“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.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Masteress 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.
CHAPTER EIGHT
High 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.