Her mistress frowned impatiently. She was in no mood to talk with him.
“He waits at the palace door,” continued Creeping Shadow, “and says that he will remain there until you are pleased to receive him.”
“Go, then, and bring him hither,” was the reluctant answer. “I will hear what he has to say.”
Creeping Shadow hastened to obey, and presently returned accompanied by a dwarfed creature, black as the blackest soot and clad in raiment as dusky as himself. It was the Chief Imp, a trusted messenger of the Wizard.
The Shadow Witch especially disliked him. He was at times impertinent when he came on her brother’s errands, therefore she held herself haughtily and folded her robes closer about her when he drew near.
But the Chief Imp bore himself humbly today and his disagreeable face wore an air of deep distress. He bowed himself to the earth, and waited permission to speak.
“What says your master?” demanded the Shadow Witch imperiously. “Speak.”
“Alas!” groaned the Imp, as if in profound grief, “My master lies in his cavern sick unto death. He begs that you will come to him, and, by your magic, restore him to himself.”
The Shadow Witch regarded him unmoved. “Has so great a magician as my brother no magic of his own that will be potent to restore him, that he must ask aid of mine?” she inquired.
“Nay, madam,” replied the Chief Imp, rolling up his eyes, “He has tried every means within his power and grows no better. He turns to you, therefore, in his extremity and beseeches you not to refuse him.”