by E. G. Foley
He started picking his way carefully up the pile, but found himself tiring quickly after his earlier ordeal. As he found another handhold between the folds of rock and pulled himself up, he reflected on the day’s events.
Dani being cross at him was a clue to how bad it must have looked from the outside. Maybe he had come closer to death than Aunt Ramona or the physicians had cared to tell him. All the more reason to spend some time with Red.
A chunk of rock rolled away under his foot as he stepped up onto the next outcropping, but he caught his balance and moved on.
Thankfully, he could barely remember the moment when he had noticed the blood trickling out of his nose. Honestly, it had been pretty horrifying. He had thought he was going to die there and then.
Everything was foggy after that, but at least he had shown his mettle. Besides, what had happened wasn’t his fault. He had only been doing what the Elders told him.
Aye, they jolly well ought to put him in the Lightrider group tomorrow to make up for nearly killing him like that, he thought. Especially since tomorrow was his birthday.
At last, he reached the top, where he immediately spotted the Gryphon’s nest wedged between two boulders. Built of mud and straw, the nest was waist high, with about a five-foot circumference. Red didn’t even bother getting out of it when Jake joined him.
The poor beast—usually his mighty defender—merely peeked over the edge of his sickbed as Jake approached, dusting off his hands after that climb. “Hey, big fella. I came to see you. How are you feeling?”
“Becaw,” Crafanc-y-Gwrool answered with a plaintive note, his golden eyes soulful with misery. Today, the usually magnificent creature wasn’t at all living up to his royal Welsh name, which meant Claw the Courageous.
Indeed, Jake’s eyes widened as he realized there wasn’t a feather left on the Gryphon’s head. Dr. Plantagenet hadn’t been jesting.
But for a few scraggly patches of sorry-looking feathers and baby-chick fuzz, the mighty Gryphon’s eagle parts were as naked as the Christmas goose. Even his lion body looked mangy.
Jake couldn’t help staring.
“Caw!” Red protested, using his beak to pull his blanket up to hide himself.
“Aw, I’m sorry, boy. No offense intended. It’s all right. You don’t have to be shy with me. I’m your master, and I’m here to make sure they’re taking good care of you.” Jake climbed up onto the edge of the nest and sat there to be close to him. “Is that blanket warm enough for you?”
“Becaw,” Red said, resting his beak on the edge of his nest with a gaze full of woe.
“Try not to worry,” Jake encouraged him. “This will pass before you know it. Besides, it’s not like you’ve got some disease. This is supposed to happen to you every now and then, right? Just think how magnificent you’re going to look when your new feathers grow in. You’re going to be handsomer than ever. Don’t worry,” he added, “I won’t leave Merlin Hall until you’ve got through this.”
Jake patted the Gryphon’s chicken-skin head, wondering if it unnerved Red not to be able to fly for the time being. His pet seemed comforted by his presence.
Jake proceeded to tell Red about his Assessment to distract him from his condition. He played down the bad part, of course, not wanting his currently helpless protector to worry about not having been there.
“So now I get to see which group they’ll put me with tomorrow,” he rambled on. “You know my preference, I’m sure. I’d love to hear the lecture from whatever mentor they’ve got lined up for the Lightrider group. I wonder if they’ll talk about what it’s like to fight the Dark Druids, or how it feels traveling through the Grid…”
He shrugged after pondering it for a minute longer. “Ah, well. I’ll just have to wait and see.”
Jake stayed with Red until he heard Dr. Plantagenet calling him from the bottom of the rocks. “I’m going to have to ask you to come back down now, Lord Griffon! We’re closing up for the night.”
“Be right there!” he yelled back. Then he turned ruefully to Red. “Looks like I’ve got to go. But I’ll be back tomorrow evening to see you, promise. They’re going to be keeping us busy all day.”
“Becaw!” Red said. It was always difficult to know exactly what he was trying to say without Isabelle there to translate telepathically, but Jake was fairly sure his loyal pet wanted to be the first to wish him an early happy birthday. Red nuzzled Jake’s hand with his large, golden beak.
“Aw, thanks, boy. Get a good night’s rest. This whole molting business will be over before you know it. Bye for now.” Then he climbed back down the boulders, retraced his steps along the wooded trail, then rejoined the others out on the main path.
They wanted to know at once how Red was doing. Jake reported to them on his pet’s condition while Dr. Plantagenet escorted them back toward the entrance of the menagerie.
Along the way, they passed an intersection with another path and heard a banging sound coming from one of the pens. When they looked over, they saw a huge, human-like creature on the loose.
Dani gasped and pointed. “Dr. Plantagenet! That one got out of its cage!”
“Oh, er, that’s not one of the animals, strictly speaking,” he answered. “That’s Og.”
“Og?” Jake echoed.
“Ogden Trumbull. He’s building a new fence around one of the pens for me. He helps out around here.”
They looked at the Green Man in surprise, then stared at the towering figure, who was pounding thick wooden posts into the ground using his fist for a hammer.
Wearing nothing but tattered brown trousers that were much too short for him, Og had leathery, grayish skin the hue of stone. His thighs were like tree trunks and his massive arms seemed too long for his body; he did not have proper human hands, but only three thick, crude fingers.
He was bald-headed, with a broad, dull-witted face, a low brow, and no discernible neck, just massive sloping shoulders. His large, slightly pointy ears flopped outward at the tops.
“He’s so big,” Dani murmured in trepidation. “What is he, Doctor?”
“Well, er, he’s half-troll,” Dr. Plantagenet admitted in a delicate tone.
“Half troll?” Archie cried.
“Shh! You don’t want him to hear you! No need to hurt his feelings,” the veterinarian chided.
“I don’t understand.” Archie turned to him with that familiar fascinated scientist glow coming into his eyes.
“Og lives out here at the edge of the zoo. I wouldn’t dream of caging him, of course. He’s half-human, after all, and thus has human rights, and so far, has done nothing to earn a prison. Still,” the Green Man explained softly, “although Og is reasonably civilized, he’s not fit for…shall we say, an indoor life. Out here, he can have at least some supervision and a purpose for his existence. He’s quite good with some of the larger animals.”
“You’re attempting to civilize a troll?” Archie asked in dubious amazement.
“Half-troll,” Dr. Plantagenet corrected.
“How’d that happen?” Jake drawled.
The Green Man sighed. “Og is the result of an unfortunate experiment by one of our more misguided wizard-scientists.”
“You mean somebody made him?” Dani asked in surprise.
“In a laboratory, yes, I’m afraid.” The twigs on Dr. Plantagenet’s crown waved as he shook his head in regret. “He’s a little bitter about it, truth be told. But honestly, wouldn’t you be? Poor, young Og will never have a normal life, being neither fully troll nor fully human.”
“That must be very lonely for him,” Isabelle remarked.
The Green Man nodded. “The animals here are his friends. As am I. If I could just get him to quit trying to ride the Oliphants,” he added wryly. “Like many youngsters his age, he’s quite obsessed with horseback riding, but of course, there’s not a horse alive strong enough to carry him, poor lad.”
“Well, I’m not sure I want him going anywhere near my Gryphon,” Jake said with a
worried frown.
“No, I’ve told him to leave the Gryphon alone until he’s done molting. Og understands that.”
“Good.”
“But I still don’t understand,” Archie persisted. “Why would anyone want to tinker with breeding a better troll?”
“I don’t know, but it cost the wizard his powers. The Elders sentenced him to have his magic removed by the Extraction Spell as his punishment for crimes against Mother Nature. I suppose the wizard’s intentions were good, at least in his own warped mind. You know how they tend to go astray.”
The kids nodded.
“Apparently, he was trying to create a super-strong hybrid servant. To elevate the rock troll into a useful species. They’re not very nice, in general.”
“I’ll say! Trolls are known for their tempers. And occasional bouts of cannibalism,” Archie said.
Jake and Dani looked at him, aghast.
“Don’t worry, Og’s not going to hurt anyone,” Dr. Plantagenet assured them. “I work with him every day to teach him how to behave. He’s reasonably civilized. Besides, he’s barely your age—just a boy, himself.”
“A troll boy,” Dani echoed dubiously.
“Half-troll.” Jake quirked a brow at her. “Who’s seven feet tall, several hundred pounds of muscle, and could rip your arms off if you look at him wrong.”
“Right,” said Archie. “Think we’ll keep our distance.”
The Green Man winced. “That is probably for the best.”
They had reached the arched entrance of the menagerie by now and started to say goodbye to Dr. Plantagenet, when suddenly, Jake witnessed the strangest phenomenon in the distance.
Out on the wide, green lawn that stretched between the palace and the zoo, a large, upright circle of bluish light appeared in a sudden, brilliant flash.
“What’s that?” he cried, pointing to it as it glowed, pulsating with energy.
“Oh, you’ve never seen that before?” the Green Man countered. “That’s a portal opening up—a gateway to the Grid. One of the Lightriders must be coming in.”
Jake drew in his breath. “Lightrider?”
In the next heartbeat, he was running as fast as his legs would carry him to see this marvel up close.
“Jake, wait up!” his friends called, but there was no chance of slowing him down.
He had to see this, and he wanted a front-row seat to whatever was going to happen. As he neared the portal on the lawn, he could see it better. Pliant and plasmatic, the portal swelled and shrank slightly, like a living thing breathing. A strange sound came out of it as it throbbed, a deep, vibratory hum.
Skidding to a halt a few feet away, Jake confirmed that it was, indeed, a flat circle, maybe eight feet in diameter, like a giant round mirror.
The golden-white light coming from the portal was shot through with moving swirls of pink and blue, like the colors on the fragile membrane of a soap bubble. Beyond its glowing surface, he caught a tantalizing glimpse of a tunnel.
Meanwhile, Jake wasn’t the only one who came running to see the Lightrider about to make his entrance. Other guests crowded around to view this rare and fascinating spectacle.
Sir Peter Quince happened to be passing by and rushed over to take control of the crowd. “Stand back, ladies and gentlemen! I implore you, give him room! It isn’t safe!” he yelled at the spectators, flapping his arms in his long black robes to shoo them off. “For your own safety, move away!”
Jake resented being pushed back. “Why?” he called. “What will happen?”
Sir Peter turned to him in surprise. “If you get too close, you could be sucked into the portal, and without the proper authorization, you will be instantly vaporized! Care to try it?”
“Ah, no.” Jake backed up a few feet, as did everyone else. But Sir Peter failed to give the Lightrider coming in off the Grid quite enough room, himself.
They heard the incoming agent before they saw him. A strange word echoed to them through the pulsating tunnel of light.
“Yeeeeeee-haaaaw!”
A second later, a tall, lanky man in a cowboy hat and a long leather coat burst out of the portal with a loud whoop and barreled straight into Sir Peter, knocking him flat.
As the cowboy fell forward on top of the sputtering wizard, Jake gasped to see several arrows sticking out of his back, another bristling from his thigh.
A tumbleweed rolled out of the glowing circle after him.
He looked up slowly, tipped his hat to the people, and said, “Howdy, y’all.”
“Get off me, Josephus!” Sir Peter spluttered, still struggling at the bottom of the heap.
“Hold on, Pete,” he answered, “afore my guests come a-callin’.” Not even bothering to climb off Sir Peter, the new arrival calmly pulled up his left sleeve, exposing a tattoo like a complicated star on the inside of his forearm.
It was inlaid with tiny chips of light that glowed around the points; he started punching these like buttons with his fingertip in a seemingly random pattern as he spoke. “Folks, y’all better step back in case them Apaches on my tail take a mind to send a few more arrows my way. They didn’t ken to my strayin’ on their territory…”
From somewhere beyond the pulsating portal of light, the Apaches’ whooping war cries were growing louder. Jake could hear a thundering of hooves.
“Hurry, Agent Munroe, they’re coming! Close the portal!” an anxious centaur lady cried, poised to gallop off to safety.
“Hold yer horses, gal, I’m a-tryin’.”
Wide-eyed, Jake leaned forward, trying to see through the portal into the wild, dusty land where the Lightrider had come from, but he ducked back with a startled gasp when a real-life Indian arrow whizzed right past his nose.
To his own surprise, Jake reacted automatically with his telekinesis, knocking the arrow upward so nobody was hit.
As it rocketed off over the people’s heads, the cowboy looked over at him, sizing him up in a glance.
“Nice move, kid,” he drawled.
As soon as he stopped pressing the glowing buttons in his arm, the portal disappeared. “Whew. Ma’am,” he added, tipping his dusty hat to Miss Helena, who had just come hurrying out to fetch Isabelle to start getting ready for the Floralia.
Then the pincushion cowboy promptly passed out from blood loss. Sir Peter struggled out from under him, moving gingerly, given the Lightrider’s wounds.
“What is he?” Dani asked in wonder as she and his cousins arrived.
“A Lightrider!” Jake said in awe.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I think he’s…an American,” Isabelle whispered tentatively.
Dani and Jake looked at each other in astonishment.
An American? This was one type of creature none of them had ever encountered before.
“Worse!” the centaur lady whispered, sounding slightly scandalized. “That one’s a Texan. By my troth, they’re the worst kind!”
“Well.” Archie grinned and put his hands in his pockets. “Enter: the cowboy.”
Then they all gazed down at the unconscious, long-haired gun-slinger, from his ten-gallon hat to his alligator boots.
Sir Peter deposited the wounded cowboy on the ground and quickly beckoned to some gnomes. “Get him inside at once. Take him straight to the healers!”
In moments, a dozen little gnomes had lifted the unconscious Yank up onto their shoulders and sped him off to Merlin Hall to have the arrows pulled out of his back.
“Too bad Red’s all out of healing feathers, ’cause that’s gonna hurt,” Jake said.
Dani turned to him, visibly distraught again after seeing the agent at Death’s door. “Still want to be a Lightrider now?” she demanded.
Jake just looked at her. He pressed his lips together, but said nothing.
He didn’t think she’d like his answer.
CHAPTER NINE
Spy Hunting
That night, Isabelle stepped into view at the top of the gilded stairs weari
ng a celestial-blue silk ball gown with a garland of pink rosettes adorning the skirts at knee-level. With a matching rosette tucked into her blond hair, the almost-debutante looked picture-perfect.
Dani jumped to her feet when she saw her, clapping her hands eagerly. “Oh, Isabelle, you’re so beautiful!”
Even Jake and Archie nodded in approval.
“Not bad, sis.”
“Thanks, if only I could breathe! Mother laced me up so tight.” She smoothed her corseted waist with a giggle, her face shining with excitement at the prospect of attending her first ball—the famous Floralia, no less.
The flower-themed gala had been celebrated since pagan times to welcome the dawning of Beltane. According to tradition, the adults would be staying up all night at their party to watch the first rays of Beltane illuminate the great St. Michael and St. George Ley Lines that ran right through the center of England.
Isabelle didn’t plan on doing that, since she would be going out with the other young ladies at sunrise to share in another ancient tradition: gathering the Beltane dew. This was supposedly a powerful ingredient in beauty potions.
The ballroom on the first floor continued filling up as magical folk of all kinds streamed in, bedecked with flowers, corsages, boutonnieres, gowns in flowered prints, or flowered hats, and glittering with flower-shaped jewels.
Jake and Archie were relieved at being spared this event, but Dani was a little disappointed.
The three of them had been loitering in the sprawling foyer of Merlin Hall to watch all the people going into the ball. They stood out of the way, admiring the smartly dressed adults of their party who now caught up to Isabelle.
Her tuxedoed father, Lord Bradford, took one of Izzy’s gloved hands and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. “There you are, my dear.” He beamed with his lovely daughter on one side of him and his glamorous wife on the other.
Jake smiled at his uncle, younger brother to the mother he had never known.
Next came Henry, escorting Great-Great Aunt Ramona. The Elder witch looked magnificent in a dark green gown with a flowered shawl and pearls around her neck. A flower-shaped jewel of some sort glowed brightly in her upswept silver hair.
