Thomas got up and prowled around the beast, as if he was astonished by it. Amazing, he repeated. And you are, for all intents and purposes, the beast. Correct?
The tiger nodded.
I can see where these forms would be useful, the cat said thoughtfully. If you wanted to hunt someone, but did not want to chance the blame falling on you, all you would need to do would be to get him alone, take on the animal, and—
The tiger made a snickering sound, nodded, and the shape writhed again, and Thomas found himself staring up into the long tusks and whiskered cheeks of a walrus. I cannot imagine how that shape would be useful, he said doubtfully.
The troll returned to the shape of Nina. “Then you have never fallen off a ship in winter,” she said, with an air of superiority. He wondered about that statement. Had she fallen—or had she been pushed? He’d have bet on the latter.
I will take your word for it. Can you become a bird?
“Of course. But—” She frowned more deeply. “I do not care to do so for long. There is only so much thinking so little a head can do.” She made gesture of impatience. “So, why is it you have come to me, cat? Have you no loyalty to your mistress?”
Thomas snorted. I am a cat. When is a cat loyal to anything but his own best interest?
The feral smile that greeted that statement made him shudder. “Ha! Well said. And you wish to be on the winning side in this?”
He looked at her sideways. Let us say that I know where my own best interest lies.
“And what is it that you can do for me, cat?” Nina asked, taking her place on her chaise longue again, and curling up in a rather catlike pose herself. “I have servants. In fact, I have more than I need. You do not have hands, you cannot even do what they do.”
But I can go where they cannot. His keen hearing had detected something. A familiar footstep, coming slowly, cautiously forward.
Ninette! He very nearly leapt to his feet and ran out of the room then, and it was all he could do to keep himself from calling out Ninette’s name. The Troll clearly had no difficulty hearing and understanding his projected thoughts, and he was afraid to warn Ninette lest it should hear. How had she found him? Why was she here? How could he get her to escape? Could she escape?
Say you want to know what your lover is saying about you when you are on stage. I can creep under the seats, or into the private boxes and listen. He began speaking rapidly, hoping to hold the Troll’s attention. I can spy on him, or anyone else, as they sleep. I can find out the secrets of your rivals, I can learn anything you wish to have found out. A cat can go almost anywhere.
She laughed. “So you say. But I can become a cat too, or better still, a rat or a mouse. You say that a cat can go anywhere, but if I need to learn something all that badly, I can go where even a cat cannot, between the walls where no one would even suspect my existence.”
The footsteps had ceased; Thomas could tell that Ninette had stopped just out of sight, at the side of the doorway. Was she listening? Did she understand what she was hearing?
Had she thought to summon help before she came after him?
Oh come now! Thomas reproved. All these other things you have turned yourself into were quite large. It is one thing to make yourself into something human-sized or larger. But to make yourself into a mouse? I believe you are telling me a tale.
Nina reddened slightly with anger. “You doubt my abilities?”
Oh, I am sure you can make yourself into the form of a mouse, but it would have to be a mouse the size of a tiger. He licked his paw and rubbed it nonchalantly across his whiskers. It takes real skill in magic to be able to shrink yourself that way, and I have never actually seen anyone that could do that—outside of a spirit, since they don’t have any material body to begin with and can look like whatever they like.
“You think I don’t have the skill?” Nina shouted. She jumped up from the chaise longue. “I will show you, skill, cat! I will show you skill such as you have never seen!”
There came one of those moments in magic when the world seems to turn itself inside out.
This is because, in many ways, it is doing just that.
No human could have done what the Troll did, because no human had control over Earth magic energies and the Element of Earth that the Greater Elementals themselves did. Few humans could travel to any of the Elemental Planes, and fewer still returned to tell their story. And to tell the truth, Thomas had not really expected that the Troll had that level of skill. He had mostly been taunting it, to keep it from noticing Ninette.
The room suddenly seemed simultaneously far too small, and as large as a cathedral. The air thickened, and grew desert-hot. Thomas could not look at the Troll—not because he didn’t want to. He literally could not look at it. It had become some strange amorphous conglomeration of swirling energy clouds that wrenched at the eyes and felt all wrong, with something vaguely human-shaped in the middle of it. All the senses revolted at what was going on. It was impossible. It should not be. The eyes refused to believe what they were seeing, and then mind shied away from contemplating how the laws of physics were being shattered. The cloud of energies pulsed and vibrated and shuddered.
And the human shape was shrinking.
The more it shrank, the more things felt wrong. The air throbbed with power; power that tasted foul and made Thomas’s stomach heave. There were no names for the colors in that swirling cloud, no names for the fetid scents that wreathed around him, and above all, no names for what the troll was doing.
Thomas wasn’t entirely sure himself.
In theory, what the troll was doing was dividing himself, some of “himself” going back to wherever it was Earth Elementals came from, the rest slowly forming itself into a mouse.
Finally, with a whuff of displaced air, the energies dissipated. The air cleared a trifle. And Thomas looked down.
I told you, the mouse said, smugly.
24
NINETTE froze for a moment at the sound of a voice, then moved forward, inch by cautious inch, sliding her feet along the carpet so as not to make any noise at all. She identified the right door, partly from the fact that it was half open, and partly from the voice—
A female voice, oddly without any accent at all, and—speaking only one side of a conversation—
Then she edged a little nearer and suddenly the second “voice” faded into her head.
Thomas.
What was being said still made no sense to her, though:
I must say, I have heard about you Earth Elementals, but I never heard of one as powerful or as clever as you.
“Nor will you, I am unique!”
I can see that. Is it true that you can change shape? I mean, change it to something other than your native form and this one? I had heard that some of the most powerful of Elementals can do that, but I have never seen it. Truly, I was thinking it must be some kind of myth.
“I can take any form I care to, as long as I have absorbed the original. Watch.”
Thomas was talking to an Earth Elemental? But what kind? The Brownie couldn’t change shape, and what did this have to do with the man who had attacked her?
Surely—surely that man was not somehow connected to the mage that was trying to hurt her and her friends? But his attack had been completely ordinary, the assault on her mind, she was sure, a matter of mere accident. Why suddenly switch from magic to a completely mundane attack?
To throw us off the track? To distract us?
But this Elemental, why was Thomas talking to it?
She felt something, a kind of air-quake, and then there was the sound of completely animalistic growling. She pressed her back flat against the wall, her skin crawling with primitive fear at the sound. Whatever was in there, it was no dog. It said it was changing form—into what?
She lost the next bit of exchange as she fought the urge to turn and run. Thomas was still in there, still frightened, and she could not leave him. She would not leave him. Help would be coming soon,
she still had her revolver. Jonathon and Nigel could find her by that, for they had handled it, and could track her by it. “Then you have never fallen off a ship in winter,” the woman said, when the growls faded and the air quaked a few more times. Ninette blinked. What form had she taken?
The whole conversation had an unreal air to it, the same chaotic, disjointed air of a nightmare.
I will take your word for it. Can you become a bird?
“Of course. But—I do not care to do so for long. There is only so much thinking so little a head can do. So, why is it you have come to me, cat? Have you no loyalty to your mistress?”
Why was he talking to her?
For a moment, there was doubt. Then her own good sense told her why. Thomas had thought to spy on this . . . creature. Whatever she was. And she had caught him. He was buying time, trying to find a way out of his predicament by getting her to talk.
I am a cat. When is a cat loyal to anything but his own best interest?
“Ha! Well said. And you wish to be on the winning side in this?”
She felt his revulsion. That alone told her that he was trying to bluff his way out.
Let us say that I know where my own best interest lies.
“And what is it that you can do for me, cat? I have servants. In fact, I have more than I need. You do not have hands, you cannot even do what they do.”
Ninette frowned. An Earth Elemental? Had servants? That made no sense—Elementals did not have servants. Did they?
But I can go where they cannot.
At that moment she felt a surge of excitement from him, excitement and recognition. He knew she was here!
Say you want to know what your lover is saying about you when you are on stage. I can creep under the seats, or into the private boxes and listen. I can spy on him, or anyone else, as they sleep. I can find out the secrets of your rivals, I can learn anything you wish to have found out. A cat can go almost anywhere.
She laughed. “So you say. But I can become a cat too, or better still, a rat or a mouse. You say that a cat can go anywhere, but if I need to learn something all that badly, I can go where even a cat cannot, between the walls where no one would even suspect my existence.”
Oh, come now! Thomas reproved. All these other things you have turned yourself into were quite large. It is one thing to make yourself into something human-sized or larger. But to make yourself into a mouse? I believe you are telling me a tale.
She sensed something from him that she could not read. She concentrated. What was he getting at? And—how could anyone turn into a mouse?
Don’t question it, she scolded herself, feeling the air of danger behind the words. Just listen, and be prepared to act!
“You doubt my abilities?”
Oh, I am sure you can make yourself into the form of a mouse, but it would have to be a mouse the size of a tiger. It takes real skill in magic to be able to shrink yourself that way, and I have never actually seen anyone that could do that—outside of a spirit, since they don’t have any material body to begin with and can look like whatever they like.
“You think I don’t have the skill?” The words were shouted, and angry. Thomas was getting her angry, maybe to keep her from thinking. A mouse, a mouse—had she somehow forgotten that he was a cat? “I will show you, skill, cat! I will show you skill such as you have never seen!”
If the magic before had made an air-quake, this made a kind of reality-quake. Ninette closed her eyes, tried to make herself one with the wall behind her, as the world took itself apart and put itself back together again, all in a moment. And then did it all over again. And again.
She was finding it hard to breathe, Whatever was going on in there, it was like nothing she had ever experienced before.
Terror closed in all around her. She went, hot, then cold, and she wanted nothing more to do than to flee in a panic. Death was all around her, and she could feel it breathing down her neck. She had never, in all her life, been so certain that in the next moment, she might very well die.
She fought the terror, and slowly, with infinite care, pulled the gun from her pocket and cocked the trigger. Thomas was counting on her. She could not let him down.
Finally, with a whuff of displaced air, it stopped. The air cleared a trifle. Ninette sucked in the first full breath in several minutes.
I told you, a new mental voice said, smugly.
And at that moment, Ninette knew what Thomas had been trying for. Yes, he had wanted the woman to become a mouse, if she could. He had thought he could trick her, then kill her.
But she, even in her anger, had called him “cat.”
She had not forgotten what he was!
Ninette stifled the warning shriek in her throat and whipped around the corner of the door, shoving it open with her shoulder, revolver at the ready as she had been taught.
She saw Thomas in mid-leap on what seemed to be a helpless mouse.
Except the mouse wasn’t so helpless. And whatever it really was had been expecting him to do just that.
There was another silent explosion of energies, and Thomas was caught by the neck by something strange, dough-like, smelling of rotting loam.
And Ninette did not even think. As she had been taught, she squeezed off the trigger in quick succession, aiming for the center of—whatever it was.
Six explosions shattered the air in the room. Six bullets, just as she and Ailse had loaded them. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.
The gun bucked in her hand, but she brought it back to the target each time, each bullet impacting the thing in front of her, a mere eight feet from her, with a force that drove it back a little. Six bullets. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.
It dropped Thomas, who wheezed as he scrambled out of the way, and then scuttled behind her. And—whatever it was—began to scream and dissolve. She couldn’t tell which of her bullets had that effect, but when the gun was empty, she backed up as far as she could, and fumbled more bullets out of her pocket, inserting them into the mechanism without taking her eyes off the thing. The reek of gunpowder filled the room, and a waft of smoke made her eyes water.
It was trying to change shape, only it couldn’t settle on one—horribly, the mass was producing an arm, three legs, half a woman’s face in one spot, a man’s eyes in another. And several mouths, all of them open, all of them screaming—
Keep shooting! Thomas shrieked, terror filling him, filling her—as if she wasn’t panicked enough on her own! But her hands knew what to do, even if her mind was gibbering in inchoate fear. She got the bullets into the chamber, dropping two. She raised the gun. She took aim and squeezed the trigger, and six more explosions shattered the gurgling screams. Blessed Lead. Cold Iron. Silver.
“Where’s the head?” she screamed herself, as her hands fumbled more bullets into the hot chambers. “Where’s the heart?”
There—there! Thomas exclaimed, somehow forcing her to see where he was looking. The spot was between two of the mouths, where the dirt-colored skin seemed thicker and smoother. She took aim. Fired.
Five of the six hit; the sixth went wild as the thing convulsed, and the room somehow rocked without moving at all. A thick wave of fetid air hit her in the chest, and knocked her backwards through the door and into the wall of the hallway, Thomas with her. The thing somehow—
The mind couldn’t grasp what it became—it was simultaneously twenty, thirty, maybe fifty different people and animals, and at the same time, it was a towering mud-doll that was all malice, all malignance, all hatred. She cried out and brought up her arm to shield her face, then flung herself sideways, somehow scooping up Thomas and taking him with her.
The wall where she had been was caved in by the force of the silent explosion, channeled through the doorway.
For one moment, it became very, very quiet.
Then—the howling, the mindless, wordless baying began.
She rolled over, dazed. “What . . .”
Get up! Get up! Thomas shrieked in her mind,
his words like ice-picks jabbed into her brain. It’s not over yet! Its servants are loose, and without the Troll to control them, all they want is prey!
Prey—and we’re the prey! She struggled to her feet and lurched down the hall after Thomas.
She stopped at the foot of the stairs as he scrambled upwards. But—
They have us cut off from going down! Up! he urged. She followed after him, revolver still clutched in her hand, the other feeling in her pocket for more cartridges. “Will bullets do any good?” she shouted after him, as from below, she heard the howling come nearer and felt the staircase shake under the pounding of feet.
They’d better, came the grim reply.
They reached the top floor, where the servants would have slept—if the servants had been human and needed sleep. Dust was half an inch thick here, and rose in clouds as they ran for the farthest room. They darted inside the door. The howling continued from the stairwell.
The bedstead! Thomas shouted. Make a barricade across the door!
Fear gave her strength she hadn’t realized that she had. She slammed the door shut, then dragged the iron bedframe across the tiny room. jamming it in place across the door.
The howling was on their floor now, and the floor itself shook with the pounding of feet.
She reloaded the gun. Please tell me you sent for help, Thomas begged.
“I sent for help. I just hope the young man Ailse is seeing is not very fascinating.”
Then there was no time. They were at the door.
Without any preamble, they began pounding on it, trying to break it down. The sturdy old oak resisted their efforts for a long time, and Ninette resisted the temptation to either fire through the door, or burst into tears and throw the gun away. Finally, with a splintering sound, a great fist crashed through a door panel.
Ninette began firing, her back to the window.
It’s too high, Thomas said in despair behind her. It’s straight down to the street. I can’t make a drop like that—
If he couldn’t, neither could she.
She fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded. There seemed no end to the things, or else her bullets were having no effect other than to make them angry. Then her hand closed on the last two bullets.
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