gray darkened to charcoal; then suddenly it was rent in two by a brilliant streak of lightning. A moment later, there was a loud crack of thunder.

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"Going down!" called Nimby as he began his descent.

Grimspite was lying with his head on his arms, his stomach flat against the pile of the carpet, and Betony thought he looked a bit ill. She saw Thornbeak perform an acrobatic maneuver out of the corner of her eye, her primaries spread out like fingers. The sky lit up, mimicking a plant's root system as the lightning forked and forked and forked again, and the thunder crackled malevolently as each streak earthed itself somewhere in the great groaning forest.

Betony clutched at Felix as the rain drove at them in big fat drops that almost blinded them. It was going to be difficult to find somewhere to land -- the brazzles needed a clearing. The lightning illuminated everything once again, and Felix saw a lake below them, its surface whipped to a frenzy of waves. There was an open sandy area beside it, and the brazzles touched down moments before the carpet.

Nimby rolled himself up as quickly as possible, before he became too wet to speak, and Grimspite slunk a little way away from everyone so that he could throw up in peace.

"It's going to be too late to fly any farther once the storm abates," said Thornbeak. "And it's too dangerous to shelter in the forest." As if to illustrate this, a huge branch on a nearby tree split away from the trunk and fell to the ground with a resounding thud. The wind continued to shriek through the trees like a convocation of deranged eagles.

The brazzles settled themselves on the ground and beckoned to Felix and Betony to come under their wings. Then

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they tucked their heads under their wings as well and just let the water roll off their well-oiled feathers. After a little while Grimspite joined them, back in his sinistrom form, complaining about the fact that he couldn't smell anything because the rain was washing away every scent except water. They all made the best of a bad situation and went to sleep.

Snakeweed's fire-breather had finally rebelled against its master's wishes and landed by a lake. Traveling in these conditions was ridiculous -- visibility was so poor that you could fly into a mountain before you knew it. It didn't look like there was going to be any supper, either, and the brazzle chick wouldn't stop squawking.

Snakeweed fastened down the lid of the pannier, but it didn't make much difference in the racket that issued from within. "Shut up!" he shouted.

"Want a fish!" shrieked the chick.

After a while Snakeweed realized he wasn't going to get any sleep, despite being fairly snug against the warmth of the fire-breather's belly. It was tempting just to wring the chick's neck -- but without a wand he might still need a hostage, so he decided against it. However, he could do with something to eat himself, and fire-breathers were adept at barbecuing things. He glanced at the lake. The fire-breather was looking at the lake as well.

"You any good at fishing?" asked Snakeweed.

The fire-breather lashed its tail and nodded. It had just

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been remembering that it had been taught to fish by Turpsik.

"Wonders will never cease," said Snakeweed, so he unsaddled it and watched it waddle down to the water's edge.

The rain was easing off. The fire-breather waded into the shallows and spread its wings like a stabber-bird. After a moment or two its head darted downward and came up with a fine gobblerfish, which it swallowed in one gulp. It repeated this several times until Snakeweed became impatient and yelled, "You're supposed to be fishing for
me."

The fire-breather gave him a filthy look and carried on feeding. Eventually it had its fill, tossed a fish onto the bank, and started to wade back to the shore.

"And
one for the chick," called Snakeweed.

The fire-breather gave him an even filthier look, but it did as it was told.

The fish was a bit big for the chick, and Snakeweed roared with laughter as she struggled to swallow it. Once she'd succeeded she went straight to sleep, and there was peace and quiet at last. The fire-breather grilled Snakeweed's own fish for him with a few jets of flame, and by the time he'd finished it and was ready for sleep himself, the storm had passed.

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***

17

***

Felix was the first to wake the next morning. He had been lying awkwardly against Betony, and his foot had gone to sleep. He scrambled out from beneath Thornbeak's wing and looked around. Ironclaw was still dead to the world, with Grimspite's hind leg poking out from beneath his feathers as though it had been painted there by Salvador Dali. The previous night Thornbeak had quickly volunteered to shelter both the youngsters
and
the carpet, leaving Grimspite and his smell to Ironclaw. Ironclaw never noticed things like that.

The lake was shrouded with mist, and the tops of the trees on the other side rose out of the fog like brooding giants. It wasn't a cheerful place. They'd have to wait for the sun to break through before Nimby could be dried out properly. Felix stamped his foot, trying to hurry along the horrible pins-and-needles sensation and get it back to normal. There were some big black birds perched high up in the tree-tops -- at least, they looked like birds, but he no longer took