Stolen Magic (5 page)

Lambs and calves! If Elodie had managed to get in to this chamber and had known the Replica was here somewhere, she wouldn't have more than glanced at the chimney.

The high brunka stepped down to let Elodie see, and she climbed up, too.

There, immured in the chimney wall behind the facade of stones, was the pedestal, cloud gray marble shot through with lines of white and patches of gray and black.

“How tall is it?”

“Two and a half feet.”

Elodie stuck her hand in and explored the top with her fingers: square, perhaps ten inches on a side with a three-inch groove in the middle. “Is there a ridge in the Replica that fits the slit?”

“Exactly, lamb.”

“Is the magic in the pedestal?”

“I don't know, lamb. I always supposed it was in the Replica. Perhaps it's in both.”

Elodie nodded, then pivoted carefully on the stool, memorizing the room for her masteress. No trapdoor in the rock floor, none in the rock ceiling. She prayed she hadn't missed anything.

High Brunka Marya's face had a listening look.

“Excuse me. Can you hear what Ludda-bee and Johan-bee are saying?” Elodie couldn't hear even a murmur. Maybe one of them had divulged something useful. “Can you hear them as clearly as you can hear me?”

The high brunka nodded. “Ludda-bee said I was kind to give you a wooden rainbow. She told Johan-bee that he was too lost in his own concerns to be as kind.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. The tooth remedy makes speech difficult. The bees all tease him about it and other matters, although Ludda is the worst. They mean no harm. He has to learn to command respect. You know that.”

Elodie nodded. Bees sometimes had to tell farmers what to do and make them do it. But the teasing still seemed cruel. Johan-bee might learn better from kindness.

The high brunka took a rainbow from the shelf. “Ludda-bee may ask to see it.”

The rainbow was small enough to fit in Elodie's purse.
Her thoughts returned to the Replica. What else should she ask? She felt the usual pressure on her brain, and IT wasn't even here. “Er . . . do all brunkas know where the Replica was kept?” Probably a silly question. A brunka would never take it.

“We all know. We decided together where to put it after the first theft. Lamb, a brunka could no more harm Lahnt than a rabbit could kill a deer.”

But, Elodie thought, a brunka might tell someone who could. “Are any other brunkas here now?”

“I'm the only one. My bees are all the help I need. Have you seen enough for your masteress?”

“Was anything out of place when you came in to get the Replica?”

“Nothing. The room was as it always is.”

“Have you opened the chest?”

“I did. It's not there.”

“I guess I've seen enough.” Elodie hoped IT would know what to make of it all.

Instead of leaving, High Brunka Marya sat on the bed. A rainbow drooped from her hand. “I half convinced myself that when I came back, the Replica would be here, that I'd imagined the theft. Come, lamb.” But she didn't rise. “Brunkas are kind, but we're blamers.”

Elodie had to strain to hear.

“If anyone is hurt . . . if anyone . . .”—she left the
word
dies
unspoken—“I'll blame myself, and the others will blame me, too.”

“You didn't steal the Replica.”

“I failed to keep Lahnt safe.” She stood. “And now I must confess.”

A
band of gray brightened the eastern horizon as a swift settled on the slate roof of a stone cottage with two chimneys and an attached stable. Destination reached, the ogre within awakened and thought . . .

Not about Elodie or the missing Replica or even Nesspa, but about his coming nakedness. Fee fi! He had to decide quickly, because he couldn't stay himself inside a bird or beast for long. The only time he had, he'd been very ill.

He planned and concentrated so the swift would remember, and then he receded.

The bird tapped the shutters of one of the front windows of the cottage, rattling the slats and the window frame, not knowing about brunkas' sharp ears.

“Enough. I hear you.” The door rumbled open as a voice
said, “Welcome. Always welcome. Enter. What's— Bird?”

A short, youngish personage—Brunka Arnulf—stood on the threshold, wearing a long undershirt with a blanket slung around his shoulders. Although he was half asleep, his expression was courteous and peaceful, and his mouth curved in a gentle smile—a brunka as brunkas normally were.

The swift flew inside and stood on the floor between an oaken table and a man sitting up on a pallet.

“Perhaps it's feeling cold,” the man said.

Brunka Arnulf crouched. “Look! It's wearing Marya's medal.” He held out his hand.

The bird hopped across the floor to the hand but not on it and allowed the brunka to wind the chain off his neck. Then he began to vibrate and grow.

Anticipating the worst, the man jumped up and flattened himself against the nearest wall while the brunka retreated to the doorway.

After a minute, an amber-furred monkey with a pale face and merry copper eyes smiled hugely at them both, showing an inch of pink gum. He scampered to the table and snatched up a heel of bread, which he crammed into his mouth. As soon as he swallowed, he tilted back his head and laughed a huffing, breathy laugh.

The brunka and the man smiled, although the man's smile was hesitant.

“Is it . . .” the man said.

“I think so,” the brunka answered.

“Foh!” The man's smile vanished. “They eat people! Do you think it ate Marya? Is it here to eat us?”

The monkey picked up two spoons and a ladle and juggled them while continuing to laugh.

“No . . .” The brunka shook his head. “If it was going to, it would have come in its own shape.”

“They're gross, monstrous.”

Still laughing, the monkey darted to the brunka, pulled the blanket away from him, and dragged it outside, trailing it through snow that mounded to the monkey's waist. The brunka lifted a cloak from a peg by the door and followed at a distance. On him, the snow reached his thighs.

A dozen yards from the cottage, with his back to Brunka Arnulf, the monkey shifted, this time into Count Jonty Um. Fee fi! He hastily pulled the blanket up and tied it around his waist. The snow rose only to just above his ankles.

Bracing himself for the brunka's terror, he turned. He meant to keep his expression neutral, but a careful onlooker—Elodie or Masteress Meenore—would have seen the worry around his eyes and a smolder of resentment in the corners of his mouth. An unobservant person would have seen a glum face, not inviting, not friendly.

Brunka Arnulf didn't step forward but he didn't step back. If he felt fear, he kept the feeling in check. His voice
careful, he said, “If you can be that laughing monkey, there must be some joy in you. Therefore, I'm happy to make your acquaintance. I'm Brunka Arnulf, which you may already have guessed.” He bowed but kept his eyes on the ogre's face.

At the absence of fear and disgust, the face cracked into a smile that rounded His Lordship's eyebrows, lifted his cheeks, and softened his eyes. The brunka's peaceful smile widened, too, as it could hardly fail to.

“Count Jonty Um of Two Castles.” His bow was a mere inclination of the shoulders. Then he shook his head, shaking the smile away. “I have terrible tidings.” He explained what he knew of the theft of the Replica. “The high brunka says everyone should leave . . .” He trailed off because Brunka Arnulf had run back into the cottage.

The brunka reemerged in a minute. “Canute will begin the alarm. My other bees are helping families and flocks. If only there weren't so much snow! Will you stay to help, Master Count?”

“No. I have questions to ask you and then I must return with the answers.”

“Ask.” He put the high brunka's medal in his purse.

“Do you know of anyone who is angry at brunkas or anyone on Zertrum”—he didn't like asking the rest of the question because it sounded strange, but he did—“or even angry at the mountain itself?”

“You're helping Marya find the thief!”

“Yes.” He didn't want to bring a dragon into the discussion. He shivered in the cold, and his stomach rumbled.

Canute-bee, casting frightened looks at His Lordship, led a horse out of the stable and mounted it. He started down the mountain, the horse making slow progress through the snow, despite Canute-bee's frantic slaps on the beast's rump.

“People are angry,” Brunka Arnulf said, “then not angry, then angry again. They don't steal the Replica every time they're vexed.” Thoughtfully he flicked a short rainbow out of his right hand. It hung in the air for a few seconds before fading.

His Lordship wished he'd do it again and again.

“Folks don't tell us about every argument.”

“Someone did steal it,” His Lordship said.

“So you say.” He sighed. “Franz was angry.” He explained that he had told his bees not to help a farmer named Franz after his shed burned down for the second time. “He'll be more careful in the future. He put up a new shed, which took longer without our aid, but I brought him a basket of eggs a month later. He invited me in for a meal, and we were jolly together.”

“Anyone else?”

Another rainbow flashed out. “Dror.”

“He's angry?”

“Maybe. Three months ago his father kicked him off his farm and made him choose to become either a bee or a soldier, and he picked bee, as I advised. He's at the Oase. Being a bee will settle him. He wouldn't steal the Replica or hurt his family. He's a loyal lad.”

Meenore would want to know about this.

“Has anyone else left the mountain recently?”

“Master Uwald and Master Tuomo, his steward, rode to Zee. They'll pass the Oase going and coming back. I don't know if they'll stop. And Master Tuomo's sons are on their way to a wedding on Letster Mountain.”

Count Jonty Um frowned. “Does Master Tuomo have daughters and a goodwife?”

“Just his sons. He's a widower.”

“Does Master Uwald have children and a goodwife?”

“Neither. He lives with his steward and his steward's sons, and he has servants.”

Meenore would be interested in this, too. “Anyone else?”

“Mistress Sirka left, but barber-surgeons never tarry long anywhere. I heard a rumor that she and Dror were betrothed, although nothing came of it.”

The brunka had now answered Elodie's and Meenore's questions, but Count Jonty Um suspected Meenore would have found more to inquire about if IT had been here. A headache started, which would have felt familiar to Elodie.

“Oh!” Brunka Arnulf extended his arms, palms down, fingers spread, as if he were calming something. “Did you hear that, Master Count?”

“No.”

“The volcano rumbled. It was so slight I might not have noticed if you hadn't come with your news. The Replica hasn't been found yet.”

A winter hare hopped across the snow to the right of the brunka's cottage. Canute-bee would warn the humans, who would flee the mountain if they could. If they had time, they'd drive their herds and flocks along with them. His Lordship ground his teeth in misery. The wild beasts wouldn't understand the warning.

The hare stopped, nose twitching, ears straight up. His Lordship remembered being a hare and hearing thunder. His frightened hare's heart had jolted painfully before his ogre mind took over. If the tremors grew strong enough for the beasts to sense them, they'd run hither and yon, crazy with terror, but they wouldn't know to leave the mountain. If the worst happened, they'd stay and die.

I
n the corridor again, High Brunka Marya told Ludda-bee and Johan-bee to accompany her to the great hall. Once there, Ludda-bee bustled off to the kitchen. The high brunka brightened the chamber with a grand rainbow. Elodie blinked in the light, her eyelids sandy from lack of sleep.

High Brunka Marya awakened her bees and gave some of them tasks, which they began unquestioningly, although a few sent curious glances Elodie's way. The bees seemed unremarkable—most in middle age, plump or thin, straight or stooped, evenly divided between men and women.

Possibly one of them had stolen Lahnt's most precious thing, but Elodie could hardly credit it. Bees helped people. They devoted their lives to helping, and most appeared
to love it. They didn't need to steal because everyone contributed to the brunkas and their bees. The saying went,
One bean to the brunka, nineteen beans remain.
Lahnters gave a twentieth of everything to the brunkas and their bees. The saying continued,
They give out of goodness. We give out of gratitude.

High Brunka Marya's rainbow dwindled as her bees lit tallow lamps and torches around the great hall, creating almost as much smoke as light. The youngest bee and the most eager, a man, hurried to the northwest corner of the great hall, where benches, stools, wooden boards, and trestles were stacked. He dragged four benches to the largest fireplace, the one opposite the entrance to the Oase, and arranged them in a line.

Elodie circled the chamber, whose immensity rivaled the great hall in Count Jonty Um's castle. She took it all in: the stone floor under a scattering of rushes; the distant stone ceiling, reinforced by oak beams; and the stone walls, interrupted at intervals by oak posts. Only the outer wall was entirely man-made, plaster over ordinary wattle and daub, broken near the ceiling by a line of eight small windows covered with the usual oiled parchment, which gleamed a gray that gave nothing away. Dawn might have begun, or it might not have. Her masteress might be here any minute or not for another hour or two.

Count Jonty Um must have reached Zertrum by now.
Was the mountain aflame? Had he learned the identity of the thief? Was he on his way back to them? Was he safe?

All four walls were lined with closed cabinets and open shelves, which held what Elodie supposed were relics of Lahnt and brunka history. The Replica could be hidden in a cabinet or even on an open shelf, concealed behind something larger. A person could spend days—a week!—combing through everything. And then there were the chambers of relics High Brunka Marya had pointed out and probably others besides. Lambs and calves! A legion of bees would be needed to search everywhere in time.

Two doors and an archway opened off the chamber: the big outside entry door in the west wall; an archway far to the left of it in the north wall; and a small door on the right side of the east wall, the door the high brunka had taken her through, which led to her distant chamber.

Johan-bee and two more bees stirred up embers in the three fireplaces and added logs until crackling and spitting spiked the quiet.

In the center of the hall, High Brunka Marya spoke softly to a knot of older bees—those, Elodie supposed, who'd been with her for at least seven years, as IT had required. She heard muffled exclamations and cries of distress. When the high brunka finished, they left the hall in pairs, except for the bee who seemed oldest. Elodie deduced the pairs were off to begin the search and perhaps to wake the guests.
On their way, a bee detoured to Johan-bee and jogged his arm so that his poker clattered on the hearthstone. Johan-bee looked up, flushing, but said nothing.

They all plague him, Elodie thought.

The oldest bee—a big man with a big head, a bloodshot nose, and a white beard trimmed straight across the bottom—shuffled to the benches that had been placed by the youngest bee. His jowls jiggled as he sat and placed his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, facing into the great hall, watching everyone intently.

Elodie turned to investigate the shelf nearest her, which was on the south wall. She hoped that luck might trump the arduous work of deducing, inducing, and using her common sense. Let the Replica be here!

But the shelf merely held a forest of vials made of clay and glass, none big enough to contain the Replica or to conceal it from view. The shelf below was filled with chained books, chained so they could be read but not taken away. Elodie pulled one out and proved to herself that the Replica wasn't behind it. There! She'd searched two shelves—out of hundreds—and behind one book—out of dozens.

“Son, there will be an excellent reason.” The voice was soft-spoken, educated, the
t
crisply pronounced, the
r
's solid. “High Brunka Marya wouldn't have roused us for anything insignificant.”

Still holding the book, Elodie twisted to see. Only a
few yards to her left, an elderly man and a boy entered the great hall. The man held the boy's hand and advanced with small steps, as if he were walking in a slow procession.

Son? The man was old enough to be the boy's grandfather.

Was this “poor” Master Robbie? Elodie opened her book and watched the two while mansioning absorption in the volume. Both wore wooden mourning beads over their cloaks. Did the beads make them both “poor”?

Almost everything about the man was just so, and nothing suggested he'd been surprised from sleep: short gray beard and mustache, neatly clipped; small ears; thin nose onto which round spectacles were clamped. He wore a sober dark-blue cloak of brushed wool edged with a border of rabbit fur, a wealthy costume. Only his hat—wealthy also, orange with a bright-green tassel—veered, in Elodie's opinion, from
just so
to
too much
.

Could he be the thief? He seemed not to need money. If he was the thief, the just-so in him meant he would make a careful, thorough job of it.

How could a thief look so genial? He smiled as if he'd been awakened from happy dreams.

The boy's cloak, fine brushed wool also, his in moss green, lacked only a fur trim. His shoes, with the old-style round toes that were still customary in Lahnt, were so new they hardly had creases.

Below his neck, he was a just-so boy. But his unguarded face gave too much away, and its forlorn look made Elodie's breath catch.

An artist could have sketched his portrait almost entirely in straight lines: the head a triangle ending in a pointed chin, a smaller triangle for his nose, a horizontal slash for his unsmiling mouth, two angled strokes for the shadows under his cheeks, roof peaks for his eyebrows, curved lines only for his dark-blue, red-rimmed eyes and for the dot of pink that bloomed at the tip of his nose, probably caused by weeping.

Elodie bent her head over her book, not wanting to seem to pry, but the just-so man noticed her. “Look, Robbie, someone for you to play with. Isn't that lucky?”

He
was
Master Robbie!

To her surprise the boy came to her and whispered, “It's gone. Am I right?”

In a rush she induced and deduced. Master Robbie knew. He'd asked to see the Replica, and the high brunka hadn't brought it out.

Should she reveal she knew, too? Would her masteress want her to?

Probably not, but—she used her common sense—he knew everyone here, and he'd tell her more if she were honest. “Yes,” she whispered back. “The high brunka told us.”

Master Robbie looked around, probably seeking the rest of Elodie's
us
.

She remembered that IT wanted her to appear slow-witted, but that wouldn't do with someone her age.

“I'm Elodie of Dair, and I'm”—with a touch of grandeur—“delighted to make your acquaintance.” She gave him the curtsy she had once bestowed upon Greedy Grenny, King of Lahnt.

He bowed a slight bow, the bow Count Jonty Um would make to a peasant. “I'm Robbie.”

Maybe he was too sad to be polite.

“I was of Zee.” Zee was the fishing village where the cog had docked. “Now I'm of Zertrum.”

“Oh!” He'd lose his new home if the Replica wasn't found.

He tilted his chin toward the elderly man. “With him.” He touched his mourning beads.

She said what grown-ups say: “I'm sorry for your loss.”

His voice sharpened. “Whales and porpoises! I didn't
lose
anything.” He was silent a moment. “I apologize. My grandmother died. She used to say I have no manners.” Then he added what Elodie had heard people remark about orphans: “She was all I had in the world.”

“I'm sorry,” she repeated. No parents? He really was
poor
Master Robbie.

He changed the subject. “The Replica could be in a
thousand places. Have you been here before?”

She shook her head.

“There are corridors of rooms full of things like this.” He gestured at the shelves in front of them.

“You think it's inside the Oase?”

“If it's outside, it could be anywhere. Something else is missing, too.”

“What?”

“I'll show you.”

How could he show her something that wasn't there?