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“I must warn you, Sir Kenkye is not used to having his requests
refused,” Cedilion said.
“And I must tell you, Count, that I am not used to people like you
questioning what I have clearly stated!” Esper shouted impatiently.
THE JOY OF WRITING
32
“Yes, well, beg your pardon, friend, no more of that matter,” Cedilion
said.
“What about what you were saying about that trade of men…” Soon
the ambassadors and Esper were lost in a boring conversation, so Gwen
took her chance and quietly slipped away.
Raxere looked in the Mirror of Zeda. He saw himself, white hair
flowing down past his shoulders. The image faded, and Raxere saw a girl.
This time she was holding a knife, and she was killing—who was it?—
Guliset! The girl faded away, and Raxere again took the place of the girl.
This time he was at the head of a large army.
“So I shall be victorious,” Raxere whispered to himself, his thin
fingers wrapping eerily around each other.
After she had escaped from the room, Gwen breathed a sigh of relief
and looked around.Where was she to go? The nursery was at the moment
being cleaned by the maids, and it was raining heavily outside. Gwen was
too old to beg cookies from Cook as she used to, and the rest of the castle
was out-of-bounds to her.
“Why is it out of bounds?” she thought to herself suddenly. It
wouldn’t hurt to have a peek! There was a series of spiral steps that led
up to a small wooden door. Gwen entered. Once inside, she sniffed
around. The air smelled damp and musty. It was cold, too. Shivering, she
took a peek behind a plain gray curtain that hung from one of the rafters.
She was extremely surprised to see Guliset and some other people.
“And now, the main thing is to keep that Esper from discovering our
intentions,” Guliset said. Gwen stuck her head in further, interested.
“Hey! Whaddya be doing here?” One man lunged at Gwen. She ran
past the door all the way downstairs, where Lord Esper was waiting.
“Gwen.” His voice was harsh. “You were in the out-of-bounds area.”
“Yes, Father,” Gwen said, bowing her head.
“I told you not to go there,” Esper said.
“Father! I heard Guliset, and he was saying things like ‘and now the
main thing is to keep that Esper from discovering our intentions!’” Gwen
blurted.
“Gwen, you speak foolish nonsense. You will be locked in your room
for two weeks for going where I told you not to,” Esper said. Before
Gwen could say anything, he had shouted, “Martha Lucille! Take Gwen
to her room.” Martha Lucille, a middle-aged, sour-faced maid, took
Gwen’s hand, and led her upstairs to her room.
“Misbehavin’ again, eh?” Martha Lucille asked, raising her eyebrows.
The Realm of Possibilities
33
Gwen turned around and did not answer. She shut the door in Martha
Lucille’s face and collapsed into her chair.
“It’s been a very long day,” Gwen thought to herself. Luckily, Gwen
had her own private library, which was a great source of entertainment.
She dragged a stool over to one of the shelves to see if she could find a
book she hadn’t read in a while. Most of the books were ones that Gwen
had already read, like The Death of a Hag Lord or Foreign Princess. However,
as she neared the top of the shelf, Gwen noticed a rather crooked and
worn old book with some pages sticking out.
“It’s quite a tattered old thing,” Gwen said to herself, pulling the book
down from the shelf. Opening the book, Gwen spied a yellowed
parchment that folded carefully and stuck between the pages. When she
unfolded it, she gasped. The village of Lien was in a far Eastern corner,
a mere dot on the gigantic map. Squanee, which was fifteen miles away
and the closest trading village, was shown next to Lien. Yugz, yet another
trading village, was shown slightly farther away and above Lien. Bronsel
lay far to the west, and Skere was far north from Bronsel. Suddenly, the
map extended in Gwen’s hands.
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