The Wee Free Men

‘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