She looked wide-eyed. "Milord Oscar...my champion...I was not mistaken in you."

"It's going to take some doing. Ever play water polo, Rufo?"

"I invented it."

I hoped he had. I had played it—once. Like being ridden on a rail, it is an interesting experience—once. "Rufo, can you lure our chum down toward the bank? I take it that the barrier follows this line of furry and feathery friends? If it does, we can get him almost to that high piece of bank with the deep pool under it—you know, Star, where you dunked me the first time."

"Nothing to it," said Rufo. "We move, he'll come along."

"I d like to get him running. Star, how long does it take you to unswitch your fence?"

"I can loose the wards in an instant, milord."

"Okay, here's the plan. Rufo, I want you to get Igli to chasing you, as fast as possible—and you cut out and head for that high bank just before you reach the stream. Star, when Rufo does that, you chop off the barrier—loose the wards—instantly. Don't wait for me to say so. Rufo, you dive in and swim like hell; don't let him grab you. With any luck, if Igli is moving fast, as big and clumsy as he is he'll go in, too, whether he means to or not. But I'll be pacing you, flanking you and a bit behind you. If Igli manages to put on the brakes, I'll hit him with a low tackle and knock him in. Then we all play water polo."

"Water polo I nave never seen," Star said doubtfully.

"There won't be any referee. All it means this time is that all three of us jump him, in the water, and shove his head under and keep it there—and help each other to keep him from shoving our heads under. Big as he is, unless he can outswim us he'll be at a terrible disadvantage. We go on doing this until he is limp and stays limp, never let him get a breath. Then, to make sure, well weigh him down with stones—it won't matter whether he's really dead or not. Any questions?"

Rufo grinned like a gargoyle. "This is going to be fun!"

Both those pessimists seemed to think that it would work, so we got started. Rufo shouted an allegation about Igli's personal habits that even Olympia Press would censor, then dared Igli to race him, offering an obscene improbability as a wager.

It took Igli a lumbering long time to get that carcass moving but when he did get rolling, he was faster than Rufo and left a wake of panicked animals and birds behind him. I'm pretty fast but I was hard pushed to hold position on the giant, flanking and a few paces back, and I hoped that Star would not loose the wards if it appeared that Igli might catch Rufo on dry land.

However, Star did loose the wards just as Rufo cut away from the barrier, and Rufo reached the bank and made a perfect racing dive without slowing down, all to plan.

But nothing else was.

I think Igli was too stupid to twig at once that the barrier was down. He kept on a few paces after Rufo had gone left oblique, then did cut left rather sharply. But he had lost speed and he didn't have any trouble stopping on dry land.

I hit him a diving tackle, illegal and low, and down he went—but not over into the water. And suddenly I had a double armful of struggling and very smelly Golem.

But I had a wildcat helping me at once, and quickly thereafter Rufo, dripping wet, added his vote.

But it was a stalemate and one that we were bound to lose in time. Igli outweighed all of us put together and seemed to be nothing but muscle and stink and nails and teeth. We were suffering bruises, contusions, and flesh wounds—and we weren't doing Igli any damage, Oh, he screamed like a TV grunt & groaner every time one of us twisted an ear or bent back a finger, but we weren't really hurting him and he was decidedly hurting us. There wasn't a chance of dragging that hulk into the water.

I had started with my arms around his knees and I stayed that way, of necessity, as long as I could, while Star tried to weigh down one of his arms and Rufo the other. But the situation was fluid; Igli thrashed like a rattler with its back broken and was forever getting one limb or another free and trying to gouge and bite. It got us into odd positions and I found myself hanging onto one callused foot, trying to twist it off, while I stared into his open mouth, wide as a bear trap and less appetizing. His teeth needed cleaning.

So I shoved the toe of his foot into his mouth.

Igli screamed, so I kept on shoving, and pretty soon he didn't have room to scream. I kept on pushing.

When he had swallowed his own left leg up to the knee, be managed to wrench his right arm loose from Star and grabbed at his disappearing leg—and I grabbed his wrist. "Help me!" I yelped to Star. "Push!"

She got the idea and shoved with me. That arm went into his mouth to the elbow and the leg went farther in, quite a bit of the thigh. By, then Rufo was working with us and forced Igli's left hand in past his cheek and into the jaws. Igli wasn't struggling so hard by then, short on air probably, so getting the toe of his right foot started into his mouth simply required determination, with Rufo hauling back on his hairy nostrils while I bore down with a Knee on his chin and Star pushed.

We kept on feeding him into his mouth, gaining an inch at a time and never letting up. He was still quivering and trying to get loose when we had him rolled up clear to his hips, and his rank armpits about to disappear.

It was like rolling a snowball in reverse; the more we pushed, the smaller he got and the more his mouth stretched—ugliest sight I ever have seen. Soon he was down to the size of a medicine ball...and then a soccer ball...then a baseball and I rolled him between my palms and kept pushing, hard.

a golf ball, a marble, a pea...and finally there was nothing but some dirty grease on my hands.

Rufo took a deep breath. "I guess that'll teach him not to put his foot in his mouth with his betters. Who's ready for breakfast?"

"I want to wash my hands first," I said.

We all bathed, using plenty of soap, then Star took care of our wounds and had Rufo treat hers, under her instructions. Rufo is right; Star is the best medic. The stuff she used on us did not sting, the cuts closed up, the flexible dressings she put over them did not have to be changed, and fell off in time with no infection and no scars. Rufo had one very bad bite, about forty cents' worth of hamburger out of his left buttock, but when Star was through with him, he could sit down and it didn't seem to bother him.

Rufo fed us little golden pancakes and big German sausages, popping with fat, and gallons of good coffee. It was almost noon before Star loosed the wards again and we set out for our descent down the cliff.

Chapter 7

The descent beside the great waterfall into Nevia valley is a thousand feet and more than sheer; the cliff overhangs and you go down on a line, spinning slowly like a spider. I don't advise this; it is dizzy-making and I almost lost those wonderful pancakes.

The view is stupendous. You see the waterfall from the side, free-springing, not wetting the cliff, and falling so far that it shrouds itself in mist before it hits bottom. Then as you turn you face frowning cliff, then a long look out over a valley too lush and green and beautiful to be believed—marsh and forest at the foot of the cliff, cultivated fields in middle distance a few miles away, then far beyond and hazy at the base but sharp at the peaks a mighty wall of snow-covered mountains.

Star had sketched the valley for me. "First we fight our way through the marsh. After that it is easy going—we simply have to look sharp for blood kites. Because we come to a brick road, very nice."

"A yellow brick road?" I asked.

"Yes. That's the clay they have. Does it matter?"

"I guess not. Just don't make a hobbit of it. Then what?"