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.