The Wee Free Men

as light as a baby and changed shape madly in Tiffany’s arms—into monsters and mixed-up beasts, things with claws and tentacles. But at last she was small and gray, like a monkey, with a large head and big eyes and a little downy chest that went up and down as she panted.
    She reached the stones. The arch still stood. It was never down, Tiffany thought. The Queen had no strength, no magic, just one trick. The worst one.
    “Stay away from here,” said Tiffany. “Never come back. Never touch what is mine.” And then, because the thing was so weak and babylike, she added: “But I hope there’s someone who’ll cry for you. I hope the king comes back.”
    “You pity me?” growled the thing that had been the Queen.
    “Yes. A bit,” said Tiffany. “But don’t count on it.”
    She put the creature down. It scampered across the snow of Fairyland, turned, and became the beautiful Queen again.
    “You won’t win,” the Queen said. “There’s always a way in. People dream.”
    “Sometimes we waken,” said Tiffany. “Don’t come back…or there will be a reckoning….”
    She concentrated, and now the stones framed nothing more—or less—than the country beyond.
    I shall have to find a way of sealing that, said her Third Thoughts. Or her Twentieth Thoughts, perhaps. Her head was full of thoughts.
    She managed to walk a little way and then sat down, hugging her knees. Imagine getting stuck like this, she thought. You’d have to wear earplugs and noseplugs and a big black hood over your head, and still you’d see and hear too much…
    She closed her eyes, and closed her eyes again.
    She felt it all draining away. It was like falling asleep, sliding from that strange wide-awakeness into just normal, everyday…well, being awake. It felt as if everything was blurred and muffled.
    This is how we always feel, she thought. We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always this awake?
    Someone tapped her on the boot.

CHAPTER 14
    Small, Like Oak Trees
    “H ey, where did you get to?” shouted Rob Anybody, glaring up at her. “One minute we was just aboout to give them lawyers a good legal seein’-to, next minute you and the Quin wuz gone!”
    Dreams within dreams, Tiffany thought, holding her head. But they were over, and you couldn’t look at the Nac Mac Feegle and not know what was real.
    “It’s over,” she said.
    “Didja kill her?”
    “No.”
    “She’ll be back then,” said Rob Anybody. “She’s awfu’ stupid, that one. Clever with the dreaming, I’ll grant ye, but not a brain in her heid.”
    Tiffany nodded. The blurred feeling was going. The moment of wide-awakeness was fading like a dream. But I must remember that it wasn’t a dream.
    “How did you get away from the huge wave?” she asked.
    “Ach, we’re fast movers,” said Rob Anybody. “An’ it was a strong lighthoose. O’ course, the water came up pretty high.”
    “A few sharks were involved, that kind of thing,” said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.
    “Oh, aye, a few sharkies,” said Rob Anybody, shrugging. “And one o’ them octopussies—”
    “It was a giant squid,” said William the gonnagle.
    “Aye, well, it was a kebab pretty quickly,” said Daft Wullie.
    “Ha’ a heidful o’ heid, you wee weewee!” shouted Wentworth, overcome with wit.
    William coughed politely. “And the big wave threw up a lot of sunken vessels full o’ trrrreasure,” he said. “We stopped off for a wee pillage.”
    The Nac Mac Feegle held up wonderful jewels and big gold coins.
    “But that’s just dream treasure, surely?” said Tiffany. “Fairy gold! It’ll turn into rubbish in the morning!”
    “Aye?” said Rob Anybody. He glanced at the horizon. “Okay, ye heard the kelda, lads! We got mebbe half an hour to sell it to someone! Permission to go offski?” he added to Tiffany.
    “Er…oh, yes. Fine. Thank you—”
    They were gone, in a split-second blur of blue and red.
    But William the gonnagle remained for a moment. He bowed to Tiffany.
    “Ye didna do at all badly,” he said. “We’re proud o’ ye. So would yer grrranny be. Remember that. Ye are not unloved.”
    Then he vanished too.
    There was a groan from Roland, lying on the turf. He began to move.
    “Weewee men all gone,” said Wentworth sadly in the silence that followed. “Crivens all gone.”
    “What were they?” muttered Roland, sitting up and holding his head.
    “It’s all a bit