“Thank you.” Chris’s face felt warm. This seemed far from real. Merlin had just compared him to King Arthur. It was almost too much for his mind to bear. He felt he had to change the subject. “But how’d you know my last—never mind.”
“You’ll see.” Another wink.
Merlin slipped the ring off his finger. “I’ll trade you for it,” he said.
“What would you like to trade for?”
“You’re from Earth. . .” Merlin appeared deep in thought. “Oh! Do you have any Indian food? Some tikka masala or something? With some naan?”
“Nope. Sorry.”
“Damn. I love that stuff.”
“Maybe I could get some and bring it back?”
“Oh, that’s all right. What do you have on you?”
Chris reached into his jean pockets and pulled out his lip balm, thirty-seven cents, and a waterlogged pack of fruit gum. “Hey. This is the thirty-seven cents you were talking about.”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, but this is all I got.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Why not? I haven’t been able to figure this ring out anyway. You Eartheans do make some wonderful candy and gum, and my lips do get chapped out here on the beach.”
Chris handed Merlin the items and took the ring. “Thank you so much, Merlin!”
“If you could do one more thing for me, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Sure.”
“Could you sign my guestbook?” Merlin took an ancient scroll from his bookshelf, unfurled it across Chris’s lap, and handed him a feather quill.
“Of course.” Chris printed his first and last name and signed on the appropriate lines. He scanned the entries above his, finding names like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Cleopatra, Gandhi, Sacagawea, Link, Kvothe, Chewbacca, Samwise Gamgee, Usagi Yojimbo, Brienne of Tarth, Inigo Montoya, Luna Lovegood, Locke Lamora, Miles Morales, Mei Kusakabe, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Sir Didymus.
“Well, I’d love for you to stay and chat all day, but I see that you’re about to leave.” Merlin seemed somewhat saddened. “I’m guessing you’re expected back with the ring.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately I should probably get going.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Chris. Come back by any time. You can tell me about how you defeated the Three Fears, and I could tell you about my wizard’s duel with Gandore4, if you’d be interested in that type of thing.”
“Of course I would! I’ll try my best to get back here.”
“Cool. . . . That’s what they say on Earth these days, right?”
“They do. Thanks again, Merlin.”
Chris stumbled away from the cottage with a wide smile glued to his face. Not even the necessity of talking to Pete on the communicator could bring him down.
When Pete had alerted the appropriate person at the Realm Travel Department, a portal opened up in the same spot Chris had initially come through to Brocéliande.
And Chris jumped through the portal, ring in hand.
* * *
4 The wizard’s duel garnered the single highest pay-per-view ratings the multiverse has ever seen. Merlin vs. Gandore was billed as the Havoc at RyzokA but also known throughout history as The Clash of Mages, The Brawl to Rule Them All, or The Enchanters’ Encounter, depending on which Realm you watched it from.
Gandore, the self-proclaimed GWAT (Greatest Wizard of All Time), challenged Merlin to the duel after Merlin failed to add Gandore in the Acknowledgments section of his bestselling book: Prophesying: When You Know You’re Going to Stub Your Toe, But You Get Distracted By Something Else and Stub It Anyway; And Other Observations of a Life in Magic. But the animosity between the two had gone back for decades.
It started at The Enchantment Under the Lake Dance in their seventh year of magic school.
Merlin, who had set up a ruse with his future son in order to trick the Lady of the Lake into falling in love with him, inadvertently found Gandore making inappropriate advances on the Lady in a carriage. Merlin cried, “Hark! You! Taketh thy damned hands off her!” Gandore stepped out of the carriage and was about to break Merlin’s arm when Merlin knocked him out with a haymaker to the jaw.
Things only got worse from there.
Merlin’s son went on to antagonize Gandore across multiple timelines. Many times, Gandore was humiliated by being covered in manure.
When Merlin built his house on the black-sand beaches across from the Isle of Avalon, Gandore saw it as a direct challenge to his famed underground vault of magical treasures. Gandore devised the “Three Fears” to protect his valuables from the perceived threat.
Merlin had always maintained that he had no quarrel with Gandore, and for many years there was peace. But then Gandore saw his absence in the Acknowledgements of Merlin’s book as an intentional slight, and demanded retribution in the form of a public Wizard’s Duel.
In the duel, Merlin was able to wrest the upper hand from his opponent when he sidestepped a mega-bolt and caught Gandore in a Figure Seven Wand-Lock.
That was it.
Viewers everywhere felt ripped off and demanded their money back.
Merlin gave his winnings back to the people, while Gandore fled with his share and hasn’t been seen since.
A Controversially, the duel was held on the hundredth anniversary of the Massacre of Ryzok, on the grounds where the slaughter took place. It was supposed to be a respectful memorial of those who were slain, but many found fighting a duel there to be in bad taste.
Finding Valorous
Marian had gone to check back in with the management group. She was going to try to keep people away from the locker room for the next few hours. Before she left, she had gone over inter-dimensional blade operations with Ana, Jake, and Harris. She warned that it wasn’t quite as easy as Eddie had made it out to be. It was true that you needed to state clearly where you wanted to go, but it was possibly more important what you were thinking when you slashed the air with the blade. Pure focus was necessary to achieve the right result.
“You should do the honors,” Harris said as he handed the dagger to Jake.
“Okay.”
Jake took the dagger and closed his eyes. After a deep breath, he said, “Valorous,” and slashed the air in front of him. The fabric of reality split like a sheet on a clothesline being cut vertically. “Here goes nothing,” Jake said as he stepped through.
Ana followed, with Harris and Xop close behind.
They found themselves amid a sea of lifelike human statues. Giant purple flowers towered over their heads. If Harris wasn’t mistaken, the actual Taj Mahal sat on an island across an expanse of water. Two colossal blue birds flew together with an impossible grace just overhead. The sky beyond the birds was achingly beautiful. Great arcs of color reached across the heavens, dominating the view from horizon to the very top of whatever world they had entered.
“It’s . . . Titan.” Jake seemed to choke back tears.
“Like, where the dragon is from,” Harris said. “That realm?”
“No.” Jake took a moment to compose himself. “It’s strange how our brains work,” he said. “I guess my synapses just fire at random sometimes. At the last fraction of a second before I opened the portal, I did think about the realm the dragon was from; I don’t know why. But then thinking of the word Titan made me think about my favorite book, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.”
“I read that, too.” Recognition and awe shone on Ana’s face as she scanned the area.
“My dad is a high school English teacher,” Jake said. “He pushed authors like Vonnegut on me when I was pretty young. I always thought I wanted to be a teacher too, or maybe even a writer, until I read a line in that book that stuck with me.”
“What was it?” Harris said.
; “‘I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine.’ Something about that line lay in my subconscious throughout my teens, I guess. I’m pretty sure it’s why I was drawn to becoming a firefighter.”
“So this is a place from that book?” said Harris.
“Yes. This is Saturn’s moon, Titan.” He pointed up. “Those are Saturn’s rings.” Jake looked around, eyes wide. He rested a hand on a life-sized statue of a samurai warrior in full battle armor. “This can’t be real, can it?”
“It seems real to me,” Ana said.
In the silence that followed, one of the blue birds called out from above.
“I guess we should probably get going,” Jake said, reluctantly. “I’ll take us back to Earth to try again.”
He closed his eyes for longer this time before tearing another hole in reality.
They jumped back through the portal into a forest.
“I thought you were taking us back to the Site?” Harris said.
“I tried to.”
The forest seemed Earth-like, but it was hard to tell for sure. Harris scanned the horizon. The mountains around them were very familiar.
A shock of existential dread shot through Harris’s body.
“This is where the Site was,” he said. “But it’s not here anymore.”
“Where is it, then?” Ana seemed to be feeling the dread, too.
“Could we have come to Earth before the Site existed? Can we travel through time with this thing?” Jake said, as he looked at the dagger in his hand like it was something sinister.
“Maybe I should try it,” Ana said, holding out a hand.
Jake was quick to get rid of it, passing it off to Ana without a word.
A rustle in some nearby bushes made all of them spin around. An old man in tattered clothes crashed through the tree line. “Have you seen it?” he asked, wild-eyed.
“Seen what?” Harris said.
“Calm down,” the man said to Harris, holding his hands out, palms down. “I’m talking about the will-o’-the-wisp. Was it here?”
“Not that we’ve seen.”
“Oh! There it is.” The man pointed to the east.
Harris followed the man’s pointing finger to a flickering blue flame just short of the horizon.
“I saw it first,” the man yelled, then took off toward the flame. “I’m so close,” they heard him say as he hurried away.
“Hey! Come back,” Harris called.
But the man vanished into the woods.
Ana said, “Earth,” and sliced the sky.
This time, when they passed through the portal, they arrived back in the locker room.
“Whew,” Harris said, wiping his brow. “I was scared as hell for a minute there. Thought we might never make it back to our own reality.”
“Me too,” Ana said.
“Sorry, guys. It’s harder than it looks.” Jake looked disappointed in himself.
“It’s all right,” Ana said. “We’re all new at this.”
“You wanna get us to Valorous?” Harris asked Ana.
“Sure.”
“Just don’t think of any books you’ve read or anything,” Jake said.
“Oh, thanks. Put that bug in my brain. I’ll try, though.”
Ana concentrated, said, “Valorous,” then made her cut.
They landed in an impossibly expansive field of red roses. A menacing black tower, which looked a lot like the security tower at the Site, loomed over them from the center of the field. The sky was painted with vibrant colors in a breathtaking sunset.
“You know about this?” Harris asked Ana, staring at the massive tower overhead. As if he needed another reason to like her, she had taken him to the actual Dark Tower.
“Yeah, sorry,” she said. “Ideas do sneak into your mind, don’t they?”
“Exactly.” Jake’s face shone with vindication.
The smell of so many roses was intoxicating, along with the powerful pull of the tower. Harris began to wander away.
“Harris! Let’s go.” Ana cut the air again.
Harris shook his head to clear it and followed the others through the portal.
They were in a forest, again. But the tree directly in front of them had a clock set into its trunk. The second hand ticked away loudly as it made its way around the face.
“Could this be right?” Jake said.
“No.” Ana shook her head. “I can’t stop thinking of realms from books I’ve read.” She glared at Jake, then offered the dagger to Harris. “You should try.”
Harris took the dagger, his finger brushing against Ana’s warm hand, giving him a fluttering in his chest.
A brown bear emerged from behind the tree.
Harris nearly peed himself, jumping backward and letting out an embarrassing shriek.
“Hello,” the bear said. “How are you guys?”
Harris closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the word Valorous. There was nothing else to concentrate on. But just as he cut the air in front of him, an unwanted thought popped in. He inexplicably thought about the Ring of Brocéliande, wondering for a fleeting moment if they’d recovered it yet.
Harris leaped into the portal and landed on a black-sand beach. The others almost crashed into him from behind. He moved out of their way and looked around.
A cozy little cottage was built in to a grassy hill just up from the beach. Sunflowers and birdhouses dominated the garden in the front of the cottage. An actual waterfall fell over its roof.
“Hello,” a voice called from the sea.
An old man with a long white beard came barreling toward the beach, riding a small wave on a surfboard. Harris cringed as the surfboard crashed into the sand, thinking the poor old man was going to go flying head-first onto the beach. But instead, the surfboard glided along the sand until it stopped next to the group of portal travelers.
“I hadn’t had a visitor in a long time, and now I get five in one day!” The old man waved at the group. “I’m Merlin. Welcome.”
The group waved back.
“You’re sure you don’t want anything? Maybe a nice sandwich?”
“Huh?”
“Oh, sorry.” Merlin proceeded to explain to the group how he could see slightly into the future.
“Is this Valorous?” Jake asked.
“No, my friend. This is Brocéliande. What do you want to go to Valorous for? Those guys are kinda up their own asses. I figured you were here looking for the ring, too.”
“Too?”
“Yeah. If you were looking for it, you’re too late. My buddy Chris Miyazaki just went back with the ring about an hour ago.”
“Really?” Ana said. “Good for him.”
“You know him?”
“Yeah. I went to Casting school with him.”
“Oh. . . cool. He impressed the hell out of me.” Merlin set his board on the sand. “Can I get you guys some tea, or maybe something to eat?”
“No, thank you,” Harris said. “We should probably get back to Earth and see if the Ring of Brocéliande actually works. If it does we won’t have to go to Valorous after all.”
“I’m Jake, by the way.” Jake held out a hand to Merlin.
“Good to meet you, Jake. Are you a magician like Chris?”
“No. I’m just a lowly firefighter. Ana and Harris are magicians, though.”
“I can tell Ana has talent,” Merlin said, “but what about this in-a-big-hurry Harris guy?”
“Harris? He’s not too bad. He doesn’t screw everything up all the time.”
“Wow. Thanks for the ringing endorsement.”
“I kid, I kid. He’s good, too. He conjured Xop here, so he can’t be all bad.”
“Hello, Xop,” Merlin said, shaking his tiny hand. “So I
can’t talk you guys into a sandwich, then? You gotta go? Really?”
“We do,” Ana said. “The dragon has my sister and we’re anxious to find out what happens with this ring.”
“All right. Good luck to you kids, then!” Merlin waved again, then applied lip balm to his lips.
Harris tried to think about Earth, the right Earth, at the right time. He slashed a portal into existence and stepped through.
They came through onto a flat expanse of hard ground patterned in red and white checkers.
“Where are we? Wonderland, now?” Ana said.
“I don’t think so,” Harris replied. “I wasn’t thinking of that at all.”
A giant plate rested on the ground to their right; it must have been about six feet in diameter. On the plate sat an oversized sandwich—ham, cheese, lettuce, and tomato on wheat bread from the looks of it.
“I was hungry.” Harris shrugged. “I guess I should have taken Merlin up on a sandwich before we left.”
The sandwich moved on the plate, turning around to present them with an almost anthropomorphic . . . face.
“What’s up, ya’ll?” the sandwich said in a strange approximation of a Southern accent. It licked its bread lips with a tomato tongue. “I don’t know about ya’ll, but I’m starvin’.”
Harris backed away from the sandwich, concentrated harder, and opened another portal. But the portal was much smaller than the others had been.
The sandwich shuffled off the plate toward the group. “Lemme get a li’l taste,” it said.
Harris urged Ana to go through the undersized portal. She crouched down and hurried across.
Jake had to drop to the checkered floor and crawl through. Xop flew through in a zipping dive.
The sandwich was nearly on top of Harris. It opened its bread jaws wide.
Harris fell to his hands and knees and scurried into the portal like a scared rat.
Safely back in the locker room, the portal closed as the sandwich yelled, “Oh, come on, y’all!”
“What the hell was that?” Jake rubbed his face in disbelief.
The Conjuring of Zoth-Avarex Page 14
