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here."
    Brynhild shuddered.
    People hovered around Mom, telling her things would be all right, helping her stand, helping her up onto her horse. I couldn't even get close.
    We took the two now-extra horses with us, Abbot Simon's and Brynhild's, and headed back across the woods toward our original path. Just before the trees closed in around us, I looked back to the bank by the pool. I was just in time to see Brynhild twitch yet again, to hear Abbot Simon say, "Game?" yet again.
Looping,
Cornelius had said.
    Awfully touchy program,
I thought.

7. LUNCH

    "Maybe," Marian suggested to Mom after we'd ridden awhile, "your head hurts because we missed lunch. It's got to be way past noon. Maybe we should stop to eat."
    Girl's reasoning. And dippy girl's reasoning at that.
    But after all, Mom was a girl too, and maybe Marian knew what she was talking about. Maybe a meal
would
make her feel better. Maybe.
    Cornelius had already reined in. "Come to think of it," he announced, "I'm starved. This looks as likely a spot as any."
    "No," Nocona said.
    It wasn't that he raised his voice or sounded panicked or anything. But something about the way he said it stopped me, catching me between two breaths just as I shifted balance to dismount. "What?" I said, seeing him sitting up real straight, his eyes scanning the wooded area around us. "What is it?" I was suddenly aware how close the woods were to the road. Awfully close. I could pick no unusual sounds out of the silence. The rising and falling song of a robin. The distinctive chirps of sparrows, closer in. The background hum of insects. A hint of a breeze in the topmost branches.
    Marian glanced from me to Nocona. "I don't hear anything," she announced, at the same moment Robin said, "I don't see anything."
    Mom was looking like, "Oh no, not something else."
    Only half paying attention to us, still scanning, Nocona said, "This would make an excellent site for an ambush."
    Feordin released the breath he had been holding, a dismissive snort. "There's no way the townsfolk could have circled around and beaten us here."
    Nocona didn't bother with an answer.
    I said, "The townsfolk aren't the only ones we need to worry about."
    "You worry too much," Cornelius said. But as soon as he dismounted, he closed his eyes and raised his hands to shoulder level. "Mmmmm," he said, sounding more constipated than anything else. "Mmmmm." Very slowly he rotated 360 degrees. He was probably supposed to look like a human radar detector. "Mmmmm." He switched directions and did another complete turnabout. "Nothing," he finally told us. "I detect no magic."
    That seemed to satisfy most of the others, but Nocona said, "An ambush wouldn't have to be magic."
    "Fine," Cornelius snapped. "Shall I do another spell? A Reveal Evil spell? But wait, that would only work if it were someone inherently evil who wanted to ambush us. I better cast some Wizards' Lightning too and hope I hit something lurking out there. And then maybe a Fireball, just to be sure. In fact, maybe I should make us all invisible. Maybe I should expend all my magic making sure this place is safe enough for us to sit down for twenty minutes, since you think maybe, just possibly, this spot
could
be a good place for an ambush,
if
someone wanted to ambush us."
    Everybody else was already dismounted, more concerned about lunch than the possibility of attack.
    I swung off my horse, the last one except Nocona to do so. "Give it a rest, Corny," I said. "Sarcasm makes wrinkles around your eyes." That's one of my mom's sayings, and I hoped it'd cheer her up to have me say it; but Marian was bustling her away to a spot under one of the trees, and she didn't hear.
    Cornelius looked at me like he was considering detonating my head. Instead, he said to Nocona, "If you're so concerned about ambush, then you can stand watch for the rest of us." He turned haughtily and joined the group around the packhorse, rummaging for the field rations.
    Nocona stalked away from the