“The rumor is that he’s Athelstan’s bastard,” Seth heard Lelani whisper.
Somewhere between sleep and consciousness, he was vaguely aware of lying on the couch in Ben’s cabana. A pain in his temple throbbed like a tequila hangover, but he felt cheated out of the blissful state that always preceded one. He opened one eye the width of a hair. Cal, Lelani, and Cat sat around the dinette. A balmy breeze blowing in from the dark ocean carried their conversation to his curious ears.
“So, Cal’s instincts were right,” Cat said. “Seth did sabotage the mission. Maybe out of revenge for being abandoned by his father?”
It was true, Seth thought. He did ruin the mission. But not for any slight against him that he could remember. He still couldn’t remember his life before the arrival. Even the memory of that night was like a lost scene out of a B film watched drunk at 4:00 A.M. back in high school. They were not a conscious part of him as though he lived the events, yet, he knew that what transpired was fact. The protection spell Lelani mentioned previously might be disrupting his memories of Aandor, but he was sure what he saw in Rosencrantz’s memory enchantment was true. He just couldn’t be sure whether he screwed up as usual or did it on purpose. He hoped it was an accident.
“No,” said Lelani, adopting the unlikely role of his advocate. “Seth never knew who his father was even in Aandor. It would explain his scholarship, though. The nobility often sponsors apprenticeships for its bastards. It’s considered bad form not to. Seth showed no interest for the craft, though. His presence in the school was a source of much speculation.”
“You people have a strange way of running a society,” Cat remarked.
“We saw him use that spell,” Cal said irritably.
“That spell of false memory was prepared by Magnus Proust to superimpose fabricated identities and a working knowledge of English on your memory anagrams. Like a supplement to what you already knew, they were to be transparent memories, allowing you to remember your true origins, while functioning seamlessly in American society.”
“So what went wrong?” Cal said. “What caused everyone to drift away and forget their duties… their very identities?”
I cast it wrong, Seth thought.
“He panicked,” said Lelani. “Seth should have cast the spell for each of you individually. The parchment was imbued with a specific identity marker for each member. Instead, he tried to cast it en masse and read the initiation line multiple times, once for each member of the party, building up the potency of the spell. It was cast hundreds of times more powerfully than intended. It overrode your memories and submerged your true identities. A massive jumble; you were not even left with the unencumbered history of the fictional personalities that were created for you.”
“They all got amnesia,” Cat said.
“My God,” Cal said. “We’re lucky Galen and Linnea drifted off with the baby still in their arms. If they’d left the boy in the meadow…”
“That was the palace groundskeeper and his wife? Their spell was programmed to have them to act as the infant’s parents, just as Lita and Parham Raincrest were to be Seth’s guardians. The original mission was to find a safe community to blend into, purchase homes close to each other, and raise the boy to adulthood.”
A catastrophic blunder, Seth thought.
“That idiot should never have been the group’s mage,” Cal said with the sureness of a military commander. “No matter who his father is.”
Seth’s headache grew worse, a pressure behind the eyes that felt strong enough to evict his orbs from their cavities.
“The duke would have sent his whole family across if it were possible,” Lelani said. “There was a time limit and some concerns as to how many souls could be safely navigated through universes at one time.”
“To save both sons, the duke jeopardized the life of the one that mattered,” Cal said.
“We don’t know for certain that Seth is…”
“And the team… all those people…,” Cal continued, lost in his anger.
“Rosencrantz cast that recollection spell across the planet,” Lelani said. “It’s too late for Fronik, but as of this moment, those who are still alive are waking up from a long dream. Now at least they know they might be in danger. If they are true to their oaths, they will attempt to find us.”
The more Seth listened to their conversation, the more it drove the point that he had ruined all these people’s lives. Fronik and Tristan were dead. So was his roommate, Joe. How many more were dead because of his mistakes? Was the infant, his possible half-brother, dead, too? Seth always hoped to reclaim the life his amnesia stole. He never imagined there’d be a day when he’d prefer to have his memories begin the day the fire killed his parents. At least in ignorance, the only life he knew to have ruined was his own. He didn’t want to hear anymore about his screwup.
“I don’t remember any life in another world,” he said, in a raspy voice, revealing he was conscious.
“That’s because of the shield protecting you,” Lelani said. “Even Rosencrantz had trouble pulling you into his spell.”
“Lucky me. What I need is a shield to protect me from traveling companions talking shit about me when I’m sleeping six feet away. Ben has eight bedrooms, you know.” Seth glanced over to see their reactions.
Cat looked into her cup as she stirred her tea and Lelani processed him with a detached look. Cal looked fit for murder.
“The captain wanted you in plain sight,” Lelani said.
Just then, Ben and Helen walked in from the beach holding freshly caught fish. The sun was past set, a faint line of yellow lay on the horizon, blending rapidly with the rich indigo sky. “Hiya, folks,” Helen said. “Got us some dinner fresh from the backyard.”
“We’ve already imposed enough,” Cal said. “We should go.”
“Go? Where?” Ben asked. “It’s dark back in those woods up north. I doubt you’d find your car before you froze to death, or worse, maybe run into a gnoll that you missed. Stay the night.”
“Ben, you’re an angel,” Cat said. “We accept.”
“But-” Cal started.
“But what?” Cat cut him off. “Rush back and freeze in the woods? We need sleep.”
Seth could tell who wore the pants in the MacDonnell clan. They’d stay the night.
He retired to the patio, then onto the beach, and used Ben’s campfire to light a cig. The fish were cooking on a spit above the fire, rubbed in spices and salt. They smelled good. The beautiful scenery and the fire’s gentle heat conflicted with his feelings. He headed back into the kitchen. The group around the table ceased their conversation on his approach and remained silent, as though they had run out of words.
Seth exited through the kitchen portal and entered the trailer in New York State. The winter air was more simpatico with his mood. There, among the books and periodicals, Seth sat on the precipice of two worlds. It occurred to him a cigarette among so much yellowed paper might not be prudent. He went outside, where his breath painted a frosty path before him. The winter stars were bright in a way they could never be in Manhattan. Tomorrow would be a new day, but Seth could not escape the nagging revelation about his true nature. He was a loser in two universes.
He had always blamed his nature, admittedly selfish, on his abandonment-on his lack of a loving family. He just assumed no one cared enough to come find him. Life had dealt him a fucked-up hand, so what did he have to be happy about? His dead roommate was right-Seth never put his neck out for anything or anyone. After all, if he didn’t try, he couldn’t fail; and if he never tried, he could never be disappointed. But the last forty-eight hours changed all that. He was a screwup preamnesia, too. He came from a place where he was a part of something bigger than just himself, where he had history, and even this hadn’t prevented him from committing a horrible mistake.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Ben said, coming out of the trailer. He hung a camping lantern on a hook by the door and approached Seth.
“They’re not worth that much,” Seth said.
“How can anyone look at a sky like this and wear such a sour puss?”
“Today I learned that I hurt a lot of people. A helpless baby was lost because of me. Three people are dead.”
“That’s pretty rough.” Ben prodded a fallen branch with the tip of his boot. He considered Seth’s confession.
Vocalizing his blunder made it more real. Seth couldn’t remember the last time a mistake bothered him so deeply. He couldn’t remember the last time he apologized for anything.
“Did ya mean to do it?” Ben asked.
“No!” That sounded more certain than Seth felt. How could he know for sure?
“Then, do better tomorrow.”
“Easy to say. I’m not good at…” Seth lost his train of thought. He didn’t know what he was trying to convey. He was not even certain about his own mind. He was emotionally detached from the events he witnessed, yet felt the remorse of failure. Remorse, like an unchallenged muscle, atrophies without use. It’d been a long time since he’d truly been sorry for actions of his that caused others pain. His role for the life that he knew was that of “the abandoned angry guy,” who watched others get the breaks they took for granted. The world had always been in the position of owing him. Until today.
“I’m not good at anything,” Seth finally said. “I’m not… good.”
“Good?” Ben looked at him as an art teacher studies a student’s work. “What the hell is ‘good’?”
“You know… ‘good.’ As in, ‘not bad.’”
Ben shifted like a welterweight, ready to go ten rounds. “No one knows what ‘good’ is. The concept of good is subjective.”
Seth wasn’t buying it. It trivialized his self-revelations and smacked of pop psychology. His silence must have broadcasted this to Ben. The old man retrenched and took on a more learned demeanor that belied his working-class facade.
“Look, son, there was this incident back in World War Two. My unit was ordered to take the town of Bernay from the Germans, see. We were a bunch of scared punks, bragging about women we didn’t have and money we’d never earn. What did we know about anything? In the hoopla of a firefight, some young local farm kids got killed. It didn’t take long to figure out our bullets killed them. Those Nazi cowards used them as shields. One young boy had his beautiful blue eyes blown out of his head. That boy’s face still haunts me today, clear as the day it happened. His eyes looking up at me from the dirt, accusing me of killing him. We were ready to give it up right then. I thought of turning my pistol on my own head a couple of times. How could I go home, face my parents, my brothers and sisters after that? When we won, the townsfolk surrounded us with cheers and beers. No American soldier left Bernay a virgin. But I didn’t feel like a hero. I didn’t feel ‘good.’ None of us ever talked about it. Just kept it in, the shame, the guilt. Took me years to move beyond that day. I still look at my own kids sometimes and shudder. What if one of them got shot? There but for the grace of God…”
“Great story, Ben. Really cheered me up.”
“Don’t be a punk-ass,” Ben said. “We didn’t set out that day to do a bad thing. That mistake didn’t represent my character, I know that now. But at the time I was too close to see it. Give it time, Seth. The past can drag you down like an anchor. It’ll drown you. But the days ahead are unwritten. They’re full of potential. So whatever you think good is, fix it in your head and work toward it.”
“What if I thought good was ridding the world of American imperialism through suicide bombing?”
“You wouldn’t be out here beating yourself up if you thought like that,” Ben said. “Look, you remind me of my youngest son. The missus and I were working a lot, trying to put the older kids through college. As a teen, he got into gangs, drugs, petty theft, getting girls pregnant, you name it. Stayed that way until he was twenty-five. Today, he’s a youth counselor earning his masters in social work.
“The way you carry yourself, thumb your nose at everything, you strike me as someone who didn’t get enough attention as a kid,” Ben continued. “Your antics are for getting everyone to notice that you don’t care that no one cares about you, like some adolescent tantrum. Grow up. Be an adult. If you really want redemption, you’ll find it. Life always throws you opportunities when you least expect them.”
Seth thought it unlikely. The weight of his history was more than his capacity to bear. Still, he considered Ben’s words. “You still think about those kids?” Seth asked.
“Yes. They’d have been parents themselves today if they lived. But I won’t let one bad moment define me. I’m Benito Hector Marin Reyes-father, husband, deacon of my church, town alderman, and retired draftsman. A good man who made a horrible mistake once.” Ben swallowed with the strength of a general holding back tears.
Here was a man, living with a horrible act, who refused to give up and went on to accomplish great things, Seth realized. Out of all the people in the world, the last living sorcerer on earth picked him to be its guardian. Seth wasn’t much older than Ben was when he stormed Bernay. Perhaps there was time to do better. Seth’s eyelids grew heavy. He would kick Ben’s words around in his head and decide how to apply them in the morning. Then he remembered something the tree said; something about Lelani’s translations.
“Ben. Rosencrantz appreciates all you’ve done for it,” Seth said with a strange confidence.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It said, ‘the keeper’s saplings will know fortune.’”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re the keeper. Fortune will be with your descendants. Your family line is blessed because of your work here. It’s the tree’s way of paying you… of thanking you. Communicating this to you is its price for helping us. Don’t ask me why I know this. But I’m pretty sure of it.”
Ben smiled and finally gave way to the tears he’d been holding back. “Well how ’bout that,” he said.
Seth grinned. Being the bearer of good news warmed him in the cold night air. It felt good, whatever that was.
Seth breathed deeply, grateful for the pristine northern breeze. Suddenly, his hackles rose. There was something impure in that last whiff. He heard the distant crunching of snow from several directions in the darkness around them.
“Ben, walk back to the trailer slowly,” Seth whispered. “Act like nothing’s wrong.” Seth walked in the opposite direction, away from the trailer and toward Rosencrantz.
“Seth?” Ben whispered.
“Just do it,” Seth stressed, in hushed tones.
Seth pretended to pick up kindling wood around Rosencrantz’s base. He hoped the tree wouldn’t be offended. Ben made it to the door. The next moment, there were whistling sounds in the air. Seth ducked in time to avoid a bolt. It flew over him. Another hit Rosencrantz’s trunk. From the trailer door, Ben let out an agonizing scream. A shaft had pierced his thigh. He fell into the trailer. Two more bolts penetrated the aluminum door just as Ben shut it behind him.
Seth heard more whistling and rolled to the other side of Rosencrantz. The tree took two more hits. Seth wondered if the tree suffered pain in real time. Seth found a fallen branch large enough to make a good club. The crunch of boots drew closer then stopped. Seth didn’t dare move. Any sound would give away his position.
With the stars out in force, he could at least see a few feet around him. He made out two shapes approaching the trailer. The edge of the lantern light touched on their… fur! Gnolls!
Shit, he thought. Seth closed his eyes and listened for the ones that were still out in the darkness. The crunching was closer. They were creeping right toward him. Shit, shit, shit! Lelani had said gnolls were nocturnal. He was a sitting duck. But why weren’t they on him already?
Seth sought out the ones closer to him. He saw their eyes floating in the darkness, reflecting the light from the lantern like possums on a country road. The lantern! Seth realized. It screwed up their night vision. They couldn’t see him there. But it wouldn’t last. Another second and the gnolls by the trailer would extinguish that light.
Seth searched for another branch within arm’s reach, a smaller one than his club. He found one and lifted it quietly. Without getting up, he hurled it behind him as far as he could into the meadow. When it landed, he heard whistling and the thud of bolts hitting that spot. The crunches now headed toward that area. Seth crept to the other side of Rosencrantz with his makeshift club.
The two at the trailer smashed the lantern. The feeble light that eked out of the trailer window was useless. The earth became black under the starry heavens. Seth shivered, his clothes wet from lying on the ground.
With crossbows drawn, the gnolls at the trailer opened the door.
Ben! Seth panicked.
One gnoll’s head exploded at the discharge of a pistol. The other gnoll shot a bolt into the trailer, just as a second blast painted the ground with its guts. Cal stepped out, a pistol in each hand. He put another round between the thing’s eyes.
The group near Seth showered the trailer with bolts. The gnolls charged Cal even as the cop stormed into the night, firing two-fisted into their midst. The gnolls’ path would take them past Rosencrantz and Seth. The one in the lead was huge, at least seven feet. The smallest in the group was about Seth’s height. He stayed back to take what Seth thought was a drink, but was in fact putting his lips to a horn. Seth was frozen as the beastie blew out a long alarm into the night. The first two gnolls passed by him. The one with the horn moved to rejoin his brothers, but when he was close enough, Seth stuck his club out and tripped him.
The gnoll held on to its crossbow as it rolled. It fired at Seth, who held his club in front of him like a shield. The bolt punched through the branch and glanced off one of Seth’s ribs.
“Fucking shit!” Seth yelled.
He raised the club and swung it down on the beast, who caught it before the branch could connect with its head. The gnoll twisted the club. Seth refused to let go and soon found himself off balance, then on his back. They rolled on the ground, struggling with the club between them. Seth managed to get on top. The thing had the most horrible breath, like a garbage truck in a heat wave. Behind them more gunshots, but Seth couldn’t spare the concentration. Feral jaws snapped at him. Seth tried to bring the branch between him and the beast’s canine teeth. He realized he was losing this tug-of-war just as a fourth and fifth gnoll entered his peripheral vision, charging from the night.
A whistling noise sounded. Seth braced for the arrow’s impact but heard one of the rushing gnolls whimper and gurgle instead. Lelani vaulted over Seth, longbow in hand, as she charged the remaining gnoll.
“Hold tight,” she shouted to Seth as she passed him, rushing the remaining gnoll.
Do I have a choice? Seth thought.
Seth lost his leverage and his opponent flipped him over. He landed on one of the dead gnolls. Its head had been blown apart. Seth caught a glance of Cal in hand-to-hand with the biggest brute of the pack as he tumbled over.
Seth’s adversary was on its feet already. Seth’s hand fell on the dead gnoll’s crossbow. A drawn bolt was already in the chamber. His opponent lunged at him. He picked up the crossbow and fired in one motion, hitting the creature on its side below the rib cage. The creature landed on him, pushing him to the ground with the crossbow between their faces. Again, a small wooden obstacle came between him and a set of killer jaws. His luck couldn’t last for long. The thing was enraged-thrashing wildly from the pain of the bolt. Its claws tore into Seth’s arms and shoulders. Seth pulled his knees toward his chest and managed to get his feet under the gnoll’s stomach. With all of his ebbing strength, he pushed the thing off him and scrambled away.
Cal and his gnoll were between Seth and the trailer; Lelani’s battle was to his side. Seth found himself weaponless with Rosencrantz at his back. He leaned against the tree for support. The bark was warm as flesh. He became a conduit for the tree’s energy. Heat traveled through Seth’s body, tingling, giving him a boost.
The wounded gnoll lunged at him. Seth put his hands up and soon gripped fur. A gentle heat traveled through him, and where Seth touched the gnoll with his hand the thing’s flesh melted into slag. The thing let out an inhuman howl of pain, nearly shattering Seth’s eardrum. Not questioning how, Seth seized the gnoll at its throat and again the flesh melted at his touch. The energy from Rosencrantz flowed from his hand on the trunk and through his body. He held his grip, pushing farther back, like a hot poker driven into butter. The dripping sludge of muscle and bone could no longer hold the creature’s head to its body. The gnoll’s head rolled off its shoulders, frozen in its shocked expression as it hit the ground. Seth pushed the thing’s hairy headless corpse away.
He looked around.
The giant gnoll had pinned Cal down. The cop jabbed it with his hunting knife, but the beast used his feral claws to rip apart Cal’s body armor. A shot rang out in the night. The big gnoll howled in pain. He bled from the neck. Cat leaned against the trailer door, a smoking hunting rifle in hand. Helen came up right beside her holding a shotgun. The gnoll abandoned the cop and lunged at the women, but Cat stood her ground and fired again.
The beast fell on its face and skidded to their feet from sheer momentum. Helen fired once more into the back of its head for good measure. “That’s for Ben, you son of a bitch,” she said.
Seth relinquished his grip on the tree. The winter chill enveloped him, like exiting a Jacuzzi on a cool day. He ran toward Cal, picking up another thick branch en route. His hand was sticky with melted flesh and cooked blood. Cal rose and examined himself for wounds. Cat hobbled to him on her air cast and crutch, while Helen guarded the trailer door.
“Oh God!” Cat exclaimed. “Cal, are you…”
“Fine,” said the cop. “My vest took the brunt of it.”
The last remaining gnoll in the party, realizing he was outnumbered, backed into the darkness around them.
“Where’d that fucker go?” Seth asked.
“He’s out there,” Cal said. “We need to get after it.”
“Not a good idea, dude,” Seth said. “I think the little one got a call off to his buddies. He had a horn.”
They heard a horn, emanating from the direction of the gnoll that had just left. The sound echoed through the night and sent a shiver of dread down Seth’s back. “It sounded a lot like that,” he added.
“Great! Good work, porn star.”
Seth resisted the urge to tell Cal to go fuck himself. They heard a crunch to their left and raised their weapons.
“It’s just me,” said Lelani, coming out of the darkness.
Under the starry light, Seth glimpsed the silhouette of her equestrian half; her human legs were translucent. The image looked like movie projections superimposed. Her illusion was stronger in the day because it utilized light, and in its absence it waned. It was odd to Seth that he understood that… a law of magic that he recognized, the way a science student accepts planetary mass. It was starting to come back-cracks in the dam that concealed his earlier life.
“Lelani,” Cal said, “we’ve got to brighten this area up before reinforcements arrive. We’re dead in the dark.”
Ben came out of the trailer with three more lanterns and two gallons of kerosene. His injured leg was bound with a tourniquet. Helen covered him as he hobbled about placing lights around the trailer.
“Ben, what are you doing out here, you old coot,” his wife said.
“Stop nagging. I’m the same age as you are.”
“Well I’m too old for this malarkey, too, but I wasn’t shot in the leg with an arrow,” she responded.
“That’s not going to be enough,” Cal said to them. “We need to really light this area up.”
“What about Rosencrantz?” Seth asked. “He just helped me out.” Seth held out his sludge-marked hands.
“Yes!” Lelani agreed. “Rosencrantz is an experienced mage, but he needs a conduit to cause effects in real time.” She went to the tree and placed both hands on its trunk. Lelani closed her eyes and began to commune with the great wizard. Seth couldn’t explain how, but he could see the tree’s life energy flow through the centaur, and he was sure the others could not. Even from a few feet away, Seth felt heat radiate from her, the same sensation he experienced earlier. Lelani was wrapped in a warm glow; a rosiness filled her cheeks, similar to what you’d see on an expecting mother. Seth had a bunch of tree-hugging friends that had often talked about the health benefits of communing with nature. He always thought they were cool in their own odd, crunchy way, but he never thought in a million years they’d ever be proven right.
“They are close,” Lelani said. “A large party approaches from the south, about three hundred yards. A mix of humans and gnolls. They have a sorcerer!”
Three whips of strong wind hit the lanterns and shattered them.
“Seth!” barked the cop.
What now? Seth thought.
“Grab an armful of magazines from the trailer and start building piles about fifteen feet apart to the south of us. Douse them with kerosene.”
“Gee whiz, is that really necessary?” Ben whined.
“Ben!” Helen, scolded.
“What about the human dudes?” Seth asked. “Fire’s just going to help them see us.”
Helen was already in and out the trailer door with the first batch of magazines. “You always said these things would come in handy one day, Ben. Time to put them to good use, or we won’t be around to read anything no more.”
Ben picked up Helen’s shotgun and helped Cat cover her as she piled magazines.
Seth stood his ground. “Look, we should go back to the cabana in Puerto Rico and shut the door behind us. Cut off the conduit. No death, no mayhem… easy breezy.”
Cal grabbed the photographer by his collar and lifted him to within an inch of his face. “How do we get back then? Do we let them set up camp right beside Rosencrantz? What if they douse the tree with kerosene for helping us.” He threw Seth to the ground in disgust. “You going to let that old woman do all the work?”
Seth fumed. It wasn’t fair. He had risked his skin to help Ben get to safety. He had used a tree branch to fight these crossbow-wielding monsters while the cop was armed with pistols and wearing Kevlar.
“That’s right!” Seth shouted back at the cop. “She’s an old lady and he’s an old man with a hole in his fucking leg! You’re a dad with a kid in the Bronx and a wife with a busted ankle that’s scared out of her wits! How am I the fucking bad guy for saying we get the hell out of here?”
Cal was about to respond, but Seth yelled first, “Go fuck yourself.” He walked off muttering and took an armful of magazines from Helen for the fire.
Seth built up the pile that was farthest out from the trailer. He knew the bad guys were gathering out there in the dark, but he wanted to get it at least three feet high. As he stacked and rolled the magazines, his hand fell across a copy of Action Comics number one, the first appearance of Superman. The artist in him was awestruck. It was one of the most iconic images ever created. In the picture, Superman lifted a car over his head and smashed it into a rock. There were a few others, too. Whiz Comics, Detective Comics… Seth wrapped them around his shins and snapped his tube socks over them, securing them to his legs. He realized what an optimistic gesture that was in light of what was coming toward them. Then again, if he survived, he’d never forgive himself for passing up the opportunity. A few less magazines isn’t going to make any difference in the end.
Seth poured kerosene over the periodicals and lit his fire. He used a rolled-up issue of Life magazine from the 1940s to transfer the flame to the other piles Ben and Helen built. Four pyres in a line from west to east blocked the southern access to Rosencrantz and the trailer.
Cal surveyed the setup, then said, “Cat, how many rounds do you have?”
“Five.”
“Climb up Lelani’s back and take a position with the rifle in one of Rosencrantz’s lower branches.”
“Climb? Cal, I’m on one foot, and my arm still hurts from that arrow I took earlier.”
“I know it’s tough, honey, but gnolls are not good climbers. They’re evolved canines, not felines. And you can cover Lelani from up there so she can stay with the tree longer.” Cal looked to the caretakers. The temptation to send them back home was written all over his face. But he needed the old couple, and they wanted to help. “Helen, take a position in the doorway of the trailer. Ben, do you have a weapon?”
Ben reached into the trailer along the side of the doorway and produced a wood ax.
“Good,” said Cal. “Crouch by the trailer hitch.” Seth was impressed with Cal’s strategy. He placed the couple close enough to the trailer for them to escape in case things went wrong. “Get back and sever the link if you have to,” he told them. They both nodded okay.
The flames were already six feet high. Light flooded the area between the trailer and the tree. Seth was grateful for the heat that dried out his damp clothes.
“We don’t have enough paper to keep this up too long,” Seth noted. “They might just wait for these pyres to die out.”
Cal considered this. “Lelani, where are they now?” he asked.
“They’ve stopped. About a hundred yards due south observing us; six gnolls and five humans. Rosencrantz and I have countered several spells from their mage already. They’re confused. Based on the rudimentary nature of their sorcerer’s spells, I don’t think they are even aware of Rosencrantz’s existence. It’s likely when they came to this reality, Dorn walked right past him and did not realize he was sentient.”
“That’s our advantage,” Cal said. “We need to go on the offensive. What I wouldn’t give for a pair of night-vision goggles.”
A light went on in Lelani’s eyes. “I have an idea along those lines,” she said. “But in the reverse… with Rosencrantz’s help, of course.” She closed her eyes and chanted, communing with the tree. The heat that emanated from her washed over them like a warm wind, and coursed into the woods beyond. Whatever this spell was, it was big. She released the tree and picked up her composite longbow and quiver.
“What are you doing?” Cat asked.
“Taking the battle to them.” Lelani searched the meadow for a sign.
“That’s suicide in the dark,” Seth said.
“Darkness is relative,” she said with a smile. “Sometimes you bring on the dark by turning up the light.”
“Have you lost your marbles?” Seth asked her.
“This entire meadow and parts of the forest are within Rosencrantz’s sphere of control.”
“So we’re going to ask Bambi to attack them for us?”
Lelani continued to search deeply into the night. “Seth, I will need you to stay in physical contact with Rosencrantz. He needs to be connected with one of us to effect change in real time.”
“Cat’s already in the tree,” Seth pointed out.
“Cat is not attuned to the magical energies flowing through this meadow. It has to be a mage.”
“I can’t do magic,” Seth argued. “I don’t remember going to school or anything.”
Lelani continued to search the darkness. “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “Once you are in a symbiotic connection with the tree, he will guide you. You are waiting for a particular spell I will cast once I’ve confronted their sorcerer. Rosencrantz will know what to do.” Her eyebrow arched and she pointed into the field. “There!”
“Where?” Seth asked.
“There.” A small speck of light, like a fallen star, meandered over a black section of the field.
“What is that?” Seth asked. Soon he noticed two more, and then several others-a convention of fireflies had been called. “Where’d the fireflies come from? It’s freakin’ winter.”
“He woke them up early,” Ben said. “He is a wizard, after all.”
It occurred to Seth that there might be a shortage of fireflies in the area this summer. He didn’t know why he had such stupid thoughts in light of what they were about to face-probably because he hoped to live long enough to see whether he was right. More flies poured in from the forest around them. Soon there were hundreds, then thousands, all convening around the enemy. Silhouettes in the shapes of men emerged in the glow.
“I can see them,” Cat said. She took aim with her rifle.
“Please hold your fire until they charge you,” Lelani said. With that, she bolted out into the night.
“What’s going on?” Helen said from the trailer.
“We might actually have a chance,” Cal said.
“Well, please explain it to us,” a confused Ben inquired.
“Yeah, do some ’splaining,” Seth agreed.