The Woods Out Back

by R. A. Salvatore

Chapter 25 End of the Road

 

  Gary heard a small, resigned sigh escape Mickey's lips as the leprechaun turned himself invisible. Gary honestly couldn't blame the leprechaun for his tactical retreat. Looking at Ceridwen, beautiful and terrible all at once in her black gossamer gown, and standing on a ledge against the mountain wall, high enough up so that she seemed to tower over even Tommy, Gary knew that they were doomed.

  "Well, giant, what have you to say for your treachery?" the witch hissed evenly. Tommy blanched and trembled so violently that Gary thought the giant would surely fall right over and grovel on the path.

  Kelsey pulled free of Tommy's weakened grasp and dropped to the ground, somehow finding the strength to get to his feet and move in at the witch. The elf pulled himself up straight and proud before the evil sorceress, drawing out his magical sword.

  "This is none of yer affair!" he growled.

  Ceridwen laughed so hard that tears streamed down her porcelain-white cheeks. She snapped her fingers and Kelsey vanished - or at least Mickey's illusion of Kelsey vanished. Gary saw the real elf then, on the ground and crawling doggedly, stubbornly, towards the witch.

  Ceridwen paid him no heed. She snapped her fingers again and Mickey reappeared, off to the side of the trail now, sitting atop a flat boulder.

  "It was worth the try," the leprechaun remarked, trying to appear unconcerned. He pulled out his pipe and tapped it on the stone.

  Ceridwen seemed amused as she watched his movements.

  "Ye cannot win, ye know," Mickey went on absently. "For all yer tricks and all yer traps, the spear is whole again. Even yerself cannot break it. "

  Ceridwen's smile faded, replaced by a glare so cold that it stopped Gary's heart in midbeat.

  "That is of no matter," the raven-haired witch replied. "The spear is forged, but it will not be seen again in the wide realm of Faerie. "

  "Empty promises," Mickey answered, conjuring a tiny flame above his fingers. He took a long and easy draw on his pipe as he lit it. "The word will get out - ye know it will. Once the people of Faerie know that the spear is whole again, they'll play up against King Kinnemore. They'll force his hand and tell him to go and find the thing. "

  Ceridwen smiled confidently and shrugged. "And so the King will begin a search, and so will the finest knights of the land. But will they come to Ynis Gwydrin? And if they do, do you really believe that they will ever leave?" She looked down to regard Kelsey then, still stubbornly crawling towards her and muttering breathless curses with the little air his injured body could draw.

  Mickey returned the witch's shrug, but stopped short of smiling. "But the word will be out," he said. "'The spear is whole!' they'll cry in the streets of Dilnamarra. 'The spear is whole!' they'll whisper in Connacht, through the halls of yer puppet King's own castle. And the Tylwyth Teg, Lady; let us not forget the fair folk of Tir na n'Og. Kelsey's quest is fulfilled. When his kin hear the word, and hear of yer interference, they're sure to unite against ye. They're a tolerant bunch, the Tylwyth Teg, but I'm not for getting them angered at me!"

  Ceridwen laughed again, this time an evil cackle. "Then none shall return to deliver that word!" she retorted.

  "Damn you!" cried Kelsey, defiantly tucking his feet under him and hurling himself the remaining distance to the witch. His sword flashed across Ceridwen's face, but the stroke didn't even turn Ceridwen's head to the side, had no more effect than to heighten the witch's mocking laughter. Bravely, stupidly, his rage beyond reason, Kelsey drove his sword in again, this time point-first.

  Ceridwen caught the blade in her bare hand and held it before her, motionless.

  "I have already told you, foolish elf," the witch explained. "Your weapons, even weapons forged by the magic of the Tylwyth Teg, cannot bring harm to me. " She released her hold on Kelsey's sword suddenly and slapped the elf across the face with an easy backhand motion that launched Kelsey through the air. He flew a dozen feet, crashing down heavily against the mountain wall, where he crumpled and lay very still.

  "Stonebubbles!" Geno roared. "How will you do against my weapons, filthy witch?" The dwarf banged his hammers together and drew back as if he meant to launch them.

  A simple wave of Ceridwen's hand loosed a huge slab of rock right above Geno's head.

  The dwarf immediately dropped his hammers and managed to get his hands up in time to catch the falling stone. But though he broke the slab's initial momentum, this hunk of rock was too large even for Geno to handle. He stood under it, his legs and arms trembling violently under the tremendous strain.

  "How ironic that a dwarf of Dvergamal would die so!" the witch cackled. "A dwarf crushed by a stone! Such a fitting end!"

  Gary looked to Geno, to Kelsey, not knowing where he should begin to help.

  "Keep still, lad," Mickey whispered to him, coming back to his side and apparently guessing his intent to act. "We'll try to get her to accept a surrender. "

  Gary wanted to scream "No!" a thousand times in the leprechaun's face, a million times in Ceridwen's face. So many obstacles had been overcome - poor Kelsey should not die knowing that his life-quest had failed, after all. But Gary saw no other course, saw no way to harm the terrible witch.

  "Ye must be desperate to come so near to Robert's mountain," Mickey reasoned, trying to make some headway in his discussion with the obstinate sorceress. "Even sending crows - yer calling card if ever ye had one. I'm not thinking that Robert likes having ye about. "

  "But you have fixed that for me already, haven't you, leprechaun?" Ceridwen spat back. "The spear is forged; thus, the dragon lost the challenge. A hundred years is it, before Robert might emerge from his castle?"

  Mickey thought fast to get around the logic trap. "But his minions," the leprechaun started to reply.

  Ceridwen's renewed laughter cut him short. "Lava newts?" she scoffed. "And what else, leprechaun? Do tell me. What other mighty minions has Robert the Ridiculous prepared to drive me off?"

  "This isn't going to be easy," Mickey muttered to Gary.

  "You have done so much for me," the witch went on, ignoring Mickey's remark. "Delivered the forged spear and banished Robert for a hundred years. A hundred years! The Crahgs will again be mine, decades before the dragon can even step out of his castle once more to challenge me. "

  "So let us go and we'll call it even," Gary remarked.

  Ceridwen's smile disappeared in the blink of an eye. "Let you go?" she muttered incredulously.

  "If we have done so well by you," Gary began.

  "Silence!" the witch roared. "Anything you have done to aid me, you have done inadvertently. I have not forgotten your disobedience. " She looked directly at Tommy as she said this and Tommy suddenly didn't seem so large to Gary.

  "You were told to remain on Ynis Gwydrin," the witch fumed. "Yet I returned to find my guests gone!"

  "Ye must admit that the lad was resourceful in finding a way through yer spell," Mickey put in, in the hopes that Ceridwen would think it better to keep Gary alive and at her side.

  If she even heard the leprechaun's words, she made no indication of it. "Gone!" she growled again, her ire rising dangerously.

  "And you, giant," she spat. "I took you in and gave you a home! This is how you repay me?" She waggled one finger and a small flame appeared atop it, dancing in the air, growing hotter and larger. "I will burn the skin from your bones, ungrateful beast," the witch promised. "And feed you to my goblins, more loyal by far. "

  What a pitiful thing Tommy One-Thumb now seemed. The giant who had casually tossed a mountain troll through the air, who had charged fearlessly into the grasp of a stone behemoth much larger than he, fell to his knees before the threats of the sorceress. He tried to speak out, but only undecipherable blabber came past his trembling lips.

  Ceridwen snapped her fingers and a burst of flame appeared next to Tommy's head, singeing his hair. He slapped at it wildly, began to blubber and scream out his pleas.

 
"He hasn't hurt anyone," Gary breathed.

  "Easy, lad," implored the leprechaun. "We're not wanting to share a similar fate. We'll go for the surrender. "

  A sudden thought came over the outraged man. He looked at Mickey, his lips curling into a wicked smile. "Who made the spear?"

  Mickey shrugged, seeming confused.

  "That's what I thought," Gary replied. There was more to Ceridwen's desires to have the spear than any fears she might hold for the feelings and heroic recollections of her pitiful and unwitting subjects.

  "Wait!" Gary cried at Ceridwen, to Mickey's dismay. "You came to retrieve the spear, and it is mine to give. " He held the spear out before him, ignoring its sudden stream of telepathic protests. "We overcame so many obstacles to reforge this weapon, many of them inspired by you, no doubt. But we did it, and Kelsey, brave Kelsey, faced down the dragon - fairly. But for all its value, this piece of metal is not worth the lives of my friends. "

  "Give it to me!" Ceridwen roared, verily drooling at the sight of the magnificent weapon.

  "Yes, do,"agreed the spear, suddenly satisfied.

  Ceridwen's icy-blue eyes widened in surprise as Gary drew back the spear, his face contorted suddenly in open hatred. The witch waved her hand, sending a blast of fire rolling out from her fingers towards the threat.

  "No, lad!" Mickey cried, trying to scramble away.

  Gary's scream came from the pit of his stomach, emanated from every muscle and every nerve in his entire body. All of his anger, all of his frustration, strengthened his movements as he hurled the mighty weapon. The spear dove into the flames, just a few feet away from Gary by then, and disappeared behind the orange and smoke-gray ball.

  The witch's fires blew away the instant before they engulfed both Gary and Mickey, and when the flames were gone, the companions looked again upon Ceridwen, the spear through her belly, pinning her to the mountain wall. Horrified, the witch grasped at the quivering shaft with hands that hadn't the strength to even close about it.

  Vile blackness flowed out from the wound, spreading across the witch's gown and down her bare arms.

  "I shall repay you!" she spat at Gary,a hollow threat as the blackness spread up her neck and over her face. Her mouth contorted in a silent scream, her hands still trembled over the vibrating shaft of black metal.

  Then Ceridwen seemed no more than a shadow against the wall. Gary could see the back of the spear's tip, buried deeply in the stone.

  "Would ye look at that?" Mickey gasped.

  Ceridwen's final, agonized scream split the air, then there was only the mourn of the wind, and the spear, and the marked stone, covered still, covered forever, by the witch's shadow.

  "How did ye know?" Mickey asked Gary.

  Gary shrugged. "I did not," he answered honestly. "But Robert claimed that no fires wrought by mortal hands could soften the blade. If he spoke truly. . . "

  "Ah, what a fine lad ye are," Mickey chuckled.

  Gary looked down at the leprechaun, his green eyes catching Mickey's in a wistful gaze. "I did not know," he said again. "But I had to believe. "

  "If you are done with your congratulating over there. . . ," came a strained call from behind. The startled companions turned to see Geno, his bandy legs finally beginning to bend under the tremendous weight of the fallen slab.

  Tommy got to the dwarf first and, with Gary and Geno's help, managed to angle the slab to the side, away from the dwarf, where they let it crash down to the path.

  "Lad!" Mickey called from across the trail. They turned to see Kelsey, struggling to his feet with the leprechaun's diminutive support. Gary rushed over and hooked Kelsey's arm over his shoulder.

  The elf was sorely wounded and surely exhausted, but, looking at the luster in his golden eyes as he regarded the spear, hanging still in the bare stone, it was obvious that he would survive and heal well.

  "Ding dong, the witch is dead?" Gary offered hopefully, bringing a smile to Kelsey's bloodied lips.

  "Not dead, lad," Mickey corrected. "But she'll do a hundred years on Ynis Gwydrin before she finds her way back out again, and a better land it'll be with both Ceridwen and Robert out of the way!"

  "There goes the last buckle for this leg," Mickey said to comfort Gary as the leprechaun helped the man strip out of the bulky armor. Dilnamarra was in sight; the companions had come to the end of their long road.

  "Where is the damned elf?" Geno muttered, not happy at all about the unexpected delay. They had come into the region many hours before, but Kelsey, seeing an uncommon number of king's soldiers milling about, had determined that they would wait outside of the town, hidden by a large hedgerow (it had to be a large one, since Tommy was still with them) until he could determine what was going on. Taking the guise of one of the many beggars of the pitiful region, the elf had slipped out into the fading daylight.

  "Another one," Mickey declared, loosening the buckle low on Gary's back. The leprechaun noticed something curious then, and after a moment's consideration, he quietly lifted an item from Gary's belt and slipped it under his own cloak.

  "Damned elf," spat Geno, paying no heed to either Mickey or Gary. Geno had actually been quite hospitable after the defeat of the witch, on the uneventful road home north around the dreaded Crahgs, down a narrow pass between them and Dvergamal. But then Kelsey had informed the dwarf that he would not be released straight to his mountain home, that he would have to accompany the group all the way to Dilnamarra in case there arose a question concerning the authenticity of the forging.

  A movement to the side turned all of them about. They relaxed immediately, recognizing the slender form of Kelsey.

  "King's guards," he confirmed. "All about the keep. It would seem that I am an outlaw, as are you, Gary Leger, and you as well, leprechaun, if they ever figure out that it was you posing as a babe in Gary's arms when we procured the items. "

  "They gave us the armor freely," Gary protested.

  "Aye," Mickey agreed. "But then me illusion on the King's edict went away and Prince Geldion realized the truth. "

  Kelsey nodded his confirmation.

  "How long, then?" Geno interrupted gruffly. "I've a hundred contracts to fulfill before the first snows of winter!"

  Kelsey honestly had no answer for the dwarf. "Baron Pwyll remains in charge only of his keep," he explained. "The outlying lands are heavily guarded. I do not know how we might get through to deliver the forged spear. "

  A moment of silence hung about them as they privately considered their options.

  "But if we did get the spear to Pwyll," Gary prompted, "then what?"

  "Geldion'd not be a happy sort," Mickey replied.

  "But likely there would be little that the Prince could do," reasoned Kelsey. "With the spear in his possession and the armor and shield returned, Baron Pwyll would prove that he was in the right in giving the items to me. The truth would free Pwyll of Geldion's evil grasp. "

  "Then let Geno deliver it," Gary said casually.

  Geno glowered Gary's way.

  "They're looking for a man, an elf, and a leprechaun, not a dwarf," Gary reasoned. "Disguise the items and let Geno walk them right into Baron Pwyll. "

  "It might work," Mickey muttered. "Geno leading a burdened mule, bearing pots" - he held up the helmet of Donigarten, suddenly appearing as a rather beat-up old cooking pot - "and other items less interesting to Geldion than a magical spear and a suit of mail. "

  "Mule?" Kelsey and Geno remarked together.

  "Come here, would ye now?" Mickey asked Tommy. "And kneel down on all fours - there's a good giant. "

  Geno snickered. "This might be worth the trouble," he said. "And then I am free to return to my home?"

  Kelsey looked around and then, seeing no problems, nodded.

  "Tommy does not like this," the giant put in, finally figuring out his equine role in the deception.

  "Aw, it'll be fine," Mickey assured him.

  "That it will," G
eno added, giving Tommy a look of sincere confidence. "I will watch out for you. And when we're done, you come along with me to Dvergamal. There are many holes in my mountains. I will find you a proper place for a giant to live - not too near to my people, you understand!"

  Tommy's face brightened and he assumed his best mule posture, waiting for Mickey to work another of his tricks.

  A few moments later the dwarf tradesman and his pack mule set off, passing through the many guards who indeed were not so concerned with the "mundane" items Geno carried.

  "Never did I expect so much of you," Kelsey admitted when he, Mickey, and Gary came to the great oak tree of Tir na n'Og, the very spot where the elf had first met Gary Leger. Kelsey cast an amused look up the tree, to the lair of Leshiye.

  Gary agreed fully with the elf's observations. He, too, recalled that first meeting, where Kelsey had stolen him away from his pleasure. It had been an auspicious beginning, to be sure, but now that the adventure had ended, neither would deny their friendship, publicly or privately.

  "I am glad that your quest went so well," Gary replied. "And I hope that Ceridwen's fears concerning Cedric's spear prove well founded. The people of Dilnamarra could use a new attitude. "

  Kelsey nodded, patted Gary on the shoulder, and took his leave, disappearing into the darkness of the thick forest underbrush so quickly and so completely that Gary almost had to wonder if the elf had ever really been there.

  "Are ye ready, lad?" Mickey asked. "The pixies'll be dancing in the blueberry patch; I can get ye home this very night. "

  Gary cast another longing gaze up Leshiye's tree. "Another hour?" he asked, half-serious.

  "Don't ye be pushing yer luck," came Mickey's warning. "It's time for ye to get back to yer own place. "

  Gary shrugged and moved away from the tree. "Lead on, then," he said, but in his heart he wasn't so sure that he ever wanted to return home.

  Gary said little on their trek back through Tir na n'Og to the blueberry patch. He wondered again what his return trip might be like. Would he simply awaken, in his own bed, perhaps? Or would he come out of a delusion to the startlement of those concerned people around him?

  Truthfully Gary didn't believe either explanation; they seemed no less strained to him than to simply accept what had happened as reality.

  But wasn't that exactly what an insane person might believe? Disturbing questions, questions of reality itself, nagged at Gary, but he found he had no time then to contemplate them. Blueberry bushes were all about him, and in sight, too, was the small ring of light within the joyful and mysterious dance of the tiny fairies.

  He cast a final look to Dvergamal, where the moon was coming up behind the great and stony peaks. And then, on Mickey's nod, he stepped into the faerie ring.

  As soon as Gary had melted away into the enchanted night, Mickey McMickey pulled a curious item out from under his cloak: a jeweled dagger, ancient and marvelously crafted, that Gary Leger must have inadvertently taken from Robert's castle.

  The implications of the theft, inadvertent or not, were quite grave, but Mickey tried not to view things that way.

  He wondered now how he might use this unfortunate twist to his advantage in his quest to retrieve his bartered pot of gold from the treasure hoard of the wicked wyrm.