How to Stop a Witch

by Bill Allen

  Mass Reunion

  Kristin’s screams echoed throughout the enormous cavern. “Don’t let go!” Greg warned. He wrapped his arms around her just in case, and in spite of the horror of his situation, couldn’t help but notice how soft she felt.

  “Where are we?” Kristin cried.

  “Ruuan’s lair.” Greg dragged her toward a storage chamber nestled in one corner, where he knew the air would be magically cooled. It was there that Ruuan stored his food, while it was still breathing.

  “Who’s Ruuan?” said Kristin. “And why does he have a lair?”

  “Because he’s a dragon.”

  “What?” Her grip tightened until Greg could hardly draw a breath.

  “Don’t worry,” he gasped. “He doesn’t seem to be here right now. This happened to me last time, too.”

  “Last time?” Kristin shrieked. Greg shoved her through the narrow gap that separated the chilled storage chamber from Ruuan’s lair. Light cast from the molten rock outside illuminated her face with heavy shadows. It might have lent a ferocious quality, had Kristin not been so enraged already. “You’ve been here before, and you came back?”

  Greg could tell from her tone that Kristin couldn’t see how this was possible. Odd, since she was the one who pointed out he should come. “Ruuan’s okay,” he tried to reassure her. “He likes me, I guess, on account of I didn’t slay him the first time I came here.”

  “I didn’t slay him either. Do you think he’ll remember?”

  “You’ll be fine, as long as you stick with me. Oh, by the way, you can let go now.”

  Kristin remained clamped to him like a vice. In theory Greg liked having her arms around him, but in reality it made breathing nearly impossible. After several reassurances, she reluctantly let go, though Greg suspected she would tackle him again at the first hint of a dragon.

  “Why did you grab onto me like that?” he asked.

  “I heard you talking crazy and thought you were about to do something stupid. As it turns out, I was right.”

  “You were the one who said I was going to get killed here whether I ignored the note or not.”

  “Yes, but at least my way there was a chance the prophecy could be wrong. Your way has you charging right into an early grave. Why don’t you just go back outside and call for the dragon to eat you?”

  “Ruuan wouldn’t eat me,” Greg said. “At least, I don’t think so. Besides, I came to save the kingdom.”

  Kristin regarded him doubtfully. “How do you plan to do that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not even sure what the problem is. But I bet it has something to do with the section of amulet I gave Witch Hazel last month.”

  Kristin’s mouth dropped open. “How often do you come here?”

  “I’ve only been twice, to fulfill two different prophecies. Now I guess there’s been a third.”

  Kristin begged to know about Greg’s other two trips, but Greg shook his head. “They’ll be plenty of time to talk on the trail. If what I suspect has happened, we better not wait for Ruuan. He may never come back, and it’s a long way to the castle. Let’s just hope the spirelings aren’t home.”

  “The what?” Kristin asked.

  “Believe me, you don’t want to know. Take my hand, and whatever you do, don’t let go.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  As Greg guided her back into Ruuan’s lair he remembered that Ruaan’s ring would protect Kristin whether she held his hand or not, but he conveniently forgot to tell her. He led her to a magical door that hid the secret Passageway of Shifted Dimensions, the only route a mortal could take to the ground, as the lair was nestled halfway up an infinitely tall spire. Greg was nearly as concerned as Kristin when the door opened to welcome them, but they stepped through anyway. Again a cool breeze hit them, as the passageway possessed a special magic of its own.

  “This way,” Greg said, though that should have been obvious, since there was but one way they could go.

  They descended a steep staircase that gradually melded into a sloping tunnel through the rock. Before long Greg heard a high-pitched whine from over his shoulder.

  “What’s that?” Kristin asked, her eyes wide with fear.

  At first Greg thought it might be the sound of Ruuan soaring up the spire on his way back from the hunt, but then he realized the true origin of the sound.

  “Rake.”

  He slipped his backpack off his shoulder and loosened the straps to allow the little shadowcat to escape.

  Kristin took one look at the creature with its blue-black fur and unnaturally long tail and screamed. “What is that, Greg? Watch out.”

  “Shh. It’s okay. It’s just Rake.”

  A sudden shuffling sounded in the passage ahead. The pair froze in place and listened, afraid to breathe.

  Whatever was coming was coming fast. Again Greg was reminded of the soaring dragon. He nearly told Kristin to run, but just then two short, stocky creatures rounded a bend in the rock. They looked a bit like rocks themselves, only Greg knew they were not. He also knew he couldn’t possibly outrun them.

  Kristin screamed, a sound that was becoming all too familiar, but Greg could hardly blame her. He felt like screaming himself.

  The spirelings bared their teeth, or so it seemed. Six inches long and sharp as razors, spireling teeth jutted out at all angles from their jaws, even when the creatures’ mouths were closed. As if the expressions weren’t threatening enough, the two warriors carried heavy double-bladed axes, which they thrust forward now.

  “Gnash?” Greg said hopefully. “Gnaw?”

  These were the names of the only two spirelings Greg knew. Gnash and Gnaw were relatively friendly for monsters, but Greg wouldn’t have had the slightest idea how to tell them apart from others, as all spirelings looked the same to him.

  “No, I am Grunt,” said one.

  “And I am Growl,” said the other. “But Gnash and Gnaw are with us now, as are all of our kind. We are most honored to meet the Mighty Greghart, though of course, in one respect we already have.”

  “Mighty Greghart?” said Kristin.

  “It’s a long story,” Greg said. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “If we survive this, you mean.”

  “We shouldn’t need to worry now,” he told her. “What one spireling sees they all see, and apparently I’ve already been recognized and accepted. Oh, by the way, they think I’m some kind of hero.”

  “Why would they think that?”

  “Greghart is a legend among our people,” said Grunt. “He has fought monsters we have never even heard of on this world, and he has always emerged the victor, no matter how overwhelming the odds.”

  “Is there more you’re not telling me?” Kristin asked Greg. “Later, remember?”

  Grunt suddenly screamed and jerked backward. Growl yelled and raised his axe. As if she thought it was the fashionable thing to do, Kristin joined in with a scream of her own, but Greg knew what had disturbed the spirelings so.

  “Get back in the pack, Rake.”

  The shadowcat hissed and arched its fur, clearly reveling in the sight of the spirelings shrinking back, their axes raised to protect their faces. After what Rake surely must have felt was a sufficient interval, he chattered playfully and crawled nonchalantly into Greg’s pack.

  After a longer interval, Growl lowered his axe. “Queen Gnarla wishes a word with you. You will come with us.”

  “You mean I really do get to meet a queen?” said Kristin.

  “She’s not what you think,” said Greg, and from the look on Kristin’s face when they met up with Queen Gnarla later, he was correct in his assumption.

  “You’re a queen?” Kristin said before Greg could warn her not to speak.

  “Silence,” ordered Queen Gnarla, who was not particularly friendly, even for a monster. She wore a cloth robe and a jagged crystalline crown, while the guards who surrounded her wore tattered pants and chain mail, but otherwise she looked identical to the others.
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  The guards leaned close and showed off their axes.

  “You shall not speak unless spoken to,” Queen Gnarla announced in a haughty tone.

  “Well, I’ll admit you sound like a queen,” said Kristin.

  “SILENCE.”

  Greg shot Kristin a glare she couldn’t possibly misinterpret. Even so, she nearly apologized. Instead, she caught herself and simply nodded.

  “Have you not heard about the dragon?” Queen Gnarla asked Greg.

  “Ruuan? What about him?”

  “He has been taken against his will,” the queen said, “by the human Witch Hazel. Apparently she holds some sort of amulet that grants her power over dragons.”

  Greg gasped. “The Amulet of Tehrer.”

  Even though spirelings could communicate clearly without a sound, they started up a whisper that shook the walls as it echoed its way down the tunnel.

  “Does no one listen to Us?” Queen Gnarla held her hands over her ears and glared at Greg. “As We recall, you were responsible for the loss of the key piece of the Amulet of Tehrer. Why would you give something that powerful to the witch?”

  Greg gulped. “Because Nathan told me to?”

  “Nathan? He is that magician who was with you when last We met, no? He warned Us that there may come a time when he needed Our section of Ruuan’s amulet, yet We have not seen him since. If not now, when?”

  “Nathan hasn’t come?” Greg said. “Maybe I should take the amulet with me.”

  Queen Gnarla’s expression suggested otherwise, far better than words. “I will give it to the magician, when he asks.”

  After a long moment of awkward silence, the queen indicated Kristin with a wave of her hand. “Tell Us, who is this?”

  “Kristin Wenslow,” Kristin answered.

  “Silence. We were not speaking to you.”

  “Sorry,” said Kristin. She realized she’d talked again too late and quickly placed a hand over her mouth. Queen Gnarla rolled her eyes before looking to Greg for an answer.

  “Her name is Kristin Wenslow,” Greg repeated. “She’s a friend of mine from my own world.”

  “Ah.” Queen Gnarla looked her up and down without seeming to notice Kristin’s discomfort. “She is a warrior too, then?”

  “Women aren’t warriors where I come from,” answered Greg.

  “I could be a warrior if I wanted,” said Kristin. “Oh, I know,” she told the queen. “Silence.”

  Queen Gnarla frowned. “Well, that is a shame. She has a lot of spunk for a human.”

  Kristin smiled and regarded Greg smugly. He took only a second to notice how cute she was. Then he told the queen of the letters he’d received and how he’d traveled between worlds to do what he could to save the kingdom. Queen Gnarla glared at her guards.

  “Why are We always the last to know of these prophecies?”

  The guards cleared their throats and quickly looked away.

  “I don’t suppose you would be willing to help us?” Greg asked the queen.

  “Normally no,” said Queen Gnarla, “but then normally We would have eaten you the moment We found you trespassing in Our tunnel. Since you are the Mighty Greghart, We are making an exception. Today you may have anything you need . . . aside from Our amulet. How might We help?”

  Greg felt embarrassed to have to say what he was thinking, but these were desperate times. “We need to get to Pendegrass Castle. Even if we found our way, it would take weeks on foot. Obviously your warriors can get there much quicker.”

  “Your point?” Queen Gnarla asked impatiently.

  Greg looked to Kristin and back to a spot somewhere near Queen Gnarla’s feet.

  “Do you think they might be able to . . . well, you know . . . carry us?”

  Whirlwind Tour

  And so it was that Greg and Kristin found themselves riding atop a litter carried by four spireling warriors, watching the blurred forms of snow-covered trees whiz past on both sides, close enough to touch.

  Two of the litter-bearers were Grunt and Growl, who Greg and Kristin had met inside the spire. The others claimed to be Greg’s friends Gnash and Gnaw, though in truth, Greg had no way of knowing for sure. Not only did they look just like every other spireling Greg had ever seen, but when Greg traveled with Gnash and Gnaw on his last visit, all the other spirelings shared the experience. There was nothing these two alone would know that could prove they were the actual pair who accompanied him during the last prophecy.

  “This is incredible,” shouted Kristin. “How can they move so quickly?”

  “It is something, isn’t it?” said Greg, “Next to traveling by dragon, I don’t see how we could make better time.”

  “Dragons can move faster than this? You’re kidding?”

  “Much faster. Ruuan could have carried us to the castle in a matter of minutes.”

  “I’m not sure if I’d like to see that or not,” Kristin admitted.

  “You’d like Ruuan,” he told her. “He’s really cool for a dragon.”

  Kristin began to relax after that. She looked to be enjoying her adventure, and Greg accepted his, too, partly because he was glad to be there with Kristin, but mostly because he’d temporarily forgotten all about Simon’s prophecy and his “rather unfortunate demise.”

  Earlier, just before the group left the spire, Queen Gnarla gave the children vests identical to the kind her spireling warriors wore.

  “Is there going to be another battle?” Greg had asked worriedly.

  “These will keep you warm,” Queen Gnarla told him, which was hard for Greg to believe, since it was freezing outside, and the chain mail was little more than a collection of holes. But amazingly, when he slipped the gift on under his windbreaker, he felt quite cozy, and he had since discovered that with it he could barely feel the torrent of wind that threatened to lift him off the litter at any moment.

  Since all four spirelings were dressed alike, in tattered pants and light chain mail, shortly into the journey Greg suggested they each wear some accessory he could use to tell them apart. At first they thought he was joking, as there was clearly no way one spireling could be confused with another, but later, when Kristin admitted having trouble telling them apart too, they knew Greg had been serious.

  Quickly they did as he asked, and Greg was only mildly insulted when Growl suggested that it might be helpful if Greg and Kristin each wore some identifying accessory, as well. Greg found an oddly shaped twig he tucked into his belt. Kristin picked a cluster of bright red berries to adorn her hair, which Greg felt Growl might have noticed was easily five times as long as Greg’s.

  Gnash had managed to find a bright purple flower peeking up through the snow just outside the spire. He’d plucked it out of the ground and poked the stem though a hole in his chain mail, which was the only way Greg could be sure it was Gnash who cried out now.

  “Attack!”

  The group stopped in an instant. If not for the spirelings’ dexterous manipulation of the litter, Greg and Kristin surely would have been hurled into the woods.

  “What’s going on?” asked Greg. “Why are we stopping?”

  As one, the spirelings dropped their respective corners of the litter and lifted their axes. Greg felt the ground rise up to slap his backside. A horrifying shriek broke the stillness, and a wyvern shot down from the sky, its claws splayed to capture anything slow enough to remain in its path. Unfortunately, Greg and Kristin were the only two around that met the description.

  “Watch out!” said Greg. He dove into Kristin, who surely would have been cut in half by a talon if one of the spirelings hadn’t diverted the thrust aside with a blow of his axe.

  Kristin cried out too, partly from fear of the wyvern, partly from the way the spireling had just swung an axe at her, but mostly from surprise over being tackled. “I thought you said Ruuan was friendly.”

  “That’s not Ruuan,” Greg cried. “That’s not even a dragon.”

  Kristin stared wide-eyed into the sky. “It sure loo
ked like a dragon to me.”

  Greg decided nothing could be gained from pointing out that dragons were about thirty times as large.

  “He’s coming back around,” warned one of the spirelings. The fern poking through his chain mail helped identify him as Grunt.

  “Watch yourself,” Greg warned Kristin. He wished he had the magic sword Lucky carried with them the other times he’d traveled these woods. But no, here he was with only a walking stick for protection. Then the guards moved in to surround him and Kristin, and Greg felt safer, for he knew the warriors would die to protect them. The spirelings were very respectful of prophecies.

  The wyvern came in low on its second attack, barely clearing the trees with its enormous wings. So close, Greg could see blood dripping from its injured talon. For just an instant he felt sorry for the creature. Sure it wanted to tear Greg’s limbs off, but no doubt for a fair reason. To a wyvern they must have looked quite tasty.

  Again the wyvern was turned aside. More cautious of the spirelings’ blades now, it managed to pass unharmed. Greg was left with a mental image of the beast long after it disappeared through the trees. There was something familiar about its brilliant teal scales and iridescent streaks, and the gold ovals encircling its eyes.

  “I know that wyvern,” he said suddenly.

  “What?” said Kristin.

  “It’s the one that saved us at the base of the Smoky Mountains last month—the same one I saved on the ridge near the Infinite Spire a couple of weeks before that.”

  “You do get around, don’t you?”

  “Here it comes again,” Gnash announced.

  Greg jumped to his feet. “That’s him,” he cried out as the beast soared toward the campsite.

  With a blur of one hand, Grunt pulled him aside. Growl shifted his identifying evergreen branch so he could raise his axe above his head.

  “No!” Greg shouted, and dove into Growl. He would have expected a less jarring impact had he dove into a rock wall, but Growl’s toss was affected just the same. It missed the wyvern by no more than an inch. Greg and Growl were both lucky not to lose their heads.