The Wee Free Men

happened at more or less the same time. All Tiffany’s teeth started to buzz. The pan vibrated in her hands and dropped onto the snow. The dog in front of her went cross-eyed and, instead of leaping, tumbled forward.
    The grimhounds paid no attention to the pictsies. They howled. They spun around. They tried to bite their own tails. They stumbled and ran into one another. The line of panting death broke into dozens of desperate animals, twisting and writhing and trying to escape from their own skins.
    The snow was melting in a circle around William, whose cheeks were red with effort. Steam was rising.
    He took the pipe from his mouth. The grimhounds, struggling in the slush, raised their heads. And then, as one dog, they put their tails between their legs and ran like greyhounds back across the snow.
    “Weel, they ken we’re here noo,” said Rob Anybody, wiping tears from his eyes.
    “Ot aggened?” said Tiffany, touching her teeth to check that they were all still there.
    “He played the notes o’ pain,” Rob Anybody explained. “Ye canna hear ’em ’cause they’re pitched so high, but the doggies can. Hurts ’em in their heids. Now we’d better get movin’ before she sends somethin’ else.”
    “The Queen sent them? But they’re like something out of nightmares!” said Tiffany.
    “Oh aye,” said Rob Anybody. “That’s where she got them.”
    Tiffany looked at William the gonnagle. He was calmly replacing the pipes. He saw her staring at him, looked up, and winked.
    “The Nac Mac Feegle tak’ music verrrrrra seriously,” he said. And then he nodded at the snow near Tiffany’s foot.
    There was a sugary yellow teddy bear in the snow, made of 100% Artificial Additives.
    And the snow, all around Tiffany, was melting away.

    Two pictsies carried Tiffany easily. She skimmed across the snow, the clan running beside her.
    No sun in the sky . Even on the dullest days you could generally see where the sun was, but not here. And there was something else that was strange, something she couldn’t quite give a name to. This didn’t feel like a real place. She didn’t know why she felt that, but something was wrong with the horizon. It looked close enough to touch, which was silly.
    And things were not…finished. Like the trees in the forest they were heading toward, for example. A tree is a tree, she thought. Close up or far away, it’s a tree. It has bark and branches and roots. And you know they’re there , even if the tree is so far away that it’s a blob.
    The trees here, though, were different. She had a strong feeling that they were blobs, and were growing the roots and twigs and other details as she got closer, as if they were thinking, “Quick, someone’s coming! Look real!”
    It was like being in a painting where the artist hadn’t bothered much with the things in the distance, but quickly rushed a bit of realness anywhere you were looking.
    The air was cold and dead, like the air in old cellars.
    The light grew dimmer as they reached the forest. In between the trees it became blue and eerie.
    No birds, she thought.
    “Stop,” she said.
    The pictsies lowered her to the ground, but Rob Anybody said: “We shouldna hang aroound here too long. Heids up, lads.”
    Tiffany lifted out the toad. It blinked at the snow.
    “Oh, shoap,” it muttered. “This is not good. I should be hibernating.”
    “Why is everything so…strange?”
    “Can’t help you there,” said the toad. “I just see snow, I just see ice, I just see freezing to death. I’m listening to my inner toad here.”
    “It’s not that cold!”
    “Feels cold…to…me….” The toad shut his eyes. Tiffany sighed and lowered him into her pocket.
    “I’ll tell ye where ye are,” said Rob Anybody, his eyes still scanning the blue shadows. “Ye ken them wee bitty bugs that cling on to the sheeps and suck theirsel’ full o’ blood and then drop off again? This whole world is like one o’ them.”
    “You mean like a, a tick? A parasite? A vampire ?”
    “Oh, aye. It floats aroound until it finds a place that’s weak on a world where no one’s payin’ attention, and opens a door. Then the Quin sends in her folk. For the stealin’, ye ken. Raidin’ o’ barns, rustlin’ of cattle—”
    “We used to like stealin’ the coo beasties,” said Daft Wullie.
    “Wullie,” said Rob Anybody, pointing his sword, “you ken I said there wuz times you should think before opening yer big fat gob?”
    “Aye,