Xar swallowed hard. “Of course it’s going to be frightening,” said Xar stoutly. “We’re looking for the ingredients of a spell to get rid of Witches, and Witches are not going to be vanquished by a smell of roses. Revenge is going to be a wonderful ingredient for our spell.”

“But we don’t know who the castle wants revenge on,” Caliburn pointed out nervously.

He had a horrible, horrible feeling that he was returning to a forgotten past. It’s a dreadful problem for a raven who has lived many lifetimes. He had some dim memory of the familiarity of the place, but he couldn’t for the life of him recall any of the important details.

“Well, it stands to reason that this castle will want revenge on the WITCHES, won’t it?” said Xar. “The Witches took this territory from the giants, so of course the giants’ castle is going to be angry with the Witches…”

“But Xar, you don’t know that…” groaned Caliburn. “Stories and histories are often more complicated than they look.”

And then they came across the shoe.

It was lying in front of them, on the steps, on one side, as if someone had been in a hurry and lost it. At first they thought it must be some sort of leather tent or house, before they realized it was in fact a gigantic BOOT, a shoe so large it dwarfed even Crusher, the top of the rim of it coming up to the Longstepper High-Walker’s waist. Crusher peered over into the cavelike depths, an expression of mild worry on his face, which was a cause for concern in itself because Crusher did not normally worry about much.

“Impossible,” marveled Xar. “This can’t be true! Giants don’t grow that big… Something that huge just could not exist!”

“The ancient giants were supposed to be much larger than our present giants and ogres,” said Caliburn. “Gog and Magog and their descendants… We are trespassing in lands we do not understand… with mysteries and forces much bigger than we know…”

But Xar was now thoroughly overexcited. “There IS a giant in this castle after all!” he said, drawing both his father’s staff and his sword at once. “So that means we can get the Giant’s Last Breath! And that breath will be the breath of REVENGE!”

“But the giant is HUMONGOUS!” exclaimed Bodkin. “If he’s alive, we’d have to kill him if we want his last breath, and we couldn’t possibly do that because I like giants and so does Wish and so do you! And if he’s dead we can’t get his last breath anyway!”

Xar wasn’t listening.

“We’ll just sneak up on him and check the whole situation out,” said Xar.

“But whatever-he-is already knows we’re here!” wailed Bodkin.

Now Wish knew what it must feel like to be the size of a sprite, for that is how small they were in comparison with this boot.

With shaking steps they inched forward, and the Enchanted Pins, Key, and Fork led them to an enormous door, hidden in cobwebs and darkness. Behind the door was a staircase that led down, down, down underground. Crusher had to lift them all down the steps, and when they got to the bottom of this staircase they came to a hall that was way, way bigger than the last. It was impossible that a room could be that huge. A table so high that each one of its legs was as tall as one of those tree trunks from the High Forests outside. A chair so enormous its existence was beyond imagining. And underneath the table was a boot to match the boot outside, and a gigantic foot, with huge toes that were turning a rather unnatural green color. And above the foot, way, way above, stretched the leg, and out of their sight, must be the body of the giant.

A giant larger than anyone had ever seen before, or dreamed of.