neetha Napew - Spellsinger

wondered if there were millions of gneechees swarming around the university.

They might be the explanation for a lot of things.

"How can you be so sure they're real, if you can never see one?"

"Oh, they're real enough, mate. You know they're real just as I do, because your

noggin tells you there's somethin' there. It's foolin' your mind and not quite

completely foolin' your eyes. Not that I care much 'bout 'em. My concerns are

more prosaic, they are.

" 'Tis mighty frustratin' t' them who worry about such things, though. See,

they're immune t' magic. There's not the wizard been who could slow down a

gneechee long enough t' figure exactly what one was. Not Clothahump, not

Quelnor, not the legendary sorceress Kasadelma could do it.

"They be 'armless, though. I've never 'eard o' anyone bein' affected by 'em one

way or t'other."

"How could you tell?" Jon-Tom wondered. "You can't see them."

"Cor, but you could sure enough see the victim, if they took a notion to go to

troublin' someone."

"They give me the crawlies." He tried not to look around, and found himself

hunting all the harder. It was one thing to think you were seeing things that

weren't, quite another to learn for a fact that millions and millions of minute

creatures of unknown aspect and intent were occupying the air around you.

"Why are they hanging around me?"

"Who knows, mate. 'Cept that I've 'eard gneechees are attracted t' worried folk.

People who be frettin', or upset. Same goes for magick-ers. Now, you fit both

categories. 'Aven't you ever noticed somethin' around you when you've been like

that?"

"Naturally. You always tend to imagine more when you're upset or stressed."

" 'Cept you're not imaginin' them," Mudge explained. "They're 'angin' about all

right. Tis not their fault. I expect that's just wot they're sensitive to, not

t' mention the fact that your emotions and feelin's are otherworldly in nature."

"Well, I wish they'd go away." He turned and shouted, "Go on, go away! All of

you!" He waved his hands as though it were a flock of flies he could shoo from

his psyche. "Harmless or otherwise, I don't want you around. You're making me

nervous!"

"Now that won't do, Jon-Tom." Talea had twisted around in her lead saddle and

was staring back at him. "The more angry you become the more the gneechees will

cling to your presence."

He continued swatting sideways. "How come I can't hit one? I don't have to see

one to hit one. If there's something there, surely I ought to get in a lucky

swipe sooner or later."

Mudge let out a sigh. "Crikey, lad, sometimes I think whoever set you out on the

tightrope o' life forgot t' give you your balancin' pole. If the gneechees be

too fast for us t' see, 'ow do you expect t' fool one with somethin' as slow as

the back o' your 'and? I expect we must seem t' be swimmin' through a vat o'

blackstrap molasses from their point o' view. Maybe we don't seem t' be movin'

at all they just consider us parts o' the landscape. 'Cept we're the parts that

generate the emotions or forces or wotever it is that occasionally attracts 'em

in big numbers. Just thank wotever sign you were born under that they are

'armless."

"I don't believe in astrology." Maybe it was time to change the subject.

Continued talk of gneechees was frustrating as well as fruitless.

"Now who said anything about astrology?" The otter eyed him in puzzlement. "Now

meself was born beneath a cobbler's sign in the riverbank community o'

Rush-the-Rock. 'Ow about you?"

"I don't know... oh heck, I guess I was born under the sign of L.A. County

General."

"Military family, wot?"

"Never mind." His tone was resigned, and he was a little worn out from his

experiments with his newfound abilities, not to mention the discovery that

millions of not quite physical creatures found him attractive. In order to get

rid of them it seemed he was going to have to cease worrying so much, relax, and

stop being strange.

He would work on the first two, but he didn't know if he could do anything about

the third.

He spent an uneasy night. Mudge and Talea slept quietly, save for a single

incident involving a muffled curse followed by the sound of a fist striking

furry flesh.

No matter how hard he tried he could not go to sleep. Trying not to think of the

gneechees' presence was akin to not thinking of a certain word. What happened

was that one couldn't think of anything except the forbidden word or, in this

case, the gneechees.

His gaze hunted the dark, always aware of minuscule not-quite-luminescent sparks

that darted tantalizingly just out of view. But there are parts of the mind that

make their own demands. Without being aware of it, his eyes slowly grew as tired

as the rest of his body and he fell into a soft, deep sleep serenaded by the

dull cooing of giant walking ferns, night-flying reptiles, and a pool full of

harmonizing water bugs who managed a marvelous imitation of what sounded like

the journey movement from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije Suite.

When he woke the next morning, the bright sunlight helped push thoughts of

gneechees from his mind. The reciprocal nature of their existence was instantly

apparent. The more you searched for them the more of them you attracted. In

contrast, the less you cared and the more you accepted their existence as

normal, the less they swarmed. With practice it seemed that the honey could will

away the bees.

Before afternoon the tireless riding snake was slithering uphill. They had

entered a region of familiar hills and low valleys. Off to the east was

something Jon-Tom had not seen on his previous march through this section of the

Bellwoods. He and Mudge had not climbed quite this high.

A distant rampart of mountains ragged and rough as the Grand Tetons lay swathed

in high clouds and haze. It stretched unbroken from north to south.

Mudge had taken a turn at guiding their mount, and Talea had moved in behind

him. She turned as she replied to Jon-Tom's question.

"Those? Zaryt's Teeth." She was gesturing across the treetops as they began to

descend again into concealing forest. "That great massif there just to the north

is Brokenbone Peak, which holds up this part of the world and whose slopes are

littered with the dead bones of would-be climbers."

"What's on the other side?"

There was a tremor in her reply and, startlingly for the redoubtable Talea, a

hint of fear. "The Greendowns, where reside the Plated Folk."

"I've heard of them." Childishly, he pounced on the rare hint of weakness. "You

sound scared of them."

She made a face, brows narrowing, and idly shook aside red hair, ran a hand

through the glowing curls. "Jon-Tom," she said seriously, "you seem to me to be

a brave if occasionally foolish man, but you know nothing of the Plated Folk. Do

not dismiss so lightly that which you are unfamiliar with.

"Your words do not insult me because I am not afraid to confess my fear. Also, I

know that you speak from ignorance, or you would not say such things. So I am

not upset."

"I might say such things even if I knew." He was properly abashed. But now he

stared at her openly.

"Why are you doing that?" Green eyes stared curiously at him.

"Because I want to upset you."

"I don't understand, Jon-Tom."

"Look, you've been taunting me, chiding me, and generally making fun of me ever

since we met. I wanted to strike back at you. Not that I've given you much