DEDICATION
For the real Scott and Polly
CONTENTS
Dedication
We Return to the Program Now In Progress
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Commercial Break
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Commercial Break
Epilogue
Back Ad
About the Author
Books by Adam Rex
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
WE RETURN TO THE PROGRAM NOW IN PROGRESS
PROLOGUE
The butcher and the baker sat on the grassy hilltop and watched the stranger approach through the twilight. The baker was hogging the telescope, as usual.
“He looks big,” he said. “That’s good. A real tall one. Bit manky lookin’, maybe, but big an’ strong.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said the butcher. “He’s so far away, an’ here we have only the one telescope—”
“Sh-shh!” the baker hissed with a flick of his hand. As if he really needed it to be quiet to see. The butcher made a rude gesture behind his back.
“Blond hair . . . ,” said the baker, finally. “No, wait—he’s a ginger. But not a real flamin’ ginger like Millie Tailor. More red-blond like Brian Smith. Shoulder length.”
“Anything else?” The butcher sighed.
“Clean shaven. Sleeveless brown shirt, an’ leadin’ a real ugly horse. Okay, send it.”
The butcher climbed up a few paces to the signal platform and swiveled it around to face the village.
Here’s what you’d have seen if you were there: the butcher, standing beside a tall and sturdy tripod topped with a flat rectangle like a huge playing card balanced on its edge. It wavered a bit in the breeze and rumbled quietly like shy thunder. One side was covered nine by nine with black shutters, and as the butcher started working levers they lifted to display a pane of mirrored glass underneath. The butcher opened and closed these panels several times, all at once and then consecutively—top to bottom and bottom to top, as though tuning up for a performance. Then, with skilled fingers, he threw this lever and that, flexing only some of the shutters and then others in unmistakable patterns. He was making giant letters to be viewed by another pair of men in a tower a mile away. He spelled:
M-A-N—A-P-P-R-O-A-C-H-E-S—T-A-L-L—B-I-G—
R-E-D—B-L-O-N-D—S-H-O-U-L-D-E-R–L-E-N-G-T-H—
H-A-I-R—N-O—B-E-A-R-D—B-R-O-W-N—
S-H-I-R-T—N-O—S-L-E-E-V-E-S—U-G-L-Y—
H-O-R-S-E—W-I-L-L-I-A-M—B-A-K-E-R—I-S—
H-O-G-G-I-N-G—T-H-E—T-E-L-E-S-C-O-P-E
If you’d been there, you might have remarked that the signal machine reminded you a little of those clacking arrival/departure signs you find in old train stations—but the butcher and the baker would have had no idea what you were talking about, because this was not your world. This was Pretannica—Ireland, specifically—and the train had never been invented here. Not exactly.
The stranger thought he’d never seen a village so happy to meet new people. They’d greeted him at the gates, whisked him off to a fine public house, fed him, and plied him with drink and said the nicest things about his worthless horse. When some fairy trickery had separated him from his caravan, he’d despaired, but now this—it was like something from a story.
“And you . . . ,” he stammered between drinks. “You really think I’m this . . . what did you say?”
“Chosen One,” answered a smiling old man who had been introduced as Declan Sage. He was flanked by William Baker and Billy Butcher, two of the fellows from the gate. Mary Server flitted in and out of the room, bringing food and drink. The pub was otherwise empty, though there were a number of young faces pressed up against the windows outside. “I really think it,” the old man added, “because you are the Chosen One. And before long you’ll think it too. Billy! Bring the Scroll of Prophecy!”
The butcher hustled from the room, came back almost instantly with a long sheet of parchment secured between two tarnished bronze rods. It was spread out on the table in front of the stranger, and Declan Sage traced a wilted finger across it as he spoke.
“Centuries ago, our simple village was a happy place.
“Then the Gloria came, and the world withered and became a dusky, fairy island. And we were confined to this twilight bubble in a great black sea of nothing.
“The world continued ever so slowly to shrivel and die, and so the Fay grew angry, and then bold. They goaded the magical creatures against us and raised a dragon on the highest peak of the Black Stacks. But one day it is prophesied that a Chosen One will lead us. A stranger. And see here—it’s you.”
It wasn’t the best likeness, maybe, but then the style was primitive. And the Chosen One was without question tall, and strong, and look, thought the stranger—that was his hair. That was the very shirt he was wearing. “And who’s this?” asked the stranger as he pointed to another figure in full plate armor.
“That’s you, after you’re clothed in a fine suit of armor once worn by the great Lancelot himself at the Battle of Camlann, and waiting hollow all these centuries for the Chosen One to claim it. Then you will choose your weapons and ride up the mountain to rid this land of a smallish to moderately sized dragon.”
The stranger caught his breath, and the butcher and baker exchanged glances. Declan Sage unrolled a bit more scroll to reveal the Chosen One, mounted on something of an ugly horse and stabbing a bear-sized pink dragon through the heart. The dragon’s tongue lolled and its eyes rolled back in its head. The whole operation looked pretty cut-and-dry.
“Well,” said the stranger. “That’s not so big.”
“Spoken like a real Chosen One,” said the sage. “For centuries the Village of Reek has been cursed to lie in the shadow of Carrauntoohil, atop which the modestly run-of-the-mill dragon dwells.”
“Village of Reek?”
“That’s this village. That’s where you are now.”
“Nobody’d mentioned it.”
“The Village of Reek has been tormented—no, why don’t we say inconvenienced?—for generations by this beast. It eats our cattle, takes our children, and so forth—”
The stranger was frowning at the scroll. “Isn’t the Great Dragon Saxbriton a pink dragon?” he asked. “I thought I’d heard tell of her in these parts.”
“The Great Dragon Saxbriton divides her time between a number o’ different residences,” said the old man briskly. “I believe she’s in Cornwall this time o’ year, isn’t she, lads?”
“Cornwall,” said William Baker.
“You cannot fail,” the sage pressed. “Your victory is preordained!”
The stranger said nothing. His face was crowded with worry.
“And lo!” continued the old man with a flourish. “Also! He who slays the nameless dragon shall win the hand of
fair Aífe! Where is Aífe?”
Billy Butcher ran out again, and returned with a smiling, ripe-skinned girl wearing a low-cut blouse.
“This is Aífe Looker,” said the old man, waving. “Aífe Looker, Chosen One.” The girl curtsied and blushed sweetly. The stranger grinned stupidly at her.
“Okay,” he breathed. “I’ll do it. I’ll slay your dragon!”
“Excellent,” said Declan Sage, and he produced another sheet of paper. “Would you mind signing this contract to that effect? There we are.”
They set out at twilight. But then it was always twilight. The butcher and the baker took the stranger through Hag’s Glen and up to the Devil’s Ladder that rose between Carrauntoohil and Cnoc na Péiste. There they stopped to rest, and to help the stranger into his armor, and then William Baker explained that he and Billy Butcher could go no farther, what with not being Chosen themselves.
“I . . . hope yeh win,” said the butcher.
The baker shot him a look. “Course he’ll win.”
“Verily,” the stranger said, and clapped them both on their backs. “You’ve seen the scroll—how can I fail?”
Then they watched him mount his old nag of a horse and ascend the peak. They were still watching him an hour later. It was a tall peak.
“Now here’s what I think,” said the butcher, as if taking up a ball to resume a familiar game of catch. “If we were a little more honest abou’ the size o’ the dragon—”
“Then he never would have agreed to go up there,” the baker finished.
“Maybe. Maybe. Or just maybe he’d be better prepared when he did go. I don’t think they told Hercules he was after the three-headed lapdog o’ Dingle Bay, is what I’m sayin’.”
They heard a noise then and looked up, but it was only one of the vultures. They couldn’t see the stranger anymore. Just now he’d probably be finding his way down the slope of a huge black bowl at the top of the mountain, filled with ashes and dead wood. Or so they were told—neither man had ever seen it for himself.
“Won’t be long now,” the butcher murmured.
“I think Declan Sage knows what he’s doin’,” said the baker.
“I suppose,” the butcher relented.
And because neither of them said anything at all for a while, he added, “I didn’t get his name, did you?”
Then a bit of color caught their eye, and they raised their heads to see a streak of blue flame shoot off the mountain like an exclamation point.
The butcher winced. “Should I really have been able to hear him scream from here?”
In the Village of Reek, Declan Sage carefully rolled the Scroll of Prophecy halfway, then paused. He touched a finger to the paint at the Chosen One’s hair and clothes, but it was dry, of course it was dry. It had probably been dry for hours now. He rolled it the rest of the way up, made as if to take the scroll back to his study . . . then reconsidered and threw the whole thing in the trash. The chances of another stranger with the same hair and clothes happening by were pretty slim, after all, and he needed the space.
CHAPTER 1
In Pretannica, morning was when you woke up.
In the blue twilight there were little mornings stirring at every moment, all over the magical land. When the farmer rose to feed his pigs it was morning, and morning again when the apple man wheeled his cart into the square. It was morning for the tower guard when he roused some twelve hours later for the start of his watch; later still when the town drunkard woke to consider where his trousers had gone—and just why he was clutching this weather vane—only to be chased down from the rooftop by the tower guard, through the town square and consequently the apple cart, and to the edge of town, where he rested in a mud bank nestled between warm pigs and was found by the farmer six hours later.
It was always twilight in Pretannica. Morning was what you made it.
Scott couldn’t have told you if his morning resembled the farmer’s, or apple man’s, or guard’s or drunkard’s. He was on his own time, driving himself to exhaustion as he struggled to stay a step ahead of the trooping fairies that were tracking him.
Even Mick was on his own time, Scott noted once more as he awoke and found the leprechaun to be gone. Mick couldn’t sleep much with all the glamour in the air, or didn’t need to. He was probably off searching for breakfast or firewood.
Scott had gone and done something stupid. He’d suggested to Titania, High Queen of the Fay, that maybe she didn’t have to conquer the human race after all. That maybe there was a way she could lead the fairies to Earth and then . . . just let the humans bask in their magic. Worship their weird celebrity; give them reality shows to star in and network dance competitions to judge. He had put it better when he’d pleaded his case at court. But Titania had thrown Mick and him in a prison cell all the same.
Scott had gotten through to Titania’s favorite changeling, though. He’d done that much. Dhanu had set them free and helped them escape before they split up. Now the elves were likely hunting him, too.
Dhanu probably hadn’t spent the last six hours snoring in a bramble patch, though. Scott sniffed himself, winced inwardly, and shuffled down to the stream to wash.
On the bank of the stream he startled some kind of long-necked, long-legged wading bird, which spread its wide wings and honked at him.
“Sorry,” Scott answered, and put his hands up in a don’t-shoot kind of gesture that probably didn’t mean the same thing in the animal kingdom. The bird honked a second time, and its wings folded up like a road map, and its neck retracted and its legs ratcheted up into its belly, and then it improbably folded up a couple more times and disappeared into thin air.
Scott stared, fuddled. “All right.” He sighed, and undressed.
There were blackberry stains on his clothes, and the general stains of a life badly lived, and most of these would not come out. “Doesn’t matter,” Scott muttered to himself, remembering something his mother used to say: “It’s not like I’m gonna be meeting the queen.” Except there was a better-than-average chance that he was going to be meeting the queen. He tried to put it out of his mind and scrubbed himself as well as possible in the brisk water.
“Tell me when you’re done,” said someone, and Scott flinched, slipped on the slick river stones, and did his best to hide himself in the shallow creek.
“Wh . . . what? Who are you?”
“Tsk. You’ve already forgotten. Seems to me that if you kill someone, the classy thing to do is remember him.”
Scott squinted in the direction of the voice, but there was nothing but reeds, trees, a bit of mist hanging over a rock. Mist, or gnats, or . . .
“Is that you?” Scott asked the mist. It was just slightly person shaped. More and more so, the longer he stared at it.
“Seeing as I’m facing the forest, champ, I can’t really tell what you’re looking at. You want me to turn around?”
Scott scrambled for his sopping clothes and pulled them on. “You’re facing away from me,” Scott said, more to himself than to the mist. Knowing this made it easier to make out the back of a head, a neck, a skinny body dressed in a phantom T-shirt and pants.
“Seemed like the decent thing to do,” said the mist. “I would have just closed my eyes, but when you’re a ghost it turns out you can see through your own eyelids.”
“A ghost . . . ,” said Scott. “H—Haskoll?”
“He remembers!” The ghost of Haskoll turned around. “Hey, lookin’ sharp, big guy. Never let anyone tell you ya can’t pull off this whole wet ’n’ filthy look. I think it’s brave.”
“Haskoll,” Scott whispered. “Haskoll’s a ghost.” Then, louder: “Have you been following us around all this time?”
Haskoll sniffed. “Not all this time. I stayed with my body awhile. Just until somebody found it. All these airline investigators came out to deal with the wreckage.”
Last November Haskoll had been crushed by a piece of falling airplane. While trying to kill Scott, as it happened, so Scot
t had been okay with the whole episode, because he’d assumed he would never have to talk to Haskoll about it.
He coughed and nodded at the ghost. “Of course. It was . . . probably hard to leave your body. Right? It was all you’d ever known, and—”
“Nah. I just wanted to see their faces when they cleared away the engine and found a whole guy under there. Nearly a whole guy.”
“Oh.”
“Listen to you—‘It was all you’d ever known.’ You should have a daytime talk show.”
Scott climbed the rest of the way out of the creek. Could a ghost hurt him? Maybe Haskoll’s ghost was here for revenge.
“Then after they cleared the airplane off me, I spied on ladies for a while, and then I thought, ‘I wonder what that nice kid who murdered me has gotten up to,’ and I tracked you down. With my ghost powers.”
“I murdered you?” Scott blustered. “Are you kidding? Harvey magicked a piece of airplane out of the sky because you were about to shoot me.” Technically, the rabbit-man Harvey had probably done this more from fear of getting captured than out of any regard for Scott, but whatever. Plus, you deserved what you got, Scott wanted to say. You were working for Goodco. And yes, sure, Scott’s mom worked for Goodco too, but his mom didn’t know it was a nefarious organization run by a wicked fairy queen who wanted to conquer the earth for her people. Haskoll had known exactly who he was working for.
Ghost Haskoll shrugged his insubstantial shoulders. “Somebody was gonna shoot someone with somewhat; that’s all ancient history. So, what did I miss?”
“Miss?”
“I mean, what’s been going on since I died?”
“Oh. Um. Well, we all escaped from Goodco,” said Scott. “Me and Mick and Harvey and Erno and Emily and Biggs. Oh, and my dad and sister. And this guy Merle.”
“I don’t like stories with too many characters.”
“Then the Lady of the Lake, Nimue, she tried to put a spell on us. I whacked her with a pole.”
“Rude.”
“One of my sister’s toys ended up being this enchanted pixie prince named Fi. So he came with us too, on the run, and I sent my mom a year into the future to protect her. We went on a cruise. I ate a magic fish and knew everything in the world, but then I forgot it.”