Igor, Bwoonhiwda, and Herky shot around the cliff. The rest of us followed close behind. We made almost no sound, and Helagon didn’t notice us until we were within a few feet of the stream. He raised his hands to shoot a blast of magic at us, then bellowed in pain as Sterngrim landed on his head and sank her claws into his flesh. When she wrapped her snaky body around his face and flapped her wings against his eyes, he screamed in rage.
I raced for the stream. It was too shallow at the edge to fill the bucket, so I waded into the center. As I dipped the bucket into the water, Helagon cried, “Scamps, attack!”
As the words left his lips, a group of goblins with red headbands came screaming around the other side of the Big Face.
I thought it was over for us then. But just as the first of the headband goblins leaped up to grab Igor by the heels, Captain Grickle and the Seventh Mischief and Marching Society came racing out of the mushroom forest.
With cries of “For king and Nilbog!” they hurtled toward the red headbands. Soon pairs of goblins were grappling and wrestling all over the area around the Big Face.
Igor, Bwoonhiwda, and Herky continued their climb toward Helagon. I lifted the bucket and started toward William’s body. As I did, I heard another cry from Helagon.
His voice held no rage now. This time it was a cry of pure triumph. The sound chilled my blood.
I looked up. Sterngrim was nowhere in sight. What had he done to her?
“You see what a waste this was, Edrick?” Helagon said. “Your friends have actually brought the Black Stone straight to me!”
Brought him the stone? What was he talking about?
Helagon made a gesture. The cannonball bound into the end of Bwoonhiwda’s left braid floated into the air, lifting the braid with it. Bwoonhiwda cried out in rage. She grabbed the braid and pulled on it.
Her efforts had no effect. The braid continued to rise.
Edrick moaned in despair.
The end of the braid floated slowly toward Helagon’s hand. When the braid was stretched to its full length, it pulled Bwoonhiwda off the rocks and into the air.
“Wet me down!” she bellowed. “Wet me down!”
At the same time, Igor leaped from the rocks. He had his bear in one hand, of course. But as he fell, he used his free hand to grab the other braid, the one not rising toward Helagon. He landed in a crouch about five feet from the base of the cliff, dropped his bear, and with both hands took a firm grip on Bwoonhiwda’s right braid.
The left braid, the one being summoned by Helagon, continued its slow rise. Clearly what we had once believed to be a simple cannonball was actually the Black Stone of Borea. How had it ended up in Bwoonhiwda’s braid? There was no time to think about that now. Soon the two braids formed a straight line that stretched from where Igor clutched the bottom of the right braid almost all the way to where Helagon stood. Almost all the way, but not quite. The Black Stone quivered about three feet below his grasp, and he couldn’t reach down for it without toppling off the rocks.
In the middle of that straight line, nearly ten feet above the ground, was Bwoonhiwda.
“Hewagon, wet me woose, or I am going to thwash you and thwottle you!”
In response the wizard twisted the hand summoning the Black Stone. The stone began to turn, causing Bwoonhiwda to rotate in midair.
All around us goblin fought goblin. Their shrieks, shouts, and moans filled the air.
“Fauna!” cried William. “I’m down to my last minute!”
I started forward again, then stumbled over a rock.
William screamed in frustration.
Struggling to keep the bucket from tipping, I hit the water face-first, my hands extended in front of me. I felt the bucket being pulled from my grip. Lifting my head, I saw that Karl had it.
Spirit-William hovered close by, his face a mask of hope and terror.
Karl raced between two pairs of wrestling goblins and poured the water over William’s body. A blaze of multicolored sparks, jewel-bright, erupted around his chest. With them came a hissing-crackling sound that was almost deafening.
Crying out in joy, Spirit-William plunged toward Flesh-William.
He bounced right off his own body.
“It didn’t work!” he wailed. “We did it in time, but Flegmire was wrong! Now the time is up and I’m locked out forever.”
When all is said and done, what’s been done is more important than what’s been said.
—Stanklo the Scribbler
CHAPTER TWENTY
IF I GAVE YOU
The despair in William’s voice wrung my heart.
Then I heard another cry. It was Herky. Turning toward the Big Face, I saw the little goblin scramble up Igor’s back. He leaped from Igor’s shoulder to Bwoonhiwda’s braid, climbed the braid, crawled over her head, and shinnied up the other braid to the Black Stone, which still quivered inches from Helagon’s beckoning hand.
Herky then leaped from the stone to Helagon himself.
Grabbing the wizard around the waist, he squeaked, “Helagon bad! Herky bad sometimes, but Helagon bad all the time! Your momma should be ashamed, you bad Helagon!”
Then he sprang sideways, grabbed the arm the wizard was using to summon the Black Stone, and swung on it.
The sudden weight pulled Helagon’s arm down. In that moment his magical grip was broken.
The stone plummeted down.
So did Bwoonhiwda’s braid.
So did Bwoonhiwda.
“Igor catch you!” cried Igor, extending his arms and running in a circle.
Bwoonhiwda crashed into him, and they fell to the ground.
Helagon moved his hands again, muttering something that made no sense to me until I saw the result. The end of Bwoonhiwda’s braid was unraveling! Soon it would release the Black Stone so he could get it after all.
I splashed out of the stream. As the last strands of the braid came undone, I flung myself over the stone. I was terrified. Would the stone begin to rise again, carrying me with it? Or would it just pull the life force right out of me?
Neither of those things happened. Instead, I remained on the ground, the stone clutched under my belly.
A tingle around my neck explained the reason. Solomon’s Collar was working—somehow countering Helagon’s magic!
Suddenly the cries of the battling goblins vanished. In the silence I looked up and saw a clear blue dome, like an upside-down bowl. It covered Helagon and me. The battling goblins had been pushed aside, but my friends were within it. All except Herky. Like Sterngrim, he had disappeared. What had Helagon done with him?
The wizard gazed down at me. “Now, this is interesting,” he said. His voice was smooth and silky, a perfect match for his handsome face. “Obviously you have something that is blocking my magic, child. What is it?”
“Leave the girl alone!” Edrick bellowed.
“Speech be gone!” Helagon snarled. A bolt of red energy flew from his hands and rippled around Edrick. The toad opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His great golden eyes bulged with rage.
I wanted to stand up and spit in Helagon’s face, but he was fifteen feet above me. Besides, I knew I had to continue protecting the stone. So I stayed huddled over it, refusing to look up, terrified of what would happen if he could catch my eye.
“You know,” he said gently, “we could make a bargain.”
I wanted to cover my ears to shut out his voice. It was filled with a tender care that I knew was false but that was almost impossible to resist. Only, I didn’t dare move. I had to stay as I was, blocking the stone from him.
The wizard’s next words struck new terror into me.
“Ah, your name is Fauna. Is that right?”
Was he reading my mind? If so, then let him read the way I felt about him! That should curl his perfect hair.
I guess he was immune to my anger, since his hair stayed straight. Then I remembered he had had his goblins search my cottage. So maybe he already knew my name.
“Why did you send those goblins to search my home?” I asked.
“Because I thought you might have the Black Stone.”
“Why in the world would you think that?”
He did not answer directly. Instead he said, “Do you understand what I can do with that stone, Fauna? It’s not just ruling the world, though that is a lovely thought. No, what I’m talking about is the fact that with the power at my control I will be able to do favors . . . pleasant things . . . for those who helped me when I needed it. You could be one of those friends, Fauna. You could be one of my favorites.”
The warmth in his voice grew deeper, as if he were caressing me with words. “With the power of this stone, I will even be able to read the past. So let me ask you, dear Fauna. How would you like to know where you came from, and why you don’t age?”
He was reading my mind! Fury raged through me, but also desire for what he was offering.
“I can answer those things for you, if I have the stone.”
Do not listen to him! cried my brain. No good can come of this!
But my heart, my hungry and traitorous heart, was crying, Yes! Yes, I want to know! I need to know!
And that was true. I did need to know these things. For the first time since I had captured the stone, I looked up at him.
“Fauna!” said William, who was floating beside me.
“Be quiet!” I snapped.
I saw the others around me, Karl and Bwoonhiwda and Igor. Even Werdolphus, floating bodiless beside the bodiless William. They were all watching me, their faces twisted in a strange mix of hope and fear.
Hope and fear, but no answers. No answers for the questions that had bedeviled me for more than seventy years.
I was on my own.
As I had been for as long as I could remember.
“Your past.” Helagon whispered it in such a way that I could hear him even where I lay, so far below. “I will reveal it to you, if you just give me the stone.”
I knew Helagon was evil. I knew that if I gave in and let him have the stone, he would do terrible things. Even so, I will not pretend I was not tempted. What greater offer could there have been be than to finally, finally understand who I was, and where I’d come from?
“If that’s not enough, consider this. I can restore your friend William to his body and wake the Baron from his fateful sleep.”
I felt a new surge of fury. It was hard enough to resist what Helagon was offering me. How could I deny William the chance to regain his body? How could I leave the Baron in a sleep that would lead to death?
Unexpectedly, Karl gave me what I needed. From where he sat he murmured:
“The fate of all rests in their hands,
The cost so high, it stills the voice.
Long-buried hope makes sharp demands;
A breathless world awaits their choice.”
“Shut up!” snarled Helagon. Then he unleashed a bolt of power that sent Karl sprawling. The librarian lay where he fell, groaning. But Helagon had acted too late. I recognized the words. They were from the prophecy William had read the night we’d awoken the toad.
The world was in our hands.
My hands, now. And it was my job to save it from this madman.
But what had the world done for me? Why should I care what happened to it?
As the question burned inside me, I thought of Granny Pinchbottom, and how the idea of Helagon gaining power had filled her with fear. I thought of the Baron, slowly dying in his own bed from the spell Helagon had cast. I thought of the squirrels and the bear who had come to our aid. I thought of the forest and how I loved it. And I thought of what Stanklo had told us about the Pit of Thogmoth. Were the answers to the questions that wrung my heart worth the destruction of Nilbog?
Tears filled my eyes. My strange life had made me sharp and secretive and bitter. But I could not give the world over to this monster.
“Fauna,” Helagon whispered. “Oh, Fauna, I can do so much for you. I could be like a father to you. I could—”
Father? I had no father!
“Shut up!” I screamed in rage.
“That’s not very polite, Fauna.”
“It’s not polite to want to open the Pit of Thogmoth! Why do you want to do that?”
“I think you will understand, dear. It’s funny. In truth, you and I want exactly the same thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked, startled once more.
“To go home.”
Yes, I did want a home. More than anything. I could not have it, not with my strange condition. But what could Helagon mean about himself?
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How would opening the Pit of Thogmoth take you home?”
“Because it’s where I came from!”
With that, he spread his arms wide. A blaze of light flashed up around him.
When it faded, the handsome man was gone. In his place stood a terrifying demon, seven feet tall at least, his skin red and scaly, his yellow eyes blazing.
“The Pit of Thogmoth is my home, and I have been shut out of it for over two hundred years by the treachery of a small band of humans and goblins. Help me open it, Fauna, and I will put the world at your feet. You will be garlanded with jewels. I know people have been cruel to you, child. Now they will crawl before you. I can do so much for you. Just give me the stone!”
“Shut up!” I cried, horrified that he would think I would want such a thing. “Shut up and leave me alone, and go back to where you came from!”
Solomon’s Collar tingled fiercely around my neck.
The Black Stone of Borea flared hot against my belly.
I screamed in pain.
But from Helagon there was only silence.
Cautiously I glanced up.
The wizard was nowhere in sight.
The dome, too, had disappeared. The goblins had stopped fighting, the angry cries of the red-headband crew now no more than confused whimpers.
I saw Herky capering atop the stone nose. “Herky back!” he cried. “Herky back!”
Above the little goblin’s head fluttered Sterngrim.
Bwoonhiwda rushed to my side. “You did it, Fauna!” she said as she helped me to my feet. “You sent Hewagon away!”
“Is he really gone?” I asked, baffled, dizzy, not understanding.
Karl sat up, groaning. His black hair stuck out in all directions, and his face was smeared with soot. “You must have had some kind of power over the stone,” he said. “As soon as you told Helagon to go back to where he came from, he vanished! I don’t know where he went, but he’s definitely gone. You were brilliant, Fauna!”
I shook my head. “Not brilliant, just lucky. Luck and having the collar . . . and the right words. Thank you for reminding me of what was in that book.”
“That’s what librarians are for,” he said with a smile.
I was feeling very good until I looked over and saw Spirit-William kneeling next to his body. The red glow was gone; it had vanished with Helagon. It didn’t matter—the time limit had passed, and William couldn’t get back in. His face was twisted in despair.
My stomach knotted. I had banished Helagon but failed my friend.
Karl, who couldn’t see William, said, “How in the world did the Black Stone get into Bwoonhiwda’s braid?”
“I think I can answer that,” said the toad. “Though I would rather do so from my human form.”
“You can talk again!” I cried.
“Yes, Helagon’s ‘Speech be gone’ spell vanished when he was banished, if you will forgive the rhyme. The ‘Speech be thine’ spell went too. However, it woke something in my mind that did not go away.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t turn you back,” Karl said. “William is trapped outside his body and can’t re-enter it, which means he can’t look at you in the mirror.
“Are you certain of that?” asked a new voice.
Sophronia shimmered into sight.
“Hello, love,” said Edrick. “Nice to see you!”
“What ah you doing heah?” demanded Bwoonhiwda. “We needed you ten minutes ago, not now!”
“I know, and I was trying desperately to reach you. But Helagon had set up a block against me. Not that I could have done much good—he is far more powerful than I. Besides, you did splendidly on your own. Especially you, Fauna.”
I shook my head. “Helagon may be gone, but William was locked out of his body for too long. He can’t get back in. Which means we can’t return Edrick to his human form. Wait! Can you get William back into his body, now that we have the Black Stone?”
Sophronia shook her head. “I am not strong enough to use the stone. If I took it into my hands, it would absorb my power and destroy me. Edrick could do it if he were human.”
“But we can’t make Edrick human without William! It’s like some horrible circle. We need Edrick to get William back into his body. But without William in his body, we can’t restore Edrick!”
I expected Sophronia to react to this with tears, since her husband was trapped as a giant toad. Instead she said gently, “For every spell there is a counterspell to overcome it. This is the law of magic. Yes, William has been too long out of his body for the Sleep Walk spell. But that does not mean all is lost. Can you think of anything that might be stronger? Anything that might connect spirit to body once again?”
I knew she was hinting at something I should understand but didn’t. “Can’t you tell me?” I pleaded.
Sophronia shook her head, making her long red hair brush over her shoulders. “I can give you hints, but I can’t tell you. The magic doesn’t work that way.”
“Oooh! Oooh!” Igor cried. “What about blue goo? It fix Baron. It fix Herky. Fix William, too?”
Feeling a surge of hope, I took the stuff out of my coat pocket. It was covered with lint. Hoping that wouldn’t affect it, I stretched it to reveal a clean section, then snapped off a piece. Then I knelt beside William’s body and pulled open his mouth to tuck the glob of goo between his lips.