Marshall nodded. “Well, if we’re going all in, then, we should also look at a possible time shift between dimensions. It’s about a full day on Nith for every Earth hour, which explains our weird perception of the time differences between the worlds. That also explains why Aaron’s body is fourteen years old here, but middle-aged on Nith.”
Rapidly gathering her thoughts, Mayberry said, “Last year I read a book called Endless Universe. The authors think that there are probably multiple universes and that parts of them intersect at times. Maybe if someone asks it the right way, the Tree is able to teleport their minds into an alternative intersecting universe.”
“Weird,” Marshall said, tapping his fingers on the desk. He whirled back to the keyboard. “What the hell. Let’s look at Aaron.”
“How are we going to do that? Are you going to hack into the hospital’s security cameras or something?”
Marshall responded with a waterfall of clacking keys, “Yup. They don’t protect access to the cams the way they do patient records.”
In a few minutes, a boy’s outline flashed live on their monitor. A nurse was carefully sponging off Aaron’s inert body. Mayberry leaned in and stared at the image. She thought she recognized the sleeping face, but he was so much younger, it was hard to be sure. Then the nurse flipped him onto his side to wash his back and untied his green hospital gown. She opened it up, revealing Monga’s mark, a red, raised spiral between his shoulder blades.
“Oh my God,” Mayberry breathed. “It’s Urrn, all right. Now what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, but we’d better do it fast,” Marshall responded, zooming in the security camera’s lens to focus on the medical chart attached to the foot of the bed.
On it, bold red type declared Termination Procedure Authorized at 7:00 P.M.
“That’s it, then,” Marshall blurted out in dismay. “We have to go back to Nith, right now, and find Aaron or he’ll die—on Earth and in Nith.”
Mayberry looked at Marshall, her eyes scrunched. “I agree we have to go. He saved us. But that doesn’t mean I’m not scared.”
Marshall slid his chair back. “I’ll get my gear and meet you back here in half an hour.”
“Let’s do it,” Mayberry said. “I’ll pack food and water.”
Mayberry had started walking down the stairs with Marshall when an epiphany struck. When her feet touched the ground floor, she whirled and began to concentrate. Gray power pulsed around her fingers. She aimed them at a heavy book resting on an end table. The faint gray glow shot from her fingers, lifting the book off the table and sending it flying against the wall.
Nith had happened, and everything modern science believed about the nature of the universe was totally wrong.
“Sick,” Marshall said, taken aback. “I figured Nith was a dream, so I never even tried to do magic here.”
“Me neither—and that was really hard. Our magic is weaker here. Or maybe it’s just fading.”
CHAPTER 53
WHEN MARSHALL GOT TO HIS HOUSE, he ignored his parents and scurried upstairs. Grabbing his backpack, he threw in his Swiss army knife, a Leatherman tool, some rope, a poncho, a couple of water bottles, and various snacks. Then he went to the medicine cabinet and plucked out a tube of antiseptic ointment and a small box of bandages before rushing down the stairs.
He was already heading out the front door when he remembered something else that might prove useful. A couple
of years earlier, his dad had purchased a “home protection” weapon he couldn’t afford, mostly because he thought it looked cool. It was a western-style Uberti revolver with an extra-long barrel, pearl grip, and scroll engraving. Marshall rushed upstairs into his parents’ room and opened up the drawer in his dad’s nightstand. There it was, resting in its leather holster, along with a box of .45-caliber ammunition. He loaded it and stuffed it in his backpack—just in case. Yee-ha. He felt powerful—invincible even—and suddenly understood why carrying handguns could be so dangerous, even if he wasn’t sure if this type of Earth technology would work on Nith. He didn’t expect to need the gun, but he was ready for action either way.
Marshall jumped on his bike and rode to Mayberry’s house. She was already waiting for him outside.
They coasted into the Mystery Forest parking lot and stuffed their bikes into the same shrubs they’d used before. Approaching the split-rail fence, they kept their eyes focused on the slat bench next to the ranger’s cabin. They figured that he’d be around at this time of day, so they’d just make a dash for the fence, scramble over it, and sprint into the forest before he could stop them.
There was no need.
The ranger was lying flat on the bench. He knuckled his sleepy eyes, yawned, and rolled over with his back to them. It was easy to slip past him and head for the forest.
Crossing into the aspen grove felt different this time. The fading, gold-tinged light was welcoming, like an old friend with open arms. They both knew exactly how to find the Tree. It was like a beacon drawing them close. When they arrived, they were once again amazed by its massive scale and indescribable beauty. The vibe from the Tree when they touched its base was warm and comfortable.
“I guess we should lie down,” Mayberry said. “Are you . . . er . . . feeling sleepy?”
“Ha-ha,” Marshall said. “Not really. But I guess the Tree will take care of that part.” His hands slid along the pale bark as he lowered himself to the leaf-strewn ground.
Mayberry lay down beside Marshall and entwined her fingers with his, then used her other hand to reach out and make contact with the bark.
Marshall closed his eyes, and images from Nith swam in his head. The swift rushing river, the thick forests that teemed with bizarre wildlife, the sheer joy of running faster than humanly possible . . . all this merged, then blurred.
“We wish to go back to Nith together,” Marshall said, yawning.
Mayberry sleepily confirmed, “I agree.”
A moment passed, then golden leaves blew in a circle around them as the Tree granted their wish.
CHAPTER 54
ERIC FITZSIMMONS GRIPPED the thin metal arms of the visitor’s chair. His wife, Carol, rested one hand on his right shoulder and pressed a tissue to her nose with the other. A prim, white-clad nurse scurried around the small room with brisk efficiency, checking Aaron’s vital signs for the last time. Carol didn’t see the point. The medical staff was preparing to disconnect her son’s life support. He’d be dead just a few minutes later.
“Mrs. Fitzsimmons. Mr. Fitzsimmons.”
Dr. Buddingham approached, holding his clipboard. He was the doctor who’d finally convinced them that Aaron’s mind was already gone and never coming back.
“It’s time to go.”
“No . . . not yet,” she said reflexively.
“We’re about to begin the shut-down process,” the doctor said gently. “It’s not going to get any easier.”
Carol helped Eric rise from the chair. They shuffled over to the bed together and bent over their son’s still form, kissing him good-bye for the last time. His body might as well have been a department store mannequin. For almost two years, they’d prayed that he’d come back, but now they had decided it was finally time to let go, time for him to go to a better place, where they might be reunited one day. Two children lost now.
The nurse switched off a machine, and the time between the beeps that indicated his lungs were inflating slowed. Then stopped. Another machine gurgled, then went quiet.
CHAPTER 55
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for Marshall and Mayberry to wake up, then walk to the vast meadow of tall green grass.
Marshall pointed skyward. “Look.”
A gray creature the size of a city bus was flying overhead, making a dusky blot against the blue sky. Within seconds, it disappeared into the distance.
Then an ear-piercing rumble sha
ttered the quiet, and they felt a tremor pass under their feet.
Mayberry’s face went pale. “That’s a powerful earth spell being cast,” she said, nervously rolling her shoulders forward.
“It came from that direction,” Marshall said, pointing to a hillock about a hundred yards away. “That’s where we left Aaron.” He felt his own anxiety level shoot up four or five notches.
“We’d better get over there,” Mayberry shouted as she started to sprint. “And fast.”
Pulling up behind a large rock formation close to Aaron’s cave, Marshall inhaled deeply before taking a look. A cacophony of thunderous noises rolled over the hill. He heard swords clashing and the battle cries of many species of warriors—all engaged in combat. Marshall steeled himself, then peered through a narrow cleft between the boulders. His eyes froze on a figure he never expected to see again. His heart began to hammer, and a brick grew and twisted in his gut.
Hurt, but very much alive, it was their malevolent nemesis . . . Monga. Dripping stumps were all that remained of his two left arms, a crudely attached wooden peg had replaced his right foreleg, and in lieu of his left eye, there remained only a fleshy, black, rotting hole. In spite of his misshapen appearance, he was as fearsome as ever, happily brutalizing a melee of Sleviccs with his magic assisted by an army of monsterous allies.
“There’s Aaron,” Mayberry said, stepping in next to Marshall and pointing to the top of the hill above the cave.
Heavy patches of sweat stained Aaron’s shirt, his face was red and blotchy, and he stood on unsteady legs, leaning his shoulder into Uuth for balance. Kellain stood in front of Aaron protectively, valiantly shielding him from a gaggle of attacking Heeturs, the fierce-looking tattooed brick-colored creatures they’d seen marching by on the valley floor. Fighting like a Viking berserker, Kellain dispatched one Heetur after another with two-handed blows from his war club.
A gray wind spell dribbled from Aaron’s fingers, but it wasn’t strong enough to push back any of the attackers. Uuth’s spiked tail flicked out viciously, administering a deathblow to one of the Heeturs’ armored reptilian pets. The Heeturs had herded this group of Sleviccs into a circle, packing them together so tightly that it was becoming impossible for the Sleviccs to maneuver. It wouldn’t be long before they were overrun and annihilated.
Hundreds of other Sleviccs were arrayed on the battlefield, fighting in military formations, each near the fluttering battle flags which identified their tribe. They fought valiantly against the undisciplined packs of Varnets and clumps of Heeturs besieging them.
At the far edge of the melee, Marshall spotted four huge creatures that he’d never seen before; they had large brown eyes, thick dark fur, and heads as big as desks. They lumbered forward, then sprung up on long legs, using their curved front claws to slash and rend a jumbled mass of Heeturs.
Another new species he saw in the fight was a pack of red-skinned beings with football-sized yellow eyes, who sped around on six legs, biting at the heels of Varnets. The Sleviccs had clearly allied with various other species to fight Monga and his army.
The entire battlefield was a nightmarish blur of slashing, thrusting, biting, and hammer blows.
A Heetur used one of its tusks to pierce a Slevicc’s shin, toppling it into a blob of Varnets. Without hesitating, a surge of Varnets leaped onto the Slevicc’s back, merciless as army ants, and began stabbing her with small, flashing knives.
A small band of Sleviccs charged toward Monga, filling the air with the zing of tumbling axes and the whistle of spears. Monga raised a spiked wooden staff and used it to cast an orange defensive spell, creating an impenetrable force field that easily blasted the Sleviccs’ weapons aside. He then fired an earth spell into the ground just ahead of his assailants, lifting tons of soil, rocks, and debris into the air, then releasing the detritus into the charging Sleviccs. Most of them were wounded or killed, as were a large number of Monga’s own allies who weren’t nimble—or smart—enough to get out of the way.
“Aaron’s not dead yet,” Marshall said, grimly trying to crystallize his thoughts and form a plan.
“Yet being the operative word,” Mayberry replied, trailing her fingers over the rock.
Suddenly, Monga’s staff shot an unrecognizable yellow spell at a gigantic Slevicc warrior who was demolishing his Heetur assailants with a long hammer. When the yellow spell struck his chest, the dumbfounded Slevicc froze in astonishment, as though he’d been zapped by a cattle prod. Then, a golden stream of energy began to flow from the Slevicc’s body back into the spikes of Monga’s staff. The Slevicc fell to his knees, then collapsed as his life force poured into Monga’s staff. Yammering with excitement, three Heeturs jumped on top of the fallen Slevicc and began slashing.
Mayberry grabbed Marshall by the shoulders to force him to look at her. “Monga went back to the temple and found the wand. It looks like a staff, but I recognize the spell he just cast—it was one of the spells the wand etched in my mind.”
CHAPTER 56
CAROL URGED THE NURSE to take Eric down the hall to the waiting room. If her husband stayed in the room any longer, she feared he would come apart, and she wouldn’t be able to be put him back together again. Only one device was still operating, the pump in Aaron’s chest that kept his lungs working. She searched her mind for the name of the device, but couldn’t remember.
The nurse clicked a red lever to shut the pump off.
On the heart monitor’s screen, a white line arced sharply upward, then began to flatten out, getting smaller and smaller.
She knew what that meant.
CHAPTER 57
MAYBERRY SEARCHED Marshall’s eyes, ready for action but wanting to agree on a plan.
“The only way we can defeat him is if we launch a sneak attack before he knows we’re here,” Marshall said with a steely edge to his voice. “Hide behind that boulder for now. I’ll circle around to his other side and creep in close. Wait until I attack. Then jump in. Once he’s dead, the Sleviccs and their allies will help us deal with the pig-creatures and Heeturs.”
Mayberry nodded and squeezed Marshall’s hand, and they ran around the base of the hill. When Mayberry ducked behind the nearby boulder, her senses were in overdrive. She psyched herself up for one final battle with their remorseless foe. She knelt down to grab handfuls of the grass, scooping up rock and other debris, and stuffing all of it into her pockets. She was terrified. Fortunately, the hiding place Marshall had picked for her didn’t intersect Monga’s current kill zone.
Marshall was still on the move and had a ways to go. But when Mayberry peeked around the side of the boulder and saw more Sleviccs getting slaughtered, she was too brave and too impatient to wait for his signal. She invoked an earth spell, and waves of deep brown power poured from her fingers under the boulder. It shifted forward, jerked a few times, then tore itself from the ground, heading on a collision course with her target. The boulder thumped off Monga’s exposed rear flank, driving him to his knees. The force of such a bone-crushing blow should have crippled or killed him. Instead, he wheeled on his haunches to face his new adversary. His nostrils flared as Mayberry hurled a series of fireballs at him. His staff’s orange counterspell easily deflected her fireballs, which exploded above him like Fourth of July fireworks, lighting up the sky.
“Keedlun. Monga keel keedlun,” he screeched, his face a murderous, foaming mask of bile, his one good eye as cold as ice.
A gray miasma wind spell exploded from his staff.
Mayberry had expected to be able to deflect his spell with one of her own, but Monga’s jet of energy overwhelmed her defenses, hurling her body onto the turf. Cruelly bruised but with no bones broken, she scrambled to her feet, though the next power spell, which he had already fired her way, would probably finish her.
She was stupefied by what happened next. A luminescent bubble instantly appeared, enveloping her body just as Monga’s enormou
s white miasma power spell struck. The spell bounced off her protective bubble, broke in two, flowed around it, and sped harmlessly past.
How am I doing this? Mayberry thought as she floated on her back in the bubble, perplexed. This must be a protection spell Merlin’s wand implanted in me when I controlled it.
A bold Heetur charged Mayberry, battle-axe first, and leaped onto her bubble. His blow bounced off the orb like it was a rubber ball, and when his shoulder touched the bubble, he squealed, then dropped to the ground, unconscious. His scant hair stood straight out of his head, as if he’d touched a high-voltage electrified fence.
CHAPTER 58
MAYBERRY COULD SEE MONGA glaring ferociously at her only a hundred feet away. What is Marshall doing? I should have waited. Monga balanced his staff against his shoulder, grunting a spell while gesticulating with his upper right hand. He reached into one of his leather bags with his only other remaining hand and withdrew a pinch of purple powder. An ominous lavender glow began to swirl between his palms like a small tornado.
“Keedlun die,” he croaked.
The lavender cloud flew toward her bubble so fast that she barely had time to brace herself for its impact. Instead of smashing into the bubble, the cloud gently wafted through its skin, filling its interior with smoke, then coiled slowly around her body. For a second, it felt as though she was being immersed in scented lotion. Then the substance began to tighten around her. Marshall, where are you? She struggled for breath that wouldn’t come because her diaphragm was being slowly crushed. Her eyes began to bulge from their sockets. The pain was agonizing, and her vision went fuzzy as her oxygen-starved brain slowed.
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