"Maxwell? The good friend of O'Toole?"
"The good friend of all of you. Of every one of you. I sat with the dying Banshee, taking the place of those who would not come to see out his final moments."
"But drink with O'Toole, you do. And talk with him, oh, yes. And give credence to his lies."
The O'Toole strode forward, bouncing with wrath.
"That down your throats I'll stuff," he screamed. "Let me get my paws but once upon their filthy guzzles-"
His words broke off abruptly as Sharp reached out and, grabbing him by the slack of his trouser-seat, lifted him and held him, gurgling and choking in his rage.
"You go ahead," Sharp said to Maxwell. "If this little pipsqueak so much as parts his lips, I'll find a pool and dunk him."
Sylvester sidled over to Sharp, thrust out his head and sniffed delicately at the dangling O'Toole. O'Toole batted at the cat with windmilling arms. "Get him out of here," he shrieked.
"He thinks you're a mouse," said Oop. "He's trying to make up his mind if you are worth the trouble." Sharp hauled off and kicked Sylvester in the ribs. Sylvester shied off, snarling.
"Harlow Sharp," said Carol, starting forward, "don't you ever dare to do a thing like that again. If you do, I'11-"
"Shut up!" Maxwell yelled, exasperated. "Shut up, all of you. The dragon is up there fighting for his life and you stand here, wrangling."
They all fell silent. Some of them stepped back. Maxwell waited for a moment, then spoke to the trolls. "I don't know what's gone on before," he said. "I don't know what the trouble is. But we need your help and we're about to get it. I promise you fair dealing, but I also promise that if you aren't reasonable we're about to see what a couple of sticks of high explosives will do to this bridge of yours."
A feeble, squeaky voice issued from the bridge. "But all we ever wanted, all we ever asked, was for that bigmouthed 0'Toole to make for us a cask of sweet October ale."
Maxwell turned around. "Is that right?" he asked.
Sharp set O'Toole back upon his feet so that he could answer.
"It's the breaking of a precedent," howled O'Toole. "That is what it is. From time immemorial us goblins are the only ones who ever brewed the gladsome ale. And drink it by ourselves. Make we cannot more than we can drink. And make it for the trolls, then the fairies will be wanting-"
"You know," said Oop, "that the fairies would never drink the ale. All they drink is milk, and the brownies, too."
"Athirst you would have us all," screamed the goblin. "Hard labor it is for us to make only what we need and much time and thought and effort."
"If it's a simple matter of production," suggested Sharp, "we certainly could help you."
Mr. O'Toole bounded up and down in wrath. "And the bugs!" he shouted. "What about the bugs? Exclude them from the ale I know you would when it was brewing. All nasty sanitary. To make October ale, bugs you must have falling into it and all other matters of great uncleanliness or the flavor you will miss."
"We'll put in bugs," said Oop. "We'll go out and catch a bucket full of them and dump them into it."
The O'Toole was beside himself with anger, his face a flaming purple. "Understand you do not," he screamed at them. "Bugs you do not go dumping into it. Bugs fall into it with wondrous selectivity and-"
His words cut off in a gurgling shriek and Carol called out sharply, "Sylvester, cut that out!"
The O'Toole dangled, wailing and flailing his arms, from Sylvester's mouth. Sylvester held his head high so that Mr. O'Toole's feet could not reach the ground.
Oop was rolling on the ground in laughter, beating his hands upon the earth. "He thinks O'Toole's a mouse!" Oop yelled. "Look at that putty cat! He caught hisself a mouse!"
Sylvester was being gentle about it. He was not hurting O'Toole, except his dignity. He was holding him lightly in
his mouth, with the two fangs in his upper jaw closing neatly about his middle.
Sharp hauled off to kick the cat.
"No," Carol yelled, "don't you dare do that!" Sharp hesitated.
"It's all right, Harlow," Maxwell said. "Let him keep O'Toole. Surely he deserves something for what he did for us back there in the office."
"We'll do it," O'Toole yelled frantically. "We'll make them their cask of ale. We'll make two casks of it."
"Three," said the squeaky voice coming from the bridge.
"All right, three," agreed the goblin.
"No weaseling out of it later on?" asked Maxwell.
"Us goblins never weasel," said O'Toole.
"All right, Harlow," said Maxwell. "Go ahead and belt him." Sharp squared off to kick. Sylvester dropped O'Toole and slunk off a pace or two.
The trolls came pouring from the bridge and went scurrying up the hillside, yelping with excitement. The humans began scrambling up the slope, following the trolls.
Ahead of Maxwell, Carol tripped and fell. Maxwell stopped and lifted her. She jerked away from him and turned to him a face flaming with anger. "Don't you ever touch me!" she said. "Don't even speak to me. You told Harlow to go ahead and kick Sylvester. You yelled at me. You told me to shut up."
She turned then and went scrambling up the hill, moving quickly out of sight.
Maxwell stood befuddled for a moment, then began the climb, skirting boulders, grabbing at bushes to pull himself along.
Up on the top of the hill he heard wild cheering and off to his right a great black globe, with its wheels spinning madly, plummeted out of the sky and crashed into the woods. He stopped and looked up and saw, through the treetops, two globes streaking through the sky on collision courses. They did not swerve or slacken speed. They came together and exploded on impact. He stood and watched the shattered pieces flying. In a few seconds there were pattering sounds among the leaves as the debris came raining down.
The cheering still was going on atop the bluff and far off, near the top of the hill that rose beyond the ravine, something that he heard, but did not see, came plunging to the earth.
There was no one else in sight as he began the climb again.
It was all over now, he told himself. The trolls had done their work and now the dragon could come down. He grinned wryly to himself. For years he'd hunted dragons and here finally was the dragon, but something more, perhaps, than he had imagined. What could the dragon be, he wondered, and why had it been enclosed within the Artifact, or made into the Artifact, or whatever might have been done with it?
Funny thing about the Artifact, he thought- resisting everything, rejecting everything until that moment when he had fastened the interpreting mechanism on his head to examine it. What had happened to release the dragon from the Artifact? Clearly the mechanism had had a part to play in the doing of it, but there still was no way of knowing what might have happened. Although the people on the crystal planet certainly would know, one of the many things they knew, one of the many arts they held which still lay outside the knowledge of others in the galaxy. Had the interpreter turned up in his luggage by design rather than by accident? Had it been planted there for the very purpose for which it had been used? Was it an interpreter, at all, or was it something else fashioned in a manner that resembled an interpreter?
He recalled that at one time he had wondered if the Artifact might not once have served as a god for the Little Folk, or for those strange creatures which early in the history of the Earth had been associated with the Little Folk? And had he been right, he wondered. Was the dragon a god from some olden time?
He began the climb again, but went slower now, for there was no need to hurry. It was the first time since he had returned from the crystal planet that there was no urgency. He was somewhat more than halfway up the hill when he heard the music, so faint at first, so muted, that he could not be sure he heard it.