"Hold a moment, there," said Gib. "There is one thing you have not told us. With all the dead men lying down there, how come you are still alive? You are human, are you not?"
"I like to think I am," said Jones, "and the answer to your question is an extremely simple one. Folk hereabouts believe I am a wizard, which, of course, I'm not."
He balanced on one foot and kicked with the other. The two-wheeled contraption came alive with an angry roar, breathing out a cloud of smoke. The horses reared in fright. Oliver, who was riding behind Sniveley, fell off and scrambled rapidly on all fours to get out of the way of the lashing hooves.
The two-wheeled monster quit its roaring, settled into a rumbling, throaty purr.
"I am sorry," Jones shouted to Oliver. "I warned you to watch yourselves."
"It's a dragon," said Sniveley. "A two-wheeled dragon, although I did not know that dragons came with wheels. What else but a dragon would make that sort of roar and breathe out fire and brimstone?" He reached down a hand to Oliver and helped him scramble up.
Jones urged the dragon into motion, heading down the road.
"I guess," said Hal, "all we can do is follow him. Hot food, he said. I could do with some."
"I do not like it," Sniveley complained. "I like it not one bit. I am not one to mess around with dragons, even if they be domesticated ones, broken to the saddle."
The dragon speeded up, and they had to force their horses into a rapid trot to keep up with it. The road was not as deeply rutted as it had been coming up the gorge. Now it followed a plateau, running straight between stands of pine and birch, with only an occasional oak tree rearing up above the lesser forest. Then the road dipped down, not sharply, but rather gradually, into a pleasant valley, and there on the valley floor they saw the collection of three tents, all of them gaily striped and with pennons flying from their tops.
The dragon pulled up before the largest tent, and Jones dismounted. To one side was a table made of rough boards and beyond it cooking fires, with spits set above the fires and a huge beer barrel mounted on a pair of sawhorses, with a spigot already driven in the bung. Tending the fires and spits was a ragamuffin crew of brownies, trolls, and goblins, who were going about their work with a tremendous clanging of pans. Some of them dropped their work and ran to take charge of the horses.
"Come," said Jones, "let us sit and talk. I know there must be a deal to talk about."
A half-dozen of the trolls were busy at the beer barrel, filling great mugs from the spigot and bearing them to the table.
"Now, this is fine," said Jones. "We can have a drink or two before the food is ready. For, of course, it is never ready when it is supposed to be. These little friends of mine are willing workers, but most disorganized. Take whatever seat you wish and let's begin our talk."
Oliver scurried to the table and grabbed a mug of beer, dipping his muzzle into it and drinking heartily. Desisting, he wiped the foam from his whiskers. "This is proper brew," he said. "Not like the swill they serve in Wyalusing inns."
"Sniveley calls your mount a dragon," Hal said to Jones, "and while it breathes fire and smoke and bellows most convincingly, I know it is no dragon. I have never seen a dragon, but I've heard stories of them, and the descriptions in the stories are nothing like this creature that you ride. It has no head or wings and a dragon has both head and wings and, I believe, a tail as well."
"You are quite right," said Jones, delighted. "It is not a dragon, although many others than Sniveley have guessed it to be one. It is not a creature at all, but a machine, and it is called a trail bike."
"A trail bike," said Gib. "I've never heard of one."
"Of course you've not heard of one," said Jones. "This is the only one in this entire world."
"You say it is a machine," said Cornwall, "and we have machines, of course, but nothing like this. There are machines of war, the siege machines that are used to hurl great stones or flights of arrows or flaming material against a beleaguered city."
"Or a mill wheel," said Gib. "A mill wheel would be a machine."
"I suppose it is," said Hal.
"But a mill wheel runs by the force of flowing water," Mary said, "and the engines of war by the winding up of ropes. Can you tell us how this machine of yours runs?"
"Not too well," said Jones. "I could not explain it all to you. I could tell you some things, but they would make no sense."
"You don't know, then, how it runs," said Cornwall.
"No, I really don't."
"It must be magic, then."
"I can assure you that it is not magic. There is no magic in my world. You have to come to this world to find magic."
"But that is ridiculous," said Mary. "There has to be magic. Magic is a part of life."
"In my world," said Jones, "magic has been swept away. Men talk of magic, certainly, but they talk of something that is gone. At one time there may have been magic, but it has disappeared."
"And you have to come to this world to find the magic you have lost?"
"That is exactly it," said Jones. "I've come to study it."
"It is strange," said Cornwall. "It is passing strange, all these things you say. You must have some magic in you, even if you do deny it. For here you have all these little people working willingly for you, or at least they appear to be quite willing. Tending the fires and food, carrying the beer, taking care of the horses. They have been following us, but they have not come out to help us. They only hide and watch."
"Give them time," said Jones. "That was the way it was with me when I first arrived. They simply hid and watched, and I went about my business, paying no attention to them. After a time they began coming out to sit and talk with me. From certain things I did and certain things I had, they thought I was a wizard and, therefore, someone who was worthy of them."
"You have advantage of us there," said Cornwall. "There is no wizardry about us."
"I hear otherwise," said Jones. "These little ones of mine tell me otherwise. They heard it from your little ones and came scampering to tell me all about it. There is one of you who can pull the horn of a unicorn from the oak, and there is another who carries a very magic sword, and still another who carries a very special kind of stone."
"How did they know about the stone?" demanded Gib. "The stone is securely wrapped and carried secretly. We've not even talked about it."
"Oh, they know, all right," said Jones. "Don't ask me how they know, but it seems they do. Check me if I'm wrong—the stone is one made by the Old Ones very long ago and now will be returned to them."
Cornwall leaned forward eagerly. "What do you know about the Old Ones? Can you tell me where they might be found?"
"Only what I have been told. You go to the Witch House and then across the Blasted Plain. You skirt the castle of the Chaos Beast and then you come to the Misty Mountains and there, if you are lucky, you may find the Old Ones. I'm told there are not many of them left, for they are a dying people, and they hide most fearfully, although if you come upon them suddenly, you well may be hard put to defend yourself."
"The Witch House," said Mary anxiously. "You speak about the Witch House. Is it an old, old house? One that appears as if it may be falling down upon itself? Standing on a little knoll above a stream, with an old stone bridge across the stream? An old two-story house, with many, many chimneys and a gallery running all the way across the front?"
"You describe it exactly. Almost as if you might have seen it."
"I have," said Mary. "It is the house where I lived when I was a little girl. There was a troll named Bromeley who lived underneath the bridge. And there was a brownie, Fiddlefingers…"
"Bromeley was the one who popped out to see you last night," said Hal.