The next morning, Brian came down to breakfast without Gregory. When he informed Uncle Max of Gregory’s illness, the man said, “Seems your generation’s demmed sickly. Pass the eggs. Medicine”—and here the gruff man paused to chew vigorously and recite some silent verse—“it softens people.” He halted to swallow, then continued, punctuating his speech with authoritative jabs of his fork. “In my day, people were hearty. Why? Because they didn’t rely on medicine to stay well, no. Had to fight disease tooth and nail to stay alive. Tooth and nail! Medicine—it makes a weak race.” Following this pronouncement, Uncle Max began to slash apart his eggs and mechanically devour them. Brian stared down nervously at his egg-filled plate, figuring it was not a good moment to ask for toast and explain that eggs made his chest feel fizzy.

After breakfast, they sat in the nursery and worked out a plan. Brian wanted to explore, but he didn’t want to go out alone. Gregory was feeling too sick to go along.

“We have to keep exploring,” said Brian. He pointed to the hourglass. “Look at the sand.”

“I’m vomiting,” said Gregory. “And my head feels like it’s been hit with a sandbag.” He suggested, “You could ask your troll friend to go with you.”

Brian agreed. He went downstairs to get ready.

When Uncle Max saw the boy dressed in a cloak and ready to go out, he approved firmly.

“Bravo, boy. About time you struck out on your own. Instead of sticking to your friend like a tapeworm in a dowager’s belly. Shows you may develop spine yet.”

Brian stared at Uncle Max’s coat buttons. Finally he said, “Um, thanks.”

So Gregory sat in the glassed-in winter garden and read The Primrose Void, muffled in blankets. He watched as Brian strolled away across the steaming grass toward the dark wood. Soon the gray of Brian’s cloak faded into the pearly mist, and Gregory turned to the novel. Lady Blytham fell sobbing at the feet of Reverend Larkwind and professed her love; he quoted an obscure passage of Azariah and turned stoically away, his firm jaw twitching. And as the honorable reverend frantically and fiercely battled his passions, Brian wandered past the Club of Snarth, through a wood cloaked in bright, silvery fog. Shafts of sunlight illuminated columns of mist.

When Brian knocked on the door under the bridge, Kalgrash was hacking at some briars to make protective figurines. The troll dropped the bundle of thorny, brittle limbs on the table and, singing “Coming!”, leaped to the door. He swung it open with a flourish.

They said hello, and Brian came in and shut the door, explaining that Gregory was feeling sick. “We were…uh, I was wondering whether you’d like to take a walk on this side of the river today. I don’t want to walk alone.”

“Oh, a walk! Is it a nice day?”

“It’s okay. Very cold.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no! Don’t worry about the cold. Trolls are entirely impervious to cold—descended from the wooly mammoth. Pass me those shears, would you?”

Brian picked up the shears and handed them to the troll, who was intent on the sheaf of rattling briars. The troll sang, “Thank you!” and set about snapping twigs.

“What are you doing?” asked Brian. “Do you eat those?”

“No, no! I’m making little protective figurines. Little dolls. Out of briars.”

“Oh. For what?”

“They ward away the evil spirits. Zabiminech, the Dreary One, and Mabiligol, Lord of the Stag Beetles, and so on. All them.”

“Do you actually believe in evil spirits?”

“Once they chew up your bedsheets and kick over your table, you believe in them real quick. Ho, HO! Let me tell you, if I don’t hang up these figurines, those spirits’ll be slouching around here by noon inviting themselves over for tea, cheating at bridge, smoking up a storm, leaving the toilet seat up. Huh, HUH! No end of trouble.”

“Oh,” said Brian.

Kalgrash slowed his mad snipping and let the bundle slouch on the table. “Welllll…if I go for a walk, they won’t be able to find their way in even if they do show up. If we left quickly…what do you think?”

“Yes, sure,” Brian answered.

“Great. Hunky-dory. Ha-HA!” the troll called as he danced back through a low doorway into some other part of his warren-like house.

A few minutes later, the troll locked his door firmly and rattled the handle to ensure that it was closed. He threw a few loops of wooly scarf around his thick neck and, next to the freckled boy, ambled up the hill.

As the two walked over the bridge, Kalgrash explained, “Give ’em an inch, and they’ll take an ell, those evil spirits. The only good evil spirit is a completely intoxicated evil spirit. They just curl up underneath the woodstove, then. A bit of holy water in their gin and tonics and they’re out cold for days.”

They crossed the Golden Field, and Kalgrash spread his spindly arms. “Would you look at this? Every color of the rainbow. Except blue. Or indigo.” Lemon yellows and maize reds were singeing the trees; the vibrant shades shivered in the crisp wind.

“Oh,” said Kalgrash. “I saw your friend Balerond yesterday. ”

“Balerond? Who’s that?”

“You know him. Tall guy, dark coat, rings under the eyes, old hat, jerky sense of humor. Even more than your friend.”

“You mean Jack? Jack Stimple?”

“Balerond. That’s his name.”

“He told us it was Jack Stimple.”

“Tricky geezer, isn’t he?”

“Who is he?”

“He’s a representative of the Thusser Hordes.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell us this?”

“I don’t remember you bringing up the Thusser Hordes.”

“Kalgrash, we need to know what’s going on. What do you know about this—this Game?”

The troll hopped from rock to rock, his scarf trailing after him. “Uhhhhhhhh, not much. Not much, really.”

“You must know more than you’re telling.”

“Not really. I’m kind of stupid. I lived happily in my little abode where my father and my father’s father lived, you know, under the bridge. Then one day this guy called the Speculant came along. He knocked on my door, we had a chat, and he explained that a game was going to be afoot and that the Thussers were on the move and that I should practice being menacing, since there was a new master up at the house. So I practiced being menacing—this must be about a year ago—and then, a few weeks ago, the Speculant turned up again and said that the game was now definitely afoot, and that I had to start jumping up and using the ax. He told me the riddle—had me memorize it—and he said people had to give me the weathervane to pass. Annnnd you did, and I let you pass, and blah blah blah, there we are.”

“Oh. But who’s the Speculant?”

“You’d know him if you saw him. Whoo. About eight feet tall, very skinny, wears a black cape and wide hat, has sort of a beaky nose like mine? Verrrrry ugly?”

“I’ve seen him! I just saw him last night! He was talking to Mr. Grendle!”

“That’s him, I betcha. He gets around. He’s in charge of coordinating the Game. A sort of ‘man in the field.’”

“What we don’t understand, though,” said Brian, “is what the Game is all about, or what it’s for. Or even what the rules are. There’s something about a vanished civilization that used to be near here.”

The troll scratched behind his ear vigorously. “Uh, I can’t really help you there. I don’t know much. The Speculant doesn’t exactly drown you in information. I think he’s embarrassed about his voice or something. Doesn’t talk much. Usually just says things like, ‘The Sands of Time dribble through the darkened hourglass.’ ‘There shall come a time when the Rules bind fast the players in bonds of Game.’ That kind of thing. He’s sort of strange, actually. Not the kind of guy I’d like to meet on a dark night.”

Brian glanced quickly at the troll, who stared, preoccupied, off into the distance.

Brian asked, “Do you—hey—do you know the way through that labyrinth of mounds?”

“Sure. Yeah. The way through to what?”

“To something other than the Haunted Hunting Grounds and Fundridge’s Folly? Some other route we might take. We’re stuck, because to go farther in the direction we’ve started, we need a propeller.”

“I don’t know a thing about propellers. But I can take you to the Hill of Shadow and the Crooked Steeple.”

“That would be great.”

Kalgrash walked into the labyrinth and proceeded to scramble up onto one bank and then another, peering over the crests to get his bearings, then leaping down the slopes to direct Brian. After several minutes, they reached the Ceremonial Mound.

Brian noticed that Kalgrash got quieter as they neared it. Just as they were about to walk out into the clearing with the burnt Ski-doo, Kalgrash ordered, “Wait. Just a second.” He snatched a thick stick from the ground and, clutching it with his knees, proceeded to wrap his scarf tightly around his eyes. Then he took the stick and began to work his way out into the clearing, beating the ground in front of him.

“What are you doing?” Brian asked.

“I can’t look at the Ceremonial Mound. It’s a bit painful. Tell me if I’m going the right way.”

“Uh, I don’t know which way is right,” Brian apologized.

“Aha! That’s so. Three paths to the right!”

Brian guided the troll out of the clearing. “What’s wrong with the mound?”

“I don’t know. A lot of the magic in these woods is all knotted and roped around it. It just hurts.” He pulled the scarf off from around his head and re-looped it on his shoulders. As they walked through the maze, Brian asked, “So where does this path go, after the steeple you mentioned?”

“I don’t know. I never made it all the way up the Hill of Shadow. It’s quite a climb. And I was afraid of running into humans.”

“Have you ever been seen by a human accidentally?”

“Nope. The only other humans I’ve ever seen at all have been Mr. Grendle, who occasionally crossed the bridge with that daughter of his to have picnics on the other side…and I’ve seen a poacher. There are a few others—hikers, hunters—but usually they become the hunted after a while. If they stay in too long. Things are firmer now, because of the Game, but usually there are holes all over the place. Big things moving from place to place. People falling sideways at night. You hear a shriek, and whooom! they go past you. I’ll tell you, it’s dangerous. A few years ago, there was a pair of hunters who stayed out…at one of the places that isn’t safe. Clock Corner. I, um, I found them the next morning. It looked like a deli counter.” The troll made a face and walked on. “There wasn’t even much meat left on them. They really were only good as a soup base.”

“You ate them?”

“I hate to see meat go to waste.”

“You ate human beings?”

“Hey, no one else was using those remains.”

For a minute, the two walked in silence.

“Sorry,” said Kalgrash.

“What was it that killed them?”

“It could have been lots of things. There are all kinds of things living in here. And I wouldn’t put it over the Speculant himself. If someone was interfering with the Game.”

Brian scowled as they emerged from the Tangled Knolls and started up a slope. Black trunks of pine jutted out of a sweet-smelling carpet of lurid, red-orange needles. “This must be the Hill of Shadow,” Brian said. The path was steep, and Brian found himself pushing off with his palms on his knees to force himself up the hill. The troll skipped along as lightly as ever, his scarf trailing and picking up pine needles. As they walked, Kalgrash, whose television reception was poor, asked questions about the outside world. He was fascinated by airplanes and condensed milk and mail service. “Airplanes. Wow. It’s hard to believe that some people take them for granted,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to fly. I used to dream I was a bird all the time. That would be great, except it was always a penguin.”

They wandered upward, talking in this vein, until they reached what appeared to be the peak of the hill. Large chunks of rock were sticking out of the garish pine needles, gripped by tree roots. And, on the highest point of the hill, where dim vistas could be seen to all sides, sat the Crooked Steeple. A large, uneven monolith rose from a clump of scabby bushes, peering over the top of the pines.

Brian exclaimed, “It must be forty or fifty feet tall!”

“Mmm,” agreed Kalgrash.

“Is it natural?”

Kalgrash squinted upward and said, “Oooo, I should think so. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Hey, if you look at it one-eyed, though, it looks as if it’s falling toward you.”

Brian shielded an eye with one hand and swiveled around. Then he dropped his hand and said, “Look. There’s a house down there.”

“So there is,” said Kalgrash. “You’re not supposed to go off the paths, though.”

“It’s just down there,” said Brian.

“Hookay,” said the troll. “But if something bad happens to you, remember I get your flank steaks.”

Brian shot him a dirty look.

“Joking,” said Kalgrash.

They headed down toward the house. The descent on the far side of the Hill of Shadow was rather steep. Several times, Brian found to his dismay that his attempts to dig his shoes into the soft dirt merely resulted in him scuffing the surface, sending him, supportless, bumping down the slope for several feet.

They were in an overgrown yard. The house was a dilapidated 1960s ranch, one level above ground. It was pink and blue. The vinyl siding hung loosely on the walls. Black rot was creeping from underneath the siding. The house’s windows were grimy. Its sliding glass doors had been broken by rocks.

The rocks had been thrown from the inside.

Brian and Kalgrash crept around to the front of the house. A dirt road went by the drive. The bushes were growing wild. The front door was open.

Brian went to the driveway, where an early 90s–model Toyota was parked, its windows down, its seats white with mildew. He looked around the overgrown yard. The grasses were growing tall.

Kalgrash was pointing to the foil letters stuck on the mailbox. He whispered, “I can’t read. What’s that say?”

Brian sighed.

He answered, “Grendle.”

At the mansion, it was time for a cup of medicinal tea. Gregory was lying in the nursery, half-reading a book, half-considering where he could get a propeller. In The Primrose Void, Pobb’s old school chum returned from Africa, gripped with a strange flu he’d caught from eating carrion; Lucinda heard the Selbys talking about it in the hall—she rose slowly from the pianoforte, her face still and strained. She moved to the French doors, walked like some gliding phantom across the lawn, and silently passed into the green shadows of the topiary garden. She always liked to cry under the griffin. Gregory looked up. Something was bothering him. Something he had been looking at.

He couldn’t quite…

Aha.

There it was.

The propeller. The thing they needed for the next step toward the hidden kingdom.

It had been in front of them all along.

He dropped the book without marking his page.

He ran down the stairs. “Uncle Max,” he said. “Uncle Max!”

The old man was sitting in the library, drawing diagrams in pencil.

“Tomorrow, Brian and I are going exploring underground. We’re going to need provisions. We might not come back for a while.”

Uncle Max stared at him.

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry, but we have to.”

Uncle Max rose.

Gregory tried to stop shifting from leg to leg. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I didn’t.”

Uncle Max said, “I like this. I like this a great deal. You’re not some little whimpering starveling like your friend there. No, sir. No, Gregory. When you get ill, your first thought—spelunking. Camping out. Breathing in the good, frigid air.” Uncle Max strode over and hit Gregory on the shoulder. Gregory stumbled and started coughing as Uncle Max exclaimed, “No hothouse flower, you! You, boy, are a testament to our sex. I like that. I like that very much. Bully. Bully for you.” He hit Gregory on the back this time. Gregory stumbled in the other direction and started coughing again.

“Burk!” hollered Uncle Max over the hacking. “Burk! Daffodil! I want packs made up! My tent! Bedrolls! Sandwiches! Water! Lanterns!” He clapped his hands once. “By goodness, bring out my old campaign chairs! You will adore these chairs, boy. Very light. Just twenty or thirty pounds each, and you can sit in peace anywhere and smoke while you survey the field of battle and watch your Johnny Rebel enemies cut down like wheat before your very eyes.”

Great, thought Gregory to himself. This is starting to sound like just the kind of picnic I want to miss.