Dakin paused on the dark edge of the wood, and looked back over the sunny-smooth meadows with their knuckles of rock and the gay foaming river dashing on its way to the sea. She looked ahead, but being under the first branches she couldn’t see the farthest-away mountain any more, only the murky depths of the forest, its tree trunks filling in the spaces between each other until there seemed to be a solid wall of them.
“How will I know that I’m going straight towards the farthest-away mountain, and not walking in circles like Meggers Hawmak when he went in after his cow and was lost for three days?” she wondered.
“Better go back,” whispered a little voice inside her head, “before it’s too late.”
Dakin took a step back towards the rushing river, and then stopped.
“No,” she said aloud and started off under the trees.
Before she’d been walking for three minutes everything round her grew dim and every direction looked the same. She turned to look back the way she had come but it was just as closed-in behind as ahead, with only little trickles of sunshine penetrating the thick pine needles. When she turned to go on she found she didn’t know whether she’d turned in a half-circle or a whole circle, whether she was going back towards the village or on towards the mountain, or in another direction altogether. There were no friendly sounds of birds or scurrying of little animals, no sounds when she walked on the spongy needles and moss, no hum of insects or whisper of breeze – in fact, no sounds anywhere at all.
“I’m frightened!” realized Dakin. It was for the first time in all her life and it was a horrible feeling.
She had never felt so completely alone. She felt tears pricking her eyes like pine needles. And then she remembered.
She wasn’t quite alone, after all. She had the little troll.
Quickly she slipped undone the straps of her knapsack, opened it, and reached to the bottom between the rough loaf and the smooth book. Her fingers touched the small, heavy figure, and closed round it. It fitted her hand in a comforting way. She drew the little man out and looked at him. He reminded her of home and the warm kitchen. A tear fell off her cheek and splashed on his long brass goblin’s nose.
He sneezed.
Dakin shrieked and dropped him in the moss. She backed against a tree, her eyes huge and her hands to her face.
The little troll picked himself up. He stood knee deep in moss with his hands on his hips, looking up at her. For a long moment they stared at each other. Then the little man, in a voice like the far-away cracking of twigs, said:
“Could I borrow your handkerchief, madam?”
Without speaking, Dakin took it out of the pocket of her apron and gingerly held it out to him as if expecting him to bite her. He reached up his tiny hand and, holding the handkerchief by one corner with most of it on the ground, he wiped her tear off his face and carefully dried his beard.
“Thank you,” he said politely. “I’m quite tarnished enough,” he added. “Moisture doesn’t do brass any good, you know.” He sounded a little bit severe about it.
Dakin went down on her knees beside him, staring at him, quite unable to believe it.
“Would you mind explaining,” she said shakily, “how you come to be alive?”
“Certainly,” replied the little figure. “Only would you please pick me up? I’m getting a bit tired of shouting.”
Cautiously she laid her hand palm upwards on the moss beside him and he stepped briskly onto it, holding onto her thumb to steady himself as she got carefully to her feet. She looked at him in bewilderment. Of course, it was darkish and difficult to be sure, but he seemed just the same – that is, he hadn’t turned into a flesh-and-blood little man. He was still heavy for his size, and he still seemed to be made of brass. Only now he was definitely and undoubtedly alive. He was rubbing at his sleeves to try to get the tarnish off them, and gradually the metal was becoming brighter.
“That’s better!” said the troll.
“We did our best,” said Dakin, “but we couldn’t get into the cracks.”
“Quite. Quite,” said the troll. “I’ll soon have it all off. Now we must talk. By the way, where are you going?”
“To the farthest-away mountain,” said Dakin.
The little man was so startled he had to grab her thumb with both hands to save himself from toppling to the ground.
“You don’t mean – not to the – f-f-f-farthest-away mountain?” he whispered in a trembling voice.
“Why not?” asked Dakin.
“But you can’t! No one’s ever been there! It’s inhabited by gargoyles—”
“Gargoyles?” cried Dakin excitedly.
“Yes. And ogres and monsters and witches and—”
“If no one’s ever been there, how do you know?” asked Dakin.
The troll clapped his hands to his mouth, as if he had said too much.
“Well, I… I don’t really know… that is, I’ve heard—” he stammered.
“You’ve been there! You have!” cried Dakin.
“Well—”
“Haven’t you?”
“Well, as a matter of fact – I have. In fact I used to live there. Once. Years and years and years ago. And I don’t want to go back!” he added. “So you’d better go straight home like a sensible girl, and put me back on the mantlepiece where it’s safe.”
“I’ve got to go to the farthest-away mountain,” said Dakin. “It called to me.”
“What!” The little troll sat down suddenly in the palm of her hand. He looked up and clasped his knotty little hands together as if pleading with her. “It didn’t – by any chance – nod to you, too, did it?”
“Yes, it did – this morning,” said Dakin.
“Then you’re done for. Poor little girl. Done for,” whispered the troll, shaking his head sadly. A brass tear rolled down the side of his nose. Then he stood up again sharply. “Well,” he said, straightening his pointed hat, “I must be getting along.” He walked briskly to the edge of her hand and would have stepped off into empty air if she hadn’t grabbed him.
“Wait!” she cried, holding him while he struggled and kicked. “Stop! You can’t leave me here alone! Where are you going?”
“Anywhere!” he said. “Anywhere but where you’re going. Let me go this minute!”
“But you’ll get lost in the wood!” Dakin said. “I don’t know myself which direction leads towards home. And you were in the knapsack, so you can’t know either.”
The troll stopped struggling and looked at her.
“I can find the way out of the wood,” he said. “Or I could find the way up the farthest-away mountain. If I wanted to. Which I don’t. If the mountain’s called you, and nodded to you, well you have to go. I understand that. So I’ll show you which