And the human shape was shrinking.
The more it shrank, the more things felt wrong. The air throbbed with power; power that tasted foul and made Thomas’s stomach heave. There were no names for the colors in that swirling cloud, no names for the fetid scents that wreathed around him, and above all, no names for what the troll was doing.
Thomas wasn’t entirely sure himself.
In theory, what the troll was doing was dividing himself, some of “himself” going back to wherever it was Earth Elementals came from, the rest slowly forming itself into a mouse.
Finally, with a whuff of displaced air, the energies dissipated. The air cleared a trifle. And Thomas looked down.
I told you, the mouse said, smugly.
24
NINETTE froze for a moment at the sound of a voice, then moved forward, inch by cautious inch, sliding her feet along the carpet so as not to make any noise at all. She identified the right door, partly from the fact that it was half open, and partly from the voice—
A female voice, oddly without any accent at all, and—speaking only one side of a conversation—
Then she edged a little nearer and suddenly the second “voice” faded into her head.
Thomas.
What was being said still made no sense to her, though:
I must say, I have heard about you Earth Elementals, but I never heard of one as powerful or as clever as you.
“Nor will you, I am unique!”
I can see that. Is it true that you can change shape? I mean, change it to something other than your native form and this one? I had heard that some of the most powerful of Elementals can do that, but I have never seen it. Truly, I was thinking it must be some kind of myth.
“I can take any form I care to, as long as I have absorbed the original. Watch.”
Thomas was talking to an Earth Elemental? But what kind? The Brownie couldn’t change shape, and what did this have to do with the man who had attacked her?
Surely—surely that man was not somehow connected to the mage that was trying to hurt her and her friends? But his attack had been completely ordinary, the assault on her mind, she was sure, a matter of mere accident. Why suddenly switch from magic to a completely mundane attack?
To throw us off the track? To distract us?
But this Elemental, why was Thomas talking to it?
She felt something, a kind of air-quake, and then there was the sound of completely animalistic growling. She pressed her back flat against the wall, her skin crawling with primitive fear at the sound. Whatever was in there, it was no dog. It said it was changing form—into what?
She lost the next bit of exchange as she fought the urge to turn and run. Thomas was still in there, still frightened, and she could not leave him. She would not leave him. Help would be coming soon, she still had her revolver. Jonathon and Nigel could find her by that, for they had handled it, and could track her by it. “Then you have never fallen off a ship in winter,” the woman said, when the growls faded and the air quaked a few more times. Ninette blinked. What form had she taken?
The whole conversation had an unreal air to it, the same chaotic, disjointed air of a nightmare.
I will take your word for it. Can you become a bird?
“Of course. But—I do not care to do so for long. There is only so much thinking so little a head can do. So, why is it you have come to me, cat? Have you no loyalty to your mistress?”
Why was he talking to her?
For a moment, there was doubt. Then her own good sense told her why. Thomas had thought to spy on this . . . creature. Whatever she was. And she had caught him. He was buying time, trying to find a way out of his predicament by getting her to talk.
I am a cat. When is a cat loyal to anything but his own best interest?
“Ha! Well said. And you wish to be on the winning side in this?”
She felt his revulsion. That alone told her that he was trying to bluff his way out.
Let us say that I know where my own best interest lies.
“And what is it that you can do for me, cat? I have servants. In fact, I have more than I need. You do not have hands, you cannot even do what they do.”
Ninette frowned. An Earth Elemental? Had servants? That made no sense—Elementals did not have servants. Did they?
But I can go where they cannot.
At that moment she felt a surge of excitement from him, excitement and recognition. He knew she was here!
Say you want to know what your lover is saying about you when you are on stage. I can creep under the seats, or into the private boxes and listen. I can spy on him, or anyone else, as they sleep. I can find out the secrets of your rivals, I can learn anything you wish to have found out. A cat can go almost anywhere.
She laughed. “So you say. But I can become a cat too, or better still, a rat or a mouse. You say that a cat can go anywhere, but if I need to learn something all that badly, I can go where even a cat cannot, between the walls where no one would even suspect my existence.”
Oh, come now! Thomas reproved. All these other things you have turned yourself into were quite large. It is one thing to make yourself into something human-sized or larger. But to make yourself into a mouse? I believe you are telling me a tale.
She sensed something from him that she could not read. She concentrated. What was he getting at? And—how could anyone turn into a mouse?
Don’t question it, she scolded herself, feeling the air of danger behind the words. Just listen, and be prepared to act!
“You doubt my abilities?”
Oh, I am sure you can make yourself into the form of a mouse, but it would have to be a mouse the size of a tiger. It takes real skill in magic to be able to shrink yourself that way, and I have never actually seen anyone that could do that—outside of a spirit, since they don’t have any material body to begin with and can look like whatever they like.
“You think I don’t have the skill?” The words were shouted, and angry. Thomas was getting her angry, maybe to keep her from thinking. A mouse, a mouse—had she somehow forgotten that he was a cat? “I will show you, skill, cat! I will show you skill such as you have never seen!”
If the magic before had made an air-quake, this made a kind of reality-quake. Ninette closed her eyes, tried to make herself one with the wall behind her, as the world took itself apart and put itself back together again, all in a moment. And then did it all over again. And again.
She was finding it hard to breathe, Whatever was going on in there, it was like nothing she had ever experienced before.
Terror closed in all around her. She went, hot, then cold, and she wanted nothing more to do than to flee in a panic. Death was all around her, and she could feel it breathing down her neck. She had never, in all her life, been so certain that in the next moment, she might very well die.