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 be could not be sure he heard it.
He stopped to listen and it was surely music.
The sun had just moved the top part of its disk over the horizon and a sheet of blinding light struck the treetops on the hill above him, so that they blazed with autumn color. But the hillside that he climbed still lay in morning shadow.
He listened and the music was like the sound of silver water running over happy stones. Unearthly music. Fairy music. And that was what it was. On the dancing green off to his left a fairy orchestra was playing.
A fairy orchestra and fairies dancing on the green! It was something that he had never seen and here was a chance to see it. He turned to his left and made his way, as silently as he could, toward the dancing green.
Please, he whispered to himself, please don’t go away. Don’t be frightened by me. Please stay and let me see you.
He was close now. Just beyond that boulder. And the music kept on playing.
He crawled by inches around the boulder, on guard against making any sound.
And then he saw.
The orchestra sat in a row upon a log at the edge of the green and played away, the morning light flashing off the iridescent wings and the shiny instruments.
But there were no fairies dancing on the green. Instead there were two others he never would have guessed. Two such simple souls as might dance to fairy music.
Facing one another, dancing to the music of the fairy orchestra, were Ghost and William Shakespeare.
The dragon perched upon the castle wall, its multicolored body glittering in the sun. Far below, in its valley, the Wisconsin River, blue as a forgotten summer sky, flowed between the shores of flaming forests. From the castle yard came sounds of revelry as the goblins and the trolls, for the moment with animosity laid aside, drank great tankards of October ale, banging the tankards on the tables that had been carried from the great hall, and singing ancient songs that had been composed long before there had been such a thing as Man.
Maxwell sat upon a deep-buried boulder and gazed out across the valley. A dozen feet away the edge of the bluff cut off above a hundred feet of cliff and on the edge of the cliff grew a twisted cedar tree, twisted by the winds that had howled across the valley for uncounted years, its bark a powdery silver, its foliage a light and fragrant green. Even from where he sat, Maxwell could catch the sharp tang of the foliage.
It all had come out right, he told himself. There was no Artifact to trade for the knowledge of the crystal planet, although there was the dragon and the dragon, after all, probably had been what the people on that planet wanted. But even if this should not prove to be the truth, the Wheelers had lost out, and this, in the long run, might be more important than the acquiring of the knowledge.
It all had worked out OK. Better than he could have hoped. Except that now everyone was sore at him. Carol was angry at him because he’d told Harlow to go ahead and kick Sylvester and because he’d told her to shut up. O’Toole was sore at him because he’d abandoned him to Sylvester and thereby forced him to give in to the trolls. Harlow more than likely still was plenty burned up because he had messed up the deal for the Artifact and because of all the busted pieces in the museum. But maybe the fact that he’d got Shakespeare back might make up for some of that. And there was Drayton, of course, who still might want to question him, and Longfellow, at Administration, who wouldn’t like him any better no matter what had happened.
Sometimes, he told himself, it didn’t pay to care too much about anything or to fight for anything. Maybe it was the ones like Nancy Clayton who really had it made-feather-headed Nancy with her famous house guests and her fabulous parties.
Something brushed against him and he turned to see what it might be. Sylvester reached out a rough and rasping tongue and began to wash his face.
“Cut it out,” said Maxwell. “That tongue of yours takes off hide.”
Sylvester purred contentedly and settled down beside him, leaning hard against him. The two of them sat and gazed across the valley.
“You got an easy life,” Maxwell told the cat. “You don’t have any problems. You don’t have to worry.”
A foot crunched on some stones. A voice said, “You’ve kidnaped my cat. Can I sit down and share him?”
“Sure, sit down,” said Maxwell. “I’ll move over for you. I thought you never wanted to speak to me again.”
“You were a nasty person down there,” said Carol, “and I didn’t like you much. But I suppose you had to be.”
A black cloud came to rest inside the cedar tree.
Carol gasped and shrank against Maxwell. He put out an arm and held her close against him.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It is just a banshee.”
“But he hasn’t any body. He hasn’t any face. He is just a cloud.”
“That is not remarkable,” the Banshee told her. “That is what we are, the two of us that are left. Great dirty dish-cloths flapping in the sky. And you need not be frightened, for this other human is a friend of ours.”
“I wasn’t a friend of the third one,” said Maxwell. “Nor was the human race. He sold out to the Wheelers.”
“And yet, you sat with him, when no one else would do it.”
“Yes, I did that. Even your worst enemy could demand that you do that.”
“Then, I think,” the Banshee said, “that you can understand a little. The Wheelers, after all, were us, still are us, perhaps. And ancient ties die hard.”
“I think I do understand,” said Maxwell. “What can I do for you?”