The Woods Out Back

The meals were tasteless, the sun hot, the days long, and the nights empty.

Every day that went by deepened the feeling of solitude for Gary. He couldn't remember the last joke Mickey had cracked, or even the last time the leprechaun had spoken to him without first being asked a direct question. Even beyond their obvious dilemma, something seemed to be bothering Mickey. Gary could only think back to the first night after they had left Dvergamal, when he had seen Mickey making some secret deal with the pixie. Whatever it was, Mickey wasn't talking.

And Kelsey. When Gary had first met the golden-haired elf, in Leshiye's tree, he had looked upon Kelsey with awe, a sincere admiration that had only grown throughout their first few ordeals. But now Kelsey seemed quite an ordinary being to Gary, helpless and forlorn, accepting defeat. Kelsey sat and watched the water and the sky, sat and did nothing to facilitate their escape. Also, Gary couldn't forget, would never forget, the carefree manner in which Kelsey had killed Jacek, had killed a human being without the slightest hint of remorse.

Of all his companions over those next few days, Gary found that he actually preferred Geno's company. The gruff dwarf more often responded with spit than words to Gary's questions, and once Geno had even launched a hammer Gary's way (though Gary had seen enough of the dwarf's hammer-throwing proficiency to know that if Geno had really meant to hit him, he surely would have been smacked). But Geno, at least, was not complacent about their situation, not willing to surrender. Despite his feigned subservience to the witch a few days before, the dwarf promised that he would somehow find a way to pay Ceridwen back.

Gary didn't doubt him for a minute.

Finally one gray but uncomfortably hot day, Gary Leger had seen enough. "What's our plan?" he asked Kelsey, sitting in his usual position on the shore.

The elf looked up at him blankly. Gary noticed how pallid Kelsey appeared, and how thin and dirty. Kelsey had been barely eating enough to keep himself alive.

"What's our plan?" Gary asked again.

"Our plan for what?" Kelsey replied absently, going back to his distant stare.

"Our plan to get off of this island!" Gary retorted, more sharply than he had intended.

"Ye don't understand the nature of our enemy," Mickey, sitting to the side, put in. "Ceridwen's got us, lad. We'll no find a way through her tight clutches."

"That's it, then?" Gary balked. "You're all giving up? We're just going to sit here until we die?" Gary considered his own words for a moment, then remarked, even more pointedly, "Or should I say, until I die? You'll all live longer than me, right? So you can wait the hundred years..."

"I've no desire to sit here a hundred years, lad," Mickey offered halfheartedly.

"Nor do I!" Geno roared. The dwarf stood with his bowed legs wide apart, gnarly hands on his wide belt (which sported five more hammers now, taken from the grubby dwarf), and his blue-gray eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'll give it back to that witch!"

"Ah, save yer bluster," Mickey scolded. "Ye cannot do anything against the likes o' Ceridwen, and ye know it well enough."

"I won't accept that," Gary growled, and he poked a finger Kelsey's way. "You owe me!" he declared.

"I owe you nothing." The elf's tone showed more resignation than anger, and that, too, made Gary want to reach down and choke him.

"It was by your command that I was brought here," Gary fumed. "And by your deed," he added, snapping his accusing finger Mickey's way. "You both share the responsibility of taking cart of me, of getting me back safely to where I belong."

Kelsey came up in Gary's face, suddenly showing more fire in his golden eyes than he had in many days.

"Strike me down," Gary invited him, and he honestly wasn't sure that Kelsey wouldn't. "That's how you work, isn't it? Brave Kelsey," he spat sarcastically. "But brave only when he knows that he can defeat his foe."

"You are bound by the rules of cap - " Kelsey began, but Gary didn't want to hear that again.

"Save it," he snapped. "I am bound to you by nothing!"

"Calm ye, lad," Mickey said quietly, obviously stunned by Gary's outburst and fearing that Kelsey would surely kill him.

"You strike him down and the witch might let the rest of us go," Geno reasoned logically.

"You kidnapped me - that's all it can be called," Gary went on, ignoring the leprechaun's condescension and the dwarf's frightening logic. "You can put all the pretty names on it that you want, but you stole me from my world and from my home. So strike me now, Kelsenellene... whatever the hell your name is. Strike me down and compound your crime!"

Kelsey's golden eyes flashed, his jaw clenched tight, and his hand slipped slowly towards his sword hilt. But Gary had faced him down, for the elf did indeed feel responsible for their dilemma. Kelsey turned back to the lake and sat on the sand.

"I expected as much," Gary mumbled, and he walked away. Mickey was quick to catch up with him.

"Don't be too hard on the elf," the leprechaun explained when they were some distance away. "Ceridwen's given him a bitter pill."

"We have to fight back," Gary replied.

"If ye think it's that easy, then ye're reading too many of these books," Mickey said, patting Gary's pocket, which heldThe Hobbit. "Not all in Faerie's got such a happy ending; not all the dragons go belly-up to a well-aimed arrow."

"So we don't even try?" came Gary's sarcastic response.

Mickey had no answer.

"I'm taking the armor and my spear," Gary announced. "I've earned that much and you won't need it anyway."

"Ye going somewhere?" Now Mickey seemed truly concerned.

"Away from here," Gary answered. "Maybe Tommy will help me."

"Don't ye be bringing that giant around," Mickey warned. "Forget Kelsey and be worrying about Geno - dwarfs and giants don't get on well."

"Dwarfs don't get on well with anything," Gary reminded the leprechaun, and for the first time in many days they shared a smile.

Gary found the giant in the same lagoon, fishing contentedly, but using a pole this time instead of his monstrous hands.

"Catch anything?" Gary called, and Tommy's huge face lit up as soon as he noticed the man.

"Come and fish with me," the giant offered happily. Gary moved to the water's edge and almost hopped in - until he fortunately remembered the curse. He wondered why Ceridwen hadn't similarly cursed the giant. He couldn't imagine one as gentle as Tommy being a willing accomplice to the evil witch.

Gary moved down the rocks towards the beach, and met Tommy there, coming out of the water with an armful of fish.

"Tommy does better now," the giant announced. "Uses a sticky stick!"

"Sticky stick?" Gary echoed, examining the giant's fishing pole. It was thin and hollow, nearly eight feet long, and Gary understood Tommy's description when he saw that its end was covered in a gooey substance.

Tommy smiled and poked the stick down on a nearby rock. When the giant lifted the stick, the rock came up with it, firmly secured to the goo.

"Where did you find that?" Gary inquired, thinking that he might somehow find some use for the substance.

Tommy pointed down the beach to a thick patch of reeds and weeds on the far side of the lagoon. Gary immediately started around the beach and the giant followed. There were two main types of reeds: green ones filled with the sticky substance, and brown hollow ones, like the one Tommy was using to catch fish.

"Tommy will make one for you," the giant offered. "Then we can fish together."

Gary smiled and shook his head. "I can't go in the water," he explained.

"It is not cold."

Gary just smiled again and did not even try to explain.

They spent the rest of the day talking, with Tommy showing Gary all the secrets of the lagoon region he had come to claim as his home. Gary felt quite safe, even before Tommy assured him that no others would dare to come around and bother them.

The talkative giant came as a welcome distraction for Gary, and Gary as even more of one for lonely Tommy. Tommy eagerly told Gary everything he could remember about himself. He told of life as a giant in the world beyond the lake, of how both his parents had been hunted by scared farmers and killed. Tommy had escaped, after losing one of his thumbs, but had nowhere to go, for he was just a young giant at the time. Lost and alone, Tommy had stumbled upon Ceridwen, and she had taken him to the island, where she told him he would be safe.

At first, Gary didn't know what to make of the witch's uncharacteristic mercy, but when Tommy continued, recalling the first "soldiers" Ceridwen had asked him to fight beside, Gary came to understand that Tommy was merely meant to be another addition to the witch's slave collection.

"Then Ceridwen gave Tommy a new boss, a man named Jacek and a dwarf - smelly - named Gomer," Tommy continued, his big-featured face souring.

"Not nice people," the giant explained. "Jacek is mean. He hurts things."

"Not anymore," Gary assured him, confident that Tommy bore no friendship at all for the rogues. "He tried to hurt Kelsey, my elf friend, but Kelsey killed him in a sword fight."

Tommy considered the news for a long time, then decided that it was a good thing.

"Now you live all alone," Gary reasoned. "How long has it been?"

Tommy started counting on his nine fingers, but ran out of digits. "Ten years," he decided, though his face crinkled in confusion. "No, twenty." He shrugged helplessly. "Long time."

"Don't you get bored?"

Again the giant only shrugged.

"Then why have you stayed?" Gary asked. "There must be other giants like you out in the mountains beyond the lake."

The giant thought that a ridiculous question. "Tommy can't swim," he explained. "And no boats are big enough for Tommy."

"How convenient for dear Ceridwen," Gary muttered under his breath. Tommy didn't hear him. The giant looked around, as though expecting someone to be eavesdropping, then he put his face right up to Gary's.

"Tommy walked off island once," he whispered, as much as a giant can whisper. "Water go over Tommy's head, but Tommy jumped up real high and breathed, jump up and breathe."

"You made it all the way?" Now Gary was starting to get some ideas.

The giant looked over his shoulder again, then turned back, his grin from ear to ear. "Yes!" he replied. "But Tommy came right back - did not want to make the Lady mad!"

"Of course not," Gary readily agreed, but what the young man was thinking at that time would certainly not have pleased Ceridwen.

Gary slept in Tommy's cave that night, or at least he stayed there, for he hardly closed his eyes. He had learned quite a few things in his single day with Tommy One-Thumb, and he believed in his heart that he could somehow turn that knowledge into escape. When he had heard of Tommy's lake crossing, he had almost asked the giant to pick him up and carry him over. But that wouldn't work. Even if he could get Tommy to agree, which he doubted, the giant's descriptions of jumping "real high" just to get his head above the water didn't bode well for passengers, not when splashes from the lake would burn Gary's skin away!

But the answer was before him, Gary knew. Like pieces of a puzzle, just waiting to be put into proper order.

Gary finally fell asleep, long into the night, with those thoughts in mind.

When he opened his eyes, he found not Tommy, but Ceridwen, waiting for him. Gary's first thought was that the witch had somehow read his mind and that he was about to be turned into a rabbit or some other benign little creature. He realized a moment later, though, that the witch was as surprised to see him as he was to see her. She called to Tommy, who came bouncing back in the cave entrance.

"What is he doing here?" Ceridwen asked the giant sharply.

"I came to visit Tommy," Gary answered before Tommy could blurt anything out. "I've never known a giant before - I was curious."

Ceridwen thought it over, then flashed her disarming smile Gary's way. "It is good that you have made a new friend," she said, that same throaty voice she had tried on Kelsey a few days earlier. "You will be here for a long time - all of your life, in fact. You may as well enjoy your stay."

Gary didn't like the subtle inferences of that last statement, especially not with Ceridwen standing so very close to him. His disdain for her apparently showed in his face, for the witch's expression went from smile to scowl and she pointedly turned away from Gary.

"There is a wall to be fixed at the castle," she mentioned to Tommy. "See to it."

"Tommy will fix it," the giant assured her.

"And get the dwarf," Ceridwen said after a moment. "Let him help you. I want to see if Geno Hammerthrower lives up to his considerable reputation before I give him any of the more important tasks I have in mind."

Tommy started to object, not wanting anything to do with fiery Geno, but Gary motioned for the giant to remain silent. Ceridwen saw the confusion on the giant's face and guessed easily enough that Gary, standing behind her, was the cause.

"Good," she purred, turning back to Gary. "You play the role of ambassador, and make things easier for everyone."

"I do what I can," Gary said evenly.

"A long time," Ceridwen reminded him in her throaty voice, her perfect, lush lips curling up in a lascivious smile. She let her gaze linger on the sturdy young man for a long while, then turned back on Tommy. "I will be away for a few days. I expect that wall to be repaired by the time I return.

"And when I return," she continued, looking coyly over her shoulder at Gary, "perhaps you and I can become better friends."

An old saying about snowballs and hell crossed Gary's mind, but he wisely held his thoughts silent. Again he worried that the witch could read his mind, but then she was gone, in the blink of an eye, a large raven soaring out over the smooth lake.

It took some convincing, but Gary finally had Tommy willing to go with him to get Geno. The giant really didn't want to face the volatile dwarf, or the surly elf, again, but Tommy, desperately in need of some companionship, had already come to trust in Gary, and Gary promised him that nothing bad would happen.

Gary almost wished he hadn't made that promise when they came in sight of the camp, for the first things he and Tommy noticed were Kelsey, bow in hand, and Geno, juggling his hammers and eyeing Tommy with open hatred.

"You'd better wait here," Gary offered, and Tommy didn't have to be asked twice. Even though Gary went the rest of the way alone, Kelsey did not lower his drawn bow.

"Ceridwen wants Geno to go and help the giant fix a wall," Gary explained as he came into the camp.

Geno snorted and spat. "Cold day in a dwarf's forge," he muttered.

Gary blinked and paused a moment to consider the similarities of that curious phrase to one he had been thinking of earlier. He wondered how many sayings from his world had variations in Faerie. How many sayings in his world had actually come from Faerie, and were just adapted to make better sense in his world?

"I think you should go," Gary said at length, reminding himself not to get sidetracked. Mickey moved up, suspicious of Gary's smug tone, and Kelsey finally lowered his bow.

"In fact," Gary continued, "I think that we should all go."

"To the castle?" Mickey asked incredulously.

"That's where Cedric's spear is located," Gary replied, as though the answer should have been obvious. "We wouldn't want to leave Ynis Gwydrin without Cedric's spear."

"What're ye talking about?" Now Mickey's tone was more curious than incredulous.

"If you know of something, then speak it clearly," Kelsey demanded. "What riddles do you offer?"

"I know a way that we can get off the island," Gary said bluntly.

Even Geno moved up then, to better hear. All three - dwarf, leprechaun, and elf - looked to each other and to Gary, waiting impatiently for the young man to elaborate.

"I haven't worked out all the details," Gary said, not wanting to reveal his as yet uncompleted scheme. "But I can get us out of here - I'm sure of it."

Mickey seemed intrigued, but Kelsey and Geno frowned and turned away.

"Cold day in a dwarf's forge," Gary heard Geno say again. Gary growled and rushed around them, cutting off their retreat.

"Do either of you have a better idea?" he demanded angrily. "Have you thought of something wonderful during the hours you have wasted staring at the water?"

Knowing the Tylwyth Teg better than anyone who wasn't of the Tylwyth Teg, Mickey cringed at Gary's bold sarcasm. But Kelsey didn't retaliate, physically or verbally. Both he and Geno stood staring at Gary, neither of them blinking.

"I can get us out of here," Gary said evenly.

Kelsey looked to Geno, who just shrugged.

"We'll go to the castle," the elf agreed.

"And if we manage to steal back the spear," Mickey put in, "and then we don't get off the island, who's going to face Ceridwen?"

"It's my plan," Gary offered.

"I will claim responsibility," Kelsey declared suddenly. "What can she do to me that would be worse than exile on this forsaken island?"

Mickey looked at the elf in blank amazement. "Ye always were a hard one to figure," the leprechaun commented.

For the first time in many days, Kelsey flashed one of his rare smiles. "I am of the Tylwyth Teg," he explained to Mickey. "Am I not expected to be difficult?"

"I always expected that out o' ye," Mickey readily agreed.