Free The Vanishing Sculptor by Donita K. Paul Page A

Beccaroon’s amazement, the timid beast disappeared into the folds of the cloth.
    After a moment, the wizard stood. “Sir Bec, where are you? Shouldn’t we be on our way?”
    Beccaroon tsked again. As if I’m the one stopping every whipstitch to examine the flora and fauna.
    He spread his red wings and glided to the forest floor. “This way,” he said and parted the branches obscuring the path.
    If he’d flown, the journey would have taken three minutes. If he’d walked with Tipper, it would have taken ten. But guiding the two men from Amara through the jungle, prodding them past mundane foliage that the librarian declared “exquisite,” and getting the wizard back on his feet after his many stops for “a bit of a rest” lengthened the expedition to an hour and three-quarters. Wizard Fenworth and Librettowit exhausted all of Beccaroon’s patience.
    “We’re here,” he announced and gestured toward a vine-covered statue only two feet tall.
    The wizard glared at the overgrown vegetation. The branches loosened their hold on the sculpture, dropping to form a circle at the base of a carved boy hunched over an animal in his cold hand.
    The wizard raised an eyebrow at his companion. “Well, help me lift it, Librettowit.”
    Beccaroon eyed the heavy stone and the two old men. “You can’t possibly carry that statue.”
    The wizard grunted as he leaned over the boy. “Not in our arms, of course.” He spread his cloak around the statue. “There, I’ve got his head in the opening, Librettowit. Just tip him in.”
    The librarian took hold of the base of the statue and thrust it upward and over, sliding it into the opening. The cape bulged momentarily, then hung flat again. Both men straightened.
    “One down,” said the wizard.
    “Two to go,” said the tumanhofer.
    Wizard Fenworth took a step, and his robe flowed as it had before. No lump or sagging in the cloth indicated that a heavy statue was stored within.
    “What did you do?” asked Beccaroon. “Where is Verrin Schope’s sculpture?”
    “In a hollow,” answered the wizard, holding his cloak open so the bird could see the lining. “It looks just like these other pockets, but the opening leads to a… hmm. How to explain it? Librettowit?”
    The tumanhofer stroked his beard. “If you were to open a cupboard door and place an object, say a cup, on the shelf and close the door, you would know that the cup is in that cabinet, on a shelf.” He pantomimed putting a cup into a cupboard. “When you put an object in a hollow, the object is still there but not just on the other side of a door.”
    “Confusing!” The wizard waved his hands in front of him, and a myriad of creatures escaped his sleeves, some dropping to the forest floor and scurrying off, some flying to nearby branches. “Are you talking about a pocket or a cabinet?”
    “A hollow,” stated the librarian.
    “You’re making things altogether too complicated.” Wizard Fen-worth turned to Beccaroon. “When we put the statue in my pocket, we more specifically put the statue in a hollow. Therefore, it is there but not there. It is essentially far away in another place but quite positively there instead of the there you expect. Understand? It’s simple.”
    Tired of the muddled rhetoric, Beccaroon nodded. “I see. Shall we go on to the next hiding place? I assume another statue will fit in this hollow.”
    Wizard Fenworth waved one hand as if dismissing any doubts. “A hollow will accommodate any number of things as long as the thing initially fits through the opening.”
    “The openings do not stretch,” said Librettowit.
    Fenworth grinned and held up one finger. “But I have more than one hollow with varying sizes of openings.”
    Librettowit spoke softly as he shuffled away from his tall friend. “And even I have a hollow.”
    “He does indeed,” said the wizard with his face pulled into a frown. “But he has odd notions.”
    “Precautions,” objected the