“For some CDs,” I said.
There was a strange wood-and-wire device that Magog claimed for himself, and as I had no use for it, I let him take it.
As for the boots …
“We can give those to Pook,” I said, remembering them sticking out of the White Wyrm’s mouth. Nothing would make me put them on myself. “He won’t care.”
We both shivered.
I pulled the map from the front of my trews. It was all crumpled up. A piece flaked off and fell to the ground as I unrolled it. I hoped the piece wasn’t anything important.
“We’re here.” I showed Magog, pointing to the map. “And Pook is there.” I put my finger on the brown column.
“Then let’s go,” Magog said. “He needs us.” He gave me an enormous grin.
We headed south, and in less than an hour, we’d found the hollow tree trunk.
Pook was sitting up on top of it, legs crossed and looking crosser.
“It took you two long enough,” he said. “My arm’s killing me.”
“How did you even know I’d gotten to Magog—”
“A fairy told me. The one on the milk carton. White-gold hair. Big blue eyes. The Weed King’s granddaughter.”
My jaw must have dropped.
“Really?” said Magog. He clapped his hands. “A princess. And we didn’t know. She didn’t seem like a princess. Did you know Windling was a princess, Gog? Did ya? Did ya?”
I swatted him, not even caring that he’d probably tell Mom. Anything to shut him up. Little brothers can be such a pain sometimes.
“No wonder the Weed King gave me the map,” I said slowly. Troll. Terribly. Thick. “I thought he was just a lonely old man who liked company. I didn’t know he was hiring me to do his dirty work.” I should have guessed, though, once I heard Windling’s bad rhymes. Only I wasn’t thinking about Weed Kings then. I was thinking about …
Pook stood. “Well, she was here over an hour ago. Said you were right behind her.”
“I may be a troll,” I said, plain old anger getting hold of me, “but even I know I don’t have fairy wings, Pook. We came as quick as we could.”
Pook’s head cocked to one side. He looked at me with his strange smile. “But you do have the boots,” he said.
“Boots?”
How did he know?
Why should he care?
“The seven-league boots.”
Magog’s jaw dropped. Mine, too.
“So that’s how the Huntsman got back so fast with the lob,” I said aloud. “How he left me so far behind. I should have known.”
Pook’s lips might have been saying, Troll. Terribly. Thick. But I couldn’t tell. He’d morphed back into a dog and I can’t read dog lips real well.
Magog began jumping up and down and clapping. “Put them on, Gog. Put them on!”
I forced myself to forget how the boots looked when they were sticking out of Wyrm’s mouth, how they looked dropping from the cocoon. Shaking each boot carefully, just in case there was some part of the Huntsman left in them, I pulled them on.
They fit perfectly.
Of course.
Then I stood, tied Pook to my back with some of the silk, tucked Magog and the canvas bag under my arm, and took one big seven-league step, past trees and paths and meadows and a river, and … another.
With the third step I was at the edge of the forest.
“We’re almost home!” I said.
The map down the front of my trews suddenly began to get warm.
Then hot.
Then—
“Oh no!” I cried. “I almost forgot. The woodwife warned me that I had to throw the map back or it would turn into fire.”
I dropped Magog and the bag. Then I grabbed up the map and tossed it behind me, where it turned into a moth with flame red wings that flapped away into the gloom.
“That was close,” Pook whispered in my ear.
“Come on,” I said, picking up Magog and the bag. “A couple more steps and we’re home.”
I have weathered all the gales,
I have found the hidden dales,
I have told forbidden tales
To make my way back home to you.
—“I Have Walked,” from BRIDGE BOUND
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE BAND
I took another step and was halfway to the next when I realized that we couldn’t go home.
Not yet.
Because, in my slow troll way, I’d finally figured out that there were still too many loose ends. Which I told Magog and Pook.
So I turned a hard right instead of an easy left, and we suddenly found ourselves in front of the makeshift gate on the hill above Rhymer’s Bridge.
The band was out on the floating platform, singing “I Have Walked,” from Bridge Bound, which seemed eerily appropriate.
“Wow!” said Pook.
“We’re here to finish this off,” I said. “Not to listen to the band.”
“No reason why we can’t do both,” Pook said, grinning.
I set Magog down and untied Pook from my back. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out three of the silver coins the lob had saved from the floor of the cave and handed them to the ticket seller, a crusty-looking bodach with shaggy black hair.
“It’s near the end, kids,” he said. “Save your coins and buy the CD.”
“I’ve got both CDs already,” I said. “We want to go in. We’ve walked a long way to get here.”
“Five thousand ells,” said Pook.
“Five thousand hells,” added Magog, and blushed at the swear.
The bodach took in my bandaged shoulder and Pook’s bandaged arm, threw his head back, and laughed uproariously. “All right, then, boys, but as it’s so late, I’ll let you keep your coins. Only, don’t tell anyone the bodach’s getting soft. Ruin my reputation as a Fright, it will.” He pointed at the gate. “Go on!”
I took off the seven-league boots and carried them under my unbound arm. No use taking a step and finding myself across the river and out of the Kingdom without meaning to.
Then we walked down the hill, past clumps of piskies and kelpies dancing on the grass, through knots of knockers and boggarts swaying to the tune, around troops of trows and spriggans clapping madly, by knobs of bogeys in a music trance.
“What are we looking for?” Pook asked, cradling his broken arm.
“The bad guys,” I said.
“The bad guy was beaten and eaten,” Magog pointed out. “And I want to hear the band. Even if it’s only one song.”
“Who grabbed you, little genius brother?” I asked quietly. “Who even knew you were there? The Huntsman wasn’t in this alone. Remember when he said something about—”
“About his people?” Magog suddenly remembered.
“Yup!” I made a face. “The Huntsman never left the woods. He never grabbed you from the holdspell. Pook’s nose knew.”
“Hey—you’re right!” said Pook, his eyebrows raised.
I wish he hadn’t sounded so surprised.
We were almost to the front row, where the Queen of the sidhe and her consorts were singing along with the band.
Boots had just reached that point in the song where he sort of yodels, and the others had gathered behind him to harmonize. I felt myself beginning to hum, but only under my breath. Not all trolls can sing on key.
Very few of them, in fact.
Probably Boots, Armstrong, Cal, Iggy, and Booger are the only trolls in the entire Kingdom who can sing on key, which is why they’re so famous.
About fifteen feet in front of me, at the soundboard, the little pan was working away, his clever fingers shifting the switches, pushing them up, pushing them down, melding the strands to make the perfect sound.
Next to him was a greenkid in a tour T-shirt and camo trews, half leaning on the board, with that cool I-don’t-have-a-care look.
They were both watching the stage, of course.
But I was watching them.
&nb
sp; Who, I thought slowly, but the pan could have even guessed we weren’t full-grown trolls?
Who, I thought, but the pan even saw Magog asleep under the holdspell?
Who, I thought, but the pan would have lost a tuning device in the canvas bag? Because I suddenly realized what the wood-and-wire thing was that Magog had kept for himself.
And who but the greenkid could have taken the bag to the wood’s edge, where the Huntsman waited in his stolen seven-league boots?
That was a lot of thinking for a Troll. Terribly. Thick.
“Hey,” I whispered to Magog, handing him the boots, “I have a job for you.”
“For me?” His shiny face looked up at me.
“Get down to the riverbank and wade in,” I said. “Go right to the raft and give the seven-leaguers to Boots. Tell him we’ll explain after the last song. Tell him to meet us at the soundboard.”
“Me?” Magog said. “I can’t walk the river spate by myself. I’m too young.”
“Might be fear that caused it to grow,” I told him, “but your hair’s starting to come in. Your voice is sounding deeper. Which means it’s time for you to go off on your own.”
He reached up and felt the top of his head.
Grinned.
Then looked scared again.
“On your own,” I said sternly. “Like you were in the cave.”
His lower lip began to tremble. He wasn’t quite ready.
“Do it and … and you can have my magic cards,” I said.
“Really? Gosh, Gog, you are the greatest brother in the world.” He clutched the boots to his chest.
For a moment I was embarrassed. I hadn’t exactly told a lie. Trolls can’t lie. But some of Pook’s tricksy nature must have rubbed off on me. I knew—even if Magog didn’t—that the magic cards didn’t actually work. But if the promise got him going …
“Maybe not the greatest,” I mumbled, pointing him away from the soundboard.
“Wait a minute,” Pook said to Magog. “Come here.”
Using his good arm, Pook cast a small glamour over Magog and—in an instant—the kid looked a little like the soundboard pan. Enough anyway. A full moon always helps magic.
Trotting off down the embankment, Magog muscled his way past the front rows and splashed into the water. Before anyone could fully pierce the glamour that disguised him—and because he looked like the soundman—no one bothered him. He made it all the way to the raft-stage, where the band was just finishing up “I Have Walked” on that last lovely lingering note.
I smiled as Boots leaned over and took the seven-leaguers.
Magog pushed back through the water, struggling a bit but never giving up. Of course, as soon as he got to the bank the small glamour had been washed away, and the Queen’s Men picked him up. They threw him out, over the fence, with a stern warning.
I’d get to him in a minute.
Meanwhile the applause was deafening and the band went right into its first encore, “Trade.” Then they segued into a second song, their old familiar anthem, “Meet Me.”
While they sang, Boots slipped off his size twenties and put on the seven-leaguers.
As the final notes were ringing out and the rest of the band were making their bows, Boots took one step off the stage into the water, was under Rhymer’s Bridge—and a league gone.
For a moment the crowd was stunned into silence.
Then everyone stood and screamed for more.
But there was to be no more, because Boots didn’t return to the stage. Instead, he must have taken a quick turn all those leagues away, because suddenly he was behind the crowd, right by the real pan, where he got out of the boots and placed them on top of the soundboard.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
The pan looked up. “Nice show, Boots,” he said, but his voice betrayed his nervousness.
We’d moved quietly behind the pan.
Then Boots saw me with my bandaged shoulder, and Pook with his bandaged arm.
For a moment I trembled. My dad is a big troll, but Boots is even bigger. Close up, he’s enormous. He was staring at me with eyes that were just a shade lighter than red.
“That was my little brother,” I said quickly, “who gave you the boots. Only with pookah glamour, he looked like your pan.”
“Where did you get them?” Boots asked, gesturing to the seven-leaguers.
I told him the short version.
And then—while he put his great hands on the pan and the greenkid so they couldn’t run off—I told him the long version.
Boots yelled for the band, the Queen’s Men, the Queen, and Jesse Feldman, in that order. All the while he was bellowing, “Kidnapping? Murder? Stealing from the museum? Selling drugs and silk? Using my band as a cover? My band?” His face and eyes turned bright red as rage surged through him. “Pieter, I will kill you.”
And knowing the pan’s true name, Boots could have done that without half trying.
The pan’s mouth twisted in scorn. “You needed money to begin the band. I needed money to help you. As long as you didn’t think to ask where the money came from, why should I have enlightened you—Troll. Terribly. Thick.”
Boots’s face turned redder.
His eyes went scarlet.
Cal and Iggy suddenly appeared by his side. They put their hands on his shoulders.
“Count to ten,” they whispered into his ears.
Armstrong nodded.
Booger just looked bored.
Boots counted. He had to go all the way to fifty before his surge finally flowed away.
Jesse Feldman had a surge of her own, which I hadn’t known was possible for a human. She drew her hand back and slapped the pan so hard, his face wore the print of her five fingers like a brand.
“If I’ve warned you once, pan, I’ve warned you a dozen times. My bands stay clean. My road crew, too. I only kept you on for Boots’s sake, since you were such good friends. But no more. No more. You’re fired.”
The pan said nothing, but his eyes were suddenly like little brown stones.
Then the Queen, in a voice of thorns, cried out to her Men, “Arrest them! Arrest them all!”
With a flash of their wands, the Queen’s Men rounded up the band, the pan, the roadies, the green-kid, Pook, Magog (from beyond the fence), and me. We were bound about with magic stronger than the Great White Wyrm’s cocoon silks and compelled right then and there to tell the whole truth, which is not hard for trolls but more difficult for the magic-makers. And almost impossible for a pan.
We kids were let go immediately, of course. But the pan, the greenkid, and anyone who’d helped them got taken off to the Doom Room for proper questioning.
The Queen popped Pook to his house and sent Magog and me home hand in hand. A Queen’s Man came along with us to explain things to Mom and Dad, which helped a lot. Especially after he ate a healthy bowlful of Mom’s amaranth stew.
Magog kept telling everyone what a great brother I was.
They all believed him.
And, after a while, I believed him, too.
At the trial, the pan—with the red print of Jesse Feldman’s fingers still on his face—tried to weasel out of trouble. Pans always do.
The greenkid just shrugged and bargained, trading for a lesser sentence by telling all he knew.
The pan got life in a human jail. We have no jails in the Kingdom. Things are simpler here—life or death.
The greenkid got ten years in another human jail. A life sentence for his kind, who need the woods and hills and valleys of the Kingdom to sustain them.
I got seats for the next year’s concert for me, Magog, Pook, and anyone else I wanted to bring.
Oh—and CDs and posters autographed by the entire band.
Best of all, the band came back the next month to play at the museum—a special unplugged concert celebrating the return of the seven-leaguers.
Boots sang a song I had written the lyrics for, a song I called “Hero”:
; Strength ten,
Brains zero—
Funny way
To be a hero.
Brains zero,
Strength ten—
Calm yourself
And count again.
Think first,
Hope fast.
Luck is best
When it can last.
Strength ten,
Brains zero—
What a way
What a way
What a way
To be a hero.
They sang it twice through, the first time with instruments and the second time a cappella, which means without accompaniment.
Boots grinned throughout the song. Armstrong snarled the words, one hand on her silent bodhran. Cal and Iggy harmonized beautifully. And Booger sang a wordless, deep boom-boom-boom, like a bass drum.
It was snarly all right. Gnarly, too.
Magog and Pook and I, plus our parents, all got to sit in the front row, right next to the Queen.
She said she was proud to be sitting with heroes.
Turns out she’s a cousin of sorts. Many many many times removed, of course.
But then—who’s counting?
A TRAVELER’S GUIDE TO THE KINGDOM
You will have a much better and safer visit to the Kingdom of the Fey (or as they call themselves, the Folk) if you learn about the inhabitants before going there, and follow these few simple rules:
First, understand that the Kingdom is like a pyramid. The Queen and her court are at the top. Next come the magic-makers and shape-changers, like the pookahs, the fairies, and the elves. Tradesmen and workers (what we would call the middle class) are right behind them: trolls, dwarfs, pixies, brownies. The dwellers in the New Forest and the Forbidden Fields are hardly civilized and very dangerous. It is advised that you do not go where they may be found.
But do visit the Kingdom’s museum. That’s where many of the more famous artifacts of the Kingdom are stored: Queen Mab’s wand, a bag of original Faerie dust, a selchie’s skin, the Faery flag, the cape of Manannan MacLir, the drinking horn of Bran the Blessed, a pair of seven-league boots, a variety of silver bells that have adorned the Queen’s horses, the grass green skirt of the Auld Queen, a typical pwca candle, etc.
Trade is more common in the Kingdom than coins. But some Folk will take money, as long as it is copper, silver, or gold. They have no use for tin or paper money.