"Hang on!" Churchill shouted and even as he shouted, the plane swung and pivoted, skidding. It came to rest a dozen feet from the woods that rimmed the green.

They sat in deadly silence, a silence that seemed to be closing in on them from the colored forest and the rocky bluffs.

Churchill spoke out of the silence. "That was close," he said.

He reached up and slid back the canopy and got out. Maxwell followed him.

"I can't understand what happened," Churchill said. "This job has more fail-safe circuitry built into it than you can well imagine. Hit by lightning, sure; run into a mountain, yes, you can do that; get caught in turbulence and bounced around, all of this could happen, but the motor never quits. The only way to stop it is to turn it off."

He lifted his arm and mopped his brow with his shirtsleeve.

"Did you know about this place?" he asked.

Maxwell shook his head. "Not this particular place. I knew there were such places. When the reservation was laid out and landscaped, the planning called for greens. Places where the fairies dance, you know. I wasn't looking for anything, exactly, but when I saw the opening in the trees, I could guess what might be down here."

"When you showed it to me," said Churchill, "I just hoped you knew what you were doing. There seemed to be no place else to go, so I did some gambling..."

Maxwell raised his hand to silence him. "What was that?" he asked.

"Sounds like a horse," said Churchill. "Who in the world would be out here with a horse? It comes from up that way."

The clattering and the clopping was coming closer. They stepped around the flier and when they did, they saw the trail that led up to a sharp and narrow ridge, with the massive bulk of a ruined castle perched atop the ridge.