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"Where's Scorn?"
"She went after you," Trouble said.
"Bother," said Morwen. "I'm sorry, Cimorene, but-" A narrow path of grass stirred and shifted. An
instant later, Scorn leapt for Morwen's back. Her claws dug into the folds of material, and with another
brief effort she pulled herself the rest of the way up to Morwen's shoulder, where she perched, purring
smugly.
"No wonder you wear loose robes," Cimorene said.
Balancing carefully, Scorn stretched. Then the purring stopped and she said, "That farmer is coming
after you, Morwen. I thought you'd want to know."
"Scorn says MacDonald is on his way," Morwen said to the rest of them.
"If you really want to avoid him, Cimorene, we should go now."
"Then let's go." Cimorene looked at Telemain.
"Everyone here? Very well, then." Eyes narrowed in unwonted concentration, Telemain raised his
hands and recited the spell.
The hillside wavered like a reflection in a suddenly disturbed pool.
Reluctantly, it began to melt and shift. Morwen caught a glimpse of MacDonald's face, too distorted to
tell whether his expression was one of astonishment or fear, before the scene became unrecognizable.
Suddenly, everything froze. For an impossibly long instant, they hung between greenish blurs and
brown blobs. Then, with a painful jerk, everything darkened and slammed into proper shapes once more.
Morwen dropped two inches into a puddle of mud. The landing jarred her glasses loose and tore Scorn
from her shoulder. Morwen managed to catch the cat, but her glasses vanished into the mud. Behind
them, there was a squishy thwump as Kazul landed, followed by a yowl from Trouble and various
startled noises from Killer and Cimorene.
"Drat," Morwen muttered, swallowing hard. "I knew I should have brought a stomach remedy." The air
was damp and smelled like rotten eggs, which didn't help any.
"And boots," Scorn said, relaxing in Morwen's hands.
"Definitely boots," Morwen agreed. The mud was cold, soft, and ankle deep, and between the gloom
and her missing glasses she could not spot a better place to step to. Assuming, of course, that there was
a better place to stand.
"Morwen?" Cimorene called. "Where are you?"
"Where are we, is the question," Scorn said.
"Quiet," said Morwen. "Over here, Cimorene. Scorn, I'm going to hunt for my glasses, and I'll need
both hands. If you don't want to walk around in this, you'd better climb up on my back."
With a disdainful snort, Scorn scrambled out of Morwen's grasp and back to her shoulder. Slowly,
Morwen bent forward, giving Scorn time to adjust her balance. Holding her sleeves out of the way with
one hand, she fished in the mud with the other.
A series of sucking noises and squelches came near. "Morwen, what are you doing?" Cimorene asked.
She was muddy to the elbows, and she held her drawn sword in one hand.
"Looking for my glasses," Morwen replied. "Unfortunately, I don't seem to-Wait a minute." Carefully,
she worked her hand free of the mud.
"There. Now all I have to do is clean them."
"Easier to say than done in this muck," Cimorene said. "Didn't you bring an extra pair?"
"Chaos broke my extra pair last week." Morwen squinted at the mud-covered glasses, then shrugged.
Pinching a fold of material from her robe, she began wiping the lenses. "The replacements haven't been
delivered yet."
"Well, I'm afraid I can't help. I slipped when we landed, and even my handkerchiefs are full of mud.
Morwen, where are we? This doesn't look like the edge of a desert."
"No kidding," said Scorn.
"Ask Telemain," Morwen said, putting on her glasses. "He should have some idea where we were
when he lost control." The lenses were still streaky, but at least she could see.
A worry line appeared between Cimorene's eyebrows, below the mud that smeared her forehead. "I
don't know where Telemain is," she said. "I was hoping he was over here, with you."
12
Which Is Exceedingly Muddy
Morwen looked around. Here and there, tall, thin trees shot upward from the omnipresent mud. High in
the air, they suddenly sprouted a wide, dense mat of twisted branches. Long, fuzzy gray-green strips of
moss dangled from the branches, shutting out most of the light, and patches of dirty white fog drifted
among the trunks.
Between the fog and the shadows, it was hard to be sure of seeing anyone. Even Kazul seemed to melt
into the gloom. Only Killer's vivid blue stood out against the muddy colors of the swamp.
"Is everyone else here?" Morwen said. Her stomach was already settling down, which was a relief. The
last time this had happened, it had taken much longer.
Cimorene nodded.
"Then I'll look for Telemain. There's bound to be some residue from the transportation spell for me to
trace. The rest of you stay together so I can find you again. If we split up in this mess, we're likely to lose
someone permanently."
"I suppose that's best," Cimorene said, but she did not sound happy.
Morwen was not very happy about the arrangement, either, but she did not say anything more as
Cimorene squelched back to Kazul. Then, with a resigned sigh, she reached into her left sleeve and
pulled out a ball of red yarn and a shiny metal plate three inches across with a small hole near the rim.
Focusing her attention on her most recent memories of Telemain's magic, she tied the yarn to the plate.
She bent and breathed on the metal, clouding it over, then said quickly, "Green and growing; show me.
Swift and silent, show me.
Damp and dingy, show me.
Deep and shining; show me what I would see."
With her last words, she released the plate so that it hung free. It spun wildly on the end of the yarn,
and she felt it tug lightly to the right, well away from the others. Carefully, she turned, letting the faint pull
guide her.
It took considerable concentration to follow the spell while slogging through the cold, sticky mud.
"I thought something smelled different over this way," Scorn said.
Morwen spared a moment for a glance at the cat. "You might have told me."
"You were busy."
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