The Way of the Wizard

by Richard Ashley Hamilton

  Jim only realized what he’d said after the last word escaped his lips. Claire’s eyes bulged. She regarded her boyfriend as she would Steve Palchuk or any other bully at their school. Toby nodded, forced a smile, and continued descending the salty crevasse. Jim remained in place, his fingers dug into the cliffside, his brain searching for the apology he so desperately needed to give, but finding none.

  “He was just trying to help,” Claire finally said.

  I know, Jim thought, but could not say.

  “I get that people process loss in their own ways,” Claire resumed. “But the truth is, everyone in Team Trollhunters has already been through that process at some point.”

  She pointed down at Blinky, midway between Merlin and Toby on the cliff, and said, “Blinky spent half his life thinking Dictatious died at the Battle of Killahead Bridge.”

  Jim watched his four-armed friend skillfully climb down the crevasse as Claire added, “I even thought my brother was lost forever in the Darklands. Until you found Enrique and brought him back.”

  But Draal isn’t coming back, thought the Trollhunter.

  “We were able to get through our grief because we had the love and support of our friends, our family,” said Claire. “So you can definitely work through your feelings at your own pace, Jim. But, please—don’t push away your friends and your family.”

  With that, Claire resumed climbing down the crevasse after Toby and Blinky. Jim watched her go and felt a sudden stinging in his eyes from the salt in the air.

  Yeah, he thought. Sure. It’s the salt, Lake. Keep telling yourself that.

  AAARRRGGHH!!! lumbered past Jim down the cliff, careful to keep Draal balanced over his wide, green shoulders. Realizing he was now the last in line, Jim followed after his teammates. But the deeper they went, the harder it became for the Trollhunter to tell where his black armor ended and the darkness around him began.

  After a grueling stretch of silence, Jim heard the sound of feet meeting solid ground. Merlin’s emerald boots stepped onto the floor of the crevasse, and he said, “There! That wasn’t so bad. Now, can any of you imagine what wonders await us beyond this salt cave?”

  “Is it a pepper cave?” asked Toby.

  Merlin stuck out his tongue at Toby, while Claire, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!!! joined them at the base of the crevasse. That just left Jim, now using his Glaives to rappel down the cliff as he did during his stint in the Darklands. Between the sounds of his handheld blades picking into the salted rock, the Trollhunter heard AAARRRGGHH!!! say, “I go first.”

  As the gentle giant forged ahead down the pitch-black path, Blinky turned back to Toby and Claire and explained, “Being a Krubera Troll, AAARRRGGHH!!! hails from Earth’s deepest caves and sees exceptionally well in the dark. Why, just stay close behind him, and our sure-footed friend will lead us on the path to safety!”

  No sooner did Blinky finish than AAARRRGGHH!!! stepped on a flat, unremarkable stone. The footfall triggered a series of unseen gears, their whirs echoing in the lightless cavern around them. A set of rocky teeth sprang out of the ground and clamped down on AAARRRGGHH!!!’s ankle, holding him in place like a bear trap.

  “Uh-oh,” said the large Troll.

  Without warning, an array of sturdy metal bars snapped into place around Merlin, Toby, Claire, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!!! The two Trolls rattled the oversized cage, while Merlin merely studied its construction and said, “Hmm, impressive craftsmanship . . .”

  Seeing his friends in danger pulled Jim out of his self-pity and into the present. He flipped off the cliff, connected his Glaives, and threw them in one fluid motion. The interlocked blades spun across the air and sliced at the trap, but failed to leave even the tiniest mark on its welded metal bars.

  “Most impressive,” Merlin said again of the impenetrable cage.

  Like a boomerang, the Glaives returned to Jim’s awaiting hand. He separated the blades, holstered them on his thighs, and conjured the Sword of Eclipse out of thin air.

  “Stand back,” he said to the others, undaunted.

  Team Trollhunters heeded the warning, and Jim swung his sword against the cage. He managed to break two of the bars, but the impact reverberated throughout Jim’s body. It felt like he just whacked an aluminum baseball bat against a brick wall.

  “W-w-what’s this thing made of?” Jim asked, his teeth still rattling.

  “Shake it off, Jim,” Claire encouraged from the other side of the bars. “You got this.”

  Seeing him in action gave her a glimpse of the old, happy-go-lucky Jim to whom she had grown so accustomed. In her heart, Claire hoped that having Jim smash this cage might bring him one step closer to dealing with his mourning, to smiling again someday. But that hope faded when she and the others heard a distinct hissing noise seep from the broken bars. Blinky took a closer look and said, “The bars—they’re hollow!”

  Pale, yellow smoke drifted out of them, flooding into and around the cage. As the others grew woozy around him, Merlin sniffed the fumes and said, “It’s some manner of foul gas!”

  “First one . . . who smelt it . . . dealt it!” Toby choked before collapsing. “No . . . take-backs!”

  “Tobes!” Jim hollered.

  Claire fell next, followed by Blinky, AAARRRGGHH!!!, and Merlin, their unconscious bodies now heaped in the center of the gas-spewing cage. Jim shouted for them to wake up and, in doing so, accidentally inhaled the sickly yellow vapors into his own lungs. The Trollhunter’s armored hands clung to the cage bars until he, too, succumbed to an overwhelming urge to sleep.

  As Jim’s body crumpled to the salt-crusted ground, his bleary eyes saw the approaching shape of a hooded Troll before closing for good.

  CHAPTER 6

  HOUSE ARREST

  “What do you mean, I can’t leave?” demanded Barbara Lake. “This isn’t some prison! It’s my home!”

  She marched past Strickler and right toward her front door. But as she stopped to grab her car keys from the foyer table, he slipped past her and blocked the doorway.

  “Please, Barbara, be reasonable,” Strickler implored. “With Jim and the rest still in absentia, and Gunmar marshaling his forces beneath our very feet in Trollmarket, we’re all in great danger right now. Especially the Trollhunter’s mother.”

  The debonair schoolteacher held out his hand, as if taking it would somehow calm Barbara. She felt the many, many eyes of her other houseguests on her. Nana Domzalski, the Nuñez family, Dictatious, NotEnrique, and Chompsky all watched from the living room like spectators at some awkward sporting event. Sighing, Barbara took Strickler’s hand—only to press her thumb directly into his palm. He cried out as she applied even more pressure, then used her leverage to twist Strickler’s arm behind his own back.

  “The Trollhunter’s mother can take care of herself just fine, thank you very much,” said Barbara as Strickler squirmed in her grip. “Now, I have patients to see.”

  “But the hospital put you on leave!” Strickler said, wincing in pain. “So you could . . . collect your thoughts.”

  Barbara’s eyes hardened behind her glasses. She bent Strickler’s arm even further behind his back and said, “Get lost, Walt. You’re good at that.”

  With that, Barbara released Strickler and sent him crashing into the couch. Her path now cleared, she opened the door, and looked out on her front lawn—the same lawn on which Jim and Toby used to build leaf forts as little boys. Strickler pushed himself off the couch, straightened his tweed sports coat, and said, “You’re right.”

  Hesitating at the threshold, Barbara turned and saw Strickler take a deep breath. When he spoke again, it was with a sincerity Barbara didn’t think she’d ever seen in him before.

  “You clearly can defend yourself,” Strickler continued, then gestured to the others in Barbara’s home. “But what about them? What experience do Ophelia, Javier and, er, Nana have against Stalklings, Helheetis, and the like?”

  Barbara looked from Strickler to the others in her home. They a
ll stared back at her with such wide, lost eyes, they reminded Barbara of some of her patients—of Jim, when he was too young to look after himself, let alone wield a magical suit of armor.

  “No, Walt . . . you’re right,” Barbara finally said. “We’re in uncharted territory here, myself included. It’s best if we all stay in our homes and wait for the kids to return.”

  “But how do we know our homes are any more secure than yours, Barbara?” asked Ophelia Nuñez. “How do I know my kitchen isn’t overrun with Gobblers?”

  “Goblins, mi amor,” corrected Javier Nuñez.

  “You won’t be going alone,” Strickler said, turning to the nonhumans in the room. “NotEnrique, you’re more than familiar with the Nuñez household from your time as an embedded spy there.”

  “Wait—what?” cried Ophelia. “That thing was living in my house?”

  “It wasn’t exactly a barrel o’ sweat socks for me either, lady,” groused NotEnrique.

  Strickler ignored them and resumed laying out his strategy, saying, “NotEnrique will accompany Mr. and Mrs. Nuñez back to their home, while Gnome Chompsky and Dictatious shall keep watch over Ms. Domzalski. If any of you spot anything out of the ordinary, contact me.”

  Barbara watched Strickler jot down his information onto two small sticky notes. He handed them to the others as they reluctantly shuffled out of the Lake home and returned to their own. Strickler even helped Dictatious don his cloak to avoid the sunlight outside; then he shut the door after the last of them had passed through it. Locking the dead bolt, Strickler turned around to face Barbara. She cocked an eyebrow and said, “What makes you think I was joking when I told you to get lost?”

  “Please, Barbara,” said Strickler. “With Draal no longer around, you need backup. Let me act as your bodyguard in his stead.”

  Barbara laughed bitterly and said, “Walt, the whole reason Draal became my bodyguard was to protect me from you. In fact, the whole reason the hospital has me on leave—to ‘collect my thoughts’—is also because of you. So get out of my house—NOW—or the only person who’ll need a bodyguard around here is you.”

  • • •

  Strickler spent the rest of the morning walking around Arcadia. He told himself it was to keep an eye out for trouble, to act as a one-man neighborhood watch of sorts. But as skilled as Changelings are at lying to others, they’ve never been too successful at deceiving themselves.

  Crossing Main Street, Strickler had to admit he’d grown to love his adoptive town. It had been centuries since he’d been sent from the Darklands to infiltrate the surface world—much as NotEnrique had some months ago. In that time, the Changeling originally known as “Waltolemew Stricklander” had traveled to many locations across the globe—Berlin, Ranthambore, even Jersey City. Yet none of those places ever felt as much like an actual home to Strickler than Arcadia Oaks. He wondered if other Changelings felt the same way—Changelings like NotEnrique, Otto Scaarbach, and . . .

  “Nomura,” Strickler said.

  In all the recent calamity, he’d forgotten about his fellow shape-shifter who had also defected from Gunmar’s side. And if Barbara refused Strickler’s protection, then perhaps she might be more amenable to Nomura’s. Strickler remembered that Nomura had reapplied to her old position as a curator at the Museum of Arcadia. It had been an effective cover for her human disguise once upon a time, and the job appealed to her again as she now searched for a new direction in life.

  Strickler consulted his watch. If he hurried, he figured he might be able to catch Nomura at the museum before her interview. Knowing Arcadia Oaks like the back of his (sometimes green and scaly) hand, Strickler took a shortcut through the woods, leading to the dry canal. He was about to walk down the canal’s steep concrete slope, when an all-too-familiar crackling sound split the air.

  “Oh no,” Strickler gasped.

  He ducked for cover behind some overgrown weeds and watched as a Horngazel portal opened at the bottom of the canal. A hulking figure emerged from the swirling tunnel of light and rock, and stood in the shadow cast by the overhead bridge. Yes, Walter Strickler had seen many things in many places during his many years on Earth. But none of them frightened him nearly as much as the sight before him now. For Gunmar the Gold had just stepped out of Dark Trollmarket and onto the surface world.

  CHAPTER 7

  UNDER THE HOOD

  What a nightmare, Jim thought as he woke.

  The Trollhunter was grateful to leave such a miserable dream. Even though the sun had not yet risen outside his bedroom window, he was glad to be back home, safe and sound and secure in the knowledge that Draal wasn’t actually—

  The sound of metal scraping against rock jarred Jim back into reality—back into the cruel reality that Draal’s death had been no bedtime fabrication. He blinked a few times, and his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the new cave in which he now found himself. Squinting harder, Jim saw Toby, Claire, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!!! also stir beside him.

  They had been freed of the cage somehow, not that it mattered. Because Jim and his friends now all sported matching shackles around their wrists and ankles, the connecting metal links scraping against the rock floor. Worse still, Jim realized that he no longer wore his Eclipse Armor, nor could he find his Amulet. The suit must’ve sublimated into nothingness after Jim lost consciousness, after he saw that Troll in the hood. . . .

  “Oh good, you’re awake,” said Merlin, similarly shackled at the other end of the cave. “It feels like I’ve waited another thousand years just for you to rouse and free me.”

  “Can’t you free yourself?” said Claire groggily. “I mean, you are still a wizard, right?”

  “Oh yes, the most omniscient and omnipotent of all,” Merlin said without a hint of humility. “When I have my Staff of Avalon. Which all of you lost. To our greatest enemy. Who wants to plunge our worlds into an era of never-ending darkness. Not that I’m bitter about that, or anything . . .”

  “Er, regardless of past events, it’s our present predicament that now requires attention,” said Blinky. “Fortunately, there’s nary a restraint built that can withstand a Krubera’s strength!”

  AAARRRGGHH!!! concentrated, causing the runes etched along his skin to glow green with fury. He railed with all his might . . . only for the cuffs to remain unbroken. Blinky examined his own shackles, noticing how the metal had been marbled with traces of iridescent crystal. He then licked the cuffs, his face immediately souring at the taste.

  “Sapstone!” he said between spitting sounds. “A rare underground element that saps the brute strength of any Troll, even a Krubera. But only a most skilled artisan would know how to properly alloy Sapstone with base metals. Curiouser and curiouser . . .”

  Getting impatient, Jim’s mind drifted to his Amulet. He needed to find it. The Trollhunter closed his eyes and expanded his other senses. He felt around the cave with his mind.

  Ting!

  Jim’s eyes snapped open and saw the blue light flashing from across the cave. The Amulet sat on a worn workbench, surrounded by assorted tools and mechanisms. Jim telepathically commanded the device to fly into his hand as it had done countless times before.

  But the Amulet stayed put.

  “C’mon,” Jim grimaced. “C’mon, you piece of junk!”

  This new delay only added to the Trollhunter’s ire. Being stuck here, shackled at the bottom of some cave about as far from home as he could get, Jim just wanted to break something—starting with that stupid Amulet.

  “Can’t . . . reach it!” Jim said, finally giving up.

  “Reach what? That?” asked Merlin, pointing to the Amulet. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Jim and the others watched in slack-jawed disbelief as the wizard stood, casually slipped out of his wrist and ankle restrains, and retrieved the Amulet. Merlin then handed the ticking device to Jim, returned to his spot on the cave floor, and slipped back into his shackles.

  “You could’ve gotten out of those cuffs any time you wanted
?!” Jim hollered.

  “Well, I wouldn’t be much of a wizard if I couldn’t, now would I?” said Merlin.

  “Then why aren’t you the one freeing us instead of the other way around?” Jim said.

  “What am I supposed to do—wave a wee wand and magically rescue you from every sticky wicket you encounter in life?” asked the wizard. “I’m afraid there are some problems you must figure out for yourself, Trollhunter.”

  “Fine, but does this need to be one of them?” Jim snapped, shaking his shackles. “Can’t you tell that all I want to do is just go home?”

  “Yes,” said Merlin. “But I can also tell that you’re not ready to go home. Not yet.”

  Jim was about to fire off some snappy retort, but it caught in his throat when the wizard’s words finally sank in. Merlin took this as a fine opportunity to fold his hands, use them like a pillow on the cave floor, and pretend to go to sleep. Overcome with frustration, Jim leaped to his feet and clawed at the air in Merlin’s direction—at least, as far as the shackles would allow. Once he ran out of steam, Claire leaned closer to him and said, “Jim, let it go. You have the Amulet now.”

  “Not that it’ll matter,” blurted Merlin, followed by a fake snore.

  Jim tuned out the wizard, gripped the Amulet in his hand, and said, “For the glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command!”

  Blinky, AAARRRGGHH!!!, Toby, and Claire shielded their eyes in anticipation of the light show that was sure to follow. But the Amulet did nothing. Jim tried the other incantation.

  “For the doom of Gunmar, Eclipse is mine to command!”

  Again, nothing.

  “The Sapstone!” Blinky declared. “It must be inhibiting the Amulet’s magic!”

  “Nope,” said Merlin, no longer feigning sleep.

  Claire snapped her fingers and said, “That knockout gas from the cage! Maybe it has some lingering side effect that’s blocking the Amulet!”

  “Afraid not,” Merlin purred, stroking his beard.