The Wee Free Men d(-2 Read online

  That seemed to work. The Nac Mac Feegle liked clear goals. Hundreds of swords and battleaxes, and one bunch of battered flowers in the case of Daft Wullie, were thrust into the air and the war cry of the Nac Mac Feegle echoed around the chamber. The period of time it takes a pictsie to go from normal to mad fighting mood is so tiny it can’t be measured on the smallest clock.

  Unfortunately, since the pictsies were very individualistic, each one had his own cry and Tiffany could only make out a few over the din:

  ‘They can tak’ oour lives but they cannae tak’ oour troousers!’

  ‘Bang went saxpence!’

  ‘Ye’ll tak’ the high road an’ I’ll tak’yer wallet!’

  ‘There can only be one t’ousand!’

  ‘Ach, stick it up yer trakkans!’

  …but the voices gradually came together in one roar that shook the walls:

  ‘Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willnae be fooled again!’

  This died away, a cloud of dust dropped from the roof, and there was silence.

  ‘Let’s gae!’ cried Rob Anybody.

  As one Feegle, the pictsies swarmed down the galleries and across the floor and up the slope to the hole. In a few seconds the chamber was empty, except for the gonnagle and Fion.

  ‘Where have they gone?’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Ach, they just go,’ said Fion, shrugging. ‘I’m going tae stay here and look after the fire. Someone ought to act like a proper kelda.’ She glared at Tiffany.

  ‘I do hope you find a clan for yourself soon, Fion,’ said Tiffany, sweetly. The pictsie scowled at her.

  ‘They’ll run arroound for a while, mebbe stun a few bunnies and fall over a few times,’ said William. ‘They’ll slow down when they find oout they don’t ken what they’re supposed to do yet.’

  ‘Do they always just run off like this?’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Ach, well, Rob Anybody disnae want too much talk about marryin’,’ said William, grinning.

  ‘Yes, we have a lot in common in that respect,’ said Tiffany.

  She pulled herself out of the hole, and found the toad waiting for her.

  ‘I listened in,’ it said. ‘Well done. Very clever. Very diplomatic.’

  Tiffany looked around. There were a few hours to sunset, but the shadows were already lengthening.

  ‘We’d better be going,’ she said, tying on her apron. ‘And you’re coming, toad.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know much about how to get into—’ the toad began, trying to back away. But toads can’t back up easily, and Tiffany grabbed it and put it in her apron pocket.

  She headed for the mounds and stones. My brother will never grow up, she thought, as she ran across the turf. That’s what the old lady said. How does that work? What kind of a place is it where you never grow up?

  The mounds got nearer. She saw William and Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock running along beside her, but there was no sign of the rest of the Nac Mac Feegle.

  And then she was among the mounds. Her sisters had told her that there were more dead kings buried under there, but it had never frightened her. Nothing on the downs had ever frightened her.

  But it was cold here. She’d never noticed that before.

  Find a place where the time doesn’t fit. Well, the mounds were history. So were the old stones. Did they fit here? Well, yes, they belonged to the past, but they’d ridden on the hills for thousands of years. They’d grown old here. They were part of the landscape.

  The low sun made the shadows lengthen. That was when the Chalk revealed its secrets. At some places, when the light was right, you could see the edges of old fields and tracks. The shadows showed up what brilliant noonlight couldn’t see.

  Tiffany had made up ‘noonlight’.

  She couldn’t even see hoofprints. She wandered around the trilithons, which looked a bit like huge stone doorways, but even when she tried walking through them both ways nothing happened.

  This wasn’t according to plan. There should have been a magic door. She was sure of that.

  A bubbling feeling in her ear suggested that someone was playing the mousepipes. She looked around, and saw William the gonnagle standing on a fallen stone. His cheeks were bulging and so was the bag of the mousepipes.

  She waved at him. ‘Can you see anything?’ she called.

  William took the pipe out of his mouth and the bubbling stopped. ‘Oh, aye,’ he said.

  ‘The way to the Queen’s land?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘Well, would you care to tell me?’

  ‘I dinnae need to tell a kelda,’ said William. ‘A kelda would see the clear way hersel’.’

  ‘But you could tell me!’

  ‘Aye, and you coulda said “please”,’ said William. ‘I’m ninety-six years old. I’m nae a dolly in yer dolly hoose. Yer granny was a fiiine wuman, but I’ll no’ be ordered about by a wee chit of a girl.’

  Tiffany stared for a moment and then lifted the toad out of her apron pocket.

  ‘Chit?’ she said.

  ‘It means something very small,’ said the toad. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘He’s calling me small—!’

  ‘I’m biggerrr on the inside!’ said William. ‘And I dare say your da’ wouldnae be happy if a big giant of a wee girl came stampin’ aroound ordering him aboout!’

  ‘The old kelda ordered people about!’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Aye! Because she’d earned rrrespect!’ The gonnagle’s voice seemed to echo around the stones.

  ‘Please, I don’t know what to do!’ wailed Tiffany.

  William stared at her. ‘Ach, weel, yer no’ doin’ too badly so far,’ he said, in a nicer tone of voice. ‘Ye got Rob Anybody out of marryin’ ye wi’oout breakin’ the rules, and ye’re a game lass, I’ll gi’ ye that. Ye’ll find the way if ye tak’ yer time. Just don’t stamp yer foot and expect the world to do yer biddin’. All ye’re doing is shoutin’ for sweeties, yer ken. Use yer eyes. Use yer heid.’

  He put the pipe back in his mouth, puffed his cheeks until the skin bag was full, and made Tiffany’s ears bubble again.

  ‘What about you, toad?’ said Tiffany, looking into the apron pocket.

  ‘You’re on your own, I’m afraid,’ said the toad. ‘Whoever I used to be, I didn’t know much about finding invisible doors. And I resent being press-ganged, too, I may say.’

  ‘But… I don’t know what to do! Is there a magic word I should say?’

  ‘I don’t know, is there a magic word you should say?’ said the toad, and turned over.

  Tiffany was aware that the Nac Mac Feegle were turning up. They had a nasty habit of being really quiet when they wanted to.

  Oh, no, she thought. They think I know what to do! This isn’t fair! I’ve not got any training for this. I haven’t been to the witch school! I can’t even find that! The opening must be somewhere around here and there must be dues but I don’t know what they are!

  They’re watching me to see if I’m any good. And I’m good at cheese, and that’s all. But a witch Deals With Things…

  She put the toad back in her pocket and felt the weight of the book Diseases of the Sheep.

  When she pulled it out, she heard a sigh go up from the assembled pictsies.

  They think words are magical…

  She opened the book at random, and frowned.

  ‘Cloggets,’ she said aloud. Around her, the pictsies nodded their heads and nudged one another.

  ‘Cloggets are a trembling of the greebs in hoggets,’ she read, ‘which can lead to inflammation of the lower pasks. If untreated, it may lead to the more serious condition of Sloke. Recommended treatment is daily dosing with turpentine until there is no longer either any trembling, or turpentine, or sheep.’

  She risked looking up. Feegles were watching her from every stone and mound. They looked impressed.

  However, the words in Diseases of the Sheep cut no ice with magic doorways.

  ‘Scrabbity
,’ read Tiffany. There was a ripple of anticipation.

  ‘Scrabbity is a flaky skin condition, particularly around the lollets. Turpentine is a useful remedy—’

  And then she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the teddy bear.

  It was very small, and the kind of red you don’t quite get in nature. Tiffany knew what it was. Wentworth loved the teddy-bear sweets. They tasted like glue mixed with sugar and were made of 100% Artificial Additives.

  ‘Ah,’ she said aloud. ‘My brother was certainly brought here.’

  This caused a stir.

  She walked forward, reading aloud about Garget of the Nostrils and the Staggers but keeping an eye on the ground. And there was another teddy-bear sweet, green this time and quite hard to see against the turf.

  O-K, Tiffany thought.

  There was one of the three-stone arches a little way away; two big stones with another one laid across the top of them. She’d walked through it before, and nothing had happened,

  But nothing should happen, she thought. You can’t leave a doorway into your world that anyone can walk through, otherwise people would wander in and out by accident. You’d have to know it was there.

  Perhaps that’s the only way it would work.

  Fine. Then I’ll believe that this is the entrance.

  She stepped through, and saw an astonishing sight: green grass, blue sky becoming pink around the setting sun, a few little white clouds late for bed, and a general warm, honey-coloured look to everything. It was amazing that there could be a sight like this. The fact that Tiffany had seen it nearly every day of her life didn’t make it any less fantastic. As a bonus, you didn’t even have to look through any kind of stone arch to see it. You could see it by standing practically anywhere.

  Except…

  …something was wrong. Tiffany walked through the arch several times, and still wasn’t quite sure. She held up a hand at arm’s length, trying to measure the sun’s height against the horizon.

  And then she saw the bird. It was a swallow, hunting flies, and a swoop took it behind the stones.

  The effect was… odd, and almost upsetting. It passed behind the stone and she felt her eyes move to follow the swoop… but it was late. There was a moment when the swallow should have appeared, and it didn’t.

  Then it passed across the gap and for a moment was on both sides of the other stone at the same time.

  Seeing it made Tiffany feel that her eyeballs had been pulled out and turned round.

  Look for a place where the time doesn’t fit…

  ‘The world seen through that gap is at least one second behind the time here,’ she said, trying to sound as certain as possible. ‘I thi—I know this is the entrance.’

  There was some whooping and clapping from the Nac Mac Feegles, and they surged across the turf towards her.

  ‘That was great, al’ that reading’ ye did!’ said Rob Anybody. I didnae understand a single word o’ it!’

  ‘Aye, it must be powerful language if you cannae make oout what the heel it’s goin’ on aboot!’ said another pictsie.

  ‘Ye definitely ha’ got the makin’s of a kelda, mistress,’ said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.

  ‘Aye!’ said Daft Wullie. ‘It was smashin’ the way you spotted them sweeties and didnae let on! We didnae think you’d see the wee green one, too!’

  The rest of the pictsies stopped cheering and glared at him.

  ‘What did I say? What did I say?’ he said. Tiffany sagged. ‘You all knew that was the way through, didn’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘We ken that kind of stuff. We used tae live in the Quin’s country, ye ken, but we rebelled against her evil rule—’

  ‘An’ we did that, an’ then she threw us oout on account o’ bein’ drunk an’ stealin’ and fightin’ al’ the time,’ said Daft Wullie.

  ‘It wasnae like that at all’ roared Rob Anybody. ‘And you were waiting to see if I could find the way, right?’ said Tiffany, before a fight could start. ‘Aye. Ye did well, lassie.’

  Tiffany shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I didn’t do any real magic. I don’t know how. I just looked at things and worked them out. It was cheating, really.’

  The pictsies looked at one another. ‘Ah, weel,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘What’s magic, eh? Just wavin’ a stick an’ sayin’ a few wee magical words. An’ what’s so clever aboot that, eh? But lookin’ at things, really lookin’ at ‘em, and then workin’ ‘em oout, now, that’s a real skill.’

  ‘Aye, it is,’ said William the gonnagle, to Tiffany’s surprise. ‘Ye used yer eyes and used yer heid. That’s what a real hag does. The magicking is just there for advertisin’.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tiffany, cheering up. ‘Really? Well, then… there’s our door, everyone!’

  ‘Right,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘Now show us the way through.’

  Tiffany hesitated and then thought: I can feel myself thinking. I’m watching the way I’m thinking. And what am I thinking? I’m thinking: I walked through this arch before, and nothing happened.

  But I wasn’t looking then. I wasn’t thinking, either. Not properly.

  The world I can see through the arch isn’t actually real. It just looks as though it is. It’s a sort of… magical picture, put there to disguise the entrance. And if you don’t pay attention, well, you just walk in and out of it and you don’t realize it.

  Aha…

  She walked through the arch. Nothing happened. The Nac Mac Feegles watched her solemnly.

  O-K, she thought. I’m still being fooled, aren’t I…?

  She stood in front of the stones, and stretched out her hand on either side of her, and shut her eyes. Very slowly she stepped forward…

  Something crunched under her boots, but she didn’t open her eyes until she couldn’t feel the stones any more. When she did open them…

  …it was a black and white landscape.

  Chapter 8

  Land Of Winter

  ‘Aye, she’s got First Sight, sure enough,’ said William’s voice behind Tiffany as she stared into the world of the Queen. ‘She’s seein’ what’s really there.

  Snow stretched away under a sky so dirty white that Tiffany might have been standing inside a ping-pong ball. Only black trunks and scribbly branches of the trees, here and there, told her where the land stopped and the sky began…

  …those, and of course, the hoofprints. They stretched away towards a forest of black trees, boughed with snow.

  The cold was like little needles all over her skin.

  She looked down, and saw the Nac Mac Feegles pouring through the gate, waist deep in the snow. They spread out, without speaking. Some of them had drawn their swords.

  They weren’t laughing and joking now. They were watchful.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘Well done. You wait here for us and we’ll get your wee brother back, nae problemo—’

  ‘I’m coming too!’ snapped Tiffany.

  ‘Nay, the kelda disnae—’

  ‘This one dis!’ said Tiffany, shivering. ‘I mean does! He’s my brother. And where are we?’

  Rob Anybody glanced up at the pale sky. There was no sun anywhere. ‘Ye’re here noo,’ he said, ‘so mebbe there’s nae harm in tellin’ ye. This is what ye call Fairyland.’

  ‘Fairyland? No, it’s not! I’ve seen pictures! Fairyland is… is all trees and flowers and sunshine and, and tinklyness! Dumpy little babies in romper suits with horns! People with wings! Er… and weird people! I’ve seen pictures!’

  ‘It isnae always like this,’ said Rob Anybody, shortly. ‘An’ ye cannae come wi’ us because ye ha’ nae weapon, mistress.’

  ‘What happened to my frying pan?’ said Tiffany.

  Something bumped against her heels. She looked around and saw Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock hold up the pan triumphantly.

  ‘OK, ye have the pan,’ said Rob Anybody, ‘but what ye need
here is a sword of thunderbolt iron. That’s like the, you know, official weapon for invadin’ Fairyland.’

  ‘I know how to use the use the pan,’ said Tiffany. ‘And I’m—’

  ‘Incomin’!’ yelled Daft Wullie.

  Tiffany saw a line of black dots in the distance, and felt someone climb up her back and stand on her head.

  ‘It’s the black dogs,’ Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock announced. ‘Dozens o’ ‘em, big man.’

  ‘We’ll never outrun the dogs!’ Tiffany cried, grabbing her pan.

  ‘Dinnae need to,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘We got the gonnagle wi’ us this time. Ye might like to stick yer fingers in yer ears, though.’

  William, with his eyes fixed on the approaching pack, was unscrewing some of the pipes from the mousepipes and putting them in a bag he carried hanging from his shoulder.

  The dogs were much closer now. Tiffany could see the razor teeth and the burning eyes.

  Slowly, William took out some much shorter, smaller pipes that had a silvery look them, and screwed them in place. He had the look of someone who wasn’t going to rush.

  Tiffany gripped the handle of her pan. The dogs weren’t barking. It would have been slightly less scary if they were.

  William swung the mousepipes under his arm and blew into one until the bag bulged.

  ‘I shall play,’ he announced, as the dogs got close enough for Tiffany to see the drool, ‘that firrrrm favourite, “The King Underrrr Waterrrr”.’

  As one pictsie, the Nac Mac Feegles dropped their swords and put their hands over their ears.

  William put the mouthpiece to his lips, tapped his foot once or twice and, as a dog gathered itself to leap at Tiffany, began to play.

  A lot of things happened at more or less the same time. All Tiffany’s teeth started to buzz. The pan vibrated in her hands and dropped onto the snow. The dog in front of her went cross-eyed and, instead of leaping, tumbled forward.

  The grimhounds paid no attention to the pictsies. They howled. They spun around. They tried to bite their own tails. They stumbled, and ran into one another. The line of panting death broke into dozens of desperate animals, twisting and writhing and trying to escape from their own skins.