Good Ogre

by Platte F. Clark

  Squidditch? Max asked himself as he turned his attention back to the beast he was riding. And now that he got a closer look, he knew exactly what it was—a squid! His saddle was mounted just behind the creature’s collar on the posterior surface. Wait, why do I know that? Suddenly Max had a memory of his old biology textbook—he’d learned about squids in school. He didn’t recall that they could fly, however.

  Max looked over his shoulder and saw that he was in a giant stadium where other Squidditch players were darting about. They all seemed to be chasing something, riding the beasts and swatting at opposing players with their mount’s tentacles.

  “Hey, Max!” a voice called out.

  Max turned to see the girl from the Codex. Megan—her name is Megan.

  Max swung his squid around and flew toward her, nearly colliding with an opposing player in the process. He looked down and realized both he and Megan were wearing the same uniform, and she was positioned in front of a floating hoop. She must be the goalie.

  “Isn’t this great!” she exclaimed.

  “Megan, what’s the last thing you remember—before this?”

  She frowned for a moment. “I was talking to you in the Dragon’s Den.”

  “How did we get here?”

  A roar exploded from the crowd as Max turned in time to see a very small book with wings go flying past. An opposing player was chasing after it, guiding her mount to try and close on the zigzagging object. Max knew at once that it was a pocket-sized version of the Codex of Infinite Knowability. How or why it was showing up like this was another question.

  “Don’t let her get it!” Megan exclaimed, pointing at the miniaturized Codex.

  “I need to talk to you—” Max started to protest.

  “Go get the book or we’ll lose!” Megan shouted. She gave Max’s squid a swat with her mallet and the beast took off, surprising Max and nearly sending him toppling out of his saddle. He managed to get control of the creature and pulled the reins hard, sending the airborne squid down and toward the Codex. He flew past the stands and managed to catch sight of a small, blond cheerleader.

  “Go, Max! Go!” she shouted. Max did a double take as he flew past. Sydney, he remembered. I know her.

  Max leaned forward in the saddle and spurred the squid on. The flapping tentacles suddenly pitched forward, forming together into an aerodynamic point. He shot forward, the stands blurring next to him, and focused on the weaving book. He managed to get alongside the opposing player—she was cute, Max thought. The player turned and smiled at him, and Max smiled back. Then she tapped the side of her squid with her mallet and it launched a long, wet tentacle across Max’s face. The sound reminded him of the time he’d belly flopped in the swimming pool, and it hurt just as bad. the blow sent Max flying backward and out of his saddle. He barely managed to grab hold of his squid’s back as the girl turned and flashed him a wicked smile before pressing her own squid forward.

  Max saw the flying winged Codex suddenly stop and double back. The girl reached out to grab it, but she wasn’t quick enough. The Codex flew by as Max struggled to reach out and catch it. But he wasn’t in his saddle and the squid was more slimy than what would have been useful. He lost his grip and flew through the air, hitting the grass with a thud and toppling head over heels before coming to a stop on his back. He lay there for several moments, watching the points of light that circled his vision. Then a loud whistle pierced the air.

  “Time!” someone shouted.

  Max blinked, staring up at the blue sky and watching as the two teams separated to their respective ends of the field. His squid landed next to him, its large eyes staring down and watching him with a blank expression. Max sighed, climbing to his feet and then back onto the saddle. The squid took off, flying over to where his team was gathered.

  “Max, you have to try and stay on your squid,” Megan chastised him. It appeared she was the team captain as well. Max looked at the rest of the team, recognizing several kids from school.

  “Megan, there’s something important we need to be doing,” Max said.

  “Yeah, we need to be out there scoring.”

  Max looked around, wondering what had happened to Dirk. Then he spotted him, hanging from a tall flagpole. Dirk waved back and shouted, “I’m okay!” It looked as if several crews were hoisting ladders to get to him. Max turned his attention back to Megan.

  “Megan, look, you need to listen to me. None of this is real.”

  She laughed, but it wasn’t rude or condescending. “Good one, Max.”

  “It’s not a joke. We were doing something together—

  something important. I’m starting to remember bits and pieces of it, but only because the Codex showed me.”

  Megan smiled, but her eyes betrayed a suspicion that all was not right in the world.

  “I mean, just look around,” Max continued, motioning to the stands and playing field. “Isn’t this all a bit familiar?”

  “Maybe,” Megan admitted.

  “Familiar on one level, but kind of messed up on another. Like these squids—isn’t there seem something wrong with flying squids?”

  “I remember studying them in biology,” Megan said after a moment of reflection. Suddenly the world shifted and blurred, just like it had before.

  “See?” Max continued. “When we remember stuff everything starts to change.”

  “Like a dream,” Megan continued. The world suddenly spun and threatened to break apart, but in the end it came back together. Max looked around as a whistle blew.

  “Time!” a referee called out.

  “I think I need to show you,” he said, turning back to Megan. “I think you have to see the pages in the Codex to break free from whatever this is.”

  “Then it looks like we need to win,” Megan said, a smile returning to her face. But winning a game was the last thing on his mind. He thought back to the image of their bodies being cocooned in webbing. Prepared, no doubt, to be eaten by the spider. And he thought about Sarah, knowing that her life was in danger. And if that wasn’t enough, he remembered that time was running out for everyone else as well.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SQUIDS AND BEARS

  MAX SPURRED THE SQUID INTO the air and took his place opposite the girl who had tentacle-slapped him earlier. Between them, the Codex hovered in the air, its small wings looking very much like a hummingbird in flight.

  “You’re not very good at sports, are you?” the girl taunted. She was right, of course, but Max wasn’t about to let her know it.

  “I didn’t have the hang of it back then,” Max replied, referring to his less than graceful crash. “But I do now.”

  “You mean ‘then’ as in three minutes ago?”

  Max frowned.

  The whistle blew and the field erupted into frantic movement. The crowed roared again, either from their places in the stands or from the tall towers that framed the rectangular field. Most of the squidditch players were chasing a ball around and trying to drive it toward the hoops on either end. But Max wasn’t worried about them—he needed to catch the Codex and show it to Megan. He spurred his squid on and the tentacles wrapped forward again, sending him and his ride diving toward the ground. Max pulled the reins as he swooped past the grass, using the speed to come up and around the edges of the field as he looked back and forth for the flying book. It took him a moment before he found it, and he spurred the creature forward, weaving in and out of a pair of opposing players as he took chase.

  The girl following the Codex was just ahead of him, doing her best to match the erratic movements of the magical book. Max stayed with her, following as she pitched up and down, left and right, and then broke across the field just inches above the grass. She managed to get within ten yards or so of the Codex, but never closer. The whole thing reminded Max of the World War II dogfighting game that he liked to play online.
At the beginning of the campaign the Japanese Zeros were faster and more maneuverable than the US fighters. If you tried to chase after them, they would outrun and outclimb you, eventually getting behind and shooting you down. The only way to beat them was to come at them fast and from their blind spot, and the only way to do that was to climb until you were much higher than they were.

  Max spurred his squid and pulled on the reins. He had no idea of the mechanics at work that could actually make a squid fly, but he didn’t think it really mattered. As he gained altitude, he thought about waking up in the Tower earlier. Coming to the Magrus as heroes was something Dirk had always dreamed about. And Megan had called their present situation just that—a dream. Max recalled the caption under the illustration of the spider: But deadly fangs found open flesh, and the adventurers succumbed to the poison in their minds. Max had vague memories of standing before a door and preparing to fight a giant monster on the other side. They must have done that, only it didn’t go as planned. They must have lost. Then the words of Bellstro pushed their way through his murky memory: The important thing is not the spider. It’s the spider’s web. The old wizard must have been trying to warn them that the spider had its own kind of web—one that trapped the mind, not just the body. Its poison had not only caused them to dream, but to forget. The only thread that bound them all together was the Codex—and the one person bound to the Codex was Max. It must have taken him inside the dreams of the others. And although he’d forgotten what had happened, the Codex hadn’t.

  Max took a deep breath, looking down at the pea-sized players as they moved across the field. He would have to try to catch sight of the Codex as he dove—then pull up with enough speed to overtake it. He kicked the squid and pointed it down. The drop was gradual at first but quickly gained momentum. Max tried to think back to the flying skills he’d developed playing dogfighting games. He didn’t have to contend with actual wind and g-forces online, but the game physics were probably the same. He needed to have enough room to pull up and avoid crashing into the ground. He also needed to give himself enough space to turn, because when you were traveling fast everything required more room.

  Max leaned forward and gripped the saddle tighter with his legs as he fought to keep his eyes open against the blast of wind from his fall. The world was coming up to meet him at an alarming rate as he continued to scan the other players—he needed to find the single rider who wasn’t with the others. And then he had her, near the far edge of the playing field and circling just above the stands. Max kicked the squid to come about, heading for the opposite end. He twisted his head to take a final look as the girl continued her route around the field. Max then pulled the reins hard, and the force hit him in the pit of his stomach. He lost his breath and his vision blurred as it felt like every organ in his body suddenly dropped a foot or two. I know how to do this, Max told himself as he brought the flying squid around and banked against the far side of the field. I’ve done this a million times.

  Max whipped around the far edge of the field as he continued to pull the reins and force the squid to turn. He flew past several players as he shot across the entire length of the grass and approached the other side. Max could just make out the girl ahead of him as he calculated the angle necessary to come up from behind and intercept the flying book. It wasn’t something Max had learned to do in ­geometry (although he wondered if he’d paid better attention if it might have helped), but rather an instinct honed after years of gaming. His mind quickly worked out his speed, his angle of attack, and where the target was likely to be. There would be no room for error, and he’d only get one chance. Max swallowed and readied himself.

  He closed on the rider as if she were standing still, coming up just beneath her. The suddenness of his arrival surprised the girl, and she yanked on the reins to avoid a collision. Max saw her disappear out of the corner of his eye, but he remained focused on the flying book as it dipped and weaved. Max had never been particularly good at catching things. He had a baseball mitt that wasn’t broken in (mostly because it had never been used), and all his Frisbees were on the roof of his house. Max knew himself well enough to know that the odds of him just reaching out and snatching the winged Codex were not good. So he aimed directly at it, and the book flew into his chest with a stinging THUMP! Max let go of the reins and encircled his arms around it.

  The squid, as if on instinct, began to slow. Max heard a great horn bellow, followed by an explosion of cheers from around the stadium. It took another full circle around the field for him to slow enough to land, and on the ground he was joined by the excited members of his team. They patted him on the back and whooped and hollered.

  “You did it! We won!” Megan shouted. The crowd exploded again, and if Max hadn’t had both hands wrapped tightly around the Codex, he would have waved. It was a strange feeling—Max had never won any kind of sport before, and certainly not something that had actual fans. Dirk came running across the field (apparently his rescue had been a success), grinning from ear to ear.

  “Dude, that was epic!” he exclaimed.

  Max wanted to savor the moment, but he knew he couldn’t. He looked down at the Codex and watched as the wings fell away and the book grew to its normal size. He ran over to Megan and opened it.

  “Look here,” he said, pointing to the first illustration. “This is what happened back in Madison. This is what is happening now.”

  The world shook and vibrated as it had before. Max continued flipping pages, and Megan looked on in horror when she saw the image of the giant spider attending to their web-wrapped bodies. “Oh my gosh,” she said, a tremble in her voice. “I remember—”

  The world came apart again, and the three of them tumbled through the darkness. For a brief moment Max caught a glimpse of the real world, feeling his real eyelids, heavy with sleep, prying themselves apart. There was a stinging sensation near his shoulder blades, and his head ached. He was hanging upside down, bound from head to foot, and the others were hanging next to him, cocooned in webs that ran from their necks to their feet. The spider—a monstrosity the size of a small moving van—was attaching the last of them to the web that ran along the ceiling. It was Melvin. But Max’s eyes grew heavy and the world pinched shut. Then just as quickly, he was falling in the nothingness between reality and dreams.

  They were standing in the great throne room. On either side of them large banners hung between white and gold columns, each portraying a smiling bear with a large emblem on its snow-white belly. At the bottom were various names: Sir Friendly Bear, Sir Sunshine Bear, Sir Luck Bear, Sir Peaceful Bear, and so on.

  Max turned to Dirk and Megan. “Where the heck are we?”

  “I think I might have an idea,” Megan answered. But suddenly a trumpet sounded and a purple bear came bounding toward them. It looked more like a stuffed animal come to life than an actual bear, and it had a small rainbow on its chest connecting a diamond and a heart.

  “Hello! Hello!” the bear shouted as it approached. “Are you here to see the queen?”

  “Now don’t be rude!” came another voice from behind the throne. This time a small panda ran around the other side and joined the others. “We haven’t even introduced ourselves.”

  “Quite right!” the purple bear agreed. “My name is Friendly Bear.”

  “And I’m Considerate Panda,” the black-and-white panda offered.

  And then they said in unison, “We’re flair bears!”

  “Flair bears?” Max repeated.

  “Will you be my friend?” Friendly Bear asked.

  “Can I pick you up and hug you if I say yes?” Dirk asked.

  The purple bear giggled. “Of course!”

  “Deal!” Dirk announced, picking up the bear and giving it a squeeze. The flair bear giggled again, only louder. “Yep, just like the one I had as a kid,” Dirk said as he put it back down.

  Max turned to his friend. “Is this your
dream, then?”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t dream about flair bears,” Dirk replied. “At least I hope not.”

  “No, but my sister probably does,” Megan said as she motioned to the throne. The others looked to see Sydney, dressed in a pink dress and sparkling tiara, sitting and watching them.

  “Welcome to Flair Bear Kingdom,” she said, flashing Max a smile. “As queen I am ever so busy and don’t have much time for company, but it’s nice having friends to visit with.”

  “I love friends!” Friendly Bear announced.

  “Especially when they’re polite and mind their manners,” Considerate Panda chimed in.

  “Polite friends are the best kind,” Sydney agreed.

  “What’s the last thing you remember, Syd?” Megan asked her sister. “Before coming here, I mean?”

  “You must always address the queen as Her Royal Highness,” Considerate Panda said, casting Megan a distressed look.

  “Okay, it was kind of cool at first, but I’m pretty much over them now,” Dirk announced.

  Sydney cocked her head as she considered her sister’s question. “I don’t like to remember the places before Flair Bear Kingdom. In fact, I write them in my journal so I don’t have to remember them at all.”

  Something about the word “journal” caught Max’s attention. “Sydney, what does your journal look like? Is it red with a golden star on the front?”

  Sydney smiled. “It is! How did you know that!”