by Tom McGowen
“And a war began—the first war of the world. The demons spewed up out of their holes in the ground and swept across the fair earth, and men, brownies, elves, and dwarves banded together to fight them. The air grew foul with the smoke of burning, the streams were filled with poison, and the grass was trampled by the tread of marching armies. And on both sides were wizards, using terrible magical weapons.
“Full centuries that war lasted, Sir MacHinery, with battles raging across the world, with men and brownies being born, growing up and dying and never knowing what it meant to be at peace. But at last, as all things must, the war ended. The evil sorcerer was slain by a great hero of the elf-folk and much of his hideous magical knowledge was lost with him. Without his help the demons were slowly beaten back, and finally they were being harried and hunted like rats. A few of them escaped the avenging swords and axes of their enemies and his themselves deep in the darkest places of the earth.
“And, yea, though they had lost, the demons in a way had really won. For they had destroyed the old ways for ever. Men now began to gather together in villages for protection, while the elves retreated deep into their forests and the dwarves burrowed deeper into the ground. Less and less did they come together, and at last, among men anyway, the memory of elf and dwarf and brownie and demon faded into legend. Each went their way. But we brownies have tried to stay close to all, while still holding to the open places we love. We bide near the tiny towns of men, which lie at the foot of great mountains or on the edge of open moorlands or on the outskirts of the old forests. We keep in touch with the elves in their leafy dwellings and the dwarves in their burrows. And we make ourselves known to those few men who still love and seek the old ways.”
Old Angus stopped speaking and glanced up at the great window. The shaft of moonlight had crept its course, and the chair and its metal occupant were half in shadows once again. The brownie hopped down from his perch on the chair arm and stood, legs apart, on the seat beside the robot’s metal hip. “It was well that we did this, Sir MacHinery,” he stated, “for we have found that the demons have once again grown in strength. They have relearned their ancient magic, and in the thousands upon thousands o’ years since they were vanquished, they have made careful plans.” He took a deep breath. “I know that the men o’ today have armies o’ millions. I know they have weapons wi’ which they could split the whole world if they chose. The demons know this too. They are cunning. They know well how to corrupt men. They will turn the nations o’ the world against one another. They will offer themselves and their magic to the side they deem strongest. And a war will come that will make other war ages seem like a snowball fight between little boys!”
He shuddered. “I have seen the vision o’ what might come. A world in everlasting darkness, where the sun shines not and the towns and cities are but ash heaps. And when the few men left have exhausted themselves and their weapons, the demons will spew forth wi’ all their armies and magic and conquer all that is left. And I tell ye Sir MacHinery, so terrible will be their rule that only the dead will be happy.”
Chapter
3
Once again the room was filled with silence so complete that the faint whirring of the robot’s electronic parts could be clearly heard. His computor memory bank brain was quickly sorting and analyzing the information he had just received. At last he said, “What is required of me?”
“Well, Sir MacHinery,” said the old brownie, wagging his head from side to side, “we canna do much ourselves, for there be terrible dangers to overcome and feats of strength to be done. For many and many a month we have been looking for a warrior knight such as you who could help us. Ye must help us, Sir MacHinery! There’s much work to do!”
It was fortunate that Angus used the word work, for the little robot had been programmed to be ready to do any sort of work required of him. Pushing himself forward, he slid from the chair and set both metal feet on the flagstone floor with a clank that made the brownies wince. “I am at your service,” he announced.
Angus hurriedly clambered down from the chair. “Bless ye, Sir Knight,” he panted. “We’ll take ye to Maggie MacMurdoch straight off. She’ll tell ye what must be done first.”
He scuttled toward the door at the far end of the room, the other two brownies trotting after him, and the robot marching along behind at a measured and mechanical pace. At the door, Angus stopped and looked expectantly up at the robot. “Ye’ll have to open it, Sir MacHinery,” he said, apologetically. “ ‘Tis too heavy for us.”
The robot seized the massive knob, pulled, and the door squealed as it opened. Upstairs, Simon Smith stirred in his sleep and turned over, but did not waken. Followed by the robot, the brownies slipped through the door, hurried down a narrow hall, passed through an archway, and scampered down a short flight of steps and across a broad room to another, larger door. This time, the robot needed no instructions. He pulled the door open, followed the brownies through it, and found himself standing outside the old castle beneath a blue-black night sky sprinkled with twinkling stars. Moonlight washed the whole hilltop and dripped down the hillside, spreading out upon the rooftops of sleeping Strathgow far below. Angus and the other two brownies were moving toward the opposite side of the hill which dipped down into a patch of pine forest, out of which rose a gently sloping mountainside. “Hurry, Sir MacHinery,” called Angus in a hoarse whisper.
At the forest’s edge, the brownies paused and clustered together for a moment. There was a faint scraping sound, and then with a sputter, a flare of fire appeared in old Angus’ hand. It was a length of tree branch smeared with pine sap which the brownies had set afire with an old-fashioned flint and steel. Holding this torch to guide the others, Angus plunged into the woods.
The forest eventually gave way to a rock-cluttered clearing out of which slanted a spur of the mountain. The flickering torch fluttered to a stop. The robot saw that he was standing before the mouth of a cave. Raising his voice, the old brownie called, “Maggie! Come oot! We’ve found one at last!”
Almost immediately two shapes materialized out of the pitch-black darkness of the cave, both clearly visible to the robot’s vision. One was an old woman with an extremely wrinkled but pleasant face crowned with a mop of white hair. The other was a large, tan cat with a tail bent into the shape of a corkscrew. It stalked majestically along at the old woman’s side.
“Sir MacHinery, this be Maggie MacMurdoch,” announced old Angus, and then added, “She’s a good witch.”
The old woman hobbled forward and peered down at the robot, for although she was a small person herself, she towered head and shoulders above the diminutive figure of Sir MacHinery. Cocking her head to one side she examined him carefully, mumbling to herself. The cat prowled cautiously around the robot’s feet in a wide circle, sniffing curiously.
“Och, now,” said the old woman at last, “couldn’t ye have found a bigger one, Angus? No offence to ye, Sir Knight, but I fear ye be much too small for the work we have need of. Why the monster will gobble ye up for sure if—”
Angus hastily broke in. “Fwoosh, Maggie, we’ve looked up and doon the land for nearly twelve months and nary a knight have we seen till now. Sir MacHinery is all we have and we must make the most o’ him.”
The witch fingered her chin, thoughtfully. “Ye’re right. Angus,” she sighed. “Big or little, he is all we have. But I dinna like to see a man get eaten wi’ no chance at all. Sir Knight, ye must be clever and strong to do what has to be done. Ye may be clever, but I fear ye’re much too small to be verra strong.”
“Try him oot, Maggie,” urged one of Angus’ companions. “See if he can budge yon boulder.”
“Aye,” said the witch, and pointed to a large boulder, twice the size of the robot, which stood near the cave entrance. “See if ye can push that boulder a bit out o’ place.”
The robot walked to the rock, bent his knees, and scrabbled with his metal fingertips until he had a secure hold of the boulder’s underside. Sim
on Smith had decided that a robot should be capable of lifting and moving heavy objects, and had accordingly fitted his pilot model with hydraulic jack muscles in each arm. The boulder was tremendously heavy, but it was no match for the mechanical leverage which the robot was able to exert. After several moments the huge rock began to lean noticeably, and then it suddenly teetered and fell with a loud thump. There was a shout of awe from the three brownies and Maggie’s face broke into a gap-toothed smile of delight.
“Ye may do it, ye may do it!” she crowed. “We’ll give it a try. Now listen, Sir Knight, to what we ask o’ ye. There is but one way we can hope to beat the magic o’ the demons, and that is wi’ the help o’ the greatest good wizard of the world. Merlin was his name and he lived long centuries ago. He was a friend to great King Arthur, and what Arthur and his knights couldna do to conquer evil wi’ their swords and strength, Merlin did wi’ his wisdom and power. But he fell in love at last wi’ an evil witch woman who learned his magic from him and then betrayed him. She put him into a magical sleep and transported him to an enchanted cavern beneath a deep lake and then she called up a fearsome monster to guard him. He is there still, and he is the only person in all the world who can match the magic o’ the demons. But to set him free a man must beat the monster that guards him in a test o’ riddles and strength. Now I must tell ye that many times in the past centuries knights have challenged the monster but none have ever beaten him. Are ye willing to try?”
“I am.”
“Och, ye’re a true and brave knight! The lake is Loch Bree, which lies halfway across Scotland from here. Ye’d best use my broom. Fetch it, Bathsheba.”
The cat disappeared into the cave in a single bound and emerged an instant later with a broom in her mouth. It was an odd looking broom, made of a bundle of dried twigs tied to a gnarled tree branch handle. Taking it from the cat, Maggie handed it to the robot.
“Sit astride o’ it, Sir MacHinery,” she told him. “All ye need do is tell it where ye wish to go and it’ll take ye there. You get on too, Angus.”
The old brownie looked startled. “Must I, Maggie?” he asked in a tremulous voice. “I dinna hold wi’ flyin’ through the air.”
“No foolishness now, Angus,” said the old woman sharply. “Ye must go.” Leaning close to him she whispered, “If he doesna beat the monster, ye must come back and tell me, so that we may plan something else.”
Shaking his head, the old brownie straddled the broom handle behind the robot and clutched his metal sides. Then he closed his eyes.
“Tell it to take ye to Loch Bree,” instructed Maggie.
“Take us to Loch Bree,” intoned the robot and, accompanied by a sickly moan from Angus, the broom immediately began to float skyward. Several hundred feet above Maggie’s cave it circled uncertainly for a moment, and then with a surge of speed that made the air fairly whistle past it, it sped southward across the highlands to Loch Bree.
Chapter
4
The lake seemed as black as the bottom of a barrel of tar. Not a ripple disturbed its broad surface, which reflected the night sky like a huge mirror. From the mass of reeds and cattails, which surrounded its edge, came a constant croaking of frogs, and the whir and chirrup of a myriad of insects.
“Are ye ready?” Angus asked, a bit doubtfully.
“I am ready.”
“Well,” sighed the brownie, “let’s have at it then. Gude luck to ye, Sir MacHinery.”
Going down to the very edge of the water, he cupped his hands to his mouth and called out a string of Gaelic words which were meaningless to the robot. For a very long time nothing at all happened. Then, from far out in the middle of the lake, came a faint plopping sound. The calmness of the water was suddenly shattered by a series of wide ripples which came surging in toward the shore. And out in the inky blackness a deeper black something came sliding through the water, growing bigger as it came, until at last, with a rush and a swish and a snort and a splash, it flung itself up onto the beach, a huge, green-black shape against the sky.
With his sensitive vision Sir MacHinery could see the monster quite clearly. It was a good thing that he was a machine and unable to feel fear, for the Loch Bree monster was a living remnant of an ancient time when both land and sea had been filled with massive, awe-inspiring reptiles. It was a dinosaur! A plesiosaur, to be exact, with a barrellike body, and long, snakelike neck atop which was a serpentine head filled with sharp teeth. The stars gleamed faintly on its sinuous, thirty-foot long, green body as it slithered across the sand toward Sir MacHinery.
Swinging its huge head down to ground level, it regarded the robot with obvious interest. “Ah, another knight!” it exclaimed in a husky whisper. “I suppose you’ve come to free Merlin, like all the others?”
“I have.”
“Fine, fine.” The monster seemed pleased. “It’s been quite a while since I had any canned food. But tell me now—I don’t wish to be rude, but aren’t you rather small? Are you by any chance a boy? Surely, you aren’t full grown?”
“I am not a boy,” replied Sir MacHinery. “I am at my maximum level of height.”
The monster wagged its head. “I certainly must admire your pluck,” it said. “The last chap who came here was a great, big fellow who had quite a reputation as a giant killer, but he failed the test of strength quite badly. I hardly see how you can expect to stand up to it. Sure you want to go through with this?”
“I am sure.”
The monster seemed to hunch its huge shoulders up around its neck in a reptilian shrug. “Very well,” it sighed. “Do you know the rules? First riddles, then we match strength, and if you lose either, I eat you. I go first. Now let me see—”
His voice trailed off and his yellow eyes closed in concentration. Sir MacHinery stood, completely motionless, waiting
“Ah, here’s a good one,” exclaimed the monster, snapping open his eyes. “What animal is able to jump higher than the tallest mountain?”
Sir MacHinery’s computor whirred into action, rapidly changing the words into mathematical expressions, and changing the whole into a mathematical formula. The robot could not be fooled by meanings of words; it operated by means of logic. A split second after the monster finished speaking, the robot had solved the equation and produced the simple, logical answer.
“Any animal can jump higher than a mountain,” he intoned. “A mountain cannot jump.”
“That was a pretty easy one, I guess,” the monster grumbled. “But anyway, you’re only halfway through. Now you have to stump me. Come on, ask me a riddle.”
To Sir MacHinery the word riddle meant problem, and he had hundreds of problems stored away in his memory bank. With his camera-lens eyes staring levelly at the serpent head swaying before him, he asked a question, the answer to which is known to millions of schoolchildren. “What is the value of pi?”
The monster’s head stopped swaying. “Pie?” it asked in a rather faint voice.
“Pi.”
“Well, what sort of pie?” the monster asked, petulantly. “I mean there are mutton pies and mince pies and—”
“There is only one pi,” interrupted the robot. “It is the expression of the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. What is the value of pi, expressed decimally?”
The monster was hopelessly befuddled. It had lived for millions of years and learned thousands of riddles, but it had a medieval mind to which even the most simple of twentieth-century mathematical problems was a mystery. It dropped its head onto the sand. After a while it rolled its eyes up toward the sky and snuffled. Then it rolled over onto its back and waved its flippers. At last, after nearly fifteen minutes had passed, it rolled over again, brought its head level with the robot and asked, “Is the answer five shillings?”
“No,” said the robot. “The answer is three point one four one six.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” sighed the monster, “although it really doesn’t make any sense to me. But it’s no matter—
you’re much too small to beat me in the test of strength, and unless you do, you’ll lose the contest and I get to keep Merlin and eat you. Now then—”
It seemed to bunch itself together, coiling its sinuous neck like a huge spring. Then suddenly it shot forward, scuttling across the beach on its big flippers with surprising speed. It headed straight for a clump of trees clustered on the edge of the woods away from the beach. With a loud crack, which reverberated over the silent surface of the lake, it smashed into the nearest tree and snapped the trunk off, leaving a jagged and splintered stump. Then it came swaggering back to the robot. “Now,” it purred “let’s see you do that to one of the other trees.”
With evenly spaced strides, the little robot marched across the sand until he reached the trees. He placed his metal palm flat against the bole of the largest one in the cluster. With an almost inaudible whine, tiny dynamos fed power into the hydraulic jack which was the muscle of his arm. And suddenly, with a report as loud as a gunshot, the tree broke cleanly in half.
“Hurrawhurroo!” Old Angus let out a screech of triumph. “Ye’ve done it, ye’ve done it, Sir MacHinery. Ye’ve won!”
The Loch Bree monster seemed frozen in surprise, staring in disbelief at the small silver figure which still stood with extended arm beside the sheared off tree trunk. Then, without a word, it turned and waddled sullenly to the water’s edge. There it paused and twisted its neck to look back at the robot and the brownie who had gone to stand beside him. It curled its lip in scorn. With a loud splash it slid into the water and dove out of sight.