《Yak Laughter》


 CHAPTER 1 - The Miracle

    CHAPTER 1


    The Miracle


    On a dreary autumn afternoon, a young woman named Ezmeralda Totkins was chopping a carrot at her kitchen table when a whoop from outside caused her to glance up and witness, through the steam-rimmed windowpane, a miracle. Her son, Wilburn, was flying.


    It had been a pretty ordinary day up to that point: cloudy, a bit damp¡ªperfect soup weather, she¡¯d thought. And soup seemed a prudent option since Gramma Fark would be visiting for supper and the older woman never missed a chance to critique Ez¡¯s cooking¡ªnor indeed, any aspect of her homemaking, nor even Ez¡¯s character in general. Nothing brought Gramma to life more than spotlighting her not-daughter-in-law¡¯s every insufficiency. Ez wished she could forgive her for it. The unfortunate fact of the matter, though, was that Gramma¡¯s cooking was the stuff of legend, whereas Ez¡¯s... well...


    But this time Ez was determined not to give Gramma an excuse to feel superior. So soup: because regardless of the weather, soup was difficult to ruin, and nigh on impossible to burn. So Ez had filled her cauldron from the rain barrel and hung it on the pot crane and swiveled it over the fire. Then she¡¯d sent Wilburn outside to dig potatoes in the garden while she buckled down to chopping. And now...


    Her son was turning cartwheels in midair.


    The knife slid from Ez¡¯s fingers with a clatter. She sat frozen, her brain seeming to have jammed. It was just... happening. Her mind tried to reject what her eyes stubbornly refused to quit seeing.


    Ez slapped herself hard across the face. It hurt¡ªenough to blur the miracle with tears, but not erase it. But this couldn¡¯t be real life. It was a dream. It had to be. Ez drew back her hand and slapped herself again as hard as she could, knocking herself out of her chair.


    There was no denying that pain. Even Ez¡¯s palm stung from the blow. Cursing, she dragged herself upright in time to see Wilburn pause, some thirty feet above the garden. For a moment, the boy hung motionless, a small, dark figure in the ashen sky. The way he cocked his head told Ez he¡¯d just had an idea. Suddenly, Wilburn clamped his arms to his sides and shot straight upward like an arrow, vanishing beyond the window frame. Ez blinked once at the empty rectangle. Then with a yelp she bolted for the door, hip-checking the table in her haste and sending vegetables cascading to the floor. She dashed outside without putting her boots on, jumped the garden fence and sprinted to the spot beneath which Wilburn had ascended.


    He was gone. Ez stood there in the cold mud gazing up into the clouds for what felt like a quarter of an hour. It hadn¡¯t happened, she decided at last. What she¡¯d seen out the window had been a large bird, that was all. A very large, perfectly ordinary bird, and somehow, a trick of the light... Perhaps she needed to start getting more rest. As for Wilburn, he had probably wandered off to look for toads down by the creek. Yes, that would be it. The silly boy¡ªDidn¡¯t he know it was too cold out for amphibians?


    The shovel and the gunnysack lay next to the potato patch where Wilburn had abandoned them. When he got back, Ez would have to pretend to be cross with him. Where are my spuds? she¡¯d ask in her stern voice. Oops, he would say, I kind of forgot. Then she would write out a few math problems on the slate board and give Wilburn the chalk, and he would take it as if it were a whip with which to flog himself.


    Ez smiled as she squelched over in her socks to complete the chore her son hadn¡¯t quite gotten around to starting. Wilburn hated math, which was precisely what made it the perfect punishment. After all, the whole point was to teach the boy a lesson: So why not teach two at once? It was a strategy Ez¡¯s own parents had applied to great effect in raising her, and she knew Wilburn would thank her for it one day, just as she¡¯d eventually thanked them. She stooped to grab the shovel.


    ¡°HEY MOM¡ªWATCH THIS!¡±


    Her neck jerked back. Hundreds of feet above, Wilburn came hurtling out of the clouds head first. He dived so fast that a vortex of mist was sucked into his wake. The sound of his clothing snapping in the wind was like a drumroll. From Ez¡¯s perspective, he went from a distant speck to a full-sized boy in a heartbeat.


    She reached, instinctively, to catch him: a foolhardy move, for if he had really been falling, she would have been flattened like a shadow at noon. But of course, Wilburn wasn¡¯t falling¡ªhe was flying.


    Ez screamed as he pulled out of his dive, inches from smashing into her. For a fraction of a second they came nose to nose, she looking straight up, he straight down, her face contorted in horror, his radiant with joy. Wilburn was soaking wet from flying through the clouds. His cheeks were flushed and his dark hair was plastered flat against his skull with speed¡ªand he was laughing, laughing with the purest, most beautiful delight.


    Then he slingshotted upward, gusting Ez with wind and pelting her with droplets of water. He whipped around in a gigantic loop-the-loop, one, two, three times. It was impossible. It was obscene. The laws of physics... wadded up and tossed over God¡¯s shoulder like a bad sketch.


    Ez fell to her knees in the mud. All her life she¡¯d had a feeling, deep down, that she¡¯d never fully been aware of before: a sense of confidence that although she didn¡¯t and obviously couldn¡¯t know everything, she at least basically grasped the situation¡ªthe situation being life... the world... reality. Her every belief depended on that fundamental confidence, which she now noticed for the first time, as it buckled beneath the weight of mounting evidence¡ªand gave. It was like a pane of glass shattering in her mind.


    Ez burst out laughing. It was just too perfect. The punchline to the cosmic joke. She threw back her head and opened her arms in surrender, helplessly laughing to the sky¡ªgetting it. Everything she¡¯d thought she¡¯d known was wrong. It was a miracle. It was the funniest prank every ever pulled. She laughed herself hoarse, kneeling in the mud, because¡ªWhat else was there to do?


    After a while, the effects of her epiphany began to fade, leaving her wracked by a severe case of the hiccups. At least she was able to think normally again. Well, almost normally.


    She clapped for Wilburn as he showed off every stunt that he could think of, zigging, zagging, corkscrewing, somersaulting, stopping on a dime and changing course as effortlessly as Ez could wave her hand. He made it look so easy. And... all bets were off at this point... so... Why not? Ez leapt into the air.


    She landed. Well, it had been worth a try. For half a second she had honestly believed she was about to soar up to join Wilburn in the sky. The longer she watched him, the more she found herself growing accustomed to the spectacle. Once she had gotten over the initial existential shock and satisfied herself that Wilburn was not in any immediate danger, she began to wonder if she might not as well go ahead and dig the potatoes. Unless such things as soup and supper didn¡¯t matter anymore...? She wasn¡¯t sure. But she was getting restless simply standing there, miracle or no, so she picked up the shovel and began to dig.


    Every other second, she glanced up to check on Wilburn, which her neck did not appreciate. Before long, it hurt nastily, as if a bigger and bigger snake was biting her at the base of her skull. But she kept doing it, for the same reason that she didn¡¯t go back to put her boots on: as sole witness to the miracle, Ez felt it was her duty to, well, witness¡ªand she had a funny feeling that if she turned her back for more than a second, something horrible would happen.


    But when she¡¯d dug ten times more potatoes than she needed for the soup and the gunnysack was full to the point of bursting, Ez was forced to consider the possibility that the miracle might last for days or weeks on end¡ªor forever. There was but one way to find out, and in the meantime, they would surely need to eat... Wouldn¡¯t they?


    The only thing Ez knew for certain was that she didn¡¯t know anything anymore. But on the other hand, apart from the fact that Wilburn was flying, the world seemed to be behaving itself normally. And, she mused, it would take more than a miracle to alter Gramma Fark¡¯s plans. That settled the matter.


    Ez began to wrestle the sack of spuds across the garden. It was so heavy she could barely pick it up and had to transport it in lurches, hoisting and swinging it a few feet at a time to avoid blowing her back out. The process took her several minutes, during which she barely kept track of her son¡¯s location out of the corner of her eye.


    It wasn¡¯t until she got to the gate and straightened up to catch her breath that she noticed something was amiss. Wilburn was flying sluggishly, as if the air around him had turned thick as syrup. Ez mistook it for another game at first. Wilburn would launch himself upward and slowly coast to a halt, then drift back downward and do it again. She grew concerned, however, as his coordination began to deteriorate. Wilburn had flown a ways beyond the garden, out over the valley that separated the hill on which the cottage sat from the next one. He was too far off for Ez to see his face, but his slumped posture was plainly that of a boy exhausted, yet unwilling to give up his fun. Cupping her hands around her mouth, Ez shouted, ¡°Hey! Come take a break!¡±


    Wilburn heard, and reluctantly turned back, beginning to descend on a diagonal trajectory. But his head was bobbing woozily, his shoulders sagging; and his limbs were dangling slackly. Fear spiked through Ez as he drew near enough for her to make out his expression: it was the one he always got when she let him stay up past his bedtime. How could the boy feel drowsy with a hundred feet of nothing between him and the ground? Yet that clearly was the case. Wilburn¡¯s descent was growing clumsier by the second.


    Then without warning he plummeted five dozen feet, caught himself with a jolt, and floated, swaying like a drunkard, still much, much too high for comfort. Then he went limp. And just like that, the miracle turned into a catastrophe. A scream that could have drawn blood tore from Ez¡¯s throat as her son dropped out of the sky.


    It would have been the end of Wilburn Totkins Fark had not his jacket snagged on the very branch of the old sycamore Ez had been planning to chop off for fear that it would break during a storm and hit the cottage. The branch absorbed Wilburn¡¯s momentum with a groan, the stiff wood flexing to its limit. It bowed steeply, then sprang back, launching him upward in arc. He tumbled bonelessly through the air and landed hard on the cottage¡¯s red roof.


    The thud his body made was the most terrifying sound Ez had ever heard. What she did next was only natural: she panicked. She crashed through the garden gate and sprinted a full circle around the cottage, yelling Wilburn¡¯s name. When he failed to answer, she clawed her way up the old tree and hurled herself onto the roof¡ªa feat she wouldn¡¯t have believed herself capable of had she paused to consider it.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    The boy lay in a heap on the red shingles. Ez crawled to his side and ran a hand over his forehead, brushing back his windswept hair. His lips were blue, and his skin icy to the touch. But he was breathing. Ez checked him over thoroughly for injuries and found nothing worse than a few abrasions. That didn¡¯t rule out internal damage, though...


    She hesitated, glancing at the old sycamore, then at the chimney, then at the rain gutters, then back to the tree. Risking her own hide was one thing, but Wilburn¡¯s was quite another. How the hell was she supposed to get him down gently? Even a ladder would be risky.


    The solution came to her in a flash. Ez climbed down hastily and ran into the cottage. Snatching the slate board off the mantle, she feverishly scratched out an equation, then drew a rough diagram of the contraption she intended to build. A childhood¡¯s worth of math punishments had not been wasted on her: Ez had almost been an engineer. She would have made a stellar one, she knew, if only certain unforeseen events had not transpired...


    Ez dashed around the cottage gathering the items she would need: her toolbox, her rolling pin, the folding cot she kept for guests, a coil of rope. She threw it all into the wheelbarrow and drove it to the base of the tree, then flipped the wheelbarrow over and unbolted the axle from the chassis. Minutes later, she stood on the cot and hauled the rope hand over hand, hoisting herself up to the roof using a block and tackle system she¡¯d rigged with the wheel and the rolling pin as pulleys. It was a crude job, of which Ez would have been embarrassed under ordinary circumstances, but for this it proved sufficient.


    Tying the rope off on the weather vane, she bundled her unconscious son onto the cot with as little jostling as possible, then braced herself against the chimney and, letting the rope out inch by inch, lowered him smoothly to the ground. He weighed much less than the potatoes. Once down, Ez was able to pick up the cot and carry it inside with Wilburn on it. She set it down beside the fire, threw more wood on, and carefully removed Wilburn''s wet jacket, which had torn so badly that she scarcely needed to move him, before wrapping him up snugly in a quilt.


    Time passed. Ez perched tensely on the edge of her seat, peering into Wilburn¡¯s face, matching her breathing to the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Gradually, his color returned. And then his nose began to twitch. And at long last his eyes flipped open and he sat up. Wilburn had inherited his father Jack¡¯s eyes, which were so brown as to look black, yet somehow full of inner brightness.


    ¡°G¡¯morning,¡± Wilburn mumbled, stretching. He sniffed the air with interest. He drew a hand out from beneath the quilt and pointed to the cauldron. ¡°Soup?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Not yet,¡± Ez said, grinning with relief. ¡°Just broth. Would you like some?¡±


    ¡°Yeah! I mean... Yes please.¡± Wilburn leaned forward eagerly. Then his gaze became distant. ¡°I forgot the potatoes,¡± he said. He frowned. ¡°No, wait, I went out there to do it... I was just about to start... But then I thought¡ª¡± He sprang up suddenly, causing Ez to flinch back in surprise.


    ¡°Mom¡ªguess what¡ªI can fly!¡±


    Before Ez had a chance to get a word out, Wilburn bounded into the air. He got only a few feet off the floorboards before running out of steam. He hovered for a second, the enthusiasm draining from his face. Then he collapsed back onto the cot looking like he might throw up.


    ¡°Oh... I don¡¯t feel so good...¡± He tugged the quilt around himself again, shivering.


    Ez quickly ladled broth into a bowl and smeared butter on a chunk of bread to go with it. To her immense relief, Wilburn ate ravenously. She kept refilling his bowl and getting up to fetch more bread until he finally clasped his hands over his bulging belly and let out an enormous yawn. With that, he fell promptly back to sleep.


    Ez studied him intently for some minutes longer before forcing her attention to the soup¡ªor rather, the lack thereof. With a sinking feeling, she looked from the table, on which half the vegetables still waited to be chopped, to the floor, where much of what she¡¯d managed to chop earlier was strewn, to the window, through which the light had already begun to fade. Then she spotted the gunnysack full of potatoes leaning by the garden gate, as yet unwashed and unpeeled. She wanted to cry.


    But damn it, Gramma Fark wouldn¡¯t be crying if she¡¯d been in Ez¡¯s shoes. Or, well, muddy socks. And crying was exactly what the woman Gramma thought Ez was would do. That woman was weak, but the real Ez was tough, or so she told herself. She wouldn¡¯t let Gramma be right about her.


    Ez sprang into action. There was no time to brew coffee, so she choked down a spoonful of dry grounds before attacking the vegetables in a frenzy. Precision was, unfortunately, out of the question. Ez took barely enough care to ensure she didn¡¯t cut her fingers off. She dumped the whole mess in the cauldron and gave it a perfunctory stir. Then, imagining the snide remarks Gramma was going to make, she tore into the cleaning.


    This required her to finally take off her now-ragged socks in order to stop tracking muddy footprints, of which there were already a dismaying plenty. Wilburn slept right through the racket Ez made rushing about scrubbing and dusting. Not even when she dropped the empty tea kettle with a resounding clang did the boy stir. Shaking her head, Ez hurried out into the dusk to fill the kettle from the rain barrel.


    As she was coming back she thought she heard something: a distant humming, which of course must be the wind. Except... no wind was blowing. The note droned on and on, unnaturally steady; and it was steadily becoming louder, unless that was her imagination. There was daylight enough for her to see across the hilltops a few miles in all directions. What she saw was¡ªnothing. Not a flicker of motion. Only hills and valleys stretching into darkness.


    Feeling jumpy, Ez went back inside to light the lamps and set the table, put the kettle on the hearth and give the soup another stir. Looking around, she was startled to discover she¡¯d completed every task she¡¯d meant to; rather shabbily, yes, but still, done was preferable to not. The last thing left to tidy was herself.


    There were only two rooms in the cottage: Ez''s bedroom, to which she now retired, and the everything-else room. The loft served as Wilburn¡¯s quarters, though he often crawled in with Ez late at night, claiming he¡¯d had a nightmare. Ez never challenged this pretense, which she was pretty sure was false at least nineteen times out of twenty. She knew Wilburn would grow out of it one day, and... well, the cottage could be a lonely place at night, or really any time, isolated as it was amidst the windswept hills. Every brick of it, every nail in every plank was haunted by the ghost of Jack. His absence defined Ez¡¯s world, even now: more than seven years after his death. Living in the cottage they had built together, raising the child they had made together... It was everything the two of them had wanted¡ªtogether¡ªBut one of them was missing.


    Ez peered at herself in the dressing-table mirror. A small part of her was always surprised to see how young she looked; and today more so than ever, for she felt as if she¡¯d aged a decade in the past few hours. Her reflection was a good reminder that she wasn¡¯t an old widow like Gramma Fark yet. She was still twenty-seven, and in fact not even technically a widow, because she and Jack had only ever been engaged. That was her biggest regret: that she had put off marrying the man she loved for reasons that seemed utterly trivial in hindsight. She¡¯d planned to marry him eventually, expecting there to be more time... so much more, years and decades. And of course, there had been time, and there still was¡ªfor her.


    There wasn¡¯t so much as a speck of gray in Ez¡¯s sandy brown hair, although she did brush out a twig from the old sycamore. No mark of the day¡¯s misadventures showed on her face either, unless it was a certain... strangeness in her bottle-green eyes. Ez¡¯s clothing was a sadder story. Between the digging and the climbing, she¡¯d made quite a bit of mending work for herself, not to mention washing. But that could all wait for tomorrow.


    Ez changed into a clean pair of trousers and a baggy flannel shirt that had been Jack¡¯s. As she was buttoning it, she became aware of that strange buzzing noise again. It had grown loud enough to hear it through the walls now. Or was it... ? She looked up, wincing at the resurgent twinge in her neck. The noise was coming through the roof all right, which meant whatever was making it must be above the cottage, which meant it was... flying. A giddy sort of dread began to boil in her stomach.


    Ez hurried from her bedroom, past the sleeping Wilburn to the door, and locked it. Then she went around locking all the windows and drawing the curtains shut. She could feel the vibration through the floorboards now. The humming grew louder, and still louder, until, for the second time that day, something landed on the roof.


    The thunk it made roused Wilburn from his slumber. Another thunk followed the first. And then another, and the buzzing ceased. In the relative silence, Ez and Wilburn stared into the rafters. They could hear whatever it was scratching around above them. A cacophony of clicks and skitters filtered down, as if a squirrel- circus was performing on the shingles.


    ¡°She¡¯s here,¡± Wilburn said blankly.


    ¡°What?¡± Ez asked. ¡°Who?¡±


    But before Wilburn could answer there was an almighty crash. Debris rained down into the cottage as a creature from a nightmare tore its way inside. The monster wriggled through the hole it had made and scuttled upside down across the ceiling with appalling speed. The firelight flashed iridescent off its wings. Ez gasped. It was a hornet the size of a cart horse, poison yellow with black stripes. Two more identical monstrosities came squirming through the hole after the first one. Their stench, like overripe fruit mixed with carrion, triggered a primordial hatred in Ez, a revulsion that ran deeper than her horror.


    The knife she had been using to chop vegetables was in her hand again without her meaning to have snatched it off the drying rack. She shoved Wilburn behind her as the hornets dropped from the ceiling to the floor. They couldn¡¯t spread their wings in the cramped confines of the cottage, but they didn¡¯t need to. The humans were trapped. The giant insects pressed in from three sides, backing Ez and Wilburn toward the fire.


    Ez brandished the knife, its handle slick with sweat. She could feel the heat from the fire scalding the backs of her legs. The hornets advanced slowly, their antennae waggling. Then, as if some signal had been given, all three pounced on Ez at once.


    She might have stood a chance if she¡¯d been armed with her bow at a distance. As it was, only dumb luck saved her from decapitation. She slashed wildly, the knife glancing off a hornet¡¯s armor at the same moment it knocked her feet out from beneath her. A second hornet struck her squarely between the shoulder blades with a leg as hard as a fencepost, flipping her end over end, and the third hornet¡¯s mandibles snapped shut in the empty space, exactly where her head had been a millisecond earlier.


    Ez slammed to the floor. Dazed, she rolled onto her back and saw her own frightened reflection, multiplied hundreds of thousands of times over in a pair of compound eyes the size of watermelons. Her hand was in the hornet''s blind spot. Without thinking, Ez buried her knife in the gap between its head and thoracic armor. The monster jerked away, unpinning her, but shearing the blade cleanly off its handle in the process. Ez scrambled to her feet and dealt the creature a ferocious kick that sent it crashing into the table, launching dinnerware in all directions. The hornet lay writhing where it had fallen, unable to rise.


    Ez spun around to find the other two descending upon Wilburn, who had seized the fire poker and was wielding it like a sword. He managed to land a satisfying smack, but for all the effect it had, he might as well have been beating a rock. The axe Ez used for log-splitting was leaning in the corner. In a single motion she grabbed hold of it and swung, bringing it down with a wet crunch that clove a hornet¡¯s head in two. The final hornet whipped around, slapping Ez with its abdomen and hurling her against the wall. Her vision flashed.


    She slid to the floor and must have blacked out for a second, for the next thing she saw was the poker sailing out of Wilburn¡¯s grasp. It spun through the air and landed with a clatter, out of reach. Wilburn stumbled backward, his face shocked and hopeless; he could not retreat further without stepping in the fireplace.


    Thrumming its triumph, the hornet reared up on hind legs, its abdomen quivering grotesquely as a drop of violet venom oozed from the tip of its dagger-sized stinger. Ez dove, knowing it was too late, her final prayer that she might take the sting herself, buying Wilburn a chance to flee.


    It all happened in an instant. Just as the hornet struck, the cottage''s front door was blasted off its hinges; it came wizzing through the air, missing Ez by a whisker, and slapped flat against the floor¡ªdirectly on top of the hornet. The effect was like that of a boot stomping a jelly donut. Green slime splattered everything within a ten-foot radius, dousing the fire and drenching Ez and Wilburn.


    There followed a moment of profoundest shock, during which the only sound was the drip-drip of bug guts raining from the ceiling. Then, in unison, mother and son turned to the open doorway, where stood a most familiar stoop-shouldered figure. Gramma Fark shrugged off her traveling cloak and folded it neatly over one arm before stepping across the threshold. She surveyed the destruction with her usual pursed-lipped expression of maternal disapproval. Then she clucked her tongue and shook her head the way she always did and said, ¡°Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do.¡±

 CHAPTER 2 - The Secret

    CHAPTER 2


    The Secret


    The weirdest day of Ez¡¯s life kept getting weirder. She and Wilburn watched in silent awe as Gramma Fark approached the hornet that lay sprawled against the overturned table and prodded it with the tip of her cane. It twitched. Wilburn and Ez both twitched themselves, but Gramma merely grunted. She stumped over to inspect the other hornet¡ªthe one that wasn¡¯t squashed beneath the door¡ªand, finding it sufficiently dead, she wrenched the axe free, stumped back to the first one and calmly beheaded it with a stroke.


    ¡°There,¡± she said. She flicked a glob of gore off her sleeve. Then she rounded on Wilburn. ¡°So,¡± she said, planting both fists on her portly hips, ¡°what¡¯s your mother let you get up to this time?¡±


    ¡°I¡ªbeg your pardon?¡± Ez struggled to her feet, shaking as much from indignation as from shock. She fixed Gramma with a glare that could have pickled a rhinoceros. The older woman¡¯s eyebrows arched in scorn, but when she spoke, her tone was simperingly girlish.


    ¡°I brought a pie,¡± she said. ¡°Lemon meringue. It was Jack¡¯s favorite you know. I just hope I haven¡¯t underdone the crust.¡± It was the very falsest of false modesties, for Ez knew full well that Gramma¡¯s pie, like everything she cooked, would be a masterpiece with which God Himself could not find fault, whose flavor could not be spoiled even by Ez¡¯s bitterness. Any other evening, Ez would have dutifully paid Gramma the homage that she clearly felt entitled to; right then, however, Ez was in no mood for beating around the bush.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want pie,¡± she spat. ¡°I want to know what the hell just happened, what these things are and why they broke into our house and tried to kill us!¡±


    ¡°I want pie,¡± Wilburn piped up.


    ¡°Of course you do,¡± Gramma told him, rumpling his hair; she grimaced as her hand came away coated in green slime, ¡°But we mustn''t have dessert until we''ve eaten our supper. I¡¯m sure your mother tried her best with it.¡±


    Ez opened her mouth to say something she knew she would regret, but the fight suddenly went out of her and she dropped into a chair instead, overwhelmed by weariness. All that cleaning for nothing, she thought dully¡ªas if that were her biggest concern. For a moment, it almost seemed a look of sympathy crossed Gramma¡¯s face, but then it turned into her usual pursed-lipped expression of maternal disapproval.


    ¡°You go on and have a nice sit,¡± she said. ¡°I know you modern women don¡¯t lose sleep over a dirty house. Me, well, I suppose I¡¯m too old-fashioned to loaf about when work needs doing. You won¡¯t mind if I tidy up, will you?¡±


    ¡°Be my guest,¡± Ez said with a hollow chuckle. Tidy up indeed. The cottage was all but destroyed.


    ¡°I am your guest,¡± Gramma said reprovingly. But Ez, who¡¯d run plumb out of damns to give, just shrugged. Gramma Fark clucked her tongue and shook her head. Then, clamping her cane under her armpit, she took hold of one of the decapitated hornet¡¯s legs and made a show of trying to drag it toward the doorway. ¡°Wilburn,¡± she said meekly, ¡°would you please come give your grandmother a hand? These poor old bones ain¡¯t got much strength left.¡± Wilburn eyed the corpse reluctantly, but Ez got to her feet. Gramma had won, just as she always did, and always would, for it was Gramma¡¯s game. It didn¡¯t matter if Ez didn¡¯t want to play¡ªthe game would play her, one way or another.


    With a sigh, Ez grabbed one of the dead bug¡¯s legs; Wilburn followed her lead, and together the three of them hauled the creature outside, where night had fallen extra darkly. The low roof of cloud that had dimmed the sun¡¯s light all day now blotted out the moon and any stars that might have shone. A chill wind whooshed around the trio as they dragged the hornet down the path away from the cottage. A shape suddenly moved in the darkness. If Gramma hadn¡¯t been half-deaf already, Wilburn and Ez¡¯s shrieks would certainly have made her so. Both of them bolted for the cottage.


    ¡°Come on back, you babies,¡± Gramma called. ¡°It¡¯s only Thoralf. There¡¯s a good chap.¡± She reached out to pat the darkness where the ink-black stallion must be.


    Thoralf nickered.


    ¡°Oh, thank God,¡± Ez breathed, clutching her chest. The way her heart was galloping felt like a horse was trapped inside her.


    ¡°Hi Thoralf,¡± Wilburn said. ¡°Oof¡ª¡± He¡¯d bumped into the stallion¡¯s hindquarters. Thoralf followed the three of them back and forth to the cottage as they dragged the second hornet out, then scraped up what they could of the squashed one and dumped it with the others.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go fetch the shovel,¡± Ez said, choking back the bile rising in her gorge.


    ¡°Nah, burying¡¯s no use.¡± The light from the doorless doorway caught Gramma¡¯s hair, forming a glowing ring around her face, which was a mask of shadow. ¡°We¡¯ve got to burn these,¡± she went on, ¡°unless you want more turning up. Vexpids are attracted by the smell of their own dead.¡±


    There was a pause. ¡°Vexpids?¡± Ez asked. Gramma grunted.


    There was a longer pause. The silence stretched uncomfortably before Ez said, very quietly, ¡°You know what¡¯s going on¡ªdon¡¯t you, Nyreen?¡± She had never used Gramma¡¯s first name before. It had always been Ms. Fark, until Wilburn had come along. Then it was Gramma ever since. And she did not do so now out of friendliness. ¡°Don¡¯t you?¡± Ez said again, cold fury in her voice.


    Gramma stood stock-still, seeming to consider. Then she said, ¡°Step back a smidgen, both of you.¡± Then she said something else: a word that resonated as if a bell had been struck. Ez heard it distinctly, but she couldn¡¯t have repeated it a moment later¡ªnot one syllable. The word passed straight through her mind without sticking. But she felt it¡ªa great wheel turning, a machine of uncountable pieces clicking into place; the sync, the power. It was everywhere, everything, infinite¡ªyet intimate: closer than her own heart.


    The heap of hornets burst afire. One second: pitch darkness. Next second: blinding light as flames roared high into the air. The flames were green¡ªgreen as the summer grass in sunshine. Ez staggered. Wilburn whooped. The fire devoured the hornets in a blink and dwindled away to nothing. A few emerald embers floated on the wind. Then all was dark.


    ¡°Explain,¡± Ez snarled, seizing Gramma by the collar of her jacket.


    ¡°I¡¯ll try,¡± Gramma said cooly, ¡°after supper.¡± She shook Ez off and trudged back to the cottage, which remained a disaster. Gone were the monstrous insects, but gallons of gore still caked the walls and floorboards, across which shattered tableware and pieces of the ceiling mingled. Gramma planted herself in the center of the mayhem and began to pivot slowly in a circle, waving her cane and muttering. Ez felt it again: the power, the sync. The hornet slime began to slither bit by bit toward the fireplace, where green flames shot up from the sodden embers, licking the underside of the cauldron, which still hung from the pot crane and, by luck, had kept its lid on.


    Ez and Wilburn stood transfixed. When every last trace of the monsters had been burnt away, Gramma turned her attention to the ceiling. She drew a complicated pattern in the air with the tip of her cane, and as she did so, broken planks flew up and patched over the hole. But it was a most unsightly fix. If Ez hadn¡¯t known better, she would have taken it for the work of a severely drunken carpenter.


    Gramma clucked her tongue and shook her head, leaning heavily on her cane as she surveyed the repair. ¡°Well,¡± she said, ¡°it¡¯ll keep the rain off.¡± She sounded exhausted. And despite what she¡¯d said earlier, she went and sat down in a chair while Ez and Wilburn did the rest of the work. It took them the better part of an hour to sweep up the smashed dishes, right the table and rehang the door, whose hinges had been badly twisted by whatever force had ripped it from its frame. Ez got the thing to latch again, but it wouldn¡¯t swing smoothly anymore, nor quietly. By the time she¡¯d finished, the fire was back to burning its regular color and the soup was once more vigorously gurgling. In fact, looking around, it was hard to believe the place had ever been attacked by giant insects.


    Gramma refused to say a word about the miracles she had performed, claiming she could not explain properly on an empty stomach. And since none of them could muster up the energy for small talk, they ate silently, except when Gramma said, ¡°Needs salt,¡± upon first tasting Ez''s soup. Coming from her, this was almost a compliment. Ez had to admit the soup had turned out pretty well¡ªbetter than she could have hoped. In fact, it might''ve been the best thing she had ever cooked. Everyone scraped their bowls clean. The moment Gramma set her spoon down, Ez snatched up the dishes and returned bearing the tea set.


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you got something stronger?¡± Gramma asked, wrinkling her nose as Ez poured tea for her.


    ¡°Nothing but cooking sherry,¡± Ez said.


    Gramma snorted. She glared at her tea, muttered a word, twiddled her fingers¡ªthe sync. The pale yellow liquid became dark as blood.


    ¡°There,¡± Ez said furiously, pointing at the cup. ¡°What you just did. I want to know. You¡¯ve had your supper, now explain.¡±


    ¡°I turned the tea to wine,¡± Gramma said.


    ¡°I see that,¡± Ez said. ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°Magic.¡±


    ¡°But it¡¯s... real.¡±


    Gramma tapped her nose. ¡°To be precise, magic is only real for some people. And you¡¯re one of them now, because of Wilburn: because he¡¯s a wizard.¡± Gramma turned to him, ¡°What did you do, boy? Out with it.¡±


    Wilburn quailed under her stern gaze. ¡°I was flying a little,¡± he mumbled.


    ¡°Mm-hm,¡± Gramma said, as if she¡¯d been expecting such an answer. ¡°Let me guess: you flew until you passed out in midair and nearly broke your neck.¡±


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    Wilburn¡¯s jaw dropped. ¡°How did you know?¡±


    ¡°Because,¡± Gramma said. Then, quite unexpectedly, she burst into tears. Wilburn and Ez stared in astonishment. Gramma Fark didn¡¯t cry. Not at Jack¡¯s funeral, nor at her husband Loy¡¯s. She was a creature of stone, dry as the Skhohazidak desert. Yet there the tears were, streaming down her face. ¡°Sorry,¡± Gramma gasped, wiping her nose roughly on a napkin, ¡°but Jack, your father, did the exact same thing when he became a wizard. And he was exactly your age too... Oh, Wilburn!¡± She whipped off her glasses and clamped a hand over her eyes, her mouth contorting.


    The blood drained from Ez¡¯s face. ¡°You don¡¯t mean,¡± she said in a choked voice. ¡°You don¡¯t mean Jack was... all along...?¡± Gramma nodded, sobbing into her palm.


    Ez felt like she was falling through the floor. The notion that Jack would have lied to her for all those years, that he would have kept such a profound secret from her... It was the greatest of betrayals.


    Gramma sniffed violently and shoved her glasses on again before raising her eyes to meet Ez¡¯s. ¡°Sorry,¡± she repeated, ¡°I know this isn¡¯t what you want to hear.¡±


    ¡°I want the truth,¡± Ez said, fighting to keep her voice steady. ¡°If... I mean, if Jack was a wizard¡­ why didn¡¯t he tell me?¡±


    ¡°Because magic is more than a secret,¡± Gramma said. ¡°It¡¯s the Secret: unknowable to everyone except magicians and our immediate kin. Most people can¡¯t observe magic or learn of it by any means, no matter how hard you try to enlighten them. Jack tried, Ez. Believe me, he never stopped trying. It¡¯s impossible. Test it sometime, now that you¡¯re in on it. Try explaining magic to an outsider. The words will turn to scrambled egg in your mouth.¡±


    Relief washed over Ez. If Jack had really had no choice, if he had tried his best to tell her... he was blameless. There was nothing to forgive. The sacred trust that had existed between them remained unbroken. But a new worry nagged at her. That phrase... immediate kin... ¡°Are spouses let in on the Secret?¡± she asked, staring fixedly into the table¡¯s woodgrain. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gramma give a curt nod.


    ¡°That¡¯s why Jack pushed so hard...¡± Ez said, ¡°for us to marry. I didn¡¯t think the ceremony mattered.¡±


    ¡°Ritual magic,¡± Gramma said quietly. ¡°Unfortunately, love alone won¡¯t cut it, no matter how true it might¡¯ve been...¡±


    Tears burned in Ez¡¯s eyes. ¡°I¡¯m such a fool,¡± she said.


    Gramma did not correct her.


    ¡°Can you do gin?¡± Ez gestured at her cup. Gramma reached over, and when she withdrew her hand, the tea had turned as clear as water. Ez gulped it in one. The gin burned bracingly on its way to her stomach, dampening the ruckus of her emotions.


    Gramma drank deeply from her own cup. Both women understood what subject must be broached next, and neither one wanted to face it. Wilburn, sensing this tension, looked back and forth between them in concern. Finally, Ez drew in a deep breath, and asked, ¡°How did Jack really die?¡±


    It had been seven years since that hot summer day when Gramma Fark had turned up unannounced, bearing the news that had broken Ez¡¯s heart: Jack had been murdered by a gang of outlaws on the road to Redcherries, where he and his woodwind quintet were scheduled to perform. That was the story, anyway, which Ez had believed for seven years. Now she was sure it was a lie. She waited for Gramma to speak, but when she did, it was directed toward Wilburn.


    ¡°Your father was a good man,¡± Gramma said. ¡°Brave, and generous, and honorable. But...¡± her shoulders slumped, ¡°he was a criminal. It wasn¡¯t evil what he did ¡ªnot really. He was a good man. It was the people he did business with...¡± she shook her head forlornly. ¡°Jack was part of a, well, I suppose you¡¯d have to call it a cartel. A sort of network of individuals with ties to the Islorian Guild. He didn¡¯t talk about it much. Didn¡¯t want Loy and me to be complicit if he ever got caught. Told us he was a courier of rare imports. Well, we could read between the lines. He was a smuggler, and no mere tariff ducker either. Banned materials is what I figure, magical narcotics like ibibjib or galaforite¡ªstuff that makes whiskey look like mother¡¯s milk. Of course Jack never told us what he brought across the border, or what happened to it afterward. He hinted that the Guild was the supplier, that he was one in a series of middle-men. Whatever it was, the product must have been extremely valuable, probably made in Isloria and trafficked through New Trapoban, then handed off to Jack in the Skhohazidak so he could sneak it into Argylon. A scheme like that was bound to backfire eventually. Jack swam with sharks, but he was never really one of them. And in the end, they turned on him.¡± Gramma stared glumly down into her cup, ¡°I told it true, Ez. He was murdered by outlaws. I just left out the part about him being one of them.¡±


    Ez frowned. This revelation didn¡¯t shock her as much as Gramma seemed to expect. Ez had been well-acquainted with Jack¡¯s disdain for authority, his willingness, perhaps even eagerness, to break laws if he considered them unjust. In truth, she¡¯d always found his swashbuckling ways rather attractive. Jack had hinted, all but outright confessed, that his woodwind quintet earned extra money via petty¡ªand Ez had to assume victimless¡ªcrimes. Jack Fark an outlaw? It made perfect sense. Killed by his comrades though? Something was missing from that story. Ez narrowed her eyes at Gramma, who responded by jutting her chin subtly at Wilburn, as if to say, Not in front of the boy.


    Ez returned the tiniest of nods. She would force the details out of Gramma later, after Wilburn went to bed. For now, probably best not to fill his brain with further tales of his father¡¯s crimes, given how badly Wilburn wanted to be like him. Gramma seemed to be thinking along the same lines, for she said, ¡°Your father screwed up, Wilburn. He would want you to learn from his mistake, not copy it. I¡¯m sure if he were here he¡¯d tell you not to break the law; he¡¯d tell you to choose better friends than he did.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± Wilburn said. ¡°Can we have pie now?¡±


    Gramma blinked at him.


    Ez had to hide her smile. She got up and set the pie in front of Wilburn on the table, saying, ¡°Your dad was a fanatic about Gramma¡¯s cooking, especially her pies, and especially her lemon meringue pies. He always insisted that he be the one to cut it; it was sort of a tradition. Here.¡± She offered him the handle of her hunting-knife, which had been given a promotion following the snapping of the kitchen knife. Wilburn took it from her solemnly and sliced into the pie with the air of a surgeon. While he worked, Ez said to Gramma, ¡°Vexpids, did you call them?¡±


    Gramma started. She seemed to have been lost in thought. ¡°Yeah, vexpids... What the heck those three were doing this far north beats me. You mostly find them in the desert.¡±


    ¡°They obviously came because of Wilburn¡¯s magic,¡± Ez said. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me it was a coincidence. They turned up within hours. And they aren¡¯t natural insects, clearly. The physics wouldn¡¯t work; they wouldn¡¯t be able to stand under their own weight, much less fly.¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t a coincidence,¡± Gramma agreed. ¡°I¡¯d wager vexpids have some way to sense kineturgic activity. It¡¯s never been documented, but then, not much is known about them, even amongst vivopaths like myself. That explains why they were drawn to Wilburn¡ª¡±


    ¡°No it doesn¡¯t,¡± Ez interrupted. ¡°What¡¯s kin¡ª¡±


    ¡°Kineturgy is locomotion magic,¡± Gramma interrupted back. ¡°It¡¯s what Wilburn was doing earlier. That must be why the vexpids were drawn to him. But you said it yourself, Ez: they turned up within hours. Closest hive I¡¯ve ever heard of is clear down by Gratwohl, would¡¯ve taken days to get here, or nights, really, because vexpids don¡¯t fly when the sun¡¯s out. So those three must have departed long before Wilburn became a wizard, and there¡¯s no way that they could have known ahead of time...¡±


    ¡°So they were in the area already for some unrelated reason,¡± Ez said, catching Gramma¡¯s drift.


    ¡°Exactly. What that reason might¡¯ve been I¡¯ve no idea. But I doubt vexpids will bother us again. Just to be safe, Wilburn, let¡¯s not do more kineturgy tonight. I¡¯ll send a report to the Vivopathy Department in the morning. Maybe they can sort it out.¡± Catching Ez¡¯s eye, Gramma added, ¡°vivopathy is life-force magic¡ªplants and animals and so forth. It¡¯s my knack.¡±


    ¡°Your...?¡±


    ¡°Knack, yeah. Every magician has an innate aptitude for one of the five arts of magic; the first spell usually reveals it. Kineturgy is Wilburn¡¯s. That knack runs strong in the Farks. Jack had it, and Grampa Loy... You should have seen the games they used to play together... Ah, Wilburn, it¡¯s not fair that you never got to know them. They would be so proud of you¡ª¡± Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, before continuing in a businesslike tone, ¡°But you need to be more careful from now on. You came this close to killing yourself earlier: kineturgic exhaustion. You used up all your energy and your body started to shut down. Be grateful the enchantment broke when you lost consciousness, because if you had managed to keep flying another minute or two...¡± Gramma slid a finger across her throat. ¡°I¡¯d better never catch you doing that again, boy, or so help me I will whip your heinie raw.¡±


    ¡°Gramma!¡± Ez said sharply.


    ¡°Oh, hush. I just want to make sure he understands. Magic is dangerous. Too many young magicians wind up dead because they treat it like a toy. It isn¡¯t. Magic is like fire. It¡¯s useful when it¡¯s under your control, but if it¡¯s not, it can destroy everything, including you.¡±


    ¡°Point taken,¡± Ez said. ¡°Now I want to make sure you understand: it¡¯s not your place to punish my son, or to threaten him. Ever.¡±


    The two women glared at one another. Finally, Gramma said, ¡°How come you haven¡¯t touched your pie?¡±


    Surprised, Ez looked down and discovered it was so. She quickly took a bite. It was, of course, utterly perfect: the crust crisp, the meringue foamy, the filling gelatinously yellow, bursting with citrus tang mellowed by sweetness and a delicate, buttery breadiness.


    ¡°God Himself couldn¡¯t find fault with this,¡± Ez admitted grudgingly. She cut another bite, then paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. ¡°Hang on...¡± she said. ¡°Did you make this with... magic?¡±


    Gramma winked at her.


    ¡°That¡¯s cheating,¡± Ez said, outraged.


    Gramma chuckled smugly. ¡°It¡¯s not a competition, Ezzie. You¡¯ve got meringue on your lip, by the way.¡±


    It was so a competition, Ez thought, as she dabbed her lip indignantly, but she couldn¡¯t pursue the subject further without making herself look pathetic. Gramma had outmaneuvered her with a chess master¡¯s skill, and they both knew it. Ez scowled at her slice of pie. For a moment, she considered not eating the rest of it in silent protest against the older woman¡¯s cheating. Then she ate the rest of it.


    A while later, after tucking Wilburn snugly into bed with his stuffed toucan, Toukie, nestled in his arms as always, Ez climbed down from the loft and went outside to join Gramma, who she found leaning on the garden fence, smoking a stubby wooden pipe. Ez said nothing at first. She pulled a carrot from her pocket and offered it to the patch of extra-dense darkness which she took to be Thoralf. A shiver ran through her as the carrot was tugged gently from her hand and crunching noises issued from the darkness. She was glad the horse¡¯s night vision was better than her own, or else that crunching might have been one of her fingers. Ez could barely see Gramma¡¯s face in the soft orange glow cast by the ember of her pipe.


    The air was cold, but not unpleasantly so. Now that the wind had settled down, the chilly stillness was invigorating. ¡°So, what happens next?¡± Ez asked, propping an elbow on a fencepost.


    Gramma took a deep drag on her pipe before replying, ¡°Wilburn needs an education. And the only place for him to get one is Frogswallow¡¯s College of Metaphysical Arts. It¡¯s where I went to school, and Loy, and Jack. The fall semester starts next month, so we¡¯ve got about a fortnight before we need to leave¡ª What are you snickering at?¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± Ez said. ¡°It¡¯s just... Frogswallow¡¯s? Who came up with that?¡±


    Gramma harrumphed. ¡°The school¡¯s named after its founder,¡± she said irritably, ¡°Mortemir Frogswallow. He was a great wizard.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± Ez said, trying to stifle her amusement; she was feeling a bit slap-happy after the circus of a day she¡¯d had. So many questions were bouncing through her mind that it was difficult to choose which to prioritize. She wanted to learn more about Jack¡¯s life as a magician, about his death as an outlaw, but right now, what mattered most was her son¡¯s future, not his father¡¯s past. Before she could marshal her thoughts, however, Gramma said, ¡°I¡¯m bushed,¡± and began tapping out her pipe.


    Feeling a little disappointed, Ez fed Thoralf the last carrot in her pocket and turned to follow Gramma to the cottage. Then she stopped, ¡°I¡¯ve just remembered something.¡±


    ¡°Mm?¡± Gramma¡¯s voice said out of the darkness.


    ¡°When those vexpids landed on our roof, Wilburn said, She¡¯s here, as if he was expecting someone, but I never got to find out what he meant. Right after he said it, they attacked, and I forgot until just now.¡±


    ¡°I doubt it¡¯s important,¡± Gramma said. ¡°He was recovering from kineturgic exhaustion. He was probably just confused.¡± The pair stood silent for some time.


    Then Gramma said, ¡°Unless...¡±


    But Ez suddenly shushed her. ¡°Do you hear that?¡± she whispered.


    They listened.


    From the darkness came a sound, as yet still faint and far away, hardly perceptible at first, but growing louder with each passing second, a sound to make Ez¡¯s blood run cold: it was the low, thrumming buzz of wings.

 CHAPTER 3 - The Voice in the Teacup

    CHAPTER 3


    The Voice in the Teacup


    ¡°Impossible,¡± Gramma whispered. She and Ez stood frozen in the darkness, unable to see each other¡¯s faces. All around them, the night air vibrated with the faint but unmistakable sound of flying insects. This hum was not identical to that of the three vexpids from before: it had a fuller, more monotonous timbre, and Ez thought she knew why¡ªalthough she prayed she was mistaken¡ªfor it seemed to her to be the difference between a trio of singers and a choir. ¡°You can kill them all with magic,¡± she said, ¡°...right?¡±


    Gramma did not reply. Just then, a gibbous moon peeked through a gap in the clouds, spilling its glow over the rolling hillsides and revealing a hideous sight: a host of vexpids flying fast in a dense, arrow-shaped formation aimed directly at the cottage. The distance was too great and the light too dim to distinguish individuals or count them, but the sheer enormity of the formation was enough. The women ran for it, with Thoralf right behind them. Already the gap between the clouds was closing, plunging the world back into impenetrable darkness.


    Ez burst through the cottage door followed by Gramma and the horse, whose size was such that his hindquarters only barely cleared the lintel. The moment his tail swished inside, Ez slammed the door. There was no point locking it. ¡°Wilburn! Get down here!¡± she called. Sprinting to the closet, she snatched her bow and quiver off their hooks, then strung the bow with fumbling fingers.


    Gramma paced back and forth, raking a hand through her gray curls. ¡°We¡¯re in deep doo-doo,¡± she said. ¡°I can¡¯t kill that many with magic¡ªI¡¯m exhausted. Even fresh, it would be tricky. And I¡¯m out of hongos! Damn me¡ªWhy didn¡¯t I stock up?¡±


    Ez was too busy arming herself to care what hongos were. The splitting axe, with which she had already slain one vexpid, would be her primary close-range weapon, and she shoved her hunting knife in her belt as a backup. Ransacking the closet, Ez came up with a hatchet and a carving knife for Wilburn. She turned around to hand them to him¡ªbut he wasn¡¯t there. He hadn¡¯t come down from the loft. ¡°Wilburn!¡± Ez called. No answer came. How could he possibly be sleeping through this uproar? Ez raced up the stairs. The moment her head crested the horizon of the loft, she knew something was wrong¡ªhorribly wrong.


    Wilburn was frothing at the mouth. His spine was arched, his head thrown back into the pillow, his hands clenching, T-Rex fashion, at his chest. Toukie, the stuffed bird, lay discarded by the mattress. Wilburn''s tendons strained. Every muscle was as taut as Ez¡¯s bowstring. The lamplight curved over his half-open eyelids, revealing two bloodshot crescents of white. If Ez had been terrified before, it was as nothing to the panic that now gripped her like an iron fist. She forgot all about vexpids and weapons and Gramma Fark and magic as her world constricted to one devastating fact: her son was dying.


    Skidding to her knees beside his mattress, Ez swept him into a tight embrace, trying in vain to quell his shaking. As she pressed his tiny body to her own, the distant hum suddenly jumped in volume, so much so that it was resonating through her. It took her a moment to understand why. The boy¡¯s convulsions were exactly synchronized with the vibrations of the inbound vexpids. The hairs on the back of Ez¡¯s neck prickled. Magic. Somehow, the hornets were causing Wilburn to have this seizure, even though they must still be a good mile away. A feeling of utter, devastating helplessness threatened to smother her. She could do nothing¡ªnothing¡ªfor her son.


    Dimly, as if from the far end of a tunnel, Ez heard Gramma yelling. What she was saying, and to whom, Ez didn¡¯t know, but her voice punctured the fog of despair that was holding Ez inactive. She lurched to her feet. Gramma would know what to do. Ez dashed down the stairs with Wilburn in her arms¡ªand found the older woman shouting at a teacup.


    The world had gone mad. Ez had gone mad. Gramma had certainly gone mad. She was holding the cup an inch below her nose and peering into it slightly cross-eyedly. ¡°But you¡¯re the only person who can possibly get here in time to save us!¡± she was shouting. And the maddest part of all was that the cup actually answered. Or at least, a voice from within it did, a masculine voice, deep and supercilious.


    ¡°In the hypothetical universe of your imagination,¡± it said¡ªEz nearly stumbled at the bottom of the stairs¡ª¡°perhaps. But here in reality, a rescue mission is completely out of the question. I am drafting a rather nuanced dissertation on the non-being of un-being tonight¡ªa subject I wouldn¡¯t expect you to appreciate¡ªwhich, I believe, will come to be regarded as one of the finer theses in contemporary meta-metaphysical theory, and I must get back to work. I regret answering the wizidex. Your scry has disrupted the flow of my creative genius.¡±


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    ¡°So you¡¯re just going to sit there?¡± Gramma demanded of the teacup. ¡°Scribbling that hogwash, while we fight for our lives?¡±


    ¡°Precisely,¡± the cup said. ¡°The Path is the Path. I don¡¯t decide what happens. If tonight¡¯s your night to die, so be it. Try to reincarnate as something less annoying next life¡ªa cabbage, for instance. And if not, I suppose I¡¯ll see you at the equinox party.¡±


    ¡°WELL, THANKS FOR NOTHING!¡± Gramma screamed.


    ¡°Anytime,¡± the cup said, and that was the last thing it said, for Gramma hurled it across the room with all her might and it shattered against the far wall in a spray of tea and porcelain. Her face was brick red as she spun around, but it went white as chalk when her gaze fell on Wilburn.


    ¡°Do something,¡± Ez pleaded.


    Gramma didn¡¯t. She stood rooted to the spot. Behind her glasses, her eyes stretched wider and wider as she stared at the convulsing boy in Ez¡¯s arms. With deepening horror, Ez realized that Gramma was as powerless as she against whatever force was attacking him.


    ¡°Psychovatry,¡± Gramma whispered. ¡°Oh god¡­ Oh god¡­¡± she was breathing very fast and gripping her cane for support. Ez had no clue what the word meant, but the way Gramma had said it, as if it were some foul blasphemy, told her enough. Gramma appeared to be on the verge of a breakdown. Meanwhile, the humming had grown so loud that dishes rattled in the cupboards. There was precious little time.


    Oddly, Gramma¡¯s loss of composure corresponded to a restrengthening of Ez¡¯s. We can¡¯t both panic, she thought. So she stopped doing so. An icy pragmatism took over, and when she next spoke, her tone was determinedly calm. ¡°Come on,¡± she said, striding past Thoralf to the trapdoor that led down to the root cellar. She kicked it open and descended the short staircase into the shadows. Gramma followed. The long, narrow cellar was cramped with stored goods. Ez lay the still-vibrating Wilburn gently on the hard dirt between two heavy sacks of flour, turning him onto his side in case he vomited, and shifted the sacks to prop him in that position. Then she pointed out the flimsy posts and beams that held the floor up overhead. ¡°Can you turn these into steel?¡±


    ¡°It would take all the magic I¡¯ve got left,¡± Gramma said, ¡°and it would only slow them down. They¡¯d break through before long, then we¡¯d be trapped.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re trapped anyway,¡± Ez said. ¡°But you and I aren¡¯t staying down here. We¡¯re going back up there to kill as many vexpids as we can.¡±


    There was a pause in which Ez knew they were both thinking the same thing.


    ¡°It¡¯s much easier to transmogrify organic materials into elemental metals than alloys,¡± Gramma said. ¡°I can save a little magic for the fight that way. How about iron?¡±


    ¡°Titanium has a better strength-to-weight ratio,¡± Ez said.


    Gramma nodded. She picked her way around the room, rapping her cane against each post and beam and plank, murmuring all the while words that wouldn¡¯t stick in Ez¡¯s mind. And there it was again¡ªthe sync¡ªthat strange sensation of a vast, invisible wheel turning, stronger, more vivid than Ez had yet experienced. When Gramma finished, the cellar had become a solid metal cube, save for the floor, on which Gramma sat heavily, then lay. ¡°Food,¡± she gasped, ¡°and water. Quick.¡±


    Ez seized a bag of walnuts off a nearby shelf and tossed it into Gramma¡¯s lap. ¡°I¡¯d have to go get water from the rain barrel,¡± she said, ¡°but here¡ª¡± she thrust an earthenware jug into Gramma¡¯s hand. ¡°That¡¯s cider. You can turn it into water.¡±


    Gramma groaned. ¡°No more transmogrify¡­¡± Propping herself up on an elbow, she slammed a fistful of walnuts in her mouth, then, before Ez could stop her, yanked the cork out of the jug and gulped down the entire quart of cider.


    ¡°That was hard¡­¡± Ez said weakly.


    Gramma smacked her lips. ¡°You told me there was nothing but cooking sherry,¡± she said, sounding alarmingly cheerful. She belched.


    ¡°I lied.¡± It was too late to take it back. Ez went to Wilburn and planted a kiss on his quivering brow. ¡°I love you,¡± she said. Then she marched up the stairs, with Gramma sagging after her. As they emerged into the light, Ez saw that Gramma looked not merely older, but old, truly old¡ªhaggard, spent. Ez felt a pang of gratitude. Gramma could probably have escaped on Thoralf if she¡¯d chosen to abandon them. It was Wilburn the vexpids were after, not her¡ªand besides, Gramma had magic. But she¡¯d used it to forge Wilburn¡¯s bunker, rather than to save herself, and now, weakened and exhausted, she was preparing to fight, and probably get killed, at Ez¡¯s side. ¡°Thank you,¡± Ez said, raising her voice to be heard over the oppressive hum. She had never meant it more.


    ¡°Just to be clear,¡± Gramma said, ¡°I¡¯m doing this for Wilburn, not you.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Ez said. ¡°Thank you.¡±


    Gramma grunted. Then she clucked her tongue and shook her head and said, ¡°Well, at least I get to die drunk.¡±


    It took both of them working together to flip the titanium trapdoor, which fell shut with an earsplitting clang. Ez drew the bolt. She couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that they¡¯d just sealed Wilburn in a tomb. ¡°Will he be able to get out of there?¡± she asked. ¡°I mean, if we¡¯re not¡­?¡±


    ¡°If we¡¯re not in a condition to assist him?¡± Gramma finished grimly. ¡°Yeah. One good kineturgic shove will do it.¡± She was patting Thoralf¡¯s shoulder in an all-too-obvious gesture of farewell.


    ¡°Let¡¯s set him free,¡± Ez said suddenly. Why hadn¡¯t she thought of it before? ¡°Without a rider, I bet Thoralf can outrun vexpids. He could get away! There¡¯s no need for him to¡ª¡±


    Thoralf chuffed and tossed his shiny black head. And damned if it didn¡¯t look as if the one eye Ez could see was glaring at her.


    ¡°Thoralf has always been free,¡± Gramma said. ¡°I¡¯m not his master. We¡¯re partners. He chooses to stay and fight with us, because he has a warrior¡¯s honor.¡±


    Thoralf stamped his hoof once as if to confirm these words.


    ¡°You understand?¡± Ez asked him, more bemused than surprised at this point.


    Thoralf stamped his hoof again¡ªbut the thump came half a second late, and much too loudly¡ªand from overhead. And then there was a second thump, though Thoralf hadn¡¯t stamped, and then a third thump, and a fourth, and then a fifth and sixth and seventh¡ªand then all hell broke loose.

 CHAPTER 4 - The Finger and the Stinger

    CHAPTER 4


    The Finger and the Stinger


    Ez nocked an arrow and crouched low to get a better angle.


    ¡°Aim for the eyes!¡± Gramma hollered. ¡°That¡¯s their weak¡ª¡± a deafening crash obliterated the rest of the sentence. Sighting up the shaft of the arrow, Ez watched as fissures spiderwebbed the ceiling. Icy sweat trickled down her spine. If the entire roof collapsed, the battle would be brief indeed; she, Gramma and Thoralf would be crushed before they could inflict a single casualty. Down in the cellar, Wilburn would survive only for as long as it took the vexpids to clear the debris and penetrate the titanium. However, quite the opposite occurred. With a terrible groaning riiiiiiip, the roof peeled back from the rafters like the rind of a grapefruit, leaving the skeletal frame open to the night and to the swarm of hornets thrumming in the darkness.


    A wave of fruitily rotten, rancid meat stench smashed into Ez''s lungs. She gagged, and might have vomited under less dire circumstances¡ªbut there simply wasn¡¯t time. The moment she spotted a glint of lamplight in a compound eye, she drew and released and was already reaching to her quiver when the arrow found its mark. Twenty arrows, twenty shots. She took them in rapid succession, knowing the bow would be worthless when the distance closed. Nock¡ªdraw¡ªloose¡ªnock¡ªdraw¡ªloose¡ªShe entered a state of mind where time seemed to slow down, and yet jerk past in disjointed fragments of hyper-clarity.


    ¡ªnock¡ª


    A buzzing mass of hornets clogged the rafters; she picked one at random.


    ¡ªdraw¡ª


    She could see every glittering bead in its eye.


    ¡ªloose¡ª


    The arrow buried itself to the fletching as she nocked another, heedless of the lightning streaking past her from the tip of Gramma¡¯s cane and of the the hornets falling smoking to the floor. Green ichor sprayed as Thoralf kicked vexpids to pieces, drenching Ez, though she paid it no mind. The slaughtered insects began to pile up in heaps, shrinking the diminutive room further. Such tight quarters meant the hornets couldn¡¯t fly, but their overwhelming numbers more than made up for this minor inconvenience. They poured on and on into the cottage like a volcanic eruption in reverse. For each one killed, two more came scuttling after it with twitchy, too-fast movements.


    Nock¡ªdraw¡ªloose¡ªnock¡ªdraw¡ªloose¡ªEz reached for another arrow¡ªand her fingers closed on air.


    Tossing the bow aside, she seized her axe and sprang out of her crouch with an upward slash, carving a deep gouge in a hornet¡¯s underbelly. She pivoted, yanking the axe free, and swung it sidelong, chopping another¡¯s leg off as it dropped down from the rafters. She might have been screaming. Her emotions were a paradox of abject terror and something akin to euphoria. An ancient animal had risen up within her and was fully in control, while the part of her mind that normally made decisions sat back quietly in awe.


    The vexpids ceased to be individuals to her. Ez fought a single, multi-headed monster that seemed to heal instantaneously, sprouting new limbs faster than she could hack them off. All was a spinning dance of chaos. The vexpids demolished sections of the walls and flooded in from all directions. Flames leapt where the oil lamps had spilled, throwing hot light and writhing shadows everywhere. Ez stumbled. She was buffeted and bludgeoned. She was hurled to the ground. She managed to roll just in time. A stinger, gleaming crimson in the firelight, plunged deep into the floor next to her cheek. The wood at the injection site melted like wax, and even through the miasma, Ez caught a dizzying whiff of something toxic¡ªan acrid, sulfuric stink. Somehow, she regained her feet. Somehow, she kept fighting.


    A hemisphere of glittering black eyes and snapping yellow pincers pressed in upon the three defenders, who fought desperately with their backs to the common center of the trapdoor. The perimeter around it rapidly constricted so that only a small circle of hornet-free space remained. They were in trouble. Gramma¡¯s lightning flashed less frequently, each strike feebler than the last. Ez¡¯s arms grew leaden. Only Thoralf fought with real vigor, his hooves flying like cannonballs. He bucked and kicked and reared up on hind legs to clobber hornets from the air, striking left and right, forward and backward in a whirlwind, wreaking tremendous carnage, yet not once did he so much as graze Gramma or Ez. The two of them would have been killed a hundred times apiece without him, for their fatigue rendered them increasingly ineffective.


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    Ez struggled to maintain her footing in the quagmire of gore, vaguely aware that her left leg was not cooperating. She might have been injured, but she felt no pain or strain, only a dull, irrefutable force dragging her down, slowing her movements ever more. The battle seemed to have been going on for hours, though it couldn¡¯t really have been more than a few minutes. The onslaught of hornets was relentless. It was all Ez could do to dodge and parry as they forced her backward step by step by¡ª


    She backed into something.


    Whirling, she almost disemboweled Gramma. The two women were pinned, elbow to elbow against Thoralf¡¯s flank. One look at the older woman¡¯s face and Ez knew it was over. They were beaten. There was no room to maneuver. There was nowhere to retreat. The only thing left to do was die. The buzzing of the swarm had reached a fever pitch; it was in Ez¡¯s head, behind her eyes, drowning out her thoughts¡ªerasing her.


    Gramma howled right by Ez¡¯s ear. The words were meaningless to Ez, but the sound cut her to the quick. It was a cry of fury and frustration, a raw, savage refusal to comply with destiny¡ªthe sync.


    There was a great whoosh of emerald fire. Ez blinked through the afterimage and found herself standing in the center of a charred circle. Every vexpid in a twelve-foot radius was gone. A haze of ash hung in the air. She turned in time to see Gramma sway, then keel over like a felled tree. Her cane landed next to her. She didn¡¯t pick it up. Thoralf took a protective stance over her prone form as fresh vexpids rushed to fill the space Gramma had cleared. The spell had taken every drop of her remaining strength, and it had only postponed the inevitable for a few seconds.


    Ez¡¯s hands were slick on the handle of the axe. I''m sorry, Wilburn, she thought. Maybe Jack would be waiting on the other side. Her left leg spasmed uncontrollably. But her resolve was firmer than her feet as she planted them upon the trapdoor, vowing to slay at least one more vexpid before exiting the stage of life. And here they came. The distance closed. Ez yelled, raising her weapon high¡ª


    Then she went flying. A sudden jolt of a force had thrown the trapdoor upward, shearing off the latch and flinging her like a projectile from a trebuchet. She cartwheeled over ranks of vexpids and crashed down right in the thick of them. She tumbled to a halt, battered and dazed, amidst a forest of bristly yellow legs. Her axe was nowhere to be found. She fumbled at her belt for the small knife¡ªthen froze. The room had gone silent. The vexpids stood still as statues. They were all focused on the same thing, and it wasn¡¯t her.


    Ez got to her feet carefully, so as not to brush any of them, and followed their gaze to the center room, where Thoralf¡¯s head protruded from the crowd. A short distance from him¡ªEz had to crane her neck to see it¡ªthe trapdoor lay open to a square of darkness, and this seemed to be the subject of the hornets¡¯ rapt attention. To her dismay, Wilburn¡¯s head floated up through it, followed by the rest of him, clad in his red pajamas. The boy wasn¡¯t shaking anymore. The fit had passed, and he now looked remarkably at ease¡ªin fact, uncannily so. He wore a placid, dreamy smile, and his eyes were closed, as if he were savoring some exquisite treat.


    Ez didn¡¯t know what to do. A score of hornets stood between her and her son. Her only weapon was her hunting knife, which wasn¡¯t made for killing, but for dressing game after she¡¯d shot it with her bow. Did she dare make a move? What if by doing so she prompted the hornets to resume their attack? They would have Wilburn in their clutches long before she reached him... Ez hesitated.


    One hornet at the front of the group crept forward from the rest. It approached Wilburn, who¡ª¡°NO!¡± Ez cried¡ªdrifted complacently to meet it. The insect levered itself upright to balance on its rearmost legs, thrumming its folded wings for stability as its abdomen curled under and its stinger began to extend. The black lance tapered to an impossibly sharp needle tip, where a drop of violet venom clung, quivering. Ez made her move. But it was futile. One hornet smacked the knife out of her hand; another walloped her between the shoulder blades with a leg like a small tree. There was a strangely absentminded quality to their actions. She fell hard, and they could easily have killed her¡­ but they didn¡¯t. Their heads swiveled back to face the center of the room, as if they were captivated by the spectacle before them. They ignored Ez as she staggered to her feet.


    Wilburn was floating on a level with the hornet¡¯s stinger. Still smiling, his eyes still closed, he reached out with his index finger. Ez screamed for him not to do it. But he did. Slowly and deliberately¡ªand remarkably precisely given that he couldn¡¯t see what he was doing¡ªWilburn pricked the very tip of his finger on the hornet¡¯s stinger. His face went blank. His eyes blinked open. He looked at his hand. A shudder ran through his entire body. Then he crumpled to the floor.

 CHAPTER 5 - Exaltiture

    CHAPTER 5


    Exaltiture


    ¡°¡®Night, Mom.¡±


    ¡°Good night, honey.¡±


    Wilburn listened to his mother¡¯s footsteps descending the staircase. He heard her stamp into her boots, and then a squeal of hinges followed by the soft clunk of the door closing. Mom had gone to talk to Gramma where he couldn¡¯t overhear, because she wanted to ask questions about Dad¡­ questions that might have nasty answers. Mom was worried that Dad might have done bad things, and that he, Wilburn, might do bad things too if he found out¡­ something like that. Mom¡¯s logic was confusing, partly, Wilburn sensed, because Mom herself was confused¡ªvery confused¡ªand also scared, and¡­ sad. She didn¡¯t want Wilburn to know this, and in truth he wished he didn¡¯t. But he knew. Just as he knew that Mom was currently feeding carrots to Thoralf, and that Thoralf was enjoying them immensely. How he knew these things, Wilburn didn¡¯t know, nor did it occur to him to wonder.


    He lay on his back, rubbing the worn flannel fabric of Toukie¡¯s wing between his thumb and forefinger. It was a habit he¡¯d developed in the cradle. The stuffed toucan was his oldest friend, a zeroth birthday gift from Gramma Totkins, who had been Mom¡¯s mom before she died. Wilburn couldn¡¯t remember her at all, but Mom retold the story every time she sewed a fresh patch on Toukie¡¯s wing; the hole was always in the left wing, because Wilburn was left-handed, and always in the same spot, where his forefinger and thumb met automatically. He wished Mom had a Toukie of her own tonight. She needed it. The habit was so wonderfully relaxing. It was like scratching an itch without the itch. So soothing¡­ so¡­ comforting¡­ so¡­ Wilburn yawned.


    * * * * * * *


    He found himself standing at a crossroads. In the center was a weathered signpost with four arrows labeled in shimmering silver script. Mom had taught him how to read, and Wilburn fancied he was getting pretty decent at it. These signs, however, stumped him. He couldn¡¯t quite tell if the lettering was moving or not. At first glance it looked ordinary, but the longer he squinted at it, the more inscrutable it grew. Lettering...? Actually no, not from the alphabet he knew. More like runes, brutal, jagged symbols... or rather... flowing, loopy symbols? He began to suspect this wasn¡¯t writing after all, just nonsense scribbling, put there as a joke. And then he noticed something strange. When he stopped trying to read the signs, their meanings became obvious. The arrow pointing right said Higher Astral, while the arrow pointing left said Lower Astral. This meant nothing to Wilburn. As far as he could see, neither road slanted up or down. Indeed, nothing whatsoever distinguished the four roads other than the signpost; the stones that paved them were identical, and the landscape was featurelessly brown in all directions. Even more disorienting was the absence of a sun in the cloudless blue sky. Whichever way he turned, his shadow landed straight behind him, and the signpost cast no shadow all.


    ¡­Deja vu¡­


    A memory tickled the back of Wilburn¡¯s mind. He had the oddest feeling he¡¯d been here before. But where was here? He frowned at the signpost. The road in front of him was labeled Open Dreamspace, and the sign pointing behind him said Real Life. And then it clicked. This very afternoon, after he¡¯d passed out from kinerg¡­ kineter¡­ whatever Gramma Fark had called it¡ªtoo much flying¡ªhe had visited this crossroads in a dream. Of course, he only knew it was a dream in retrospect; he hadn¡¯t at the time, although he probably should have guessed in light of the word Dreamspace being written on the signpost. So he was having the same dream all over again, was he? Lame. But as he thought about it, he realized he didn¡¯t actually remember what had happened in the first dream. He had been here, yes, but... then what? Which road had he chosen?


    For some reason, the memory wouldn¡¯t come. It was right there on the tip of his brain¡­ but no. Annoyed, Wilburn decided to try Open Dreamspace, because Real Life sounded boring to him, and the Astrals sounded even boringer. The instant he stepped forward¡ªit occurred to him¡ªthis was exactly what he¡¯d done before. Okay, but then what? Where had the road taken him? It was exceedingly vexatious, for he knew that he remembered now; part of him did. The memory was inside him, but something was blocking him from accessing it. He felt toyed with, taunted¡­ watched. But there was nobody around to do it.


    The only sound was the soft slap of his bare footsteps on the stones. Nothing changed as he proceeded. He began to wonder how much time had passed. It was almost as if none had. But surely it had been at least an hour... He felt like he was going nowhere. The landscape remained utterly barren. The road never curved, never rose, never fell. The only indication of his progress came when he looked back over his shoulder and could no longer see the crossroads or its signpost. It was the same view as in front of him, with the addition of his crisp black shadow. And then¡ªWilburn didn¡¯t know quite how it happened¡ªhe was standing on a mountaintop.


    ¡°WOOO-WEE!¡± he shouted, dizzy from the sudden altitude. His voice echoed with perfect clarity over the vast range of snowcapped peaks jutting before him. He laughed as avalanches tumbled down ravines whose floors were lost in purple shadow. And his laughter triggered still more avalanches, none of which could touch him, for his was the highest peak of all, perhaps the highest point in the world. A perfectly good sun was shining, he was pleased to note, and his bare feet weren¡¯t even cold, despite the knee-deep snow in which he stood. ¡°This is more like it!¡± Wilburn called, to no one in particular. More like it, the mountains echoed, like it, like it, like it¡­


    Wilburn wished, though, as he often did in Real Life, for a friend, someone to share this with. Not Mom¡ªnot that Mom wasn¡¯t fun to play with on occasion, but you could never say things like, Last one there¡¯s a stinky butthole! in front of her unless you wanted to solve math problems. And not another kid either. He knew a few down in the village, and, on the whole, he preferred Mom¡¯s company to theirs. No, if he was honest with himself, what he wanted most was for Toukie to be real, as in alive. It had been easy to believe when he was little; Wilburn wasn¡¯t quite sure when belief had turned into pretending, but lately even that had become difficult.


    He lifted a hand to shade his eyes. There was a dark dot in the sky. And it was quickly growing larger. It was heading straight toward him. It was a bird. He could see its flapping wings now. Oddly small wings for such an oddly fat bird¡­ with such a large, banana-shaped head¡­ It couldn¡¯t be. Or wait¡ªperhaps it could it be! Open Dreamspace, he remembered. Did that mean wishes came true here?


    ¡°TOUKIE?¡± Wilburn called.


    ¡°What are you waiting for, Creator?¡± Toukie¡¯s crow was just as Wilburn had imagined: like a rooster¡¯s, but more flutelike due to his long beak. Wilburn had no clue how toucans were supposed to sound; they weren¡¯t native to Argylon, and even Gramma Totkins had only seen paintings of them. Alive. Toukie was alive! With a whoop of delight, Wilburn threw himself from the mountain top. The wind caught him like familiar hands and lifted him on high, and boy and bird circled each other in the air, laughing and squawking. They were the same size here in Dreamspace, just as they had been on Wilburn¡¯s zeroth birthday. Otherwise, Toukie¡¯s appearance was nearly identical to Real Life. He was black with a yellow bib, blue feet, and a rainbow beak, and he had green-button eyes with smaller, black buttons for pupils. The only difference, apart from his size, was Toukie¡¯s wing, his left, from which shone a golden light.


    ¡°What¡¯s up with that?¡± Wilburn asked, pointing.


    Toukie stopped flapping at once. Apparently he¡¯d been doing it out of excitement, rather than necessity, for he continued to hover as he held out his wing for Wilburn to inspect. There were no patches or holes as was the case in Real Life; instead, a golden circle radiated from the spot that Wilburn always rubbed. The gold gleamed brightly at the center and faded to black at the circumference, blending seamlessly into the fabric of the wing. Wilburn leaned closer, and beheld, within the circle, a beautiful pattern that reminded him of music, and of plants, and, strangely, of mathematics¡­ but in a good way. ¡°Cool,¡± he said. ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°That is your fingerprint, Creator.¡± Toukie¡¯s cartoonish voice managed to strike a tone of reverence. ¡°That is the mark left by your ritual touch. That is exaltiture.¡± The stuffed bird appeared to be having a religious experience.


    ¡°You okay?¡± Wilburn asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.


    ¡°Okay?¡± Toukie squawked. ¡°Okay? I am ALIVE! Thank you, Creator! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t create you,¡± Wilburn said. ¡°That was Gramma Totkins. But she¡¯s dead.¡±


    ¡°No, Creator.¡± Actual tears trickled from Toukie¡¯s button eyes, ¡°I¡¯m not the object your grandmother made. I¡¯m me. I¡¯m a real person. I exist. I feel. I am everything you imagined me to be, because you imagined me. And now I have my own imagination¡ªbecause you gave me a portion of your soul!¡±


    There was a pause.


    ¡°I don¡¯t get it,¡± Wilburn said.


    ¡°I know you don¡¯t, Creator!¡± And with that Toukie broke down. Flinging his wings around Wilburn, he sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder. It was like being hugged by a large, and increasingly moist pillow.


    ¡°It¡¯s all right,¡± Wilburn said, hugging Toukie back.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Toukie sobbed. ¡°Yes¡­ I love you, Creator.¡±


    ¡°Oh, well, I love you too,¡± Wilburn mumbled, blushing.


    The two hung hugging in the air, hundreds of feet above the mountains. When at last Toukie¡¯s sobbing subsided, and they broke apart, Wilburn said, ¡°So... tell me again what this is?¡± He tapped the golden spot on Toukie¡¯s wing. As he did, the pattern pulsed and Toukie shivered. ¡°You are generous, Creator. I do not deserve so much exaltiture. But thank you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.¡±


    Toukie looked ready to cry again, so Wilburn quickly said, ¡°Exaltiture? What¡¯s that mean?¡±


    ¡°It is a force, Creator, which bestows sentience¡ªinner-life. It is the animating power of the universe. Exaltiture flows from the Great Creator through beings of the highest realms. It can only be given, never taken, only grown, never destroyed. The greatest gods exalt the lesser gods, who exalt lesser deities, on and on and on down the Astral Plane. Highly exalted mortals such as yourself, Creator, can grant sentience to thought-forms, such as me, through ritual magic. And that¡¯s exactly what you did. You named me, you played with me, you spoke for me, you felt emotions for me, and every night you focused your attention on the point between your thumb and forefinger: the ritual touch. Whenever you rub that stuffed toy¡¯s wing, you enter a state of trance, which you conceptually associate with me, this me. I know it was an accident, Creator, but I must say it was elegantly done. The toy functioned as a ritual object through which you channeled your exaltiture. Now that I¡¯m sentient, the object is unnecessary. I¡¯m not bound to it as you are to your body. You can throw it in the fire tomorrow, if you wish. I will remain.


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    ¡°You see, Creator, by repeating the ritual, day after day, year after year, you created a thought-form, which existed here, on the Astral Plane, like a sketch that you traced over and over again, darkening lines, filling in ever greater detail. The thought-form contained all that I am now, but it was not alive. It wasn¡¯t me yet, because exaltiture¡ªI hope I¡¯m getting this right, Creator, because I¡¯ve only read the Introduction so far¡ªexaltiture is an aspect of magic; and just as your magical power lay dormant, so did I, as mere potential, waiting to be realized. And then, when your power manifested, so did I. So did I, Creator. At that moment I knew and remembered everything you had ever imagined me to know¡ªand nothing else. I dare say it was the most confusing moment of my life!¡± Toukie gave an awkward little chitter, which, Wilburn assumed, must be his version of a giggle. ¡°But before long,¡± Toukie continued, ¡°a nice elf from the ACTODD turned up and explained a few things, and then she gave me this.¡± Toukie reached into his pocket¡ªapparently he had one, although he wasn¡¯t wearing clothes¡ªand withdrew a remarkably thick book. Its cover displayed more squirming silver runes like those on the signpost at the crossroads. Wilburn couldn¡¯t read them, yet he somehow knew exactly what they said. The title of the book was, Oops, You Exist: A Handbook for Accidentally Created Tulpas. And beneath these words was written, Published by the Accidentally Created Tulpa Orientation and Development Department. ¡°Like I said, I¡¯ve only read the introduction,¡± Toukie said, his button eyes widening. ¡°But it explains a lot, Creator. It explains a whole hell of a lot.¡±


    ¡°Huh¡­¡± Wilburn scratched his ear. He almost asked what a tulpa was, but then he thought better of it. ¡°Hey!¡± he said. ¡°Let¡¯s do something fun!¡±


    ¡°What do you have in mind, Creator?¡±


    They began to drift aimlessly together through the sky.


    ¡°I dunno,¡± Wilburn said. ¡°Just something cool, you know?¡±


    ¡°Like what, Creator?¡±


    ¡°I dunno,¡± Wilburn said again restlessly.


    ¡°Anything you can conceive is possible, Creator. This is your dream. Everything you see around us is a product of your mind.¡±


    ¡°Nah,¡± Wilburn scoffed.


    ¡°I believe I am correct about this, Creator.¡±


    ¡°But I could never dream up something like that.¡± Wilburn again poked at the golden spot on Toukie¡¯s wing.


    ¡°You underestimate yourself,¡± Toukie replied. ¡°You are the creator, Creator. Perhaps I haven¡¯t made that clear enough.¡±


    Wilburn rubbed his chin. ¡°So you¡¯re saying I¡¯m, like, somehow controlling all this, or something, without even meaning to?¡±


    ¡°Precisely that, Creator.¡±


    Wilburn looked around. ¡°ALL THE SNOW IS ICE CREAM!¡± he screamed. And suddenly¡ªit was so. Suddenly, the mountain peaks glistened strawberry pink, chocolate brown, vanilla white¡­ that one still looked like snow from Wilburn¡¯s elevation, but he decided to take it on faith. ¡°Last one there¡¯s a stinky butthole!¡± he called as he dove toward the nearest chocolate pinnacle. Toukie was right behind him. And then Toukie was ahead of him, and in fact it was he, Wilburn, who turned out to be the stinky butthole, but it didn¡¯t matter as the two of them plowed into what could easily be described as the most ice cream anyone had ever seen. ¡°WE NEVER GET SICK!¡± Wilburn shouted, slamming a scoop the size of his face into his face. And it was so. Toukie cawed his approval, and plunged his whole head under the snow¡ªice cream¡ªwhichever.


    The pair flew from peak to peak, sampling every flavor of ice cream Wilburn could think of. This went on for some time, or perhaps no time at all, for that was how time worked in Dreamspace. They never got sick, and they never got full. But eventually they did grow tired of their gluttony and lay down side by side in the slick stickiness. Far out beyond the mountains, they could see an ocean, sparkling cheerfully in the sunlight. Some time, or perhaps no time at all later, Wilburn asked lazily, ¡°Where¡¯s my toboggan?¡± He sat up with a grunt¡ªand there it was. ¡°And now it¡¯s twice as big,¡± he declared. And it was so. ¡°And now it¡¯s twice as fast, and now the mountain¡¯s twice as steep! Come on, Toukie!¡±


    ¡°Ah,¡± Toukie said. ¡°Tobogganing. Are you¡­ quite sure, Creator?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Remember when you steered into that tree, Creator?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s probably because you hit your head after the part that you imagined me to be experiencing with you, which I now remember having experienced with you.¡±


    ¡°Wait¡­ say that again.¡±


    ¡°Remember when you steered into the briar patch?¡±


    Wilburn thought about it. ¡°I was only six then,¡± he said, laughing. ¡°Besides, Mom patched you up.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re only seven now,¡± Toukie said, his voice somewhat shriller than before. ¡°If it¡¯s all the same to you, Creator, I¡¯d prefer¡ª¡± he broke off abruptly.


    Wilburn felt it too. A pressure¡­ A vibration¡­ An irresistible¡­ presence¡­ It was all around him and within him, pushing him, pulling him toward¡­ Deja vu¡­ Icy dread coursed up Wilburn¡¯s spine. The other dream. The first, forgotten dream¡ªhe must remember¡ªit was vitally important. Think! Wilburn wracked his brain. People¡­ lots of them¡­ chanting, in a circle¡­ and¡­ a fire¡­ and¡­ a white ox? That section was still hazy, but the next part¡­


    ¡°She¡¯s coming!¡± Wilburn hissed. ¡°Toukie, it¡¯s Her¡ª¡± but Toukie was gone. Wilburn spun around in time to see him hop into the air. ¡°Toukie, come back!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Creator,¡± Toukie squawked, ¡°but you never imagined me to be brave!¡± And off he flew, diminishing to a dot in perhaps no time at all. If only Wilburn could have followed. If only he could have fled, as he had done the first time. For he remembered now how the first dream had ended. It had ended with the presence. With Her. With him barely escaping Her, racing back to the crossroads, down the road to Real Life with Her right behind him, and awaking in the cottage just as the hornets were landing on the roof. Her presence had been strong then, almost too strong to resist. But this time? This time it was crushing.


    ¡­Wilburn! ¡­Get down here! Mom¡¯s voice echoed from far side of the universe, causing a window in the back of Wilburn¡¯s mind to open. Through the window, he looked down upon his body, thrashing in his blankets in his bed in the loft, far, far below. But he could not return. Although he fought with every fiber of his being, he could not pass through the window. He was paralyzed. This isn¡¯t real, he told himself, as panic swelled within him. It¡¯s only a dream. Nothing can hurt you in a dream. He didn¡¯t actually believe it, though. His powers had abandoned him, just as Toukie had abandoned him. His dream body was ignoring his orders to move, and his Real Life body was ignoring his orders to be still. Neither belonged to Wilburn now; they were detached things, foreign objects. Any illusion of control was gone.


    He stood rigid as a statue, his gaze nailed to a distant point beyond the ocean. There was nothing he could do to prevent himself from seeing what was coming¡ªwhat he knew no mortal eye was meant to see. His very mind was slipping, his ability to choose, to simply will. Thoughts came and went, but Wilburn couldn¡¯t steer them. He could not react. He could only experience. And what he experienced was... terror. How lucky he had been the first time! In the first dream, he had felt only the brush of Her, the faintest whisper of Her power. Now he would look full upon Her face¡ªand be destroyed.


    She came. Her Majesty rose up out of the ocean, not from underwater, but from behind the horizon, beyond the edge of the world. Her shadow gobbled up the world. Her wings reached wider than the sky. Her vastness was a thing greater than physical proportion; it was a magnitude of being, of reality itself. Her sheer existence was so terribly, pants-wettingly much¡ªit shattered Wilburn¡¯s capacity to perceive.


    God. The word sang through him like his own true name. God. What else¡ªwho else¡ªcould it be? There simply wasn¡¯t room, there simply wasn¡¯t enough¡­ everything¡­ for this to be¡­ anything¡­ but¡­ God. God.


    Perhaps, if Wilburn had paid a bit more attention in church instead of imagining what the stained-glass windows would taste like if they were made of candy, it would have occurred to him that God had never been described as having the appearance of a three-eyed hornet, even one as superlatively colossal as Her Majesty. Then again, perhaps it wouldn¡¯t have occurred to him. Perhaps even a priest would have been hoodwinked by Her Majesty¡¯s... well, majesty. For indeed, her beauty surpassed description, wrought in colors for which Wilburn knew no words. In basic shape, She was a hornet with a third eye in the center of Her head. This super-form, however, was composed of a bafflingly intricate latticework of geometry, whose complexity of detail exponentiated as the distance between Herself and Wilburn shrank, as Her gravity plucked Wilburn off the mountaintop and hurled him toward Her.


    Wilburn¡­! Mom¡¯s voice echoed again. Through the little window Wilburn saw her rush upstairs and drop to her knees at his bedside. Wilburn saw, but it meant nothing. No connection. No context, or relevance to him. He had the feeling you get when someone jumps out from behind a corner and says Boo¡ªexcept it didn¡¯t fade¡ªthe instant of blind shock persisted, and he could not accept it, could not process, could not wrap his mind around the impossible yet undeniable fact of Her.


    Closer he fell. Closer. The face of the great vexpid Queen expanded past the edges of his vision. Her glory was devastating. Her presence, Her intelligence, was searing. He fell faster. He was hurtling toward the center of Her third eye. The vast, glittering hemisphere swelled before him, constructed from a trillion hexagonal cells, each bigger than a planet. With no obvious moment of transition, the eye¡¯s convexity turned into a concavity, a tunnel. He fell into it. Down, down, into a whirling vortex of hexagons. She swallowed him. He was inside Her. Then¡­ he wasn¡¯t anywhere.


    He didn¡¯t exist. Only She existed. Only Her Majesty¡ªAll-Seer¡ªHive Mother¡ªthe Queen. For a beat which might have lasted an eternity, there was no such person as Wilburn Fark. Then She began to recreate him. She conjured Wilburn¡¯s naked soul from nothingness, stripped of all memory and identity. He was a formless, nameless pinprick of awareness, unthinking, unknowing¡ªterrified. And then¡­


    He was a boy¡­ in red pajamas... falling down a corridor of light¡­ his name was Wilburn... Wilburn tried to turn his head. He couldn¡¯t move. In Real Life, he was lying in the root cellar. Despite the darkness, he could see himself quite clearly through the little window in the back of his mind. He was pinned between two heavy sacks of flour. His body spasmed with the violent force of Her Majesty¡¯s possession. Until...


    She released him. The paralysis lifted from Wilburn¡¯s dream body at the same moment his Real Life body stilled. It all came back to him. His physical, mental, and magical facilities returned. He was... fine?


    He was fine. And suddenly, he understood. A ray of gratitude broke through the blackness of his terror, transmuting his terror into awe. The message couldn¡¯t have been clearer. He was Hers. Utterly. Irrevocably. It was by Her mercy alone that he existed, for no power truly belonged to him, no attribute, apart from that which She deigned to bestow. Unbelievably, this greatest of all beings cared about him, loved him in fact. She had erased him, then restored him, so that he would understand¡ªhe had been chosen. Wilburn¡¯s heart pounded. He discovered he wasn¡¯t falling anymore. He was flying. He was ascending into golden light.


    We have a purpose for you. Her Majesty spoke without language, in a voice of pure meaning that entered Wilburn¡¯s mind like an epiphany. This was it. This was the reason. This was why he had been born.


    Serve.


    YES! Wilburn responded with his whole soul, pouring forth affirmation. YES! YES! He was weeping in passion. It was the realest, most beautiful moment of his life. All around him spiraled a tantalizing pattern, redolent of music and plants and mathematics. It seemed to express an essential harmony of nature, a dance of opposites and balancing extremes. He felt himself aligning with the pattern, as if some internal string were being tuned. Her Power reverberated through him¡ªit was his power¡ªhis to wield, so long as he served. He didn¡¯t need to grasp the full significance to know what he must do. There was a rhythm to the pattern. The next step in the dance was obvious. The Path was illuminated. It was preordained.


    The ritual, which had been set in motion long before his birth, must be completed. Oh, he had a choice, of course; this was essential to the ritual. The options were service or slavery. Not much of a choice, some might say, but Wilburn knew otherwise. It was the difference between doing it, or having it happen to him. His choice was made. He would not cower from his destiny. Besides, he wasn¡¯t frightened anymore. He understood, and he agreed. In fact, he wanted to do it¡­ more than he had ever wanted anything. He wanted to touch the center.


    Somehow, it was directly above him and directly in front of him at the same time, a point of absolute, perfect light, the point where every part of the pattern converged. It crackled with energy, dangerous, so, so dangerous, yet irresistibly attractive. Wilburn flew toward it. Down in the root cellar, his body arose. It was the least effort to throw the trapdoor open. Magic surged between the worlds, bridging the two versions of him. He paid just enough attention to the little window in the back of his mind to keep from bonking his head as he floated himself up through the trapdoor. The greater part of his awareness remained fixed upon the center, the very center of the center¡ªthe heart of the Great Mystery.


    In one world, he glided to meet the waiting hornet. In the other world, he soared into the golden light of exaltiture. In both worlds, he reached out his hand.

 CHAPTER 6 - The Weenie Roast

    CHAPTER 6


    The Weenie Roast


    The moment Wilburn¡¯s body hit the floor, the vexpids turned around¡ªand left. Some scuttled up the remnants of the walls while the rest filed out through what did not remain of the walls, moving with unhurried, orderly efficiency like patrons exiting a theater. Ez might have been invisible for all the notice they took as she jostled her way through them to where Wilburn lay, and knelt, pressing an ear to his chest. He was alive. The buzzing of the swarm made it impossible to hear, but she could feel Wilburn¡¯s heartbeat through his shirt, solid and steady, although she wasn¡¯t much relieved. Few poisons killed instantly, she knew. It might take hours, even days for the full extent of the damage to manifest. It was insanity to hope. The fact that the hornets were leaving bespoke doom. It meant their task had been accomplished¡ªtheir purpose fulfilled.


    In her mind¡¯s eye Ez watched the corruption spread through Wilburn¡¯s body, radiating outward from the point of the sting like a splash of violet ink. Ought she to amputate the finger? The whole hand? ¡­Or was that only for infections? She tried to remember how her father used to treat snake-bitten animals and couldn¡¯t, and she was pretty sure she would have if it had been amputation, so¡­ not that. Something dull then, like a poultice, perhaps yarrow and quillroot extract with¡­ but a poultice? What was she thinking? This was vexpid venom, no mere common snake bite. If an antidote existed it would surely belong to the realm of the impossible, the unreal¡ªmagic. Despair washed over her. Once again, she could do nothing for her son. The only person who could possibly help Wilburn now was¡­ Gramma Fark¡­


    Ez¡¯s throat tightened. Thoralf stepped back to give her room as she crawled, half choking with tears, to Gramma¡¯s side. The older woman could hardly have looked deader than she did. But when Ez pressed a finger to the artery under the corner of her jaw, she found a pulse, albeit ominously faint. ¡°Wake up,¡± she begged, squeezing Gramma¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Wake up, please. I need you. Please. Please¡­ WAKE UP, DAMN YOU!¡± Gramma¡¯s head lolled as Ez shook her roughly, only stopping when Thoralf whinnied in protest.


    ¡°Sorry!¡± Ez gasped. She sat back on her heels, breathing heavily. You¡¯re in shock, she told herself. Well, no shit, she told herself. It was very hot. Ez coughed. It was very hot. As the hornets¡¯ humming faded in the distance, a new sound was growing louder: a crackling, hissing, rumbling roar. Ez turned around. Dozens of vexpid carcasses in varying states of dismemberment littered the room, their mangled shapes jutting from a quagmire of thick, acid-green gumbo. And thank heaven it was so, for without the gumbo, the fire would have spread across the floor, whereas at present it was confined to the cottage¡¯s southwestern quadrant, where both of the oil lamps had broken. It was a mark of Ez¡¯s weariness that for a moment she considered doing absolutely nothing about it. The cottage walls, which were of solid brick, could not themselves catch fire, though they certainly could break if they got hot enough. All that was burning was the table and the chairs, the kitchen cabinetry, a window frame, and the front door: in other words, every wooden thing the fire could touch. But the smoke couldn¡¯t accumulate too thickly thanks to the extra ventilation the hornets had added. Perhaps she could get away with just¡­ not putting it out. After all, there wasn¡¯t much dry wood left to be burned. Even as she thought it, a large ember jumped from the top of the linen cabinet and landed on the bottom step of the loft staircase, which burst instantly afire.


    Damn hell¡­ Ez staggered to her feet, then nearly toppled over as a head rush whited out her vision. No no no. She couldn¡¯t lose consciousness now¡ªthey¡¯d all be toast. Bracing a hand on Thoralf¡¯s shoulder, she waited with her neck bowed, her chest heaving. After several long moments, a semblance of strength returned to her, and she stumbled her way through the wreckage to a missing section of wall and thence into the outer darkness. Shovel, she thought. She moved robotically in the direction of the potato patch, focusing on not focusing on the many boiling pains throughout her body. She gulped deep lungfuls of the chilly air and found herself reviving slightly. The way back was rendered easier by her use of the shovel as a walking stick, but as she set to flinging gore into the flames, fatigue slammed over her anew.


    Her vision narrowed. One more scoop, became her mantra. One more scoop¡­ One more scoop¡­ Nock, draw, loose¡ªno wait. One more scoop¡­ She was vaguely aware of Thoralf kicking bricks around or¡­ something¡­ she was too tired to check, but she assumed he must be helping. One more scoop¡­


    The hornet sludge made an ideal extinguishing agent, for it was both thick enough to smother oil fires, and wet enough to quench the burning wood. The only drawback was the smoke. Greasy black clouds of it chugged off the dying embers, and it was this, on top of the pervading stench of slaughter, which at last forced Ez to be sick. Dropping the shovel, she bent over and retched until no more would come. As she straightened up, ears ringing, her vision a blur, she was struck by the self-evident fact that she was finished. Her body had given all it could. Now it was over. Not over over, she hoped¡­ just... for awhile. She felt as if she¡¯d crossed an ocean since waking up that morning. Had it really only been a day? Just one?


    ¡°Thoralf,¡± she mumbled, ¡°can you¡­?¡± She gestured blearily to the few remaining places where the rubble still smoldered. Fortunately, Thoralf stamped to the affirmative, because Ez hadn''t the strength to pick the shovel up again. She barely made it back to Wilburn before falling to the floor. Her final act, as darkness closed around her, was to reach out for his hand, his warm, blessedly living hand. Then she was gone.


    * * * * * * *


    It was Jack¡¯s hand Ez was holding as they strolled along a country lane, flanked by wheat fields of early-summer green. A honey sun hung low before them; whether on the rise or on the set, Ez didn¡¯t know. What she did know was that none of this was real. There had been a time when she would have allowed herself to forget that Jack was dead. Not anymore. Indulging such illusions only led to further grief. ¡°This is a dream,¡± she said firmly.


    ¡°A beautiful dream,¡± Jack replied. As he turned his head, the stark light cut across his face, leaving one side of it in shadow and the other glowing gold. On that side, the pigment of his iris was revealed to be deepest brown, not black as it appeared most of the time. It was torture to look at him.


    ¡°Seven years,¡± Ez said. ¡°Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why can¡¯t I let you go?¡±


    ¡°Our love is stronger than death, babe.¡±


    Ez snorted. ¡°You would say something like that.¡±


    ¡°I just did say it.¡±


    ¡°I mean the real you would have, before¡­¡± Ez put a hand to her forehead. ¡°Why am I explaining myself to myself? Why am I talking to you at all? You¡¯re just a figment of my stupid brain.¡±


    Jack winced. ¡°Ez, look around¡­ This is a perfect moment. Can¡¯t we let ourselves have this? Can¡¯t we just pretend?¡±


    ¡°No, me,¡± Ez said, nudging him with an elbow. ¡°I can¡¯t let myself pretend. Because tomorrow I have to wake up and live my life without¡­ him.¡± She had almost said you.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry¡ª¡±


    ¡°No!¡± Ez stopped walking and pushed Jack away. ¡°I¡¯m done dreaming about him, brain. He¡¯s gone. Give me a dream about Wilburn. Hell, give me a dream about Gramma Fark for all I care.¡±


    ¡°How is Wilburn?¡± Jack asked eagerly. ¡°How¡¯s Mom? Have you seen her lately?¡±


    ¡°SHUT UP!¡± Ez shouted, clamping her hands over her ears. She spun around to face the empty green horizon. Jack tapped her on the shoulder. Ez folded her arms, refusing to look at him.


    ¡°Okay,¡± Jack said. ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll try not to come back for a while. It¡¯s just¡­ I love you, Ez. I can¡¯t stop loving you.¡± He sighed. ¡°I¡¯m such a selfish bastard. I know it¡¯s wrong to turn up in your dreams like this¡­ even though you probably won¡¯t remember. But it¡¯s still wrong. Okay, I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯m going. I¡¯m sorry. Okay, bye. But just in case¡ªI¡¯m a wizard¡­¡± he recited the final three words in an exasperated, learned-by-heart tone, and then was silent for so long that Ez began to think it had worked, that she had finally quit dreaming about him. But when she turned around, she found him still standing there, ashen-faced, his jaw hanging open. ¡°I said it¡­¡± he said. His jaw dropped further. Jack stared into Ez¡¯s eyes, then did double take. ¡°You know¡­¡± he breathed. Then¡ª ¡°YOU KNOW!¡± he shouted, and he swept Ez up in his arms as if she weighed nothing and spun her around and around and around, laughing uproariously.


    It was so spontaneous that Ez forgot the greater context. She forgot that she was dreaming, that the man embracing her was only a projection of her sleeping mind. She forgot to remember that Jack was dead, and for a moment she was caught up in his joy. They laughed together as they spun. Ez hadn¡¯t noticed that their feet had left the ground. But suddenly, they were flying, flying high above a green sea, stretching from forever to forever, unbroken but for the wending ribbon of the road.


    ¡°I always wanted to do this,¡± Jack said, and kissed her, a bajillion feet in the air. After some time, or perhaps no time at all, their lips parted and Jack let out a wolfish howl, throwing back his head and punching his fist in the air. ¡°Magic!¡± he yelled. ¡°It feels so good to finally say it! ¡­to you, I mean.¡± He sighed, as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders. ¡°Magic,¡± he repeated, with relish. ¡°So, Wilburn inherited the gift. Well, of course he must¡¯ve. How else could you know? Unless... wait, babe, you didn¡¯t marry a different wizard, did you?¡±


    ¡°No, Jack,¡± Ez laughed.


    ¡°Thank GOD.¡± Jack looked as if he¡¯d actually been worried. ¡°Okay, listen, I¡¯m dying to hear the details¡ªmmm, poor choice of words¡ªI need to hear the details, but the thing is, I¡¯ve edited this dream too much. Agents will be here any minute to arrest me. Do you know about Frogswallow¡¯s yet?¡±


    ¡°Only that it¡¯s a school for wizards,¡± Ez said. ¡°Your mom mentioned it.¡±


    ¡°Did she mention the hovels?¡±


    ¡°What hovels?¡±


    ¡°Good,¡± Jack spoke softly in her ear. ¡°Bodfish, Dukleth, Akerblade, Hinkle, and Zwifelhoffer: the Five Hovels of Frogswallow¡¯s College, named for the five original disciples. I was in Akerblade. Mom was in Hinkle. There. God¡¯s balls, this is incredibly illegal, but that¡¯s proof, Ez, proof that I¡¯m not a figment of your imagination. When you hear those words,¡± Jack rattled off the list again, ¡°you¡¯re going to remember, and you¡¯re going to know that I¡¯m¡ª¡±


    Ez screamed. Two figures had appeared from nowhere. The two figures appeared to be made of nowhere. Their forms were surfaceless, as if someone with a giant pair of scissors had cut human-shaped holes in reality. They made no sound as they seized Jack by either arm and began hauling him away. ¡°Worth it!¡± Jack called, beaming at her. ¡°So worth it. I love you, Ez!¡±


    ¡°I¡­ love you too,¡± she answered. Then she was falling, and the dream dissolved around her like a soap painting rinsed off a pane of glass.


    * * * * * * *


    Hot, peach-pink sunshine filtered through her eyelids. She lay still, and didn¡¯t open them at first. It had been such a curious dream¡­ Already the details were fading. Only the image of Jack¡¯s beaming face remained, that and a sweet, wistful longing. Ez lay savoring this strange set of emotions, reluctant to confront, or even contemplate, reality. She wished she could fall back to sleep, dream on and on and on, never attending to her responsibilities again. Everything hurt. Her throat and sinuses were raw, and her mouth stickily dry. In fact, her whole body was sticky¡­ sticky¡­ with blood. Her eyes snapped open.


    Bars of sunlight fell between the rafters, which cut stripes across a clean blue sky. It must¡¯ve been midafternoon. ¡°Wilburn?¡± Ez¡¯s voice came out as a croak. She tried to sit up and nearly fainted from the pain as muscles up and down her torso spasmed. Gritting her teeth, she wrenched herself up on one elbow and surveyed the room. It was a ghastly sight. The twisted corpses of the vexpids looked no prettier by day, nor had the butcher¡¯s stew improved as it congealed; when fresh, the blood had been a vivid green; now it was the dark color of pond scum. But pond scum would have smelled like sweet perfume compared to this reek. There was no sign of Wilburn or Gramma Fark or Thoralf.


    Standing up was an ordeal. Every inch of her felt swollen, and so stiff, as if she¡¯d rusted in her sleep. Her head was pounding. Her left leg wouldn¡¯t bear weight. But it was not yet time to take stock of her injuries. First, she had to find out¡­ A series of small hops took her across the room to the new door the hornets had smashed in the south wall. Picking her way over the loose bricks, she emerged into an autumn day, more beautiful than it had any right to be. She cocked an ear.


    ¡°¡­ a little lower, boy. I like a good char on my weenies.¡± That was Gramma¡¯s voice! If it lacked it¡¯s usual emphatic energy, Ez failed to notice. Her heart soared. Never had such inane words given such comfort. She knew instantly that her son was alive¡ªand better than alive¡ªfor surely, even Gramma Fark would not talk weenies with a dying person. Limping as quickly as she could, Ez turned the corner to find Wilburn and Gramma seated in the shade of the old sycamore, a small campfire crackling between them, while Thoralf grazed a short distance down the hillside. Her relief was overwhelming. Ez had to lean against the cottage for support as her eyes feasted on the glorious tableau.


    Wilburn appeared perfectly healthy. He was glaring at a sausage link which floated in the air over the fire. The tip of his tongue poked from the corner of his mouth the way it often did when he was focused on a math problem. He sat crisscross in the grass with his left hand outstretched before him. The hand showed no mark of the sting, although Wilburn was making an odd gesture with it, as if twisting an invisible doorknob.


    He glanced up as Ez began to hobble over, and gasped. It belatedly occurred to her that she must look a wreck. In her haste to check on Wilburn, she hadn¡¯t paused to consider that it might not be the best thing in the world for a boy of seven to see his mother caked in gore, half beaten to a pulp, her clothing ragged and her hair¡­ she shuddered to imagine what her hair was doing.


    ¡°Not that charred!¡± Gramma cried.


    Distracted by the sight of his mother, Wilburn had forgotten about the sausage. As soon as he had taken his mind off it, the sausage had reverted to obeying the laws of physics, and had dropped into the flames and disappeared. ¡°Oops!¡± Wilburn shouted. He made a snatching gesture¡ªthe sync. There was a great woof of sparks. Gramma squawked and rolled out of the way as flaming bits of wood flew everywhere. ¡°Sorry!¡± Wilburn bellowed. Sweeping his arms wide, he brought his hands together in a clap. There was a second explosion of sparks as the scattered embers crashed back together. When the sparks settled, it became clear that Wilburn had put a tad too much oomph behind the spell, for all that remained of the campfire was a dense fistful of coals. The sausage, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen.


    A long pause followed in which the three of them all looked at one another. Then, Ez started laughing. She didn¡¯t get very far into it before pain forced her to stop. But it was funny. Oh, it was funny. There seemed to be a straight line connecting this moment to yesterday afternoon, when she¡¯d knelt laughing in the mud, having her epiphany about how everything she had ever believed was bunk, and how, at the root of it, she had no idea what was really going on. It was as true now as it had been then.


    ¡°Are you okay?¡± Wilburn asked.


    ¡°Yes, honey.¡± Ez smiled, but it turned into a wince. Even her face was sore. ¡°I¡¯m a little banged up,¡± she admitted, ¡°but I¡¯ll heal. How are you feeling?¡±


    Wilburn shrugged. ¡°Pretty good.¡± There was a slight edge in his voice that told Ez this was not quite true. Of course, there were a dozen reasons why the boy might feel dysphoric, not least being the fact that he¡¯d suffered a seizure and been stung by a magic hornet, only to discover, upon awakening, that his home had been demolished. And yet, Ez had a hunch that wasn¡¯t it. ¡°Did Gramma scold you?¡± she asked.


    Wilburn nodded. ¡°She said I¡¯m a gosh darned dunderhead.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± It was an effort for Ez to keep the amusement out of her voice. ¡°Why did she say that?¡±


    Wilburn shook his head. ¡°She doesn¡¯t get it,¡± he muttered. ¡°She wasn¡¯t there. I tried to tell her, but she wouldn¡¯t listen.¡±


    Ez shot Gramma a glance, intending to exchange some of their usual silent dialogue. She was so taken aback by the older woman¡¯s wan countenance, however, that she instead asked, ¡°How are you feeling?¡±


    ¡°Like a stepped-in turd,¡± Gramma said croakily. Her naturally tan skin was yellowish, and her eyes, behind her fractured spectacles, were bloodshot, and bore heavy purple bags. Well, a quart of strong cider on top of a few glasses of wine, plus not much sleep, and that on a hard floor would take the spring out of anybody¡¯s step, Ez reasoned, and Gramma Fark was no youngster. And then you had to factor in the consequences of magical over-exertion¡­ whatever they were exactly. Ez waited, in case Gramma wanted to defend her dunderhead remark, but she did not. So, after a moment¡¯s consideration, Ez said carefully, ¡°Wilburn, I¡¯d like to hear what you remember from last night. Would you please tell me?¡±


    The boy¡¯s countenance lit up at once. ¡°I met God!¡± he said happily. ¡°Did you know She¡¯s a vexpid? And now I¡¯m a vexpid too! But before that I met Toukie. He¡¯s alive! At least, he¡¯s some sort of alive¡­ he talked too much. But then we flew around and ate a bunch of ice cream, because I turned all the snow into ice cream, and it was really good! Then we were gonna go tobogganing, but then Her Majesty turned up, and Toukie ran away. But I was stuck. But before that, Toukie showed me this gold stuff called igzalchurer, and he kept telling me I created him because I rubbed his wing so much. Then when I met Her Majesty, She sort of uncreated me and then un-uncreated me, and that was when I saw that golden stuff again, and I realized I was gonna be igzalchurered, and I got really happy!


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I saw myself here too, in Real Life. I heard you calling, but I couldn¡¯t do anything, because the Queen wouldn¡¯t let me. She knew I would¡¯ve tried to run away, because I was really scared, but that was because I didn¡¯t understand yet, but then I did. And then I swore to serve Her and She let me go, and gave me back my power so I could do the ritual touch. And then I did it. And then¡­ I got igzalchurered, I guess¡­¡± Wilburn¡¯s brow furrowed in puzzlement. ¡°I kind of¡­ learned a bunch of stuff really fast¡­ except¡­ I don¡¯t know any of it yet¡­ It¡¯s like there¡¯s a big book in my head,¡± Wilburn tapped the center of his forehead, ¡°but I can¡¯t read it. Because it¡¯s not a book. It¡¯s not¡­ words.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Anyway, I can¡¯t wait to go Astro projecting again. But Gramma says next time to just sit there at the crossroads and not do anything fun!¡± Wilburn gave Ez a beseeching look, as if requesting her permission to¡­ to...


    ¡°Hang out with Toukie in Open Dreamspace!¡± Wilburn said eagerly, as if reading her mind. This clarified not much, however. Ez still had no idea what to think. She studied Wilburn, who slowly gave her a mysterious smile. ¡°You don¡¯t understand either,¡± he said gently. ¡°But you will. Someday.¡± This pronouncement unnerved Ez more than anything else he¡¯d said. It was his certainty. That knowing twinkle in his eyes¡­ Jack¡¯s eyes, so brown as to look black.


    Ez cleared her throat uncomfortably. ¡°Did you say you¡­ are a vexpid?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Yep,¡± Wilburn said proudly. ¡°I¡¯m not crazy,¡± he added, which was precisely what Ez had been wondering. ¡°I know I¡¯m a boy. That¡¯s why I had to be the one to finish the ritual. If I¡¯d waited for Her to do it, I wouldn¡¯t be Wilburn anymore. I¡¯d just be Her, like the rest of the hive. I guess I¡¯d basically be dead, because my mind would be erased. But since I chose to serve, I get to keep myself. Except¡­ myself is part of Her now.¡±


    ¡°Part of who¡­?¡±


    Wilburn¡¯s eyes went a little round. ¡°Her Majesty,¡± he said, with such reverence that, in spite of the day¡¯s warmth, Ez felt goosebumps prickle up her arms.


    ¡°And who is this¡­ Her Majesty?¡± she asked.


    ¡°God,¡± Wilburn said simply.


    It was Gramma¡¯s turn to clear her throat. Wilburn and Ez both turned to look at her. ¡°No,¡± she said. ¡°You¡¯re wrong about that, boy. She might be a god, with a lowercase g, but she ain¡¯t the God, although I¡¯m sure that¡¯s what she wants you to believe.¡±


    ¡°She is too God,¡± Wilburn said stubbornly. ¡°You didn¡¯t meet Her.¡±


    ¡°And I never will,¡± Gramma said wearily, ¡°because I can¡¯t Astral project. Now go build up that fire, boy. You still owe me a weenie. And roast one for your mother while you¡¯re at it. And Wilburn?¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°Just skewer ¡®em on a stick. Magic¡¯s more trouble than it¡¯s worth sometimes.¡±


    Wilburn looked disappointed, but he moved to obey. While he was working, Ez limped closer to Gramma and asked softly, ¡°Is he going to be all right?¡±


    ¡°Hardly,¡± Gramma said, not lowering her own voice. ¡°You¡¯d better sit down, Ez. We¡¯ve got a lot to talk about. And there¡¯s no point trying to do it quiet; the boy can read your mind.¡±


    ¡°He¡­ ?¡± Ez said, thinking she must have misheard.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t,¡± Wilburn said, from several yards away.


    I must have misheard Wilburn too, Ez thought a little desperately. Wilburn can¡¯t read my mind. If he could read my mind¡­ he¡¯d know I¡¯m thinking this right now¡­ why¡ªit was the easiest thing in the world to disprove! Ez picked a random number.


    ¡°Nineteen,¡± Wilburn said, somewhat apologetically.


    Sitting down... yes, that sounded like a very good idea. Ez did so stiffly and leaned back against the tree trunk. She waited for someone to explain.


    ¡°You¡¯d better do it,¡± Wilburn said.


    ¡°Do what?¡± Ez and Gramma asked in unison.


    ¡°Explain,¡± Wilburn said. He blinked. ¡°I guess Mom didn¡¯t say that part out loud. She needs us to explain about that¡­ psycho¡­ thingy. But I can¡¯t, but because I kind of zoned out while you were talking. Sorry.¡±


    Gramma massaged her eyebrows, sighing through her nose. ¡°All right,¡± she said. ¡°Just¡­ focus on roasting them weenies, Wilburn. Maybe if I can make your mother understand, you can read her mind¡­ then maybe you¡¯ll understand.¡±


    ¡°Why can¡¯t he read your mind?¡± Ez asked, feeling this was exceedingly unfair.


    ¡°Because I¡¯m too lousy a psychovate to lower my mental shield on command,¡± Gramma said. ¡°Guarding my mind is an unconscious habit. Took years of meditation to ingrain it, and that was going on five decades ago. I reckon it would take another decade to break the habit, but that would only put me right back where you are, vulnerable to any psychovate who cared to tamper with my mind.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s a¡ª¡±


    ¡°Psychovatry is mind magic, one of the five fundamental arts. Remember how I told you every magician has a knack for one of them? Well, Wilburn has two knacks. He¡¯s a psychovate as well as a kineturgist. That¡¯s rare. So rare it¡¯s practically unheard of¡­ at least, in humans. Sounds like a blessing, but it ain¡¯t. Part of the reason double knackers are so rare is they run twice the risk of accidentally destroying themselves. Yeah. You should be worried.¡± Gramma nodded at Ez¡¯s alarmed expression. ¡°Now get ready to worry harder, because psychovatry is a sight more dangerous than kineturgy. At least with kineturgy it¡¯s only your body that¡¯s at risk; worst case scenario you die, which we¡¯re all bound to do eventually anyway. But with psychovatry, you risk your very mind, maybe your soul too. They say the ever-present peril of psychovatry is madness... of a thousand different stripes.¡± Both women glanced sidelong at Wilburn, who was busily snapping sticks over his knee. Sensing the attention, the boy made a ridiculous face at them, and said, ¡°Bleh-leh-leh-leh-leh-leh-leh.¡± This reassured Ez somewhat, for it was classic Wilburn behavior.


    ¡°Unfortunately,¡± Gramma went on, ¡°I¡¯m only a yellow hat in psychovatry, which I¡¯m afraid means I won¡¯t be much help to the boy there. Kineturgy, sure, I¡¯m a purple hat. I can teach him the basics, and far more. I can practice with him, correct his mistakes. Most importantly I can keep him safe¡ªwell, relatively speaking. But I can¡¯t do any of that with psychovatry. I never learned to Astral project. I can¡¯t even tell what¡¯s happening on the Astral Plane, much less do anything about it.¡±


    ¡°Mom¡¯s lost,¡± Wilburn announced. ¡°The hat thing threw her off.¡±


    Gramma made an impatient gesture. ¡°Hats are like ranks for magicians. The color shows how good you are. It goes white, yellow, orange, red, blue, green, purple, black. A black hat is a master. I¡¯ve got a black in vivopathy, and purples in the other arts except psychovatry. Having a yellow hat means I¡¯m barely less ignorant than you are, Ez.¡±


    ¡°So what¡¯s the Astral Plane?¡± Ez asked, ignoring the jibe.


    ¡°Ah, well, that¡¯s trickier to answer. I¡¯m afraid it has to do with the nature of the universe, a subject I detest above all others.¡± Gramma clucked her tongue, and shook her head. ¡°I¡¯ll admit, I have very little patience for philosophy, and even less for philosophers. But, I suppose I ought to try to give you some idea at least. Hm¡­ I suppose, the easiest way to understand it is¡ªwhat¡¯s the last dream you remember?¡±


    A mishmash of images flickered across Ez¡¯s mind. A country lane¡­ a honey sun¡­ Jack¡¯s grinning face¡­ Wilburn looked over at her sharply, his eyes wide with understanding. With a jolt, Ez realized that he had, technically, just seen his father for the first time in his life. Oh, this was bizarre. She expected Wilburn to say something, but all he did was snap another branch over his knee and toss it in the fire, which was beginning to crackle back to life. Of course, Wilburn was aware that she didn¡¯t want Jack brought up in the present conversation. He was listening to her thinking this¡­ Could she possibly get used to such a thing? ¡°I was walking through the countryside,¡± Ez said. ¡°That¡¯s all I remember.¡±


    Gramma nodded. ¡°Good enough. Walking. That means you¡¯re moving in four dimensions. Left, right, up, down, forward, back, and time¡ªbut we don¡¯t have time to talk about time. Point is, you¡¯re experiencing a physical and temporal world, your body, a countryside, a sequence of events. Of course, we both know what I¡¯d find if I sliced open your head while you were sleeping, and it wouldn¡¯t be no countryside. That¡¯s because Dreamspace isn¡¯t in your brain¡ªit¡¯s metaphysical¡ªit¡¯s in your mind. But where is your mind? Where is it when you¡¯re dreaming?¡±


    ¡°I suppose,¡± Ez said, when it became clear Gramma was waiting for an answer. ¡°I suppose¡­ it¡¯s¡­ in the dream.¡±


    ¡°Exactly. Your mind is in the dream, but the dream is in your mind. Well, according to the philosophers, that¡¯s pretty much how the entire universe works. Dreams within minds within dreams within minds, on and on and on and on and on. They reckon time and space are really a continuum, which they call spacetime, and they reckon mind is another continuum that permeates spacetime, and each of our individual minds is part of that continuum. Now, spacetime¡¯s only got the four dimensions: left, right, up, down, forward, back, and time. But really conveniently there are¡ªor so the philosophers claim¡ªinfinite mental dimensions. One of those dimensions is what we call Real Life. Everywhere else,¡± Gramma sighed heavily, ¡°is the Astral Plane. In other words, it¡¯s the vast majority of the universe. But ordinary people like us can only operate in three Astral dimensions: Thoughtspace, Moodspace and Private Dreamspace, although apparently we exist in many others.


    ¡°There¡¯s an Astral enforcement agency in charge of kicking psychovates out of other people¡¯s dreams; that¡¯s why we call it Private Dreamspace. Thoughtspace and Moodspace, however, are public property. Like air. They feel private because we normal folks can only perceive ourselves in those dimensions, our own thoughts, and memories and feelings, and only a few of those at a time¡ªbut we don¡¯t have time to talk about time. Thing is, a psychovate like Wilburn perceives Thoughtspace and Moodspace all around him, unless something specifically blocks him from doing so. It gets really, stupidly, annoyingly complicated, but that¡¯s the nutshell of it. That¡¯s why the boy knows what you¡¯re thinking.¡±


    ¡°Wow¡­¡± Ez said. It was all she could think to say. The unenthusiastic manner in which Gramma had doled out these secrets of the universe amazed her. The older woman might have been explaining how to boil beets for all the interest she showed. She acted as if the whole subject were some tedious chore, but Ez couldn¡¯t have felt stronger to the contrary. This is what science misses, she thought to herself. The continuum of mind¡­ It might explain how magic happened in the first place, and why it was only real for some people. Something to do with overlapping dreams, all sorts of different kinds of dreams, and different kinds of minds¡­ all interconnected, part of the same strange, wonderful thing. The notion rekindled a spark of her old epistemic optimism. Perhaps life wasn¡¯t so incomprehensible after all. Perhaps it did make sense, in a drattedly complex, inside-out, backwards sort of way.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid there¡¯s more,¡± Gramma said. ¡°Wilburn is reading your mind passively, because, of course, his conscience would never allow him to invade or tamper with another person¡¯s mind.¡± Gramma glared at Wilburn sternly. ¡°But not all psychovates are so scrupulous. Given the chance, they can explore your memories and alter them, make you forget things that really happened and remember things that never did. They can influence your thoughts and feelings, and by doing so, manipulate your actions without you ever getting wise. Or, a psychovate could go the other direction and use brute strength to dominate your mind, lock you in a trance prison and take full possession of your body. It¡¯s all strictly forbidden under the Secret Laws of Argylon, but who¡¯s enforcing that? No one on the Astral side. So it¡¯s down to psychovates to police themselves, and the rest of us are just supposed to trust them. Well, I don¡¯t. They might all be in a vast conspiracy together. That¡¯s why I trained myself to shield my mind against intrusion at all times¡ªthat and the entities.¡±


    ¡°The¡­?¡±


    ¡°Entities, yep. The Astral Plane is full of ¡®em. Creatures of infinite diversity, some good, some not so good, some altogether evil, but most too inhuman to judge. The Astral Plane goes on forever¡­ it¡¯s a wilderness. No telling what, or whom, you might bump into. Well, Wilburn bumped into something all right. This vexpid queen, this Her Majesty¡­ a powerful entity by the sound of it, possibly a lower god; there¡¯s a gazillion of those. Wish I knew more. The library at Dukleth Hovel has a scroll a mile long where they keep track of all the entities psychovates have encountered. We can check it when we get to Frogswallow¡¯s. But I reckon we¡¯ll be adding Her Majesty to the list, rather than finding Her. And I suppose Wilburn will get credit for the discovery. There¡¯s going to be a lot of academic interest in the boy, assuming he survives. He¡¯ll be the key to unlocking the mystery of vexpids, a mystery none of us even knew existed until¡­ ¡±


    Ez didn¡¯t catch Gramma¡¯s next words. Her ears were ringing. She had the strangest feeling that she was missing something¡­ something of monumental significance. But she couldn¡¯t think what it might be.


    Misinterpreting Ez¡¯s perplexity, Gramma said, ¡°What I mean is: vexpids must have a collective consciousness, a hive mind, which manifests as the divine queen on the Astral Plane.¡±


    ¡°Hornets have queens,¡± Ez said, trying to wrench her attention back to the present conversation. ¡°Makes sense that magic hornets would have a magic-hornet queen.¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s news to vivopathic scholars,¡± Gramma said. ¡°We¡¯re the ones who study magical flora and fauna. Not much effort has been put into researching vexpids up to this point, but that¡¯s all about to change. My hypothesis yesterday was wrong¡ªvexpids don¡¯t sense kineturgy¡ªthey sense psychovatry. Look at the timeline. The first batch didn¡¯t turn up until after Wilburn passed out.¡±


    ¡°Hours after,¡± Ez said, remembering.


    ¡°And then the second batch¡­¡±


    ¡°After he went to bed, not hours after, though.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. I¡¯m working on a new theory, but it needs tinkering. Tell me again, boy, the first time you Astral projected¡ªby gum! Are you planning to kill a moose with that thing, or what?¡±


    Wilburn, who sat whittling a preposterously lethal spike, started. He looked down at the knife and stick as if surprised to find them in his hands.


    ¡°Were you Astral projecting again?¡± Gramma demanded.


    ¡°Er¡­¡± Wilburn said guiltily.


    ¡°Give me that.¡± Gramma took the knife from him and replaced it with a chain of sausages, which she extracted from a hollow at the base of the old sycamore. Craning her neck, Ez saw that the hollow contained a hodgepodge of foodstuff from the root cellar. It was clear that Wilburn must¡¯ve gathered these provisions, for there was neither rhyme nor reason to the selection, which included brewers¡¯ yeast, a pot of honey, a jar of pickled asparagus, and¡­ a sack of coffee beans. At the sight of it, Ez¡¯s tongue tingled.


    ¡°Mom would kill for a cup of coffee right now,¡± Wilburn said.


    ¡°Who wouldn¡¯t?¡± Gramma said irritably. ¡°But all your pots are busted, Ez. I checked. There¡¯s a hole this big in the kettle. Where was I¡­? Ah yes¡ªfirst time you Astral projected, boy, did you see Her Majesty then?¡±


    Wilburn shook his head. ¡°Just felt Her. She was far away, or¡­ weaker, I guess. She chased me. But I got away, and I woke up.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s here,¡± Ez quoted.


    ¡°She was,¡± Wilburn said. ¡°She¡¯s all of them, only I didn¡¯t figure that out until later.¡± He smiled as he skewered weenies on his spear. ¡°Until I became one of them.¡±


    Gramma nodded thoughtfully. ¡°The number of vexpids in Real Life corresponds to Her Majesty¡¯s strength on the Astral Plane,¡± she said. ¡°I wonder¡­ Can you feel Her right now Wilburn? Is She¡­ connected to you?


    Wilburn nodded, waving the stick of weenies over the flames without paying much attention to it. ¡°The whole hive is connected," he said. "We all serve together.¡±


    Gramma sat back against the tree, rubbing her chin and looking very old. ¡°We¡¯ve got to get that boy to Frogswallow¡¯s,¡± she told Ez. ¡°He needs help. This Queen, this Astral entity, attached herself to him. I don¡¯t know what it means, exactly, but it¡¯s bad. Wilburn needs black hat psychovates to fix him, before it¡¯s too late. I¡¯d take him right now if I wasn¡¯t so wrecked.¡±


    ¡°How do we get there?¡± Ez asked.


    ¡°Magic, obviously. Only I can¡¯t do magic, on account of being up to my ears in the worst foysen dump of my life... that¡¯s a magic burnout, like kineturgic exhaustion. Foysen¡¯s just a fancy word for energy, the kind you get from eating and sleeping. The only art that doesn¡¯t drain foysen from your body is psychovatry, and that¡¯s the only one I didn¡¯t use last night. I think it¡¯s worse when you combine them. The harder the dump, the longer it takes to recover, and if you try to do magic while you¡¯re recovering, you get dumped all over again even harder than before. If I owned a wizidex like a sane person, I suppose I¡¯d swallow my pride and scry that wretched yak again. But no, I have to do things the old fashioned way. Well, darn the old fashioned way! First chance I get, I¡¯m buying me a wizidex, and ten-pounds worth of hongos. I¡¯ll never leave home without a pocketful again as long as I live.¡±


    It was more madness than Ez could bear to hear uncaffeinated. Leaning over, she seized the sack of coffee beans, untied the drawstring and crammed a fistful in her mouth. Then, chewing crunchily, she let her head flop back against the tree and closed her eyes. It irked her, Gramma spouting foreign terms without defining them. True, she had divulged much in the course of the conversation, and true also that her worry for Wilburn was sincere. And yet Ez couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that on some level, Gramma was relishing this opportunity to emphasize the depth of Ez¡¯s ignorance. Waiting to be asked what all that gibberish meant was perhaps a subtle way of asserting dominance, forcing Ez to acknowledge her inferiority once again... but wasn¡¯t it a moot point anyway? The years-long rivalry between the two of them had been a farce, based¡ªin Ez¡¯s mind¡ªon the false premise that they both were ordinary women, relatively equally matched. Of course, that had never been the case; Gramma had known it all along, and now Ez finally knew it too. Could Gramma really feel there was something left to prove¡­? No, Ez thought bitterly, she just enjoys being an asshole. Then she remembered. Her private thoughts no longer were. Her resentment turned into regret in an instant. Poor Wilburn! He had probably never realized how little she and Gramma cared for one another, that they only pretended to be friends for his sake, him being the sole cause of their alliance.


    Ez cracked an eyelid, thinking to find Wilburn shocked, or at least disappointed. But he just grinned a little crookedly and winked at her. ¡°What¡¯s all that gibberish mean, Gramma?¡± he asked.


    Gramma cast a suspicious glance in Ez¡¯s direction that seemed to say, You don¡¯t fool me. But she went on to answer anyway. ¡°Hongos are tiny purple mushrooms that taste like cinnamon, and they¡¯re chock-full of foysen. You dry ¡®em out and crunch on ¡®em like popcorn, and they perk you up like nothing else. If I¡¯d had some last night, them vexpids would never have made it past the door. Forget titanium¡ªI could¡¯ve turned the whole cottage into steel¡­ Problem is hongos are too good. Addictive. Used to think I could do without ¡®em¡­ but I¡¯d swap my cane for a handful right this minute.¡±


    ¡°And a wizidex?¡± Ez asked. She felt she recognized the term from somewhere, but once again, she couldn¡¯t put her finger on it.


    ¡°Oh, they¡¯re these stupid gadgets. They scry for you, see? Lazy. The old-fashioned way is better, though it does require foysen. But I guess you don¡¯t know what scrying is¡­ It¡¯s a hybrid spell that uses luximetry¡ªbut I guess you don¡¯t know what luximetry is either¡ªit¡¯s light magic¡ªto swap the images between two reflective surfaces, and it uses kineturgy to do the same thing with sound waves, so you can view remote locations and communicate with people.¡±


    ¡°You were doing that last night,¡± Ez said, sitting up a little straighter. ¡°You were shouting at a teacup¡­ you must¡¯ve been using the liquid as a reflective surface. I thought you¡¯d lost your marbles. Does the old-fashioned way always include smashing my teacups?¡±


    Gramma grunted. ¡°No, that had more to do with who I was scrying.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    Gramma grunted again. ¡°He¡¯s a philosopher, the very worst of them. Name of Iddolorious Bungflower. But everybody calls him Iddo. I dare say he¡¯s the most cussed person I¡¯ve ever had the misfortune to meet.¡±


    ¡°Why did you scry him then, if you hate him so much?¡±


    ¡°Because,¡± Gramma said grudgingly, ¡°he¡¯s the most powerful magician in the world. Iddo can alter spacetime in ways no one else understands. He was the only person I could think of who could have arrived in time to help us last night. Of course, all he wanted to do was write an essay about the unbeing of nothingness, or some such malarky. That¡¯s the trouble with him. Utterly insane. And with a deeply flawed sense of morality, I might add.¡± Gramma ran a hand through her gray curls. She said, seemingly as an afterthought, ¡°He¡¯s a yak.¡±


    And then a very odd thing happened. Ez started to ask, ¡°What¡¯s a yyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa¡­¡± Her voice slowed down, becoming guttural as the moment stretched unnaturally long, all movement grinding to a halt. And there it was again, the feeling¡ªcloser than her own heart¡ªof a vast, invisible machine, shifting¡ªthe sync.


    A very large, extremely shaggy creature walked into existence.


    ¡°¡ªk?¡± Ez said.

 CHAPTER 7 - Iddo

    CHAPTER 7


    Iddo


    The creature studied the assembled trio with unfathomable jewel-black eyes. It was almost as big as Thoralf, covered head to hoof in fur¡ªa really astonishing amount of fur, golden white and luxuriantly soft looking, and so immaculately styled that not a strand seemed out of place. Wherever the creature had come from must have had a good salon, indeed a supernatural salon. Its creamy locks rippled majestically in the breeze¡­ except no breeze was blowing. The autumn sun was shining, but the old sycamore tree, whose orange leaves had not yet fallen, cast its shade upon the gathering; and in that shade the creature clearly glowed¡­ with moonlight. Its fuzzy ears stuck out like flags beneath its sickle horns, which, like its hooves, might have been chiseled from obsidian. ¡°I see you¡¯re all duly impressed,¡± it said.


    ¡°You¡­¡± Gramma sputtered, too angry for eloquence, ¡°you¡­ you¡­¡±


    Thoralf wandered over and bumped noses with the creature. Then he wandered off again to eat more grass.


    ¡°You!¡± Gramma said furiously.


    ¡°And you,¡± the creature agreed, ¡°and you and you,¡± it added, nodding to Ez and Wilburn, the latter of whom stared slack-jawed in amazement. There was something familiar about that rich, supercilious baritone¡­ but Ez was too disoriented from the stoppage and restartage of time to recall where she had heard it before.


    ¡°You¡¯ve got some nerve turning up now,¡± Gramma said, finding her tongue at last, ¡°after you refused to lift a finger to help us last night!¡±


    ¡°My dear Nyreen, you speak a partial truth,¡± the creature said. ¡°I have never once lifted a finger, on account of owning none. However, the suggestion that I refused to come to your aid last night is slanderous, and furthermore unfounded. I would have come, if the Path had led me to do so, as evidenced by the fact that it has led me to do so now, and here I am.¡±


    These pompous words jogged Ez¡¯s memory. Of course¡ªthe voice in the teacup! This must be the philosopher, Iddolorious Bungflower, who Gramma so reviled, but who happened to be the most powerful magician in the world. Ez hadn¡¯t expected him to be¡­ not human. When Gramma said he was a yak, Ez had supposed this meant some special kind of wizard or something. But apparently it meant a talking ox. Ah, I get it, Ez thought. They must be called yaks because they yak.


    A clever inference, Ms. Totkins, although regrettably incorrect, for as it happens, I am the sole member of my species who is fluent in the languages of yours. The binomial nomenclature of yaks is, incidentally, Bos mutus, which means the mute or silent ox. I am, you see, an aberration.


    It took a moment for Ez to piece this all together, and another moment for her to realize the yak had not said it aloud. His shaggy muzzle remained closed. Yet Ez had clearly heard his voice¡­ and then she heard it again. Thought-speech, it told her. Nifty little trick, eh?


    Ez supposed it was at that. So, you¡¯re a psychovate too, Mr. Bungflower, she thought.


    Meanwhile, Gramma was still hectoring Iddo: ¡°There¡¯s more than one path, you dolt. I would think you of all people ought to know. You have the power to do anything you want. They¡¯re called choices, Iddo. Choices.¡±


    ¡°I do not deny the existence of choice,¡± Iddo said mildly. ¡°For many lifetimes I strayed far from the true Path, believing, in my arrogance, that I could forge a better destiny for myself than what the universe assigned me. I made a great many choices, and reaped much unpleasant karma. One can¡¯t help noticing the pattern eventually. Cause and effect, my dear, cause and effect. One may persist in bouncing off the wall, or one may try the door. There are worse and better ways to live, and then there is the best way, the Path of perfect harmony. The Path I now choose to follow¡­ which, at present, is not leading me to continue justifying myself to you. I predict, however, that you are about to forgive me anyway.¡±


    Gramma folded her arms. ¡°Fat chance,¡± she said.


    You catch on quickly, Ms. Totkins, Iddo replied in Ez¡¯s mind. Jack often spoke of your intelligence. For once, it seems that he did not exaggerate.


    You knew Jack?


    Oh yes. Better, I think, than anyone, with the possible exception of yourself...


    A vision suddenly filled Ez¡¯s mind of Jack, seated across a small table from her, fingering the handle of a tankard of dark ale. A second tankard, significantly larger¡ªmore a bucket than a tankard, really¡ªsat before her on the table. They were in some lofty windowed chamber full of sky. ¡°I can¡¯t stand it anymore,¡± Jack said. He looked haggard. ¡°Ez thinks I¡¯m a professional musician. Closest thing I could tell her to the truth. Musician sounds a bit like magician, see? I keep hoping she¡¯ll piece the clues together. She¡¯s a genius when it comes to numbers and machines and stuff...¡± He took a gulp of beer. ¡±Who am I kidding? There¡¯s no loophole in the Secret. I tried everything. I guess it¡¯s wedding bells or bust, just like you said. But I¡¯ve asked Ez to marry me a dozen times¡ªshe isn¡¯t ready. I can¡¯t blame her, I suppose. She¡¯s only nineteen. And a traveling flautist doesn¡¯t exactly sound like the ideal husband, does it? I¡¯ve got to show her I¡¯m dependable. I can¡¯t keep running off every few weeks.¡± He took a breath. ¡°I¡¯m planning to quit, after this next round of deliveries.¡±


    ¡°That,¡± Ez felt herself say, in a rich, supercilious baritone, ¡°is a very dangerous idea.¡± Ez realized that she was Iddo in the vision, seeing Jack from his perspective. Oddly enough, it felt perfectly natural. She was still vaguely aware of her surroundings in Real Life; she simply seemed to be remembering¡ªremembering a memory that was not her own.


    ¡°Damn it, I love her,¡± Jack said, his color rising. ¡°The Agency will have to understand. It¡¯s not as if I¡¯m turning traitor.¡±


    ¡°I have never seen a man become so drunk after a single swallow of beer,¡± Iddo said. ¡°Forget the Agency for a moment. What do you intend to do about the Apadagabla-va?¡±


    Jack¡¯s color drained as fast as it had risen. ¡°They don¡¯t know my true identity,¡± he muttered. ¡°There¡¯s no way¡­ unless someone from the Agency blabbed¡­ but then I¡¯d already be dead, wouldn¡¯t I?¡±


    ¡°Oh, not necessarily,¡± Iddo said. Jack briefly disappeared behind the rim of the bucket-size tankard as Iddo took a drink. ¡°Ahh... No, I think Tirzah would be very reluctant to discard a tool as useful as yourself, regardless of where your true allegiance lies. In fact, a known double agent might be more valuable to him than a loyal henchman. Tirzah doesn¡¯t view people as friends and enemies, remember, only assets and liabilities. So long as he believes he can control you, I suspect he will continue to regard you as an asset. But if that should ever change¡­ if, say, you attempted to retire from the Apadagabla-va¡­¡±


    ¡°What, then?¡± Jack demanded. ¡°I¡¯m at my wits¡¯ end, Iddo. This is tearing me apart. You know it¡¯s been almost a year since Ez and I finished our cottage? And I doubt I¡¯ve spent a hundred nights under its roof. The whole idea was for us to live together, but I still feel like a visitor¡­ like a guest in my own home. You got me into this mess! How the hell do I get out of it?¡±


    ¡°Correction,¡± Iddo said. ¡°You got yourself into the Apadagabla-va, and if there had been an easier way out, you would never have allowed me to recruit you to the Agency. Your mission is your way out. Stay the course.¡±


    There was a pause.


    ¡°And if it can¡¯t be done?¡± Jack asked quietly. ¡°If it turns out to be impossible?¡±


    There was a longer pause. Then Iddo said, ¡°I see no profit in entertaining that potentiality, Jack.¡±


    The expression on Jack¡¯s face was haunted. He suddenly seized his tankard and guzzled the rest of its contents, his Adam¡¯s apple bobbing. Then he tossed the empty tankard over his shoulder, and it flew away. Jack slumped back in his chair. ¡°You know¡­¡± he said, ¡°Ez has the greenest eyes¡­ I really miss those eyes¡­ I always forget how green they are¡­ Whenever I go home, I¡¯m like, Whoa, babe, you¡¯re more beautiful than I remember! She thinks I¡¯m being corny, but it¡¯s true¡­ memory can¡¯t do her justice.¡± The romanticism of this was somewhat spoiled by the foam mustache clinging to Jack¡¯s real mustache.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s the simulacrum aesthetic degradation effect for you,¡± Iddo said. ¡°Textbook example.¡±


    ¡°Must¡¯ve been one of the textbooks you wrote,¡± Jack grumbled. ¡°I never understood a word of those. It¡¯s like when Ez starts talking math¡­ all these asymptotes and integrals and things¡­ makes my brain itch.¡±


    ¡°Mathematics,¡± Iddo said grandly, ¡°the language in which God writes the universe, the poetry of logical ideas. This Ez of yours sounds an intriguing interlocutor. It beggars belief that a barbarian like you could seduce a woman of such evident refinement.¡±


    Jack chuckled. ¡°Someday, I¡¯m going to introduce you two,¡± he said. Then he sighed. ¡°Someday.¡±


    ¡°Given that I personally constitute incontrovertible proof-positive of magic,¡± Iddo said, ¡°I¡¯m afraid that day will have to be your wedding day.¡±


    Jack nodded glumly. But he perked up as his tankard glided back to him, refilled. ¡°Hell¡­¡± he said, taking a sip to reapply his foam mustache, ¡°wouldn¡¯t that be a way to break it to her? First thing after the ceremony, as we¡¯re walking off the stage¡­ you appear out of nowhere and start lecturing her about, like, retrocausality or something? She¡¯ll think she¡¯s hallucinating! And then I¡¯ll tell her, Ez, this is my best friend and mentor, Iddo. We brought down the world¡¯s oldest magical crime syndicate together.¡±


    ¡°Hnggrrnt hnggrrnt hnggrrnt¡­¡± For a moment, Ez thought Iddo was choking on his beer. Only when Jack joined in did she realize that the peculiar grunting-snorting sound must be the yak¡¯s version of laughter. ¡°Hnggrrnt hnggrrnt hnggrrnt...¡±


    ¡°Ha ha ha¡­¡±


    ¡°Hnggrrnt hnggrrnt hnggrrnt...¡±


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Ha ha ha ha ha¡­¡± Jack smacked the table. ¡°We¡¯ll do it,¡± he declared. ¡°Poor Ez. I¡¯ve had this whole speech planned out in my head for ages, all about the Secret, and how magic works, and how sorry I am that I couldn¡¯t share it with her sooner¡­ but you know what? Screw it. She¡¯ll understand. This is a once-in-a-lifetime pranking opportunity. It would be crime to let it go to waste.¡±


    ¡°Far be it from Jack Fark to commit a crime,¡± Iddo said, with irony.


    ¡°Who, me?¡± Jack placed a saintly hand over his heart. The conversation seemed to have revived his spirits, or perhaps it was the beer. Either way, he grinned broadly at Ez¡ªwell, really at Iddo¡ªbut it was Ez who felt the aching pressure in her chest. It¡¯s been almost a year since Ez and I finished our cottage¡­ that was what Jack had said, which put the date of this scene, this memory, assuming it had really happened, within a few months of his murder. And here, Ez was almost certain, was the reason he¡¯d been killed. It was a hazy picture, but a picture nonetheless¡­ a picture of divided loyalties and shadowy organizations¡­ the Agency¡­ the Apadagabla-va¡­ and a mission, a mission Jack had wanted to abandon¡ªfor her.


    Jack ran both hands through his dark hair. He said, ¡°All right, god damn it, I won¡¯t quit. Tirzah was born a man. He¡¯s got to have a weakness. We will bring down the Apadagabla-va. And then I¡¯m going to marry Ez, and you¡¯re going to be there, Iddo, at our wedding to reveal the Secret to her¡ªit¡¯ll be the funniest way the Secret¡¯s ever been revealed. And then¡­¡± a distant look came into Jack¡¯s eyes, ¡°then, I¡¯m going take Ez flying.¡±


    ¡°Amen to that,¡± Iddo said. A shaggy white arm extended toward Jack, at the end of which, the bucket-size tankard was somehow grasped in a cloven hoof.


    ¡°Amen,¡± Jack echoed. His jaw was set. Ale sloshed as he knocked his tankard firmly against Iddo¡¯s.


    Ez discovered that her cheeks were wet with tears. The vision was over, and although Iddo and Jack had spoken for several minutes, almost no time had elapsed in Real Life. Gramma Fark had just folded her arms and said, Fat chance, and now Iddo was telling her, ¡°The remarkable thing about chance is that there¡¯s really no such thing as it, fat or otherwise.¡±


    Ez discreetly wiped her cheeks. Her fingers came away sticky with greenish goo. For a moment, she couldn¡¯t for the life of her think why this should be. Ez stared at her fingers numbly. Oh. Right. The vexpids. She wished things would stop happening for a while. She needed time to process, time to come to grips with¡­ with, well, everything. It seemed to her that since she¡¯d first caught sight of Wilburn flying out the kitchen window, scarcely five minutes had passed without something astonishing, heartbreaking, or traumatizing occurring.


    ¡°Yeah, I guess you¡¯re right,¡± Gramma said. ¡°There¡¯s no chance I¡¯m going to forgive you. Cowardly, arrogant¡­ Why, you haven¡¯t even apologi¡ª¡± Her eyes went huge.


    The little leather pouch that Iddo wore around his neck¡ªwait a minute, had he been wearing that all along?¡ªsprang open, and a tiny purple mushroom about the size of Ez¡¯s pinky toe popped out, followed by two more tiny purple mushrooms and the tantalizing aroma of cinnamon.


    ¡°Iddo¡­¡± Gramma said cautiously, ¡°you know, you¡¯re the one who¡¯s always talking about karma...¡± Unfortunately for her, the hongos, for of course that was what the purple mushrooms were, floated lazily up to Iddo¡¯s mouth level, and crunch, crunch, crunch, he ate them out of the air. Gramma¡¯s face turned scarlet. But then her gaze darted hopefully back to the pouch, from which yet another hongo was emerging. The mushroom bobbed in her direction, then halted a few feet away from her and zipped back to Iddo¡ªcrunch.


    ¡°You jackass,¡± Gramma whispered, leveling a trembling finger at him. Ez had never seen her so enraged.


    Iddo, by contrast, looked delighted. ¡°Hnggrrnt hnggrrnt hnggrrnt¡­¡± He gave his tail a little swish¡ªthe sync¡ªa very precise and delicate clock-tick of a sync. The leather pouch vanished from around his neck and reappeared in Gramma¡¯s outstretched hand, its cord wound neatly around her finger. Gramma¡¯s eyelids fluttered in surprise. She yanked the pouch open and peered inside. She gasped at what she saw. Then she plunged a hand in and withdrew a fistful of hongos, which she unceremoniously crammed into her mouth.


    As she was crunching, Iddo said, ¡°And this is for you, Ms. Totkins.¡± He lowered his head, tilting his horns and causing the silver ring that encircled the base of his left horn¡ªsurely that hadn¡¯t been there earlier, had it?¡ªto slide up the shaft to the pencil-sharp tip, where it hung perfectly balanced, a foot from Ez¡¯s nose. Ez, who still sat with her back against the tree trunk, reached out carefully to take it. The glittering circle was as light as paper and as slender as a cherry stem, yet there was a surprising strength to it, she found, squeezing it gingerly at first, then with increasing firmness. The material was utterly unyielding.


    ¡°I suggest you wear that at all times,¡± Iddo said. ¡°Starting now.¡±


    Ez obediently slipped the hoop over her hand. It constricted to a comfortable snugness around her wrist, and a sensation, as of someone dragging their finger down all the piano keys in a row, shimmered through her body. ¡°What is it?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Looks like an Astral bangle,¡± Gramma said energetically. Her color had returned and there was a keen spark in her eye. She squinted at the bracelet through the cracked lenses of her spectacles. ¡°Darn things,¡± she muttered, whipping them off; then she muttered something else Ez didn¡¯t catch. There was another gentle sync as the spectacles un-cracked themselves. Gramma replaced them on her nose. When she leaned in to take a closer look, Ez caught a powerful whiff of cinnamon. Gramma whistled. ¡°Never seen one like this before.¡±


    ¡°Precious few exist,¡± Iddo said. ¡°It is a class five Astral artifact of elvish fabrication, far more effective than the latest WizTech bangles. It would take an exceptionally skilled and exceedingly determined psychovate to penetrate its defenses. So long as you are wearing it, Ms. Totkins, your thoughts, and memories, and emotions shall remain your own, as will your dreams...¡±


    ¡°Wilburn should wear it,¡± Ez said quickly. ¡°He¡¯s the one who needs protection.¡± She began to remove the bangle.


    ¡°Other arrangements have been made concerning young Wilburn¡¯s protection,¡± Iddo said. ¡°Keep it, Ms. Totkins. That artifact is meant for you. Wear it. Always. Apparently, you need it to do your job.¡±


    ¡°What job?¡±


    The yak shrugged. ¡°Apparently, you don¡¯t need to know what your job is in order to do it. I don¡¯t know either. Those decisions are made well above my pay grade. My job was simply to requisition the artifact from the NEED ¡ªthat¡¯s the Nonstandard Existential Equipment Department¡ªand deliver it to you, precisely as I have done. It would seem we all have many jobs to do in life, Ms. Totkins, and often the job we think we¡¯re doing, the purpose for which we believe we are striving, is merely a pretense, a superficial incentive, as when the proverbial carrot is dangled before the proverbial ass. When no carrot is needed, none is dangled. That is the Path.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s dangling carrots?¡± Ez asked in confusion.


    Iddo arched a spectacularly shaggy eyebrow at her. ¡°Upper Management,¡± he said.


    ¡°You mean¡­ God?¡±


    ¡°Ehhh¡­¡± Iddo tipped his head back and forth. ¡°More like the people that the people that the people that God put in charge of running the universe put in charge put in charge. Midlevel bureaucrats. Bunglers,¡± he added.


    ¡°When you say, other arrangements have been made for Wilburn¡¯s safety¡­¡±


    ¡°Ah yes, I was referring to his newly forged apprenticeship.¡± Iddo grinned craftily. ¡°Wilburn has generously agreed to take me on as his apprentice.¡±


    ¡°WHAT!¡± Gramma shouted, leaping to her feet with startling agility. Something about this struck Wilburn as so funny that he doubled over laughing, leaning heavily on the smoking weenie stick for support. His face reddened. He laughed so hard he made no sound.


    Gramma¡¯s head swiveled back and forth as she glared, first at the boy, then at the yak, then at the boy, then at the yak.


    Iddo said, ¡°I jest, of course. Hnggrrnt hnggrrnt hnggrrnt. Young Wilburn has taken me on as his master, and I he as my apprentice, in keeping with ancient tradition.¡±


    ¡°What ancient tradition?¡± Gramma demanded. ¡°I never heard of no ancient tradition.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps you are not quite ancient enough.¡± Iddo chuckled to himself some more. ¡°Again, I jest. It is remarkable to me, Nyreen, that in all your travels you have managed to remain ignorant of this foundational magical tradition; but then, I suppose you are generally too busy researching flora and fauna to be bothered with the trivialities of human society. Variations of the apprenticeship system are practiced to this very day in nearly every corner of the world¡ªArgylon being the notable exception, and Wilburn and I now being the notable exception to that notable exception. In Isloria, the tradition is known as the zlatna vergia, or golden chain, symbolic of the unbroken transmission of knowledge from master to apprentice throughout the millennia. As my master taught me, so I shall teach Wilburn, and so, one day, Wilburn shall teach his own apprentice.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t like it,¡± Gramma said stubbornly. ¡°Everyone knows the Islorians follow the Left Hand Path.¡±


    ¡°Only most of them. But the zlatna vergia belongs to no nation; it is of neither the Right nor the Left Hand Path.¡±


    ¡°I suppose it¡¯s part of your Path, is it? Your mystical Path of eternal mumbo jumbo?¡±


    ¡°Naturally.¡±


    Gramma harrumphed.¡°Why Wilburn? Why don¡¯t you pick someone else?¡±


    ¡°Does the key choose the lock? Does the lock choose the key? Of course not,¡± Iddo answered his own question. ¡°It is the locksmith who decides. It is destiny. Destiny, my dear.¡±


    Gramma began to argue, but Ez spoke over her. ¡°Was Jack your apprentice too, Mr. Bungflower?¡± The accusation in her voice caught everyone off guard, including Ez herself. She hadn¡¯t meant it to come out like that. Had she¡­? It was just that in the vision Jack had called Iddo his mentor, and accepted his advice about continuing his mission¡ªwhatever it was¡ªand then Jack had been killed. Ez needed to know why, and she needed to know who to blame, and in the absence of these answers her emotions were leaping to conclusions¡ªleaping, specifically, to the conclusion that Iddo was to blame¡­ somehow. The yak didn¡¯t exactly strike Ez as a murderer, but¡­


    Iddo cleared his throat deliberately. ¡°Jack was a student at Frogswallow¡¯s College,¡± he said, ¡°where I am a professor. I taught him, as I have taught hundreds of others. Later, he became my comrade in a great many adventures. He was as dear a friend as I have ever known. But he was never my apprentice. A master takes but one apprentice in a lifetime, Mrs. Totkins. That is the way of the zlatna vergia.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± Ez said. She felt slightly embarrassed. But why should she? Iddo knew how Jack had died; the vision he had shown her made that clear. Why show it to her at all if he didn¡¯t intend to give her the full truth? Ez couldn¡¯t force the information out of him, obviously. Perhaps he had a good reason for keeping it a secret. Or perhaps he really was insane, as Gramma Fark believed¡­ Ez noticed Wilburn looking at her strangely. Are you still reading my mind? she thought-asked. The boy¡¯s expression didn¡¯t change. Good. The bangle must be working.


    To quote myself, Iddo¡¯s voice said in Ez¡¯s mind, only the best, and most determined psychovates will be able to penetrate that artifact¡¯s defenses. I, of course, am such a one. But not to worry; there are scarce others like me. I am, to once more quote myself, an aberration.


    So... you heard what I was thinking just now? Ez thought with chagrin.


    To quote myself a final time: you catch on quickly, Ms. Totkins. I take no offense. Your concerns are of the utmost relevance. Come by my hovel tomorrow evening after nineteenth chime. We shall have a drink together. And you shall have your answers, such as I can give. And then I¡¯m afraid you shall have more questions... strange questions¡­ the very questions that have troubled me for seven years. Perhaps, Ms. Totkins, if it is the Path, we shall be able to answer them together.


    Nineteenth chime? How do I get to your, er, hovel, did you say?


    The wind blows and the chimes chime at the top of every hour at Frogswallow¡¯s College. Count the chimes to know the time. Nineteenth chime marks eight o¡¯clock post meridian. I expect Nyreen will have you on campus by then. Ask her to point out my hovel. It is something of a landmark.


    ¡°Hey guys,¡± Wilburn said, ¡°guess what! Weenies are ready!¡± He had roasted¡ªno, let¡¯s face it, burned to a crisp, four weenies: two for Gramma, one for Ez, and one, presumably, for himself. He¡¯d only remembered to remove them from fire a minute ago, and coils of smoke were still whiskering off them and trailing up into the sycamore¡¯s orange canopy.


    ¡°Ooooo!¡± Iddo smiled hugely at the sight of the four blackened ellipsoids. His smile opened, revealing rows of perfectly straight, blindingly white teeth. His teeth opened, revealing a tongue like a flamingo¡¯s wing.


    With a streak of smoke, the sausages¡ªall four of them¡ªshot off the stick and onto Iddo¡¯s tongue, which curled around them and retracted into Iddo¡¯s mouth, which closed. His shaggy beard twitched as he chewed. ¡°Do you know,¡± he said, ¡°you can see the far side of the universe from anywhere¡­?¡± He swallowed. ¡°Well, ta ta.¡±


    And with that, he walked straight out of existence.

 CHAPTER 8 - The Forgotten Memory

    CHAPTER 8


    The Forgotten Memory


    I


    Iddo¡¯s departure mirrored his arrival. The sync. The gears of time ground to a halt. Then, after an unmeasurable length of non-time, they ground back into motion, leaving Ez with the disoriented feeling of awaking from a dream. She stared, along with Wilburn and Gramma, at the empty place where Iddo had been standing. ¡°You can see the far side of the universe from anywhere¡­¡± she echoed. ¡°What do you suppose he meant by that?¡±


    ¡°What does Iddo ever mean by anything?¡± Gramma said irritably. She jiggled some hongos in her palm like dice, then tossed one in the air and caught it deftly in her mouth. It seemed to be National Eat Flying Food Day or something. That puzzled Ez too. Why had Iddo stolen the weenies? Not that she begrudged him them in the slightest¡ªafter all, they¡¯d been more charcoal than meat, besides which, she and Gramma owed him big time for the hongos and the Astral bangle. What bugged her wasn¡¯t the loss of the weenies themselves, or even the rudeness of the gesture, but the inconsistency of it¡ªthe inconsistency of Iddo. What kind of a person doled out priceless magical treasures and called you Ms. Totkins, and then turned around and stole your lunch? It just didn¡¯t make sense. It hadn¡¯t even been a good lunch! What kind of a person, given the power to bend time and space, would actually choose to eat burnt weenies?


    Only a nutcase.


    It was a deeply unsettling answer. Gramma had warned her that Iddo was insane, but Ez had taken this for antagonistic hyperbole. She hadn¡¯t really entertained the prospect, because she¡¯d always thought of insanity as a disease, a malfunctioning of cognitive equipment, and thus by its very nature disempowering. But if Iddo, the most empowered person in the world according to Gramma, was insane¡ªand Ez was pretty much convinced of it¡ªwell, what did that say about the world...? What did that say about sanity...?


    ¡°I think,¡± Wilburn said, ¡°what Iddo meant was, like, everywhere always is here and now at the biggest level, so there kind of isn¡¯t any far side of the universe, because the whole universe is wherever you are. It¡¯s called um¡­ um¡­¡± Wilburn squinted and made a groping gesture in the air above his head, ¡°¡­omnitemporal presence, yeah.¡±


    Ez and Gramma looked at him. Then they looked at each other. Ez didn¡¯t need psychovatry to know that they were thinking exactly the same thing. Like hell we¡¯re letting Wilburn be that lunatic¡¯s apprentice! It would ruin him. Iddo would pass on his insanity¡ªit had already begun! The question was, could it be stopped? Could anything stop Iddo from doing exactly what he pleased, or as he would put it, following the Path? Not likely, Ez felt. But if there was one person with the stubbornness to do it, it was Gramma Fark, and this time she would have Ez¡¯s full support¡­ for however much that was worth.


    ¡°Right.¡± Gramma slapped her thigh. ¡°Out with it, boy. You tell us every last word that rascal said to you, or thought to you or whatever, and don¡¯t pretend you two weren¡¯t chitchatting on the Astral Plane the whole time, because I know psychovates, and I know Iddo. And don¡¯t go skipping around in time the way you usually do either. Start at the beginning and go straight through to the end, and don¡¯t leave out anything in the middle, okay?¡±


    ¡°Okay¡­¡± Wilburn said, ¡°only I¡¯m not sure which part was the beginning. There was a bunch of stuff I kind of totally forgot about for a while, but then Iddo helped me remember¡­ but now it feels like it happened in a different order than it did.¡±


    Ez and Gramma exchanged another glance, full of dark significance. ¡°Fine,¡± Gramma said, ¡°tell it backward, then. Tell it anyway you like. Just make sure you tell us everything.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll try¡­¡± Wilburn said doubtfully. ¡°There¡¯s one part I can¡¯t tell you about, though, and I can¡¯t tell you why. And I can¡¯t tell you why I can¡¯t tell you why. And I can¡¯t tell you why I can¡¯t¡ª¡±


    ¡°We get the picture, Wilburn.¡± Gramma sighed heavily and rummaged in her pocket for her pipe and her tobacco pouch. Ez envied her the habit all of a sudden. For the first time in her life she wondered if perhaps she too should take up smoking¡ªno, of course she shouldn¡¯t¡ªbut it would be nice to have something at a moment like this, a little ritual, a button she could press, marked Feel Different For A While. They were in for a rambling tale of madness, Ez just knew it, and the longer Wilburn stood there looking lost for where to begin, the madder she suspected it would be. At last, she said, ¡°Why don¡¯t you start with Iddo showing up? I¡¯d like to hear what that was like from your perspective. It was very strange timing, remember, because I was just asking Gramma¡ª¡±


    ¡°Oh yeah!¡± Wilburn jumped in excitedly. ¡°So, what happened was, you guys were talking like normal, right? But then all of a sudden, Mom goes, What¡¯s a yyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa¡­¡±


    II


    ¡°What¡¯s a yyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa¡­¡± Mom¡¯s voice deepened as the moment stretched, and it continued to deepen as the moment continued to stretch, descending registers until the sound no longer sounded like a voice at all, only a wub-wub-wub-wub base-laden vibration.


    Wub wub wub¡­ wub¡­¡­¡­¡­ wub¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    In the few short hours since his initiation into Her Majesty¡¯s service, Wilburn had grown accustomed to the feeling of the hive-connection, so much so that he¡¯d stopped noticing it. Now, however, as the world around him decelerated to stillness, he became aware of it again, a buzzing energy running from his tailbone up the length of spine to the very peak of his skull, not quite a sound, but a vibration much like sound, unwaveringly steady and awake.


    ¡°Um, guys...?¡± Wilburn turned to Mom and Gramma. They sat shoulder to shoulder at the base of the old sycamore, their heads angled toward one another, Mom¡¯s mouth frozen in a silent aaa. Wilburn was too alarmed to find it funny. He hurried over and waved a hand before Mom¡¯s eyes. She didn¡¯t blink. He grabbed her arm¡ªhe gasped. There was no warmth or softness in her flesh. Her arm felt nothing like an arm; it felt like stone. He touched her face. Stone. He touched her hair. Stone. He couldn¡¯t budge a strand of it.


    Wilburn glanced about in desperation, hoping to spot some clue, some solution to this nightmare. What he spotted was himself standing motionless by the fire, still holding the stick of weenies in the flames. The motionless flames. But¡­ Wilburn checked his hand. He was holding the weenie stick. There were two weenie sticks, and there were two Wilburns, and the other Wilburn had been turned to stone just like Mom and Gramma and¡ªyep¡ªThoralf too. The statue of the black horse stood some distance down the hillside, a sprig of grass protruding from his muzzle. What was going on? Well, nothing, of course¡ªbut why was nothing going on? A terrible thought occurred to Wilburn. Am I¡­ dead?


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­wub¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    Wilburn jumped. He¡¯d thought the wubs were finished. This last had been so bassy he¡¯d more felt than heard it. Now he felt something else, a cold tickle on the backside of his eyeballs. He saw a shimmering like heatwaves, and then a geometric latticework of light traced itself in the air, forming a seven-sided polygon some seven feet across¡ªa heptagon, with smaller heptagons within it, with more and more and more smaller and smaller and smaller heptagons within those, interlocking and receding to a single point of dazzling brightness at the center. A portal¡ªyes, it had to be a portal. It was simultaneously flat, like a picture, and deep, like a corridor stretching into infinity¡­ and out of that infinity came lumbering a shaggy, horned mountain of a creature.


    Wilburn shrieked.


    The creature cocked its head. It plodded toward him slowly through the fallen yellow leaves, which somehow didn¡¯t crunch under its hooves. Wilburn stood his ground, breathing heavily. He felt a twinge of embarrassment about the shriek. This creature was no monster, he could see that now. It was an ox, big, but kind of cute, with cream-white, luxuriantly soft-looking fur that practically demanded to be stroked. The ox halted in front of him and stuck a hoof out. Wilburn looked down at the hoof. Then he looked up into the shaggy face, into the eyes, black as Wilburn¡¯s own eyes and fathomless as outer space. In the background, the portal untraced itself and vanished.


    ¡°I know you¡­¡± Wilburn said.


    ¡°Hmm. So you say,¡± the creature replied, in a rich baritone voice. ¡°I, for one, am not convinced. It seems to me you scarcely recognize me and have entirely forgotten our acquaintance.¡±


    Wilburn nodded. But actually¡­ he did remember something¡­ he remembered... people¡­ lots of people¡­ chanting, in a circle¡­ and¡­ a fire¡­ and¡­ a white ox¡­


    ¡°Aha!¡± The ox made a hooking motion with its horns.


    Wilburn felt a tug right at the center of his brain, then a sensation of unraveling, and then¡ª ¡°Whoa!¡± A brightly colored snake exploded out of the top of his head. But no, it wasn¡¯t a snake, it was a rope, woven from fibers of rainbow light. ¡°Coool.¡± The rope slithered beautifully through the air, lengthening and lengthening as it unspooled from Wilburn¡¯s brain.


    The ox observed the process keenly, nodding to itself. ¡°Mmhm¡­ Mmhm¡­ Yep¡­ Mmhm¡­ Gotcha!¡± It flicked its horns. The rope ceased unspooling at once. The last section that had emerged from Wilburn¡¯s head contained a tangle¡ªa dreadful tangle. Not only was the rope itself tied in a complicated pretzel, but the tiny rainbow fibers of which the rope was woven were themselves snarled up in ferocious rat¡¯s-nests. The ox gave an appreciative whistle.


    ¡°That¡¯s my memory... isn¡¯t it?¡± Wilburn asked. The ox nodded, ducking under the rope to study the tangle from the other side. ¡°And where it¡¯s all messed up¡­ that¡¯s the stuff I can¡¯t remember?¡±


    ¡°Bingo.¡±


    ¡°Wow. How¡¯d that happen?¡±


    The creature scanned Wilburn up and down with an appraising eye. ¡°I think we can rule out traumatic injury,¡± it said. ¡°So, unless you¡¯ve been ingesting powerful amnestic drugs of late¡­? No, you don¡¯t even know what that means. Then, I¡¯m afraid the only remaining possibility is sabotage.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°Someone has tampered with your memory, my boy. And I have a fair guess who. But what I can¡¯t fathom is when¡­ When did she have the opportunity? It must¡¯ve been after the ritual¡­ but I was there¡ªI saw you telefract with Alfajean and Buttrom. And she can¡¯t have traced you, can she¡­? Not to Dreamspace. No¡­ so¡­ hmm.¡± The creature shook its massive head. ¡°We¡¯ll see. We¡¯ll just see, Wilburn. I think we may have gotten lucky. It appears this memory is recoverable.¡±


    ¡°You can fix it?¡±


    ¡°Not I. You must fix it. But I will assist as best I can.¡±


    ¡°Oh, all right.¡± Saying this reminded Wilburn¡ª ¡°Hey, what about them?¡± He gestured to his frozen family members and his own petrified replica. ¡°Are they¡ªer¡ªare we¡­ all right?¡±


    ¡°Right as rain,¡± the ox replied. ¡°Nothing has changed for the others, you see, because you and I are in a private closed-loop sub-dimension of Higher Astral Sector-1 Parallelaspace, courtesy of an old friend of mine in the Temporal Infrastructure Maintenance and Engineering Department. This dimension contains nothing whatsoever save our two minds; hence, there is nothing here to obstruct our view of Real Life all around us. We can observe Real Life, but we are powerless to change it, because change happens in time, and this dimension begins and ends inside a single Real-Life instant.¡±


    ¡°But then¡­ how come there¡¯s two of me?¡±


    The ox chuckled, low and rumbly. ¡°That,¡± it said, pointing with its horns at the frozen Wilburn statue, ¡°is your Real Life avatar, my boy. It is no more you than the clothing it wears. The locus of your awareness is not with your Real Life avatar at present, because it is here,¡± the horns pointed straight into Wilburn¡¯s face. ¡°This is your Astral avatar. It is not a body in the physical sense, but an idea of a body, a manifestation of your physiognomic expectations in metaphysical space. That stick you¡¯re holding, for example¡ªit isn¡¯t wood. It is nothing more or less than the pattern of your personal experience of holding a stick. Were you to bite into one of those appealing looking sausages skewered on it, you would find the flavor, temperature and texture to be exactly as you expected, not because you would in truth be eating food, but because you would be directly experiencing your own expectation of the experience of eating food, you see?


    ¡°K¡­.¡± Wilburn said uncertainly.


    ¡°Indulge me, if you will, in a brief exercise. Try imagining what it would be like if that stick were suddenly to vanish. Picture it. One moment, a stick in your hand¡­ next moment, hand empty.¡±


    ¡°Holy smokes¡­¡± Wilburn boggled at his empty hand.


    ¡°Excellent, Wilburn, excellent. You have a strong imagination. Now, the key: there is no fundamental difference between that stick and your hand. Believe that, understand that, and you¡¯ll be able wear any shape you like on the Astral Plane.¡± And just to prove it, the ox became an enormously fat pumpkin.


    Wilburn hooted in delight. He wanted to be a pumpkin! He tried¡­ he pictured himself growing fat and turning orange¡­ but nothing happened.


    The pumpkin became an ox again. ¡°Something for you to practice later,¡± it said, ¡°once you¡¯ve remembered who I am and what transpired on your first Astral excursion. For now, I suggest you begin by loosening this loop, then pulling this wrap back through here¡­¡±


    Untangling the memory proved a tedious endeavor. The rope was easy enough to manipulate, Wilburn found. All he had to do was choose which way he wanted it to move and it would move. The tricky part was figuring out where he had to move which part of the rope when; it was all too easy to tie extra knots by accident. The ox coached Wilburn through it, pointing out various twists and snarls with the tip of a horn and giving errorless advice. Even so the project seemed to take all day, or the equivalent, if time had actually been passing. Hours dragged by with the world embalmed in stillness, a permanent midday, as if the sun were printed on the sky.


    Gradually, agonizingly, knot by minuscule knot, the chaos of Wilburn¡¯s memory was untangled, until, with a final twist, the rope pulled straight, and then retracted back into his head. Wilburn nodded slowly. He remembered.


    He remembered everything.


    III


    It was the previous afternoon, before the first vexpid attack, and Wilburn was sitting on the guest cot by the fireplace scarfing his third bowl of Mom¡¯s broth. He hadn¡¯t known he was a wizard yet. All he¡¯d known was he could fly, and that was pretty darn awesome. Except apparently he¡¯d passed out in the air and almost died¡­ well, that was pretty awesome too, but he knew better than to express this point of view in front of Mom. For the first few seconds as the memory began, Wilburn¡¯s consciousness was split, with one side of him remembering that he was remembering, and the other side fully invested in the memory, experiencing it all as if for the first time. That side quickly won out. It was so real¡­ maybe it was real.


    And then it was real. The fire crackled and the cauldron bubbled. Wilburn tipped his bowl to slurp the dregs. He belched. ¡°Scuse me.¡±


    ¡°Would you like more broth?¡± Mom asked anxiously. ¡°How about more bread?¡±


    ¡°No thanks¡­¡± Wilburn¡¯s eyelids felt magnetized. The cozy interior of the cottage swam in and out of focus as he struggled, unsuccessfully, to keep them open.


    ¡°Are you sure?¡± Mom hovered by his elbow. ¡°There¡¯s still half a loaf left. And I can always bake another. Here, I¡¯ll butter one more slice for you.¡±The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°No, Mom, really¡­ thanks, but¡­¡± Wilburn lay back on the cot, folding his hands over his bulging belly. ¡°I¡¯m stuffed,¡± he mumbled. ¡°I think I¡¯ll just¡­ just¡­¡± A massive yawn expanded out of him.


    IV


    The next thing Wilburn knew, he was standing before a weatherbeaten signpost at a crossroads in the middle of what appeared to be a wasteland. A flat, blue block of sky sat on a flat, brown floor of earth whose only feature was the cobbled X of the two roads. Or was it four roads? There were four arrow-shaped signs nailed to the signpost, presumably identifying the nearest town in each direction¡­ except¡­ the silvery script was playing tricks on Wilburn¡¯s eyes. He squinted. The writing seemed to slither and distort as he attempted to decipher it, and finally, in frustration, he gave up¡ªat which point, the meaning became clear. He couldn¡¯t read the signs, and yet he somehow understood that they said, Lower Astral, Higher Astral, Real Life, Open Dreamspace.


    Up to this point, Wilburn had accepted the scenario with the inexhaustible credulity of the unconscious dreamer. Now, however, as he set off up the road to Open Dreamspace¡ªwhich, of the available options, struck him as least likely to be lame¡ªa tremor of doubt began to nag at him. It was his shoes: the problem was, he wasn¡¯t wearing any. He was otherwise dressed normally, in overalls and a long-sleeve shirt and woolen socks. But what had happened to his shoes? How had he managed to get all the way out here without them? Wilburn halted in his tracks. How had he gotten here? He didn¡¯t know. That came as a surprise, and an even bigger surprise came when he glanced back over his shoulder and could no longer see the crossroads or the signpost. He¡¯d only taken a few steps away from them, of that much he was sure, and yet before him and behind him there was nothing but the road, shrinking away to kiss each opposite horizon. He decided to press on. But first, he took his socks off so as not to wear holes in them.


    How much farther he walked barefoot he had no idea. The scenery never changed. Nothing changed. Nothing happened. And then, just when his boredom was nearing terminal intensity, a person made of solid golden light, nine-ish feet tall with identical faces wrapping all the way around their head, swooped down from the sky on a pair of aquamarine butterfly wings and landed in the road in front of him, and said, in a chorus of harmonizing voices, ¡°Fear not! I am Lieutenant Angel Alfajean of the PROVED!¡±


    It was a good thing there weren¡¯t any crystal goblets lying around, because Wilburn¡¯s scream would instantly have shattered them.


    ¡°Fear not, I said,¡± Lieutenant Angel Alfajean said, somewhat testily. ¡°You know, you mortals could save yourselves a lot of trouble if you¡¯d just listen once in a while.¡± It was a fair criticism, but Wilburn wasn¡¯t listening. He was too busy sprinting for his life. The angel flew in front of him. ¡°You are Wilburn Fart, the wizard are you not?¡± they asked, consulting a thin rectangle of glass that they were holding like a clipboard. Wilburn swerved aside. The angel flew in front of him again, cutting him off. ¡°Please confirm your name for the record. The operation cannot proceed until you have done so.¡±


    Wilburn remained crouched in a runner¡¯s stance, shifting his weight from foot to foot. His eyes darted every which way, searching for an escape route that did not exist. There wasn¡¯t so much as a scrap of cover for miles in all directions. The many-faced angel towered over him. ¡°Wilburn Totkins Fart?¡±


    Wilburn licked his lips. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ Fark, actually¡­¡± he whispered, ¡°¡­like with a k¡­¡±


    Alfajean nodded. ¡°That must have been a scrypo.¡± They tapped the pane of glass with a golden fingertip, and said, ¡°Insert note. Heading: File update, insert current dimensional coordinates. Sub-heading: Subject name spelling correction. Body: Subject claims subject¡¯s surname spelled F-A-R-K, previous entry F-A-R-T. Remember to submit info-edit request form with after-action report.¡± Alfajean tapped the glass again with satisfaction. ¡°You see? This is why we have protocols. I¡¯m afraid your Master Bungflower is notorious for his, ah¡­ shall we say, casual approach to protocols, but if ever you are tempted to emulate his example in this, I just hope you¡¯ll remember that a protocol once spared you a great deal of heckling. Oh my, yes. Imagine if your badge had come out saying, Cadet Fart!¡± The angel chuckled in polyphonous harmony, an extremely disconcerting sound.


    ¡°Are you¡­ really an angel?¡± Wilburn asked. The ones depicted in the church¡¯s stained-glass windows had white, feathery wings, not blue-green butterfly wings. They also had yellow halos floating over their heads¡ªWilburn remembered these especially well because he¡¯d always imagined them tasting lemony¡ªhe liked lemon. But Alfajean had what appeared to be some kind of plant growing out the top of their head, a plant with long rubbery tentacles, and then, perched atop the tangle of tentacles like a bee on a flower, a shiny yellow helmet. It was yellow, at least, but it was certainly no halo, and in place of the flowing white gowns favored by the church¡¯s angels, Alfajean wore a sleek military uniform of gold¡­ ruined, unfortunately, by the addition of a fluorescent orange vest with silver reflective trim and the word PROVED stamped in all caps above the breast pocket. ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Alfajean said proudly. ¡°I¡¯m a Lieutenant Angel, though, not as exalted as your seraphim or cherubim. But we all need something to aspire to, don¡¯t we? I¡¯m hoping to make archangel by the turn of the millennium. Not that rank really matters in the grand scheme, because the Great Creator loves all creatures equally, even the very lowliest of lifeforms¡ªwhich reminds me¡ªWilburn, this is Buttrom, the prophet. Buttrom, meet Wilburn, the wizard.¡±


    Only then did Wilburn notice the short, round, balding, dirty-apron-wearing man, cowering in the shadow of the angel¡¯s wing. His hands were cupped around a wet clay bowl which appeared to have come freshly off the wheel. ¡°P-prophet?¡± he asked in a terrified half-whisper. ¡°There must be some mistake. I¡­ I just make pots¡­¡± He brandished the dripping bowl at Alfajean imploringly.


    ¡°You really think an angel would make a mistake?¡± Alfajean scoffed. ¡°Well, I suppose it wouldn¡¯t hurt to double check.¡± They tap-tapped a golden finger on the little pane of glass. ¡°Nope. Says right here, Buttrom Hoglesby of Prozapple Province, Nalafarnalus. Occupation: ceramic artisan and holy prophet of ages. So there you go.¡±


    ¡°But¡­ I¡¯m not holy¡­ I¡¯m¡ª¡± Buttrom blushed, casting a nervous glance Wilburn¡¯s direction. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t say in front of the kid,¡± he muttered, ¡°but you can take my word for it, Mr. Angel¡ªor Ms. Angel¡ªI¡¯m a sinner. I¡¯ve done wrong. I¡¯ve got the devil on my shoulder.¡±


    ¡°Have you repented?¡± Alfajean asked sternly.


    ¡°Oh yes,¡± Buttrom said quickly. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m constantly repenting. I¡¯m repenting right this minute.¡±


    ¡°Very good. We wouldn¡¯t want you to end up in the bad place, would we?¡± Alfajean gave a musical tinkle of a laugh, more disconcerting than anything else they¡¯d done up to that point.


    Buttrom blanched. ¡°You¡¯re saying¡­ damnation¡­ is real?¡±


    ¡°No, no, I can¡¯t say that officially. All I can say is, if there was a Damnation Program, its existence would be highly classified¡­ so you might want to behave as if it is real¡­ just in case.¡± The angel winked with half their eyes. ¡°However, there¡¯s no rule against sinners becoming prophets. It¡¯s a bit of a tradition actually. The integrity of the flawed vessel and so forth. And speaking of flawed vessels¡­¡± Alfajean tapped the pane of glass again, and said, ¡°AV scry Master Bungflower.¡±


    There was a pause, and then a chirrupy ding-dong tone, and then another pause, and then a robotic female voice issued from the glass. Did you say, telefract to LA Sector 33-B, sub-realm Xiatakron?


    ¡°No!¡± Alfajean said sharply. ¡°I told you to audio-visual scry Master Bungflower, please.¡±


    There was another pause, another ding-dong, then: Telefracting to LA Sector 33-B, sub-realm Xiatakron


    ¡°CANCEL!¡± Alfajean screamed, hammering on the glass with a golden fingertip.


    I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m unable to assist with that right now.


    ¡°Why you stupid little piece of¡ª¡± POOF. The angel disintegrated into a cloud of swirling particles of color and was gone.


    V


    Wilburn and the prophet, Buttrom, looked around. There was no sign of Alfajean, no sign whatsoever of anything at all except the road and themselves standing on it. After an awkward silence, Buttrom cleared his throat. ¡°So¡­ uh¡­ where you from, kid?¡±


    ¡°Fenlin Duchy. Over by Hambserg Village, if you know where that is.¡±


    ¡°Nope. Can¡¯t say I¡¯ve heard of either of those places. What province are we talking about?¡±


    ¡°I¡­ think they¡¯ve got provinces in New Trapoban. We just have duchies in Argylon.¡±


    ¡°Argylon? What¡¯s that?¡±


    Wilburn eyed Buttrom skeptically. The man didn¡¯t act like he was kidding, but some grownups could be really good pretenders. ¡°Argylon,¡± Wilburn said, careful to articulate each syllable ¡°You know... the Kingdom of Argylon? ¡­the biggest country in the world?¡±


    Buttrom gave him an okay, I¡¯ll humor you, little fellow sort of smile. ¡°That¡¯s a very patriotic thing to say,¡± he said, ¡°although I wouldn¡¯t go around repeating it within the borders of the Empire, not unless you want to face the lions in the arena. I¡¯m curious, though¡­ where is this Kingdom of Argylon relative to Nalafarnalus? It must be a remote island. I don¡¯t remember ever seeing it on a map. Mark you, I can¡¯t read the sign on my own shopfront, so that isn¡¯t saying much.¡±


    ¡°Relative to¡­ where?¡±


    ¡°Nalafarnalus,¡± Buttrom repeated.


    Wilburn shrugged. ¡°Dunno. Never heard of it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re twisting my nose,¡± Buttrom said angrily. ¡°Gosh darn it, kid, that isn¡¯t funny. I¡¯m having a tough enough time telling what¡¯s real and what isn¡¯t without you messing me around. There¡¯s no such place as the Kingdom of Argylon, is there? You just made that up. You¡¯re from Prozapple Province, same as me. I can hear it in your accent!¡±


    Wilburn took a small step backward from the man, slightly alarmed. ¡°Um, dude,¡± he said, ¡°I mean, Mr. Prophet¡ª¡±


    ¡°I¡¯M NO PROPHET I JUST MAKE POTS!¡± Buttrom bellowed. His face was scarlet.


    ¡°Sorry, sorry!¡± Wilburn said quickly. ¡°All I meant was, I¡¯m not twisting your nose. I really don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m talking about Nalafarnalus! The Nalafarnalian Empire! Oh, come on¡ªNalafarnalus is actually the biggest country in the world!¡±


    ¡°Okay¡­ well, I dunno. Maybe we¡¯re from different worlds.¡±


    Buttrom¡¯s broad shoulders rose and fell with his rapid breathing. ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°For one thing, that¡¯s impossible. For another thing, we¡¯re speaking the same language. How could you speak perfect Nalafarnal if you¡¯re not from Nalafarnalus? That¡¯s ridiculous. And yet you claim you¡¯ve never even heard of Nalafarnalus. Know what I think, kid? I think you¡¯re a rotten, twisted little liar. You¡¯re sick. I see what you¡¯re trying to do¡ªyou and that phony angel are in on it together! You¡¯re trying to make me lose my mind! Well, it won¡¯t work, because I¡¯m wise to your scheme now. I see past that honest face. You¡¯re evil! You and that angel both!¡±


    ¡°Oh yeah? Well, you¡¯re a pee-pee poo-poo stupid butthole head!¡± Wilburn shouted. It was the meanest thing he could think of, and perhaps he¡¯d overdone it, because Buttrom staggered backward as if shoved by someone much stronger than Wilburn¡ªwho, in any case, hadn¡¯t touched him¡ªstaggered, stumbled, sat down hard in the dirt, blinked helplessly for a few seconds, and then began to cry. Big, sorry crocodile tears rolled down Buttrom¡¯s cheeks. He wasn¡¯t a super noisy crier; he just whimpered softly like a puppy. After a while, he lay back and perched his wet bowl on his belly, where it jiggled with the rhythm of his weeping. It was too pathetic. Wilburn turned to go.


    The problem was, when he looked first one way down the road and then the other, he couldn¡¯t tell which way he¡¯d come from or been going. Did it matter? Kinda, yeah, he thought. There were some rules to this unnatural wasteland¡­ not the same ones he was used to, but consistent rules, or at least¡­ somewhat consistent-ish, and one of them, he sensed, was that the way you went changed where you ended up. The way you went¡­ the way¡­ was there more to it than directions?


    As Wilburn stood scratching his head, trying to work out what to do, he began to feel a cold prickle on the backside of his eyeballs. Then, not twenty paces up the road, there was a shimmering like heatwaves, and then a glowing latticework of heptagons inscribed itself in the air, forming a seven-sided corridor that stretched into infinity. This was, Wilburn later realized, his third first-impression of Iddo, technically speaking, since he¡¯d forgotten their actual first-meeting, then met Iddo again in the closed-loop sub-dimension of HA Sector-1 Parallelaspace, and was now remembering their first meeting without remembering that he was remembering it.


    The shaggy creature lumbered from the portal and proceeded up the road toward him. Wilburn stood rigidly still, experiencing something he had no words to describe. The words he didn¡¯t have but would have used if he had had them were¡ªelectric¡ªand¡ªradar¡ªand¡ªdownload. Psychovatric signals pinged between him and the creature at a speed far faster than conscious thought. It was a conversation less of minds than hearts, a mutual testing of intentions, dispositions, emotional reflexes? a thousand tiny questions asked and answered in the blink of an eye, progressing like a chemical reaction, like two oceans flowing into one another.


    The result was that in the time it took the creature to arrive in front of Wilburn, the creature had become Iddo, the person Wilburn knew, and who knew Wilburn, better than anyone else in the world apart from Mom. Yes, better even than Gramma Fark, whose harsh demeanor had always precluded total intimacy. Wilburn and Iddo knew each other. Not in the sense of details and facts, although they did exchange a few of those, but with the knowledge of old friends greeting one another after years of separation. Deep down, where it really counted, the two of them understood each other perfectly. On the surface of things, however¡­ well, perhaps not quite so much.


    When Iddo halted in front of Wilburn and offered him his hoof, Wilburn just looked at it, then up into his face. Iddo¡¯s eyes twinkled. ¡°Lesson One,¡± he said, speaking both aloud, in his rich baritone, and silently, in a language of pure meaning that filled in where Wilburn¡¯s limited vocabulary fell short. ¡°It¡¯s a nearly ubiquitous practice across the length and breadth of spacetime to greet new and old acquaintances alike with a cordial touch¡­ the precise nature of which touch depends on the physiognomies of the parties involved. A handshake, for example, only works if both of you have hands, a statistical unlikelihood given the endless diversity of lifeforms in the universe, and thus¡ªas well as for many other reasons¡ªthe Astral traveler must always be prepared to improvise. I have a hoof, you have a hand. Two hands, and a pair of feet if you want to use them. Who knows what you¡¯ll do, you see? Not even you. That¡¯s what keeps life entertaining. Every moment is a collapsing of infinite possibility into finite actuality. Every single moment. Which brings us to Lesson Two: the spacetime continuum is an illusion.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s real, in so far as all illusions exhibit the basic quality of existence, but it is a subordinate reality, it does not ultimately exist. The fundamental fact of the universe is¡ªready for it, my boy?¡ªomnitemporal presence. Here and now everywhere always. That¡¯s the whole shebang. Before and after now¡­ nothing. Not even nothing. An un-thing un-is-ing, the absolute antithesis of being, so much so that to even attempt to talk about it, to call it an it at all, is to attribute more reality to it than it deserves. Note, this hasn¡¯t stopped me from publishing several lengthy volumes on the subject, which leads us at last to Lesson Three. Actually, scratch that¡ªno more numbering your lessons. The motif grows stale. Where was I¡­? Oh yes, obstinance and blatant self-contradiction. Yes, these are essential tools for the practitioner of metaphysical arts, particularly with respect to academia. You must harness the absurdity, my boy, or the absurdity will harness you. And right now is the perfect opportunity to practice. Right now is always the perfect opportunity to practice. I¡¯ve made the first move by sticking out my hoof. So, now it¡¯s your turn. So, go ahead. Improvise.¡±


    Wilburn, still not altogether comprehending, reached out to grasp the proffered hoof, but at the last second he changed his mind and closed his hand into a fist instead and delivered a solid punch to it¡ªthere was a friendly pulse of mutual exaltiture, bathing the two of them briefly in golden light.


    ¡°Exactly,¡± Iddo said.


    VI


    ¡°Now, where¡¯s that angel?¡±


    ¡°Gone,¡± Wilburn said, ¡°on accident, I think. They had this little window they were talking to, and then the little window thing talked back, and then the angel guy was screaming at it, and then they just, like¡ªPOOF.¡±


    ¡°Hnggrrnt hnggrrnt hnggrrnt. I know exactly what must¡¯ve happened. These little window things are called wizidexes¡ª¡± another glass rectangle, identical to Alfajean¡¯s, emerged from the cascades of Iddo¡¯s fur¡ª¡°they¡¯re extremely useful devices when they aren¡¯t malfunctioning, but unfortunately that¡¯s their favorite thing to do. I expect our angel will be poofing back any minute now. In fact, I¡¯ll hazard a guess that they will reappear¡­ right¡­ about¡­ nnnnnn¡ªnow.¡±


    Wilburn glanced around expectantly. But nothing happened. There was only Buttrom, lying pathetically in the dirt.


    ¡°Ah well,¡± Iddo said. ¡°You¡¯d be surprised how often that does w¡ª¡±


    POOF. Alfajean reformed out of a cloud of swirling particles of color. ¡°You¡¯re late, Master Bungflower!¡± they panted, hands on knees as if they¡¯d just been doing wind sprints.


    ¡°A wizard is never late that he¡¯ll admit,¡± Iddo said cheerfully. ¡°Your name is¡­?¡±


    ¡°Alfajean,¡± Alfajean panted, ¡°Lieutenant Angel Alfajean¡ªdidn¡¯t you get my memo?¡±


    ¡°Possibly,¡± Iddo said. ¡°Let¡¯s circle back to that, Lieutenant Angel. First, I feel obliged to point out that there¡¯s a bit of a sword stuck in your helmet.¡±


    This was indeed the case. Alfajean¡¯s once-shiny yellow helmet was now severely scarred and dented, and impaled by a huge sword with a shard of milk-veined crystal for a blade. ¡°Saved my life, this helmet,¡± Alfajean said proudly, ¡°or it would have if I wasn¡¯t already immortal. Those¡ªblessed¡ªXiatakron goblins¡­ but this is a perfect example of why we must always follow protocol!¡±


    Rather, a perfect example of obstinance and blatant self-contradiction, Iddo thought to Wilburn, who had to stifle a snicker.


    Alfajean straightened their uniform and primped the tattered remnants of their high visibility vest with dignity. ¡°I notice you¡¯ve forgotten your safety equipment, Master Bungflower,¡± they said, arching several disapproving eyebrows Iddo¡¯s way.


    ¡°Oh no, I haven¡¯t forgotten it,¡± Iddo said. ¡°I remember that equipment quite fondly, as a matter of fact, because I traded it to a tavernkeeper for a cask of remarkably fine beer. I¡¯ve been meaning to requisition a replacement set for ages¡­ I just hope I can find that tavern again.¡±


    Alfajean looked mortified. ¡°Master Bungflower, think what you are saying! You have an apprentice now!¡±


    ¡°Hm. Fair point. I hadn¡¯t considered that.¡±


    Alfajean relaxed.


    ¡°I shall need to requisition an additional set of safety equipment for young Wilburn,¡± Iddo continued. ¡°That way I can get two casks of beer.¡±


    One, two, three, four, five¡­ Wilburn shuffled around the side and craned his neck¡­ six, seven, eight. That was how many faces Alfajean had, and all eight of their golden mouths were hanging open.


    ¡°Now, about that memo,¡± Iddo said. ¡°The copy I received was so redacted I was surprised the censor bothered to pass it on to me. From the desk of Lieutenant Angel REDACTED, Prophecy Retrocausation and Omen Validity Ensurance Department, REDACTED, REDACTED, REDACTED. Your apprentice REDACTED. The REDACTED ritual will REDACTED. Please remember to REDACTED. A set of universal coordinates. Then, Yours sincerely, Lieutenant Angel REDACTED.¡±


    ¡°Yes, well, we do take operational secrecy very seriously at the PROVED. It¡¯s our third highest priority after safety and fostering a culture of collaboration, and um,¡± Alfajean withdrew their wizidex from a pocket of their uniform and gave it a few taps. ¡°Let me just double check your file in case they¡¯ve updated¡­ ah, no. Well, unfortunately, due to our rigorous vetting process, it appears your security clearance for this operation is still pending, Master Bungflower. I¡¯m¡­ sorry about that.¡±


    ¡°No, no. No need to apologize. I just want to make sure I understand you. Are you telling me that my clearance for the operation in which I am participating as we speak is pending, and that it would therefore constitute a breach of official secrecy for you to disclose to me such details as the plan, the operational objectives, or in short, any information that could foreseeably prove vital to our success?¡±


    ¡°That is correct, yes.¡±


    An absolute professional, Iddo thought to Wilburn. The wizidex leapt from Alfajean¡¯s grasp and rocketed toward him¡ªthen slowed, as if reaching the limit of an invisible elastic tether, and sprang back.


    ¡°Soul-ID,¡± Alfajean said smugly, catching it. ¡°Beta version. Only available to essential Higher Astral personnel. I¡¯m glad to see it works on yaks as well as the goblins of Xiatakron. I¡¯ll be sure to make a note of that in my after-action report. All right everyone, gather round. We all need to be touching when we telefract. That includes you, Buttrom.¡±


    The prophet groaned. But he sat up, and, meeting no one¡¯s eye, shuffled over with his bowl to join their huddle.


    ¡°Touching? Touching? Touching? Great. Oh, one moment, I¡¯ve disabled voice commands on my wizidex¡­¡± There came the sound of a golden finger tapping glass. Wilburn, who was gripping Alfajean¡¯s pant leg, felt a tingle crawl over his body. And then everything¡ªthe land, the sky, Iddo, Alfajean, Buttrom, and Wilburn himself¡ªdisintegrated into swirling particles of color.

 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle I/XI

    CHAPTER 9


    The Invisible Circle


    I


    Smell was the first sense to return to Wilburn as reality rebuilt itself, and what a strange bouquet it was. Rotten eggs for starters¡ªthere was no missing that stench¡ªand then an acrid burning smell, and underneath these, a subtler, mineraly smell like¡­ hot stone? Next came tactile sensations, extra sharp after their absence: the tickle of hair on Wilburn¡¯s scalp, the swaddling softness his clothing, the silky fabric of Alfajean¡¯s pant leg in his fingers, and the hot smoothness of a stone floor pressing up under the soles of his bare feet. Then sound¡ªa distant gurgling¡ªand sight¡ªa storm of swirling speckles that resolved into the interior of a temple.


    A temple¡­ wow. The word church wouldn¡¯t cut the mustard. Here was, if not the templiest temple ever built, then a shortlist contender for that honor. It was a vast hexagonal pavilion defined by six towering pillars of black basalt. Between the pillars¡ª nothing¡ªonly a panoramic sky. The architecture screamed at you LOOK UP, and when you did, you saw a vaulted ceiling hundreds of feet high, wrought with an ornate pattern of interlocking hexagons: black around the edges, fading to a single hexagon of brightest alabaster in the center. That was what you actually saw, but what you seemed to see, for just a moment, was a vertical shaft ascending into infinity¡­ almost like a portal. The temple was so huge it could¡¯ve fit twenty or thirty cottages, Wilburn figured, and it was absolutely empty.


    ¡°Is it just us, or are we unfashionably early?¡± Iddo asked.


    ¡°Strategically early,¡± Alfajean corrected him, ¡°enough to guarantee we¡¯d be the first ones to arrive.¡±


    ¡°Ah yes, the old waiting-around strategy. Very clever.¡±


    ¡°Tis better to wait fur than to be late fur,¡± Alfajean said primly. ¡°We have a poster at the office of a baby bunny with a wristclock saying that. Get it¡­? A bunny? Fur?¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    No one laughed. It wasn¡¯t that Wilburn¡¯s seven-year-old wit was too sophisticated for such punnybusiness¡ªau contraire, Alfajean¡¯s egregious joke would ordinarily have had him in hysterics, but just now, Wilburn felt edgy, unsteady¡­ There was something in the air¡­ something besides the stench of rotten eggs¡­ a restless energy, a tension, like a balloon inflated almost to the point of bursting¡­ and still inflating, stretching tighter and tighter, and you just knew it was gonna go BANG at any second.


    A deep enchantment lies upon this place, Iddo thought to him. Don¡¯t look with your eyes, my boy, look with your mind. Look for the colors that aren¡¯t part of the rainbow. The complexity is¡­ breathtaking¡­


    Aloud, Iddo said, ¡°Well, Lieutenant Angel, your memo mentioned a ritual, now you¡¯ve brought us to a temple. I begin to comprehend. The prophet is here to witness, and later create a record of this event; he will not participate in the ritual directly, I think¡­ nor will you. Only Wilburn and myself. Or¡­¡± Iddo studied Alfajean¡¯s reaction closely. Wilburn could tell he wasn¡¯t reading the angel¡¯s mind; he was just guessing, and hoping Alfajean would accidentally betray something important. ¡°No¡­¡± Iddo said thoughtfully. ¡°I¡¯m not part of it either. Only Wilburn will participate in the ritual. So why bring me along? Not for the pleasure of my company, I dare say. Am I to be a subject of Buttrom¡¯s prophecy despite my lack of involvement in the ritual¡­? Oh, go on, Lieutenant Angel, you can at least give me a hint. We¡¯re on the same side here, remember?¡±


    Alfajean hesitated, then they said carefully, ¡°Upper Management has appointed you to serve as Wilburn¡¯s master, Master Bungflower.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m aware of that, Lieutenant Angel, but we both know that¡¯s not the real reason I¡¯m here. The PROVED spurns my involvement at all cost. I don¡¯t believe you would have summoned me unless my presence was utterly essential to the operation. You need me to do something that no one else can. What?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Master bungflower¡ªthat¡¯s classified.¡±


    ¡°Hmm. You¡¯re very confident that I will play my part without instruction¡­¡±


    Alfajean was silent.


    ¡°Ahh,¡± Iddo said quietly, ¡°I see. We¡¯re expecting enemies. And you¡¯re expecting me to oppose them of my own volition. The question is: am I to be a shield¡­ or a sword?¡±


    At the mention of enemies Alfajean gave a small start, which was as good as confirmation. ¡°I¡­ think it would be in-bounds for me to compliment your deductive reasoning, Master Bungflower,¡± they said. ¡°Let me just add, for general context, that it has never been the policy of the PROVED to employ the sword when the shield will suffice.¡±


    Iddo nodded slowly. ¡°I can work with that. How many enemies? One? Two? Fifty?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t answer that, I¡¯m afraid.¡±


    ¡°Because it¡¯s classified, or because you don¡¯t know?¡±


    ¡°Well¡­¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no rule against admitting what you don¡¯t know, is there?¡±


    ¡°Well¡­¡±

 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (II/XI)

    CHAPTER NINE


    The Invisible Circle


    II


    Wilburn wasn¡¯t paying close attention to Iddo and Alfajean¡¯s discussion; he was busy looking for the colors that weren¡¯t part of the rainbow. His eyes were closed. He could¡¯ve sworn that he was looking with his mind¡­ He couldn¡¯t see doodly-squat. I can¡¯t see a doodly-squat, he thought to Iddo, eventually.


    With practice, my boy. Here¡ªIddo broadcast his own vision of the temple on their private mental channel, even as he continued to speak to Alfajean. Wilburn caught his breath. It was¡­ it was the most beautiful thing he¡¯d ever seen in his entire life. A vast sculpture of impossible colors surrounded them in metaphysical space. There were new colors! Wilburn couldn¡¯t believe his mind¡¯s eye. The whole thing was like a sunflower or the center of a daisy, a spiraling fractal-patterned dome knit from a bazillion hair-thin filaments of color. Like lasers, Wilburn would¡¯ve thought, if he¡¯d known what lasers were. And the more he looked the more saw: every detail collapsing into greater and still greater detail upon scrutiny. A feeling of awe rose up within his chest. Did people make this? he wondered.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    People? Certainly. What you really want to know is whether humans made it, and that¡¯s much trickier to answer. If so, it is among the greatest achievements of your species, the work of many generations of magicians who devoted their lives to the project of their ancestors and passed it down unfinished to their descendants.


    How can you tell?


    The recursiveness of these meta-energy circuits, for one thing. They¡¯re a bit like tree rings. We don¡¯t have time to get into the theory of it now, but whenever you see spell patterns like this, you can be fairly certain you¡¯re dealing with cyclic repetition, one of the the key elements of ritual magic. In this case, I estimate that dozens of different rituals were performed thousands of times over at precisely targeted intervals, determined by¡­ I can¡¯t say exactly, perhaps the cycle of the seasons and the orbits of the celestial spheres. Not, in any case, the sort of task at which mortals typically excel. It would require a continuity of culture unprecedented in the modern age. We¡¯re talking about the combined magical output of a whole society of magicians, over the course of¡ª


    But the thought was cut short by Alfajean saying loudly, ¡°What in world are you doing to my trousers, Wilburn?¡±


    ¡°Huh¡­?¡± Wilburn took inventory of himself. ¡°Whoops¡ªsorry!¡± The silky fabric of the angel¡¯s pant leg felt so similar to Toukie¡¯s wing that he¡¯d unconsciously been rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger while thought-speaking with Iddo. As soon as Wilburn realized what he was doing, he jerked his hand away as if a snake had struck at it. He was mightily embarrassed.


    **** Read the rest of Chapter Nine - The Invisible Circle now on yaklaughter.com. Just go to yaklaughter.com/sign-up, enter your name and email, and the link to the full chapter will pop up. Love you! ****

 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (III/XI)

    CHAPTER NINE


    The Invisible Circle


    III


    Iddo had gotten out his wizidex and was peering at it quizzically. He didn¡¯t seem to need to touch the thing to use it; the device simply hovered in the air before his nose, doing¡­ whatever it was doing¡­ Wilburn couldn¡¯t see. Then suddenly he could see as Iddo broadcast his perspective on their private mental channel once again. The wizidex displayed rippling silvery blue water, overlaid with a white grid and a few strings of numbers Wilburn didn¡¯t understand, and in the middle was a small, pulsating red dot.


    ¡°Well, isn¡¯t that fascinating¡­¡± Iddo said. ¡°According to MagiMaps, we¡¯re at the bottom of the North Orfidic Ocean right now.¡±Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    Buttrom giggled, causing everyone to jump. It was hard to remember he was there most of the time. ¡°Silly me!¡± the prophet cried, in a wild voice. ¡°I forgot to pack my swimsuit!¡± He grinned around manically without meeting anybody¡¯s eye. Then he lay down on the floor.


    Now there¡¯s a brittle branch, Iddo thought. But he said aloud, ¡°Buttrom, my friend, only a fool clings to sanity in the face of the impossible. The wise exchange their sanity for the truth, because the truth is impossible. The universe is a miracle, and you¡¯re part of that miracle, like it or not, so you might as well embrace the nonsense and become the madman you were born to be. All the best prophets are mad. Everyone says so. The madder the better when it comes to prophets¡ªwouldn¡¯t you agree, Lieutenant Angel?¡±


    ¡°Oh yes,¡± Alfajean said seriously. ¡°Yes, the madder the better, Buttrom. Master Bungflower is quite right.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re both insane!¡± Buttrom shrieked.


    ¡°True,¡± Iddo and all eight of Alfajean¡¯s voices said in unison.


    Iddo chuckled. ¡°That¡¯s rather the point I¡¯m trying to make, Buttrom. It¡¯s much easier to fulfill your function in the universe when you quit trying to pretend the universe is something other than it is. But do have it your way, of course¡ªthere¡¯s ultimately no other way to have it.¡±


    ¡°I want to go home,¡± Buttrom moaned.


    I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (IV/XI)

    CHAPTER NINE


    The Invisible Circle


    IV


    Wilburn ran to the edge of the pavilion. The ocean¡­ he¡¯d never seen it before! Mom had seen it, though, when she was little, and she¡¯d told him all about it, and¡­ this definitely wasn¡¯t the ocean. Wilburn¡¯s disappointment was short lived. You gotta see this, he thought to Iddo, who lumbered over obligingly, the clop-clop of his hooves oddly staccato in the vast space, and together the two of them looked down¡­ down¡­ down¡­


    The temple stood atop a mountain¡ªor rather, in the top of a mountain, because the top of this particular mountain was a hollow basin¡ªa caldera, Iddo called it. The pavilion¡¯s floor was level with the rim of the basin, because the pavilion was in fact only the upper tip of an enormous hexagonal pyramid¡ªa ziggurat, Iddo called it¡ªwhose foundation rested, presumably, on the basin¡¯s floor, although you couldn¡¯t actually see it, because the basin¡¯s floor was covered by a lake. So what you saw was steps ascending from the water, except you barely saw the water; what you really saw was steps ascending out of steam. And when you did catch a glimpse of water through the swirling curtains of vapor, it wasn¡¯t smooth or rippling or ribbed with waves the way a normal lake would¡¯ve been; it was a seething, churning monster. The lake was boiling. And¡ªpeeeee-yew!¡ªthe rotten-egg stench was just awful. Although, Iddo said it wasn¡¯t rotten eggs, it was brimstone which was another word for sulfur. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    A narrow trail snaked its way up the inner slope of the basin, cutting across bathtub rings that marked the previous high-water levels, then climbing several hundred feet up through what had, until recently it appeared, been fertile vegetation. The plants within the basin were now dark and wilted like overcooked spinach, those nearest the water little more than clumps of slime, while higher up the ferns and palms became at least distinguishable from one another, and the ones around the rim of the basin, where the trail folded over to go squiggling down the mountainside, might have even been alive¡ªthough, if they were, they clearly wouldn¡¯t be much longer.


    The vegetation on the outer slopes of the mountain was a very different tale indeed. It was like the photosynthetic equivalent of a bodybuilders convention¡ªthe plants were so healthy they seemed to be flexing leafy muscles. You could practically see the jungle growing. The jungle¡­ yessiree. Wilburn knew a jungle when he saw one, even though he never had before. It was as good a first sight as the ocean would¡¯ve been, he guessed. It was pretty darn impressive. There were no other mountains in the area, just this one, a solitary spire jutting from a flatland jungle that stretched farther than the eye could see¡ªand the eye could see a balls long way from here, like¡­ far. Nothing but jungle. Nothing but green. So much green, rolling on forever and ever and ever¡­ rolling right over the curve of the horizon.


    Know what I think? Wilburn thought.


    Iddo did, because Wilburn hadn¡¯t yet learned to withhold his inner monologue, but he gamely replied, What¡¯s that, my boy?


    Wilburn gestured down into the swirling steam. I think, he thought, this is volcano.

 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (V/XI)

    CHAPTER 9


    The Invisible Circle


    V


    Yeah, because, see, Mom read me this book about volcanos one time. They¡¯re these really big mountains that get filled up with melted rocks from underground¡ªit¡¯s called lava and it¡¯s like pudding made of fire, because it¡¯s all gloopy, you know? And when a mountain gets super full of lava it goes BLEHHH and barfs tons of lava everywhere! Isn¡¯t that cool!


    Hot, I would¡¯ve thunk, Iddo thought.


    Wilburn laughed. It was hot. Gnarly hot. But somehow the heat wasn¡¯t bothering him. He just felt really, really hot, and it was fine. You can tell it¡¯s gonna erupt soon, he thought, because, see how the plants are all dead? But they¡¯re still green? That¡¯s because the water wasn¡¯t boiling before recently, I think. I think because this mountain must be filling up with lava really fast. I bet it¡¯s getting really, really full¡­ Wilburn¡¯s grin faltered. Oh. Are we gonna die¡­?


    The very question that keeps me up at night, my boy, metaphorically speaking. Technically speaking, I¡¯m asleep right now, and so are you. We are Astral Projecting. Advanced dreaming, you could say. It¡¯s not the lava that you should be afraid of here, if you should be afraid of anything. Only magic can hurt you on the Astral Plane¡­ magic¡­ in its infinite guises. The Astral Plane is more perilous than either of us can possibly imagine¡ªbut as for lava, there¡¯s no reason we couldn¡¯t go swimming in it.


    You¡¯re kidding¡­ This was the best news Wilburn had ever heard. He began to pray fervently for the volcano to erupt now¡ªimmediately. What if they missed it? What if the mountain didn¡¯t blow up till tomorrow? He didn¡¯t know if he could stand the disappointment.


    ¡°How queer,¡± Alfajean said from right behind them, and several feet above.


    Wilburn and Iddo jumped.


    ¡°Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn¡¯t mean to startle you. It¡¯s just that my map shows us at the bottom of the Orfidic Ocean too¡­¡± A couple of Alfajean¡¯s faces were gazing at their wizidex in puzzlement, while other faces gazed out over the jungle in bemusement.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    ¡°What can you tell us about the temple¡¯s enchantment?¡± Iddo asked.


    ¡°Nothing, I¡¯m afraid. It¡¯s all EONS.¡±


    Iddo sighed heavily. That¡¯s short for Explain Only Necessary Sh¡ªStuff¡­ he thought to Wilburn. Then to Alfajean he said, ¡°All this ambient magic must be disrupting scrynet service. Without a connection, our dexes can¡¯t access the universal coordinate system, thus MagiMaps can¡¯t pinpoint our location in spacetime.¡±


    ¡°Ah, that makes sense. Yes, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re right, Master Bungflower.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. The funny thing is, MagiMaps also incorporates a geocoordinate system that uses the earth¡¯s magnetic field. The geo system doesn¡¯t depend on scrynet service, so it shouldn¡¯t be affected. It can¡¯t give us our dimensional coordinates, but in theory¡­¡± Iddo cast a speculative glance at Alfajean, ¡°these lat-long readings should be accurate.¡±


    The angel¡¯s expressions became studiously blank.


    ¡°The possibilities,¡± Iddo continued, ¡°are¡ªA: this temple harbors a magnetic anomaly powerful enough to interfere with WizTech Industries¡¯ proprietary magnetometric spells¡ªB: the earth¡¯s magnetic poles have shifted¡ªC: we¡¯ve telefracted to a different planet with uncannily earth-like conditions, or¡­¡± Iddo scrutinized Alfajean out of the corner of his eye, but the angel was giving nothing away for free this time. ¡°D,¡± Iddo said, ¡°none of the above, MagiMaps is correct about our latitude and longitude, and the North Orfidic Ocean simply¡­ doesn¡¯t exist¡­ currently¡­¡±


    The golden skin around the angel¡¯s golden eyes tightened for just a second.


    Bingo, Iddo thought to Wilburn, while outwardly pretending he hadn¡¯t noticed. Just as I suspected. We¡¯ve gone back in time. See what I mean about the present moment? Here we are, who knows how many thousands of years before our births, and yet it¡¯s still right now, as it always is.


    Neato! Wilburn thought. But hang on¡­ what if we¡¯ve gone into the future?


    Excellent question. I believe we can be fairly confident that this is the past with respect to planetary chronology, because geological evidence suggests that sea levels rose steadily for tens of thousands of years prior to our modern age¡ªand that trend only seems to be speeding up, which means the geological time required for the North Orfidic Ocean to not only disappear but be replaced by a mature jungle such as the one we see before us would have to be millions of years¡­ and that¡¯s at least one order of magnitude bigger of a time-gap than the PROVED normally operates across. Whereas, if we¡¯ve gone back in time as I surmise, the present moment may only be a couple dozen-thousand years before our modern age. Of course, there¡¯s always the possibility that somewhere along the timeline a rogue god decides to violate the Neutral Earth Covenant and overhaul the entire biosphere¡­ Difficult to account for kind of thing.


    ¡°What? No more wheedling questions for me?¡± Alfajean sounded the tiniest bit smug. ¡°Have you accepted the necessity of operational secrecy at long last, Master Bungflower?¡±


    ¡°Something like that,¡± Iddo said, cheerfully. ¡°You¡¯re a tough nut, Lieutenant Angel. We should play cards sometime.¡±


    ¡°I would enjoy that, Master Bungflower.¡±


    Not half as much as I would, Iddo thought.

 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (VI/XI)

    CHAPTER NINE


    The Invisible Circle


    VI


    ¡°Toucans!¡± Wilburn blurted. He had only just remembered. Toucans lived in jungles¡ªthis was one, so, math. ¡°Guys! Come on! We¡¯ve gotta go and look for them!¡±


    ¡°Certainly not,¡± Alfajean said, astonished. ¡°You must remain within the circle, Wilburn. I thought I told you that already.¡±


    Wilburn¡¯s shoulders slumped. ¡°What circle?¡±


    Alfajean pointed around the perimeter of the pavilion.


    ¡°That¡¯s not a circle, it¡¯s a hexagon,¡± Wilburn said, before he could stop himself. Mom¡¯s stupid math punishments. There had been many on geometry.


    ¡°True enough,¡± Alfajean said, giving Wilburn several small smiles, ¡°but a hexagon implies an invisible circle¡ªand those the most powerful kind. Isn¡¯t it so, Master bungflower?¡±


    ¡°Quite so,¡± Iddo agreed. Look again, he added in thought-speak, and projected to Wilburn his vision of a fiery ribbon of impossible colors encircling the hexagonal platform of the pavilion, touching it only at the six points, where stood the six towering pillars of black basalt. The magic circle was incorporated into the greater complexity of the spiral flower-fractal dome¡ªit was no wonder Wilburn hadn¡¯t picked it out before.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°How come I¡¯ve gotta stay inside it?¡±


    ¡°Because it¡¯s¡­ part of the ritual,¡± Alfajean conceded. ¡°During the ritual, you must be inside the circle, and the rest of us must be outside it. The ritual isn¡¯t starting just yet, but I don¡¯t want you running off to look for toucans, Wilburn.¡±


    ¡°Aww¡­¡±


    Ask them what the ritual¡¯s all about, Iddo thought. They seem more inclined to answer your questions than mine.


    ¡°Er, what¡¯s this whole ritual thing about?¡± Wilburn asked.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s about¡­¡± Alfajean tapped one of their chins. ¡°It¡¯s about your destiny, Wilburn. Upper Management has chosen you to serve a very important purpose. I¡¯m sorry, but that¡¯s as much as I can tell you right now. You¡¯re getting a bigger peak behind the curtain than most mortals ever do, trust me.¡±


    Ask who else will be participating in the ritual, Iddo thought.


    ¡°Who else will be participating in the ritual?¡± Wilburn parroted.


    Alfajean squinted at him suspiciously. ¡°You¡¯re not thought-speaking with Master Bungflower behind my back, are you?¡± Wilburn¡¯s guilty face must¡¯ve been as good as a confession. Alfajean harrumphed. ¡°Well, that¡¯s not very polite. No, no, don¡¯t mind me. I¡¯ll just leave you two to your thoughts, then.¡± The angle stalked away in a huff.


    They can¡¯t do this? Wilburn wondered.


    Iddo shook his head. Angels don¡¯t operate in Thoughtspace. No one knows why. Well, no one on our level¡ªI suppose Upper Management must know. But few mortals ever interact with an angel, so there¡¯s not exactly an extensive body of research to consult. My personal theory is that angels are made from the same meta-material as Astral armor, and each one of them contains a private bubble of Thoughtspace sealed inside themselves. All their thinking happens within the bubble, but no thought ever enters or escapes.


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 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (VII/XI)

    CHAPTER NINE


    The Invisible Circle


    VII


    It was close to sunset, and the light was turning red. Alfajean, who still had the goblin sword sticking out of their helmet, sat crosslegged on the alter, nervously thumbing through their wizidex. Oh yeah, there was an alter¡ªa hexagonal prism of black stone almost as tall as Wilburn. Despite its size and centrality, Wilburn hadn¡¯t noticed it until Alfajean sat down on it¡­ and for some reason he didn¡¯t like to look at it for long. The sight of the alter gave him an uneasy feeling in his stomach.


    Neither Buttrom nor his bowl had budged. The prophet lay spread eagle on the floor of the temple, his round belly lifting and lowering the clay vessel over and over as he breathed. He appeared to be asleep, but Wilburn knew he wasn¡¯t, because he could tell Buttrom was thinking; once in a while, Wilburn was even beginning to be able to tell what Buttrom was thinking. His awareness of Thoughtspace had expanded greatly over the past few hours, during which he and Iddo had done little else but thought-speak. The more they practiced, the more Wilburn could feel something deep within himself opening, like an extra hand that he¡¯d been clenching in a tight fist all his life and was only now discovering how to uncurl the fingers of.


    Receiving Iddo¡¯s projected thoughts was effortless, like filling a cup with water from a faucet, but the thoughts drifting from Buttrom¡¯s untrained mind were nebulous, so it was more like trying to fill a cup with water from the air on a misty day. There was a backwards sort of trick to it, like the signpost at the crossroads. The harder Wilburn tried to read Buttrom¡¯s mind, the harder it became, and when he stopped trying altogether, he got zilch; the sweet spot lay somewhere in the middle, a not-trying without trying not to try but also trying just a teensy-weensy bit mode, not at all easy to maintain. Not easy, yet more and more Wilburn found himself slipping into that mode of semi-active receptivity, of seeing without looking¡­ hearing without listening¡­ not reading Buttrom¡¯s mind per say, just¡­ noticing his thoughts as they drifted by.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    Part of the trouble was that Buttrom¡¯s thoughts were both repetitive and boring. None of this is real, Buttrom kept thinking. I¡¯ve been in an accident and I¡¯ve bonked my head and I¡¯m lying in a coma and this all a hallucination. I¡¯m going to fall asleep now, and when I wake up, I¡¯ll be at home in bed, and I¡¯ll have a nasty headache and I won¡¯t remember any of this.


    He¡¯s correct, in a way, Iddo thought. That is essentially what would happen if he could fall asleep¡­ which is precisely why he will not be allowed to. It is his destiny to be here, the silly man.


    After failing to fall asleep for awhile, Buttrom would begin to pray: groveling, pathetic prayers that seemed to Wilburn designed to maximumly irritate any divinity who might¡¯ve been listening. Then Buttrom would start over with None of this real.


    He¡¯s wrong about that part, though, Iddo thought. The Astral Plane is no less real than Real Life, merely a different flavor of reality. Moreover, my gut tells me we¡¯re in S-2 Parallelaspace¡ªand my gut, unlike MagiMaps, is seldom mistaken. Parallelaspace is the lowest dimension of the Higher Astral Plane, and it exists parallel to Real Life as the name suggests, meaning the two dimensions are coextensive in spacetime, meaning that effectively we are Astral projecting in Real Life¡ªthough, technically that¡¯s a contradiction in terms, because what makes Real Life Real Life is the fact that it¡¯s the one dimension in the universe that is not the Astral Plane. We must be in Sector-2 Parallelaspace. Sector-1 is a utility level used for creating closed-time-loop sub-dimensions in Real Life space, and closed-space-sphere sub-dimensions in Real Life time¡ªand if this was Sector-3 Parallelaspace, you¡¯d be able to stick your hand straight through that pillar.


    Wilburn grinned and patted the pillar in question. It was solid stone. He sat with his bare feet dangling over the edge of the pavilion¡ªthey were just outside the circle, but his butt was in the circle, and Iddo said that was good enough. Iddo sprawled next to Wilburn on his belly with his haunches twisted sideways like a cat. Master and apprentice. They faced the south, watching the landscape flaunt its beauty with increasing shamelessness as the sun went down. Tubular clouds crawled over the jungle far below, looking like pink caterpillars with long blue shadows.


    What was that! Wilburn leapt to his feet, thrilled by the prospect of something¡ªanything¡ªfinally happening after the long lull. What he¡¯d seen was gone now, but it had been bright, a flicker of yellow near the foot of they volcano. There! Wilburn pointed so forcefully that his wrist popped. But the yellow speck was gone. Then it was back¡ªthen it was gone. The speck would vanish for minutes at a stretch, then a reappear for just a second or two. It didn¡¯t take Wilburn and Iddo long to realize that it was following the mountain path, weaving its way up the narrow corridor through the jungle. Whatever the yellow thing was, it was coming to temple. But at this rate it was gonna take for¡ªever.

 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (VIII/XI)

    CHAPTER NINE


    The Invisible Circle


    VIII


    Another hour passed. The sun slipped away beyond the right-hand edge of the world, while off to the left, the moon swam up to take its shift. A full moon, hazily orange as it crested the horizon; but the higher it rose, the crisper and bluer it became. In the twilight, the atmosphere around the mountain cooled, and the heatwaves wafting up from the caldera grew more vivid, distorting the downward view of dancing steam wraiths on the water. All the while the yellow light glided steadily up the mountain path.


    Not a torch, Wilburn and Iddo decided; the glow was too unwavering. An oil lantern became their running hypothesis, until the thing drew near enough for them to judge that it was big¡ªperhaps as big as Iddo¡ªand egg-shaped, at which point Iddo declared it a Category-Q, explaining that this was a useful term for anything that you had no idea what category to put it in, animal, vegetable, mineral, magical¡ªCategory-Q¡ªa big fat open-ended question.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    The evening was still, and all was quiet save glugging of the lake. Then, gradually, a low murmur became audible and intensified to a rhythmic hum. It didn¡¯t sound like human voices¡ªbut it was, for as the Category-Q ascended from the lower jungle and continued up the less-foliated portion mountain, a procession of dark human figures became visible marching in single-file behind it. Lots of people¡­ hundreds of them¡­ chanting¡­ a monotonous, droning chant, wordless at this distance, and eerily emotionless. It made the hairs on the back of Wilburn¡¯s neck stand up. The sound reminded him, in an unpleasant way, of insects.


    Iddo had gone very silent on their mental channel. They¡¯re all psychovates¡­¡± he thought at last. ¡°My word¡ªthis has to be some kind of record. The entire group is manifesting a collective shield, and I haven¡¯t found the slightest flaw in it. That¡¯s something only a handful of elite units in the Argylonian military are capable of¡­ but never in such large numbers.


    How many are there?


    Can¡¯t say. Their shield prevents me from discovering even that basic information without drawing attention to myself. The naked eye suggests at least a hundred, but there¡¯s no telling how far the procession may stretch back into the jungle. What in the world has the PROVED gotten us into?


    Are you gonna have to fight them? Wilburn wondered. He had gotten the impression that this was Alfajean¡¯s plan.


    Not if I can help it, Iddo thought grimly. On the contrary, I am probing their defenses with the utmost stealth. To provoke such a formidable assembly would be suicidal¡­ like kicking the proverbial hornet¡¯s nest¡­


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 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (IX/XI)

    CHAPTER NINE


    The Invisible Circle


    IX


    By the time the Category-Q reached the summit of the volcano, the moon hung in the middle of the sky. Wilburn and Iddo could now see the object plainly: a bulbous blob of amber the size of the rain barrel at the cottage. Its shape was rounded and organic, its color a deep golden orange, and it was perfectly translucent, like a glass of whiskey held up to the light; except in this case, the light source was the Q itself. Looking at it, you couldn¡¯t tell if the thing was indeed liquid like whiskey, or if it was solid like a gemstone. The glowing blob floated, clearly by magic, at the head of the procession, followed by someone wearing either an all-yellow robe or an all-white robe that looked yellow in the Q-light. Everyone else wore black and yellow striped robes, and all were hooded, so no faces could be seen¡ªas far as the light revealed, at least¡ªthe line of chanters twisted backward down the mountain into darkness, where its end remained obscure.


    The golden blob led the way over the rim of the basin and down the snaking trail to the lake¡ªthen out over the boiling water¡ªand just when it seemed the Yellow Guy would march straight in and be cooked, the water parted, creating a dry path to the base of the ziggurat. It should¡¯ve been like walking on a skillet, but the chanters never broke stride, stepping to the rhythm of their chant like a military unit on parade. This didn¡¯t have the feel a military affair though, no, nothing so humdrum. The stripe-clad figures flowed across the lake with a dreamy, fluid grace, like dancers¡ªbut were any dancers ever so well synchronized? The way the crowd moved gave Wilburn the heebie-jeebies. It was the way a field of grass moves in the wind¡­ as if the crowd wasn¡¯t made up of individuals.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    What are they saying? Wilburn wondered. It sounded like a foreign language. He could tell it was the same phrase over and over, or possibly one long word. Six equally stressed syllables in a fixed order, any one of which could have been the beginning or the end of the series. It sounded like: Ink-hi-yah-ku-twa-vi¡­


    Ink-hi-yah-ku-twa-vi¡­


    Ink-hi-yah-ku-twa-vi¡­


    All languages are branches of the same tree, Iddo thought, and the sap of this figurative language-tree is magic. Language and magic are very nearly the same thing. Our entire world is language¡ªwe ourselves made of words in very literal sense¡ªbut we¡¯ll save that discussion for another time. Suffice to say that every magician, no matter their knack, receives the Gift of Tongues when their powers manifest. The Gift of Tongues grants us the ability to speak and understand all spoken languages in the universe. It doesn¡¯t apply to written text, though¡ªthat¡¯s why it¡¯s called the Gift of Tongues rather than Pens. Nor does the Gift confer new knowledge. It is merely a translation mechanism. Any word a magician knows one language, they know in every language, right down to dialect and accent.


    Ohhh¡ªthat¡¯s why Buttrom said that I¡¯m from wherever he¡¯s from!


    Indubitably. Now, I¡¯m not sure if you noticed, Wilburn, but my vocabulary is nearly as plenteous as my fur coat¡ªso the fact this chant means nothing to me means that its reference is to an obscure subject indeed. I suspect it is a name¡­ the name of a person, or perhaps¡­ an entity.


    ¡°Ink-hi-ya¡ª¡± Wilburn began, speaking aloud with the chanters just to get the feel of the the syllables.


    ¡°Careful,¡± Iddo interrupted him. ¡°A wizard¡¯s words have power, my boy. Beware the law of unintended consequences.¡±

 CHAPTER 9 - The Invisible Circle (X+XI/XI)

    CHAPTER 9


    The Invisible Circle


    X


    Instead of floating up the stairs, the golden Q turned right¡ªWilburn and Iddo¡¯s right¡ªat the foot of the ziggurat and led the crowd around the perimeter of the bottommost step, the water gushing back to un-submerge the lake bottom in front of them.


    And now, at last, the end of the procession came into view, emerging from the trees to follow the path over the rim of the caldera. There was another object floating there behind the final chanting marcher in the line, who might or might not have been wearing stripes¡ªit was too dark to tell now that the Q had gone around the far side of the temple. All Wilburn and Iddo could discern of the object was that it was a large black box¡­ possibly a huge black box.


    The box descended the trail after the marchers, and was approaching the shoreline when a faint amber glow announced the imminent return of the Category-Q, which had almost completed a full lap around the temple. The Q arrived back where it started just as black box crossed the lake, so that the end and the beginning of the procession met, closing the circle¡ªno wait, the hexagon. Either way, the temple was now surrounded by chanters, and in the golden glow cast by Q-blob, the black box was revealed to be an iron cage. A concerningly large iron cage. Of course, the cage might have been empty; the bars were set too close together to afford a view of the interior. It might¡¯ve been empty¡­ but it wasn¡¯t, Wilburn just knew. The universe, however grand, was not so kind a place as that.


    He was about to wonder something about the cage to Iddo, when suddenly, the atmosphere in the temple became charged. Wilburn¡¯s mouth flooded with spit. He tasted metal. He felt a cold, grippy texture in his gut. He and Iddo spun around to see a whirlwind of black shadows near the center of the temple coalesce into a pair of figures, one as tall as Alfajean, who jumped up from the alter, the other almost as short as Wilburn, who stood rooted to the spot.


    XI


    Two figures. The girl, and the other. The girl, dark of skin, dressed all in black¡ªboots, pants, a long coat, and her hair a wild spray of midnight curls. Perhaps a year or two older than Wilburn, but hard. Here was not someone who played with stuffed animals anymore. Every angle, from her jawline to her ready stance, spoke of solidity and strength. An absolute rock in the river. And her eyes¡­ such anger there. Not the kind that is really fear in drag, nor the white-hot rage that makes one reckless, but the worst, most deadly kind of anger, cold, intelligent, determined, and controlled. Eyes that said, without artifice, I¡¯ve been through hell and I brought back a souvenir for you. Eyes that said, and it was no bluff obviously, not a challenge, not even a threat, just a direct statement of fact: I will kill you. Those eyes drilled holes in Wilburn, who, for a fraction of a heartbeat, made the mistake of meeting them. It was like looking into the sun. He winced away reflexively, as one might yank one¡¯s hand from a hot stove. This girl was terrifying.


    But the other was a whole other level of terrifying. It wore the form of a towering naked man hewn from obsidian, utterly black yet glistening, like a glass bottle filled with ink. In the moonlight, the raised edges of runes shimmered across its surface, every inch embossed with flowing alien scripture. Even the lips, even the whiteless eyes bore runes. It was a motherless thing, like a statue brought to life. Like a machine without a machine¡¯s innocence. Not a he, despite the male form it wore¡ªan it¡ªa thing. It had a mind, yes, oh hideously yes, it had a mind¡­ but it was not a person. Something essential to personhood was missing, and it couldn¡¯t have been plainer. The monster might as well have been missing its head. But Wilburn didn¡¯t feel sympathy for it, ohh no. He was revolted, and nearly overwhelmed by the urge to smash the monstrosity to bits, then crush the bits to dust and scatter the dust to the wind, to purge the world of this stain¡­ But he was scared. No, scratch that. He was terrified.


    Demon¡­ Had Iddo thought that to him, or had Wilburn figured it out for himself? Either way, he knew it was the truth. Demon. This time, the church had nailed it, minus one point for the horns¡ªthe church¡¯s angels always had them; this demon did not, although it did have pretty spiky ears¡ªbut the evilness and the awfulness and the abominationness was precisely as advertised. What was it the old priest said you had to do to get rid a demon? Oh, right¡­ call me. But Wilburn was fairly certain the old priest wouldn¡¯t have stood a chance against this demon; and he was mighty glad that Iddo was protecting him instead.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    He could feel it happening¡ªthe destruction aimed at him in deep mental dimensions, turned away by the force of Iddo¡¯s shield. An invisible battle was taking place at the speed of thought, the demon and the girl pressing a furious offensive, Iddo rebuffing them by¡­ by¡­ by building these, like, information-puzzle-mazes¡­ faster than the girl and the demon could solve them. It was baffling, a bit like watching chess¡ªif both sides were allowed to move all their pieces constantly, and if the chessboard doubled as a ping-pong table minus the net and every chess piece had its own ping-pong ball and paddle, but instead of balls, what was bouncing every which way were these little, like, idea-pockets, inside each of which was a color-number that changed every time the pocket bounced. The solution to each puzzle-maze was a different arrangement of pieces on the board plus a specific sequence of color-numbers, such that the girl and the demon had to first figure out the pattern, then attempt orchestrate it in the face of Iddo¡¯s opposition. And incredibly¡ªthey were doing it. Not just doing it, but fast, solving puzzle-mazes left and right.


    ¡°Oh good, you¡¯re here!¡± Alfajean said, oblivious to the conflict. ¡°This is cutting it a bit close, don¡¯t you think? I¡¯ve been worried sick. I was beginning to fear¡­ but no, it¡¯s all right now. You¡¯re here. And your part hasn¡¯t come up yet, so there¡¯s no harm done. Allow me to introduce myself¡­¡± Alfajean proceeded to do just that, while the ferocious psychovatric battled raged on. Then, Alfajean introduced Buttrom and Wilburn. ¡°And of course, the yak who hardly needs an introduction, the one and only Master Iddolorious Bungflower of Frogswallow¡¯s College,¡± Alfajean concluded, beaming warmly at the new arrivals. ¡°And your names are¡­?¡±


    The demon and the girl said not a word, made not a move, gave not a sign of any kind that they had heard, except that the girl¡¯s eyes flicked momentarily to Alfajean before returning to Wilburn to continue drilling holes in him. He was the true target of the attack, he knew, although he couldn¡¯t imagine why. But he could tell the girl and the demon didn¡¯t really want to fight Iddo; they wanted to get past Iddo to him. They struck in tandem, each trying to create an opening for the other to exploit, each trying to exploit the opening the other was trying¡ªand failing¡ªto create.


    Iddo¡¯s shield was like a quilted bag made out of puzzle-mazes, surrounding himself, Wilburn and Buttrom. Alfajean, of course, needed no shielding, as they were immune to psychovatry. The very instant a puzzle-maze was solved, it vanished, which theoretically should have weakened Iddo¡¯s shield. The problem, from the girl and the demon¡¯s perspective, was that Iddo¡¯s shield was several puzzle-mazes thick all over, and he was reinforcing it faster than they could degrade it. It was like a deck of cards: for each card the girl and the demon drew off the top of a deck, Iddo added two more to the bottom. Clearly, they were no match for him, but they seemed unwilling to admit it, and Iddo seemed content to allow them to continue their assault indefinitely, for although he stymied their attacks, he never launched any counteroffensive of his own.


    ¡°All¡­ righty then¡­¡± Alfajean said awkwardly. They clapped their golden hands once, then laced their fingers together and bobbed on the balls of their feet. ¡°Well¡­ on behalf of the PROVED I¡¯d like to thank you both for coming¡­ and I¡¯ll just remind everyone that the conditions of the truce state that neither party is to initiate violence for the duration of the ritual, and um, that both delegations are to observe the ritual from outside the circle of power¡­ excepting the neophytes, who must of course remain inside the circle¡­ Any questions¡­?¡±


    Crickets.


    A bead of sweat ran down the girl¡¯s brow.


    ¡°Okie¡­ dokie¡­¡± Alfajean said. ¡°Well, as long as two of you keep to that side of the alter¡ªwhat direction is that, west?¡ªthen the four of us will stay over here on the east side of the alter, and everybody should be able to go home in one piece. Doesn¡¯t that¡­ Doesn¡¯t that sound lovely¡­?¡±


    Crickets.


    But abruptly, and for no apparent reason that Wilburn could discern, the girl looked away from him, and at the same moment she and the demon withdrew from the attack. They didn¡¯t fully disengage, for they maintained static contact with Iddo¡¯s shield, touching, ready to resume hostilities at the slightest provocation, but not pushing¡ªdetente. The girl¡¯s hostile gaze traveled to Alfajean, whose seemed incongruously intimidated, given that the girl was barely half their height. The angel addressed her tentatively, ¡°So¡­ do you know what is required of you¡­ Ms¡­ ah¡­ um¡­ you¡­?¡±


    The girl actually responded. She gave a slight shrug¡ªand her long coat melted away into tendrils of black smoke, exposing a sleeveless shirt and the lean, well-muscled arms of a boxer. Also a knife, a very big knife, hanging in a black sheath on her belt.


    ¡°Great¡­¡± Alfajean said.


    The girl drew the knife. Its blade was so black it was like a fissure in reality. Wilburn, Buttrom, and Alfajean flinched backward, but the girl, with a casualness verging on disdain, merely tossed the knife underhand onto the alter, where it landed with a heavy ding that seemed to resonate far longer than was natural.


    ¡°Great¡­¡± Alfajean repeated weakly. ¡°Well¡­ enjoy the ritual¡­¡±