You're the Star Atop My Christmas Tree, Charlie Boone! - 3. Part 3

After the meal they resumed their tour. Frit and Pip rejoined them, looking happy to be back.

"Apprentice class," Frit said, when Adrian asked him what they'd been doing. "We have time off from skóli, but we couldn't get out of that one class. Lars Habibula is only here for the one presentation."

Kippy smiled at the name. "Who is that?"

"Oh, he's a master at stuffnothing," Pip said. "The best!"

Charlie joined the others in laughing.

"Stuffnothing?" Kippy repeated, tossing Charlie a smile. "And what might that be?"

"It's putting a lot in a little." Frit came back, grinning.

"Big into small," Pip agreed, laughing.

Max sighed. "It's about maximizing storage space, is all."

Frit made a face. "It's about putting stuff in a space too small to hold it, is what."

"Its about adjusting a space to fit what you want to store," Max corrected, looking stern. "Get your extra-dimensional processes in order, boy!"

Everyone laughed at the expression that came over Frit's face. "Yessir!"

But Max smiled then. "I remember when I was a youngun, we called it stuffnothing then, too. But you still need to get a handle on thinking about it in the right order. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life having your stuff squeezed."

Pip's eyes got larger, and he turned and grinned at his boyfriend. Frit bit at his lip, not quite daring to laugh. "Yeah, I definitely don't want my stuff to be squeezed."

Max blinked in surprise, then threw up his hands and turned to Ronja. "What do you do with kids these days!"

The woman smiled at Frit. "Be patient with them. Especially when they're so obviously worth the trouble."

Frit smiled at her, and Pip sighed happily.

Max frowned a moment, and then relented. "Yeah. You're right." He leaned closer to Frit and smiled. "It was a good class, anyway, wasn't it?"

The boy nodded. "Oh, yeah!"

"It was amazing!" Pip added, obviously glad that things had eased up.

"Perhaps we should move on?" Ronja asked, turning her smile on Max.

Max sighed, and started off. "Come on, then."

"Are we going to see Nicholaas today?" Kippy asked, as they turned into another hallway.

"He said he would be along as soon as he could," Ronja supplied, before Max could answer. "He is coordinating a few things just now."

Max laughed. "That's a nice way of putting it. He's getting the delivery line ready. That's a series of magical events that will deliver a heck of a lot of the stuff we have stored here to where it's supposed to wind up. Takes some concentration, you better believe it."

Kippy frowned. "So nothing is going to be delivered by sleigh?"

Max smiled, and both of the younger elves giggled. "I didn't say that," Max replied, a bit mysteriously.

Kippy grinned, and Charlie sighed. Leave it to Kip to get to the bottom of things!

The next room they entered was another huge one full of belts full of items racing about at furious speeds. Max didn't slow down for them to gawk, seemingly intent on just leading them through towards a rounded little building in the center of the huge room, one with windows all the way around it. They could see through the structure and out the other side, though there were obviously chairs and things within.

"Wanna show you where I do my job, mostly," Max said. "This was where I was when you first got hold of me on Goggle, Kip. I was certainly surprised to see you guys, I can sure say that!"

Kippy laughed, but then crossed his arms. "You asked if we were fairies."

Max looked embarrassed. "I meant the kind with wings. Some of them have been known to pull a joke here and there, and--" The elf suddenly slowed, his eyes moving to the many belts around them. Frit and Pip immediately noticed Max's distraction, and slowed as well.

Charlie and the others slowed, too, just in time to see something fly up into the air a couple of belts away, and crash into the floor. Max stopped suddenly. "Uh oh."

The belt they were standing beside suddenly made a horrifying noise, and boxes of ceramic dishes flew in every direction. Charlie ducked instinctively and pulled Kippy down just as a box flew over them, and several other boxes stopped in mid-air just before impacting others in the group, and settled smoothly to the ground nearby. Max had his hands up now, and so did Frit and Pip. Obviously, they had reacted to deflect the missiles.

"Batham's Seven Hells!" Max roared, staring about. The conveyor next to them continued to squawk like a stepped on cat and throw objects everywhere, but none of them could reach the group now. An invisible shield had sprung up between them and the belt, impervious to the flying items.

Several lines over, there was another horrendous sound, and garden tools sailed off that belt in every direction. Some of them were blurs, they were moving so fast; but they all bounced harmlessly off the shield the elves had erected. Frit and Pip were staring about in shock, yet maintaining their magic just as they had been trained to do.

And then the whole room went crazy. Things started flying everywhere as the belts they were riding on seemed to loose their magical grip on them. Charlie and the others stayed down, even though they were safe behind the shields, and Ricky and Adrian were right beside them. Uncle Bob had pulled Ronja down, too, and they seemed to be talking together, although Charlie couldn't hear anything over the clamor in the room.

The noise all about them suddenly moderated, and then all the belts stopped at once. More items went flying off them and crashed to the floor; but in a few seconds, silence descended on the room.

"Oh, Max!" Ronja said then. "What on earth happened?"

There was a faint popping sound nearby, and two elves appeared near them. They were dressed in white uniforms that had 'Quality Control' emblems on them, and their expressions were anything but happy. "There you are, boss!" the larger one said, a fellow a little taller than Max, but still short compared to the humans. "We gotta problem!"

Max nodded. "I can see that. Is it what I think it is?"

"Foobear," said the other elf, nodding his head. "Must be a big one, too, to cause all this mess with the controls in place."

Max grimaced, and shook his head. "Heck of a time for this to happen!" He pointed a finger fiercely at the two newcomers. "You call the keepers yet?"

"We did that right away," the taller elf replied. He closed his eyes a second, and then nodded. "Feels like they're already around, someplace."

Charlie stood, and helped Kip upright beside him. "What happened?"

He hadn't directed the question to anyone in particular, but it was Max that turned to face him. "A foobear got in, somehow."

"That's bad!" Frit said, shaking his head.

"Terrible!" Pip agreed.

Charlie couldn't help emitting a short laugh. The room was a shambles! "I can see the mess. But what made it happen?"

Max blinked, and then smiled at him, and held up a finger indicating he wait a second. He turned back to the two new elves, and indicated the taller one. "That's Merv, and the other guy is Caska. They're a couple of my boys, from my department."

Merv looked startled, but then smiled at the humans. "Oh, hiya. Sorry about the mess."

Caska looked slightly impatient at the change of subject, but also nodded. "Any friends of the boss are friends of mine." But then he turned his gaze back to Max. "What do we do next? I've never seen a foobear that could do all this!"

"Hold up a second." Max turned to Ronja. "It ain't safe here now, ma'am. I'd like one of the boys to take you back to the main house."

Ronja looked surprised, and then shook her head. "I'm fine. I just want to know what's going on."

Max winced, but then nodded again. "Okay, how about this? Frit and Pip will walk all of you back to the cafeteria, and you wait there a few minutes until we get a line on what's happening here. Then I'll come and fill you in."

Ronja looked around at the chaos of items on the floor, and nodded. "Okay. I don't want to be in the way. But I do want to know what happened!"

"I promise," Max said. Then he spun on Frit and Pip. "Take everyone back to the cafeteria. Wait there for me to come."

Frit and Pip both nodded. "Okay!" Frit said. He turned to Charlie."Let's go!"

The humans did not want to argue, and certainly didn't want to be obstinate when they had no idea what was happening. As curious as Charlie was about what had just occurred, he understood that they were guests here and that it was important for them to be out of the line of fire, so to speak. So he nodded, and tightened his hand on Kip's, and they turned as a group and followed Frit. Pip took up a position to the rear, his eyes moving everywhere, obviously watching for something. That only increased Charlie's curiosity, but he simply bit his tongue and followed Frit.

It did not take them long to get back to the cafeteria. The place was empty now, the elves apparently called back to duty. They went back to the table where they had eaten and took seats. Frit and Pip remained standing, though, their eyes moving about the room, obviously watching.

"So what's going on?" Ricky asked. "I can't believe what happened back there."

"It was pretty amazing," Uncle Bob concurred. "It seemed like the magic there broke somehow!"

Frit nodded vigorously. "That's exactly what happened."

"Went kapow!" Pip agreed.

"It's a foobear," Frit continued, still looking about the room. "They can be dangerous, sometimes."

"Very!" Pip agreed.

Charlie looked from one elf to the other, and then gave out an exasperated grunt. "What is a foobear!"

Frit blinked, and then smiled. "Rogue magic. A piece that broke off the allmagic."

Charlie shook his head briefly, not in any way enlightened. "You're not telling me anything I can understand."

Frit opened his mouth, then closed it and looked at Pip. "You're better at this. You tell 'em."

Pip gave his boyfriend a pleased smile, and turned to Charlie. "You know magic is all one thing, right? We call it the allmagic, and all of us can access it. Some people have talents for doing certain things with it, and other people have talents for doing others. It's common for one person to be good at more than one type of magic, too. We have to learn to use the allmagic, and we get better as we go along. But the magic itself is all one. The source is the same for all of us."

Charlie nodded. "I remember that the people of Twombly were selectively cut off from what they could access of that magic. I know that you can turn off any elf's use of parts of it, or even all of it, by group consensus."

"That's right!" Pip nodded vigorously. "The magic belongs to all of us, so we all have a say in how it gets used, and by who. Mostly we never interfere with anybody, because people are very good at using it wisely. But there have been exceptions, like the one you know about with Eustace and Marly. It was a shame it followed their descendants, but that's the way the sanction was set up back then." Pip grinned. "But that's fixed now, thanks to you guys!"

Kippy laughed. "We're happy about that, too. But that still doesn't tell us what a foobear is!"

Pip nodded. "Doing magic is a procedure. You open the call, define the process, and then you close the call when your magic is done. Closing the call is important. It stops the flow of the magic, because you have ended what you are doing with it. It's bad to forget to close when you're done."

Charlie nodded. "Oh. So it's like this allmagic is the energy that powers the magic you do?"

"That's right!" Frit said, nodding. "You're good at this, Charlie."

Pip grinned. "Told ya!"

Frit sighed, and nodded. "They're all good at it. They got the understanding. Especially Kippy."

Kippy looked from one elf to the other. "Me?" But then he blinked, and nodded. "Oh. You mean skwish."

"That's part of it," Frit agreed. "But...it's too early for us to say more. We promised we wouldn't!"

Charlie and Kippy exchanged a glance, wondering what that meant, but Charlie decided it couldn't be addressed just now. "And the foobear part?"

Pip frowned. "The allmagic isn't smart on its own. It's a wild force, and it has to be directed. Elves do that directing, and so do other power users...out there." He waved a hand at the high ceiling. "Users on other worlds. Some are better than others, as you've seen."

"And sometimes, someone messes up," Frit continued. "Someone forgets to do a proper close after they're done using the allmagic. And a little piece gets cut off from the main body, and gets free. That's a foobear."

"How can someone forget to turn the magic off?" Uncle Bob asked. "Wouldn't that be part of the spell?"

Frit smiled. "We don't use spells, like you're thinking. Well, mostly. There are some verbal concentrations that serve as foci, but most of what we do is inside our heads and not spoken."

Charlie smiled. He was so used to the energetic pursuit of fun that so often marked Frit's and Pip's lifestyles that he often forgot that they were also elves in training, and possessors of powers that would astonish just about any human. That the two never spoke about their studies easily made him forget that they did know a lot more about a lot of things than could be imagined. Elf magic was a science, and there were physics and mechanics involved in the processes they used, and the average elf certainly knew much more about the rules of the universe than any average human being.

Adrian raised his hand and laid it along his jaw in thought. "So a foobear is a piece of wild, undirected magic, cut off from the main body, and roaming free on it's own? What can it do then, if it's undirected?"

"Plenty!" Frit's face grew serious again. "Because it's undirected, it also has a potential to all magic. It can cross the lines of other magical processes in motion, and terminate them. That's what happened back in the distribution room. The attractor magic that kept everything on the belts got terminated, and stuff just went everywhere."

Charlie nodded. "I got ya. Those belts move way too fast, and in just crazy directions, for things to stay aboard unless they're held there."

"Right," Pip agreed. "It won't take long to clean up the mess and get stuff going again, but until we catch the foobear and nullify it, it might just happen again. Or, worse, something else even more important might get mucked up."

"So how do you catch the thing?" Ricky asked.

"Keepers come and hunt it down," Frit said.

"They're really good at it," Pip agreed.

Kippy frowned. "How do they nullify it?"

Pip looked at his boyfriend uncertainly. "Would it be safe to say it's like grounding it?"

Frit nodded vigorously. "Sure." He turned to Kippy. "Like a lightning rod in your world grounds bolts of static discharge between clouds and the earth. Keepers track down the foobear and kind of ground it back into the allmagic. You can't destroy magic, you can only change its form. So they just put it back where it came from, more or less."

"Wow." Kippy looked impressed. "you guys sure have some cool stuff going on here."

Frit and Pip both laughed. "Little foobears are more common. This is a whopping one, to do what it did. Someone messed up big time!"

"Any way to track down the culprit?" Charlie asked. "The elf who didn't close properly?"

"Might not have been one of us," Pip said. "Could have been any user, anywhere in the universe. The allmagic is everywhere. Foobears are attracted to points of high usage, like here. Could have been a Moth somewhere that messed up, or some other power user. Just because someone didn't close out right in Andromeda, doesn't mean the foobear will show up there."

Charlie was stunned. "So this thing could have had an origin anywhere in the universe?"

"Oh, sure." Frit shrugged. "That's just the way it goes."

Kippy gaped a moment, and then shook his head. "Wow. So with so many users all over creation, this must happen a lot."

"Not really," Pip countered. "It takes a major lapse of concentration to forget a close. And when it does happen, it's usually just a little piece of the allmagic - a little foobear - that escapes. Ones the size of this one are rare. Really rare!"

"Too big to summon," Frit said. "Small ones, the keepers just pull them in and return them to the allmagic. Big ones like this are too powerful, and the keepers have to hunt it down and nullify it. Good thing is that foobears stay near points of concentration, so even this big one won't just leave and go somewhere else to cause trouble."

"It almost sounds like it's alive," Kippy mused.

"It's not," Frit assured. "It's just magic force. It gets attracted to other magic processes and disrupts them just by being there. It's not deliberate."

Kippy looked at Charlie, and Charlie could see doubt in his boyfriend's eyes. "Problem, Kip?"

"I don't know. My skwish seems to be acting up a little."

"You might be feeling the foobear," Pip said, looking carefully around the cafeteria. "Keepers can sense them easily. Your skwish might be sensitive to them, too."

"It can't hurt us, can it?" Ronja asked.

Uncle Bob nodded. "I thought it just disrupted magical processes?"

Frit and Pip looked at each other uncertainly, and then Frit held out his hands to share that feeling with everyone. "There's a heap of magical processes going on here at the workshop at any given time. Even the way this place is built uses magic. A foobear isn't dangerous to us - it can't hurt us - but if it disrupts a magical process we are close to, we could get hurt as a result. Like back in the distribution room. All that stuff flying around could have hurt someone if we hadn't put up shields. And even shields are magical processes, so there is no guarantee we'd be safe behind them if we got near the foobear again."

Charlie blew out his breath. "I get it. Earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do."

Frit nodded. "Yeah, kind of like that."

Pip looked around the room again. "There's some big magic that went into making this place. Nicholaas did this. Foobears can't cancel magic that's bigger than they are, but this is a big foobear. I think the building is probably safe from disruption, but I don't know about all the stuff in it."

"Well, maybe Nicholaas needs to know about this," Ronja said.

"I'm sure he does," Pip returned. He grinned then. "He knows about everything."

The lady beamed at that, and Uncle Bob smiled. "Nothing like being top dog at the kennel."

Ronja turned her smile on Uncle Bob, and gently patted his arm. "I assure you, Nicholaas is quite a gentle dog."

Everyone laughed at that, and Charlie relaxed a little. So their situation probably wasn't dangerous, it just could be if they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"So I guess we just wait and see," he said.

Ronja emitted a small, distinctly feminine sigh. "I'm just so sorry this disrupted your visit. There are so many wonders here, I forget that things cannot be perfect. But I'm sure these..." she paused and looked over at Frit.

"Keepers," he supplied, smiling.

"..keepers will handle everything quickly, and then we can get back to our visit."

They ordered some beverages, and talked quietly, and time passed with no more fuss. Ronja, it seemed, had fallen in love with the workshop and all it contained, and the elves that managed to get everything done. She radiated happiness as she spoke, and Kippy kept smiling at Charlie, his eyes broadcasting how much he liked the woman that Nicholass had chosen as a companion. There could be no better review than that to Charlie's way of thinking, and he quickly found himself also very much in like with her.

"My background is so quiet," she said during the conversation. "Switzerland is not any sort of focus in the world, except financially, and even that is quiet and reserved. The troubles that other places seem submerged in daily are noticeably absent in my country. I very much enjoyed my work at the lodge, as I got to meet people from all over, and I do like that quite a bit." She smiled at Frit and Pip, and gave another little sigh. "And now I have met some of the most special people of all."

The two elves grinned, and Charlie was amazed at how shy they looked. As a companion to Nicholaas, Ronja could almost be considered like royalty here; and yet, Nicholaas himself would have been irritated at the notion of being considered a king of this realm, for he saw his relationship with the elf population as an equal partnership, and the elves themselves as his friends. This was a wholly different world here, and one that operated without much of the pressures that plagued the human world. But that Ronja was held in high esteem, at least by Frit and Pip, was readily apparent, and Charlie figured that the two elf teens were probably a pretty good weather vane for the elf population in general. Ronja had not only been accepted here, she was liked, and perhaps even loved.

Just as Nicholas surely was.

"I think they may see you in much the same light," he ventured, smiling.

"We do!" Frit dared, blushing.

"She's the best!" Pip added, his face also going to rose.

Ronja smiled at that, and a bit of red filtered into her own cheeks. "I feel so lucky to have met Nick, um--" Her blush deepened a shade. "I mean, Nicholaas. And all of you, in fact. It has truly changed my life for the better."

Kippy beamed at Charlie, and Adrian sighed and leaned against Rick, who also looked quite happy. Charlie couldn't help laughing, just a little. "I think this has been a great visit so far, and I think it will only get better from here."

Later he would look back on those words, and smile.