Advanced Mythology (2 page)

Chapter 1

The ancient midnight-blue Mustang pulled cautiously onto the Midwestern University campus and crept along a side street in front of the dormitory buildings. A slender young man with red hair, sitting in the passenger seat, looked around nervously. There seemed to be no one at all at the wheel.

“Okay, Enoch,” Keith Doyle said, keeping an eye out. “Can you see the open space ahead on the right? Let’s try parallel parking. Pull up to the car ahead of it.…”

The small black-haired male in the driver’s seat glared up at him. His hands clutched the wheel tightly. “I know the rules for parking in parallel. I would do better without narration.”

“Okay, okay,” Keith said, holding his hands up in an “I surrender” pose. “I just thought I could help.”

“I have used up the last of my nerves in the trip all the way here from the farm,” Enoch said. “Let me make the attempt on my own. You can correct me if I have made a mistake.” Keith shrugged and sat back. Enoch might look like a scrawny twelve-year-old boy, but he was a grown man in his late forties, a talented woodworker, a puissant scholar, and possessed the temper of a wolverine.

Enoch let his foot off the brake and, peering forward through the gap over the dashboard and below the top edge of the wheel, eased the Mustang gently up beside the large red van parked in front of the empty length of curb. Suddenly, the doors on both sides of the van popped open. Enoch slammed on the brake.

A middle-aged man in shorts climbed out of the driver’s seat. He gave Keith a friendly but harried glance. The man did a double-take. Keith, knowing that he saw the driver’s seat behind him as empty, gave him a friendly grin. Shaking his head, the man walked around to help the teenaged girl now at the rear of the vehicle to flip open the back hatch.

“This’ll take a moment,” Keith said, without glancing around. “Unless they’re planning to unload everything on the grass. Nope, just a couple of suitcases at a time. Good. Okay, they’re gone.”

“Hmph,” Enoch snorted, throwing the car in reverse. The old car skimmed by the red van and angled into the space. The huge steering wheel rolled through the black haired elf’s hands as the car came to a rest, perfectly centered between the van and the car behind. Keith applauded as Enoch slammed the gearshift to
P
for Park and turned off the ignition.

“Nice job. In no time at all we’ll have you going over the roads in an eighteen-wheeler.” He turned toward the back seat. “Don’t you think that was a nice job parking, Holl?”

“Hmm?” Another small figure, this one resembling a twelve-year-old boy with blond hair under a baseball cap between his tall pointed ears, round pink cheeks and chin, turned from staring out the window. He blinked blue eyes at the two in the front.

“You’re in another world today,” Keith said. “I thought daydreaming and looking blank was my job.”

“Things on my mind, Keith Doyle,” Holl said. A line creased the skin between his brows on a normally cheerful face. He was Keith’s best friend among the Little Folk. In fact, if Keith was thinking about it, his best friend anywhere. He hated to see Holl preoccupied. The blond elf had been unusually silent since they’d left the Folk’s farm. No amount of teasing or prodding from Keith had so far persuaded Holl to open up. Not really unusual, since the Folk tended to be more private than Keith was, but the worried expression he wore whenever Keith asked him a question made the worry contagious. Keith wondered if he should push the matter, and decided to wait until they were back at the farm.

“Should we wait here?” Enoch asked hoarsely, glancing at the steady flow of students and parents burdened down with luggage.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Keith asked. “I have to get my class assignments. It’ll only take a little while. You can go … incognito.”

The two elves looked at each other.

“I don’t like it,” Enoch said. “It’s a matter of pride. I rarely covered my ears when I went about Midwestern before we moved.”

“How often did you go out in broad daylight?” Keith asked.

Holl shrugged.

“Few notice, but it’s the one who does that will make trouble for us,” he admitted. “All right.”

Keith could never help but be impressed by the illusion they crafted. It was hard to believe that they weren’t really changing, but only appearing to change. The tall, elegant points of their ears seemed to melt before his eyes, shrinking to rounded lobes. Because he was so used to seeing them in their normal configuration, these human-sized ears looked much too small. But at least they wouldn’t attract notice. That was the last thing he wanted to have happen.

Solicitously, he shepherded his two friends toward the School of Business. He hoped there was no one around with advanced perception who could see that his companions weren’t the youngsters they seemed to be, but mythical beings who were twice as old as he was. In the back of his mind he always worried that someone would come along one day and snatch the Folk up from under his nose and he’d never see them again. They were very important to him. They represented more than friendship, more than a business arrangement. The Folk were the fulfillment of a dream that he’d had ever since his parents had started to read him fairy tales. They were magic. In spite of his hopes and boundless determination, he could not have predicted until the day that it happened that he would ever meet someone who no ordinary person really believed existed. Keith was aware of the privilege he enjoyed, interacting with them whenever he wanted to. He’d caused them some problems, but he’d helped them, too. The fact of which he was most proud was that he had helped them to found a viable business that allowed them to be financially independent. They might look like everybody’s idea of leprechauns, but the part about the pot of gold was a myth. That they liked him made him so happy he felt like breaking into a dance right there in the middle of campus.

Instead he filled the silence. Enoch was never a talker and Holl was buried in his own thoughts.

“I’d love to be able to finish off my classes in a year, maybe a year and a half, so I can get out there and get a good job,” he said, as the two elves stalked cautiously around a pack of chattering undergraduates. The few who glanced around turned back immediately, uninterested in a pair of children. “The counselor told me there would be no problem getting into the right classes. The course load for an MBA isn’t
that
heavy. I can be out again soliciting orders for you in between assignments.”

“Since you bring up the subject of assignments,” Enoch interrupted him with a sharp look, “the Master was not best pleased that you sent him your last essay at one minute to midnight last week.”

“Hey!” Keith protested, hands in the air. “
Technically
it was still Thursday.”

“
Technically
doesn’t please him. Everyone had gone to bed except for the few reading messages from overseas. Imagine their surprise when the wee flag on the mailbox icon went up, and it was from you. Keva thought it was an emergency and went to roust him from sleep.”

“Uh-oh,” Keith said guiltily. “I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy. And c’mon, I graduated! I thought I was done with essays and research papers, at least for the summer. Imagine my surprise back in June when I discovered you’d gotten an e-mail account, and the first message I get from you is an assignment for five pages on the change in art in the New World between pre- and post-Columbian periods.”

“From my father,” Enoch said, “not from me. He is the teacher, and since you have not said otherwise, you are still his student.”

“True. Thanks a lot. In spite of working my summer job—which was full time, by the way—and going to see every relative in my family I have been turning my essays in to the Master faithfully by the due date. I’ve been kind of short of time.”

“Too short to visit us for many weeks now,” Enoch said, with a significant nod towards Holl, who was walking along in a trance a couple of paces behind them. “Some have missed you greatly.”

Keith nodded apologetically. “I’ve missed all of you, too. Wish I could have gotten down here more often. Well, I’ll be back here full time next week. You haven’t had any trouble getting orders out without me?”

“You know we need to learn to cope without your presence constantly underfoot, you precocious infant,” Holl said, catching the last statement and hurrying to walk alongside them. “All’s well. The delivery service gives us no trouble. They take the cartons from the box on the porch, sign the book, and away! The next we know a check from the vendor appears.”

“And a bill from the delivery service,” Enoch said, his dark brows drawn down over his nose. “And
they
cannot visit our customers and learn if they are happy or not.”

“Well, I can help with that when I get back down here,” Keith said. “Starting next week.”

The J.F. Compton School of Business of Midwestern University was living up to its name. The doors of the building were opening and closing in a never-ending rhythm as students came and went with piles of books and papers fluttering in the August sunshine.

Enoch and his brother-in-law sat down on a low brick wall that surrounded a concrete terrace before the door while the Big student disappeared into the building. Enoch consulted a mental map. Unless things had changed over the last couple of years, Keith needed to go to the auditorium on the lower level, just above the ancient steam tunnels that the Folk were accustomed to using as hidden paths around the campus. He ought to be gone for at least half an hour. He glanced at Holl, and found himself meeting worried blue eyes.

“Don’t you say a word to him,” Enoch said. “This is still
your
worry and yours alone.”

“I was not going to,” Holl said, peevishly. “It’s unjust. I still feel that Keith Doyle’s input would be valuable. I don’t intend to place the burden on his back. I am content to bear that. What’s wrong with counsel?”

“The Conservatives hold that we’re becoming too dependent upon this gentle fool, so much so that we’re losing the ability to cope on our own.”

“He’s not a fool,” Holl corrected him. Enoch nodded.

“No, to be fair, he’s not. But the Master has spoken. You’ll not bring it up. This is a worry we will solve among ourselves.”

Holl sighed. “I won’t say a word.” Restlessly, he got up from his perch and wandered out onto the broad lawn behind the wall.

When Keith Doyle returned, bearing a sheaf of papers, Enoch was sitting on the wall alone.

“Where’s Holl?” the Big student asked, plopping down beside him.

Enoch pointed out onto the green that lay between the business school and the new library beyond. The small figure sat slumped in shadow against a huge sycamore tree, his hands busy with some small object or objects. Keith guessed that Holl was whittling. He was a real artist, capable of creating the most lifelike shapes out of solid wood, bone or whatever he could cut with the titanium-bladed knife he carried. Keith got up to see what he was doing, but Enoch put a hand on his arm to hold him back.

“He just wants a few moments on his own. This place holds many kindly memories for us. It will give him peace.”

Keith watched the distant figure dash something away in frustration. “Enoch, is something going on? Holl’s not acting like himself. He’s been silent as a clam all day. Nothing wrong with Asrai, is there?” Keith adored Holl’s baby daughter.

Enoch grunted. The black haired elf could be remarkably taciturn when he chose. “The weight of office,” he finally said.

“Oh,” said Keith, thinking that he understood. Holl was the heir apparent to the leadership of the Little Folk, and was constantly undergoing “tests” set him by the senior members of the village.

Enoch knew what was really troubling his sister’s life-mate, but had no right to bring it up to the Big student, for all he’d proved his worth and his quality time and again to the Folk. There were some roads one had to go down alone.

“Do you think he wants to talk about it?”

“No,” Enoch said shortly.

Keith shrugged. “Okay. We’ll give him some mental space.” He sat back and squinted up at the sun. “It’s a nice day, anyhow. I don’t mind the wait.”

“No time is ever wasted,” Enoch said. “You can work on your assignment for me while we await him.”

“Now?” the Big student asked, surprised. He glanced around at the hundreds of strangers standing, sitting, or sprawling on the terrace. “Here?”

“You can practice magic and subtlety at the same time,” Enoch said. “Try something small.”

Keith glanced around, then gathered up a handful of crisp, narrow leaves from underneath the nearby bushes. He cupped them in his hands, and closed his eyes to concentrate. Enoch could feel a trickle of the charm he was using. Something to do with cohesion.

He was always a bit surprised that any Big Person could feel, let alone use the power of nature. His folk had long ago consigned the Big ones to the phylum of a lower life form, but for better or worse Keith Doyle was different. Books of legend were plentiful about the exploits of human enchanters in the past. Though Enoch assumed most of the legends weren’t true, he should not have been surprised to find one magician in a generation, especially one who claimed close family ties to a land where the Folk had lived for a thousand years or more.

“Ta-daa,” Keith said, opening his hands. A pigeon with feathers of shiny brown and gold hopped off his palm and fluttered to the terrace, where it began at once to peck at the ground.

“That is not very real looking,” Enoch complained. “The eyes are dull, and it is too thin.”

“C’mon, transformation is hard,” Keith said.

“And ye’ve only had all summer to think about it.”

Keith shrugged. Thinking hard about how real pigeons looked, he tossed the remaining leaves one at a time to the ground. The bird hopped over and picked them up. With each bite the simulacrum seemed to take on substance, getting rounder, plumper, and glossier. It looked up at Keith and cooed.

“No more leaves, birdie,” he said, showing it his empty hands. It ambled away, rolling from side to side on its round legs, and joined the real pigeons milling about on the sunny side of the terrace. “That could be a shock to any ornithologists hanging around. I’d better undo it before we go.”