- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Blade with whom I have lived, blade with whom I now die, serve right and justice one last time, seek one last heart of evil, still one last life of pain. Cut well, old friend, and then farewell.
- Ommadon: Come devils, witches, demons, ogres, trolls, sandmurks, harpies, ghouls, sorcerers.
- Peter Dickenson: Come algebra, anatomy, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, geometry, mathematics, meteorology, mineralogy, oceanography, palaeontology, physics, psychology, sociology, trigonometry, and zoology!
- Carolinus: There was time between the waning age of enchantment and the dawning age of logic when dragons flew the skies, free and unencumbered. Look down there Gorbash, my friend. On that troubled Earth below us, confusion and chaos reign. All mankind is facing an epic choice: a world of magic or a world of science. Which will it be?
- Princess Melisande: May... may I join him, father?
- Carolinus: [sadly] Of all questions, I feared that the most.
- Princess Melisande: May I?
- Carolinus: That must be your decision child.
- [he hugs her]
- Carolinus: Go, and you may never return to the magic realm. For even now the great dome of invisibility grows over our world to protect its sanctity for all time. And no one on the outside may enter its boundaries, save for the length of a dream, or a flash of an inspiration. But it will stay, through the years and the centuries and the ages, a part of man for all time. And whenever man needs magic, we will be here.
- Gorbash: Whither dost thou command me, oh master?
- Carolinus: [wearily] Gorbash, for pity's sake, no formality, please.
- Gorbash: Well, I, uh, like to do things by the book.
- Carolinus: To the Temple of All Antiquity!
- Gorbash: Right!
- [turns around, confused]
- Gorbash: Where?
- Carolinus: I'll guide you as we go. Away!
- Peter Dickenson: [holding up a pocket watch] This is an heirloom. It must be worth something.
- Pawnbroker: Your "heirs" didn't "loom" so big. If I gave you $50, I'd be fired.
- Smrgol: [indicating a pile of diamonds] Now, swallow them down.
- [Peter looks at them doubtfully]
- Smrgol: Not all the way, let them find your craw.
- [Peter gulps down the diamonds]
- Peter Dickenson: Odd sensation.
- Smrgol: Never had diamonds in your craw?
- Peter Dickenson: ... I never had a craw.
- Smrgol: They help grind up the white fire rock when you eat it.
- [takes a bite off the cliffside]
- Peter Dickenson: That's limestone.
- Smrgol: The puny man-word, if I ever heard it! Eat.
- [Peter takes a bite of the limestone]
- Smrgol: You'd wear down your teeth, grinding the stuff, so you swallow it in chunks. Wiggle 'em around with the gemstones until they're pulverized.
- Peter Dickenson: [through a mouthful of limestone] It's like birds use grit to grind feed.
- Smrgol: Yeah, but don't talk with your mouth full.
- Giles of the Treetops: [in the soup pot] I'm near parboiled to a fare-thee-well, but I'd sooner be cooked than crushed by that thing!
- Carolinus: I call on all Antiquity to give me magic enough!
- [clutching his head]
- Carolinus: How does it begin? Carvic crome zohmini lava - Yes! Carvic crome, zohmini, lavathol...
- Princess Melisande: [screams] Ahh! Father! He's dropping Sir Peter!
- Bryagh: [laughing] May a rock crush your skull.
- [he drops Peter]
- Carolinus: Untumblay varistone misacronis madlayunrot...
- [a fiery pentacle forms on the ground before him]
- Carolinus: Oh the blazes! Kala!
- [the spell erupts and strikes Peter just as Gorbash catches him; Peter disappears and Gorbash falls]
- Carolinus: What happened? Where's Peter?
- Princess Melisande: He's gone! He's gone!
- [Gorbash is still falling, breathing out fire]
- Carolinus: Gorbash! You're releasing too much fire! Breathe in! Breathe in!
- [he crashes into the lake, unconscious]
- Ommadon: I have weapons you would not dare use. Fear rules men. By summoning all the dark powers, I will infest the spirit of man so that he uses his science and logic to destroy himself. What havoc and raze. Turn brother against brother. Greed and avarice shall prevail, and those who do not hear my words shall pay the price. I'll teach man to use his machines. I'll show him what distorted science can give birth to. I'll teach him to fly like a fairy... and I'll give him the ultimate answer to all his science can ask. And the world will be free for my magic again.
- Carolinus: Stop! This must not be!
- Solarius: We want none of your dark magic.
- Ommadon: While your powers die, mine will flourish. Man will never inherent my domain. For I am making man mine. He will understand and come to desire my magic. It is inevitable. You shall see. This dark determination I swear. By this red crown. The source of all my dark power. So be it! Now and forever!
- Ommadon: Yes, Bryagh. It's your turn now. You and your legions. Attack. Demolish! Devour! Burn! Grind them to dust! Go forth and death be thy destination! Doom. Doom. A flight of dragons! I command it! The flight of dragons! Doom. Doom. Doom.
- Peter Dickenson: Those incantations can't hurt me, I have some incantations of my own. How about, "a body in motion tends to stay in motion." "Protons have 1,832 times the mass of electrons." "All light is bent or refracted as it goes from one medium to another, save in a direction perpendicular to the interface between the two mediums."
- [Ommadon begins screaming in pain]
- Peter Dickenson: "... result from the selective actions of external conditions upon the variations from their specific type which individuals present." "Gravity varies as to the inverse square of the distance." "The velocity of light is equal to the wavelength times the frequency of vibration." "The geometrical properties of the space time continuum are determined by the masses present in space and time."
- Princess Melisande: ... Father, who are these Brothers? You've never spoken to me of them. I know you're the Green Wizard of nature's realm, but the others?
- Carolinus: My brother Solarius is the Blue Wizard, lord of the depths and the heights. His realm is outer space, deepest ocean, highest mountain.
- Solarius: [reading Carolinus' message] ... My brother calls council, but why? Lunarian! Lunarian!
- [His dragon-companion appears, Solarius steps onto his back and they fly away]
- Carolinus: ... And my brother Lo Tae Zhao, the Golden Wizard. His realm is light and air; he is lord of transcendence, healing, and contemplation.
- Lo Tae Zhao: [reading Carolinus' message] ... I was expecting this; it was inevitable. Shen Zhu! Shen Zhu!
- [His dragon-companion appears, they fly away]
- Carolinus: And finally, high in Loathly Tower, my last brother Ommadon, the Red Wizard. Lord of the devil's domain, seducer of darkness, master of that heartless magic the world calls black.
- Ommadon: [laughs] Bryagh! Bryagh! My fool brother has just realized the inevitable. Well, I'll go; it should prove amusing. Bryagh, I say!
- [His dragon-companion appears in a blaze of fire and they fly away]
- Carolinus: ... Astride the terrible Bryagh, he is absolute ruler of that inferno-like mass of primordial filth which is his domain.
- Princess Melisande: But why does antiquity force you to include something so abominable?
- Carolinus: As evil is a part of all things, evil is a part of our world of magic. For the irony of all existence is that good would be totally impotent, without the contrast of evil.
- Carolinus: I propose we create the last realm of magic.
- [an image of the realm appears on the table]
- Solarius: Magnificent!
- Lo Tae Zhao: Incredible!
- Carolinus: The magic realm, where all enchanted things might retreat before their age ends. If we consolidate our powers, there will be enough magic left to create such a place, sealed off from the rest of the world by the mists of invisibility.
- Ommadon: You would defeat science and logic with a foolish retirement village?
- [laughs]
- Carolinus: Not defeat, my brother, enhance!
- Carolinus: The world, though it does not realize it, cannot do without magic. For example, man hears of the dragon's invulnerable skin, and lo! He makes armor, battleships, tanks. The fairy flies, and furiously jealous, man himself defies gravity with machines he will call airplanes. A magician looks into his crystal and sees and hears halfway across the world. "Ah," says Man, "If only it could be so!" And centuries from now, he conjures up miracles, but calls them radio and television. If man is to surmount the insurmountable, there must always be magic to inspire him. The world *needs* magic. Magic cannot die.
- Carolinus: Tonight, after you both have returned to your realms, I will turn to Antiquity for the choice. Its wisdom shall prevail.
- Solarius: Well, whoever Antiquity chooses, your leader will have his job cut out for him. I leave him this - the Shield of Saturn! Forged from the mystic dust of her rings, it will deflect any dark magic spell.
- Lo Tae Zhao: I have only implements of peace, but perhaps he will find the Flute of Healing Sleep useful. It is from the Temple of the Muses. When played, it will lull the most fearsome dragon to sleep.
- Carolinus: Thank you, good brothers. Ommadon will not prevail, and his crown shall be captured.
- Smrgol: By all, that's magic, is the dragon not a wonderful creature? Open your eyes, boy. Come on, come all the way about. Ahh, ha ha. It's me lad, your uncle. Don't you recognize me?
- Peter Dickenson: Uncle? What?
- [looking around]
- Peter Dickenson: Melisande!
- Princess Melisande: I am here, brother.
- Peter Dickenson: Brother? What... w-we kissed.
- Princess Melisande: Kissed?
- [gasps]
- Carolinus: What is it, child? Does he know where Peter...
- Princess Melisande: He... he... he *is* Sir Peter!
- Peter Dickenson: Well, of course I'm Peter.
- Carolinus: By the beards of Antiquity! I went and *merged* them!
- Princess Melisande: Merged?
- Carolinus: Peter and Gorbash are one! Peter... is *in* Gorbash!
- [Peter looks at himself in shock]
- Smrgol: Well, blast it man! Undo it!
- Carolinus: I can't undo, till I find out what I *did* in the first place.
- Smrgol: But... but where is Gorbash?
- Peter Dickenson: He's still inside here with me. I can feel him in the back of my mind... sleeping soundly right now.
- Carolinus: Well, may he rest well until I figure out how to separate you.
- Peter Dickenson: [dropping his head] This *can't* be a game, I, I never invented a rule to cover a situation like this.
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Care to join me, Sir Peter?
- [Offers hot drink]
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: No, I suppose not, all bedragoned as you are, must be most annoying.
- [Sips drink]
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Ahh.
- Peter Dickenson: [in Gorbash's dragon form] I have a longing to eat a cow. I can't believe it, an entire cow, hooves, tail, bones, ears, the whole thing!
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Yes, well, to each his own.
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: [Wolf howls and approaches] Hold, cur! Not one step further!
- Aragh: And is this the thanks I get? Gorbash, old friend, you look like you've seen a ghost.
- [laughs]
- Aragh: Matter of fact, maybe you have.
- [laughs]
- Smrgol: Who's laughing?
- [yawns]
- Smrgol: Making such a confounding racket? I hardly slept a wink all night. Missed my gold and...
- [sees the wolf]
- Smrgol: Aragh! Good old boy... I thought you were dead!
- Peter Dickenson: You know him?
- Smrgol: Know him? Of course I know - It's Aragh! Friend of the family, like a, a big brother to you.
- Aragh: What's the matter Gorbash? Did the Sandmurks steal your memory?
- Smrgol: Sandmurks? Were there Sandmurks, here?
- [laughs]
- Smrgol: Nonsense. They live by the sea.
- Aragh: [laughs] Smrgol, you could always sleep through anything.
- Aragh: Well, whoever is doing the shooting, god bless him. He certainly can handle a longbow.
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: I trust he's on our side.
- Aragh: Look! There he is.
- [a slim figure in green approaches]
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Good show, man. I bow to such expertise and doff this helmet to a better man than I.
- Danielle: And I doff my cap, to you Sir Orrin.
- [sweeps off her cap; her long red hair tumbles down her back]
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: By all that's holy!
- Danielle: I am Danielle of the woodland, Sir Orrin.
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: You know me?
- Danielle: My father sang of your exploits. You have always been a hero of mine.
- Aragh: [chuckling] Oh-ho-ho, too good to be true.
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Hush!
- Danielle: You must forgive the wood elves. They are petty outlaws, but good at their jobs. And this is their leader, Giles of the treetops.
- [leaning in to look at Giles]
- Danielle: For shame.
- Giles of the Treetops: [abashed] We saw the dragons. We thought they were Ommadon's raiders. A thousand pardons, Sir Orrin. Had we but known...
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Oh, think nothing of it, little fellow. The way things are nowadays, we all get a bit mucked up.
- Danielle: [to Giles] Get your men down from the trees and awaken the dragons. Hurry, now.
- [to Sir Orrin]
- Danielle: Whatever your quest is, I should be honored to join.
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Well, it's a bit unusual... but, speaking for myself, I should be honored - nay! Delighted to have you.
- Aragh: Well, Gorbash, awake at last?
- Gorbash: Aragh! I thought you were dead beneath the sea!
- Aragh: Huh? Ohh...
- Sir Orin Neville Smythe: Old friend! Oh, thank heaven, you're still intact!