For the rest of the morning the path led them higher and higher into the mountains, Hagrid carrying the elves so that they could easily keep up. The path at first switchbacked over open country, but then plunged into a sort of canyon with a dry riverbed at the bottom of it, and walls of rock rose up on both sides. The rocks were gray, dusty, and lifeless, and the path was extremely stony, so much so that within half an hour all their feet were sore.

“Forget this,” said Ron. “I know that they said Fire Lizards would attack anyone who tried to fly over the mountains, but they also warned us against the Wheelers, and we handled those pretty well. I say we at least try it.”

“Ok, Ron,” said Hermione. “Just be careful.”

Ron hopped on his broom and rose a few feet into the air. There were no sign of any lizards, fire or flying or otherwise, so he tried going a bit higher. Still things seemed safe.

“Seems ok,” Harry heard him call out. “I’m going to try and poke my head over the edge of the ravine…”

There was a few seconds of silence. Then, “Oh, cripes!”

Harry couldn’t see what was wrong; as far as he could tell, Ron was alone up there. But he started screaming and waving his arms over his head, as if trying to bat away something invisible.

“What is it, Ron?” cried Harry. “Get back down here!”

But Ron didn’t seem to hear him. He and the others were on their brooms in a moment (except for Hagrid, who stayed down with the elves) and rising up towards Ron. As soon as they were up over the edge of the ravine, Harry saw the others start shouting and waving their arms too. Harry couldn’t see anything wrong at all, and felt nothing, although there did seem to be some kind of haze or cloud up here that he couldn’t quite focus on. He was the first to reach Ron.

“Ron, I’m here!” said Harry. “Are you ok?”

“It’s these little — faugh! They’re bugs or something — they fly into my mouth when I try to — agh!”

Now Harry could see them: less than an inch long, they were tiny little flying lizards, darting around them like a swarm of insects. They were all over Ron, crawling over every inch of his skin, hair, and robes, and Harry could see little bursts of flame coming from their mouths. They were tiny flying dragons!

“Come on,” said Harry. “They’re leaving me alone — probably because of the pink pearl. I’ll grab your broom, guide you down. Shut your eyes and mouth as tight as you can.”

Ron did it, and clamped his hand over his nostrils too. It took just a few seconds for Harry to get Ron down into the ravine again, and as soon as they did, the flying lizards jumped off him.

“They must not like it here in this ravine for some reason,” said Harry. “Are you ok to fly the rest of the way down? I’ve got to go back for the others.”

Ron nodded. His face was swollen with dozens of tiny burns and bites, and he could barely open his eyes. He headed down, and Harry headed up.

Hermione and Ginny had managed to come down on their own, and Ginny had even gone back up to help Luna, so they were ok. Neville had tried to fly away from the lizards, so he was some distance off; but he’d given up and was huddled on his broomstick with his robes up over his head. Harry guided him down to the others in the ravine.

The wounds were, fortunately, not magical, and could be quickly healed. By the time Harry got back, the wizards had patched themselves up.

“Well, now we know what these flying lizards are about,” said Harry. “Nasty, aren’t they?”

“At least we don’t actually have to walk,” said Hermione. “As long as we fly along inside the ravine, we should be ok.”

They made much faster progress after that. The path climbed up and up for a long while, and they saw no other sign of plant, animal, or any other being. Finally, when the sun was almost at noon, they rounded a corner, and began to hear a strange rhythmic pounding far off.

“It’s like a metronome,” said Neville. “A really slow one.” There was a pound every ten seconds or so.

“I think I know what this must be,” said Ginny. “In Ozma of Oz they — yes, look there!”

Looming over the ravine was a massive iron giant. It was very crude in shape, with cylindrical legs, arms, and torso, and a head that was simplistic and round. It stood several stories high, and it was swinging a gigantic hammer. Every ten seconds or so it pounded the earth right where the path went through a narrow part of the ravine, so that it would be impossible to pass without coming into the arc of the descending hammer. When the hammer head struck, the earth shook, and the echoes of the strike reverberated throughout the mountains like a clap of thunder. By the time the echoes died, the hammer had risen over the giant’s head, started down, and was already about to strike again.

“Let’s land here and figure out what to do,” said Harry, but Ron was already flying up towards the giant.

“What on earth is he going to do now?” asked Hermione, sounding exasperated. Harry was a little relieved to hear he wasn’t the only one who thought Ron was being foolhardy.

“Going to try Immobilus,” Ron shouted back at them.

“Ron, be careful,” shouted Ginny. “It’s not just a big machine, it’s magical!”

But Ron either didn’t hear them, or didn’t care. He flew as close as he dared to the giant hammer, taking care not to rise up above the top of the ravine, and stopped in midair, brandishing his wand.

“Immobilus!” he cried.

It didn’t work. The spell bolted from his wand and ricocheted off the giant’s body, glancing off the giant’s arm and speeding right back at Ron. He tried to duck his own spell and only barely got out of the way in time.

“Cripes,” said Ron. “Now what?”

“I suppose you could try the pearls,” said Luna. She had to speak loudly over the booming of the hammer. “Ron, with the blue pearl, are you strong enough to stop the giant’s hammer?”

“I don’t know,” said Ron. “But it’s grabbing hold of it that’s the trick. I don’t want to stand under it and try and grab it — I’m not suicidal.”

“Suppose you took the blue pearl and the pink pearl?” asked Harry. “Then you’d know the hammer couldn’t hurt you, and you might be strong enough to grab it and stop it.”

Ron looked panicked for a second. “What, me?” he said. But then he mastered himself. “Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “That’ll totally work. Give me the pink pearl, Harry.”

Harry handed him the pearl, but Hermione slapped his hand so that he almost dropped it.

“Are you nuts?” she said. “The King said the blue pearl made you strong as a giant, not stronger than a giant. And even if you were stronger, how can you get leverage? You might grab the hammer, and then what? You’ll just be carried up into the air and thrown a hundred miles away. Assuming the pink pearl doesn’t fly out of your pocket, and you aren’t crushed by the fall, you’ll be lost forever in these mountains.”

“Well what’s your clever idea, Hermione?” said Ron, sounding a little bitter, because he knew she was right.

“We’ll use the white pearl,” she said primly. She took it from her pocket and held it up to her ear for a moment.

“It says, ’Seek a friend nearby,’” she said. She looked around the ravine, as if expecting to spot an old friend standing right there among the bare rocks.

“I don’t know what that means,” said Harry. “There’s obviously no one else here. There isn’t anywhere a mouse could hide in these rocks.”

Nevertheless they looked around for a few minutes, climbing up some of the rocky sides of the canyon and flying around a bit as well. Suddenly Ginny cried out, “Oh my goodness! Come look at this!”

“What is it?” asked Harry.

It was another mechanical man, this one much smaller — man-sized — and hidden away in a niche in the rocks. He was made of metal also, and he was rusted and grayed with age, so that he was the same color as the stone around him. He had a perfectly round body and a round head with a little bowler hat and a metal mustache, and his arms and legs were thin. His arms hung limply, and his legs had long since collapsed under him, so that his round body rested on the ground. He was completely inert.

“It’s Tiktok!” said Ginny excitedly. “It’s Tiktok, I know it is!”

“What’s Tiktok?” asked Harry.

“He’s like a — like a robot,” said Ginny. “A mechanical man, but much more sophisticated than the iron giant there. He can walk, and talk, and think. He’s clockwork.”

“He doesn’t look like he’s in great shape,” said Harry.

“That’s an understatement,” said Ron. “He looks like he’s been sitting rusting there for a hundred years.”

“I think a Raparo should fix him up,” said Ginny. “He’s mechanical, after all. Magical too, though, so it might not be enough to completely get him to work.”

“Do you think he really might be the ‘friend’ that the white pearl mentioned?” asked Hermione.

“Definitely,” said Ginny. “He was in Ozma of Oz as well. Dorothy rescued him by winding him up — there’s a key on a chain around his neck, you see? — and then he helped her defeat the Wheelers and the Nome King. And later on he got his own book, Tiktok of Oz.”

“So what do you suppose he’s doing here?” asked Neville.

“Let’s ask him,” said Ginny. She stood back a few paces, leveled her wand at the inert pile of metal, and cried, “Reparo!”

Harry whipped his wand out too, in case this mechanical man was not as friendly as Ginny assumed. Her magic swirled around the robot, causing a breeze that lifted ages of dust and rust off the form. Then, as if they were watching a time-lapse reverse of the process of decomposition, the metal began to brighten and take on a coppery sheen. The metal legs shifted, gently at first, and then clicked together, gathered under the body, and lifted it up to a standing position. There were clicks and clunks from within the man’s body and head, and a couple of springs and sproingggs, and then there he was, standing completely upright and gleaming golden-copper in the afternoon sun.

“All right,” said Ginny. She swallowed. “Tiktok! Is that you?”

The mechanical man stood there, completely silent and still.

“Oh, I’m an idiot,” said Ginny. “I’ve got to wind him up.”

She stepped boldly up and took the shining key from the man’s neck. The keyhole, it appeared, was on his back, and his back was to the rock, so she had to slide in next to him and reach around awkwardly.

“There’s a little plaque on his back,” she said. “It reads: Smith & Tinker's Patent Double-Action Extra-Responsive

MECHANICAL MAN. Fitted With Our Special Clock-Work Attachment. Thinks, Speaks, Acts and Does Everything But Live. Manufactured Only at Our Works at Evna, Land of Ev. All Infringements Will Be Promptly Prosecuted According to Law.”

“What on earth does all that mean?” asked Ron.

“Advertisement and legal protections,” said Hermione. “But it sounds like something from the nineteenth century.”

“There are three keyholes actually,” said Ginny. “One for his thoughts, one for his speech, and one for his action, his movements. I’ll do his thoughts first.”

She started winding, and she turned and turned for about a minute. There was a gentle ticking and humming coming from the mechanical man now, just audible over the pounding of the giant’s hammer.

“There we go,” she said.

“He looks the same,” said Hagrid.

“Well, I guess he’s just thinking now,” said Ginny.

“I wonder what he’s thinking about?” asked Luna.

“I’ll wind up his speech, and he can tell us,” said Ginny. She started turning the key again, and the ticking and humming from within the man grew louder.

“All set,” she said.

“Ma-ny thanks!” said the mechanical man. His teeth moved without any other part of him moving at all, and there was no inflection in his voice: he spoke in a complete monotone. “You are ve-ry kind to wind me up, mad-am. I am Tik-tok. Who are you?”

“Well, I’m Ginny,” said Ginny. “I’m a witch, a human witch, not from around here. And these are my friends,” and she pointed out and named them each in turn.

“I am ve-ry pleased to meet all of you,” said Tiktok. “Thank you for wind-ing me up a-gain. It is good to be a-wake and a-live and see the sun.”

“How long were you there?” asked Ginny. “You were all rusted and fallen apart.”

“It must have been a ve-ry long time in-deed,” said Tiktok. “But I do not know how long it was, since I wound down and could not wind my-self up a-gain. How did you come to find me here?”

“We are journeying to the land of the Nome King,” said Ginny. “We were advised that it was the best way to reach the Land of Oz. We are going there to speak to Ozma, and to ask her to stop stealing magic from the wizards of our country.”

“I can-not be-lieve that Oz-ma would ever steal mag-ic,” said Tiktok. “First-ly, I do not think she knows how to do so. I have never seen her per-form such a feat. Sec-ond-ly, I do not think she would ev-er do such a thing. That would be steal-ing, and Oz-ma is a very kind prin-cess and would nev-er steal an-y-thing.”

“Nevertheless,” said Hermione, “the witches and wizards of our country are losing their magic, and we are told that Ozma is the one giving the orders. So we wish to speak with her.”

“I can-not help you get to Oz,” said Tiktok. “It lies a-cross the Dead-ly Des-ert, and the sands of that des-ert will turn an-y liv-ing thing to dust. I could walk a-cross it my-self, and per-haps car-ry one or two of the small-er mem-bers of your comp-an-y, but the rest of you would die in-stant-ly. Al-so, there are blow-ing sands and dust storms so that ev-en that at-tempt would be ver-y dang-er-ous. — How-ev-er, I can help you reach the realm of the Nome King. You are ver-y close. If you wish to speak to him, you have on-ly to get past this gi-ant with the ham-mer. The Nome King will then im-med-i-ate-ly cap-ture you and you can eas-i-ly speak with him. How-ev-er, he will al-so not help you get to Oz. He will hold you pris-o-ner for-ev-er.”

Harry and the others looked at each other. “All we know,” said Harry, “is that the white pearl, which we were told always gives good advice, told us to go to the realm of the Nome King, and from there to Oz.”

“If you are speak-ing of the white pearl of Prince In-ga,” said Tiktok, “then I would ad-vise you to take its ad-vice. It has nev-er been wrong. My brains are clock-work and ver-y good ones I be-lieve, but I have been wrong some-times. But I have heard of the white pearl of Prince In-ga and if it says you should go to the land of the Nome King, then I would ad-vise you to do so.”

“It was the white pearl that told us to find you,” said Hermione. “Can you help us get past the giant?”