This mouse... is an unusual mouse.
It walks (rather than scampering or scurrying) down the road. When carts or dogs approach it hides in the foliage, but it merely gives human travelers a berth of a few feet.
Also, it's got what looks like a cloth bandage wrapped around a stretch of its tail, with a rusty stain seeping through it.
A human traveler comes strolling down the road, and spots this unusually civilized mouse, and slows his steps in intrigued contemplation.
The mouse looks back at him.
Its eyes aren't red, as one might expect of such a snowy-white mouse. Nor are they black, as one might expect of a merely coincidentally white mouse. They're blue, and they look entirely wrong in its face.
(Its tail waves in what might be fear, but it doesn't scurry away.)
"Excuse me," he says, stopping at what he imagines might be a comfortable distance away for a small shy mouse, well out of reach for even such a tall fellow's long arms. "Do you happen to be in need of any assistance?"
The mouse squints at him. Then it effortfully scratches a few words, barely large enough to read, in the hard-packed dirt of the road:
yes. on way to wizard. tiny legs, cats out here. pocket? no coin but good deeds good for heart
He has to step closer and crouch in the dust to make out the words, but he does it.
"I have many pockets," he says, "and you are welcome to whichever of them strikes your fancy. I was headed for Tumbledown Pond, but I suppose I don't see why I couldn't take you farther into the Crooked Hills than that, if your errand is as urgent as it seems to be."
The mouse tries to make its next words larger, and mostly just makes them wobblier.
thank you. have heard there is a mad wizard. would seek sane wizard, but. already mouse.
"I have definitely also heard that there is a wizard in the Crooked Hills. Whether he is mad or sane seems to be a subject of some debate."
"I suppose it would not shock me to learn that you had had some bad experiences with wizards. Under the circumstances."
"Well," he says, smiling wryly, "as it happens, my name is Isfain of the Crooked Hills. I like to think of myself as saner than the average wizard but in such subjective matters it is always a good idea to remain humble about the possibility that history will disagree."
"No need! If I found my reputation as offensive as all that, I would move elsewhere and cultivate a different one. Would you still like a pocket-ride to my tower?"
yes please. was not joking about cats.
And Jojo, after nervously scrubbing his face with his paws, hops into Isfain's coat pocket.
Isfain is very tall; it's a long walk to the Crooked Hills, but shorter than it might have been. They pass the pond after about an hour and a half, and continue into the Crooked Hills along an unmarked path that seems to be walked so seldom you could hardly call it a path at all, and might in fact mostly be used by deer. There are several stretches where no path is visible whatsoever, and Isfain just strolls through a blackberry patch or flower-filled meadow on a heading known only to himself.
Jojo looks around curiously as they travel! He tries not to look down, but around is allowed.
The Crooked Hills are generally regarded as rocky, inhospitable, and a bad place to be, but Isfain sure seems to know how to find all the prettiest parts. Or maybe their reputation is undeserved.
Anyway, here is his tower. It's tall and round and graceful and the stonework is really quite something. The tall, imposing, austerely beautiful doors swing open silently at his approach.
Long, up-and-down squeak which may be intended to emulate an impressed whistle.
Isfain laughs softly. "Why thank you! I'm very proud of it."
He strides into the building, through the cavernous empty foyer, and up the stairs, taking the first door he sees into a cozy little sitting room. There he first offers Jojo a hand on which to depart his pocket, then, should this venture be accepted, deposits him on a desk and conjures a pot of ink and a sheet of paper with two little flicks of his fingers.
"Do you think you can relate to me the tale of how you arrived in this state? Oh, excuse me a moment, I have just had an attack of foresight—" and, tapping the surface of the desk twice in quick succession, he also conjures a tiny ceramic bowl and a folded handkerchief. The ceramic bowl fills with water when he prods it with a fingertip. "In case you'd like to wash your hands," he explains. "If you'd prefer a pen, I'll see what I can do, but I don't believe I have any small enough, so I'd have to make one."
Jojo dips his right-front paw into the ink and begins writing. It's a bit smeary and a bit spotty, but it's much better than his dirt-scratchings.
Thank you! I think any pen small enough that I could manipulate it would also produce writing too small for you to comfortably read. If it could even hold ink. ...maybe a paintbrush? Anyway, I'm fine getting my paws dirty, especially as you're kind enough to provide a bath.
I have lately been an adventurer. I was employed as a guard by a small archaeological expedition, excavating an ancient tower not terribly far from here - perhaps half a league northwest. While my employers were sorting through the wizard's possessions, I noticed a glimmer of gold poking out of the earth outside. I excavated the artifact in the expectation of turning it over to the archaeologists. It was a small golden curio, a basketwork sphere formed from two joined hemispheres. I twisted them absently, and I became a mouse. My clothing and possessions fell to the ground, the curio included. I attempted to notify my employers, but they did not make the connection between the disappearance of their guard and the appearance of a very insistent mouse. They gathered what they could find and left; I snuck into a backpack, and thus made it about halfway back to civilization before being discovered and expelled.
"I see. That sounds like a very troubling time for you and I'm sorry to hear about it. Well, you're welcome to stay here while I do my best to figure out how to turn you back into a person. Can you tell me anything you know about whose tower you were excavating and what they were like? Do you know what became of the sphere?"
...I can't say I know much about the tower's former inhabitant. My employers didn't tell me very much; my job was not to know things, but to repel thieves. The archaeologists kept the sphere, though they did not meddle with it.
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