Mind Magic (37 page)

“Come back!”

“Nidilistrionamason—”

“Not him! Not him! Stop him!”

The last must have meant Charles, who pushed past her to take the lead. She let him. The tunnel was dim to her eyes, and what light there was lay behind her so that she ran always into her own shadow. No one shot at them—always a good thing. Brownies kept calling for them to come back. After about fifty feet the tunnel curved, plunging Lily into deeper murk as the rocky wall cut off the brownies’ mage lights. She stumbled, nearly falling, and had to slow so she could trail one hand along the rough wall.

It wasn’t completely dark, though. There was a glow ahead. Behind them the piping voices of the brownies drew closer. Lily trotted quickly after Charles, who’d gotten well ahead of her. Was it getting hotter in here?

Charles froze, a low growl erupting from his chest.

Oh, good, an enemy who was not a brownie. Charles didn’t growl at brownies, even when they kidnapped him. Lily wouldn’t have to worry about hurting this enemy’s feelings. If only she had some other way of hurting him—a gun, a knife, a club. Especially a gun. Her Glock. She really wanted her Glock. She kept going.

It was definitely hotter. That wasn’t her imagination. She stepped out of the tunnel a couple feet behind Charles—and stopped dead, staring.

She always had that reaction to dragons.

This rocky chamber was much larger than the one where she’d been held prisoner, with a ceiling so high she couldn’t see it. There was light, though, streaming in through an opening high in one rock wall. Sunlight, which she hadn’t seen since she was brought here. Vaguely she noted a ledge running around three sides of the chamber. Vaguely, because most of her attention was caught by the way sunlight struck fire from scales that varied from glistening ruby to garnet, its slant draping shadows around the huge body looped in lazy coils on the sandy floor of the chamber some fifteen feet below.

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.”