Tinker.

"That would be immature."

"News flash: You"re still a kid. And here"s another important announcement: You"re now stuck that way."

"I"m an adult."

"As a human," Riki said. "As an elf, you"re about sixty years shy. You"re not going to be an adult for a long, long time."

She could only stare at him in horror. "Oh, no, no, no."

"Like I said, if I were you, I"d ditch the watchdog and fly."

She barely kept from looking toward Pony. "Yeah, with him watching every minute?"

"Duck around the car where he can"t see you, and I"ll stand here and keep talking. He"ll probably a.s.sume you"re working there."

"And what about you? When he figures out I"m gone?"

"Don"t worry about me. I"m very good at pretending to be harmless."

It was blind panic that took her out of the sc.r.a.p yard and halfway back to her loft. True to his word, Riki stood at the Dodge and talked to thin air as she crept to the back of the truck, around an old PT Crusier and into the Fords. Then, before she knew it, she was walking faster and faster until she was running.

She started for her loft out of pure instinct, which became more rational as she grew nearer to home. Without thinking, she"d taken Pony to the three places she"d most likely lie low: Oilcan"s condo, Lain"s house, and Tooloo"s store. That left the hotel on Neville Island. She"d need the keys to the front door, her shotgun and fishing pole, and some money. A change of clothes would be nice too, but if she delayed at her loft too long, Pony might catch up with her. Rounding the last corner, she glanced over her shoulder. No sign of her watchdog yet.

Thus Tinker nearly collided with the stranger.

That the person was tall and redheaded impressed Tinker first. She jerked back away from the stranger, gaining an arm"s distance to realize that the stranger was a female elf, not one of the tall male humans who had attacked her on Shutdown. The elf was slender and beautiful, with hair the color of fire, pulled back and braided into a thick cord. Like Pony, she wore a vest of wyvern-scale armor, and permanent spell tattoos scrolled down her arms; both were done in shades of red that matched her hair.

"Sorry, I didn"t see you," Tinker said in English.

The elf"s eyes went to the dau dau mark on Tinker"s forehead. "Tinker mark on Tinker"s forehead. "Tinker domi domi?"

Oh, h.e.l.l, the elf knew her name. At least the elf didn"t have horns. Unfortunately, the female wasn"t alone. She had two brothers or cousins: tall, elegant redheads loaded with weapons. The one farthest back actually stood on her doorstep-they had been coming from or going to her loft. Either way, they blocked her from the safety of her place and the gas station down the street. Everything behind her was abandoned until one hit the sc.r.a.p yard.

"Who are you?" Tinker hedged away from the elf. "What do you want?"

"Kiviyau fom ani. Batya!"

Or at least that"s what she thought the female said. The elf had an odd accent that made her hard to understand. The first and last words were fairly clear. Kiviyau Kiviyau. Come. Batya. Batya. Immediately. Tinker could also read the body language fairly easily. The female definitely wanted her to come with them. Immediately. Tinker could also read the body language fairly easily. The female definitely wanted her to come with them.

"Chata?" Tinker tried for a stall by asking why while taking a step backward. Every muscle in her body had gone taut as a stretched elastic band, thrumming with the chorus of "run, run, run" so loud she was sure the elves could hear it.

"Kiviyau. Batya!"

"I don"t understand. Naekanat Naekanat." She took another step backwards. "Chata?"

There was some weird universal law that stated, when faced with someone that didn"t understand, humans spoke loud and slow, and elves talked polite and fast. The female went into a rapid tirade of High Elvish.

"I don"t understand," Tinker said. "Please, explain in-"

"Kiviyau!" The female stepped forward, lifting a hand to catch hold of her. She might as well have pulled a trigger; Tinker bolted.

Later Tinker would realize that her brain had mapped out an escape route, but at the moment, she went blindly. She didn"t expect to get anywhere; no one won footraces with elves. She ducked into the narrow s.p.a.ce between two buildings and had reached the next street over before she knew that she was running. As she darted across the empty street, then through the obstacle course of the old school yard playground, she realized that she was running as fast as a startled rabbit. It dawned on her that she was an elf too, shorter of leg, but that she otherwise had all their advantages. Well, except the guns. And the fact that there were three of them. She would have to do something about that, but gently, just in case these were rude cousins of Windwolf"s.

As she plunged down Tooloo"s steep hill, she detoured off the path through the apple trees to cut through the beehives. As she flashed past the wooden boxes, she thumped the sides hard and was gone, leaving behind a growing angry buzz, and a moment later, shouts of surprise and pain. At the bottom of the hill, she dropped to the ground and rolled under the lowest strand of barbed wire, then scrambled on hands and knees through the barnyard muck. Yin and Yang came at her, hissing, wings half spread.

"Not me, you stupid things. Them! Them!" Tinker cried, risking a look back.

The female had discovered that the top wire was electrified and was backing up to vault the fencing.

s.h.i.t! Tinker picked up gravel and tossed it toward the fence, calling, "Chick, chick, chick!" Instantly, all the barnyard fowl ran toward the falling pebbles, pecking and scratching for corn.

She ducked into the barn while behind her Yin and Yang started to honk out warnings at the stranger landing in their midst. The warehouse Tooloo used as a haybarn had little in common with a real barn except the deep shadows, the scent of hay, and the drift of dust on the air. The female elf barked commands, and there were answering calls, spiraling in around the barn. Tinker had planned to just cut through the barn, but now she tucked herself into one of the smaller nooks, panting, scared. What now?

She shouldn"t have ditched Pony, that"s what. What the h.e.l.l had she been thinking? Obviously she hadn"t been thinking. Someone had tried to kill Windwolf, and someone had killed her father, and how did she know that these weren"t the same someones?

She spied a pile of things and scrambled toward it, muttering, "Stupid, idiotic, moron, brain-dead a.s.s"-which might have made her feel better if she hadn"t been talking about herself. Tooloo must have traded someone for several yards of fishnet, a set of ninepins complete with two b.a.l.l.s, a spring hinge, a length of cord, and a collection of hickory walking sticks. She grabbed the hinge, two of the sticks, and the fishnet.

Minutes later, the far door creaked open and one of the male elves slipped into the barn with her. She flung the first ninepin ball at him. The ball was weighted differently than a horseshoe, but she managed to nail him in the temple. As he went down, the female came through the near door and rushed her. Tinker tripped the spring hinge; it flung the netting-weighed down with the ninepins threaded through the holes of the net-over the female. s.n.a.t.c.hing up the hickory stick, Tinker swung as hard as she dared.

The elf shouted, throwing up her arm. Magic spilled out of the ruby on her earring, traced down the crimson tattoos on her arm, and flared into a shimmering red force.

It was like hitting a brick wall, inches from the elf"s body.

A shield spell! Oh s.h.i.t, I"m in trouble now!

The female flung off the net, the pale red aura of the shield pulsing around her arms. She balled up her fist, hauled back, and swung at Tinker.

Oh, this is going to hurt! Tinker flung up the stick, trying to block the blow. Tinker flung up the stick, trying to block the blow.

But then, appearing like magic, Pony was there. "Domi!" He caught Tinker from behind, and jerked her backward out of range of the female.

The male she"d nailed with the ball was staggering to his feet, and the much stung and vastly annoyed second male was closing fast.

"Pony!" Tinker tried to run, but couldn"t pull free of his grasp. "They"re coming!"

Pony tucked her behind him, maintaining his grip on her. He held out his empty hand to the strangers. "Hold! Hold!"

"What are you doing?" Tinker cried, still trying to get free. Surely he wasn"t going to fight all three unarmed.

"You must not fight them!" Pony said quietly. "They"re Wyverns."

"Wyverns?" Tinker twisted in his hold to peek around him. What the h.e.l.l did that mean? They looked like regular elves to her. The three halted, so perhaps there was the time for an explanation.

"Promise me, please, that you will not fight them," Pony pleaded.

"Okay." Tinker, who had been considering running, had no problem with not fighting.

Pony turned, keeping her tucked behind him, and spoke carefully in High Elvish. He went on at length. The looks cooled from anger to slight disgust and total annoyance.

The strangers finally replied, which generated another long elegance from Pony.

"I have explained that you are only recently transformed and that you do not know the high tongue nor recognize their uniforms. They understand the situation now, and while they are the Wyverns, they are also merely sekasha sekasha and do not wish to face the full anger of Windwolf." and do not wish to face the full anger of Windwolf."

Tinker grunted to keep in snide remarks. Annoyed as she was, even if it was one-on-one and without swords, they would probably still beat the snot out of her. It was so lowering and frightening to discover exactly how small you were in the world.

"Are you hurt?" Pony asked.

"I"m fine," Tinker said.

"I am sorry. I should have been here to forestall such a misunderstanding."

"Who the h.e.l.l are these guys?"

Pony raised an eyebrow. "I told you. They are Wyverns."

"What the h.e.l.l are Wyverns?"

"Oh," Pony said. "I see. They are the queen"s guard. They bring a summons from the queen."

"Summons? Is that like being arrested?"

"No. Not completely. The Wyverns have come on the queen"s personal airship to take you to Aum Renau. It is not a summons that we can refuse."

"You mean, we have to leave now?"

"Yes. The order indicates all speed must be taken."

"Why?"

Pony turned to the waiting elves and spoke with them. When he turned back, he was wincing slightly. "They did not ask; it is not in their manner to do so."

On the way back to the Rolls, she remembered she had her headset stuffed into her pocket. She guessed it was just as well; getting the police involved would have only complicated things. She called Oilcan and let him know that she was safe but being taken to Aum Renau.

"I want to come with you," Oilcan said.

"No, no, no. I"m fine." She didn"t want to get him caught in the mess she was in. "Someone has to keep the yard going."

"There"s Riki."

Yeah, Riki, who talked me into ditching Pony, she thought and then sighed, knowing that wasn"t fair. Riki couldn"t have known that the Wyverns were standing on her doorstep. "I went and saw Maynard. He says-well-that Windwolf probably thinks we"re married. If that"s the case, then the queen probably just wants to meet the viceroy"s new wife."

"You"re what what?"

"Married. Please don"t tell anyone yet, at least until I know for sure. Windwolf is at Aum Renau. He won"t let anything happen to me."

There was long silence from Oilcan"s side, and finally, "Okay, okay, okay. Don"t get hurt."

"I won"t." She folded away the headset.

"I"ve been thinking," Pony said quietly. "If we are going to court, it would be best that you did not have a guard, but have a guard."

She considered the sentence. He was using two different forms of have; she had thought the words were equal, but obviously they weren"t. "What do you mean?"

"It would raise your esteem in court. Unless you do not wish me to be your guard."

The idea of being completely alone raised sudden panic in her. "No. I want you to be my guard. I don"t want a stranger."

"I would be honored to be your guard." He paused to bow low. "I will not disappoint you."

10: Blind Sight

A gossamer airship was moored over the Faire Ground"s now-empty meadow. Tinker had seen many gossamers at a distance, but never one close enough to appreciate their true size. Something so huge, living, floating in mid-air challenged the mind to accept it as truth. The gondola alone was a hundred feet long and sixty feet wide; the gossamer rippled in the wind above it, dwarfing the teak structure. And that was the portion of the animal easily seen-the cell structure of the creature fractured the sunlight into a million prisms, giving substance to the nearly transparent form. The creature"s countless frilled fins, extending far beyond the glittering ma.s.s, showed only as a distortion high overhead, like water running over a gla.s.s roof.

"How much tinkering did you have to do to get the gossamers that big?"

"I believe getting them large was not the problem," Pony said. "They occur in nature nearly that size. Probably making them float in air was the difficult part. Originally they were sea creatures."

"Why wouldn"t they start with something that already floated in air?"

"You can grow wings on turtles, but they still crawl on the ground."

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

Pony struggled a moment to put it into words. "Those that float in air naturally go where the air takes them. They needed something that could choose its own course-a swimmer."

It took her a moment to realize he was talking of instinct. "You can give turtles wings-somehow-but not the understanding of flight."

"Yes!" Pony beamed a smile. "There are some side considerations. Redesigning a body structure to take the stresses of such a ma.s.sive size in strong currents would have been difficult, so they selected an animal already quite large."

"Who are "they"?"

"The domana."

On a signal from the Wyverns, there was a loud clank above their heads as safety locks disengaged. An ornately carved, wooden elevatorlike cage smoothly lowered from the gondola. The doors were handmade works of art, and they folded aside to reveal the stunningly beautiful Sparrow Lifted By Wind. Her shimmering white gown of Faire silk was cut so far off her shoulders-displaying her pearly skin, delicate bone structure, and full b.r.e.a.s.t.s to perfection-that Tinker wasn"t sure what was keeping the dress on, except for the fact that it was too tight to otherwise slip down. What kept her from being the ant.i.thesis of Hannah Briggs" tight black was an overdress of cerulean that drifted around her like smoke and matched the blue of Sparrow"s dau dau mark. Sapphires, cerulean ribbons, and pale blue forget-me-not flowers weaved through her intricate pale blond braids, not a hair out of place. mark. Sapphires, cerulean ribbons, and pale blue forget-me-not flowers weaved through her intricate pale blond braids, not a hair out of place.

Instantly Tinker realized that she was covered with motor grease, engine oil, dirt, and chicken s.h.i.t. That she wore Oilcan"s hand-me-down T-shirt, her worn carpenter pants, and boots large enough for Minnie Mouse didn"t help either. "Oh, h.e.l.l," she breathed.

"Husepavua." Pony bowed in greeting.