The Dragon's Dagger (Spearwielder's Tale #2) 5

Diane lay across Gary's bed and Gary sat on the floor, both of them tired as midnight approached. Fleetwood Mac's Tusk played softly in the room, and candles burned low while Stevie Nicks rolled through the haunting lyrics of Storms.

Every night that goes between, I feel a little less She was singing to Gary, about Gary, the young man felt, singing the sad truth that Gary was indeed beginning to feel a little less with every passing day away from the enchanted land of Faerie. Gary remembered it all so vividly, remembered Mickey and Kelsey, and surly Geno. Remembered the vibrant colors of Tir na n'Og and the mud-filled streets of Dilnamarra. Gary thought of Faerie every night as he was drifting off to sleep, usually while this same CD cooed softly at the edges of his consciousness.

"They're hitting Baghdad again!" came a call from downstairs, Gary's father watching the coverage on the late news.

Diane shook her head in disgust. She was one of the few people Gary knew who openly expressed her disdain for the war. You could throw every logical argument at Diane for fighting the war, from oil reserves to the need to defeat terrorism, and she'd just smile and say, "When historians look back on this, they'll see that it could have been avoided, just like every other war." No argument could shake Diane from her convictions. A tough lady, and that's what Gary loved most about her.

"They're creating their own Robert," Gary mused aloud, thinking of how the media, probably with government's full support, had made the leader of the enemy country out to be the worst criminal since Adolf Hitler. There were no dragons in Gary's world, no real ones, anyway, so it seemed that, from time to time, people had this need to create one. Gary Leger had met a dragon, a real dragon, and his fear of ever meeting a real one again far outweighed his all-too-human need for the excitement.

"What?" Diane asked. "Who's Robert?"

Gary thought long and hard about an answer to that simple response. Many times he had considered telling Diane about his trip to Faerie, about showing her the book and trusting in her to believe in him. "Nothing," he said at length. "Just an evil king I read about somewhere."

The answer satisfied weary Diane, who was already drifting off to sleep. She didn't make it a habit of falling asleep in Gary's room, but the door was open and his parents didn't mind, and the quiet music was so inviting ...

Something snapped against the window, jolting Diane from her sleep. The candles were out now, the digital clock reading 2:30. The room was perfectly quiet, and dark, except for the dim light of the streetlight coming in through the edges of the front window's shade. As her eyes adjusted, Diane could make out Gary's silhouette, propped against the bed in the same position he had been in when they were awake. Puk!

"Gary," Diane whispered. She reached out and jostled his shoulder a little, and he responded by shaking his head and looking back to the bed. "Huh?" he replied dreamily.

Puk!

"The window," Diane said. "Something's clicking against the window!" "Huh?" Gary rubbed his bleary eyes and looked to the window, just in time to hear yet another click. "It's probably just a squirrel on the roof," Gary announced rather loudly as a yawn intermingled with the words. He pulled himself up and moved across the floor, trying to appear bold. He moved the shade aside and looked out, but the front yard and the street seemed empty. "There's nothing out there," he said firmly, turning back into the room. Puk!

Diane reached for the light as Gary pulled up the shade, lifting the bottom half of the window as soon as the weak springs of the old shade had moved it out of the way. "Don't turn the light on!" he told her, knowing that he wouldn't be able to see outside if she did. With nothing revealed, he put the screen up, too, and leaned out, his hands resting on the windowsill as he scanned the front and side yard.

"There's nothing out here ..." he started to protest, but he stopped in midsentence, the words caught in his throat as he looked down to regard several tiny arrows protruding from the wooden sill.

"No way," the young man breathed. Gary's mind rushed in a hundred different directions at once. Could it be true? Had the fairies come back for him? He knew instinctively that this was a signal, that a sprite was summoning him, probably to go down to the woods out back, to the same spot from where he had once been taken to the enchanted realm.

"What is it?" Diane demanded, coming to within a few feet behind Gary. It, Gary thought, is time for some revelations. He could tell her now, he mused, could make her believe him with evidence that her stubborn and rational side could not dispute.

"Come here," Gary said, motioning for Diane to join him. He pointed out the little darts and Diane bent low to the sill, shaking her head. "Some kind of pellet?" she asked.

"Arrows," Gary corrected.

Diane looked at him blankly, then peered low to better regard the darts. "Who could shoot an arrow that small?" she asked incredulously, but then she nodded as if she understood. "Oh, from a blowgun?" she asked, remembering the stories Gary had told her about his blowgun fights at the office.

"No," Gary replied cryptically, trying to build the suspense so that his answer, when he gave it in full, would not be too overwhelming.

"From one of those - what do you call them? -  crossbows?" Diane reasoned. "Nope," Gary replied, working hard to keep the mounting excitement out of his voice. "From a longbow."

Diane looked back to the tiny dart, her face twisted in confusion. "Couldn't be too long a bow," she said with a smirk.

Gary thought of going to his stereo cabinet and showing Diane the leprechaun-transformed version of The Hobbit, of showing her the flowing script and blurting out everything that had happened to him.

Take it slow, he reminded himself, thinking of his own doubts even after the sprites had abducted him, even after his first full day in the land of Faerie. Gary had lived the adventure, and yet it had taken him a long time to believe that it had actually occurred - even after it was over and he found himself waking in the woods out back, only the still-transformed book had proven to him that the whole thing hadn't been a dream.

But he had to make Diane believe it, he told himself. It was important to him, vital to him, that someone else, especially Diane, believe his tale and maybe share another adventure with him. He took a deep breath, turned on the room's light, and retrieved the book from the stereo cabinet, handing it over to Diane.

"Yeah," she prompted, not understanding.

"Open it." Diane's eyes widened as she considered the flowing runes on the strange pages, not at all what she would expect, of course, from a printed book. She looked to Gary and shook her head, totally confused.

"I took that to a professor at the college," Gary explained. "Dr. Keough, who knows Irish history better than anyone else around here. It's Gaelic, as far as he could tell, but a form of the language he had never seen before. He couldn't decide if it was some hybrid of the language, or some pure form."

"You've got Tolkien in Gaelic?" Diane asked breathlessly. "This must be a collector's edition, and must be worth a fortune."

"It's not a collector's edition," Gary replied. "But it's probably worth more than a fortune."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at the beginning," Gary explained. He went to his book shelf and took out the second book in the series, opening it to the credits page. "Same publisher, same edition, even the same printing," Gary explained, showing Diane the identical information in both books.

She continued scrutinizing the pages, looking for some clue, and Gary wondered if it was time to spring the truth on her. He trusted her, and knew that she wouldn't ridicule him (once she realized that he was serious) even if she didn't believe him. But Gary simply couldn't figure out where to begin. Wild ideas came into his thoughts every time he tried to think of an opening sentence. He imagined his name spread across the headlines of tabloid newspapers:

Lancashire Man Abducted by Fairies Gary Leger: I Was Impregnated by a Leprechaun Gary laughed in spite of his dilemma, drawing Diane's attention away from the book.

"What's going on?" she demanded, the perfect cue, but again Gary couldn't find the words to respond.

"I can't tell you," he admitted. He looked back to the open window. "But I think I can show you."

They rushed through the house, out the front door, and Gary led the way down the street, towards the black line of trees, the beginning of the small wood.

"If you wanted to make out, couldn't we have gone for a ride?" Diane asked him, resisting the urgent pull of his hand and not liking the look of those dark and ominous trees.

"This is better than making out," Gary replied excitedly, not taking the time to choose his words more carefully.

Diane tugged her hand free and skidded to a stop on the road. When Gary turned back to her, she was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, one foot tapping on the tar, and her head tilted to the side. The dim light of the distant streetlights did nothing to diminish the appearance of her scowl.

"What?" Gary asked blankly.

"Better than making out?" Diane replied, emphasizing every syllable. "No, no," Gary stammered. "You don't understand, but come on, and you will!"

"Better than making out?" Diane asked again, but caught up in Gary's overboiling enthusiasm, she accepted his hand once again and followed him down the street and into the woods.

It was pitch black in there, but Gary knew his way, had grown up playing in these woods. They moved down the dirt end of his parents' street, turned onto a fire road, and soon moved through the blueberry bushes, past the wide break atop the high ground overlooking the area that had been cleared for an elementary school.

The view there was beautiful, with the shining dots of stars dotting the sky, and Diane slowed, her eyes drinking it in.

This was the spot where Gary had encountered the fairy ring, but not where he had first encountered the sprite. He allowed Diane a few moments of the grand view, while he snooped around, looked for the telltale lights of dancing fairies.

"Come on," he said at length, taking Diane's hand once more. "Down there." He started along the path once more, heading for where it dipped down the side of a thickly wooded vale.

Diane resisted, slapped at a mosquito that had stung her on the neck. "What's going on?" she asked again. "What does this have to do with those arrows, and that book?"

"I can't explain it," Gary replied. "You wouldn't believe ... you wouldn't understand it. Not yet. But if you'll just come along, you'll see it for yourself."

"I always pick the nuts," Diane muttered under her breath, and she took up Gary's hand and followed him down the dirt path.

They came to a mossy banking - Diane had to take Gary's word that it was a mossy banking, for she couldn't see a thing. He plopped down, and pulled her hand, patting the ground to indicate that she should sit behind him. The minutes passed uneventfully, quietly, except for the rising hum of hungry mosquitos gathering about them, smelling human food.

"Well?" Diane prompted.

"Sssh!" Gary replied.

"I'm getting eaten alive," she protested.

"Sssh."

And so they sat in silence, save for the annoying buzz and the occasional slaps. Their eyes adjusted enough to the dark so that they could at least make out each other's black silhouette. Diane nuzzled into Gary's shoulder and he instinctively put his arm around her.

"We should have taken the car," she whispered.

"Sssh." Gary's tone grew more agitated, more impatient, aptly reflecting the frustration building within him.

The minutes became an hour, a chill breeze blew by, and Diane nuzzled closer. A twist of her head put her lips against Gary's neck, and she gave him a long kiss, then moved her head up so that her lips brushed lightly against his ear.

"Do you want some ice cream?" she asked teasingly.   Gary sighed and pulled away, causing Diane to straighten.

"Do you want them to watch us?" Gary asked sharply.

Diane leaned back from him.

"Well?" Gary asked.

"Who?"

"Them!" Gary snapped back, pointing to the empty darkness. He shook his head and closed his eyes. When he had seen the arrows, his hopes had soared. But now ...

Gary desperately wanted it to be true, wanted the sprites to come back for him, to take him - and Diane, too - into Faerie for some new grand adventure. To get him out of the world of month-ends and highway games. Diane looked confused, even a little scared. "Who?" she demanded again. "The sprites," Gary answered softly and bluntly. Diane was silent for a long moment. "Sprites?" she asked, and her voice had dropped at least an octave.

"Fairies!" Gary snarled at her, snarled at the obvious doubt in her tone and at his own mounting doubts.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Diane replied. "And why is it that I seem to keep asking you the same questions over and over without getting any real answers?"

"Because I can't explain it!" Gary cried in frustration.

"Try."

"That book," Gary began, after taking a deep breath to clear his thoughts and steady his nerves. "It wasn't printed the way you saw it. It was normal, perfectly normal typesetting."

"Then how did it change?" The obvious doubt in her tone stung the young man.

"A leprechaun waved his hand."

"Cut it out," replied Diane.

"I'm not kidding," Gary said. "That's why I brought you down here. You don't believe me, you can't believe me. Hell, I didn't believe myself -  until I saw that book."

Diane started to ask a question, but stopped and held her arms up high to the sides in surrender.

"You'll have to see it," Gary explained. "The words are too impossible." To Diane's credit, she didn't reply, didn't tell Gary that he was out of his mind, and didn't rise to leave. She took Gary's hand and moved him back beside her.

"Just give me this night," he asked her. "Then, maybe, I'll be able to explain it all."

Diane pulled him closer, put her head back on his shoulder. Her sigh was resigned, but she held her place and Gary knew that she would trust in him, despite the mos-quitos, despite the fact that, by all appearances, the young man was out of his mind.

A gentle singing awakened Gary some time later, some time not far before the dawn.

"Diane," he whispered, nudging the sleeping woman. She didn't move.

The fairy song drifted on the breeze, too soft for Gary to make out the individual words, though he doubted that he would understand the arcane language anyway.

"Diane." He gave her a harder nudge, but still she didn't move.

"Come on," Gary prompted as loudly as he dared, and he rubbed his hand across Diane's back, then stopped abruptly as he felt the tiny dart sticking from her shoulder.

"Oh, no," he groaned, and Diane's next snore came as an appropriate reply. The fairies had put her to sleep.

Gary rose into a crouch, saw the flicker of tiny lights, like fireflies, atop the ridge, back near to the blueberry bushes. He half-walked, halfcrawled up the slope, the lights and the song growing more intense with every passing foot. And then he saw them, a ring of dancing fairies, like tiny elfish dolls barely a foot tall. They twirled and leaped, spun graceful little circles, while singing in their squeaky yet melodic voices. This was the gateway to the enchanted land.

"Get in," came a chirping voice, the words running so fast that it took Gary a long moment to sort them out. He looked down to see a small sprite standing beside him.

"You came for me?" Gary stated as much as asked. "Get in!"

"What took you so long?" Gary demanded, wishing that they had arrived hours before. The sprite replied with an incredulous look, and only then did Gary realize that the few hundred yards back to his parents' house must have seemed like miles to tiny sprite legs.

Gary looked back down the trail, to where Diane was sleeping soundly. He needed her to witness this, to come with him to Faerie.

"Get in!" The squeaky voice sounded more insistent with each demand.

"Not without her," Gary replied, looking from the vale to the sprite. The sprite was holding something, Gary noticed, though he couldn't quite make it out in the darkness. His mind told him what his eyes could not, but too late, for then he felt the sting of an arrow against his calf.

"Dammit," he groaned, feeling for the dart and then tearing it free. A few moments later, his vision went double, and through blurry eyes he saw two rings of dancing fairies.

"Dammit," he said again, and for some reason, he was down on his knees. "Diane?"

"Just you!" the now-unseen sprite answered emphatically.

"Dammit!" But despite the protest, Gary was crawling, moving slowly and inevitably for the fairy ring. There he collapsed, his strength drained by the sleeping poison, his legs too weak to support him.

Gary Leger wouldn't need his legs for this next portion of his journey.