Moon Dreams (The Jeremy Moon Trilogy Book 1) Page 10

  Jeremy pushed the sleeves of his tunic back into place and stood in front of the hearth. “It's a good fire,” he said, “but just a fire. It's a physical process. There's nothing magic—”

  His jaw dropped. In the wink of an eye the flames in the fireplace coalesced, solidified into the shining body of a dwarfish little being sitting cross-legged on the charred logs. Two eyes like burning coals glared at him from a bald, glowing head. With a voice like a fire roaring up a chimney, the creature hissed, “Call me a physical process, will you? I've a good mind to smoke up the place.”

  “Please,” Melodia said, coming up beside Jeremy. “He is a stranger in Thaumia. He meant no insult.”

  “Let him apologize then.”

  Jeremy tried to work his mouth. “I—I'm sorry,” he choked out.

  “Watch it, then.” And the little man broke apart instantly into dancing flame.

  Jeremy whirled toward Melodia. “What was that?”

  “A salamander,” Melodia said.

  “A lizard?”

  Kelada laughed. “You'll have him smoking us out in a minute.”

  Melodia shook her head. “A salamander is the visible shape of a fire elemental,” she said. “Ordinarily, they manifest as flame, but when they need to speak to humans, they must take on the configurations of a humanlike being. A salamander is the manifestation of that. This salamander is Smokharin, by the way. I would have introduced you, but in his human form he finds cold weather unpleasant.”

  “You give your fires names?”

  Melodia laughed. “Elementals tend to accompany one person. Though they won't admit it, they do grow attached to human company. I've know Smokharin since I was a little girl in my father's house. When my father—when I left home, Smokharin came with me. He and I often chat on lonely evenings.”

  Jeremy gave the fireplace a nervous glance. “And I suppose there are other elementals, too? For water and earth and air?”

  “Yes, of course.” Melodia turned to Kelada. “He is not as untutored as you believed,” she said.

  Kelada shrugged. “He doesn't know anything that counts,” she returned. “I think I'll leave this evening as soon as it's dark.”

  Melodia frowned a little at that. To Jeremy she said, “If your world truly has no magic, where did you learn of the elementals?”

  Jeremy raised his shoulders. “Don't know. Maybe ‘The Rape of the Lock.’ That's a poem I read in college. Or maybe just from the name of a rock group.”

  Melodia's gaze was as uncomprehending as Jeremy's had been a moment before. “You give names to stones?”

  Jeremy laughed. “No, a rock group is made of people who—oh, it's hard to explain. But people on Earth know about elementals, or at least imagine them, even though they're not real there.”

  “I can't conceive of a place where there is no magic,” Melodia said, crossing her arms. “How would you live in such a place? How would you heal illness, or manage the weather, or even travel?”

  “We do things like that by science—by technology,” Jeremy said.

  “I think,” Kelada said from her seat at the table, “I'll want to borrow some things, Melodia. Or take them and send you the money for them when I get it.”

  Melodia ignored her. “How? How do you, oh, how do you travel, for instance?”

  “I have a Civic,” Jeremy said.

  “And what is that?”

  “It's a car. A sort of, uh, a sort of carriage, but without a horse. It has an engine in it, a thing that makes it go.”

  “Some warmer clothes,” Kelada said, counting items off on her fingers. “A knife maybe, if you can spare one. Some walking shoes.”

  Melodia's eyes held puzzlement. “This engine has magic?”

  “No, just gasoline. It burns a kind of liquid called gasoline, and that makes some pistons move, and the pistons turn a shaft, and the shaft makes the wheels turn, and the wheels, uh, make the car go,” said Jeremy, feeling uncomfortably that his explanation fell short in a few details.

  “But what tells the car where to go? What magic directs it?”

  “None. A person drives it.”

  “Then it cannot go very fast?”

  “I'll need to take some food, too,” Kelada said. “Enough for a few days, until I can scout out some places to rob.”

  Jeremy scratched his head. “Cars can go pretty fast,” he said. “I've driven one over a hundred miles an hour.”

  “I do not know what that means.”

  “Well—how do you travel?”

  Melodia shrugged. “We use my father's travel spell. Each person in Thaumia pays him a tribute, and in exchange he assigns each traveler a secret syllable. Or his assistants do, now that everyone uses the spell.”

  Kelada, still seated at the table, snorted in laughter. “Not everyone,” she said.

  Melodia blushed. “Well, some people are too—too poor to pay the tribute. And others, ah—”

  “Some of us are outlaws,” Kelada said succinctly. “We don't get travel spells. We have to rely on our legs and whatever animals we can steal.”

  Melodia took a deep breath. “Anyway, to travel, we just visualize our destination, repeat the syllable aloud, and that activates the spell. We are then at our destination.” She paused. “Of course, since it takes about an ona and a half in transit, people still walk or ride for short journeys—or when some people do not wish their travels to be detected, they, too, may walk or ride.”

  “What's an ona?” Jeremy asked.

  “Five hundred simi.”

  They then fell into a discussion of time. Finally, with the aid of a sandglass, Melodia managed to make Jeremy understand that an ona (plura hona) was a period of time that lasted seventy-two Earth minutes. A day had twenty hona in it. Further, to anyone not traveling, travel by spell seemed instantaneous: if Melodia, for example, spoke her spell in her bedroom while visualizing her kitchen, she would pop out of existence in the bedchamber and, to an observer, instantly pop into existence in the kitchen. But to Melodia herself, any trip, no matter how long or how short, would subjectively take seven hundred and ninety-six simi to complete.

  Jeremy found the concept hard to understand, but no harder than Melodia's difficulty with automobiles. “No human,” she said, “could control anything moving that fast.”

  Kelada, for her part, got a large bowl, a paring knife, and some vegetables and started to peel them. “I want to have a decent meal in me before I leave,” she growled, “even if you two professors aren't interested in your bellies.”

  Jeremy, seated in a chair pulled away from the table and intent on his conversation with Melodia, who stood to one side of the mantel, arms crossed and head down, barely looked at Kelada. “We're trying to—” he began just before he was struck by lightning.

  At least he perceived the blast of light and the bone-shaking roar as a lightning bolt that had scored a direct hit on the house, if not on him. He was aware of his chair toppling sideways, but before he could make a move to catch himself his face cracked against the stone floor and fireworks went off behind his eyes. He rolled free of the chair and pushed himself to his hands and knees on a floor that seemed to be spinning around.

  Jeremy shook his head. Melodia, her back still against the wall, was sliding down to a sitting position, her eyes rolled up. Kelada had been thrown forward from her chair and half-sprawled across the table. Past her, where the outer door had been, there was a large rectangular hole in the wall, and standing in it was a squat, bowlegged figure like something in one of Jeremy's bad old dreams. Round-headed, pointy-eared, it was only a silhouette against the light. Its abnormally long and thin arms were upraised, and at the end of the arms two three-taloned hands were spread wide.

  Before Jeremy could put two coherent thoughts together, Kelada had rolled off the table and had landed with feet wide apart facing the door. She still held the paring knife, and with a yell she lunged for the thing in the door. It swept its hands together and apart, barked a word, and blasted Ke
lada backward, her arms and legs jerking forward from her momentum, the knife flying wide and clattering across the floor. She hit hard on hip and leg and cried out.

  And Jeremy, to his astonishment, realized that the emotion boiling inside him was not what he thought. His mind told him he ought to be terrified, he ought to be running now—but what he felt wasn't fear at all.

  It was rage.

  With an inarticulate growl he pushed up from the floor and barreled toward the intruder. In the black beachball of a head, orange eyes flashed, and a slash of a mouth opened to speak another word. The three-fingered hands shot forward in a snakelike magical pass—

  —and nothing happened.

  The orange eyes blinked once, then Jeremy had grabbed the collar of the thing's tunic with his left hand, had cocked his right fist at shoulder height, and, aiming down—the creature was a good eighteen inches shorter than he—Jeremy let fly. His blow caught the creature hard on the mouth, sent it tumbling backward into the yard to land splat! on its butt.

  It also hurt like hell. Jeremy danced in place, shaking his hand and wondering if any single bone in it remained intact.

  In the yard, the creature sat with its orange eyes crossed, its head wobbling loose on its negligible neck, its bare feet—three-toed as the hands were three-fingered, but blunted—thrust out before it. Despite its huge head, covered with short gray fur that glistened with the sheen of sealskin, the thing was really very spindly. It opened a mouth that stretched more than ear to ear—the corners actually reached a point on what should have been the monster's neck two inches past the ears—and showed Jeremy a headful of white teeth.

  “Come on,” Jeremy said, still shaking his right hand. “Try it again, sucker.”

  A pointed black tongue came out, pushed at what should have been the left upper canine. The conical tooth waggled and fell out. Blue-green ichor dripped from the opening onto the round chin. The creature blinked. “Oo broe muh toof,” it complained. “Oo broe muh toof ow!”

  “Get up, you—” Jeremy paused, jerked his chin up. There, in the yard, had he seen the quick flirt of a shadow, a man-shaped shadow? If so, it was gone now. The creature, holding its mouth and wincing, seemed alone.

  Behind Jeremy, Kelada said, “I think Melodia's hurt.”

  The tide of Jeremy's anger had begun to sink. “Get out of here, you—you freak,” he said, and spun on his heel.

  Kelada, crouched beside Melodia, was chafing her hands. Jeremy stooped over the sorceress and pressed his thumb against her neck, probing for the artery. “I think she'll be all right,” he said, though in truth he felt no pulse. Considering that his hand was numb, that didn't really surprise him. But her color was good, and her breathing regular. Indeed, as Jeremy spoke, Melodia moaned and turned her head so that her cheek caressed the back of his hand, making it feel better immediately. “Get her some water,” Jeremy said.

  “I get it,” said a voice to their left. The—thing, monster, demon, whatever it was—had come inside and was working the pump. First it swished water in its own mouth, then it took a cup from the sink, rinsed it, filled it with water, and brought it over clenched in both malformed hands. “Here.” It stopped a couple of paces away, extending the cup far from itself. It flinched as Jeremy reached for the water. “Don't hit me!”

  Jeremy growled beneath his breath, took the cup, and held it to Melodia's lips. She inhaled, murmured, swallowed some water, and opened her eyes. “Ow,” she said. “I banged my head against the—Nul, it's you. What did you do this for?”

  Blinking its orange eyes rapidly, the creature shuffled backward. “She came at me with knife,” it complained, pointing one hand at Kelada.

  “You bruised me from hip to knee,” Kelada countered, rubbing her thigh.

  “Well, he broke my tooth!” the creature said.

  “You blew the door out!” Jeremy snapped.

  “Stop it!” Melodia sat up, winced. “Ouch,” she said. “I have such a lump. Feel.” She guided Jeremy's good hand to the back of her head. He rotated his fingertips, massaging her scalp. Somehow he felt a little indecent stroking her head and palping the lump like that right in front of everyone, but in a perverse sort of way he enjoyed it.

  “Mouth hurts,” complained the newcomer.

  Melodia groaned. “Help me up.” Kelada and Jeremy got her to her feet and steadied her. She promptly settled onto a corner of the hearth. “Come over here, Nul. I'll see what I can do.”

  “He'll hit me,” the creature muttered.

  Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Oh, for—”

  “He won't hit you,” Melodia said. “Come on. I can heal animals, and you should be close enough. Let me help you.”

  The creature shuffled forward slowly. Melodia looked at the gap in his mouth, asked Kelada for a dishcloth, which she used to wipe the chin clean of blood (if that was what it was), and held her hand over Nul's cheek while she crooned some soft, strange words. The orange eyes widened, then drooped in a foolish expression of pleasure. “There,” Melodia said at last. “The pain will ease and a new tooth should begin to grow in a week or so. Now, Nul, why did you break down my door? It's freezing in here.”

  Indeed, a frigid draft whipped around their ankles. Nul dropped his eyes. “He send me. From Whitehorn. To bring Sebastian back.”

  “Sebastian isn't here.”

  Nul glared at Jeremy. “I know what he look like.”

  “No,” Jeremy said. “I know I look like Sebastian Magister, but I'm not. I—oh, it's too complicated to explain right now.”

  The orange eyes had narrowed. “Not Sebastian? That why my spell not work!” The voice, which was high-pitched but gravelly at the same time, took on an aggrieved tone: “Powerful spell, and I even used the True Name. Waste of mana!”

  Melodia was gathering plants from the windowsill and transferring them to the hearth. “If Tremien sent you, he'll want to know about Jeremy here. My advice to you would be to return at once to explain why you damaged the house of a sorceress and hurt an innocent thief.”

  “Tremien?” Jeremy took a step toward Nul, who prudently retreated. “I want to see Tremien.”

  The creature blinked. “You—you want to see—?”

  “Go on,” Melodia said. “Tell Tremien that we have a visitor from another side of reality. From one without magic.”

  “I go,” the little being said. It waved its hands, muttered some quick word, and was not there anymore.

  Jeremy had a sensation of pressure in his ears and heard a soft vap! He blinked at nothingness. “He disappeared!”

  Melodia came over from the window, her arms full of tiny flowerpots. “My herbs and simples are going to wilt.”

  Kelada got up, took a limping step, and grimaced. “I'm leaving.”

  “He just—he just vanished,” Jeremy stammered.

  Melodia left the kitchen for two minutes. She came back with a tattered blanket—from the hayseeds clinging to it, Jeremy supposed it was the one he had slept on—a handful of small nails, and a hammer. “Help me,” she said. As Jeremy unfolded the blanket, she stepped into the yard, stooped, and picked something up. “Demon tooth,” she said, tucking it into a pocket of Jeremy's tunic that he had not even noticed before. “Might be useful, magically speaking.”

  Kelada had spread a large towel across the table. She was rummaging through the pantry now, packing it with dried fruits and other foods. “Pay you when I steal some money,” she said.

  Jeremy and Melodia hammered the blanket over the open doorway. It flapped in the draft, and chilling swirls of cold air leaked around it. By the time they finished, Kelada was tossing some odds and ends of clothes on top of the food.

  “Maybe that will keep us from freezing,” Melodia said.

  “These looked like old clothes,” Kelada told her. “Could I take the carving knife?”

  “How could he just disappear?” Jeremy asked.

  “The travel spell,” Melodia said. “There's an old coat in the second trunk in the room where
we got Jeremy's clothes. It's not fancy, but it's warm. Dear, I wish you'd reconsider.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Tremien's, I expect.”

  Kelada pushed past them. Jeremy stepped aside for her. “Then he'll be back—”

  “The same way. Instantaneously, less whatever time his interview with Tremien takes, of course.”

  Kelada came back in, muffled in an ankle-length quilted blue coat with an attached hood. “I'll be going now.”

  But before she reached the table and her improvised pack, Nul was back, coming into existence with an audible pop! Jeremy gaped at him.

  “Tooth better,” the round-headed little thing beamed. “Pain all gone.”

  “Good,” Melodia said. “Unfortunately, my house is still a wreck.”

  Nul held up a three-fingered hand—extra joints in the fingers, Jeremy noted this time—in a placating gesture. “I explain to Tremien. He think up fix spell.” In two strides the demon reached the doorway. He grasped the blanket with both hands and ripped it free.

  “Hey!” Jeremy protested in the blast of cold air.

  Nul ignored him, tossed the blanket aside, and spread his hands. “Iron and wood, be whole once more, once again you be a door,” he chanted.

  Jeremy stared. The splinters of wood and scattered nails began to stir, and not just from the draft. The nails rolled tinkling over the stone floor, the splinters stood on end—

  It was, impossibly, a reverse explosion. Everything leaped back into place, sound seemed to travel back into the door, and there it was, whole and closed. Jeremy blinked in the sudden dimness, found his mouth dry.

  “Good, good,” said Nul, dusting his hands. He felt inside his tunic. “Now,” he said. “Pay for healing. Here, you have this.” He clutched a gold chain, and from it dangled a round gold medallion. “Little charm Tremien gave me long ago. You wear, you see auras.”

  Melodia said, “Nul, I didn't intend to charge you—”

  “Take, take. Good for business. You wear, you know if sick animal really sick or if suffering curse. I want you have it.”