by Eileen Wilks
She took special note of the large triangular head lifted high above her own.
His eyes were yellow and looking straight at her. “Mika?” It was him, surely. None of the other dragons were that bright, gaudy red. Only he looked bigger than she remembered. It was hard to tell with his body looped around itself like that, but . . .
“She stopped!”
“I can see that, idiot, get out of—”
“You must come back with us!” A small hand tugged at Lily’s shirt. “She isn’t—”
“Maybe she can talk to her.” This voice was just as high-pitched as the others, yet it carried the feel of age. “Lilyu, can you speak to her?”
“Of course!” piped one of the others. “That’s why she’s—”
“No, that’s not why she’s here, dummy! If she—”
“Quiet,” the older voice snapped. “Lilyu?”
“She?” Breaking the spell of the dragon’s eyes, Lily turned to face the brownies. Five of them clustered around her and Charles, who stood a few feet inside the chamber, stiff-legged, still growling. “What do you mean, she? Isn’t that Mika?”
“Oh, yes.” The speaker nodded firmly, sending her braids dancing—a couple dozen braids, snowy white. Lily had never seen an old brownie, but she was looking at one now. Even her wrinkles were adorable. “Mika was he. Now she’s she, and not in her right mind, which is natural and normal at this stage, but something of a problem. That’s why we hope you can speak to her, though not too long, which might hurt you, and it would be good if you persuaded the wolf to go away. She might be in a mind that doesn’t know she allowed you to bring him.”
“I didn’t bring—”
“Of course you did. Or was that the Lady?” The brownie tapped one finger on her round cheek. “Maybe so, but either way, you—”
“Mika.” She faced the dragon again. “What in the world is going on? Why am I here? What—”
The huge, red-scaled head shot forward, jaws gaping. Brownies scattered. Lily jumped back—but Mika wasn’t aiming for her.
Charles might be old. He might be dying. But he was still fast. Before those jaws could close on him, he was elsewhere—leaping several yards into the chamber to land heavily near one rock wall. The dragon reared back and screeched, an ear-splitting cry of rage.
“Mika!” Lily cried sharply. “Stop that! He’s with me!”
Lily Yu?
The mental voice was familiar, but not because it was Mika’s voice. It wasn’t like any dragon’s mind-voice she’d ever experienced. This voice was hot, not cold, seething with passion and power. Hot and glowing, like magma. A volcano mind—which, she suddenly realized, she was touching with her other sense.
As she’d touched it before. This mind had sent her into sleep.
“Damn you!” she cried, her head pounding viciously. “Don’t you dare put me to sleep again!”
This mind lacks the precision for such work. The male must . . . the words were interrupted by a sort of tactile hiss that scraped along her other sense like a rasp. It hurt. Go away, Lily Yu. Speak with the ones you call brownies. They will speak truly. Do not attempt to leave. Do not mindspeak me again while I am . . . Another burst of that staticky, rasping sensation, then, clearly: . . . strong risk of insanity.
THIRTY-ONE
“IS Mika the one at risk of insanity, or is that me?” Lily demanded.
She sat in a different rocky chamber on a cushion that looked a lot like a dog bed. It may have been a brownie bed; they’d dragged it in from another room. A dozen brownies sat in a circle with her on much smaller cushions. It was a fairly large room, some sort of public or shared space, with a ceiling high enough for Lily to stand without fear of bashing her head.
Not so the tunnel that led here.
Lily had agreed to go with the brownies because (a) they’d promised to tell her what was going on; (b) Mika would probably eat Charles if she didn’t get him away; and (c) she couldn’t get out past eleventy-dozen feet of dragon anyway. The brownies had wanted Charles to return to the chamber where they’d been held captive. He refused to leave her side. After a quick discussion in their own language, they’d given a collective shrug and decided not to worry about it. He lay behind Lily now, dozing.
They’d traveled back along the tunnel she and Charles had run down. This time, with light, Lily had seen several openings. Turned out there was a regular warren of tunnels here—wherever “here” was—tunnels slanting up or down, tunnels opening off other tunnels. Mostly they were sized for brownies. Lily was glad she wasn’t claustrophobic. Rule would have been really uncomfortable here, she’d thought as she followed the white-braided brownie down one low tunnel, bent over uncomfortably to keep from braining herself on the rock overhead. That had brought a flood of other thoughts—useless thoughts, sad thoughts, worried thoughts. Especially the worried ones.
The four brownies who’d gotten rid of the fire curtain were among those seated with Lily now. So was Shisti. She was the only one with a single braid, though Lily had seen other single-braid brownies on the way here. The others in the circle had multiple braids in hair that varied from mostly brown to pure white, and most had wrinkles in their cute little faces.
None had as many braids or wrinkles as the little white-haired woman, who seemed to be in charge. She’d asked what refreshments Lily would like. Lily had devastated them by requesting coffee. They didn’t have any. It took a while to persuade them that something else would do—“as long as it isn’t trail mix. Or worms,” she’d added, thinking of Shisti’s preferred snack. A couple of single-braid brownies had scampered off to fetch what Lily was assured would be a real treat.
The smallest brownie—seven braids, white-streaked hair—answered Lily’s question. “You. Mika’s not crazy, she’s just—”
“—not in her right mind, which is a human term for crazy—”
“But she isn’t. Don’t confuse our guest, Shisti,” the one with the most braids said. She looked at Lily with huge eyes as brilliant a green as those of the youngest of them. “Mika is in a primitive mind just now. She’s dangerous, not crazy.”
“Is that supposed to make sense? Because it doesn’t.” Lily dragged a hand through her hair and longed, briefly but intensely, for shampoo. And a shower. And deodorant.
“You ought to understand,” another one piped up. “Humans are many-minded, too.”
“Unlike us,” put in the brownie who Lily had followed into the woods. “Brownies are single-minded all the time.”
“Like cats.”
“Not dragons, though. They’re many-minded, but they know how to use their minds constructively, unlike you Big People—”
“—who are confused all the time.”
That sent them all off into giggles.
The matriarch sobered first. “Mika is pretty single-minded right now. She’ll stay that way until after the nithelien.”
They all looked grave and nodded at each other.
“What,” Lily asked with all the patience she could muster, “is nithelien?”
Everyone chattered at once, only not in English. A couple of them burst into song. In the midst of the clamor, the pair who’d left came running up to Lily. One presented her with an apple. The other beamed and held out a can of Coke.
“Thank you,” Lily said. It was warm, not cold. Everyone watched her eagerly. None of them had any drinks, she noticed. “Um—are we sharing this?”
Several of them assured her that they hated the nasty stuff, but they knew humans loved it, and to please go ahead and enjoy herself. She popped the top. Warm or not, it was almost as good as coffee, sliding down her throat in an acid-and-sugar rush. After a few swallows she made herself stop.
Another contingent of brownies arrived, this group bearing trays with small cups and bowls, which were passed out quickly. The cups held a liquid the color and consistency of motor oil. One glance at the bowls made Lily glad she’d already vetoed worms.
The white-haired matriarch
sipped her motor oil. “Ahh. It was a good batch this year. Your Coke is good?”
“Wonderful.” Maybe the caffeine in it would help her head. The pain had subsided from the initial ice-pick stage, but a dull throbbing lingered. “What am I to call you?”
The wrinkled face creased in a smile. “Gandalf.”
“Um . . . I thought that was a man’s name.”
“It is a wizard’s name. I,” she said complacently, “am a wizard.”
Lily knew what a sorcerer was. “Mage” and “adept” were familiar terms, too. But wizard? As far as she knew, that designation didn’t exist outside of Tolkien. She wanted badly to ask what the little woman meant, but caught herself. If she followed every conversational oddity the brownies threw out, she’d spend the rest of the day down the rabbit hole. “Gandalf,” she said firmly, “I was kidnapped.”
The woman nodded and selected a worm.
“You’ve held me captive—”
Her eyes rounded in distress. “Not us! We have taken care of you. The wolf, too. Mika kidnapped you. Mika holds you here. We bring you food and water and make you as comfortable as we can.”
“But you’re helping him—”
“Her.”
“Whatever. You’re accomplices. I don’t want to stay here, and you’re helping keep me here. Even if it weren’t for the little problem of potential insanity—”
“But that’s why you were in a place with lots of earth between you and Mika,” Shisti explained, leaning forward. “Contact with her mind hurts your brain. She explained that earlier, before she got stuck in her primitive mind. You must be kept away from her until you figure out something.”
“What?”
The brownie shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s none of our business. But you must be kept separated—”
“—with plenty of rock and earth between you,” another one finished, nodding wisely. Her eyes were a darker green than the others and nestled in fine wrinkles.
“Except that you went running to her!”
“Yes,” said the one on Lily’s right, “and you said she should talk to Mika. That was stupid. She isn’t supposed to do that!”
“But she’ll have to sometime, so maybe then was the right—”
A snort. “Your mother must have dropped you on—”
“Enough,” Lily said loudly, and went on in the brief, startled quiet, “Even if there wasn’t a problem with me maybe going crazy, I can’t stay here. I have duties, and Rule must be frantic.”
The one on Lily’s left patted her knee. “But that’s why Dirty Harry left. To tell your mate that you’re fine.”
“Harry might have trouble doing that if Rule’s still in jail.”
“Jail?” Gandalf turned to the others. “What is jail?”
One answered in a quick burst of that other language.
“Ah. A strange custom, this jail. But so many of you grow big without growing up. I guess you must to do something with youngsters who behave badly. But why would Rule be there? He’s an adult.”
Lily tried to explain. She didn’t think she succeeded. She wondered if she should warn them. They seemed to think that Harry could pop up, tell Rule she was fine, refuse to tell him where she was or anything else, and Rule would be okay with that. They were seriously wrong, but was it her job to correct them?
She decided it was not.
The matriarch patted her arm. “Don’t worry. Harry can get into your jail if he needs to.”
“He’s very strong in dul-dul,” said the one with dark green eyes. “And so good at the game!”
“We all like Dirty Harry,” Shisti added. “He is dependable, even if he is slow to grow up.”
“He has a good laugh,” said the littlest one.
Shisti nodded. “And a very fine penis.”
Lily choked. “That’s what us Big People call too much information.”
That made them all laugh. They agreed with each other that Big People were very funny about sex. Shisti leaned forward to say that she knew about Harry’s penis from before she grew up, of course. The others chimed in with additional explanations.
“You are confused because you Big People don’t know what ‘marriage’ means.”
A snort from Lily’s left. “They know. They don’t do.”
Giggles. “They do this one, and that one, and the next one—”
“—only youngsters go around doing sex with everyone. Rule is an adult. Even Big People must notice that, so they’ll let him leave this jail of yours.”
Lily gave up explaining about law and jails. “I need explanations. Gandalf. You’re in charge here?”
“No, of course not. I’m the boss.”
Cheerful grins all around. “She is very bossy,” one agreed.
“But you can answer my questions.”
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “Yes. You are an efondi.”
Eleven heads bobbed along with her. One them hummed a snatch of melody; two of them repeated, “Efondi.”
“You are permitted to know,” Gandalf went on. “Mika told us to tell you. But first, you must pinkie-swear to never, ever reveal what I am about to say.”
“No.”
Brownie babble erupted. Three of them sprang to their feet. Some forgot to use English. Shisti burst into tears. The gist seemed to be that Lily absolutely, positively had to pinkie-swear.
Lily raised her voice over the babble. “Mika told you to tell me. Don’t you have to do what he says?”
“What she says, silly!”
“Yes, but she doesn’t—”
“No one can know!”
“She has to—”
Lily raised her voice more. “Mika told you to tell me. She did not say I had to pinkie-swear.” Lily was gambling now. Dragons could mindspeak one person or many; Lily hadn’t been privy to whatever Mika said to the brownies. Shoot, she didn’t even know what all Mika had said to her. The painful static had drowned out parts.
Dead silence. It was wonderful. It didn’t last. Gandalf said slowly, “Mika didn’t say you didn’t have to swear silence.”
“No, she didn’t. But dragons are very precise in their speech. If Mika had wanted me to pinkie-swear, wouldn’t she have said so?”
Gandalf’s cute little wrinkled face screwed up in thought. She said something in her language. Some of the others responded in the same tongue—a lilting sort of speech, suited to their high-pitched voices.
That went on for a while. Lily drank more Coke. It wasn’t getting rid of her headache, but it tasted good. She took a bite of the apple. It was delicious, sweet and tart in just the right way.
She’d almost finished both apple and Coke when Gandalf spoke in English again. “We cannot decide what Mika intended. We can’t ask her. We used much power making her listen long enough to let down the fire, and now . . .” She sighed. “This isn’t in the ithnali, and it has been long and long since we served. We have no guide other than the ithnali. Mika did not say you had to pinkie-swear, but she does not think so clearly in her current mind. Maybe she assumed . . . still, she did not say, so we are not wrong to tell you without the swearing, and she said to tell you. But if you tell someone else, very likely Mika or another dragon will kill zhe.”
“Or tamper with zhe’s mind,” another one added seriously. “The black dragon could do that without destroying the mind. I think. Maybe.”
“But probably just kill,” Gandalf said.
A dozen adorable heads bobbed in agreement.
“And the dragons will find out, if you tell. They watch for such knowledge. So I think you shouldn’t tell anyone who you want to live.”
“Ah.” Lily’s mouth felt dry. She finished her Coke. “This is a big-deal secret to the dragons.”
Everyone nodded again, including Gandalf, who leaned forward. “Listen and heed,” she said in a singsong. “In the way-back time, when brownies first came to be, we were friends with squirrels and birds, as now. Then as now, we laughed with the trees, played with raccoo
ns, and teased the badger. But we were few and then fewer, for we were small, and we had no dul-dul.”
A chorus of hisses, sighs, and head shakes greeted that announcement.
“The dragons came to us and offered to make a great change, to give us the dul-dul. In return, we would serve them at their tinaitha. They needed us. We needed them. This was af’Yaldo—The Big Deal. No one knows of af’Yaldo, save only brownies and dragons.”
“And efondi,” put in the littlest one.
“And efondi,” Gandalf agreed, “But efondi are either dragons or dragon-descended. And possibly the Queens . . . we are not sure about the Queens. They may know. They have lived a long, long time. But otherwise, only brownies and dragons—”
“And the Queen’s Hound,” piped up the smallest brownie. “He knows.”
This was one interruption too many. Gandalf snapped, “We do not know if he knows.”
“The dragons don’t like him.”
Gandalf sniffed. “He lives, doesn’t he?”
An argument sprang up, not always in English. Most seemed to think that the Hound’s continued existence proved that he didn’t know about The Big Deal, though a couple of them disagreed for reasons unclear to Lily, as they were expressed in terms of brownie logic. In other words, they made no sense at all. The discussion might have gone on indefinitely, but Gandalf cleared her throat loudly and the others subsided. She folded her hands in her lap and finished. “And so it has been, down through the ages.”
“So it was and is,” the others chorused.
Shisti turned to grin at Lily. “Isn’t that cool?”
That started them off again. This time they argued about the word “cool.” It was a subject they felt passionate about, with half of them disdaining the word—which, one of them said, didn’t deserve any encouragement—and the other half vociferous advocates. Gandalf tried clearing her throat again, to no effect. So she bopped the two sitting next to her on their heads.
“Ow!”
“Why did you do that?”
