Duke Valgard was so keen on showing off his own personal blizzard the Garshom had a hard time keeping up with the old duke as he cantered his destrier through the curtain wall and then the double-gated tunnel into the inner courtyard of the ancient square keep of the Hof.

Valgard sprang off his mount with the bounce and agility of a much younger man and ran up the steps into the keep. I leapt off the carpet and had to sprint to catch up with him. I chased him and his storm cloud down a hallway, around a corner, down another hallway, and then up a stair, and into what looked like a solar.

“Dora! Dora! Look at this, sweetheart! It’s my very own blizzard!” He came to a stop, slightly out-of-breath.

Five ladies were sitting together in comfortable padded armchairs. One was reading, one was playing the lute, and the other three were embroidering. The oldest of the five, a grey-haired embroiderer in a burgundy gown, had a face that must have started wars when she was young. She looked up in consternation at the cloud over the duke's head. Then she stood up, dropped her embroidery hoop, and picked up a large and nasty-looking pair of shears. She was tall for a human woman. She stepped in front of the lute player as if to protect her and held the shears like a dagger pointed at me.

The youngest, a strawberry blond who was the one reading the book, quietly stood up suddenly armed with a short sword and buckler. She stepped to the left of the old lady with the shears and assumed a perfect crouch, sword, and right arm ready to impale upward if I jumped, shield canted to direct my approach away from the lute player. The two middle-aged women had throwing stars ready to throw if I made a wrong move.

“Valgard,” the old lady’s eyes did not shift her eyes from glaring at me, “pull out your sword because there’s a cougar behind you.”

The old man blinked and then laughed, “sit back down, Dora. My four-footed friend is Lady Fuzzy and she’s a spirit beast. What do you think of my blizzard?” He pointed at his head.

The old lady’s eyes kept me as their focus. To make it easier for her, I laid down in the couchant position and then put my chin on the floor between my paws.

Duchess Dora picked up her embroidery hoop and sat back down, "I do wish you would remember to warn me when you have these little fancies of yours, Val." She studied the miniature blizzard, “how, by the whiskers of Weasilli, did you acquire that snowing cloud over your head, dearest? Is there a mage in town who didn’t know any better and cast that on you? How did you manage to insult a mage?”

The duke looked at me and I looked at the duke. I picked my head up and looked at the duchess, * I'm afraid I'm responsible for the one-person snowstorm. My boy was trying to advise the duke to find some way I could sit at the table at the meal this evening and the duke said you didn't seat pets at dinner, not once but twice. *

“And you are nobody’s pet,” Duchess Dora nodded. “This is beginning to make a little more sense. Well, I can understand how you would be mistaken for a pet if one did not know beforehand you were a spirit beast, the likes of which have not turned up in Nordweg for several hundred years. Am I to presume you are part of the group who entered the city earlier on a carpet that flies?"

“Oh! Dora! It's down in the inner courtyard right now! You must come and see this thing! I have no idea where our nephew Sven got it but it's amazing." The old duke was bouncing in his boots. I was rather astounded how he could shift from the stern and threatening military commander to a seven-year-old boy in an old man suit in a matter of seconds.

“Val, dear, you're getting snow on the rug," the duchess eyed the accumulating snowflakes beginning to circle the duke's feet.

* Oh! Let me take care of that. Γενεγ! * The storm cloud faded away.

“That really is an interesting spell,” Duchess Dora put her embroidery hoop aside and leaned forward to talk with me. “I’m a mage myself,” she admitted, “a bit of healing, fireballs, basic castle defense, mending broken pots and swords and such. Where did you learn that spell? Or did you invent it yourself?”

* My boy invented it a few years ago to tease his sister. If you can do a fireball through an invocation to Weasilli, then learning this spell should be doable for you. *

“This sounds delightful,” she grinned at the duke, “quite delightful.”

“You don't really need to teach her that spell, you know," Duke Valgard pointed out in a wheedling voice.

“So who is your boy? I assume he’s traveling with you and our nephew, who I assume is Duke Sven,” the duchess’s eyes were dancing.

“Didn’t Gilbert give you my message?” Duke Valgard asked Dora.

* Your Grace, we passed poor Gilbert on our way here in your rush to show your duchess the miniature storm magic. *

“Meh," the duke grumped. "It's like this, sweetheart. Sven and Willam showed up at the west gate riding a real flying carpet." The duke looked at the door into the room as voices approached in the hallway. "Well, I don't need to say anymore now because they are here."

The first person to reach the door was Father Garshom, who for some reason was looking worried. He stopped in the doorway and looked at the duchess. I deduced they knew each other because the duchess had gone wide-eyed and had risen from her chair.

“Garshom?”

He took off his chaperon hat and handed it to Sven, who was behind him. "Welladay, Dora. Have you been well?" The only times I had heard this gentle tender voice out of Garshom was when he was consoling someone who was grieving or calming someone who was hurt and needed healing.

The duchess took several long strides of increasing speed across the floor and entrapped a surprised Garshom in a firm embrace that was more of an attack tackle than a hug. It took him a moment to catch his breath and then Garshom hugged her in return.

“I’m sorry, Dora,” he said softly, “the people who rescued me advised that I vanish. Their intelligence network determined that the entire de Welk family was being watched, including you. In fact, you’re still being watched, as is our brother and everyone else in our family.”

Dora stepped back and held him by his shoulders, “Brother, then why are you here? Is this going to get us all killed?”

* Griselda is planning to kill you all anyway,* I pointed out. * We have been watching her and her chief henchman, Magus Keleher in Tammerhof daily for the last half month. The plan of Griselda and her brother King Sigurd is a bloodless coup followed by eliminating the nobility of Nordweg and replacing it with Osterians, as the kingdom is swallowed by Osterius when Princess Aricia is married to her cousin, Crown Prince Egbert Oster.*

“The problem is that the Regent holds Tammerhof,” Duke Valgard frowned at me. “The King, if he is still alive, is under her control as is the princess. And the Regent has her own armed force, loyal to her and not to Nordweg. In addition, Magus Keleher is a formidable and ruthless practitioner of great ability. I think only Garshom comes close to Keleher and Keleher is a young man.”

* Keleher is not the only magus inside the borders of Nordweg. We have Father Garshom. We have me. And we have the most talented and powerful royal Nordweg family mage in five generations, Crown Prince Andray.*

“He’s a mage?” Duke Valgard gave Father Garshom a sharp look. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I haven’t had a chance yet, you old goat,” Garshom snapped back. “We’ve been here for less than an hour. And yes, he’s a mage. He effortlessly picked up in three years what it took me thirty years to master. We didn’t tell him this while we were teaching him, because we wanted to keep him thinking he needed to work harder, but he’s the most talented mage I have ever seen.”

“Prove it,” Valgard growled.

“A year and a half ago, his best friend was attacked by a snow wyvern. Andray invented a spell while the attack was underway that kills wyverns. The same spell will actually kill any magical creature because I used it last year to kill a salamander. To date, Prince Andray has killed two wyverns: the one a year and a half ago and one last month.”

“Not only do we have ourselves," Andray's elvish-accented baritone spoke from the doorway, "for the next month, we also have the use of the court mage and his three assistants from the Sahkulate of Zimlakuliku, plus the best battle mage, best healing mage, and the two best artificer mages from the Greenwood."

My boy had his hand on Willam's shoulder, and Willam had his arm around Andray's waist. With Willam's help, my boy limped into the room.

* What happened? * I ran over to him and Willam. * Here, lean on me. Willam, get him a chair. *

“What happened? You ran after my great uncle. When I stepped off the carpet, I stepped wrong, and the whole leg twisted to the left and got out of alignment. So now the foot isn't working until I take my leg off and straighten it. And because somebody left me to go up the stairs on my own, this brute," he pointed at a grinning Willam, "took advantage of it and carried me up the stairs."

Willam set down the chair and helped his brother sit down. Duchess Dora walked up to him, lifted his chin, and stared at his left eye.

“It’s glass,” Andray smiled his classic friendly guileless smile. “Do I need to take it out for you?”

“Glass?” Dora looked closer.

“Sweetheart, he has a collection of different eyeballs,” Valgard warned. “I’ve seen them all already.”

“And the leg?” she knocked on his left knee.

“It’s made of wood and springs and shaped leather, Aunt Dora.”

“And since when did you start talking like one of those tree-hugging elves?” the Duchess frowned.

“Sister, dearest,” Garshom put his arm around Dora’s shoulders, “Andray and I have been living in Elvenhome. It was the elves who rescued us and took us in. Andray picked up the accent naturally.”

“Well,” Duchess Dora straightened up, “I guess we owe those people a favor then for having helped you out, considering the alternatives. I should probably be grateful it wasn’t goblins or trolls.”