Despite the cold, it really was pretty. The air was crisp and fresh, too, and I could enjoy the scent of fresh pine in my nostrils. It made the hike in pleasant.
Eoin turned on a trail, going further up into the mountain and then cut again around the side of it. I followed gamely, not exactly fit enough to hike all over the place like this. All those days sitting around doing intellectual stuff had definitely caught up to me. My hips and calves burned from the exertion.
“Intto!” Eoin called. “I’ve brought Imagineers!”
We passed a rather large spruce tree and slipped between two very large boulders, then stumbled upon a village. It wasn’t full of houses, like I half-expected, but rather dens dug into the hillsides with either branches weaved around the openings, or logs bracketing the top and sides like a doorframe. I saw multiple dark heads peek out, their large ears flickering back and forth as they regarded us. It was the most adorable scene ever. I wanted to cuddle them all.
A black fox with a lot of grey in his fur stepped forward curiously, stepping up onto a rock in the central area between all the dens. He dipped his head in greeting, his voice half growl, part yip. “Imagineers are always welcome.”
“I’m Zoya,” my master introduced, stepping forward with a smile. “This is my apprentice, Reagan. With her is Klaus and Ciarán, her protectors. We are blessed to have Aisling, a druid, with us.”
“I am Intto of the Bright Tails,” he returned the greeting. “All are welcome.”
“We understand that your platform here has been taken hostage and possibly damaged?”
His lip curled, showing canines. “Yes. We normally keep to ourselves, but this troubles us. We do wish to have a safe route out of the forest. Our forms are such that humans either hunt or capture us if we venture too far outside of a forest.”
Yeah, I could see how that would be the case. And especially if their tails light up as they run at night, it wouldn’t be easy to lose a pursuer.
“We will fix it,” Zoya promised. “My apprentice is well schooled in the construction of the platforms. We can easily fix this. But we must figure out how to handle the matter of the others who have barred your access from it.”
“I do not know how you’ll manage that, Imagineer.” Intto grimaced, sounding more resigned than angry. “Eoin tried for many weeks. The menninkäinen are adamant about controlling access to the platform. They wish to exact a toll upon it. Their fees are outrageous. Even visitors are expected to pay these fees.”
Ouch. I can see the problem, alright. “Can we see the platform without paying a fee?”
“I believe you might be able to.” Intto’s head cocked as he considered this. “How you’ll convince the menninkäinen to let you close enough to do so, I’m less certain.”
“We can only try.” Zoya cast me a look. “I’d rather do it now, if we can. I want to know what we’re up against.”
“Same,” I admitted.
“I will guide you.” Intto leapt lightly off his rock and led us back the way we came. He didn’t stay on the trail, though, but went down the mountain side. Which made sense. There was no flat space to build on up here.
As we followed, Intto spoke to Zoya. “It is always a blessing to see an apprentice Imagineer.”
“Da, I’m happy to have her.”
Awww. I’m blushing.
“Might I request something else of you? A ward around the village would be helpful for us.”
“Consider it done,” Zoya promised easily.
“Thank you. Our old village site was warded well, but we did not feel comfortable there. The humans were always close. We were forced to abandon it and move.”
That sounded like a good segue. I moved to walk at his heels so I could ask, “Is that still a problem? Too much human activity up here, I mean.”
“No, the problem has died down in recent years.” He turned his head a little as he answered me. “At one time, there was a gold rush up here, and many had a reindeer husbandry in this land. We couldn’t seem to turn around without tripping over a man’s tent. But the gold rush is gone now, and no one raises reindeer here anymore.”
I’d read that they’d turned this into a protected wilderness area in 1991, that was probably why. “Would you like to move back to your old village?”
“We like the comfort of the mountains. The water is clear and plentiful here. We only had our village where it was to accommodate the platform.”
“Ahh. Gotcha.” So, they didn’t want to move. Hmm. A thought tickled and tantalized me. Considering that it was basically just one race of firefoxes up here, did they really need a full-sized platform? Oh wait. There was the giant, too. Rats, I’d nearly forgotten about him. And the Otso, although I wasn’t sure if they were as big as a regular bear or not. They might be able to fit in something smaller.
We reached the valley floor with its picturesque lake sparkling in the sun off to one side. Intto led us further along its banks and into the tree line once more. We’d barely gotten back into the canopy when we were abruptly stopped, this time by a pair of guards in front of a picket fence of sticks held together by ropes.
Menninkäinen, I assumed. They looked a little similar to the pirus, what with the short stature. They were taller, though, their skin a more olive complexion, and they wore proper clothes of thick fur coats, moccasin shoes, and leather headbands keeping their hair up in high pony tails. Interesting-looking guys.
“You may not pass without the toll, Intto,” one of them snapped. “You’ve made no agreement with us.”
Zoya was absolutely done with this nonsense. She stomped right into their faces and leaned in menacingly. “I am Imagineer Zoya Mikahilov. You WILL let me pass.”
They glanced at each other uncertainly. The magical world had unwritten rules, and one of them was that an Imagineer was always welcome. Anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. Always. We were Switzerland. We could go and come as we pleased. Normally, we adhered to the cultures and rules of whatever clan we visited because that was polite. But no one denied us entry.
That these guys were even hesitating to let us in? Seriously not good.
My master’s tone dropped into your-death-is-imminent levels. “You would deny an Imagineer entry?”
That got them moving. They jerked their makeshift gate aside, and we all marched through. I couldn’t see much of the building they had over the platform at first, what with all the trees blocking my view. Then we got close enough to hit the clearing and I could see it unimpeded.
It wasn’t that they’d built a building around it, oh no. They’d built walls right on top of the platform, using it like a foundation. I could see through the open door in the front, and that single line of sight was enough to make me whimper. The columns had been sawed off to accommodate a sloping roof, and worse—
Oh man. Surely I was seeing that wrong. I ran up the three steps and inside, looking at it more closely, then went directly to the nearest column, pressing against the wall. No dice; the column was solidly built into the new wall.
I sank to my knees near where the wall joined the floor of the stone platform, trying to dig at it with my fingers. I couldn’t. It was rock solid. No pun intended. They had completely anchored the wall into the platform, obscuring the side of the column that had the symbols. There was no prying anything free without dynamite. Even banishing would take some of the original platform with it, as the mortar from the new additions had sunk into the rock and gotten all cozy with it.
“How bad?” Zoya asked from the doorway in a grim way that suggested she knew it was plenty bad.
I flopped sideways in a dramatic sprawl. “Mactep. Is it too much to ask for an alien abduction right now?”
“You’re absolutely not allowed to go play with aliens and leave me to fix this mess.” She groaned and looked around her.
Aisling popped her head inside without fully ascending the steps. “It can’t be that bad?”
“Worse,” I informed her flatly, heaving mys
elf back up to my feet. “They’ve not only ruined the structure, they’ve destroyed the symbols on the column by plastering masonry over it.You can’t use them to dial out anymore.”
Aisling winced. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh about covers it.”
“You let who in?” a stringent voice demanded from outside, the vowels covering several octaves. “You fools, I told you to not allow anyone entry!”
A feral smile twisted over my lips. That sounded like the boss. Oh good. A target. I stomped immediately back out of the building, my eyes scanning for my quarry. He stood not far from the base of the steps, a pointy green hat on his head, although he was dressed similarly to the others. He spied me at the same time and huffed, his chin coming up, chest thrusting out.
“I am Mauno, the leader of the menninkäinen, and you—”
I overrode him, too angry to listen to whatever pompous, selfish speech he was about to give me. “I’m Imagineer Reagan Hunt, and the only thing I want to know is, is this your doing?” I flung a hand to indicate the ruined platform behind me. “Did you order this done?”
He got red in the face because I’d cut him off but belligerently answered. “It was for the good of all menninkäinen. We have rights, and the firefoxes refuse to—”
“Well, congrats,” I said in my most sarcastic tone ever. Seriously, it was a thing of beauty. “Because of what you did, you destroyed it.”
Mauno’s self-righteous attitude paused. He looked at me, then at the platform/building in confusion, and back to me. “It’s standing right there.”
“The trouble with people messing with technology they don’t understand is that they can screw it up without meaning to.” I jerked a thumb to indicate it. “You fall right into that category. I mean, seriously, how stupid are you to think you can cut the tops of the columns and plaster over the symbols and the platform will still function? You can’t even dial it to another platform—you’ve covered the symbols completely!”
His mouth worked, searching for words. He still looked belligerent, but confusion was coming in like a wrecking ball. “It’s—still standing right—”
“What you now have is a very old collection of rocks forming a floor in a building that doesn’t even have a door,” I informed him flatly. “You literally destroyed the thing you’re trying to use as a bargaining chip. Which has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen someone do. Do you know why I came out here? No? Let me enlighten you. We are breaking ground on a new Hub this week. My task is to go around and fix all of the platforms and prepare them to reconnect to the new Hub. And I can’t with yours because your stupid powerplays DESTROYED THE PLATFORM.”
Zoya came to stand at my side, introducing herself with a brief, “I’m Imagineer Zoya Mikahilov. She’s unfortunately correct. We’d have to break everything you’ve done and rebuild the platform from the ground up in order to fix this mess.”
With two Imagineers telling him he screwed up, Mauno’s attitude crumpled completely. He looked between us, his expression flitting between anger, panic, and worry. I imagine managers who have figured out they’re in the wrong looked like him. He was already looking for someone else to blame for this fiasco. “The firefoxes called you in?”
I tried to wear my angel wings every day. But this was one of those times I’d like to take them off and beat someone with them. I got right into his face and repeated myself, biting off each word, “The new Hub is being built. I came in to do any repairs and ready it for connection to the new Hub. I’m not here on some political agenda. This is your screwup. You and the rest of the menninkäinen who followed you out of blind loyalty.”
He couldn’t meet my eyes at that, staring hard at the ground.
I seriously wanted to slap him. Could I slap him? It would make me feel better. I think Ciarán sensed that need, as he put a hand on my shoulder and hauled me back a foot.
In a deliberate play, Zoya said to me, “I don’t think you should try to fix this platform here.”
“No, I don’t think I should either,” I agreed one hundred percent.
Mauno’s head came back up, and he protested in panic, “You have to fix it!”
“No, I really don’t,” I informed him. “Frankly, I don’t trust you guys. You and the pirus, you’ve got too many power games going on. I’m not putting a platform anywhere where you can control it.”
“You can’t leave us stranded here!” His voice shot up into the octaves of screeching cats.
What if I wanted to?
Zoya was nicer than me. Or at least, more politically savvy. She shook her head. “She said control, not access. We’ll put a platform in a new location where you can only use it but will have no ability to control it.”
I had nothing left to say to these idiots and marched back out of the makeshift fence. People more or less followed me, but it was Eoin who lengthened his stride to catch up to my side.
“Can you really build a platform from scratch?” he asked curiously.
“I really can. It’ll take a day or two, even with Zoya’s help. They’re not really complicated, you just have to connect everything right, and there’s a lot of layers to it.”
“Ahh. In that case, I can see why you’d so readily abandon the ruined platform.”
“It’s twice the work trying to save something from it. I’d have to tear it apart to get anything usable, and then rebuild it from the ground up. Why bother? And I can’t put the platform in the same spot. Obviously.”
“It’s not a good location,” Eoin agreed, making a little disgusted, growly noise in the back of his throat. “Where are you going to build the new one?”
“I don’t know yet.” I spied Intto waiting for us and gave him a wave. “Intto. Bad news and good news situation.”
“It normally is with the menninkäinen,” he answered wryly. “How is the platform, Imagineer?”
“Well, in their efforts to keep everyone out of it, they’ve destroyed it. You can’t use it at all. It’s basically a very old collection of rocks now.”
Intto’s lip curled on one edge in a snarl. “Fools. They have trapped us all here.”
“Yes and no. Yes in the immediate sense, but otherwise no. I can build you a new platform.”
“Oh! You can?”
“I can. It’ll take me a few days, is all. But I need a new location. Old location is obviously not okay.”
“Hmm, yes. I’m not sure where else you can build one that the pirus and menninkäinen won’t immediately try to claim.” Intto’s head cocked, tail flicking idly behind him. “I wonder where a good spot would be?”
I was hoping he could tell me that. I really didn’t know this area, after all. “I’m currently taking suggestions.”
No one seemed to have an immediate answer to that.
“Lunch?” Aisling suggested.
“As good a suggestion as any,” Klaus agreed.
Obviously, us humans didn’t eat the same thing as the foxes. And we needed different accommodations. Klaus had planned for this and packed food, which we’d all backpacked in. Everything else we needed, Zoya and I made. They opened up a spot in the village area for us and we pitched some tents, threw in air mattresses and sleeping bags, all while Klaus got a fire going and grilled us up some mean ham and cheese sandwiches.
Eoin ended up sitting next to me, munching down on grilled ham and cheese, a very content man. “These camping chairs are comfortable. I might need to get one.”
“Easier than the ground,” I agreed.
He gave me a curious look, his head tilted a bit. “I realize it’s a strange thing to ask you now, but how did you end up on this project?”
“Rebuilding the Hub and all the platforms, you mean? I kind of fell into it.” I jerked a chin at Zoya, sitting across the fire from us. “She was actually the one who James invited in.”
“Da, this is true,” Zoya admitted easily. “But Reagan quickly proved we needed her. She has a ready mind for building, which has proved useful. But she’s
more comfortable with technology than most of us. She keeps us organized.”
That was true, so I just shrugged.
“She became expert of the platforms because that was her focus while I tackled other problems.” Zoya smiled at me, a hint of pride in it. “We probably should have taken her back home, let her finish high school instead of dragging her around the world for another few months.”
“I’m learning more here in the field than I would in school,” I pointed out. “All of this is hands-on experience. And it’s not like I have to be on target for a certain graduation date, anyway. My principal is well aware I’ll be hopping in and out.”
“Fortunately, also true.”
I understood her worry, sort of. But nothing about my life had been ‘normal,’ and frankly? I wasn’t really keen on normalcy anymore. I liked going around the world with my chosen family and seeing more of it. I liked making new friends of all ages and races. Staying in one place had only gotten me a lousy friend and judgy adults. Exploring the magical world was much better in comparison.
Intto came and plopped down, joining the ring of people around the fire. He regarded us all with a pan of his head. “You are all comfortable here?”
“We are, Intto,” Aisling immediately answered. “You’re a good host, thank you.”
“This pleases me. I’ve thought long and hard about where to put the new platform, but I cannot think of a ready answer. I suggest instead that I introduce you to Antero Vipunen.”
That name sounded familiar. “I’m sorry, who’s that?”
“Antero Vipunen is a giant who lives among us,” Intto explained patiently. “He is very wise and knows much of spells.”
It clicked. “Oh! The guy who lives underground in this area.”
“Yes, he is the one. I suggest we consult him.”
I looked around. Everyone seemed to be in agreement on this.
It was Zoya who answered him. “We’ll do so. Before we do, however, I think I want to put a ward up around the village. With your neighbors now upset and without their bargaining chip, they might do something foolish. Let’s not give them an opening to do something rash to your clan.”
Excantation Page 20