45

Most of the vineyard workers reached the wood well before we did. Which was fine by me. Because something unpleasant was going on in amongst the trees. Something flashy, noisy, then smoky. Another doughnut of brown smoke rolled up out of the trees.

The vineyard people decided they wanted no part of that. They went scooting right back up the hills. Not a one was interested in wasting valuable running time gawking at my odd company.

At a guess I’d say people in the area had had bad experiences down there before.

Once you penetrated the dozen yards of dense brush and brambles on the outer perimeter of the wood you found yourself in a perfectly groomed, parklike grove. Without undergrowth. With grass almost like a lawn. With a pond an acre in size, somewhat off center to the west. And with a big silver discus thing smack in the middle, standing eight feet above the grass on spindly metal legs. A flimsy ladder rose from the grass to an opening in the disk’s belly. A silver elf lay at the foot of that, unconscious or dead. Likewise, one Saucerhead Tharpe, right hand gripping the elf’s ankle, whose scattered attitude suggested that he’d been dragged back out of the discus.

I saw nothing to explain the brown smoke rings, nor all the racket we’d heard while we were coming down the hill.

The wood was perfectly still now. Not a bird had a word to say. Not a bug sang one bar to his ladylove. A few leaves did stir in the breeze but they kept their voices down. The only sounds to be heard were the distant, excited voices of vineyard workers who had decided they were far enough away to slow down and gossip.

When I stopped and counted them up in my head I doubted that there’d been more than a dozen workers, total.

We four froze with the moment, some listening, some sniffing. I turned slowly, trying to get a direction for the sense of presence I’d begun to feel.

I whispered to Singe, “The Casey creature is here in the grove somewhere. Can you scent him?”

“The odors here are very strange, Garrett. I am confused. I do scent something that might be Casey but I cannot locate him.”

A breeze stirred the leaves and branches. My eye kept going to an oddity of shadow that didn’t stir with everything else. I examined it from the corners of my eyes. I squinted, right and left and direct. I moved several times so I could try everything from a variety of angles. Several times the dance of bright sunlight and deep leaf shadow made me think that I had glimpsed something that might have been Kayne Prose crumpled up beside a stump, trapped inside something like a heat shimmer. When I concentrated I discovered a shadow being cast onto the ground by something not apparent to the naked eye.

I looked left and right. Nothing told me why the vineyard hands had run for it. Nothing told me where Playmate might be now. Nothing indicated the current whereabouts of the three silver elves not sprawled underneath their silvery discus. Nothing told me much of anything.

I drifted toward the shadow that shouldn’t have been, beckoning Marsha to follow, laying a finger to my lips. I got a few more glimpses of Kayne Prose. She didn’t appear to be awake. The invisibility spell keeping her unseen was sputtering and maybe needed a little punching up from somebody who’d had enough schooling to know what they were doing.

The spell did a whole lot of nothing to fool my sense of touch.

I got Marsha down on his knees, guided his hands. “That’s his head. You hang on in case he wakes up. If he does, let him know who’s in control. Without killing him, if possible.”

“Gotcha.”

I began the task of frisking and disrobing a body I couldn’t see. The stripping part didn’t go well at all.

A totally bedraggled imitation Kayne Prose materialized suddenly. In the same moment Singe said, “Gleep! Where did Garrett go?”

Inasmuch as I had not gone anywhere I gazed with suspicion at the small gray fetish I’d just taken off Casey. “Singe. Come over here.” When she arrived I put the device into her paw. She vanished. I assume I reappeared. “Now you’re invisible. Hang on to that. It might come in handy.”

“Nobody can see me? Whoo! Ha-ha! What I could do with this!”

“What couldn’t we all do? Why don’t you sneak over there and see if Saucerhead is still breathing?” I had a recollection of having turned up horizontal myself a few times after running into these elves. Only they hadn’t knocked themselves out, too, those times.

I couldn’t see Singe but she did still cast some shadow when she stepped into the light. She said, “Mr. Playmate must have climbed up the ladder.”

“Singe! Don’t go in there!”

My last two words even I couldn’t hear over the Crump! as a sudden ring of brown smoke blew down off the bottom of the discus. The smoke hit the ground, ricocheted back upward, into the sky. It seemed much less substantial than had the earlier clouds.

“Singe? You all right?”

A ratlike squeak resolved itself into, “Garrett? Can you hear me? I cannot hear right now. But otherwise I am all right. I am going to finish climbing the ladder now.”

“You damned fool! That’s what just—”

“I found Mr. Playmate. He is right inside here. Out cold. Lying on a metal floor with two more elves. One has a broken arm. At least it is bent the wrong way.”

Meanwhile, on the ground, I was continuing to make sure that Casey and the other unconscious elf wouldn’t be able to go anywhere when they woke up. “Let’s see if we can’t get this costume off this one.” I’d given up trying to strip Casey. And to Singe, “That’s a good job, Singe. Don’t go wandering around in there. Singe?”

She didn’t respond.

The girl was getting a little too sure of herself. “Would one of you guys reach up in there and drag Playmate out?”

Doris had taken over trying to get Casey’s silver suit off him so Marsha crawled under the discus. It was a tight fit. He ended up twisting himself around so he was seated on the grass, his head and shoulders inside the opening. “Gosh, Garrett, it’s weird in here.” A moment later he dropped an elf.

“Hey! You damned near hit me with that.” I was having no luck stripping the elf who had fallen with Saucerhead. The new arrival didn’t look like he’d be any easier.

“Here comes the one with the broken arm. You might want to take him so he don’t get hurt any worse.”

I jumped up just in time to grab the body Marsha handed down.

The elf weighed hardly anything at all.

“Hey, Garrett! Look at this.”

I turned. Doris was standing up, his top half up in the foliage. He seemed to be looking back up the hill that we had descended to get to this adventure. I shed my burden, skipped a dozen yards to a point where I could see the hillside myself.

I thought the vineyard workers would be up to something. But they were just making tracks.

Instead, Dojango was in deep sludge. But he hadn’t noticed yet.