Power of Three

  Ayna could not find words to express what she felt about that. They settled to waiting—none of them knew for what, except that it was better than giving in. The one hope seemed to be that the sentries would fall asleep, too.

  Long ages later, when the Sun stood nearly at mid-morning and the damp had crept to their necks, Ayna realized that neither of the sentries had moved for some time. She suddenly felt ridiculous, crouching tensely in a pool of water. The Dorig looked queerly harmless, lying blended with the grass, not moving and almost invisible. Ayna stood up, gently and cautiously. She was about to take a step when she met the yellow eye of one of the sentries. His thin white face was amused. Ayna pretended to be stretching and sat miserably down again.

  “That’s what they’re hoping we’ll do,” Gair said, sighing.

  Soon after mid-morning, the leader woke up and stretched. He glanced casually at the pond and then gave some kind of signal. The other Dorig sat up. They all produced pouches, with food in them. It was yellowish stuff and came away in soft flaky mouthfuls when the Dorig bit it.

  “Oh Ban!” said Ceri, watching yearningly.

  “It’s probably very nasty,” said Ayna.

  The leader turned to them. “Smoked trout,” he said. “Want some?”

  Their mouths watered. “Yes please,” said Ceri.

  “Come on out and we’ll give you some,” he answered.

  They realized he was tempting them and shook their heads.

  “As you please,” said the leader, and bit deeply. “You’re being very stupid,” he said, with his mouth full, “even for Lymen. You’ll have to come out in the end.”

  “Lymen!” Ayna said disgustedly. Ceri’s stomach rumbled.

  They were glad when the Dorig finished their trout and put their pouches away. Two more were put on watch. The others lay about lazily, exchanging remarks in low voices, laughing and dozing. They seemed to enjoy basking in the Sun. Gair was rather amazed at their lazy, luxurious air, and the way one laughingly pushed another aside when he got in the way of the Sun. It did not seem right, when the Dorig were the ones who were made to live in water, that Gair should be crouching in a pool, wet to the neck, shivering in the mild breeze that whistled through the reedy trees of the spinney. In fact, everything was wrong. The Sun now stood at its highest, nearly as high as it would ever stand in the whole year, which ought to have meant that Gair’s people were in the ascendant. Instead—

  Ayna nudged Gair and pointed anxiously at Ceri. Ceri was shuddering. His clothes were dark with water and his face was white and pinched. His collar was turning an ominous green-black in places. No doubt it was shock and misery as much as exposure, but Gair saw that there was a chance Ceri would not live to be sacrificed to the Sun.

  “Shall we give in?” Ayna whispered.

  Gair shook his head. There must be some way they could escape. The trouble was his brain was dimmed with the boredom and misery of sitting here. He could not think. When he did think, it was useless things. It was no use asking Ceri to put a Thought on the Dorig, or on the hunt. He had promised not to. Lucky Ondo, to have gone on the hunt. Aunt Kasta’s voice. The voice from the Giantess’s magic box was almost as ugly. It— Wait a moment!

  “Ceri,” Gair said quietly.

  Ceri pushed his chattering teeth together. “Yes?”

  “Ceri, can you tell me where that magic box is—the one the Giantess had?” Ayna looked at Gair as if he had suddenly gone mad. “I’m not mad,” Gair said. “Can you, Ceri?”

  Ceri put his face in his hands. “It’s a long way, much farther than I usually— There are quite a lot of magic boxes, Gair. I’m not sure which one.”

  “Then is the Giantess with any of them?”

  There was a pause. Ceri bowed over, thinking hard. “Oh yes,” he said at last. “I see. She’s just come in and picked it up.”

  Gair looked cautiously round the Dorig. The two on watch were certainly listening, although the rest seemed to be asleep. He could only hope they did not understand about Finding Sight or Thoughts. He beckoned Ceri and Ayna as close to him as they could get and whispered, “Put a Thought on that box to make it tell the Giantess to come and help us.”

  “I’ll try,” Ceri whispered. “But is it safe, Gair?”

  “Gair!” Ayna whispered. “She’s a Giant!”

  “Anything’s safer than sitting here,” Gair said. “She may think we’re Giants, too. Don’t tell her we’re not, Ceri.” He put his mouth close to Ceri’s ear and told him exactly what to make the box say.

  Ayna, meanwhile, pulled at his sleeve. “But can she help? Will she?”

  Gair had doubts about that. The Giantess had not inspired him with trust. He would have preferred to ask the Giant Gerald, but he did not have the magic box. But it was all he could think of. He pretended not to hear Ayna. “Got that?” he asked Ceri.

  Ceri cleaned his ear out with his finger. “Now that’s wet, too. All right. I’ll try.” He put his hands in the water and knelt on all fours, very quiet and tense. Gair could see from his face that he was finding it difficult. As the minutes trailed on and Ceri did not move, nor did the look of strain on his face alter, Gair saw that he had asked something which was beyond Ceri’s power. He saw he would have to persuade Ceri to put a Thought on the Dorig after all, before Ceri’s strength gave out completely.

  “Well?” Ayna whispered. “Yes or no?”

  Ceri relaxed slightly. He seemed puzzled. “Yes—I think.”

  “Don’t if it’s too difficult,” Gair whispered.

  Ceri shook his head and sat damply back on his haunches. “I think I did it. It’s working by itself now. But the music and things still keep trying to interrupt.”

  “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.”

  Brenda turned and heavily led the way through an archway in a wall and then down the side of the house. The house was much bigger than it looked in front. It stretched back to a low, sloping part, where Brenda opened a door and led them in among strange smells and unfamiliar shapes, which she called a kitchen. There she collapsed in a chair with her feet out in front of her, puffing alarmingly.