“How marvelous!” Nigel said. “Did they move the collection all to Earth afterwards?”
“They considered it,” Hal said. “Queen Soulful Ember came to Pittsburgh to sign the peace treaty. While she was here, she toured the museum. She must have liked it because she demanded that it stay intact. It was part of the peace treaty, or so I’ve always been told.”
The aftermath of the namazu fight indicated that the English translation of the treaty might have been compromised by Sparrow. They still needed to track down a copy of the original and corner someone fluent in Elvish.
Hal swept a hand toward the museum entrance, a gracious master welcoming in guests. “The elves donated specimens of flora and fauna from other parts of Elfhome. It’s one of the draws of coming to here to study biology and a few other related majors at the University of Pittsburgh.”
Taggart panned the camera upwards to the bronze muses that sat along the roofline. “Do you think what we’re looking for is on display here?”
“I doubt it,” Jane said. “Let’s get in and start poking around. They close up fairly early.”
Jane bought four adult tickets to cover their entrance. The “guard” was an ancient old man in a bright red jacket. Jane felt slightly guilty knowing that they were about to walk all over him.
The ticket seller was a college student who went wide-eyed at Nigel. “You’re Nigel Reid! I loved the red pandas!” Jane winced as Hal’s ego was already bruised. The girl spotted Hal and went into sudden fan girl overdrive. “Omg! Hal Rogers! Oh! Oh! I love you!”
As the girl had Hal autograph random scraps of paper and then her arm and finally pose for selfies, Jane consulted the map that came with their tickets. Her memories of the exhibits during field trips were like snapshots, none connected to place or time. She could recall individual displays with vivid recall but had no idea where they were in relation to each other. In elementary school she’d loved the little dollhouses in their window displays. In Junior high, it had been the Hall of Architecture with the marble statues. The Goddess Nike had fascinated her. In high school, it had been the Photography gallery in the Museum of Art.
Her least favorite section of every visit had been the newest collection focused on Elfhome. As little kids, they’d be herded through the big dim galleries to turn a corner and find themselves face to face with the worst man-eaters on the planet. Every year, at least one child broke down crying. Jane would have nightmares for a week afterwards.
“What are you doing here?” The ticket seller asked.
“We want to film your wyvern for my new show.” Hal paused so he could dramatically sweep his hand over an imaginary marquee. “Monsters in Our Midst! It premieres this weekend. We’re going to be doing big monsters and so far, the wyvern is the biggest.”
The ancient guard finally realized who was chatting up the ticket seller. He pointed at Hal with wide eyes. “You’re Hal Rogers!”
Hal either ignored the panic dawning on the man’s face, or missed it entirely. “Yes, I am. Do you want an autograph too?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Jane growled. She pushed Hal toward the gallery with the Elfhome animals.
“Oh! Oh dear!” The guard exclaimed.
Jane recognized the tone. Someone in charge was going to get an excited call in a few minutes. She pushed Hal again as he slapped his pockets for a pen. “Faster.”
She hadn’t been to the museum since high school but it hadn’t changed any since her field trips days. It seemed like a place caught in time. In her memory, the museum was a dimly-lit maze. It surprised her to discover that her memory wasn’t wrong. They could film a horror movie in the place without changing a thing.
They turned the corner into the Elfhome section. It was weirdly satisfying to see both Nigel and Taggart flinch back in surprise and dismay. It vindicated dozens of school children scared shitless over the years.
“Oh.” Nigel finally whispered. His hands were pressed together as if he was praying. “Oh. My.”
Hal beamed with pride as if he’d given birth to the wyvern. “Isn’t he wonderful? It was one of two killed during the construction of the railroad. This is the male. Females are larger.”
Nigel stared up at the massive creature. Its birdlike feet were on the ground, its dump truck-sized head suspended on wires, its tail coiled around the edge of the area, and its leathery wings flared as wide as the large three-story courtyard would allow. “Oh. Oh. This is — it’s — I’m speechless.”
“Go ahead, take it in,” Jane said. “I will look to see if the box has been added to the exhibit.”
Jane left the men communing with the immense wyvern to scout the area. The elves had given the museum an odd assortment of camping equipment and tools that had been used on the railroad project. It was things like a horse drawn field kitchen. Folding canopy beds with insect netting. Tables that folded into suitcases. Lightweight collapsible chairs. Survey equipment with carrying cases. Humans complained that it had been done to save the elves the hassle of shipping the gear back to the Easternlands. The everyday nature of the items was what Jane liked about the exhibit. To her, it was the real elves. The camping gear was all sturdy, clever and elegant. She still found it enchanting.
Nigel broke his silence when she looped back to the men. “I thought the saurus was massive. I can’t even put the two together in my mind.”
“There’s an adult saurus under its left wing for scale.”
Nigel walked to the far left to see the saurus. “Oh! Simply brilliant! And dragons are larger than wyverns?”
“That’s what the elves say. Much larger.”
Taggart had been silent this entire time. Recording without comment was the sign of a great cameraman but now that he’d gotten in Nigel’s reaction, he whispered. “I’ve swum with humpback whales. I thought I wouldn’t be impressed by how big wyverns were. I was wrong. This is amazing. I can see why your father wanted a cannon to protect his family.”
“The box isn’t here,” Jane reported. “Let’s film this with Hal and Nigel separately. Someone from the museum will find us sooner or later.”
They filmed Nigel first so that he could charm any staff while Hal filmed. “I am nearly beyond words. This is an Elfhome wyvern. I’m sure that the film will do little to impress the size on our viewers since we can’t get enough distance so that it fits within our camera’s range. Here, I’ll stand beside the leg. Yes, this massive tree trunk object is its leg! Look at these talons. Each one is larger than my arm.” He laughed, giddy with his pure emotions. “The size of this is simply overwhelming. You could fit a party inside that mouth! I’ve been in elevators with less interior room.”
He signaled that he was done. “We’re going to have to record a voice-over later. I’m just too amazed. This has never happened to me before.”
Hal clapped Nigel on the shoulder. He tugged at his Hal’s Heroes boonie hat and readied for filming.
“Most of you are familiar with the wyvern. If you grew up in Pittsburgh, you’ve seen this fellow on your field trip to the museum. What you might not know is these creatures were created for war.”
Jane hoped that Hal wasn’t about to go off into left field with some weird rant.
“Sometime in the past, the elves had terrible wars and creatures like the wyvern were bioengineered using magic into the horrible monsters we know of today. The wyvern. The wargs. These and others are not natural animals. Nor were they selectively bred as we have done to create a wide range of dogs, from Saint Bernards down to Chihuahuas. The elves used a magic that we haven’t witnessed here in Pittsburgh to do direct gene manipulation of a level that we can’t even imagine. It was that process that changed a very human girl into an elf female. The oni have similar abilities of using magic to bioengineer normal creatures into monsters. At Sandcastle, we found evidence that the oni had tampered with the water fairies, making them larger, more aggressive, and more poisonous.”