Both Rain and Agnessa were gone. Bombo and Frem were there, packing up. They looked surprised to see Windston awake.

  “If I tell the truth,” Bombo said, “I think maybe I will be burying you too.”

  Windston was still rubbing his face, looking around for the tangerine. It had hit him and rolled, and then it was just gone. Meanwhile, there was nowhere for it to have rolled off to, as he had been sleeping on a leather mat surrounded by nothing but flat grass.

  Frem scratched his head as he stared curiously at Windston's searching. “What are you looking for?”

  “A tangerine,” Windston said. “It hit me right in the face.”

  Frem looked up. “Are you sure it wasn’t a pinecone?”

  Windston looked up at the trees, which were all green, and then at Frem, whose face was blotchy. “Oh my gosh,” he said.

  “What?” Frem asked.

  Windston grabbed his arm and lifted his sleeve, revealing more green spots. “Are you sick?”

  Frem yanked back his arm. “No.”

  Bombo looked at him too. “You're changing colors, my friend,” he said.

  Frem shrugged. “I do that.”

  “Then you're not just blue?” Windston asked.

  Frem shrugged again. “Sometimes I am.”

  “What color are you usually?” Bombo asked.

  Frem sighed. “I think I was born brown.”

  “Why you sigh? Brown is good,” Bombo said. “A dark, rich brown. It is very nice.”

  “Or… maybe piggy peach,” Frem said, smiling at Windston. “Like him.”

  “Am I peach?” Windston asked, looking at his light brown arms, which were covered in yellow hairs he hadn’t noticed before as they had grown in while he was asleep.

  Bombo shrugged. “I don't know. I think… maybe you are very, very light brown.”

  “He’s a piggy boy,” Frem said. He was laughing.

  Bombo rolled his eyes. “You must always find the ways to be mean about things,” he said to Frem.

  Windston lowered his eyebrows. “Whatever I am, I'm starving.”

  “That's why you wanted that orange,” Frem said. “Because you're a hungry piggy boy.”

  “Tangerine,” Windston corrected; for some reason, that detail was important.

  “Tangerines are so juicy,” Bombo said. “Maybe if you find, I want some too.”

  “Do we have any?” Windston asked.

  “We have only this bag of dried raisins,” said Bombo, holding up the bag. “There are more skinny wolves here than deers and rabbits. But we are on the edge of some haunted forest and, before it, a trail. This trail is short and safe and take you to great big grassy fields full of rabbits and deers and fruit trees. The lovely silver lady says this. She's gone with her dead friend. They say do not skip this trail, for it will save you much agony from wandering in the forest.”

  “Rain Gray,” Frem said. “What a weirdo. The lady is hot, though.”

  “Did you see them leave?” Windston asked.

  Frem looked at Bombo, who shook his head and said, “No, not me. They leave without saying a word.”

  “Good riddance,” said Frem. “They both kinda gave me the creeps.”

  “I'm pretty sure Rain saved your life,” Windston said.

  “Yeah, but…” he paused and made a face. “I saw him without that rag on his face. It was….” He shook his head.

  “Maybe you be nicer,” Bombo said. “He is not happy about this face. This is why he wears rags.”

  “I'm not happy about it either,” Frem said. “Should keep it covered forever. Or buried.”

  Windston ignored him. He was trying to think about what had happened. Everything after killing that swirl guy was a blur. He didn't even remember that he had taken the keys, or that they were keys; Frem had them again and kept them in a tightly drawn sack within another tightly drawn sack within a closed pack on his back.

  Windston had his pack and his sword, which was wrapped up again, this time in regular cloth.

  Bombo had everything he liked to take on travels, which was almost everything in bags on bags on bags.

  “Yesterday they say a little more north and then east at a brook. Not on brook, but east of it. I hear this brook. We follow it east and there we are,” Bombo said, looking up a hill and then long ways up its trees, which he thought were especially tall.

  “I've never been this far,” Windston said. “I've never seen green trees.”

  “This is all I see outside of this garden,” Bombo said. “Only they are smaller and bushier, usually.”

  “Same,” said Frem. “It's nice to be back. I like the colors in the garden. But the pollen and petals get on my nerves.”

  “It's thicker here,” Windston said. “A little more humid. But quieter. Not so much buzzing.”

  “Yes!” Bombo said. “But not so much honey,” he added, frowning.

  “That's true,” Windston said. “We should have stocked up before we left.”

  “One of us already had this idea,” Bombo said, pulling out a jar from his bag. “This, we save for later. Much later, when we are deep in the green trees away from these flowers. We may find ourselves homesick, no?”

  “Maybe,” Windston said, shrugging.

  “And we eat all this honey and feel happy. Yes?”

  “Yes,” Windston said.

  “Good.”

  And it was good. That was good of Bombo. It was so good that Frem scowled. They left camp on that note.

  They headed north, following Bombo and his brook-hearing ears up steep climbs covered in slippery pine needles, and down the other end the same way, until they found a brook that cut into a rocky hill. They followed this hill east and continued that way for several miles without a sign of civilized life.

  “She says this is the way to avoid the snake bend at Rat Road, Old Rat Road,” Bombo said, a little out of breath from exertion; it was very steep alongside the brook, and all of them struggled to stay on their feet at parts. “And I do want very much to avoid this snake path west. It is so hard to climb up, up and up in circles only to climb down, down and down in circles later. Three weeks it takes – this climbing trip she takes with the dead man. Meanwhile, to where we go is just but one trail before the Witchee Wood to pass. I say yes, give me this trail beside the witching,” he laughed. “No problem.”

  “Witchee?” Windston asked.

  “It's a haunted forest,” Frem said. “Or so they said. Well, she did; the dead guy didn't say anything. But he is haunted, so maybe that's why.”

  “I've heard of that. But we call it the Haunted Forest,” Windston said. “I thought it was further north.”

  “The witch lady, Agnessa. She says, 'Bombo, this forest is of peril. Avoid it. Don't even go near it. But if you insist, you take this path.'”

  “She isn't a witch,” Frem said. “She's just powerful.”

  “What is the difference?” Bombo asked. “And don't tell me the witchcraft. It is all routes to the same ends.”

  “I wonder why they call it the Witchee Woods,” Windston said aloud to himself.

  “Maybe there’s a witch?” Bombo speculated. “A little witch lady with crooked beak,” he laughed.

  “I'm not worried about it,” Frem said. “As long as we avoid it, fine – right? Although it is weird that those other two won't risk going near it.”

  “I cannot help who is afraid of superstitions,” Bombo said. “For me, the shorter route makes sense. I must find this man, Boulder. He will not likely bring himself to me.”

  The ledge along the brook became too steep and Bombo slipped. He rolled first, and then skidded on his butt. With a plop, he fell into a stream, but the boys couldn't see him as there were trees and other brush along the edge of the brook.

  “Problem solved!” Frem said, pointing and laughing.

  Windston glared at him and hurried down, but not without first slipping and falling. Before he knew it, he was in the water behind Bombo, who bobbed up ahead in what was a racing current of deep white water.

  Frem flew over in circles, laughing.

  “Help!” Windston called.

  Bombo glanced back at him; he was less panicked than Windston, looking for his own way out despite that there didn't appear to be one; the ledge was very steep and overgrown with trees whose twisted roots were bare and covered in brambles. Worse was, when one went to grab a root, it simply broke off. And the mud along the ledge was very slippery.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The water raced faster and faster, and waves crashed down on them from higher and higher.

  Just when Windston was sure he was about to die, and to the uproarious laughter of Frem, who still circled above, the stream narrowed, wound around, and twisted so that he and Bombo were essentially racing one behind the other on a very steep water slide that broke off from the heavier flow.

  In an instant, that slide ended, and they fell with sprays of water below into what was a very shallow brook; they landed square on their butts, on hundreds of smooth stones.

  Frem landed beside them with a splash and let out one more long, drawn-out laugh.

  Windston hadn’t noticed; he had looked up ahead and saw that, off in the distance north, in the middle of the gentle stream, there grew a single pink flower. Its bulb was deep and wide, flush with the sky and open. Long tendrils reached up from its stalk like snakes and shook their ends, ringing little green bells.

  The flower appeared to be breathing. With each breath in, the bells rang violently. With each breath out, they slowed, and yellow pollen shot upward in a puff, filling the air, which became thicker with the stuff by the second.

  “What the heck is that?” Frem asked.

  Bombo, who was standing, held out a hand to help Windston, who ignored him as he was completely transfixed on the flower.

  “It's a flower,” Windston said. “A pink flower.”

  “It's beautiful,” Frem said.

  “It is,” Bombo agreed.

  At once, they hurried over to it and peered inside. Dead bugs and fishes bobbed about in what was a smelly, boiling brew of rot and decay. As they silently stared, the water level rose first higher and then sunk as its contents swirled about as if toward a drain.

  Suddenly, a horn rang out. They peered over the flower and, much to their surprise, saw someone they never expected to find so soon.

  “Boulder,” Bombo growled.

  “Then it is him!” Windston yelled, dropping his bag beside the flower and unwrapping his sword.

  Frem lit up his hands and showed his fangs.

  Bombo stepped around the flower and stood between Boulder and the boys.

  “Boulder!” he cried. “I have finally found you!”

  Boulder, who was all of twenty-eight feet tall, looked down at Bombo and blinked. “Someone searches for me?” he asked, a booming grumble. “Who would be so foolish?”

  There was a rustling in the brush on either side of the brook. A troop of two dozen men emerged from it and surrounded him on either side.

  “Move aside!” Bombo shouted. “My fight is with Boulder! No need to die today.”

  “Little man,” Boulder laughed. “You will kill no one.”

  Bombo turned and nodded at Frem, who stepped forward, shooting.

  One by one, pop by pop, bandits burst into bloody sprays of meat, bone, flesh and organs.

  Boulder chuckled. That chuckle became a laugh, and then he was roaring at the top of his lungs, which must have been enormous; the sound was a booming roar that filled the air for miles and miles.

  One of his men burst in a way so that his head flew up past Boulder’s; he snatched it from the sky and tossed it into his mouth, popping it in a single bite like a cherry tomato.

  Both boys crouched. Bombo stood straight, his eyes locked with Boulder’s, his muscles flexed.

  “So, you bring with you a magic man to try and even the odds,” Boulder said. “I knew you were too coward to face me alone.”

  Windston gritted his teeth and lurched forward, his sword an ice-white blade within a wild arrangement of flaming purples, pinks, and blues.

  “No!” Bombo said to Boulder, his arms outstretched toward Windston and Frem. “I come with dear friends only so that they can observe. You see, Boulder,” he said as Windston and Frem both looked with quiet dread at their massive brown hero, who was small in the presence of this horrible giant, “I am here to make you die!”

  Boulder laughed but Bombo continued.

  “I am the black lion chief of the white sands kingdom east beyond the grasslands called Saria. Do you remember?”

  “I remember,” Boulder said. “Oh yes, I remember. The cries. The wails. The horror.” He laughed. “And where were you? Where was the king? Hiding?”

  “No!” Bombo yelled. “I was searching for you, this giant man, Boulder!” With that, he leaped into the air toward Boulder, this giant man. His arms were tensed, and his fingers had become armed with curved black claws like those of a lion.

  Before Boulder could react, Bombo was on him, latched onto his face, clawing, ripping, head-butting, biting, tearing, gnawing, slamming.

  In agony, Boulder stumbled backward, reached up, and grabbed Bombo's arms, which fit easily within the grip of his massive hands. He pried him off him and threw him down, but Bombo bounced back in a frenzy like a wild cat. He clawed his way up the pants of the massive giant, ran up his side, and latched onto the side of his neck.

  Still, Windston watched in horror; he was full of what-ifs, and who could blame him? Boulder was enormous, and Bombo looked so small.

  Frem, on the other hand, laughed and jeered. “Giant man? More like giant woman! Look at you! Not so scary now!”

  Boulder stomped and whirled, reached and smacked. But Bombo was fast, Bombo was furious, and Bombo was super-powered, clawed and fanged.

  He finally pierced the giant’s artery, letting loose a scarlet fountain of blood that watered the plants and dyed the brook.

  He didn’t stop there. He chewed and gnawed while Boulder garbled screams. Windston watched in horror while Frem cheered, pointed and marveled at the blood. “Hell yeah!” he said here, and “Woohoo!” he cried there.

  The fight was over when Boulder fell with a crash and a splash of his own blood and water.

  He gurgled. He gurgled his last, a low grumble, while Bombo stood atop his chest and roared like a lion.

  “Wow,” Frem said, smiling, tears in his eyes.

  Windston was teary-eyed too when Bombo rose and faced the sun, a drenched mess of blood. Never had he seen something so brutally beautiful, so poetically special.

  Bombo roared, heaved, and roared again – in and out, in and out. With each breath, he shrank until he was ordinary height again at just under eight feet tall. There in the middle of the brook, he slumped, doubled over, and wept. He wept bitterly there in the pool, and then he lay back in it and washed himself in the flow of fresh water.

  “All these years,” he moaned. His shoulders bounced as he wept some more. “All these years… he is gone. Finally, this giant man is gone. This giant man, Boulder.”

  “You did it,” Windston said. He ran to Bombo and put his hand on his arm, as high as he could reach, just over the elbow. “You won.”

  Bombo, whose face was smeared slick with blood and tears, looked at Windston, lips quivering, nodding. “Thank you, my friend,” he said. “Thank you for being here to see this, the return of the black lion king.”

  The joyous moment was interrupted. Frem had risen from the ground, which was not unusual, only his winglets, which did not exist when not in use, were nowhere to be seen, and he let out a scream that further confirmed he was in trouble.

  “What's happening?” he shouted, now more than ten feet in the air, arms and legs kicking and flailing. “What's happening to me?”

  It looked as though he was being pulled up by the straps of his bag as it was the highest thing in the sky, and he seemed to dangle from it by the armpits.

  As soon as Windston could react, there was no longer a need; Frem fell with a plop without his bag, which still hovered over the water, now lit in a vibrant array of lights that matched the colors of the rainbow. A great wind blew wildly from it in all directions. The bag burst, and the dragon keys hovered in a glowing ring that spun slowly clockwise. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet they glowed, brightly, their colors reflecting in the water and painting the world like a chandelier.

  Suddenly, they shot off, all in separate directions, trailing light that matched their individual color.

  “What is this?” Bombo asked. “Have you been keeping something magic from me?”

  Frem shrugged and laughed. “It's happening,” he said, looking at Windston. “The dragons... they're planting themselves!”

  Windston smiled, and then he laughed, completely ignoring the bloody giant just feet away, who still gurgled in death, though quietly.

  “Come on!” Frem said, “while there's still trails!”

  “Okay!” Windston said.

  Frem flew one way while Windston leaped another. One by one, they followed the trails to the end, where the ground glowed brightly the color of each key. One, two, three, four, five, six and seven; when they had found each spot and marked it so that they could find it again, they rendezvoused to the water and celebrated. They danced around Boulder with Bombo, who, in curiosity, asked all about the keys and got answers from Frem and Windston both.

  “Dragons?” he said. “No way! I love this!”

  “Yeah!” Frem said. “And I'm their master!”

  “We're all their masters!” Windston said.

  Frem rolled his eyes and smiled. “Yeah, I guess.”

  They were holding hands in a circle, jumping and dancing, when the first dragon found them.

  It was a yellow dragon, about as big as a horse, but thick, with short limbs and wings, and cute, like a baby. Its eyes were big and beautiful and adorned with long lashes. It mewed like a cat and snuggled up to them before leaping into the air and flying in circles overhead.

  Another arrived. The orange one. This one liked Bombo in particular.

  More and more came. They were all there. They were all plump and cute, like babies, only huge.

  Finally, the blue dragon arrived. It was taller than the others, and with a longer neck and bigger wings. It looked at Frem with very serious eyes and knelt. “My king,” he said. “My emperor. Dragoon heir, Frem... I beseech you to ride!”

  Frem's eyes were wide, and he leapt up onto the dragon's back without hesitation for the ride of his life.

  “Yippee!” he shouted. “Woo! Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Dragons, baby! Baby dragons, baby!”

  “Whoa,” Windston said.

  “Whoa,” Bombo said too.

  Before they knew it, they were on dragon-back as well, Windston on the yellow, and Bombo on the orange.

  They flew over the woods and out of them, into a grassy field where deer and bunnies ran about in a frenzy dodging blasts of all kinds from all seven dragons; the red and orange blasted with fire; the yellow shot lightning; the green spit poison; the indigo had freezing breath; the violet had laser vision.

  Soon, they were cooking and eating creatures to their heart's content.

  Night fell, and they camped in the middle of the field.

  By morning, a man named Goens found them. He was robed and holding a book to his chest on his left side. He told them about what they had just accomplished but warned them that there was still yet more to do.

  “This way!” he said. “There's no time to waste!”

  The boys and Bombo and all their dragons followed him up a hill and over it, where they saw, sprawled before them, a city of white bricks and glowing purplish stones. In the center was a great building; that was the sage tower, Goens told them. “This is where we must do our research. Come. Come now. There is little time to waste. For the star,” he said, and pointed upward, “it is on the fall. It is on the star fall. Oh, we do must hurry. We do must!”

  The city was full of men and women and children of either purplish or greenish color, and they were all cheering and celebrating the arrival of the Al Doers, the heroes of a fabled myth called the Champions of Far Away who Fight the Star with Dragons. “We've been waiting,” Goens said. “It's been so long that we've waited, we thought you might never come.”

  They raced up the city's main street and to the town circle, within which was the tower.

  What a marvelous tower it was, like a spike of white and purple that stabbed the sky.

  Inside, they were met with beautiful women in sheer gowns of silk and whose undergarments were none too large.

  They fanned the heroes with wide leaves, gave them tubes to suck on, and beckoned them into a very warm bath at the center of a library. The dragons settled around the bath, smiling, contented, not at all worried or concerned, about anything.

  The boys and Bombo relaxed too. They especially loved when the ladies climbed in and shook very loud bells right in front of their faces. One woman, who was particularly pretty (orange-haired, pale green and with flaming red eyes) smiled at Windston, closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss him.

  It was at that exact moment that Windston realized he couldn't breathe at all.

  In fact, he hadn't breathed at all for a while; for as long as he'd been in that bath, he hadn't.

  He opened his mouth to speak but remembered the tube. Gripping at it, he realized he couldn't remove it. He was gagging – no, choking – to death.

  Bombo and Frem were choking too, and all went dark as the edges of the tub rose and confined them in a canopy.

  The water started bubbling. And then it started burning.

  Windston opened his eyes, his actual eyes, and saw that the three of them were completely encased in a pink bulb of boiling water, and it stunk.

  The flower! The flower in the brook!

  With all his might, he pulled on the tube in his mouth and wrenched it out. Blood spattered when he did, and he all but choked on it as he kicked and squirmed and thrashed and gagged.

  Frem and Bombo did the same, and then Frem rained hell with his hands.

  The flower did not burst, did not burn, did not dent or even scratch.

  “My sword!” Windston croaked through his very hoarse throat. “Give it to me!”

  Frem looked down by his leg and saw the cloth. He threw it to Windston and Windston tore the cloth away from his sword and swung.

  Snip, snip, snip!

  He cut a large triangle out of the side of the flower and fell out of it, into the water.

  Frem and Bombo crawled out too. They all just lay there gasping, hacking and spitting blood while the flower screamed and flailed, its bells ringing wildly, its leaves and petals fluttering.

  “Run!” Bombo yelled. “Run from this accursed flower!” he cried.

  But they couldn't. They could hardly move. Instead, they pulled themselves to shore, where they lay there in the grass, and panted.

  They panted for several minutes before it became apparent that something about the air there would keep them panting forever.

  With what little strength they had, they pulled themselves north along the shore, away from the flower, as far away as they could be, and then further.

  Finally, after what felt like hours, the air became thinner, and they were able to breathe.

  There, in what was a very thick wood of pines, they slept.

  Night fell. Owls hooted. The air cooled and soft breezes blew.

  Peacefully, they slept, knowing little of what they had just done, which was to pass through the threshold of the Witchee Woods of North Gorrals