The Way of the Wizard

by Richard Ashley Hamilton

  “For Draal. For peace,” she said before activating the kill switch.

  Jim and his friends smiled, expecting the huge weapon aimed at them to spontaneously collapse or otherwise disappear in a puff of smoke. But nothing happened.

  Porgon said, “The joke’s on you, Trollhunters! Now get ready for the punch line!”

  And with another giggle, the Trickster Troll trained the siege engine on Jim and his friends and opened fire.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE SERPENT’S SPINE

  Well, that sure is inconvenient, thought Eli as he felt his cellphone vibrate.

  He reached into his overstuffed backpack, accidentally elbowing Steve. They crouched together nervously under the bleachers in Arcadia Oaks High School’s empty gym.

  “Good evening, Eli Pepperjack speaking,” the smaller Creepslayer answered into his cell.

  “Whattheflipiswrongwithyou?!” Steve whispered urgently, trying to pry away the phone.

  “Eli, can you hear me?” Jim shouted from the cell. “I’ve got a pretty lousy signal here!”

  The Creepslayerz felt another, much bigger vibration, this one coming from under them. The bleachers rattled, and the gym ropes swayed from the ceiling like a pair of nooses. Eli dry-swallowed and said, “Uh, Jim, now isn’t a good time. . . .”

  “Now isn’t a good time for me, either!” Jim said over a loud explosion. “Where’s Steve?”

  Steve snatched Eli’s phone, whisper-shouting, “Really, Jim Flake?! This can’t wait?”

  “Steve, don’t hang up!” Jim yelled from the other end. “I need pointers from our school’s reigning prank champ—you.”

  Somehow taking this as a compliment, Steve tossed back his hair and grinned—right before a Nyarlagroth head burst through the space between him and Eli. Screaming, the Creepslayerz ran in different directions. The hideous beast didn’t know which to follow. So it did as most predators do, and went after the weaker prey.

  “Aw, shoot!” said Eli as the Nyarlagroth chased him. “Why do they always go after me?”

  With his loaded backpack weighing him down, Eli roller-skated on the varnished gym floor. Steve ran in parallel, still yelling into the phone while also making a beeline for the exit. They both barged through the doors and onto the PE field at the same time, the screeching Nyarlagroth in hot pursuit. In a panic, Steve tossed the phone back to Eli. Eli bobbled it from hand to hand as the eel creature slithered under his Zip Slippers.

  “Whoa-a-a!” Eli squeaked while skating down the serpent’s spine.

  An unexpected thrill replaced Eli’s terror. He wheeled between the Nyarlagroth’s dorsal blades and flipped off its tail like it was a half-pipe. As Eli soared, he felt both happy that no students had lingered at school after hours and seen the Nyarlagroth—and sad that this meant no one was around to witness his sick skating moves. Eli stuck the landing behind the enormous eel and cried, “Steve! Steve, did you see that?!”

  Stunned by Eli’s acrobatic prowess, all Steve could do was form his hand into a C for Creepslayerz and say, “Eli . . . that was spectacular.”

  The guys performed their secret handshake, then hauled butt as the Nyarlagroth reared around and resumed its hunt.

  • • •

  Now that dusk had settled, Arcadia’s sidewalks appeared mostly clear of pedestrians. But the roads were filled with a different sort of traffic. The Nuñez family’s SUV fishtailed around the corner of Main Street and Delancy, followed closely by eight nimble Nyarlagroths. Manhole covers popped and fire hydrants burst as the sightless snakes hounded the speeding vehicle. Ophelia took a sharp left, jostling Javier in the passenger seat; NotEnrique, Nana, and Enrique in the back; and Barbara, Strickler, Dictatious, and Chompsky (and Sally) in the trunk.

  “Now do you see why I wanted the four-wheel drive?” Javier asked his wife.

  Behind them, Barbara glanced out the rear windshield and said, “I really hope Elijah and Stevie are okay on that mission of yours, Walt.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Strickler said. “Ophelia, could you please take your next right?”

  She pulled hard on the wheel, turning onto a dirt path through the woods. As the SUV bounced on uneven terrain, Nana said, “Oh, I do love a good high-speed chase!”

  Checking the rearview mirror, Ophelia saw trees topple behind them as the Nyarlagroths drew nearer. She tried to accelerate, but the pedal was already to the metal. The SUV roared out of the woods, careening directly toward the dry canal.

  “Whatever you do, do not stop until I say so,” Strickler instructed.

  The city councilwoman was normally a responsible driver. But today she followed Strickler’s orders and drove over the edge of the canal. The SUV raced down the steep concrete slope, picking up velocity as it went. Reaching the bottom, the undercarriage scraped against the canal floor with a flurry of sparks, and Strickler yelled, “Stop!”

  All four tires braked hard, leaving smoking skid marks. The SUV’s many passengers filed out through the doors and trunk and looked up. One by one, eight enormous eels crashed headfirst into the canal’s retaining wall. The concrete cracked but did not break, and the Nyarlagroth’s groans were quickly replaced by cheers.

  “¡Sí!” shouted Javier Nuñez.

  Even Barbara seemed impressed. She smiled at Strickler and said, “Well played, Walt.”

  “Well, it was a team effort, although I fear this reprieve is only temporary,” he said.

  “Yo, turtleneck!” yelled Steve.

  He and Eli raced Jim’s Vespa down the opposite retaining wall and over to the SUV. They opened Eli’s backpack and pulled out several stone rings that glowed a sickly green.

  “I see you had no trouble finding the Fetches in my old office,” said Strickler.

  “That part was easy,” panted Eli, handing over the Fetches. “It was the not-getting-eaten-by-a-giant-creeper part that was a little touch-and-go!”

  The ninth Nyarlagroth that had been pursuing Steve and Eli erupted to the surface behind them, just as its eight siblings did at the other end of the canal. The eels looked immense in the twilight, their cylindrical bodies thicker than the oaks they’d just uprooted.

  “No,” Strickler gasped at the colossal creatures. “I hadn’t realized they’d grown so quickly! They’ll never fit in these Fetches!”

  The group’s optimism sank and their fear rose as the Nyarlagroths wormed down the canal. And although cataracts occluded Dictatious’s eyes, a certain glimmer of insight suddenly shone within them. He snapped four sets of fingers and said, “The Fetches—let me have them!”

  Strickler handed over one. The blind Troll ran his fingers along its iridescent surface, muttering, “Yes! I built this one during my exile—hewn from the Darklands’ very bedrock!”

  Dictatious snapped the Fetch in two, prompting Strickler to cry, “Have you gone mad?”

  The Nyarlagroths continued down the concrete retaining walls, their progress slowed by the feel of the unfamiliar, manmade material on which they squirmed. But Dictatious didn’t miss a beat. He handed the broken halves to Barbara, then took another Fetch and broke it, too.

  “The Fetches are modular in design,” he explained. “There’s no way to carve a single slab of stone into so intricate a shape. It must be done by fitting together interlocking pieces—”

  “Pieces that can be rearranged into new shapes . . . ,” said Eli, catching on.

  NotEnrique snagged the remaining Fetches and said, “If ya want somethin’ broken, leave it to the experts!”

  The imp gave the stone rings to Enrique, who gurgled contently while smashing them to bits against the canal floor.

  “I’m so . . . proud?” said Ophelia with great confusion.

  “Now, we must all rearrange the pieces into one. Hurry!” barked Dictatious.

  Doing their best to ignore the putrid stench of the encroaching Nyarlagroths, the ragtag group of neighbors—male and female, young and old, human and otherwise—recombined the components of the nine individ
ual Fetches into a single, oversized ring.

  “Nig omnu sekko!” Dictatious incanted in Trollspeak.

  A great, swirling portal opened within the Über-Fetch. Even from a few feet away, Barbara Lake could feel the chill of the Darklands wafting out from the other side.

  “Jim spent two weeks in there?” she said, her face blanching.

  A Nyarlagroth flicked its tongue at Strickler. But Barbara tackled him out of the way before the tendril lanced through his chest. They tumbled to the ground, arms around each other, and Barbara said, “Who needs protection now?”

  If Walter Strickler had a witty response, it was drowned out by a burst of static as one juvenile Nyarlagroth dove into the Über-Fetch, followed by another, and another.

  “Neep!” said Chompsky, holding Sally-Go-Back tight.

  “He’s right—it’s working!” Nana seconded.

  Like some nightmarish train returning to the land of the dead, the remaining eels siphoned out of the surface world and into the Darklands. When the last tail cleared the threshold, the Über-Fetch collapsed under its own pull and swirled in after the Nyarlagroths.

  As the others stared in shock at the spot where the portal used to be, Barbara and Strickler self-consciously pulled apart and avoided each other’s gaze. Being exposed to the Darklands, however briefly, shook Barbara to her core. But it also filled her with some small shred of hope. Because if her son could handle the horrors of that place, then Jim could definitely survive whatever he faced now.

  CHAPTER 18

  NO TAKE-BACKS

  There’s no way I’m surviving this, Jim thought as a cannonball shot straight at him.

  He flicked his wrist, fanning out the shield on his left gauntlet. The enchanted metal of the Daylight Armor absorbed most of the impact. But the blast still sent the Trollhunter tumbling backward into a rut, next to Ballustra.

  “I warned you not to leave this trench,” she said. “My siege engine never misses.”

  “It was worth a shot. Literally,” Jim replied, his ribs aching.

  He braved a peek over the edge of their furrow and saw the siege engine blow more craters into the battlefield. Porgon controlled Ballustra’s cannon with his hexing arm, braying madly at the wanton destruction. Jim then saw Merlin, still unconscious and vine-bound beside the trickster.

  “At least Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! are okay,” Jim added, spotting his Troll friends giving six thumbs up from another foxhole fifty yards away. “Any sign of Toby and Claire?”

  “Toe-Buh-Ahs and Cla-Uhr have not returned since you dispatched them,” Ballustra said in the same stilting tone Draal once used.

  Jim looked down and saw his cell at the bottom of the trench, beside Ballustra’s kill switch. The outer casings were cracked open, with the fail-safe’s fine wires threaded around the phone’s internal antenna. Its touchscreen showed only one percent of battery life, but an astonishing eighteen bars of reception.

  “Your kill switch may not have stopped that siege engine, but at least it gave us one heck of a signal boost,” said Jim, recalling his frantic call with the Creepslayerz. “I know Claire and Tobes will come through. We just need to free Merlin. He’s the key to this entire plan.”

  More shrapnel rained on them as another crystal cannonball struck nearby. Ballustra calculated the distance between their position and the wizard, and said, “Give me your hands.”

  Jim overcame his trepidation and did as told. Ballustra grabbed his hands and lifted him bodily. She placed Jim’s feet atop hers, pressed his back against her chest, and intertwined their fingers. To Jim, it almost felt like he now wore a second set of armor on top of his Daylight suit. Ballustra winked down at him and said, “Draal and I used to play when he was but a babe. We called it ‘Rollie Trollie.’ ”

  Jim felt Ballustra’s firm legs propel them up and over the trench. As their bodies arced into the ashen air, hers folded into a ball around his. Ballustra encased the Trollhunter in her spiky form, and they hit the ground rolling.

  So, this is how it felt for Draal! Jim thought.

  Together, Jim and Ballustra spun like a living cannonball. Porgon’s eyes bugged as he saw them coming on a collision course. He hexed the siege engine to fire another fusillade. But Ballustra expertly zigged and zagged across the pockmarked battleground, dodging the cannonballs and aiming toward a raised ridge. She and Jim launched themselves off the natural ramp and separated in midair. With their momentum still carrying them forward, Ballustra knocked Porgon into the siege engine, while the Trollhunter sliced the vines off Merlin with his Sword of Daylight.

  But a wave of dizziness promptly struck Jim, and he fell onto his rear next to the wizard. Merlin cracked open one eye, then the other.

  “You’re awake!” Jim said, verging on nausea. “Did Porgon hit you with some kind of sleeping hex?”

  “Don’t be preposterous,” Merlin yawned. “I just needed another nap.”

  Jim’s jaw went slack. Fortunately, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! ran over from their refuge. Blinky dusted off the Daylight Armor and said, “An audacious attack, Master Jim! Worthy of Draal the Deadly himself!”

  The siege engine stirred, and Porgon crawled out from underneath its cracked barrel. He reached for one of Ballustra’s abandoned crossbows with his glowing hex hand. Giggling anew, Porgon then aimed the weapon at its maker.

  “Oh, do be quiet,” said Merlin.

  Porgon’s laughter died. He looked down and felt along his lips, which had been turned to solid, unmoving stone by the wizard.

  “Much better,” grumbled AAARRRGGHH!!!

  “Mmf mmf mmf!” Porgon cried in muted protest.

  “Sorry,” said Merlin. “No take-backs.”

  Jim cocked an impressed eyebrow and said, “That was some parlor trick!”

  “A little rest goes a long way, Trollhunter.” Merlin grinned.

  “Jimbo!” Toby’s voice called from afar.

  Toby and Claire sprinted toward them across the deserted battlefield, the scored landscape picked clean of Troll remains. They looked like they were in a serious hurry.

  “Mission accomplished?” asked Jim.

  “See for yourself!” Claire answered before pulling herself and Toby to the ground.

  A pack of Gruesomes spurted past them and landed around Porgon. Their elastic mouths salivated in hunger at the Trickster Troll’s petrified jaw. Porgon strangled out a sound of muffled fear. As the Gruesomes inched closer, he noticed how they had numbers painted on their sides. It was like some absurd joke that Porgon didn’t get.

  He fired Ballustra’s crossbow at the scavengers, skewering the Gruesomes numbered 1, 2, and 4 before he ran out of crystalline arrows. Porgon’s panicked eyes scoured the war zone for the last Gruesome—number 3. Where was Gruesome number 3?!

  Merlin cupped his emerald hands together and blew into them, simulating the squelching howl of a Gruesome. If Porgon could open his stone jaws, he would’ve let out a high-pitched scream. Instead, the Trickster Troll dropped the spent crossbow and fled the cavern. As he ran, he compulsively looked back with a gripping fear of the entity that would dine upon his mouth—a mouth that would never laugh again. And so Porgon would forever run from the invisible menace of Gruesome number 3.

  “There is no Gruesome number 3, is there?” said Merlin, amused. “Most clever.”

  Jim high-fived Claire and Toby—their hands still caked in the mud used to paint the food-comatose Gruesomes they’d found—and said, “Nope. But I can’t take the credit. That prank was pure Palchuk.”

  Jim’s mind drifted back to what Steve had told him during their brief, hot-wired phone call. Was it only last semester when Steve wanted to get even with Señor Uhl for a failing grade in Spanish? When Steve broke into school one night and snuck three cows into Uhl’s classroom—three cows numbered 1, 2, and 4? When Señor Uhl spent the better part of a week scouring the hallways, muttering angrily in Spanish and German, searching in vain for a phantom cow number 3? When the tormented teacher dropped
to his knees and screamed to the heavens, finally realizing that there really was no cow number 3?

  The memory brought a grin to Jim’s face. A grin that spread into a smile. And for the first time since Draal died, the Trollhunter laughed.

  “Now,” said Merlin in satisfaction. “Now you are ready to go home.”

  EPILOGUE

  FILLING THE VOID

  Yes, in all his many centuries of life, Kanjigar had known much happiness.

  But even those milestones couldn’t compare to the transcendent jubilation he now felt as a familiar figure materialized in the Void. Kanjigar the Courageous’s spirit glided over to the newcomer and said, “Welcome to the afterlife of Amulet bearers. The warden of warriors. The hall of heroes. Welcome home . . . my son.”

  Draal the Deadly blinked open his eyes, looking down at—and right through—his transparent body. He opened and closed his hands, seeing how his right arm had somehow regrown in this misted, magical plane.

  “F-father?” Draal said, his consternation soon becoming a chuckle. “Father!”

  Kanjigar and Draal embraced, their spirits lifting figuratively and literally. They twirled together in the weightless space, only pulling apart enough to get a good look at each other.

  “But . . . how can this be?” Draal asked, his joy bordering on tears. “Is Mother here too?”

  “In a sense,” said Kanjigar, tilting his horns to the side.

  Draal followed his father’s gaze to an orb of light, which flattened and expanded into a scrying window. Through this levitating looking glass, he saw the war-torn cavern, where Ballustra, Jim, and the rest of Team Trollhunters presided over a meeting between the surviving Trolls. He listened eagerly as Ballustra addressed the Garden Troll Elder and the River Troll Ruler.

  The two leaders gave each other a long, hard look before joining hands and knocking together their heads three times in a solemn Troll oath. All those who bore witness burst into a cheer of relief and congratulated one another.