Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (17 page)

 
          
"Stick
out your tongue," Deru said.

 
          
"What?"
The unexpected order halfway convinced her she was dreaming.

 
          
"Stick
out your tongue! Quickly! We need to do this before the candle goes out!"

 
          
Confused,
Kirna stuck out her tongue, and Deru quickly pressed something onto it, a tiny
something that tickled and scratched, and stuck.

 
          
"Wha
. . . ?" She tried to talk, but the object on her tongue made it
difficult; she gagged,

 
          
Deru
was holding out a piece of fur; he reached over her shoulders with it,
then
stretched it out. She could feel it on her back, and it
seemed to be stretching out forever.

 
          
"What's
that?" she asked, and discovered that the thing on her tongue had
dissolved away into nothingness. She looked up at Deru, who seemed to be taller
suddenly. The ceiling was rising up away from her, as well.

 
          
"It's
the skin of a field mouse/' Deru said as he wrapped it around her.

 
          
She
tumbled from the bed, and it was a much longer fall than it should have been;
she landed on her hands and knees, her palms stinging with the impact.

 
          
Her
vision blurred.

 
          
When
it cleared again, she clambered to her feet and looked up.

 
          
Deru
stood before her, unspeakably huge, the pack on his shoulder the size of
Quonmor Keep; between the gigantic pillars of his legs she could see the
smoking stub of candle, taller than she was. The pattern of smoke hung over
her, out of reach. She looked up, and up, and up.

 
          
Deru
was putting a tiny red thing on his own tongue; that done, he took a scrap of
gray fur and lifted his hands up over his head.

 
          
And
then he began shrinking. The mouse-pelt didn't stretch; Deru shrank.

 
          
And
moment later he stood before her at his normal height, a few inches taller than
herself, as the candle flared up and went out and the pattern of smoke
dissipated. Darkness descended, broken only by the orange glow of the greater
moon outside the open window.

 
          
The
little bedchamber stretched out before them in the dimness, an immensity of
space.

 
          
"There,"
Deru said. "It worked."

 
          
"Oh,"
Kirna said, looking around.

 
          
The
world was strange and different, with ordinary furniture becoming looming
monstrosities, but she no longer suspected she was dreaming; everything was
quite solid and real. She looked up at the window, impossibly far above them,
and asked, "How do we get out?"

 
          
"We
levitate. Or rather, I do. I'll have to carry you, I'm afraid; I don't have a
levitation spell that will work on both of us."

 
          
She
frowned, but could hardly argue. She was no wizard.

 
          
At least, not yet.

 
          
Deru
knelt and opened his pack. He pulled out a small lantern, a gray feather, and a
silver bit; he lit the lantern, set the coin inside it, then drew his dagger
again and did something Kirna could not see. Then he straightened up, the
lantern in his hand and the dagger back in his belt; the feather seemed to have
vanished.

 
          
"Come
here," he said.

 
          
Cautiously,
Kirna approached—and then shrieked as Deru grabbed her and hoisted her over his
shoulder, her head and arms dangling down his back, her legs pinned to his
chest. She raised her head and turned to look around.

 
          
Deru
was walking, one hand holding her legs and the other carrying the lantern—but
he was not walking across the floor; instead he was walking up into the air, as
if climbing an invisible staircase.

 
          
"Varen's
Levitation," he said.

 
          
Kirna
made a wordless strangled noise. She had wanted to learn magic and have
adventures, but being shrunk to the size of a mouse, flung over someone's
shoulder, and carried up into the air, with nothing at all holding them up, all
in quick succession, was a little more than she had been ready for.

 
          
But,
she told herself, she was being silly. This was a magical adventure! She should
appreciate it.

 
          
She
thought she could appreciate it much more easily if she weren't draped over
Deru's shoulder, though. She tried to twist around for a better view.

 
          
"You
don't want me to drop you," Deru cautioned. "The spell only works on
me."

 
          
Kirna
ignored that and watched. Deru was marching up higher and higher above the
floor, and had now turned toward the window. Kirna could see the sky and the
surrounding treetops, lit by the orange light of the greater moon. The feeble
glow of the tiny lantern didn't reach more than a few inches.

 
          
Fitting
between the bars would be no problem at all at their present size—but how would
they get down?

 
          
"Shouldn't
you have a rope?" she asked.

 
          
"We
don't need one," Deru said, panting slightly. "Varen's Levitation
goes down just as well as up."

 
          
"Oh,"
Kirna said.

 
          
That
sounded well enough, but she had noticed the panting—this fellow Deru was
already getting tired, and they weren't even out the window yet.

 
          
Well,
he had been working magic for hours, which must be tiring, and while Kirna
certainly would never have said she was fat, or even stout, she knew she wasn't
a frail little twig like some girls—princesses were well-fed.
Carrying her might get tiring eventually even for a bigger,
stronger man than Deru.

 
          
"You're
sure you'll be all right?" she asked.

 
          
"I'll
be fine," he said, and the panting was more obvious this time.

 
          
Kirna
was hardly in a position to protest, though, so she shut her mouth and watched
as they mounted up over the windowsill.

 
          
Deru
leveled off just a foot or so—
no,
Kirna corrected
herself, perhaps half an inch—above the sill, and walked straight forward,
placing each foot solidly on empty air.

 
          
The
bars were as big as oaks as they passed, great oaks of black iron—and then they
were out in the night air, cool and sharp after the hot, stuffy bedchamber.
Kirna felt her hair dancing in the breeze, and she squirmed, trying to keep it
where it belonged.

 
          
"Stop
it!" Deru hissed. "You do not want me to drop you from here!"

 
          
Kirna
looked down the side of the tower— and down, and down, and down—and decided
that Deru was right. She knew it was only about thirty feet to the ground, at
most, but in her shrunken state it looked more like a thousand, and besides,
thirty feet was enough to kill someone. She stopped squirming.

 
          
Deru
marched forward, just as if he were walking on solid stone rather than empty
air; then he started descending, step by step, as if he had arrived at another
invisible stair.

 
          
Kirna,
tired of looking down, looked up—and shrieked, "Look out!" She
pointed and began struggling desperately.

 
          
Deru
turned, trying to hold onto his burdens and see what she was talking about.
"What is it?" he started to say, but before the words had left his
lips, he knew what had caused Kirna's panic.

 
          
It
all happened incredibly fast for Deru; he had been looking down at his feet,
watching his descent and staying well clear of tree branches or whatever seeds
might be drifting on the wind, since Varen's Levitation would end instantly if
either the wizard stopped paying attention, or his booted feet touched solid
matter, when Kirna had shouted and begun thrashing. He had turned his attention
to the sky and seen nothing but a night-flying bird.

 
          
Then
it registered that the bird was approaching rapidly, that it was an owl
swooping silently toward them.

 
          
And
then, finally, it registered that this was a
threat, that
in their shrunken state an owl could eat them both.

 
          
He
instinctly flung up his arms to ward the huge predator off, whereupon Kirna
tumbled off his shoulder and plummeted into the darkness beneath.

 
          
And
at that instant Deru forgot all about Varen's Levitation and dropped the
lantern, and he, too, fell into the night. The owl, wings muffled and talons
spread, swept harmlessly through the space where the wizard had stood half a
second before.

 
          
Kirna
sat up, dazed, trying to remember where she was and what had happened to bring
her here. She was sitting on a gigantic leaf, surrounded by a thick tangle of
wood; it was dark, though the orange light of the greater moon alleviated the
worst of the gloom. To one side she glimpsed an impossibly tall stone tower;
everywhere else she saw only forest.

 
          
Everything
seemed distorted.

 
          
Then
she remembered why; she was only about two inches tall. That clumsy young
wizard had shrunk her, carried her out the window . . . and then what? Had he
carried her off somewhere and abandoned her?

 
          
No,
he had dropped her, when that owl had attacked. She remembered the vast rush of
air as she fell, and the utter helpless terror she had felt, and the crunch as
she had hit a bush.

 
          
The
bush must have broken her fall, though, because she was still alive, albeit
somewhat bruised and battered.

 
          
And
she was, she realized, under that same bush, a few feet from Gar's tower.

 
          
But
where was Deru? Had the owl gotten him?

 
          
She
scanned the sky overhead as best she could through the tangle of bush, but saw
no trace of Deru. She did spot the owl, however, drifting far overhead.

 
          
She
tried to remember what she knew about owls. Her father, King Tolthar, had
insisted she receive a proper education, and while that had mostly meant
politics, geography, history, and etiquette, several lessons about her natural
surroundings had been included.

 
          
She
thought the owl up there was a big one, even allowing for her own diminished
stature, perhaps even what Tharn the Stablemaster had called a great horned
owl, though of course owls didn't actually have horns.

 
          
At
least, she didn't think they did.

 
          
Owls
did have exceptional eyesight, even for birds, since they preferred to hunt at
night. They also had special fringes on their wings that let them fly silently,
with none of the audible flapping and rustling of other avians, and they
generally gave no cry in flight—hooting was for when they were safely at home,
not for when they were out hunting.

 
          
That
one up there looked very much as if it were hunting.

 
          
If
it had eaten Deru, she asked herself, wouldn't it be done hunting? She tried to
take encouragement from that, to convince herself that this meant Deru was
still alive; the possibil-ity that he was simply too small to satisfy so large
a bird was too uncomfortable to consider.