Part 23 (1/2)
”That's ridiculous!” he snapped. ”You could get a map or something, and find it. Someone in there has to know where it is!”
”You think I'm ridiculous!” she exclaimed, her bra.s.s face clouding up. ”You embarra.s.sed me!”
Oops. He had been trying to avoid trouble, but had somehow walked into it anyway. ”I'm sorry. I didn't mean-”
”That's no way to apologize!”
Esk glanced at her, then at Latia, helplessly.
”Go ahead,” the curse fiend said shortly. ”Apologize the proper way.”
”Uh, yes,” Esk said. He stopped walking, and Bria stopped walking. He took her in his arms. ”I apologize for embarra.s.sing you,” he said, and gave her a quick kiss.
She stood motionless, seeming to be a bra.s.s statue. ”I don't think you did a good enough job,” Latia remarked.
Esk tried again. ”Bria, I'm very sorry I embarra.s.sed you, and I humbly apologize,” he said, and kissed her somewhat more authoritatively.
Still the bra.s.sie girl stood, absolutely frozen. It was as if she had been cast in metal and allowed to harden in place.
”You need instruction in kissing,” Latia snorted disdainfully.
Stung, Esk wrapped his arms about Bria, swung her around, and gave her a kiss that threatened to bruise his lips.
Then at last Bria melted. ”Accepted,” she murmured.
”Now there's a girl who would be excellent on the stage,” Latia murmured. ”I have seldom seen better management.”
”What?” Esk asked.
”Nothing,” the old woman said, with the suggestion of a smirk.
They resumed their walk toward Castle Roogna, but now Esk's head was spinning in much the way it had the first time Bria had kissed him. He tried to remember exactly how he had embarra.s.sed her, but was unable. He tried to figure out what the curse fiend woman meant about management, but drew another blank.
Before long they reached Castle Roogna. Princess Ivy danced out to meet them. ”You found him!” she cried happily.
”Volney Vole sniffed him out,” Latia said. ”The centaur and the vole had to go on additional searches, but we brought him back here.”
”He looks sort of dazed,” the girl said.
”He was some time in the gourd.”
”Oh. That would do it.” Then she noticed Bria. ”h.e.l.lo. Who're you?”
”Just something he fished out of the gourd,” Bria said.
”You're a gourd folk? How exciting!”
Esk found his tongue. ”She's Bria Bra.s.sie. Her mother knew your mother.”
”A bra.s.sie? Then her mother must be Blythe Bra.s.sie, who got the dent from Smash Ogre!”
Bria glanced sidelong at Esk, who almost choked.
Fortunately Ivy was prancing on to a new subject. ”I found something to help! A pathfinder spell!”
”A pathfinder?” Esk asked, accepting the object she gave him. It looked like a bit of twisted wire.
”It's a spell, and it finds your path for you,” Ivy explained. ”Wherever you want to go.”
”That's easy. I want to go and ask the ogres if they will help the voles. But I can't walk there and back within a week, unless you have some more of those speed pills.”
”No, I don't dare take any more; someone'd notice. But this is just as good. Ask it for the path to the ogres!”
”You don't understand. I can find the ogres; I just need more time than I have.”
”Then ask it for the path that'll take you there in the time you have,” Ivy said brightly.
”That spell can do that?”
”Sure. But there's one problem. It works only once for each person.”
”Well, I can follow the same path back; that's no problem.”
The girl's forehead wrinkled. ”I'm not sure it's like that. I don't think you can find the path again without it.”
”I know a path like that,” Bria remarked. ”Only you can't find your way from it.”
”Gee, that must be fun!” Ivy said.
”I suppose I could use the spell to get there,” Esk said. ”Then hope to make it back the regular way in time. Maybe it can be done.”
”You can get back, stupid,” Ivy said. ”Just have a friend use the spell to find the return path.”
”Why that's right!” Esk exclaimed. ”I'm embarra.s.sed! I should have thought of it.”
”Uh-oh,” Latia muttered.
”You embarra.s.sed him,” Bria said to Ivy. ”You will have to apologize.”
Ivy was interested. ”Gee-how do I do that?”
”Like this,” Bria said. She put her arms around Esk. ”I apologize,” she said. Then she kissed him.
”Extraordinary!” Latia murmured admiringly. ”No opportunity wasted!”
”That looks like fun,” Ivy said.
At that point there was a splash and yowl from the moat. ”Oops- Moatie's teasing someone again. Gotta go!” Ivy dashed off.
Esk examined the spell. ”I'll need someone to go with me, I suppose,” he said.