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anything for granted in this world. And was that a curl of smoke? The mist was obscuring whatever was causing it, but a dwelling of some sort seemed the likeliest answer. He tried the royalty location spell once more but without luck -- it was probably far too early in the morning for the king and queen to be up. It was a pity they hadn't been able to try it the previous evening, but you couldn't use a feather in a storm.

Felix had traveled through this forest the previous summer -- but he had been going to Tiratattle, which was more to the north, and not directly to Andria. Betony had traded the toadstools they'd collected for bread and cheese in the villages they'd passed. He would have expected a settlement of some sort here, for the lake was obviously teeming with fish, but it looked as though there would only be the one house when the mist cleared.

The feeling was back in his foot now, so he decided to go for a walk and see if he could find any edible fungi. Betony would be impressed if he'd remembered the right ones to gather. There was a path that skirted the lake -- but whether it was used by sentient beings or wild animals he had no idea. The rain had washed away any footprints there might have been. He was feeling fairly cheerful. Andria was only another day's journey; soon, he would be back in his own world and applying the countercharm to his parents. And then the explanations would have to start. Would his mother recall what had happened to her -- or would she think Felix had gone around the bend? Supposing neither of his parents

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remembered anything? There would be a couple of missing weeks to account for -- that couldn't just be glossed over. There would also, presumably, be a lot of wildlife to unfreeze. This was assuming the pollution hadn't gotten outside the garden. The one thing he
did
know was that it hadn't reached as far as Costa Rica. But supposing, when he returned, Wimbledon was just a marble theme park? No, that was silly. Even the Great Plague hadn't affected everyone. There would always be a few people and creatures who were immune, surely?

He suddenly noticed he could see a lot more on the other side of the lake. A watery sun had broken through the thin cloud, and steam was rising from the drying foliage of the forest. He still couldn't make out the source of the smoke, but he could now see that there were two tiny columns of it, close together, as though there were two chimney pots. Then he spotted a clump of pink-and-white toadstools, and he was as certain as he could be they were the ones Betony used for mushroom omelettes. Maybe he could trade some of them for a loaf of bread with whomever lived in the house with the fire. He took off his jacket and tied it into a sort of bag. Then he filled it with toadstools and carried on along the path, which, shortly after, divided into two. The right-hand path continued along the border of the lake and the left-hand one went into the woods.

A small headland obscured the view for a while, but when he arrived at the other side of it he had a shock. The smoke

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was issuing from a fire-breather and not a house at all. It only took a moment to establish that it was Snakeweed's fire-breather, and Snakeweed himself was curled up next to it, fast asleep.

What an opportunity! He could sneak up to the fire-breather, open the pannier, and rescue Fuzzy. He would be a hero. He, Felix Sanders, the kid who just a year ago had been unable to do anything,
he
would be the one to save the day. He felt his heart -- his
healthy
heart -- start to beat faster. What a way to repay everything he owed the brazzles. It would leave Ironclaw free to look for the king and queen again.

He needed to go into the woods so that he could approach his quarry unseen, from behind, so he retraced his steps to where the path divided, left his jacket-bag of toadstools at the fork, and took the left-hand track.

For a while he could still see the lake through the trees. Then the wood grew denser, and he lost sight of it. He took a compass reading, to make sure he was still going in the right direction, and quickened his pace. There was something unpleasant about this part of the forest, something dark and rank and vengeful. He could smell the sour stench you got on disused footpaths when it had been raining, where everything had become so overgrown you couldn't separate one plant from another.

A thorny strand caught at his ankle and it took him a while to untangle it, for it seemed to have an active and

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spiteful life of its own. Then it happened again, and it was even more difficult to extricate himself. He started to keep a lookout for that particular plant and avoid stepping on it. An image from a television documentary popped into his head, a speeded-up sequence of a bramble growing. Pale green tendrils looping themselves around other plants, their thorns catching hold of their victims in a vicelike grip, tightening around them until they strangled them. In fast-mode, a bramble had a lot in common with a predatory animal.

At last the trees thinned again, and Felix realized he had come out of the wood exactly where he'd wanted to -- right behind the fire-breather. He could hear it snoring, which was all to the good, and what was even better was that the pannier he wanted was on the side closest to him. He could see the wickerwork bulging from time to time, as the chick moved around inside it.

He crept up to the pannier and started to unfasten the strap. A sharp little beak suddenly thrust itself through the rushes and pecked him. It was as much as he could do not to cry out, but he bit his lip and swore silently inside his head.

"Fuzzy," he whispered, "I'm a friend of your mother's. A friend of Thornbeak's. I've come here to rescue you."

The movements inside the pannier ceased. Felix hoped this was a good sign and had another attempt at the strap. This time he managed to unbuckle it unscathed, and he lifted the lid as quietly as he could. A pink pimply head shot out

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and tilted sideways, so that the owner could study him with one of her bright yellow eyes.

"Ssh,"
said Felix, putting his finger to his lips. Then he held out his arms, and Fuzzy scrambled our of the pannier. She was heavier than he'd expected, and the claws on her hind legs were as sharp as the talons on her front ones. "Can you sheathe those?" hissed Felix as she scratched him.

Fuzzy didn't seem quite sure how to do it, but after a couple of tries that made Felix feel as though he were carrying a porcupine, she succeeded. The fire-breather carried on snoring. Felix shut the lid of the pannier -- one of the things that always annoyed him about adventure films was when the hero left a door ajar, advertising his visit as surely as if he'd left a note. Then, his heart in his mouth, he tiptoed away and back into the forest.

They followed the path in silence until Felix considered he was far enough away from the fire-breather not to be overheard. Then he introduced himself properly and congratulated Fuzzy on the way she'd disarmed Snakeweed.

"He was horrid," said Fuzzy. "Are we going back to my mom now?"

Felix nodded. "Are you any good at walking yet?" he asked. "Only you're rather heavy, and you do wriggle."

"Haven't done walking," said Fuzzy.

Felix set her down on the ground, and she took a few steps. She picked up the idea very quickly indeed, and soon

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she was tottering along beside him and looking very pleased with herself.

"Want to fly now," she said.

"You'll have to get your wing feathers before you can do that," said Felix.

"Want my wing feathers
now."

"You'll have to wait for them to grow," said Felix.

Fuzzy gave Felix a filthy look, as though this delay was entirely his fault -- then she suddenly scampered off into the undergrowth, showing a surprising turn of speed for one so unversed in legwork.

Felix groaned and gave chase.

Fuzzy thought this was hilariously funny and ran even faster, squawking with laughter.

"Come back!" Felix shouted, dodging between tree trunks and jumping over mossy fallen branches. "You'll get lost!" And then one of the spiky bramble-things caught at his ankle, and he fell over. He sat up immediately and started to tear at it with his fingers. It seemed to tighten of its own accord, so he stopped fighting a losing battle and got his penknife out of his backpack. When he cut the stem with it he heard a faint scream; a horrible milky liquid gushed out, and the stink of rotten eggs filled the air. He stepped back sharply -- which was just as well because the liquid turned to a sticky jelly, sealing the end of the stem and gluing it to a neighboring shrub.

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Fuzzy had now disappeared, although he could hear her crashing through the undergrowth ahead of him. He followed more carefully, shouting every so often for her to wait for him. Eventually the crashing noises stopped, and a loud squawking replaced them. The trees came to an abrupt end, and Felix found himself out in the open on a stretch of grass. The squawking ceased as suddenly as it had started. A huge tangle of the bramble stuff was in front of him, like a hedge -- but above it, a little way off, he could see the turret of a castle. Fuzzy had been caught by the hedge, and she was thrashing about and pecking at the stems for all she was worth.

"Don't!" yelled Felix. "You'll get even more stuck!" He ran over, and the chick glared at him with her yellow eyes. She wasn't squawking any longer because the two halves of her beak were glued together with the white sap.

Felix cut the briars that held her as neatly as he could, pushing the weeping ends out of the way with a lump of dead wood. Her tail was now gummed to her body, and two of her toes were stuck together. Her yellow eyes were wide with fright -- or anger, it was hard to tell which.

"I've got a nice fire going," said a croaky old voice. "It's got a spit above it, if you want to roast her."

Felix spun around. One of the black birds had landed on the ground nearby and was watching them with interest. Only it wasn't a bird -- its head and torso were those of an old gray-haired crone, and the rest of it looked more like a vulture than anything else.

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[Image: A harpy.]

A harpy.

"You haven't seen one of my sort before, have you?" said the harpy. "And I haven't seen one of you, neither. You're a human being, or my name's not Scavenjit. How did you get here?" Felix told her the truth -- there didn't seem much point in ' doing anything else. Then, and with some trepidation, he asked, "Are you a shadow-beast?"

"Thorns surround us,
no!" cackled the harpy. "I'm a carrionwing. Me and my kind clear up, see? We're refuse collectors. We got called in by a flame-bird, soon after this predator-hedge was hexed in place. Darn thing keeps sending out suckers everywhere; that shouldn't happen; strikes me the spell was cast in far too much of a hurry." She looked pointedly at Fuzzy. "She's my lawful prey, you know."

"And she's also the daughter of a very good friend of mine," said Felix.

"Oh," said Scavenjit, looking disappointed. "Do you know a way of ungluing her?"

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"Only if you're a prince," said Scavenjit.

Felix decided that denying it at this stage might be unwise. "Do you feed on the creatures that get caught by the hedge, then?" he asked.

The carrionwing nodded.

"How do you manage not to get stuck to them?"

"I'm immune," said Scavenjit. "That's all part of being a carrionwing, see?"

Felix glanced toward the castle. "Is there anyone in there who knows a way of unsticking her?"

"Them's all asleep," said Scavenjit.

Felix was about to comment on late risers when the implications suddenly hit him. "Are they due to sleep for a hundred years?" he asked.

"Well," said Scavenjit, "that's what happened last time. Being a human, you may not be too well up on this world's history. The princess Bella? Got cursed because her father messed up some guest list or other, pricked her finger on a spindle, and went into a coma. The palace had a predator-hedge planted around it. When it was countercharmed away a century later, they found the skeletons of everything that had been unable to get out of the way. Lots of little things, of course, birds and nut-nibblers and berry-buriers. But there was a brittlehorn and a couple of small-tails as well. This hedge, though -- sloppier job altogether. Keeps on killing things, it does, and you can't just leave the corpses to rot, can you? Sorcerers aren't what they used to be. I blame

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printing, myself. Everyone wants what everyone else has got these days, and they don't give a thunderclap about the environment." She jerked her head over her shoulder, toward the castle. "That place should never have been built, if you ask me."

"Mm-mm-mm!"
fulminated Fuzzy, obviously thinking she'd been forgotten but unable to express this in words.

"Look," said Felix, "I've got to find a way of ungluing this chick's beak. She'll die if she can't eat."

"The only solution I know of," said Scavenjit, "is to deactivate the entire spell. Wake up everyone in the castle. That'll get rid of the hedge and any sap spillages will disappear as well."

"How do I do that?"

"Kiss the fair lady who lies within, of course."

It was inevitable, really. "How do I do it, then?" asked Felix, looking at the impenetrable hedge with its vicious thorns and twisted branches.

"If you was a prince, it would open up just like that," said Scavenjit.

"Well, I'm not," said Felix irritably.

"Thought as much," said Scavenjit. "You'll have to fly over it, then, and land in the courtyard."

"Are you offering to take me?"

"Hailstones,
no. The place is feather-proof."

That ruled out going back for Thornbeak or Ironclaw. And Nimby would still be too wet to fly.