Crewel Lye (25 page)

There was more action in the passage. This time, the entrance was by gnomides, the gnome women, who were rather pretty little things. I have already remarked on how the human-related creatures seem to have better taste in women than in men, at least as far as appearances go. Structurally it's another matter, of course; legs that may look and taste delectable don't run as fast as those with muscles. I suppose there should be a reasonable compromise between appearance and performance; but of course, I was not the one to design the humanoid form.

The gnomides brought a pot of murky water and a bundle of cooked roots. The roots tasted awful and were threaded with undigestible strings, but we were both so hungry that we ate them without protest. At least there was plenty of the stuff, so that my body had the substance it needed for healing completely and strengthening.

The gnomides departed, and we had more time to ourselves. That's one thing prisoners have plenty of--time. We practiced our song some more, perfecting it, then rested. “The more you sleep, the faster my body will recover,” I told her.

“I wonder whether you should practice changing form,” she said. “We don't want the gnomes to know you can do it, but if the opportunity arises for a change, you do need to know how.”

“I phased to smoke so I could bury the black sword in a stone,” I said. “I just willed it, and it happened.”

“Yes, that's the way. If you concentrate harder, it works faster, but you still can't do it in much under an hour. You were very smart to deal with the sword that way.”

“I was desperate!” But I felt a feminine flush of pleasure at the compliment.

“The problem is, you can do only one kind of change at a time, and you have to complete that before you can begin another. You can't change size halfway, then change density halfway; the most you can do is change your mind and resolidify before you're done. So it's really quite limited--which is one reason I did not try to escape captivity till night. My body is vulnerable while it's in the process of change; it has to be undisturbed for things to work right.”

“I know how it is,” I said. “My body can't heal properly if it keeps getting messed up. But how does your body know when halfway is? I mean, couldn't you be shrinking to elf size, but stop at gnome size and decide-that's where you were going anyway?”

My eyes widened in my handsome but smudged male face. “I never thought of that!” she exclaimed. “I always had an object in mind, like a mouse; first I'd change to mouse size and be so dense I'd almost sink through the ground. Then I'd diffuse back to normal density, at which point I'd be the size and mass of an imp. Then I'd change shape and be a complete mouse. I never was able to do it any other way--but I suppose it's possible.”

“Just as it turned out to be possible for my voice to sing,” I agreed. “What's this about super-density?”

“The mass of the body stays the same, unless that's what's being changed,” she explained. “When I reduce my mass without changing size or form, I become ghostlike; then if I reduce my size commensurately, I become normally solid again. The mass of a mouse distributed through the volume of a woman is vaporous, but still there; when the size becomes that of a mouse, all is well.”

“That's interesting,” I said, not very interested. “But now you'd better sleep.”

She agreed. My body settled back and in a moment was snoring. That startled me. Oh, I knew I snored sometimes, but hadn't realized it was that loud and vulgar. People at Fen Village had complained now and then, but I had believed they were joking.

I wasn't sleepy myself; this body was not busy recovering from decapitation and dismemberment, so was more alert. I decided to experiment cautiously with changing states. I had diffused before and returned to normality, so I knew I could handle that. What about shape? No, that would be too obvious, if the gnomes came back unexpectedly. Size? Yes, maybe I could do something with that. I would make myself larger--no, smaller, again to escape notice if observed. And I would stop wherever I chose, then decide what to do next. I wanted to know the limits of Threnody's talent. Our lives might depend on it.

I shrank for about a quarter of an hour, then checked the mark I had made on the wall. Yes, I was about three-quarters of my prior height. In an hour I could reduce to--to what, zero size? Microscopic? A microscope was a magic instrument used to see things too small to see; I could appear under that instrument and do a pantomime act, astonishing the Magician watching! Except that any larger creature could eat me; that thought changed my mind quickly.

I was denser; there was a different feel to my body, not comfortable. I was breathing more rapidly, as if my lungs were not taking in enough air. This made sense; they had to support the same mass, but they were smaller, so they had to work harder. How could Threnody have diminished to mouse size without suffocating? She must have diffused first, then shrunk, so she could breathe. I was also having a little trouble with my balance, because I was closer to the ground and had less time to correct my stance, as well as being overmassed for this size. I realized that even if density were kept constant, a person would not want to be the size of a mouse, for it would be hard to balance on two feet. The imps, of course, were used to it, and maybe had magic to keep them steady; but if I were the size of a mouse, I'd better also assume the form of a mouse. It was amazing how complex a simple thing like size-change became; no wonder Threnody hadn't been eager to launch into it. Now I decided to diffuse back to normal density so I wouldn't have to pant. Already I could see the limits of these changes. If I diffused too much, wind could blow me away or even apart; while if I became too solid, I could sink into the ground.

But wait--I wanted to find out whether I could stop here and do something else, or alternate one form of change with another. Threnody thought I couldn't--but again I reminded myself that I had thought I couldn't sing. I had shrunk some; better try diffusing.

I concentrated on diffusion, and in fifteen minutes I was breathing easier. So far so good; I had done a change in half an hour instead of two hours. What next?

Well, could this body change part of itself and not the rest? Threnody had been so sure of its limits--maybe she hadn't even tried new things.

I concentrated on my left hand, willing it to become a crab's pincer. I ignored the rest of the body, working on just that one thing.

And it worked! In just a few minutes that hand was a big green pincer. I tried it on my skin, but it wasn't a strong pincer; it had the form but not the power. No, this was not an easy way to convert the body into a natural weapon. Not without more time and practice. Still, this represented a breakthrough. Threnody's body had more talent than she had known. Because the focus of change was now narrow, it was relatively swift; she had required an hour per change because she insisted on doing the whole body, all the way. She had been limited in her thinking, and therefore in her talent.

But I'd better get back to normal, lest I be discovered. I tried to change size and claw simultaneously, but found I could not; it had to be one or the other. Very well, claw first, then size.

It was easy. I changed the claw halfway to the hand, then switched to size-changing, switched again to density to catch up on my missing mass, and returned to finish the hand. I could only do one type of change at a time, but I could do whatever change I wanted, to whatever extent. I had, in effect, rendered Threnody's talent far more versatile.

Was that true for all people? I wondered. Could every person do much more than he believed, if he changed his belief? To what extent were all of us needlessly limited? The Mundanes refused to believe in magic and therefore could not practice it; there was a horrendous example!

But barbarians aren't much for philosophy. Maybe they could be, if they thought they could be? I got myself back to normal, then settled down and snoozed in and out. Threnody slept more solidly for several hours, waking when the gnomides brought more food. This time Gnasty was with them. “Prepare yourselves, chattel,” he said gruffly. “Soon you will sing for the cowboys.” He spun about and tramped off.

“Who or what are these cowboys?” I asked.

One of the gnomides glanced around to be sure Gnasty was out of hearing range. “They are bullheaded folk,” she said.

“Well, so is Gnasty,” I said.

She smiled, becoming more at ease. “No, you misunderstand, human woman. They--” She shrugged, at a loss to provide more detail.

“My name is--” I hesitated, but realized I had to go with my present body, lest there be considerable complications of understanding. “Threnody.”

“Threnody,” she repeated. “And I am Gnifty Gnomide.”

“Gnice to know you, Gnifty,” I said in my most feminine manner, while Threnody kept silent. And actually it was nice, for these gnomides were of quite a different personality from the gnomes. It served as a reminder that a person can not be said to know a species unless he knows both sexes of it. “What do I misunderstand about the cowboys? Do they herd cows or something?” Cows were mythical Mundane animals.

A titter rippled through the gnomides. “Of course not!” Gnifty said. “They are--their heads are--” She cast about for a better term, but found none. “Bulls,” she finished.

“You mean their bodies are--like ours--but their heads--?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, pleased at this success of communication. “They graze--”

“Graze?”

“On the moss of the rocks, where our men mine. And they get--they have horns--”

It was coming clear at last. “When the gnomes try to work, the cowboys want to graze, so they get ornery and interfere.”

“Yes. And they are too big and strong to oppose, so we can't mine. But they're not aggressive, usually, and they like music--only we aren't good at music.”

“Well, we'll sing for you,” I said generously. “But suppose it doesn't work?”

“Oh, we don't like to think of that!” Gnifty said.

But an older gnomide, hardened to tougher stuff, managed to come up with the thought. “The pot.”

“She's Gnaughty,” Gnifty confided, embarrassed. “And she's Gnymph.” She indicated the youngest gnomide, who was too shy to speak at all. As with human women, their shyness was inversely proportional to their age.

I knew better than to ask these little women to release us. They didn't have the key and they wouldn't dare defy their gruff men. As it was, they shied away from Threnody's side of the cell, afraid of the big, brute, male body despite the gate separating us. They took me for a woman, so were friendly with me. All women, I realized, shared a bond of awe and subservience, because of the roughness of men. How odd that I had never noticed this before assuming female aspect myself.

“Well, thank you so much for the food,” I said. “My friend Jordan, there, has a big appetite. He was hurt; that's why we came down here. We couldn't stay up there at night--not with all those monsters.”

The gnomides shuddered. They were afraid of monsters too. That was why their kind lived safely underground.

“But why don't small monsters come in that open door in the tree?” I asked. “We came right down the stairs; we didn't know there were people here.”

“There's an aversion spell on it,” Gnifty explained. “Only our own kind can enter, or someone in such dire need that he overcomes the aversion.”

“That was us,” I said. “He was unconscious; I dragged him down.”

“Our men have aversion spells on their hats,” Gnifty continued. She was really quite talkative, now that the ice had been broken. “So that no big monsters come near, just creatures small enough to be hunted at night. When a dragon is near, they cry, 'Hang onto your hat!'”

“That makes sense,” I agreed with maidenly agreement.

We finished eating, and the gnomides took away the refuse. Then the gnomes returned. “Move out!” Gnasty said as he unlocked the gate.

We were conducted to a deep region where the tunnels branched out in all directions. Apparently these ones had not been hollowed by the gnomes. They were larger and older, and their walls were covered by furry growths. In some sections, the walls had been chipped away by the miners, where they had delved for precious stones. The moss did not grow in the chipped sections. I could see why those who grazed would be annoyed. To them, perfectly good food was being destroyed. When two cultures interfaced, who was to say which one was right and which wrong? They merely had different viewpoints.

When I thought of it, that term “interface” was interesting. It derived from a spell in which the faces of two creatures were locked together or combined so that they interconnected. There had been a person whose talent was interfacing; she could lock any two faces together, however awkward it was for the participants. Later usage had been less specific, until now it meant the overlapping of any two things, including cultures--as in this case. I was fascinated by the way words came into the language; too bad I wasn't civilized! Words have always been very important to me, because we barbarians have only an oral tradition; without words, we would have no culture at all. Words have real power, and not just the magic ones. One has only to listen to a harpy swear to know that!

The gnomes slowed, becoming nervous. “They're near,” Gnasty said. “I smell them. If only our aversion spells worked on them!”

Sure enough, there was a whiff of barnyard odor. Then we heard a kind of crunch, crunch--the sound of grazing and chewing--and every so often the burp of a wad of cud being brought up. Finally we came into a larger cavern, and there were the cowboys: true bullheaded men the size of my body.

They spied us. One snorted and pawed the floor of the cave with a bare foot. He was unclothed, but fairly furry all over so he didn't seem naked. He lowered his horns. Gnasty clapped his hand to his hat and backed off. This was really cowboy country.

“Sing!” Gnasty cried.

“Now look,” I said reasonably. “Don't the cowboys have as much right to this cave as you do? After all, they're hungry, and this is where they graze.”

“Gnitwit, go smoke up the pot,” Gnasty said to his companion.