Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [47]
“Through here.”
Tak darted in front of her, and she gladly followed.
A light beckoned her from the end of a hall. Bealomondore had opened the shades in a room filled with paintings.
“Aha,” she said as she came through the door. “What a fine collection. Are the paintings good or merely pretty?”
“Mostly good. A few excellent.” He pointed to a picture of a ship on the sea and then to a depiction of a woman reading to children around her.
He pointed out a six-foot-tall painting of two men standing side by side, a tumanhofer and a urohm. “But this is the one that astonishes me.”
“Oh!” Ellie moved to the picture as if drawn by a rope. “Is it right? I mean, the proportions? The shorter man comes up to the other’s waist. Surely one is too tall or the other too short.”
He took her hand and pulled her along with him as he sped down the hall and into another room. Dropping his grip, he crossed the room and pulled on a shade, which zipped up and twirled several times at the top, making a whopping sound with each turn. Sun poured in through the window, and dust motes floated in the air.
“This is a nursery.”
She’d already surmised that from the furniture and childish pictures, toy trains, and stacking blocks.
“I’m four feet five inches tall,” Bealomondore said.
She had no idea why that was relevant but decided to not reveal her obtuse state.
Bealomondore strolled across the room to a wall that had one decoration, an embroidered height chart. Several places were marked with ribbons. Bealomondore fingered one of the lower trimmings. “Haddy, age two.” He straightened out another to read. “Gelay, age five.” Another strip said, “Haddy, age four.”
Ellie shrugged. “My family records our heights on the wall in the mud room. Don’t most families keep some kind of record?”
Without a word, Bealomondore turned and backed up to the measuring chart. “How tall am I?”
Ellie came closer to look. Her eyes widened, and she shifted her gaze to his solemn face. He already knew what it said.
“Three feet five inches.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her.
She corrected for more precise accuracy. “Five and a half inches.”
He moved out of the way and nudged her in position to be measured. “How tall are you?”
“Four feet one inch.”
He glanced at the number at the top of her head. “Three feet two inches, and I’m giving you a bit on the inches.”
“So the urohms don’t have the same standard of measure as we do?”
Bealomondore pursed his lips and let out a breathy whistle. “On the contrary, my guess is that their twelve-inch foot would match our twelve-inch foot.”
He took her hand and led her back to the art room and to the portrait. “In that picture, the tumanhofer comes up to just above the urohm’s knee. Look at the background. What do you see?”
“Shelves of books, a table, a lamp, a globe, a desk, and papers.”
“I believe this is a painting done in Amara and brought here.”
“Why?”
“The size of the furniture is small in comparison to the urohm figure. The globe shows the Eastern hemisphere, where Amara is located. And the style of clothing is foreign.”
Once he pointed out the details, Ellie could see what he meant. “So tumanhofers and urohms got along well in that land? Well enough for two men to want a portrait together?”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but yes. My point is the size of the tumanhofer.” He moved to stand beside a chair in the room. He reached up to put his hand on the seat of the chair. “This chair is designed for a urohm.” He patted the edge of the seat. “The urohm’s knee would bend right here. I’m a foot below that point. We’re smaller, Ellie. When we came through the glass wall, we shrank.”
Ellie let out a nervous giggle. “That’s not possible.”
“Nothing about this place is possible. Why would you doubt a simple case of ‘Shrink the Visitors’?”
“Bealomondore, why? Why would someone bother to make us smaller?