Song of Sorcery Read Online Free PDF

unwise to be anything but courtly to Little Folk, leprechauns, gnomes, brownies, and the like. Every reference Colin had ever heard made to them advised caution and courtesy even beyond that ordinarily extended to human nobles, for the Little Folk were strange and touchy and alien. Being so very small, they had never, like merfolk, witches, faeries, or even ogres, intermarried with people of larger dimensions, and they remained shy and reclusive. Although this gnome was the first Colin had ever seen first-hand, close up, he had known a boy in East Headpenney, an unfortunate orphan whose parents had unwittingly destroyed the underground home of a gnome family.
    “Ah, waly, waly, waly,” cried the little man as he sat down on a toadstool, wringing his red pointed cap in his hands, “Alas, poor rabbit!”
    Judging by his behavior, it seemed as though he had decided to take them into his confidence. Colin ventured a question. “Rabbit is the name of your friend, then?”
    “Rabbit he’s named, as rabbit he is!” nodded the gnome, sniffing and digging in the pockets of his green knickers. “He comes to my house to bowl with me every quarter moon and every half, without fail. When he didn’t come as usual, I went looking for him.”
    “And you couldn’t find him?” Maggie asked sympathetically.
    The gnome took out a coin-sized handkerchief, blew his nose hard, and glared at her. “I f-found him alright. Caught in one of your horrid iron traps, his back leg nearly sundered, a-perishing of pain and fright.”
    Even Ching looked shocked and as compassionate as it was possible for him to look.
    “I’ve tried all I know to free him,” the gnome said. “But the power over iron is beyond my skill, and I’ve not the brute strength to spring it.”
    “You’d better show us where it is then,” Colin said, “before whoever set that trap comes to check it.”
    If it hadn’t been for Ching’s hunting ability, they might have lost the gnome’s track as he ran through the green meadow and into the woods beyond. Not far from a deer path faintly etched through the undergrowth, the rabbit lay panting out his life, his soft white fur speckled red on both sides of a cruel trap that bit his leg like the disembodied dentures of an ogre.
    When Colin had released the trap, he started to pick the rabbit up, but Maggie stopped him. “His life is too fragile within him for movement, minstrel. I’ve helped my Gran with a couple of cases like this, not on rabbits, of course, but I know that glassy-eyed look. Best thing to do would be to splint the leg and give him something for the pain first, then let him rest a bit.” She took off her kerchief and offered it to the gnome. “Spread this on him, sir, to keep him warm. I’ll see if I can find an ice poppy to ease his pain, though it will be hard to locate them without the flowers.”
    “Failing that,” said Colin, pleased to have an alternative to doing exactly as the witch directed, “perhaps I ought to go fetch MY medicine.”
    “YOUR medicine?” she asked. He was gratified to see how surprised she looked.
    “You witches aren’t the only ones prepared for this sort of thing, you know. All minstrels are supposed to keep with them while traveling no less than two ounces of strong apple brandy in case of emergency.”
    “I didn’t see him whipping any of that out while he was flying around in the rafters,” remarked Ching, licking a paw.
    “Waly, waly, waly, waly,” sobbed the gnome, who had wrapped the kerchief close around the rabbit’s torso and had taken his friend’s head on his lap and was rocking back and forth, stroking the long, soft ears.
    “Waly, waly, to be sure,” said Colin, sprinting back down the deer path, “Be back in a flash.”
    Maggie turned back to the gnome, hunkering down, as Colin had, to face him on a civil level where she would not be talking down to him. “Is there a nearby creek, Master Gnome? Ice poppies like the banks of creeks, and we