Stolen Magic (4 page)

T
he swift circled the stable once and flew north, his being almost overcome by the burdens the ogre had placed on him: a feeling, two images, and two memories. The feeling: urgency. The images: a volcanic mountain peak that looked like a gaping fish and a building with two chimneys and an attached stable. The memories: a long-haired dog and a girl with big eyes and a wide, expressive mouth.

The wind had died to a bare breeze. The snowflakes were shimmering sparkles. In his heart, urgency paired with the joy of flight.

E
lodie missed her friend instantly. With careful fingers, she brushed hay off his beautiful cloak. Fly safely. Hurry back.

“Madam, a few questions before you and Elodie leave me.”

Leave IT? Of course, for the Oase. She was no use out here.

“When was the Replica stolen?” IT asked.

“I'm not sure. Within the last three days, certainly.”

Three
days
? Zertrum might already be about to spew! Lambs and calves! IT should have asked this before His Lordship left! Elodie squeezed his cloak, which filled her arms. What had they sent him into?

“Since then, has anyone departed the Oase?” IT asked.

“No one. I discovered the theft late this afternoon after
the storm began. We have guests, which we rarely do this time of year—”

“Mmm.”

ITs
Mmm
always meant something. Elodie felt sure this one meant that these guests might have come in order to commit the theft.

“Poor Master Robbie—he's a pup, as young as this lamb—grew bored because of the snow and being confined indoors. He asked to see the Replica again.” She added, “He saw it for the first time right after he arrived.”

Elodie decided Master Robbie was a boy, not a puppy. Had he really made his request out of boredom? She felt ITs eyes on her. They exchanged glances. Maybe the boy knew it was gone. She wondered why he was
poor
Master Robbie.

To the left of the stable door stood a rough cupboard, where she thought she might stow Count Jonty Um's clothing. She went to it and lifted the wooden latch. What if the thief had hidden the Replica here, a reasonable spot for an escape on horseback?

But the shelves seemed empty. She used her own cloak to wipe away dust on a middle shelf and placed His Lordship's cloak there, then returned to the heap on the floor for the rest of his things. His boots she placed below the lowest shelf. His silver pendant, which was very valuable, she pushed under his cloak toward the back of the cupboard.

High Brunka Marya was still explaining. “When I went to fetch the Replica, it wasn't there.” She stood and paced. “I looked in other places, thinking I might have been absentminded when I put it away.” She stopped. “But I wouldn't have been, not with the Replica. I'd never set it down anywhere except on its pedestal.”

“Did you raise the alarm?”

She shook her head. “I gave Master Robbie other relics to look at, Masteress. I said I was too tired to fetch it just then and promised to bring it in the morning. He was content.”

Elodie's and her masteress's eyes met again. She felt a flash of happiness that they were thinking alike, that the boy's contentment might have been a ruse.

“High Brunka?” Elodie returned to her stool. “Er . . .” She felt shy, questioning a brunka. “Er . . . who else was there when Master Robbie asked for the Replica again, and who was there when you brought him the other relics?”

“When the pup asked, we were gathered around the big fireplace, all the guests and Ursa-bee. When I returned, our cook, Ludda-bee, had come to announce what she was serving for the evening meal, so she was there, too.”

If the thief was among them, he or she knew that the theft had been discovered.

“What did you do next?” Masteress Meenore scratched under ITs jaw.

“I went to my chamber to think.” The mask of distress covered her face again. Her eyes were tormented. “I knew I had to tell everyone, but I wanted to organize my ideas, which were as scattered as the stars. Then you sang, Masteress, and I came. The guarding bees were dozing at their posts. My movements are almost silent, so they didn't waken.”

IT shook ITs big head. “Guards are permitted to sleep?”

“They'd have heard anyone but a brunka.”

IT let that stand. “Might the thief escape in your absence, Madam, now that the blizzard has ended?”

“He wouldn't get far on foot in this snow. If he wanted a horse, he'd have to come here.”

“He
or she
wouldn't get far. If he
or she
wanted . . . Lodie, can you forgo sleep tonight?”

She nodded. She'd done so before for IT.

“High Brunka, can you show Lodie in secret where the Replica had been kept?”

High Brunka Marya said that almost everyone would be asleep. “The bees who guard the Replica will be awake, but they know where it's kept anyway.”

ITs smoke shaded pink. “Mmm,” IT said coldly.

She raised her chin and stepped back. “I have no secrets from my bees after they've been with me for three years.”

Elodie heard ITs
Fool!
hang in the air unspoken. The high brunka blushed.

“After you have shown Lodie the Replica's hiding place, you must awaken everyone and inform them of the theft. There is not a moment to lose. The snow has lessened. The thief may be contemplating his or her escape. How awkward these he-she and his-her locutions are. How much more efficient to be an IT.”
Enh enh enh.

Elodie stiffened. How could IT laugh now?

“Lodie, if I cannot hold myself apart from events, I will never see them whole. You must cultivate this quality in yourself, which will be essential when the high brunka reveals the theft. No telltale sign in her audience may go unnoticed by you: no blush, no shudder, no sigh, no odor of distress. You must have the heightened senses of a brunka and the perspicacity of a detecting dragon.”

What if I miss something, Elodie thought, and it's the most important clue? “Masteress, you should be there.”

“Alas, the fear and awe that I inspire would call forth trembling and stares. Even I could not discern which were due to guilt and which to my presence. Better by far that you be the only witness.”

She nodded, but she wished that a mountain and His Lordship weren't at stake.

“
Feeling
—whatever you may feel—may not be allowed in. Madam, do not tell anyone that the girl is in my employ. She is a mere child I am returning to her home out of the goodness of a dragon's heart.”
Enh enh enh.

“A half-truth is as false as a whole lie,” the high brunka said promptly, as if the words had been waiting on her lips.

ITs smoke purpled. “An exploding volcano will be one complete truth, Madam, and your failure to prevent it will be another.”

The high brunka sank onto her stool and spoke to her hands in her lap. A pale rainbow unfurled, then faded. “As you wish, Masteress. I'll lie and try to be convincing.”

“Excellent.” IT asked and was told that the Oase had a great hall, a large room. “Keep everyone there except for your most trusted bees, those who have been with you at least
seven
years. They may begin a search of the Oase. Have them search in pairs. Better yet, see that they do everything in pairs, and change the pairings often.”

Oh! Elodie thought, dismayed. She'd heard that the Oase tunneled into the mountain, spidering into a vast warren of corridors and rooms. How could they hope to find anything as small as the Replica?

“A bee would never take the Replica.”

ITs tail twitched. “Madam, that is the assertion of an imbecile. Look at me.”

Elodie thought she would shrivel up if IT ever used that tone with her.

High Brunka Marya met ITs eyes. “Brunkas trust hearts and judge acts. That may make us imbeciles to you.”

“Just so. Dragons rarely trust.”

They dropped their eyes at the same time. IT continued, “Your bees know where the Replica was kept, which almost certainly caused the mischief. A bee was indiscreet, or a bee is the thief.”

“I'll do what you suggest.”

“As my agent, Elodie will hold you to your promise.”

She'd have to mansion an imperious self for that.

ITs smoke whitened. “In the morning, expect me at the Oase entry, ready to interrogate each guest and each bee. Instruct those you can instruct to answer me truthfully. The thief will certainly lie. If everyone else is honest, I may catch an inconsistency.”

“Come, lamb.” The high brunka stood.

“Go!” IT said.

Elodie wrapped her cloak around herself.

“Wait, Lodie! In the Oase, proceed as if Zertrum were safe for a century. If you rush, you will bungle. You will meet bees and guests and will need to take their measure. I will want your opinion.”

“Masteress! There isn't time.”

“Mansion that there is. And take care and more care and care again. A thief who would make a mountain explode will not mind destroying
you
.”

“I'll keep her safe.”

“You let your most important possession be taken.”

“I'll be careful, Masteress.”

“See that you are. And keep your penetrating mind a secret, Lodie. The appearance of a slow wit . . .”

Elodie hardly heard the end of the sentence. Had IT truly called her clever? If I had dragon smoke, she thought, it would be white and spiraling with happiness.

M
asteress Meenore watched Elodie follow the high brunka into the night. What a slender reed the girl is, IT thought, and such a valiant reed! How easy to cut down a reed.

ITs smoke grayed, and something that might have been a tear filled ITs emerald eye. Never before had an unfathomably brilliant, temperamentally chilly IT so treasured a human girl.

As IT curled ITself for sleep, IT felt virtuous. I am capable of deep feeling, IT thought.

And yet I sent her into danger.

Pride in ITs goodness faded. IT thought, Life is danger, and was asleep.

H
igh Brunka Marya lit their way with a series of rainbows. When they reached the end of one, it faded, and she sent forth another. Snow still fell, but lazily. Beyond the rainbow glow the night was black and seemed eternal, although to the east, on the other side of the mountain, the horizon might already be smudged with gray. Elodie and High Brunka Marya crossed a wide ledge through deep snow.

“There's a stairway ahead. Hold my hand, lamb.”

Their gloved hands met easily, since the two were equally tall. High Brunka Marya's grip was firm.

“Here. Up.” She tugged Elodie.

Although Elodie sought footing, her boot just crashed through snow. Then she had it. She'd been feeling for something higher, but these steps had been made for short
legs. They climbed together, struggling in the snow. Once, Elodie had to hold the high brunka to save her from falling. Luckily the steps were wide enough for the two to climb side by side.

A closeness comes when two do something difficult together. Elodie felt she could rely on the high brunka for steadiness, and she hoped the high brunka was beginning to trust her.

It occurred to Elodie that after the high brunka showed her the Replica's hiding place, they might not be alone together again. She tried to think of questions that a penetrating mind would ask.

Nothing came for two more steps. Then she huffed, “High Brunka, why did your worry grow when you found out I'm from Dair Mountain?”

She heard a smile in High Brunka Marya's voice. “That was before your masteress explained matters to me.”

An evasion.

Two more difficult steps to another ledge. They lumbered through snow and then were out of it, under the eaves of the Oase. The high brunka let Elodie's hand go and strained to raise a heavy wooden bar, finally succeeding.

“Help me. Push!”

The big door moved by inches. Elodie doubted it would be wide enough to admit Masteress Meenore, although Count Jonty Um, whose size was mostly in height,
probably could squeeze through.

They slipped in as soon as the opening let them and then had to work to close the door again. Darkness was broken only by embers glowing in three distant fireplaces, one far to the right, one far to the left, and the last far, far ahead. The space felt vast and empty and hardly warmer than the cold outside.

The high brunka took her hand again. “Come.”

Elodie's feet
shushed
across the floor rushes.

“Quietly!” High Brunka Marya whispered. Her steps were noiseless.

Elodie lifted her feet but couldn't help making a small whisking sound with each footfall.

Around the fireplace in the right wall, cocooned in blankets, people, probably bees, slept on pallets, as the servants did in His Lordship's castle. One slumberer rolled over. Another flung out an arm. An old man slept sitting up on a bench next to the fire. His snore rumbled and whistled to a regular beat.

They passed the fireplace and eventually reached a smaller door, much too low and narrow for Elodie's masteress or His Lordship.

“Don't gasp,” High Brunka Marya whispered.

What was there to gasp about? Elodie braced herself for a shock. The high brunka opened the door.

The air smelled metallic. Near the ceiling of a narrow
corridor that had been carved out of the mountain, wee lights twinkled.

“Lambs and calves!”

“Shh!” But the whisper sounded proud. “Oase glowworms. Brighter than my rainbow.”

“Flying worms?”

“They hang.”

The worms emitted a green light. Each one was as tiny as the tip of a blade of grass, and they were as crowded together as grass in a meadow.

“They hiss,” the high brunka added. “But you probably can't hear them.”

She couldn't. She followed High Brunka Marya straight ahead, looking up as she walked. The glowworms continued into the distance. “Are they magic? Did Brunka Harald make them?”

“They were here before him. They're just worms.”

They weren't
just
anything. “Why don't they light up the great hall?”

“They prefer smaller places.” She turned right into another corridor. The worms shone here, too.

The passageway was warmer than the great hall had been, as warm as spring. Elodie let her cloak hang loose.

“Lamb . . .” The high brunka stopped. “If you want to stay here, no matter what happens with the Replica, we'll give you asylum. You don't have to continue to serve the
dragon. You'll be as safe as the glowworms here.”

Oh no! “Did something happen to my parents?”

“No. I believe they're fine. I didn't mean to frighten you.”

“Then why would I need asylum?”

“Your parents sent you away, a twelve-year-old lamb—I mean, child.”

“My parents love me!”

“You could be a bee if you like.”

Elodie shrugged this off. Bees didn't mansion or deduce or induce. “High Brunka, I'm old enough to apprentice, and my family thought I could do it for free.”

Her parents, with the encouragement of Albin, who knew she wouldn't live a happy life on the farm, had sent her, less than six weeks ago (although it seemed like an age) across the strait to apprentice in Two Castles town. They hadn't known what she'd learned only on her way over, that free apprenticeships had been abolished. If Masteress Meenore hadn't taken her in, she might have starved. If Count Jonty Um hadn't hired them, he'd still be just a frightening figure to her.

So much had happened, so many wonders, so much terror, but also great happiness.

“Few live the life they thought they wanted, lamb.” The high brunka started walking again.

They passed six closed doors on each side.

“What rooms are these?”

“They're for guests, but they're empty now.”

The Replica could be in one of them, Elodie supposed.

Or it could be outside, in a tree hole or buried under earth and snow, and then how would anyone find it?

Only by luck or cleverness.

The doors ended. Other corridors branched off to the right and left, here and there, but this one continued for at least a quarter of a mile. Elodie felt the weight of the mountain press down on her. How much time had passed since she'd left her masteress? Was Zertrum's volcano already spewing?

“When I get this far, I can no longer hear a sound from the great hall, not even a shout.”

“How did you hear my masteress?”

“We've been walking south, not far from the face of the mountain. I can hear the world outside. And ITs voice carries.”

“How far can you hear ordinary conversation?”

“Eavesdropping is as rude as picking one's teeth!”

Elodie's smoke would have turned red if she'd had smoke. If the high brunka had been willing to be impolite, she might have heard something and prevented the theft. “If you did listen, how far could you hear?”

“About two hundred yards.”

“A whisper?”

“I don't know, lamb. A hundred yards, perhaps.”

“High Brunka, begging your pardon, you'll listen until the Replica is found, won't you?”

“I hadn't thought . . . It's a habit not to . . . Yes, lamb, I'll listen.”

Doors began again on the left.

“We put guests in here only in summer when all the other rooms are full,” the high brunka said.

“Why do you wait till then?”

“So I can sleep. My room is nearby. When these chambers are occupied, the people keep me awake, just by rolling over in their sleep. I feel like I'm in the middle of a flock of noisy pigeons.”

A single door broke the right-hand wall, and it alone had a lock.

“What room is this?”

“It's a storage area.”

“When the Replica was stolen before, did that high brunka keep it in the same place as you do?”

“No. Then it was on a table in the middle of the great hall. I was just a brunkle, a lamb like you. No one gave a thought to theft. It had never happened.”

Another right and they reached a series of doors on either side of the corridor.

The high brunka said, “These chambers hold just relics and curiosities.”

More hiding places for the Replica.

Ahead, a man and a woman sat side by side on stools. The woman kicked the man in the shins. “Get up, Johan, lazy lump.” Her sharp voice seemed to strike the rock walls and bounce down the corridor.

The man stood awkwardly, without complaining. His cloak, which had been draped over his stool, slid to the ground. Grunting, he picked it up and held it bunched in his arms. Upright, he rocked back and forth on his heels, a tall, stout, ruddy-faced young man whose left cheek bulged with what was probably a toothache remedy.

Elodie expected the high brunka to tell the woman she shouldn't be kicking people, but she just said, “Why are
you
guarding, Ludda?”

Ludda-bee rose in one fluid motion for all she was middle-aged, and her cloak remained on the stool. “Deeter begged a few more minutes of sleep. Now breakfast needs starting, and where is he?” She turned to Elodie. “Everyone imposes on my good nature.”

Elodie bobbed a curtsy. Do not show your penetrating mind, she thought. Do not show you think this woman has no good nature.

Wicked enough to steal the Replica?

Ludda-bee was thin with a fat face and small features—small mouth, small nose, and small eyes—crowded together in the middle of a big, round face, like a raisin roll in which
all the raisins had collected in one spot. Her smile would have to be small, too, hemmed in as it was by lots of cheek. Yes, it
was
small, and the smile did nothing to banish her peevish expression. “I'm Ludda-bee.”

The cook, Elodie remembered, had been there when the high brunka returned to Master Robbie without the Replica.

Ludda-bee continued. “And this shy, hulking thing is my friend Johan-bee, Johan-of-the-privy, as we bees call him.”

They were friends? Elodie looked at his face—large nose, thin lips, that bulging cheek, owlish round eyes, expression blank. He doesn't consider her a friend, she concluded.

“Two nights in a row of guarding, Johan,” the high brunka said. “Thank you.”

His face relaxed. “You're welcome.” The second word sounded like
welka
, likely because he found it hard to close his lips on the
m
.

Ludda-bee seemed to resent the compliment. “If you can call it guarding. He left me thrice to visit the garderobe, and was, as ever, slow to return.”

Elodie blushed.

“It's my stomach, Ludda.”

It couldn't matter for the theft that Ludda-bee was horrible and that Johan-bee didn't like her. But it might matter
that Johan-bee deserted his post sometimes.

“When someone tells me her name, young mistress, I always tell her mine, unless I'm a rude lout.”

“Pardon!” She dropped another curtsy while hoping Ludda-bee would turn out to be the thief. “I'm Elodie.”

“Come, lamb.” The high brunka took her hand again. “I promised you a gift. You may have a painted rainbow.”

Elodie expected to go into the room closest to the bees, which they had been guarding. But instead they turned right into an intersection after that door and entered a short corridor.

A few steps took them to a door on which words were painted in neat blue letters:
Hart Room.
Below the words, for those who hadn't learned to read, a representation of a stag in red paint. The painter was a master artist to capture the antlers, the delicate stance, the curves of back and belly, in only a few brushstrokes.

The high brunka opened the door, which had no lock, and closed it behind them. “This is my chamber. Folks see guards by the Goat Room and believe the Replica is there, but I kept it here. Anyone who plotted to steal it would be planning to take it from the wrong room.”

Glowworms lit this space, too. The bedsheets and blanket were rumpled. A high brunka who didn't make her bed might like such chores as little as Elodie did. The chamber had a fireplace, which was empty, since the air was warm.
A rack, hung with spare hose and a spare shift, stood to the side of the fireplace. Elodie looked away, embarrassed to see the exalted brunka's undergarments. “Why is there a fireplace when you don't need it?”

“The early brunkas didn't know the temperature would stay warm all year. Only the great hall gets cold.”

The other furnishings were a padlocked chest, a shelf above it that held a pile of small wooden arches painted in rainbow colors, a low stool, hooks on the wall, and a hanging that depicted a female brunka standing before a cottage on the Lahnt plateau. Another door, without a lock, provided a second exit.

“Where does that lead to?”

“The storage room we passed before.” High Brunka Marya straightened her sheets.

Embarrassed at being caught with an untidy bed?

“The lock on the storage room door was made on the mainland. I was assured it cannot be picked. Safe as the heart in your chest, they said.”

“Is the door locked on the inside, too?”

“No, lamb, only on the corridor side. If you're inside the storage room, you just lift the latch.”

“Who has a key?”

The high brunka showed Elodie a large silver key among a ringful of keys fastened to her belt. “No one else has it. But if the thief was in here, picking wouldn't have
been needed. My bees will search the storage area first.”

Elodie felt a bubble of hope. It might be that simple. “Was the Replica in there?” She pointed at the chest.

“No, lamb. You see, my fireplace needs more daub.”

Daub made of dried mud and straw cemented the stones together in a fireplace or in walls. Elodie didn't see what missing daub had to do with the Replica.

High Brunka Marya brought the stool to the fireplace and stood on it. “I don't know why I closed it up again.” She began to pull out loose stones from the chimney about a foot above the mantel to reveal a hole.