Power of Three (16 page)

“So we wait?” Ayna whispered, trying not to sound too eager. Ceri nodded.

They waited. Half an hour passed, as slowly as a fortnight. The Sun stood at its height, then began to move down. The water in the pool was almost warm, but they all shivered even so. Seven of the Dorig slept. The two sentries lay lounging, only shifting from time to time, looking marvelously comfortable.

“How I hate this pool!” Ayna said.

The Sun marched down the sky, another half hour. Gair's hopes went down with it. Nothing was going to happen. He had been a fool to think it would. He let the Sun march for another half hour, the longest of all. Then he gave up and turned to Ceri. Ceri's collar was now more than half black. He was shivering in spasms, with a minute between each spasm. His teeth rattled like the trees in the spinney. Gair hardly had the heart to bother him again.

“Ceri—”

Ceri's head came up. To Gair's surprise, he was excited. He put his finger across his mouth and shook his head. Ayna craned round to see, and her face went bright with hope.

“What?” Gair said soundlessly.

Ceri frowned. “Someone,” they understood his mouth to say.

A few seconds later, the wind brought a faint sound. All of them looked at the Dorig to see if they had heard it, too. Not one moved. Each one lay silvery and near invisible, stretched among the white grass. If they heard the sound, they must have thought it unimportant.

A few seconds later, the sound was louder. Gair, with his eyes watering, thought he caught a movement against the Sun, somewhere south of the spinney. It could have been someone dark and large. He lost it in the Sun and the grass. When he caught it again, he was sure it was a Giant, but it did not seem wide enough for the Giantess. He lost it completely after that glimpse and squatted in the pool, puzzled and worried, not knowing whether to hope that the Giant came their way or not.

The thread of sound persisted. It was very small and coming closer. But there was no quivering in the ground and no swishing of grass. The distant Giant, if it was a Giant, was walking with most un-Giant-like caution. Yet he or she seemed to be talking to itself all the time. The Dorig did not seem worried by it. They basked and slept as before.

The Giant suddenly emerged from the grass to one side of the spinney, much closer than Gair had calculated. I don't believe it! Gair thought. It was Gerald. The Giant had a businesslike, almost angry, look. One arm was crooked to carry a long iron object with a wooden handle, clearly a Giant weapon. In his other hand, Gerald was carefully carrying a magic box. It looked quite different from the Giantess's box, but Gair could tell it was one because the thread of voice was coming from it. Gerald was turning the box slightly, using it to guide him in some way, and he was walking most unusually cat-footed, as if he had grasped that the situation was serious.

Ceri and Ayna looked at him in utter dismay. Ceri took painful hold of Gair's ear and whispered, “What shall we do? I got the wrong box!”

Gair did not say anything, because he was not at all sure that one Giant boy with one Giant weapon could possibly be a match for nine full-grown Dorig warriors.

Chapter

9

THE GIANT CAME ON QUICKLY, SURE OF HIS
direction now. Though he kept looking keenly their way, he did not as yet seem to have seen Ayna, Gair and Ceri crouching in the pool. Probably, in his unobservant Giant way, he took them for a clump of reeds. Ayna and Ceri were so frightened of him that they hoped he never would see them. Gair longed to wave or shout, but he knew that would alert the Dorig, and it seemed to him that Gerald's best hope was to take them by surprise.

When Gerald was five yards away, they could hear the box quite clearly. The voice seemed to be Ceri's, talking and talking, with faint gusts of music behind it.

The Giant saw them. He stopped, looking uncertain and rather accusing. The box fell silent, with a sharp click. Ayna and Ceri shrank. If it had been possible, they would have got right under the water. Before Gair could say anything, the Giant was coming toward them again, this time with his usual heavy stride, calling out in his normal haughty-sounding voice. He had not noticed the Dorig at all.

“I say, are you the people who—”

Then he trod on a Dorig.

The Dorig sprang up with a howl of horror. The next second, a huge green and gray pike was twisting and snapping under Gerald's great foot. The Giant jumped clear hastily, yelling louder than the Dorig. The noise woke the others. All round the pool they sprang up, flopped down again as fish, rose into pillars of fog and hardened into Dorig again, while the Giant backed this way and that toward the pool, looking as if he might be sick. Then the leader came to his senses and shouted, “
Birds!
” All nine Dorig dwindled and blackened and became nine large crows, hopping together into an agitated group. The Giant stared at them, breathing heavily and shivering in the cold they made. Ayna could have wept. If every Dorig had been sound asleep, they might have escaped without calling the Giant at all.

Gerald recovered a little. He turned to Gair. “I see your problem,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”

Gair stood up, feeling awed by the largeness and strength of the Giant, and tried to smile. “Can you help us get away?”

“Well, I've got a gun—” Gerald began dubiously. There was a shrill shout from the spinney. He looked up and looked disgusted. “Oh no!”

The Giantess was forcing her way among the trees. The magic box dangled from one fist and, in the other, she was holding a mighty iron poker. The trees bent and clashed under her fierce progress. Ripples spread in the pond. And, when the Giantess stumped out into the grass, her feet left deep holes filled with water. It was plain she was very angry. “If this is your idea of a joke—!” she said ferociously.

“Ceri,” said Ayna, “how many boxes did you put a Thought on?”

“Ban knows!” Ceri said hopelessly. “Just the one in the wood, I thought.”

Gerald moved to one side so that the Giantess could see the pool, and bowed ironically. “Your mistake, Brenda.”

Brenda's mouth fell open. She approached with great squelching strides. From the box in her hand, Ceri's voice said, “—in a pond beyond the spinney. We are surrounded by Dorig and in great—” Absentmindedly, the Giantess clicked it off. Her attention was wonderingly on Ayna, Gair and Ceri. Ayna and Ceri thought it polite to stand up beside Gair while the Giantess stared. “Whatever
are
you?” she cried out. “Are you fairies?”

Gerald's face went deep red and he made a disgusted noise.

“Of course we're not!” Ayna said. “Fairies are little silly things with butterfly wings. And they're not true.”

“Then what are you?” said the Giantess suspiciously. “And where are these Dories of yours? I don't see any.”

She was so large and purple and awesome that Ayna dared not answer. But Gerald took the Giantess by her poker-wielding arm and turned her toward the crows. They were hopping and clustering and cawing together anxiously, as if they did not know quite what to do about the Giants. Gerald pointed. “Those are the Dorig.”

“What? Those birds? No one's afraid of birds!” said Brenda.

“They're not birds,” Gair and Gerald said together. That made them look at one another and smile. After that, there was no doubt that they were friends. Gerald said, “I saw you twice—in the wood.”

“Twice?” said Gair.

“These kids are soaked,” said Brenda. “Let's take them to my house and get them dry. Are you hungry?”

“Horribly,” said Ceri.

The Dorig came to a decision. As the Giantess said cheerfully, “Come along then,” and turned to leave, the crows lengthened into nine gray pillars. The pillars tremblingly grew arms and legs and hardened into silver-gray scales. Cold air swept across the grass. Nine yellow-eyed Dorig warriors drew their curved swords and glided toward the pond in a half-circle.

“Ooh-er!” said the Giantess. It was the most expressive noise they had ever heard. Her big face lost its pink completely. She raised her poker uncertainly. Gerald, quite as pale, jerkily did something to his gun and held it ready.

The Dorig halted. “You Giants,” called the leader. “Those Lymen are our prisoners.”

The pink flooded back into Brenda's face. “
Giants!
” she said. “What blinking cheek!”

“
Lymen!
” said Ayna, quite as crossly.

Gerald swallowed. “They're not your prisoners any longer. Keep off!”

“I warn you,” said the Dorig leader. “There are nine of us. Hand the Lymen over and we'll leave you alone.”

Gerald swallowed again. Gair could see his gun quivering. “And I warn you,” he said. “I can kill you all before you can get near us. Keep off, or I'll start firing.”

“Start what?” said the Dorig contemptuously. He jerked his head and the nine warriors began to advance.

Gerald's face went whiter still. “Stupid idiots!” he said. He pointed the gun low and fired at the Dorig's feet.

The sudden
crack
sent Ayna to her knees in the water again. Peat, water and clods of grass sprayed over the Dorig. They scattered hastily and, while long echoes of the shot rolled back from the distance, they regrouped near the spinney.

“See?” called Gerald.

It was clear the leader was angry. “Don't think you can scare us with noises!” he called back. To their dismay, the Dorig began to advance again.

“You'll have to hit one,” said Brenda. “That'll teach them.”

“I know,” said Gerald, jerkily putting something into the gun. “But it's not like
rabbits
, damn it!” He raised the gun very carefully toward the gliding Dorig and fired. Crack-
thump
. The leader cried out and dropped down, holding his leg. There was bright blood on the silver-gray. The other Dorig either threw themselves aside or went down on their knees beside the wounded leader. “Come on,” said Gerald, looking sick. “My house is nearest.” He seized Ceri by the arm and set off with long strides through the grass. Gair and Ayna followed as fast as their stiff legs and numb feet would let them. The Giantess lingered to wave her poker menacingly before she came puffing and pounding after.

Gerald's dark house was not much more than a mile away. They went straight to it, crashing through nettles, wading dikes, bursting through a hedge and scampering across squashy fields. Ceri began to flag badly, and so did the Giantess. Gair turned, waiting for her to lumber up, and saw a line of crows flapping across the field behind them.

“That's them!”

Gerald looked up. “Yes,” he said. “I can see his leg trailing.” He raised the gun and moved it menacingly along the line of birds. They at once scattered to left and right and seemed to land. “Scared them,” said Gerald. He thrust the gun at Gair. “You take it and keep doing that at them.” Then he swooped on Ceri and bundled him into his arms. Ceri yelped with surprise and gave Gair a shamed look over the Giant's shoulder.

“Thanks,” said Ayna. “He's worn out.”

Gerald took Ceri away with vast strides, almost faster than Gair could run. Gair followed with the strange weapon. It felt awkward, cold and heavy, and he would have been very much afraid of it had not Gerald assured him breathlessly that it was harmless—not loaded. Several times more, Gair had to turn and menace the pursuing Dorig, before they crashed between the trees in front of the pulsing house. Gair did not want to go near it, but it was preferable to being caught by Dorig. As they crossed the bridge to the front door, the nine crows swooped over the trees and flew straight for them. Gerald slung Ceri down and snatched the gun from Gair. Brenda rattled frantically at the front door and could not get it open.

But the crows ignored them. They folded their wings and dived straight into the moat in front of the house, entering the water in a black mass, without a splash and almost without a ripple.

“They can go in there,” Ayna said shakenly. “There are no thorn trees.”

“They live in water,” Ceri explained to the Giants.

“Oh I see,” said Gerald. “Then I suppose they're all right. It's locked,” he said to Brenda, who was still trying to open the front door. “They're both out. Go round the back.”