Mind Magic (42 page)

They didn’t much care for right angles. The little adobe houses seemed to have sprouted from the earth like oversize mushrooms, their walls festooned with vines or pebble mosaics, their roofs like moss-covered caps—some coming to jaunty peaks and others more like berets. Most of those houses must be empty, she thought as she finished her hamburger, judging by the number of brownies gathered on the green. For the first time she saw brownie children. She couldn’t tell which were boys, which girls. It didn’t matter. Even the ear-splitting pitch of their voices didn’t matter—at least, not much. Brownie kids took cute to a whole new level.

They’d even carried someone out on a litter which they set down carefully near Gandalf. The litter’s occupant was tiny, shrunken, muffled in covers, and looked comatose. Actually she looked dead, but Lily didn’t think even brownies would bring a corpse to the party.

Still . . . brownies. To be sure, she oh-so-gently nudged her mindsense in that direction. A couple of ibuprofen from her recovered purse had her headache on its way out, but it wasn’t gone. Sure enough, there was a shiny brownie-mind associated with that unmoving body. Lily let her sense coil back up inside her. “Is that the oldest great-mother?” What was the name . . . “Old Talla?”

“Oh, yes,” Shisti said. She’d managed to wedge herself in on Lily’s left side despite considerable competition. “She wouldn’t want to miss this.”

Charles and Rule had already finished their hamburgers. Charles lay behind Lily, dozing again. Rule sat on Lily’s right, talking with the alleged terrorist, who’d chosen trail mix over meat. At the moment the terrorist was exhausted, possibly traumatized, and enraptured by brownies. Rapture, with Danny, took the form of lots and lots of questions. Lily could relate, though she hoped she wasn’t quite that much of a pest herself. Danny went in pursuit of brownie facts with the single-minded excitement of a puppy chasing its tail.

She was also apparently capable of nearly defeating the NSA single-handed. Nearly hadn’t been enough, but Lily badly wanted to talk to that young woman.

“. . . and their horses!” Danny’s hands flew out, narrowly missing Rule’s nose. “Aren’t they the most beautiful things you ever saw? I’d read someplace that brownies kept horses, but I thought that meant little ponies. You know, brownie-size. But they’re Clydesdales!”

The three nearest brownies all started explaining at once that their horses were not Clydesdales, but a breed called Shires, which were superior to other horses in every way. They set out to explain each and every one of those ways.

Lily leaned against Rule, mostly because she could. He put his arm around her, probably for the same reason. “You haven’t told me a bloody thing,” he murmured.

“I know.” She was almost as unhappy about that as he was, and he was pretty damn unhappy. Again that shivery, barely there touch brushed her mind. She didn’t have to uncoil her own sense to feel it. She wanted so much to tell Rule about it. “I have to figure out—”

“Rule Turner.” That was Gandalf, rising to address him. “We have fed you. Are you calm?”

“Moderately.”

“Then explain to us why you violated your sworn—eep!”

Rule had moved suddenly, rising to his feet. “Be careful. Be very careful what you say.”

Gandalf tilted her head back to glare up at him. “You were not to use the privilege of entry save when it was utterly necessary in the war against our common enemy.”

“I swore not to use it save in an emergency. Is there something about being chased by a helicopter spraying machine gun fire which doesn’t strike you as an emergency?”

“You know what was intended—”

“I know what I swore. If you intended something else, why did you not put that intention in words?”

The brownie babble that arose was summed up pretty well by Harry’s comment: “Got you there, Gandalf.”

Gandalf did her best impression of a fierce scowl. She looked so damn cute, trying to scowl. “You shouldn’t be here. You weren’t supposed to come here. You were supposed to stay in the government city.”

Rule’s voice was low and every bit as fierce as Gandalf’s wasn’t. “My mate was taken. Did you think I wouldn’t come looking for her? No,” he said more loudly when a couple dozen of them protested that they hadn’t snatched Lily. “Don’t tell me you didn’t actually kidnap her. You were part of it.” His voice kept gaining volume. “All of you conspired with someone else—someone whom no one will name—to kidnap and hold my mate against her will. My people have gone to war for such an act!”

The last sentence rolled out like thunder. No one spoke. Or moved.

Rule let the silence drag out before breaking it. “We have been allies. Because of that, I give you a chance to explain. Were you forced to cooperate? Did you act against your will?”

The brownies responded like a class of unruly, overeager philosophy students prompted by their teacher. They burst into discussion. What was the real meaning of force? Could fulfilling a racial duty be considered acting against your will? What did “act” mean in this usage? What about “will”? It wasn’t the same as intent, but did it encompass intent, or was it the other way around? Before long, they were locked in multiple debates about the meanings of various words.

“You invited them to talk,” Lily told Rule. “You actually asked them to talk.”

Gandalf, still standing nearby, sniffed. “Because he wants something. The wolf doesn’t plan to make war on us.”

Deliberately, Rule sat again. “Why is it,
t’laptha
, that you keep referring to me as wolf? You know that is only part of my nature, and what my wolf wants right now wouldn’t please you. You might do better to address the man.”

A grin popped out. She quickly wiped it off her face, but the twinkle in her eyes said it hadn’t gone far. “All right, man. What do you want?”

“Sanctuary here for all those of my people who need it, for as long as they need it.”

Gandalf’s eyes widened to excessive roundness. “You don’t ask much, do you?”

“A great offense requires great reparations.”

“The government Big People would come. They can make trouble for us.”

“They won’t even find you unless you allow it.”

This time it was Lily’s eyes that widened. Did Rule mean that dul-dul could be extended over the entire reservation?

Gandalf shook her head dolefully. “Such a thing would take much power. It would also interfere with the tourists. Tourists bring money, and feeding your people would be expensive.”

“It may be possible to reimburse some portion of your expenses.”

Negotiations were clearly open. This might take a while. Lily leaned close to whisper, “I’m going to see if Danny will have a chat with me.”

He turned to look at her, his face very close. “All right, but we need to talk.”

“But not now, I think. Or with so many people around.”

THIRTY-FIVE

IT
wasn’t that simple, of course. First Lily had to find out where the brownies were putting them for the night. The public area had a couple human-size buildings for the tourists, but it was some distance away—and not part of the thou-shalt-not-enter zone. Everything in or near the village was way too small for humans . . . with one exception.

They’d be spending the night with the horses in their big stone barn.

It wasn’t easy getting away without a couple dozen brownies eager to help them make their beds from the available supplies—straw and horse blankets they could lay in empty stalls—but Lily insisted that she needed something to do. That resonated. She’d thought it might.

Getting Danny to come along was easy. She slipped her backpack on, ready to go see the horses the moment Lily suggested it. But first Rule had to place Danny officially in Lily’s charge so Mike didn’t hobble along with them. Then Lily had to turn down the mob guy’s offer to help. Little John didn’t offer; maybe Rule had given him a cue, or maybe he didn’t want to move. He’d done a lot of moving today.

She and Danny had company anyway—pint-size company in the person of Dirty Harry to guide them, plus four-legged company. Lily had thought Charles was sound asleep. If so, he sure woke up fast when she started to walk away. Invisible company, too. Mika kept checking on her, making sure she didn’t go far. She was glad the dragon didn’t try to mindspeak her. Her headache had finally gone away.

The barn wasn’t far, she was told—just outside the village on the edge of a meadow. Brownies might prefer trees to a clearing for their own homes, but they knew horses needed space.

Not surprisingly, Danny wanted to talk about horses. Dirty Harry obliged, which was just as well since Lily had nothing to contribute on the subject. Harry’s chatter did make an interesting addition to her growing collection of weird-things-brownies-say-and-do. They did not imprison their horses—“imprison” was Harry’s word—so neither the barn nor the stalls had doors. Nor were there any corrals. Sometimes the horses performed weighty tasks like moving boulders, but mostly they acted as brownie buses. Currying the horses was a coveted job. Lily couldn’t figure out how the task was assigned—Harry’s explanation employed a lot of brownie logic—but some kind of point system seemed to be involved.

Danny was disappointed when they arrived. Of the two dozen stalls, only four were occupied. Most of the herd slept elsewhere when the weather was good, Harry explained, though they’d show up in the morning for breakfast and grooming. They loved to be groomed almost as much as the brownies loved to groom them.

Harry introduced them—including Charles—to the four horses, who were amazingly calm about meeting a wolf. He told them to take their pick of the empty stalls, which looked surprisingly clean, Lily noted with relief. She’d had some qualms. Superior as these horses might be, she doubted they were housebroken. Charles lay down to finish his nap, and Harry showed them where the blankets were kept and demonstrated the pump where they could get water for drinking or washing. Someone had already tossed down a pile of straw bales that were about half the size Lily vaguely imagined normal bales would be.

“Use as much of it as you need,” Harry said. “Oh—I forgot to find out what the password is this week. I’ll have to find out and tell you later. I’ve been gone, and we change it every week.”

Danny’s eyes glowed. “You mean for Wi-Fi? You’ve got Wi-Fi?”

Harry snorted. “You’ve heard of brownie cams?”

Everyone knew about the brownie cams. Brownies.com was one of the most popular sites on the Internet. “Those are in the public area,” Lily said. “We didn’t know you had it here, too.”

“We’ve got Wi-Fi everywhere. This
is
the twenty-first century, you know.”

They had Wi-Fi everywhere but not electricity, and they pumped their water by hand. Brownie logic strikes again. Lily thanked Harry and sent him away. Firmly. You had to be firm with brownies.

When she turned back to her witness, Danny was petting the nose of one of the big Shire horses. The horse was a lot taller than Danny. It had a coat the color of a stormy sky and long bangs. Danny’s back was half turned to Lily and her shoulders were slightly hunched. Tense.

“You seem to be good with horses,” Lily said. “Have you been around them much?”

Danny shook her head. “We didn’t have horses at the Refuge. I didn’t know I liked them until now, but I do. A lot.” She sighed. “If it weren’t for all the terrible things that keep happening, this would be a wonderful adventure.”

“Adventures tend to be messy that way.” Lily headed for the pile of straw bales. “Lots of discomfort, moments of amazement, and the occasional stretch of sheer terror. Would you like to give me a hand with this?”

“No, thank you,” Danny said politely, then, “Oh. Was that a real question or a request for assistance?”

“I’d like some help.”

“Okay.” Danny joined her. “How do we undo them? Those knots look pretty tight.”

“I’ve got a pocket knife.” She had all her stuff again, which was a great relief. She couldn’t use her phone, but at least she had it. “We should probably put them where they’re going first so we can use the twine to carry them.” She picked up two of the bales, one in each hand. Maybe twenty pounds apiece, she thought. That was a heavy load for a brownie.

“That makes sense.” Danny followed suit with another two bales. “Why did you say that about adventures? The terror part, I mean. You don’t get terrified.”

Lily snorted. “Human being here. I’m real familiar with terror.” She dumped her bales in one of the empty stalls.

“But you don’t panic or freak out or freeze up. You’re a hero. If you do feel terror”—she sounded skeptical on that point—“you must be really good at mastering it.”

“The thing about terror is that it’s physical. Regular fear is only partly physical, but real terror is an instinctive brain-body response.” Two more bales. The twine cut into her fingers. “You can’t master it, no more than you can master the flu. Fortunately, it doesn’t last near as long as flu does, so you just keep doing what you need to do. After a while it subsides and you’re left with regular fear.”

Danny had stopped moving. She frowned down at the straw bales. “Where does panic fit? Is it like terror or like regular fear?”