Tricked

don’t you conduct another experiment?
    › I haven’t finished the one I’ve already started. Sophie is hardly a sufficient sample size, Atticus. You should know that. ‹
    Perhaps you should explain what you’re trying to accomplish. I don’t understand how you’re contributing to human knowledge .
    › I’m trying to demonstrate the importance of names on human psychology and behavior. If you had introduced me as Oberon, or Spinecracker, or Hearteater, she would have kept her voice low. ‹
    Well, that’s quite a leap—
    › I know, it’s just my hypothesis. So I need you to introduce me to large numbers of strange women. But you’re not allowed to flirt with them! You might skew my results. Are there large numbers of strange women nearby? I’m still bored. ‹
    I sighed. You can go harass the construction workers if you want. I even give you permission to sniff their asses .
    Oberon stopped panting and pricked up his ears at me. › Seriously? ‹
    Sure, why not? They’re construction workers. They’ll tease one another about it, especially if you sneeze afterward. But if you startle them, they might knock you upside the head, so watch out .
    Oberon levered himself off the ground, his tail wagging. › Okay, this sounds like fun. Thanks, Atticus. ‹
    No problem . He trotted away, leaving me alone to establish contact with the local elemental. We were on the Colorado Plateau, a large region stretching across four states, so I had already assigned it the name of Colorado in my mind. I took a deep breath, put myself in that Latin headspace, and sent a message through the tattoos that bound me to the earth: //Druid greets Colorado / Wishes health / Harmony//
    There was a long pause before I got an answer. I was getting ready to repeat my greeting when it came. //Colorado greets Druid / Welcome//
    I frowned at the short rejoinder. Elementals aren’t talkative as a rule—they don’t talk at all, really, I simply do my best to render their images into words—but Colorado sounded reticent, perhaps even a bit surly. Usually elementals are overjoyed to hear from me. They tell me to relax, ask me to hunt, wish me harmony, and so on.
    //Query: Health? / Harmony?//
    //None// came the reply.
    Well, shit. I tried to remember the last time I’d spoken to this elemental and came up blank. I knew I’d traveled through here with Coronado and Don García López de Cárdenas in the sixteenth century, but after that … This might be my first visit since. I wondered if elementals felt jealousy. Might Colorado be feeling petulant because I’d spent so much of the past decade talking to Sonora, Kaibab, and the other elementals of Arizona, but not to him?
    //Query: Source of discord?//
    Deafening silence. Yep. Colorado was having an elemental hissy fit. Emergency flattery needed.
    //Druid happy here / Will stay for long visit / Find harmony//
    That got a response. //Query: Druid will stay?//
    //Yes / Druid visits for long time//
    //Query: How long?//
    Damn it. Promising a lengthy stay would get me quickly into his good graces, but I didn’t know what I could promise anymore. Still, provided that the Norse and the rest of the world believed me dead, the reservation would be a good place to stay and complete Granuaile’s training. I chose a happy turn of phrase. //Druid wants to stay forty seasons / Perhaps more//
    Wanting wasn’t the same as promising.
    //Joy / Contentment / Harmony// Colorado said.
    //Harmony// I agreed. Ice broken. Granuaile returned and sat down beside me as Colorado took great delight in showering me with a list of complaints. He’d had less than average rainfall the past few years, his water tables were getting dangerously low, and to make matters supremely irritating there was the matter of the coal mines, which not only opened wounds on his surface but exacerbated the water problem.
    And since he’d last seen me, he’d suffered fifteen extinctions. Not nearly so many as other elementals, not by a long shot, but he mourned them no less. I commiserated with him throughout the afternoon and into the evening before asking him to do anything. The sun had headed off to bed early, the workers had all headed back to Kayenta, and Oberon was napping next to Coyote by the time I wondered if he’d help me build a road from the plateau floor to the top of the monocline.
    A graded slope for his long-lost Druid buddy? Hey, no problem! Colorado couldn’t wait to show off, and he knocked it out in