We surfed the blast in tandem, with Connor and Max leading the way.
Corwin followed behind with me on his board, shaking with silent laughter each time someone passed us.
Now that I understood what all the laughter and hoots were about, I kept hiding my face into Corwin's back trying to shield myself as best as I could from the stares and smirks of passing windsurfers.
"You're burying your nose into my back."
"Yes." I mumbled.
"Sorry. I did take a shower, but three hours of shooting practice and I'm back to smelling like sweat again."
"Yes."
"You still smell like lavender."
Ugh.
I had forgotten about my mosquito repellant. Since I truly could not master the power command to repel insects, I had gotten into the habit of spraying lavender all over me just to keep from being eaten alive.
I didn't think this was something that Corwin would pick up on and tease me mercilessly about. It was all I could do not to bark at him.
In any case, I could not enjoy the feeling of being up in the air with my mind stuck on Simon.
Here he was, laughing about sweat and lavender, and we were on our way to meet up with the Dean after we just lost one of his students. How does one go about explaining that a person just simply vanished into thin air?
I was still torturing myself over these questions when Corwin's board pulled into a smooth landing in front of the Dean's doorstep.
He gently lowered it to the ground and led me off.
"Here we are."
There was no mistaking where the Dean's quarters were located. He lived in one of the snazziest places in town, right next to the Academy.
His bright cherry wood door with its bronze knocker shaped like a gnarled, wizened face, stood out against the mahogany that graced all the other stucco buildings in the area.
The twins hesitated. Neither one wanted to announce their arrival but they didn't need to worry about such mundane things.
The door swung inward of its own accord, and the gnarled face of the grotesque bronze knocker announced our arrival with its loud squawking voice.
"Incoming, incoming! The Lords Connor and Corwin of the House Osiris joined by Lady Inanna of the House Imara, and Maximilian, the canine Malamute. Incoming, Incoming!"
"Woof! Woof!" Max barked joyfully.
I looked at the thing in distaste as Corwin muttered, "Shut up, Clanker."
"Clanker?" I hid a smile. "Is that his name?"
"That's what we've always called Uncle's door butler," Connor grimaced. "I'm sure he had a formal name at one point or another but nobody knows what it is any more"
"For what it's worth," Corwin added. "I'm sure nobody cares."
Clanker ignored us after his announcement was done, his face froze back into a bronze grotesque.
The door closed shut behind us as we walked into the anteroom.
I was fully expecting the Dean to be waiting for us but after some minutes of silence, no one came to greet us in the foyer.
Max panted and circled around sniffing for a moment and then jumped onto one of the overstuffed leather seats.
Smart dog.
I was just about to join him when I heard another door creak open.
"Get off my couch, you dumb dog!"
Of course, Max proceeded to ignore him with the aplomb that only a dog could exhibit.
A pause ensued, and then the voice called out again.
"Well, don't just stand there. Come on in!" A voice called out from behind the doorway.
We trooped in, one at a time to what turned out to be a very large library. Everywhere I looked, row upon row of leather-bound books surrounded us. The shelves went all the way up to the top of the extended ceiling and recessed into the darkened interior of the room.
The few empty wall areas that were not filled with bookcases were claimed by several large oil portraits of men and women. They looked out of their frames with dour faces wearing clothing styles from some long forgotten distant past.
"Those people in the paintings always gives me the creeps…" Connor whispered into my ear.
"Who are they?" I whispered back.
"Our long dead ancestors. They were the original people who came here and established Topaz."
"Are they from House Osiris?"
"No. They're so old I bet we all have some genetic link to all of them." He grimaced.
In truth, it really was a bit of a spooky place. There was such an abundance of nooks and crannies casting a multitude of shadows that anyone could hide within the crevices for an extended amount of time.
We approached the center of the room where a huge claw-footed mahogany writing desk took up a good portion of the available space. Its lion-shaped feet rested on a large, multi-patterned red and cream oriental rug.
There was nobody sitting behind the desk.
I looked around, searching for the person who had called out to us, but the room seemed empty of its occupant.
"Uncle Blackstone, stop hiding and come out," Connor bellowed.
From one side of the room, one of the figures in an oil painting squirmed around and jumped up from his chair. He stuck his head out of the frame and gave us a toothy grin.
Holy cow! Was I hallucinating?
I rubbed my eyes, hoping to clear whatever was causing my head trip, but the vision held firm.
It was a short old man with a balding head and wire-rim glasses. He wore a strange period costume piece that looked as if it had been made several hundred years ago.
His red ermine-trimmed cape which he wore over a starched white tunic was held together with a wide metallic gold brooch. On his tiny feet were shiny black boots that were so clean, they looked as if they had never touched the floor.
Seeing my mouth open and close without sound, he giggled into his large balloon sleeves and waved at us with his handkerchief.
"Well hello there!" His huge voice boomed out into the library, echoing up into the rafters.
I stared hard at the old dwarf.
What I had thought was a painting was actually a framed cubicle sunken into a wall. It was completely decorated with a desk and a chair, equally as ornate as those on the floor.
It was only the semi-darkness that had masked what it really was.
The furniture within the cubicle was not full-sized, however. In fact, it looked to be child-sized, which made perfect sense because Dean Blackstone was not even three feet tall.
He jumped out of the false picture frame and floated down until he was a couple of feet from the hardwood floor.
The Dean looked up at us and adjusted his red ermine cape. Then, he took out his pipe and made a big show of sucking on it even though there was no tobacco in the bowl of the pipe.
A curious magenta-colored mist coiled upwards from the bowl, smelling vaguely of peppermint.
"Uncle, Blackstone. As you requested, we are here. We need your help to locate Simon." Corwin batted his hand back and forth, trying to dissipate the hazy purple smoke.
"So," Dean Blackstone interrupted, "you went up the hillside even though I told you it was a waste of time, eh?" He snorted.
"Excuse me?" Corwin blinked.
"I told you boys to bring back the girl and the book, and instead, you take her up the hill, merry-gandering all over the place."
"We weren't merry-gandering!" Corwin sputtered indignantly. He looked away. "What the hell does merry-gandering mean anyway?"
Connor grimaced. "We were following the trail of whatever was causing the disruption wave because Simon said he could tell where it was coming from. We didn't want to lose the trail."
"And yet, not only did you not find out anything about it, you even managed to lose one of my precious students, isn't that so?" The old wizard jabbed the end of his pipe at Connor to make his point.
Corwin and Connor hung their heads.
The Dean scuttled over until he was directly in front of me. He levitated until he was at eye level with me.
I met his watery blue eyes as he peered at me through his gold-rimmed glasses, studying my face with an intensity that was nerve wracking.
"Well, can't say I blame you for taking your time coming back here with the girl. This one's a looker!" He chuckled and resumed sucking on the end of his unlit pipe.
The magenta mist turned thicker—coiling around my head, snakelike. Up close and personal, the peppermint could not mask the faint but obvious smell of burning glue.
"And for your information, you boys were merrily gandering along with a beautiful young girl, hence you were merry-gandering."
He resumed sucking on the end of the unlit pipe. "What about that don't you understand?"
Corwin scowled at the Dean, muttering something under his breath about a "dirty old man," which I was sure had something to do with the fact that his uncle was still inspecting me.
I was glad that the library was immersed in shadows, because my face was starting to grow hot under the Dean's scrutiny.
I jumped, startled when he barked something at me.
"Pardon me? Wh-what was that you said?" I stuttered. For such a small shriveled old man, he wielded such enormous power that I could see it radiating outward from his dwarfish body.
"Listen up when I speak to you, little girl," he blustered. "I asked you where's the book?"
"Uncle, she doesn't have the book," Connor interceded on my behalf. "I believe Simon has it."
"Hush, boy!" Dean Blackstone waved a dismissive hand at Connor and held his gnarled hand out in front of me.
"The book, please," his tone brooked no argument.
Crazy old man was sharper than a bag of tacks.
I glanced at Connor and Corwin then reached into my bag and pulled out the silk-bound book.
For a moment, I thought about not giving it to him but then I decided that wrestling with a short old dwarf was not conducive to my health, especially since the old man was a high powered wizard.
I shoved the book into the Dean's hand.
"Thank you," he said as he floated towards the desk.
"You are now a very wealthy young woman. You currently own the only known copy of Shadow Beings in existence, and it is priceless."
He peered at me. "You can name your price for this book and there will be buyers who will bid a multitude of times upwards just to have the chance to own it. But I suggest you hang onto it. You will need the information held within its page."
He turned back to look at the book. "Might I borrow it for a bit?"
"Y-yes, of course, Dean. But may I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"Yesterday, I delivered a big box of these books, but now you are telling me that this is the only copy left. What happened to all those other books?"
The Dean smiled. "They no longer exist in this dimension. This is the only one left that we know of."
He lowered himself onto the chair which he had magiked at the same time so that it rose up to meet his bottom.
I nearly choked. He was actually sitting on a high chair.
The old Dean saw my stifled laughter and his mouth pursed into a frown.
Uh oh. I was going to receive his wrath from this point forward.
He placed the book in front of him and snapped a finger.
From somewhere to his right, a butler dressed in a black suit and white gloves came through one of the side doors and lit the candelabras on the table.
The candles cast a warm golden glow bright enough to read by.
The butler placed four dainty little tea cups with matching saucers onto the desk and filled them with hot aromatic tea from a delicate tea pot.
"Come closer. Pull up a chair," the Dean gave a flourish of his hand.
"Sit!" He commanded.
We complied with startled gasps as heavy chairs slid forward and hit the backs of our knees. As we fell backward onto the the hard stuffed cushions, the chairs pulled forward until we were properly seated in place.
Max trotted over and plopped himself on top of my feet. He seemed to have abandoned his two old masters and had begun to attach himself onto me.
"Have some of this tea. It's my very best home grown variety." Dean Blackstone raised his cup, sniffing the aroma with enjoyment.
I wasn't much of a tea drinker but the guys drank theirs with no protest so I took the cup nearest me and sipped gingerly.
It was quite good. It had hints of citrus and bergamot, and something else which I could not identify.
I was still trying to figure out what was in the tea when the Dean cleared his throat.
"Do you see that picture hanging over there?" He pointed to a nearby wall.
I turned to where he pointed and found myself gazing upon the portrait of a woman.
Before I could react, I heard a sharp hiss and deep intake of breath from the twins beside me.