The numerous wards in the shop also had to be dissolved, and I even unmade the binding that prevented people from shoplifting my merchandise and the binding on the trapdoor to my roof.
FedEx dropped off the random rare books Hal had ordered for me, and I called Granuaile to come pick me up. While she loaded the truly rare books into her car, I restocked the shelves with these other works that were all less than two centuries old. There were a few gems in there: a first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, an early edition of The Origin of Species, and a signed first edition of Dune.
Rebecca showed up at around half past eleven and I tossed her the keys to the rare bookcase, now guarded by nothing more than a pedestrian lock. “If you get time, you might want to catalog the rare books, organize them however you think best.”
Rebecca’s already large eyes widened further and she nervously fingered the ankh dangling from her neck, one of many religious symbols she wore out of a mixture of indecision and desire for karma points. “Are you sure? I thought that case was off limits.”
“Not anymore. I trust you with the whole shop.” I clapped her on the shoulder as I exited. “May harmony find you.”
I piled into the car with Granuaile and Oberon and directed Granuaile to drive east to the Bush Highway. It’s a winding road favored by training cyclists that follows the Salt River and provides access to Saguaro Lake. We found a place to pull off with a few palo verde trees to serve as landmarks, then carefully hauled the boxes of books one at a time into the desert landscape while Oberon stood sentinel by the car. When we had them all transferred, I sat on the ground lotus style and placed my tattooed right hand on the earth.
“I’m going to make three calls,” I explained to Granuaile. “One is to Coyote, and the other two are to elementals. Elementals are a Druid’s best friend. We couldn’t get much done without them. Gaia takes too long to respond. Even my extremely long life is little more than a half hour of hers, if you see what I mean. The elementals live in the present, though, and they change as the earth does.
“They’re going to protect these books while I’m away. And I’m going to tell them to surrender the books to you if I don’t come back. One of the books is actually written by me. I wrote it originally in the eleventh century, when it was clear that I was the last of the Druids, and I’ve re-copied it periodically to make sure that none of the knowledge is lost. It is the only written copy of Druid lore in existence.”
“But I thought nothing was ever written,” Granuaile said. “Because of the oral tradition.”
“Right, well, circumstances are a bit different. I’m extraordinarily endangered, aren’t I? So this is a long shot sort of fail-safe. It contains all my herblore, all the rituals, and instructions on how to bind yourself to the earth. You’ll have to get someone else to bind you—you can’t tattoo yourself, trust me. I recommend asking Flidais of the Tuatha Dé Danann to help you. Don’t go to Brighid or the Morrigan or you’ll get drawn into their power struggle. What?”
Granuaile was shaking her head. “You’re coming back, sensei. I don’t need to know this.”
“Don’t be silly. There’s a distinct possibility you will need to know. The existence of the universe is living proof that shit happens. Now, pay attention.”
“I can’t even communicate with these elementals, much less with Flidais,” Granuaile protested.
“I’m going to set that up right now. Be patient and I’ll show you.” I sent my consciousness down into the earth, calling the Sonoran Desert elemental first, asking it to please inform Coyote I wished to speak with him. Then I asked it to help me bury and store the valuable knowledge contained in my books.
Talking to elementals is sort of like writing a mental picture book. They don’t use human languages; they speak in images connected with a syntax of emotions. My attempts to render the communication in writing invariably fall short of the true experience, but here is what I sent to Sonora:
A minute passed by, and then I felt the reply travel up my arm and images formed in my mind:
I formed a picture in my mind of a pit, eight feet deep, with steps leading down into it that would bear our weight. I kept it firmly in my mind’s eye, and slowly, to my right, the pit began to form. Granuaile gasped. To her it must have looked like I was pulling a Yoda, but Sonora was doing all the work. A barrel cactus disappeared into the earth and got reabsorbed; grasses and roots tore away as the pit widened and deepened. It took only a couple of minutes.
“Right, now we schlep the boxes down in there.” That took more than a couple of minutes, but once we were finished I had more talking to do with Sonora, as well as with another elemental—an iron one.
“Now, if I just leave these books in the earth, they won’t do so well. On top of that, someone who’s looking for those books will be able to divine their presence if we don’t shield them somehow.”
“Who would be looking for them?”
“Bad guys. So I’m going to have an iron elemental encase them all in iron.”
“Wicked. Do all the elementals do what you want?”
“Excellent question, and the answer is no. Some are more helpful than others, but in general they’ve all been more accommodating since I’ve been the only Druid around to take care of them.”
“Wait. You take care of them?”
“Sure. Why else would they give us access to their power?”
“But I don’t understand why they’d need your help. They’re beings of super-duper mega-big magical mojo.”
“True. And sometimes they get bound against their will by witches and warlocks seeking to steal their mojo for selfish purposes. When that happens, it’s a Druid’s job to set them free. Happened just a couple months ago, in fact. Three witches bound up the elemental Kaibab, and I was nearby to set it free before they were able to do anything extraordinarily stupid.”
"Hey! You mean when we were hunting? That’s why you took off?"
Yep.
"You told me a squirrel needed your help. Thought you’d lost your mind."
“You’re talking about the Kaibab Plateau north of the Grand Canyon?” Granuaile asked, and I nodded confirmation. “What happens if an elemental needs your help in China?”
“I hear about it through the elemental grapevine, then I shift planes to Tír na nÓg and back to earth near the spot where the trouble is.”
“What if you don’t get there in time? I mean, what if an elemental dies?”
“Then you get the Sahara Desert.”
I watched her lips. She almost said, “Bullshit,” but then she collected herself and said, “The Sahara’s been there for millions of years.”
“Aye, but it hasn’t always been as dry as it is now. Used to be quite a bit wetter, able to support a broader base of life. Then about five thousand years ago, a wizard bound the Sahara elemental and absorbed it into himself.”
“How’d he do that?”
“Not well. He went mad trying to contain it and died.”
My apprentice frowned. “Wasn’t the elemental released at that point?”
“Aye, the power was released, but it no longer had a coherent identity as an elemental. It was wild magic, and it was released around the Nile Delta. Shortly thereafter the Egyptian civilization started building pyramids.”
“Are you saying …?”
“No, because I don’t appreciate fallacies of causality. Interesting coincidence, though, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “Did the elementals tell you all of this?”
“Yes. That was three thousand years before my time. They’ll tell you all sorts of secrets if you’re nice to them. And they respond more quickly once they get to know you. This iron elemental I’m calling has been fed lots of faeries over the years. He likes me quite a bit. Calls himself Ferris.”
Granuaile looked at me sharply. “Stop it, sensei.”
“Stop what?”
She huffed and tucked an errant wisp of hair behind her ear, then squinted her skepticism at me. “Its name is Ferris? As in the word ferrous? You can’t expect me to believe an iron elemental is as fond of puns as you are.”
I smiled. “No, you’re right. He allowed me to give him a name, since we’ve worked so much together over the years.” I paused. “I think of him as male, even though elementals have no gender. That’s probably sexist of me.”
“Probably,” Granuaile agreed. “I’ll give you a sensitivity point for noticing, though.”
"And that brings your grand total up to one. Congratulations!" Oberon said.
“Thanks,” I said to them both, and then I returned my attention to the earth, sending my thoughts down through my tattoos.
“He’s done this sort of thing for me before,” I explained. “He knows precisely what to do. Watch.”
Granuaile leaned over to see iron seeping up from the ground and solidifying underneath the boxes. It built up like magnetic iron filings along the sides, slowly hardening into a black wall, and then it closed over the top until all we saw was an iron box without a visible weld or seam.
“Wow,” Granuaile said. “You could get a job building bank vaults.”
“Those books are worth more than anything in a vault. Okay, they’re protected from divination now. What’s next? Have Sonora fill in the pit?”
She glanced at me, recognizing that I was testing her.
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied. “The iron will rust if you don’t protect it from the next rains. Groundwater will get it.”
“Excellent. What should I do?”
“Thank Ferris and call back Sonora to put nonporous rock around the iron, then fill in the pit.”
“You’re right, we should thank Ferris and Sonora both. Sonora will ask us to do something in return for this favor, and if it’s in your power, I think you should do it. You might as well start building goodwill now.”
“Ferris won’t ask for anything?”
“I’ve fed him so many faeries over the years that he feels like he owes me.” I thanked both elementals and asked Sonora to encase the iron in granite and fill in the pit. We were silent as Sonora worked. After my books were secure under the earth, I introduced Granuaile to both elementals.
Almost immediately, a black iron marble formed on the surface of the soil.
I pointed at it and said, “That’s a little piece of Ferris right there. Pick it up and concentrate on thoughts of welcome and curiosity. Ask if there is anything you can do for him.”
Her mouth fell half open and she glanced at me uncertainly. She still had difficulty believing sometimes that this could happen in an age of science. Before she could pick it up, another marble emerged from the ground. This one was solid turquoise.
“Is that one a piece of Sonora?” she asked.
“Yep. This is how you’ll communicate with them if I don’t come back. Better practice now to get the hang of it. Do Ferris first. He’s used to talking.”
She gingerly picked up the iron marble between thumb and forefinger, holding it as if it were a repulsive insect.
“Close it in your fist, shut your eyes, and say hello in your mind,” I said.
She did as I instructed, and after a couple of seconds she jerked and gave a startled little “Oh!” Wonder chased surprise, which nipped at the heels of shock traveling across her face. Then a smile took over and made itself comfortable.
"Is Ferris telling her she’s going to win the lottery or something?" Oberon asked.
Don’t know, I told him. It’s not a conversation I can listen in on.
"Do the elementals even know I’m here?"
Sonora knows you. He calls you Druidfriend, which is the same as giving you a name. He’d just refer to you as a dog otherwise.
"Cool. Why doesn’t Ferris know me?"
You’re not part of his ecosystem and you never feed him faeries. Ferris thinks about faeries the way you think about pork products.
"Whoa. Are you telling me faeries taste like bacon?"
No, there’s only one thing that tastes like bacon—
"—and that’s bacon!"
Right. I’m merely drawing a comparison. Iron eats magic, and faeries are magical creatures born on a magical plane. So when I serve up some faeries to Ferris, it’s the same thing as giving you one of those Bacon Explosion things and chasing it with a nice bacon latte.
"You’ve never done that for me! Why haven’t you done that for me?"
Because I can’t. Bacon lattes don’t exist.
"Untrue! Logically it must be so. Vampires exist, werewolves exist, and faeries exist. If all those impossible creatures exist, then so do bacon lattes! We could go get one at Starbucks right now."
Oberon, seriously, I don’t believe there’s any such thing. I was just making a point.
"You can’t fool me! It has to be on their secret menu! That mermaid on the cup is smiling because she knows where the bacon lattes are!"
Come on, Oberon, you’re being silly.
"No, I’m not! What’s silly is paying five bucks for hot milk and flavored syrup! But now I see what’s really been going on all this time! They charge you all that money because they need it for the R & D! Somewhere on the outskirts of Seattle, there’s a secret facility with higher security than Area 51, and inside there are men with poor eyesight and bad haircuts wearing white lab coats, and they’re trying to make the Holy Grail of all coffee drinks."