“He’s very strong in dul-dul,” said the one with dark green eyes. “And so good at the game!”
“We all like Dirty Harry,” Shisti added. “He is dependable, even if he is slow to grow up.”
“He has a good laugh,” said the littlest one.
Shisti nodded. “And a very fine penis.”
Lily choked. “That’s what us Big People call too much information.”
That made them all laugh. They agreed with each other that Big People were very funny about sex. Shisti leaned forward to say that she knew about Harry’s penis from before she grew up, of course. The others chimed in with additional explanations.
“You are confused because you Big People don’t know what ‘marriage’ means.”
A snort from Lily’s left. “They know. They don’t do.”
Giggles. “They do this one, and that one, and the next one—”
“—only youngsters go around doing sex with everyone. Rule is an adult. Even Big People must notice that, so they’ll let him leave this jail of yours.”
Lily gave up explaining about law and jails. “I need explanations. Gandalf. You’re in charge here?”
“No, of course not. I’m the boss.”
Cheerful grins all around. “She is very bossy,” one agreed.
“But you can answer my questions.”
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “Yes. You are an
efondi
.”
Eleven heads bobbed along with her. One them hummed a snatch of melody; two of them repeated, “
Efondi
.”
“You are permitted to know,” Gandalf went on. “Mika told us to tell you. But first, you must pinkie-swear to never, ever reveal what I am about to say.”
“No.”
Brownie babble erupted. Three of them sprang to their feet. Some forgot to use English. Shisti burst into tears. The gist seemed to be that Lily absolutely, positively had to pinkie-swear.
Lily raised her voice over the babble. “Mika told you to tell me. Don’t you have to do what he says?”
“What she says, silly!”
“Yes, but she doesn’t—”
“No one can know!”
“She has to—”
Lily raised her voice more. “Mika told you to tell me. She did not say I had to pinkie-swear.” Lily was gambling now. Dragons could mindspeak one person or many; Lily hadn’t been privy to whatever Mika said to the brownies. Shoot, she didn’t even know what all Mika had said to her. The painful static had drowned out parts.
Dead silence. It was wonderful. It didn’t last. Gandalf said slowly, “Mika didn’t say you
didn’t
have to swear silence.”
“No, she didn’t. But dragons are very precise in their speech. If Mika had wanted me to pinkie-swear, wouldn’t she have said so?”
Gandalf’s cute little wrinkled face screwed up in thought. She said something in her language. Some of the others responded in the same tongue—a lilting sort of speech, suited to their high-pitched voices.
That went on for a while. Lily drank more Coke. It wasn’t getting rid of her headache, but it tasted good. She took a bite of the apple. It was delicious, sweet and tart in just the right way.
She’d almost finished both apple and Coke when Gandalf spoke in English again. “We cannot decide what Mika intended. We can’t ask her. We used much power making her listen long enough to let down the fire, and now . . .” She sighed. “This isn’t in the
ithnali
, and it has been long and long since we served. We have no guide other than the
ithnali.
Mika did not say you had to pinkie-swear, but she does not think so clearly in her current mind. Maybe she assumed . . . still, she did not say, so we are not wrong to tell you without the swearing, and she said to tell you. But if you tell someone else, very likely Mika or another dragon will kill zhe.”
“Or tamper with zhe’s mind,” another one added seriously. “The black dragon could do that without destroying the mind. I think. Maybe.”
“But probably just kill,” Gandalf said.
A dozen adorable heads bobbed in agreement.
“And the dragons will find out, if you tell. They watch for such knowledge. So I think you shouldn’t tell anyone who you want to live.”
“Ah.” Lily’s mouth felt dry. She finished her Coke. “This is a big-deal secret to the dragons.”
Everyone nodded again, including Gandalf, who leaned forward. “Listen and heed,” she said in a singsong. “In the way-back time, when brownies first came to be, we were friends with squirrels and birds, as now. Then as now, we laughed with the trees, played with raccoons, and teased the badger. But we were few and then fewer, for we were small, and we had no dul-dul.”
A chorus of hisses, sighs, and head shakes greeted that announcement.
“The dragons came to us and offered to make a great change, to give us the dul-dul. In return, we would serve them at their
tinaitha
. They needed us. We needed them. This was
af’Yaldo
—The Big Deal. No one knows of
af’Yaldo
, save only brownies and dragons.”
“And
efondi
,” put in the littlest one.
“And
efondi
,” Gandalf agreed, “But
efondi
are either dragons or dragon-descended. And possibly the Queens . . . we are not sure about the Queens. They may know. They have lived a long, long time. But otherwise, only brownies and dragons—”
“And the Queen’s Hound,” piped up the smallest brownie. “He knows.”
This was one interruption too many. Gandalf snapped, “We do not know if he knows.”
“The dragons don’t like him.”
Gandalf sniffed. “He lives, doesn’t he?”
An argument sprang up, not always in English. Most seemed to think that the Hound’s continued existence proved that he didn’t know about The Big Deal, though a couple of them disagreed for reasons unclear to Lily, as they were expressed in terms of brownie logic. In other words, they made no sense at all. The discussion might have gone on indefinitely, but Gandalf cleared her throat loudly and the others subsided. She folded her hands in her lap and finished. “And so it has been, down through the ages.”
“So it was and is,” the others chorused.
Shisti turned to grin at Lily. “Isn’t that cool?”
That started them off again. This time they argued about the word “cool.” It was a subject they felt passionate about, with half of them disdaining the word—which, one of them said, didn’t deserve any encouragement—and the other half vociferous advocates. Gandalf tried clearing her throat again, to no effect. So she bopped the two sitting next to her on their heads.
“Ow!”
“Why did you do that?”
“Did we come here to talk about cool? I think not.” Gandalf straightened to her most dignified. Brownies were not all that good at dignified. “Do you understand, Lilyu?” The way she said it made one name out of two.
“No. I understand that dul-dul came from the dragons and that you serve dragons at, ah,
tinaitha.
I don’t see what that has to do with me—with why I was kidnapped and am being held captive. And what,” she added with rising annoyance, “is
tinaitha?
”
“Ah!” Green eyes twinkled. “Adult dragons are the most rational, the most controlled, of sentient beings—except during
tinaitha
, when they are driven by instinct so strong even they cannot master it. Brownies are the only ones who can be with a mother dragon without triggering her need to kill.”
“A . . . mother dragon.” For some reason the two words didn’t seem to go together. “A mother dragon?”
“Yes.” Mischief glinted in those bright eyes. “Lilyu, had you ever noticed that all the dragons were male?”
Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. All the dragons who’d come back with her from Dis were male. She knew that, but . . . surely at least one of them was . . . no. Not one, and she’d known that without exactly noticing it, but that made no—
The brownies burst into peals of laughter. They laughed for some time, eventually winding down into giggles and grins.
“You looked so funny!” Gandalf wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.
Lily scowled. “They’re all male. All of them. And I never thought about it, what that meant. How could I not have noticed?”
“Because the dragons didn’t want you to. Everyone knows the dragons are male. No one thinks about it. Except us, of course.”
No one? All over the world? Dragons had mind magic out the wazoo, but that was flat-out unbelievable. “They couldn’t do that. Not to everyone. The world’s too big.”
“You are sure?” Gandalf’s eyebrows lifted in lofty surprise. “Then find someone, somewhere, who has noticed that the dragons are all male. A U.S. scientist who worries about their species going extinct, maybe. A child in Argentina. An old Russian man. Maybe an aborigine in Australia. They know that all the dragons are male. They do not think about it. At all.”
That level of mental tampering . . . an entire world? “That can’t be possible.”
“Oh, possible, impossible . . .” The old brownie shrugged. “Never mind if it is possible. It is so. Dragons are born male. They remain male until they decide to be female. It is a difficult transformation, requiring a great deal of gold—”
“Gold?”
Gandalf giggled. “Did you think they liked it because it’s shiny? I won’t speak of their process. It’s very secret, and also I don’t know anything about it.”
“Except that gold is required.”
She nodded. “They eat it. So Mika—you know she is the youngest? When she was male, he longed for the third birth very much—”
“Third birth,” Lily repeated.
“Oh, yes,” piped up another one. “Dragons have three births.”
“One when the eggs are laid—”
“Two when the eggs hatch—”
“Three when they transform to female,” Gandalf finished firmly. “Which they may do only once or several times, but only the first time is their third birth—which, as I said, Mika longed for, but it wasn’t allowed. Or do I mean enabled?” She tapped her chin. “Yes, I do. He was born in Dis, you see. Dis is not a good place to raise children. Even dragon children.”
It wouldn’t be. All those demons . . . “A dragon can’t, uh, transform without the help of other dragons?”
Gandalf’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t say that. Did I say that?” She looked around at the others. They assured her that no, she hadn’t. “Not quite,” Shisti added cautiously. Gandalf frowned hard at Shisti. That round, wrinkled face couldn’t look fierce, but she tried. Shisti wilted. “Where was I? Oh, yes. So Mika transformed and mated with the others.”
“Mika’s a girl,” Lily said, dazed. “And she mated. With all of them?”
“Oh, yes, that is very important. Unless one or more of them are her parents, of course. Dragons do not mate with their offspring, but parentage is a private matter for them. I don’t know if any of these dragons begat or birthed Mika. Other than parents, they must all mate with her, or the others will kill them. Not right away, but later, after the fledging, which doesn’t take place until quite some time after the eggs hatch—”
“Eggs.” Lily couldn’t seem to stop repeating things the brownie said. “Dragon eggs. I didn’t see any eggs.”
Gandalf looked shocked. “You wouldn’t. Mika may be in a primitive mind, but not that primitive! But you’ll see the wee little dragons when they hatch.” She nodded encouragingly. “You’re the
efondi
.”
“You used that word before. What is an
efondi?
”
Gandalf cocked her head. “Midwife? Godmother? No . . . you don’t have a word for it. The
efondi
should be a dragon, of course. A female dragon. If a male dragon entered Mika’s territory, she’d kill him. If she couldn’t kill him, the others would. Dragon instincts are
very strong
about such things. But . . .” She sighed. “There are no other female dragons at this time, and Mika didn’t want to wait and let one of the others transform first. It was her turn.”
“But if he—she—can’t transform without help from the others—”
Gandalf did her best to look fierce again. “I did not say that.”
“But . . .” Lily sighed and gave up. “Never mind. What does an
efondi
do?”
“I don’t know.” The old brownie smiled sunnily. “That’s not in the
ithnali.”
“None of our business,” piped up another one.
“
But I’m sure you’ll do it well,” Shisti said, “whatever it is. If you don’t go crazy.”
“But what am I supposed to—you can’t just tell me—oh, hell!” Lily pushed to her feet. “I’m leaving.”
Gandalf rolled her eyes. “Oh,
that
will work.”
It didn’t. Fire sprang up in front of Lily as soon as she left the chamber. “Shit.”
“We told you and told you,” Shisti said. “We don’t hold you here. Mika does.”
“She may be in a primitive mind,” another one added, “but she knows fire in all her minds.”
“Look.” Lily turned back to face the brownies crowded up in the doorway looking at her with expressions ranging from disapproval to sympathy. “This is no good. You have to give me some idea what I’m supposed to do to help Mika.”
They insisted that they couldn’t, since they didn’t know. But it was a great honor, being asked to be
efondi.
“No one asked! I was
kidnapped.
Kidnapped is not asked!” Lily ran a hand through her hair—her dirty, unbrushed hair—and growled. It wasn’t much of a growl compared to Rule’s, but it was probably better than throwing things at their cute little distressed faces. One of them—the littlest one, whom she absolutely
could not
hit—started patting her on the leg, up-tilted face filled with concern, saying, “There, there. There, there.”
Couldn’t hit them. Couldn’t even shove the one patting her away. Lily gritted her teeth and went on in a tightly controlled voice, “And why wasn’t I asked? What reason could there be to force me here instead of asking?”
Something about the patterns, they thought, though they didn’t understand about patterns. That was a dragon thing, and maybe she’d feel better if she had something to do? They all had suggestions. After breathing in and out for a few moments, getting her temper under control, Lily had a suggestion, too. A bath.
They loved the idea. They got so excited that it worried Lily—with reason, as it turned out. But how could she have known that brownies considered a bath a major social occasion? Washing-up was a personal chore, but baths were big, splash-happy parties. Plus they considered her “invitation” to bathe a sure sign that she wasn’t mad anymore about the whole kidnapped-and-held-captive thing.