Charlie reluctantly trudged back to the giant's room. The situation would be hopeless, he realized, if both he and Runner Bean were caught. "I feel so guilty," he told the giant,
"leaving him out there, all alone, especially now that he's seen me."
"I know, I know." Otus lit a candle and set it on the table. "But all around us there are towers and watchers. Soon the darkness will come, a darkness like no other, Charlie. No stars shine in Badlock and moonlight is - scarce. So we will creep down our tower and rescue the poor dog."64The giant stirred the pot hanging over his stove. "I had a dog once, in the world we come from. It was a fine dog, and we were scarce parted. Here, in Badlock, there are no dogs or cats. There are only bugs and slimy, creeping, cold-blooded things called durgles. And the birds fly on bony, featherless wings, and they have long, fearful beaks."
Charlie climbed onto the giant's bed. "Why are there no dogs or cats?"
"The shadow and his people consider a creature's use solely the food it can provide, or the pelt that can become a cloak, a jerkin, or even shoes. Every warm-blooded creature has
been hunted, almost to extinction. Only the squirras survive; they breed like demons, that is the reason, maybe."
"What about blancavamps?" asked Charlie.
"Aha, the blancavamps." Otus smiled. "They dare not touch the blancavamps, for they are ghosties." He ladled several dollops of steamy stew into two wooden bowls. "Come to the table, Charlie my descendant, and eat your supper."65Charlie hauled himself off the bed and onto the tall chair, while the giant tore a round loaf in two and placed a piece beside each bowl. He then half-sat on the table and began to swish the bread into the stew, using it as a kind of spoon. Charlie did the same. Squirra stew was surprisingly good, but then Charlie was very hungry.
They ate in silence for a while. Charlie kept thinking of Runner Bean outside the tower.
How frightened he must be. And then the warm stew settled in his stomach, and he could only think how comforting it was. Occasionally, he glanced at his ancestor's face. He could see no resemblance between the Yewbeams he knew and the giant. Grandma Bone and her sisters had tiny black eyes and thin lips, while Otus had gray eyes and a wide, generous mouth. But, of course, many generations had come between them.
"Tell me about your life," said the giant, scraping the last morsel from his bowl.
Charlie licked his fingers until every delicious trace of the stew was gone, and then he began. He told the66giant how his father had been hypnotized by Manfred Bloor and lived for ten long years in the school called Bloor's Academy, while no one knew he was there. He went on to say how he, Charlie, had discovered his talent for traveling into pictures. He described Grandma Bone and her terrible sisters, and his friends, the normal ones like Fidelio and Benjamin. "Only Fidelio isn't really normal," Charlie added. "He's a musical prodigy and one day he'll be famous."
And then Charlie recounted some of his adventures with those other friends, the endowed, the descendants of the Red King, like himself. Emma, who could fly; Billy, who understood animals; Lysander, who could call up his spirit ancestors; Tancred, the storm-maker; Gabriel, the clairvoyant. "And there's Olivia." Charlie gave a chuckle.
"She's an illusionist, but the Bloors don't know about her. She's kind of our secret weapon."
"So this ancient man, Ezekiel Bloor, keeps you prisoner in his academy for the... ?" The giant looked at Charlie questioningly.67"Gifted, I suppose you'd call it," said Charlie.
"And we're not really prisoners."
"But under his control."
"Sometimes we disobey."
"Good! Good!" cried Otus, clapping his hands. He glanced up at the window. "Darkness has come. The dog can be rescued."
"Runner Bean!" Charlie had almost forgotten poor Runner Bean while he'd been talking to the giant.
Otus led the way down the tower. He held the candle in an iron dish. It smelled like burning fat and cast huge, leaping shadows on the stone walls. When they reached the outer door, the giant stopped and listened. Charlie waited beside him, scarcely able to breathe.
Otus had barely opened the door before Charlie rushed out. He was met by such an overpowering blackness, he felt he might have been blinded. And through the terrible dark came the winds, first from one side, then another, driving him against the wall of the
tower, dragging his legs, howling in his head.68"RUNNER!" Charlie screamed into the wind.
He waited for an answering bark. But nothing could be heard above the winds.
"Best return, boy," called Otus. "He has been taken."
"No!" Charlie ran blindly forward. Suddenly, he was falling. He landed with a groan on the hard, rocky ground. Putting out a hand, he felt a damp wall. Something scurried over his fingers and he screamed again.
There came a deep, throaty bark, and even in his dangerous position, Charlie felt a surge of joy. "Runner!" he called.
The giant's voice drifted above the wind. "Cursed giant, that I am. I should have warned you of the pits. Where are you, boy?"
"Here!" cried Charlie. He heard the thud of boots. A giant hand touched his, and then he was being hauled up the side of the pit. As he reached the top, a shaft of weak, ragged moonlight showed him a69large yellow dog, perched on the rim. "Runner!" he shouted.
Runner Bean barked delightedly as the giant bundled boy and dog toward the tower.
"Hush, dog!" he said, pushing them both through the door.
Charlie grabbed the excited dog's collar while Otus closed the door and drew two heavy bolts across it.
"Faith, that dog will have us all in chains before night has passed," the giant muttered.
"Did someone hear us?" Charlie stroked Runner Bean's head, calming him down.
"I fear my neighbor," Otus admitted, as he went up the stone staircase. "His tower is close, and he is not a kind man."
Now that Runner Bean had found Charlie, he seemed reluctant to climb the shadowy steps. Charlie had to coax him up with strokes and promises of bones, though he had no idea if any would be found once they reached the giant's room.70The giant had thought ahead. By the time Charlie had enticed the nervous dog to the top of the stairs, Otus had fished two bones out of the cooking pot. Flinging them across the floor, he chuckled,
"Chew on those, brave dog."
"I don't think he feels very brave," Charlie remarked as he watched Runner Bean, ravenously gnawing the bones.
"Charlie, you must flee from here," Otus said gravely. "We cannot hope to hide that dog.
Soon my neighbor will alert Oddthumb and his crew. You will hear the horn, and then you must be gone."
"But how?" Charlie gazed around the giant's room. "I can't," he said in a strangled voice.
"I don't know how I got here. When I travel I have a wand ..."
"A wand?" The giant's eyes widened. "Truly, you are a magician, then?"
"No, no." Charlie shook his head. "It's just something that I inherited from my other ancestor, a Welsh wizard. It'd take too long to explain."
Too long, indeed, for at that moment the eerie71sound of a wailing horn echoed around the giant's tower.
"Oh, mercy, what's to be done?" The giant strode around and around, clenching his fists and glaring at the high window. "I shall defend you with my last breath, Charlie. But I am only one. I cannot prevail. Oddthumb will take you. Oh, poor boy, what is to become of you?"
The giant's mournful voice was too much for Runner Bean. He leaped up with a dreadful howl - and something astonishing happened. From inside one of the dog's ears, a white moth fluttered out. She came to rest on Charlie's arm.
"Claerwen," breathed Charlie. "My wand."
"In my day, we called such things moths," said the baffled giant.
"Yes, yes. She is a moth, but she was once a wand," Charlie told the giant. "Mr.
Yewbeam, Otus - we can go now. Thank you, thank you..."
"Then go," said Otus, "for I can hear troll feet. Swiftly, swiftly, Charlie Bone."72"Maybe I could take you with me, Otus?"