"Keep it rollin' straight," Mickey assured Gary, the leprechaun standing in front of the quadricycle's steering bar and peering intently ahead. Gary looked at the leprechaun's back incredulously, for all he saw ahead of them was a wall of thick trees blocking the exit from Dread-wood.
"And keep it fast," Mickey remarked, with absolute confidence.
Gary didn't disagree with that second request. Many times over the last two hours, sentient trees had reached down to grab at them, and only their great pace had gotten them through. But now, Gary didn't see how they could go on. He closed his eyes, as Mickey had previously suggested, and trusted the leprechaun to guide him past the forest's illusions. He sensed the wooden wall coming up fast, though, and had to look, nearly screaming aloud when he saw that the wall of trees loomed just a dozen feet away.
Instinctively, Gary threw up his arms in front of his face, locking the steering bar with his knees. He thought a crash unavoidable, but suddenly a break appeared as the road bent around one wide elm. In the splitsecond it took the rambling quadricycle to rush past, that break widened, and then it was as though someone had switched on a powerful light as the gnomish contraption burst out of the tangled wood.
Lathered in sweat from his run, Gary let the quadricycle roll to a stop. He looked back to the forest, simply amazed that they had gotten through. Lines of black smoke continued to rise in the west, a reminder that though they were out, they were far from safe.
"What are we going to do?" Gary whispered harshly, as though he expected the dragon to descend on them at any moment.
Mickey peered up into the sky in all directions, then settled a firm and unblinking gaze on the young man. "We're going to get to Giant's Thumb," he announced. "And finish our business."
"How far is it?" Gary asked.
"How fast and long can ye pump this thing?"
Gary had no honest answer. He was tired from his wild rush, but again, whether it was the incredible gearing or some hidden magic, the quadricycle had outperformed his wildest expectations, had taken him farther and faster, and with far more ease, than the most expensive racing bikes of his own world ever could. "What about the dragon?" he asked suddenly, looking back to the smoke, remembering that most of the land between here and their destination was open and barren.
Mickey shrugged and seemed to Gary, for perhaps the very first time, very much afraid.
"We can go back through the forest," Gary offered. "Maybe we'll find Kelsey and the others."
"No!" The leprechaun's tone was cutting-edge sharp, and an angry light flared in the normally cheerful sprite's gray eyes. "We're on to the mountain," he declared. "To finish our business. Now, if ye've got the wind and the strength left in ye, get this thing running fast." "What about the dragon?" Gary asked again, more firmly.
"Robert's tired," Mickey reasoned. "He's been flying a long way, by me guess, else he'd not have let us out o' Dreadwood alive. That's the weakness o' dragons, lad. They're all fire and muscle and killing claws, but it takes a mighty effort to move that mountain body about, and they do get tired." "He'll be rested long before we get to Giant's Thumb," Gary replied ominously.
"Aye." Mickey nodded. "But will he know that we're well on our way? Kelsey and Geno'll have a trick or two to keep Robert busy back here, don't ye doubt, but if ye plan on sitting here talking, their efforts will go for nothing."
Gary took a deep breath, adjusted himself as well as he could in the low and tight quarters, and started to pump his legs. He stopped abruptly, though, and snapped his fingers, then began unstrapping the metal leggings of his armor and the bulkier plates along the rest of the suit. "I don't think this will help much if we meet up with Robert," he explained.
Mickey nodded gravely.
Barely fifteen minutes later, the quadricycle kicked up a trail of road dust in its wake.
Kelsey nodded to the north, to a high perch on the nearest Crahg, where sat Robert, his great leathery wings wrapped about his gigantic torso and his reptilian eyes closed to evil slits.
The three companions were still under the thick cover of Dreadwood, still back near the eastern entrance of the wood.
Kelsey took an arrow from his quiver and fitted it to his bow. He nodded to Geno and Gerbil, as if asking their opinion, but he knew in truth that they could not disagree with this action. Gary and Mickey were out of the forest, headed for Robert's lair by Kelsey's reckoning, and that gave Kelsey, Geno, and Gerbil the unenviable job of keeping Robert's eyes away from the east, of keeping Robert's eyes focused on them.
"Find some cover," Geno whispered to Gerbil, and he pushed the gnome off, then scampered in a different direction. Kelsey gave them a good start, then lifted his bow the dragon's way and drew back on the bowstring. He knew that he couldn't really hurt the beast, not from this distance and probably not even from a point-blank position, but he could certainly get Robert's attention. The trick, Kelsey reminded himself, was to be far, far from this spot before the arrow ever clicked against Robert's thick armor.
He fired and never watched the projectile, running with all speed in a direction different from the ones taken by Geno and Gerbil. A moment later, the ground rumbled under the thunder of a dragon roar, and then a shadow crossed over that section of Dreadwood and all the trees went up in a line of furious fire.
Robert made several passes, but, as Mickey had said, the dragon was weary and could not sustain the assault. He dropped into one group of trees and thrashed them into kindling, then lifted away to another perch near the eastern end of the wood and sat back, watching, waiting.
"Your cover will not last!" Robert's roar promised. "I will burn away all the trees and then where will you hide, puny enemies?"
Gerbil, in a deep hole under the roots of a great oak, Geno, comfortably flattened under a boulder, and Kelsey, farthest from the sight of destruction, heard the dragon's reasonable claims and each of them, even the sturdy dwarf, wished at that time that he was back in his homeland, many miles from Dreadwood.
The miles rolled out behind them, Gary pedaling relentlessly that morning of the first day out of Dreadwood. For an hour, the bumpy horizon of the Crahgs remained north of them, but it soon gave way to flatter plains. Mickey's spirits soared that day, with no sign of the dragon apparent and the Giant's Thumb fast approaching. The leprechaun could feel his magical energies returning as he drew ever nearer his precious pot of gold. "Keep it straight and keep it fast," he would often say to Gary, always careful to temper his boiling excitement, always remembering that Gary Leger didn't know the whole truth of the matter.
Gary seemed not so happy. He was glad, of course, that Robert was nowhere to be seen, but his thoughts were behind him, not ahead, back to the tangled wood where he had left his three companions, where black lines of smoke were still rising into the sky. Even if they succeeded in putting Robert back in his hole, Gary would consider it a hollow victory indeed if Kelsey, or Geno, or Gerbil had perished in the process.
Still, barely hours later, after a short midmorning rest, Gary could not deny his own excitement when they came around the southern edge of the ruined forest and saw the great solitary obelisk that was the Giant's Thumb protruding from the dragon-ravaged plain.
On Mickey's orders, Gary veered to the north and came in by the dry lake bed of Loch Tullamore, up to the lip of the valley before the mountain, sheltered by the few living trees east of the Crahgs.
"Now where?" Gary asked, realizing their dilemma as he began strapping on his armor once more. He saved the helmet for last, and wound up simply strapping the bulky thing to his back, realizing that he could not possibly climb with it bouncing about his head. With that thought, Gary looked up again to the towering obelisk, to the castle walls that seemed to grow right from the stone, several hundred feet above the vale.
The last time they had come to the mountain, they had gone in through a cave above the red waters of a steamy pool, hidden around a rocky outcropping not so far away. But Gary and his friends had a giant with them on that occasion, a giant who was able to carry them across the deep water to the cave entrance. Even if they could now get to that entrance, which Gary doubted, the tunnels would only take them so high. And again, it had been the work of Gary and Mickey's companions, and not of either of these two, that had allowed them to scale the rest of the way and get over the walls.
"Leave the gnome's contraption here," Mickey explained. "There's a wide and easy road around the other side of the mountain that's fit for walking."
There was indeed an easy way up, Gary knew, but he knew, too, that the road the leprechaun spoke of led right between rows of barracks, right through the heart of Robert's army, lizardlike humanoids called lava newts, as tall and strong as a man, that would swarm the intruders at first sight.
"Don't ye worry," Mickey casually remarked into Gary's doubting expression. "I'm feeling me magic today. We'll get through the stupid lizards." Mickey gave a cocky chuckle, which seemed odd to Gary, considering the leprechaun's almost pitiful use of magic thus far on the adventure.
The young man only shrugged and followed, though, when Mickey started away, for he had no better ideas and he didn't want to remain anywhere near this dangerous place a moment longer than necessary.
It took them more than an hour to make their careful way around the south of the mountain to the long sloping road up the eastern side. Many times, Gary thought he saw movement on the high walls, lava newt soldiers, probably, halfheartedly manning their positions. To Gary's amazement, Mickey faded into invisibility. Gary realized then that this was the first time the leprechaun had done that on this adventure. The last time through the land, Mickey had faded away every time danger loomed near, but this time, even when Gary had faced the soldiers in the haunted swamp, Mickey had taken to a more ordinary form of hiding.
Now the leprechaun was gone, though, and he floated up to a comfortable perch on Gary's shoulder, seeming more like the old, at-ease Mickey, seeming confident that he could get them out of whatever trouble came their way. Gary saw a spark in the empty air and knew that the leprechaun had lit his long-stemmed pipe.
"Now ye walk right up the path, lad," Mickey explained. "Big, proud steps, like the kind that Robert'd take. With yer sword over yer shoulder."
Gary was beginning to catch on to what the leprechaun had in mind. He smiled in spite of his trepidation and reached for his helm, then changed his mind, remembering that Robert had not worn one. "Trust in the illusion," Gary whispered to himself, and he hoisted his spear in one hand, bringing it towards his shoulder.
"Not that shoulder!" Mickey snapped at him. "Ye trying to skewer me through?"
Gary quickly brought the spear around to the other side, thinking how hard it was to ignore such a blatantly illogical thing as an invisible leprechaun. Gary could feel Mickey atop his shoulder - if he stopped and thought about it - but he couldn't see the leprechaun there.
"You're making me look like the returning Robert," Gary reasoned. "Already have," Mickey replied. "Be a good lad and run yer fingers through yer red beard."
Gary looked down, looked for the illusion, then brought his hand tentatively through the image. He could almost feel the thick and tangled hair. His cheeks itched, he realized. His cheeks itched! Gary half believed that Mickey had magically grown a beard for him.
Gary smiled again and chuckled nervously. He could hardly believe that he was about to openly walk through Robert's army, and so he tried not to think about it, just took a huge breath and strode off forcefully, up the inclining path.
"Proud and stern," Mickey told him. "Don't ye talk to any o' them, and don't ye let any o' them talk to yerself!"
Gary glanced over at the invisible sprite - and noticed a line of white smoke drift lazily into the air, coming from, seemingly, nowhere.
"The pipe, Mickey, the pipe," he whispered. "The smoke is showing."
"So it is," came the reply a moment later, but the line of white smoke continued.
"Put it out," Gary ordered.
"Ye can hardly see it," Mickey argued. "Besides, shouldn't there be some smoke beside a dragon? Go on, then."
Gary grumbled, but decided not to argue the point. He was, after all, depending on Mickey more than Mickey was depending on him.
Rows of wooden buildings lined the trail higher up and Gary, and Mickey's illusion, got the first test before they even reached the area. Two ugly lizards, humanoid lizards with red scales and reptilian eyes, rushed down to greet him, their eager tongues flicking repulsively from between yellow-stained fangs. Each had a shield strapped about its arm, a loincloth about its slender waist, and a short sword on one hip. Other than that, the lizard soldiers were naked, though their scaly skin seemed a solid armor.
They garbled something in a hissing language which Gary could not understand. He growled from deep in his throat and pushed them aside, striding by and not bothering to look back.
"Well done," came Mickey's whisper.
Gary barely heard the sprite. He expected the two lizard soldiers to rush up from behind and cut him down at any moment. Are you ready? he asked telepathically of the spear.
Gary felt his hands tingling with the unspoken response and knew that the weapon was more than ready, was eager, to begin the bloodletting.
Having more to lose than did the spear, Gary hoped it wouldn't come to that.
And it didn't. Lava newts approached, and fell away at sight of Gary's uncompromising scowl. The great doors on this end of the castle swung wide before Gary ever got near them, and he passed between the portals without even a look to the soldiers. The road before him was cobblestoned now, continuing on this level inside the castle's outer wall, overlooking the steep cliff, and forking to Gary's right, up an incline to another set of doors that would lead him into the inner, and upper, bailey.
"Which way?" Gary whispered to Mickey, for he still wasn't sure where they had to go, and what this item was that they had to put back. "Get to the great hall," the leprechaun replied.
Gary thought it over for a moment, then headed to the right. Again the doors swung wide at his approach, lizard soldiers scrambling to keep out of scowling Robert's way. Inside the inner wall, Gary immediately turned right again, and headed for the oaken door of a long and low structure facing him from the nearest corner.
"Hey," Gary quietly mouthed. "What happens if Robert is already back here? And will you put out that freaking pipe?"
"Don't ye worry," said Mickey in as calm a tone as he could muster. "Lava newts can't count to two."
Gary nodded and started to say, "Good," then realized the absurdity of the leprechaun's reply.
They had no trouble entering the building, coming into a narrow but short corridor. The wall to the right was solid and bare stone, but the one to the left was thickly curtained. More guards appeared at a break to the left, but Gary waved them away forcefully and they fled from sight. Gary turned the corner, to the left beyond the curtain, and sighed profoundly when he saw that the dragon was not at home. Still, many soldiers watched his every move intently, and the young man believed that the battle-hungry spear might soon get its fight. "Byuchke hecce," came a telepathic call.
"What?" Gary inadvertently spoke loudly, and several lava newt heads turned on him, though whether they were suspicious or simply awaiting commands, the young man could not know. How does one discern the meaning of a lizard's expression? Gary wondered with a shrug.
"Byuchke hecce," the spear implored him more forcefully. "Tell them, Byuchke hecce!"
Gary had no idea what the sentient thing was talking about, but, like during the successful walk up the path, the young man felt it better to trust in his more knowledgeable companions. "Byuchke hecce," he called to the soldiers. They regarded him with curiosity, almost disbelief. "Say it like ye mean it," Mickey whispered.
"!" the spear agreed.
"Byuchke hecce!" Gary roared, and the lizard soldiers looked at each other and then ran from the room.
"What did I tell them?" Gary asked when he was sure that they were far out of hearing distance.
"Ye said ye were hungry," Mickey explained, and he popped back to visibility, his cherubic features turned up in an approving grin. "Hungry for lizard meat," the spear added.
"Though how ye thought to say a thing like that, I'm not for knowing," Mickey went on uninterrupted, for he, of course, had not been a part of the telepathic communication between Gary and the spear.
Gary hoisted the spear off his shoulder, held it before Mickey and shrugged, the leprechaun nodding accordingly. Mickey led on, then, to the great hearth at the opposite end of the room. Gary shuddered at the sight of Robert's immense sword, resting in its customary place against the wall beside the hearth. At first, he thought that the sword indicated the dragon to be at home, but then he realized that if Robert had "taken wing" as everybody had said, he probably wouldn't have brought the weapon with him. Still, whether the dragon was home or not, Gary found the sight of that monstrous sword, taller than Gary and with a blade nearly six inches across at its base, completely unnerving. He had seen Robert, in human form, wielding the weapon and could not bear to imagine having that incredible sword swung his way.
The nimble leprechaun fumbled about the hearth's brickwork, easily locating the mechanism to the secret door within the fireplace. To Gary's surprise, the eager sprite then led the way in, rushing into the tunnels, and pulling Gary along en route to the dragon's treasure room. They came to many twists and turns, many forking intersections, but Mickey never slowed, as though he knew this place intimately, or, Gary suddenly came to think, as though something was leading the leprechaun on.
All in all, Mickey's behavior struck Gary as strangely out of sorts. The leprechaun verily leaped in joy as they burst through a curtained portal, coming into a chamber piled with gold and gems, armor and weapons, and other treasures too great for Gary to comprehend. He stared in blank amazement as Mickey rushed past it all, ignoring the gem and jewel baubles, some bigger than the leprechaun's chubby hand, and scrambled up the pile, kicking a shower of gold in his wake.
"Oh, I know ye're here!" Mickey chirped, and those simple words told Gary more than anything the leprechaun had said since he had brought Gary back to the land of Faerie.
Gary had suspected it all along, and now he knew for sure that Mickey had a secret agenda, that the leprechaun's claims that all this was "bigger" than Robert had another element in them, an element that Mickey was telling no one.
Gary followed Mickey's trail up the pile, trying not to be overwhelmed by the wealth splayed before him. He crested the hoard just in time to see Mickey wrapping his little arms about ... "Your pot of gold!" Gary cried.
"And isn't it fabulous?" the leprechaun squeaked back, and then Mickey suddenly seemed nervous to Gary, like a kid caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. "I'm not normally bringing it forth," Mickey stammered, as unsure with words as Gary had ever seen him. "I'm just thinking that it'll be a good thing to have on hand should Robert come walking in."
"I'm just thinking that the pot was here all along," Gary replied evenly. Gary thought back to his last journey through Faerie, to all the clues that might now lead him to believe that Mickey had arranged a secret deal with Robert, a deal that included the leprechaun's fabled pot of gold. Gary had seen Mickey making arrangements with a sprite on the road, soon after the leprechaun had learned that Kelsey would take him along all the way to the Giant's Thumb. And Mickey had used illusions to fool the dragon in these very caves, something that, by the reputation of dragons, should not have happened. When Gary had asked Mickey about it, the leprechaun had claimed that he only showed Robert what Robert thought to be the obvious truth, and that Robert had been too busy fighting with Kelsey to look carefully at the trick. Mickey had even gone so far as to say, "Besides, me magic was at its strongest in there."
Those words echoed in Gary Leger's mind, and now he understood them as a slip of the tongue, as a vague, probably unintentional reference to the fact that Mickey had secretly bartered his pot of gold to the dragon. So many things came clearer and clearer to Gary Leger, and most of them did not shed a positive light on the leprechaun. Gary thought of Cedric, who had died, and of so many others who had suffered. And for what? the young man now wondered.
He looked on incredulously as Mickey lifted the pot from the floor and folded it! Then folded it again, and a third time, as though it was no more than a piece of paper! Soon, it was all but gone, and Mickey prudently tucked it into a deep pocket, then turned, beaming, at Gary. His smile went away in the face of Gary's scowl.
"Was it?" Gary asked sternly.
"Was what?"
"Was the pot here all along?" Gary asked, speaking each word with perfect clarity.
"Why, laddie ..."
"Was it?" Gary's yell set Mickey back on his heels.
"Not all along," Mickey replied, and Gary could see that the leprechaun was squirming.
"All along since we last left the dragon's lair?" Gary clarified and qualified, understanding Mickey's semantic games.
"Well, laddie, what are ye getting at?" the leprechaun asked innocently. "What am I getting at?" Gary echoed softly, shaking his head and chuckling. "You said we were coming here to return something, to put the wyrm back in his hole."
"Aye," Mickey agreed, leading Gary on.
"You took the pot."
"It's me own pot."
"You gave it to Robert."
"I done what I had to do," Mickey argued, and admitted. "But I'm not to let the wyrm keep me pot. Suren I'm a leprechaun, lad, and suren I'm to die without me pot in hand!"
"That's not what I'm talking about!" Gary roared. "You said we were coming to put the wyrm back in his hole, but we never were. We were coming so that you could get back your precious pot of gold!"
"How do ye know we're not here to do both?" Mickey asked coyly, flashing his cherubic smile. "Because you're taking the stupid pot!" Gary screamed. "And even if we put back whatever it is we came to put back, it won't work, because you're taking something else!"
"Good point," Mickey agreed casually.
Gary wanted to pull his hair out - no, he decided, he wanted to pull Mickey's hair out! He roared again at the futility of it all, at Cedric's death and at the loss of those killed on the field southwest of Dvergamal. He remembered that he had bargained to let the witch loose on the land again, had freed Ceridwen because he believed that this trip to the Giant's Thumb was of the utmost importance.
Mickey did not continue his innocent act. His scowl soon matched Gary's and he pulled a jeweled dagger out of another of the seemingly endless supply of pockets in his gray jacket and threw it at Gary's feet.
"What ..." Gary started to ask, looking down at the weapon, at first thinking that Mickey had actually thrown the dagger at him. Then the truth hit Gary, though, like the slap of a wet towel in his face. Gary knew this dagger, had seen it in this very castle, had taken it from this very castle!
"Don't ye get thinking that ye're any better!" Mickey yelled at him. "There it is, lad. There's the item that was stolen from Robert's lair. There's the missing piece that let the wyrm fly free."
Gary found his breathing hard to come by. The souls of a hundred dead fluttered about his shoulders, threatening to bend them low under their burdening weight. He, Gary Leger, had taken the dagger! He had freed the wyrm!
"I didn't know," he breathed. "I didn't mean ..."
"Of course ye did not," Mickey agreed, his tone honestly sympathetic. "It was a mistake that not a one could blame ye for."
"But if we put the dagger back, then Robert is bound?" Gary asked as much as stated.
Mickey slowly shook his head.
"Then it's true," Gary snapped, his rolling emotions putting him back on the offensive again. "We came here for no more than your pot of gold."
"Aye," Mickey admitted. "And that's not as small a thing as ye're making it to be." "People died," Gary snarled.
"And more will," Mickey answered grimly. "I did not do this just for meself, lad," he went on, his tone grim and rock-steady. "I came for me pot, lied to ye all to get ye to help me, but it's for the better of us all. Yerself and Kel-sey, the gnomes and the folk o' Braemar, have got a dragon to fight, and the fighting'll be easier now that I've got me pot. Ye seen it yerself, seen how little I helped ye in the swamp and on the road. And ye seen how much more I helped when we neared me pot. We walked right through Robert's army, and walk through 'em again we will, without a one of them thinking anything's outa place!"
Gary could not deny the leprechaun's reasoning, and he found that his initial anger was fast fading.
"Ye'll need me in the trials ahead," Mickey added. "And now I'm ready to be there to help ye out."
"What about the dragon?" Gary asked. "I could go back to Ynis Gwydrin and let Ceridwen out now. We could just let her and Robert go back to their own fighting."
Mickey thought it over for a minute, then shook his head once more. "Even the witch'd not stop Robert until all the eastland was in flames," he reasoned. "With Dilna-rnarra already under Kinnemore's evil grasp, Ceridwen'd like to see Braemar and Drochit burned. She'd like to have Robert get the pesty gnomes and the mighty Buldrefolk out of her way. No, lad, Robert's got to be fought, and got to be fought soon - sooner than the witch'd have a mind to do it."
Gary sighed and nodded and looked around. "But not here," he said. "We won't fight the dragon in the middle of his stronghold."
"Then we're to be fast flying," Mickey reasoned. "Dragons know their treasure better than a babe knows its mother, and Robert's sure to soon figure out that we're poking around his own."
Gary had no objections to Mickey's suggestion. "We should take something to lead the wyrm on," he reasoned, looking eagerly at the glittering mound.
Mickey tapped the pocket wherein he had dropped the pot. "We already have, lad," he muttered grimly. "We already have."
Gary didn't disagree, but then a thought came to him, a perfectly conniving thought.
Before the sun had set that same day, Mickey and Gary were back in the quadricycle, zooming across the barren lands west of the Giant's Thumb. On one side of Gary rested the spear of Cedric Donigarten - on the other, Robert's huge sword.
