The Giant-Slayer Read online

  An owl hooted nearby. Something swooped past Jimmy’s head with a rush of air.

  “There’s a dead man for every mile of forest.” “Trolls lie by the road and grab your ankles.” “Burned him alive, the poor devil.”

  Jimmy ran. He scampered along the road with his little bag thumping against him. But in the darkness he blundered into the bushes. He screamed, thinking that the many heads of a hydra had taken hold of him. In the dark, he wrestled with the bush. Twigs lashed at his face, as though trying to pluck out his eyes. Thorns stuck into his skin like teeth. Jimmy kicked and punched; he tore away fistfuls of leaves.

  When he realized that it was only a bush that had him, Jimmy let himself fall to the ground. Snared in the branches, frightened and lonely, he shivered and waited for dawn.

  At first light he untangled himself and went along on his way.

  His little feet made little tracks along the Great North Road. The woods that had terrified him in the night seemed quite pleasant in the daytime. Squirrels chattered from tree branches. Small lizards, green and orange, crouched on rocks at the roadside, blinking as he passed.

  At noon, Jimmy rounded a bend and saw a sight that he knew very well from the tales of the travelers. So many had spoken of it that seemed familiar right away. It was an enormous tree fallen right across the road, its trunk so massive that a tunnel had been chopped right through it.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Dickie. “Boy, that was a big old tree.”

  Chip frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

  “’Cause we never heard of it,” said Carolyn. “It was never in the story, you stupe.”

  “I know that,” said Dickie. “I remember from my dream.”

  The tunnel tree was a landmark on the Great North Road. The hole through its trunk was wide enough to fit a double team of oxen, high enough that a knight could ride through it on horseback. The sides had been smoothed by adzes, then covered with strange symbols and messages in many languages. Some were painted with charcoal, others with vermilion, but many had been carved into the wood with knives.

  “Don’t forget the coins,” said Dickie.

  “What coins?” said Laurie.

  “All over the tunnel,” he said. “Travelers nailed coins to the wood on their way north. They used those silver ones, those Aggies, they called them.”

  “Why was that?” asked Laurie, prodding him on. She always liked it when Dickie added to her stories. Just like old times. “What was special about Aggies?”

  “They had holes in the middle,” said Dickie. “Aggies were easy to nail to the wood.”

  “But why would they nail them there?” said Chip.

  “In case they came back poor. At least they’d have something,” said Dickie. He was smiling, as though at an old memory. “But boy, most of ’em never came back.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right,” said Laurie. She said now that there were so many coins in that hollowed tree that they covered the wood like stucco.

  As though he’d been given the eyes of an eagle, Jimmy could look down on the whole world and see exactly where he was. The tales of the travelers had put a map in his mind, a picture of the land. He could see how far he had come from the inn, and how very much farther he had to go.

  He passed through the tunnel and went on to the north. On either side of the road were trees as big as the one that had fallen, with buttressed roots that made them look like churches. He tried to see their tops, but it only made him dizzy.

  Toward evening, as the shadows deepened, Jimmy began to worry about the night. Long before darkness fell, he was scouting for a place to sleep. He saw comfortable hollows and little round wallows but passed them by, remembering the advice of travelers: “Never sleep where something’s slept before; you never know what creature made the bed.” “You want to be safe, get off the ground.”

  But the trees were too big for Jimmy to climb. So he kept walking, and his worry mounted. The wolves began to howl and sing, and a manticore roared in the distance. The shadows deepened around him as the night settled over the forest. When Jimmy saw a light ahead, a small fire at the roadside, his heart lifted at the thought of company. He imagined that he would surely know the traveler.

  Soon the fire was the only thing that Jimmy could see, and he groped his way toward it. Then a figure appeared in the light of the flames. It looked like a bear at first, and it gave Jimmy a terrible fright until he realized it was only a man wrapped in a bearskin. He thought what a laugh the fellow would have when he told him that.

  Jimmy was at the very edge of the firelight before he remembered the words of a minstrel: The woods is full of murderers. What if he had stumbled on a cutthroat? A garrotter? A butcher or strangler?

  Across the fire, the man turned toward him. He stared through the flames, then shifted his head from side to side. Blinded by his own fire, he called out, “Who’s there?”

  Jimmy didn’t answer right away. The man bent down and snatched a burning stick from the fire. He held it up like a torch and advanced toward Jimmy.

  Too frightened to move, Jimmy just stood there. The man came out of the flames, still in his bearskin, holding the stick as far out as he could reach. It made a red glow along the road and in the bushes at its sides. The light swept over ruts, over branches, and fell onto Jimmy the giant-slayer.

  The man screamed. He dropped his stick and shrieked the old expression that Jimmy had learned as a child. “Gnome, gnome, leave me alone!”

  Jimmy looked back, amazed. The man, all a-tremble, made a sign with his fingers, a shaky little diamond. “Gnome, gnome, leave me alone,” he cried again.

  “I’m not a gnome,” said Jimmy.

  The man pulled his bearskin tighter. He took a step backward. “You have the look of one.”

  “But I’m not. Cross my heart,” said Jimmy.

  “Stand in the light,” said the man. “Let me see your face.”

  On the road lay the smoldering branch, invisible in the darkness except for the glow at its tip. Jimmy picked it up and swished it round to bring the embers into flames. He held it so the light flickered on his skin.

  “Why, you’re merely a boy,” said the man. “Diminutive, but human.”

  “I live at the end of the road. At the Dragon’s Tooth,” said Jimmy. He lowered the branch, because the light was stinging his eyes. “Yesterday I ran away. I’m trying to reach the swamp.”

  “But it’s bottomless.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have to find the witch,” said Jimmy. “She lives in the mud, with the lizards and alligators. She’s old and she’s ugly, and she smells like cabbage weed. She’s half woman, half frog, and—”

  “Yes, I have heard of the witch. I believe her name is Jessamine.”

  James Miner laughed on his treatment board. Then Chip laughed too, though not as brightly.

  “Very funny,” said Carolyn. Her voice sounded cold as ice. “You think you’re so clever.”

  “What’s bugging you now?” asked Laurie.

  “Like you don’t know,” said Carolyn.

  “I don’t know.” Laurie was getting angry, annoyed by the girl in the iron lung. “I thought you didn’t care about the story. You said—”

  James interrupted. “That’s her middle name.”

  “Jessamine?”

  “Yes.” He nodded on his treatment board. “Carolyn Jessamine Jewels.”

  The girl lay perfectly still. Her long hair was unbraided, and it spread across the pillow like a halo round her face. She looked up at her mirror, out through the window.

  Laurie asked, “How would I know your middle name?”

  “Gee, I wonder,” said Carolyn. “It’s only right in front of you.” She gestured with her chin toward the medical records held in the frame of the mirror. “You probably heard about frog-breathing. So you made me half frog. You made me ugly and mean.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking of you. It’s a flower,” said Laurie. “That’s where I got it. Jessamine grows in swamps.
”

  “Wow. News flash,” said Carolyn. “I know that, four-eyes.”

  Laurie squeezed her fingers into fists. She felt like screaming, but kept her voice quiet. “I thought it was a pretty name, that’s all.”

  In his iron lung, Dickie was watching. “An ugly witch with a pretty name?”

  “Why not?” said Laurie. “She’s old and ugly and mean, but once she was a girl with a mom who loved her, who gave her a pretty name.”

  “Boy, that’s kinda neat,” said Dickie.

  “It wasn’t even my mom who named me,” said Carolyn. “It was my dad.”

  “Who cares?” said Chip. “Let’s just hear the story.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  THE LAST WORDS OF SMOKY JACK

  The traveler roasted a rabbit and shared it with Jimmy. Then he held a hand in front of his mouth and, behind it, picked his teeth.

  “You sure you don’t have any gnome in you, boy?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” said Jimmy. “I told you, I just never grew big.”

  “Huh.” The man spat a scrap of meat into the flames, then went back to his picking. “It’s a striking resemblance. You could pass for a gnome anywhere.”

  Jimmy shrugged.

  The man picked and chewed and spat.

  Somewhere in the woods, an animal shrieked. Branches rustled nearby.

  “You say you grew up in the Dragon’s Tooth, boy?” asked the man.

  “Yes, sir,” said Jimmy.

  “Been past it a hundred times. Never been inside. Don’t believe in paying for a bed.” He hooked his finger round to the back of his mouth. “Most Tellsmen feel the same. Not that we’re poor; we’re just frugal.”

  “What are Tellsmen?” asked Jimmy.

  “Put simply, we make tells. We’re charmers, boy.”

  An owl hooted among the trees. A wolf howled, and another answered.

  “What’s a tell?” asked Jimmy. He would rather talk than listen to the sounds of the forest.

  “Anything with magic in it, boy. We manufacture charms, is what we do.”

  “What kind of charms?” asked Jimmy.

  “Any kind at all. Charms for good luck, charms for bad. Charms that would make you as noble as a king, or as a happy as a jester. That’s what I like the most about the profession, boy. It’s always different. Can never tell from day to day what sort of charm you’ll be crafting next.”

  “Could you craft me one that would make me bigger?” asked Jimmy.

  “Sorry, boy, there’s not a chance.”

  “Why not?” asked Jimmy.

  “A Tellsman’s charms work within the mind. Only Wishmen deal with tangibles.”

  Disappointed, Jimmy sat back in silence. But the darkness and the sounds of the night pressed around him. He put his hand to his neck, feeling the string. “If I showed you a charm, could you tell me what it does?” he asked.

  “I’d give it a darned good try,” said the Tellsman.

  Jimmy pulled out the ball of bones. The dragon claw rattled inside. “It’s supposed to keep me safe,” he said. “I don’t know how it works.”

  The hollow sphere swung from Jimmy’s hand. As the firelight caught the edges of the bones, it made strange patterns of black and white.

  “Who gave you that?” asked the Tellsman.

  “Khan. The hunter.”

  “Would you care to part with it?”

  “No, sir,” said Jimmy. “It’s going to help me, I think.” He let the charm turn on its string. “What does it do?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t make it,” said the Tellsman. He spat into the fire and sat brooding for a while. Then suddenly he laughed. “I’ve known at least a thousand men. Perhaps ten thousand more. The smallest of them all would be five times as big as you. But did even one of all those men go up the Great North Road with just a single charm, and not an inkling of its purpose? Jimmy, you dwarf them all.”

  He got up then, and moved to the edge of the firelight. In the shadows he had a square barrow on wooden wheels. It unfolded to become a workbench, with a grindstone in the middle, a treadle underneath. There were cubbyholes and narrow drawers that, one by one, the Tellsman sorted through.

  Jimmy watched from his place as the man brought out charms and amulets of all sizes. Some were new and shiny, others chipped or broken, brown with dirt and rust.

  “Here’s the very thing.” The man held up a tarnished bracelet, thin as a blade of grass, with a tiny disc of oyster shell suspended by a ring. “I’ll throw a shine on it for you,” he said and spat twice on his grindstone. He gave the stone a push to get it going, then pumped away on the treadle. The barrow rocked and shook. When the man touched the bracelet to the stone, sparks flew away in a blizzard.

  Jimmy liked the rumbling sound of the wheel and the sizzle and whirr that came from the metal. In the darkness the sparks made a spray like fiery water.

  The bracelet was still hot when the Tellsman gave it to Jimmy, as though the spirit of the sparks had passed into the metal. Jimmy slipped it over his wrist and watched the bit of shell turn and shimmer in the firelight.

  “What does it do?” he asked.

  “I’m not exactly sure, as I’ve forgotten how I came upon it,” said the Tellsman. “Oh, of course it has something to do with water. The piece of shell attests to that. And the thinness of the metal suggests the effect is temporary. It’s bound to help in a swamp, but I wouldn’t trust it in the sea.”

  “Well, thank you,” said Jimmy.

  He fell asleep with the bracelet on his arm, a smile on his face. He thought that he was well on his way already, and that the kindness of travelers would see him through to the end. Happy and contented, Jimmy slept so well that he didn’t stir until late in the morning. When he woke, the Tellsman was gone, the fire was out, the barrow hauled away.

  Jimmy was sorry that he wouldn’t have a chance to thank the man—until he sat up and looked properly around.

  His pockets had been turned inside out. His bag had been torn open, its few sad contents strewn right across the Great North Road. Frantically, he reached for the string around his neck.

  Jimmy found with relief that he still had his charm, his ball of bones. But it dangled now against his shirt, as though the Tellsman had tried—but failed—to pull it away. He tucked it back into place and crawled in the dust to collect his things. He found his socks, his shirts, and his underwear, but not the locket that had been his mother’s.

  At first, Jimmy felt more disappointed than ever. He wanted to give up right then and go home to Fingal. But at the edge of the old fire, he found a leg of the rabbit placed politely on a flat stone that had been cleared of dirt. And beside the stone was a message. It was scraped into the ashes:

  Has lightning inside.

  Jimmy ate the rabbit leg for breakfast as he stared at the writing. What did it mean? he wondered: Has lightning inside? He poked the ground gingerly but found it cold.

  From the edge of the woods he took a stick, and with that he dug through the ashes and the bits of black charcoal, half believing that he might find lightning down in the ground. But when he didn’t, he wasn’t surprised. Then, puzzled, he tossed his bundle onto his shoulder and walked north up the road, tapping the stick before him.

  He tapped all morning. He tapped into the afternoon, over a hill and into a valley, past Unicorn Rock with its white spire thrusting straight in the air. He knew it at once, though he had never seen it before. Toward evening he came to a field of flat brown stones, each as perfect as a brick. “Ah, the Devil’s Courtyard,” he said aloud, as though he’d passed it a hundred times.

  Again he saw the world as if through eagle’s eyes. A few miles ahead, the road would fork. The better path would lead to the east, around a small lake with red water, where Gypsies liked to camp. The other fork would go on to the north, but soon it would dwindle into a narrow trail, then disappear altogether. That was the way to the swamp.

  There was only an hour of daylight
left when Jimmy reached the fork. He thought he should press on for as long as he could. But the music of Gypsies was coming faintly from the east, and he believed he’d be welcome there. So he trudged round the lake, still tapping his stick, and it was the Gypsy King himself who came out of the camp to meet him. The King flung his arms wide open. “My boy!” he cried.

  Jimmy had met the Gypsy King only once, years before, when a long train of caravans had stopped outside the inn. It was the King who had knocked on the door, asking for water for his horses. Fingal had said that no Gypsy horse would ever drink from his well. But Jimmy, in secret, had carried bucket after bucket, until the horses were sated. The King had said then that he would never forget Jimmy’s kindness. And now his teeth flashed with gold fillings as he grinned at the boy. “You long way from home, Jimmy. You come eat now. Come eat,” he said.

  There were thirty Gypsies, in seven caravans, camped beside the red lake. They treated Jimmy like one of their own, making sure that he had food and water and a place to sit before they let him say a word. Then, when he was ready, they peppered him with questions: Where was he heading? Why was he going? Was something wrong with Fingal? Jimmy told them about the tax man and the terrible things his father had said.

  “I’m going to the swamp,” he told them. “Bottomless or not, I don’t care; I’ll swim if I have to,” he said. “My mother went in there, and so will I. I have to speak to the Swamp Witch.”

  A hush fell over the Gypsies. They looked away from Jimmy, down at the ground or off across the water that was now as dark as blood. Far out on the lake, a loon whistled crazily.

  The Gypsy King said, “We never speak of the Swamp Witch.”

  “Why not?” asked little Jimmy.

  The King made a sweeping motion with his arm. His clothes were black, and in the gathering night he looked like a bird taking wing. “She’s a devil woman. It was a witch who stole my heart, and all witches are the same,” said the Gypsy King. “When the moon is dark the Swamp Witch comes close to the camp. The dogs, they smell her.”