The Druid's Guise: The Complete Trilogy (The Druid's Guise Trilogy)

by Michael J Sanford

  Wyatt rubbed at his ribs. “I tried making time go faster, but you know how that usually goes.”

  Athena sighed and quickened her pace. “I was two seconds from going in there after you, or just leaving you behind.”

  “Ha. Like you could leave without me.”

  “You know what I mean. Just hurry up.”

  “So impatient,” Wyatt quipped.

  “Like you’re not.”

  Wyatt started running. “Race you outside.”

  Athena tore past him in a flurry of red hair and slammed through the exit doors before Wyatt even rounded the last corner. She held the door open for him while staring at a nonexistent watch on her wrist.

  Wyatt gave her a wry look as he fought to catch his breath. “Show-off,” he said. “If you hadn’t sucker-punched me I would have won. Can’t. Breathe.”

  “Just go,” Athena urged, practically jumping up and down.

  A car horn sounded from the curb. Hanging halfway out of a back window, Lucy waved with both her hands. “Hurry up, slow pokes, we don’t have all day!” she yelled.

  Wyatt and Athena hurried to the car, Wyatt taking the front seat and Athena climbing into the back with Lucy. He gave Ms. Abagail an apologetic shrug. “I tried making time go faster.”

  “All right,” Athena said. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

  “Not so fast,” Ms. Abagail said, holding out her hand in the middle of the car.

  Athena groaned and slapped a folded piece of paper into her palm. Ms. Abagail shifted her gaze to Wyatt. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a matching sheet. With a sheepish grin, he laid it atop Athena’s.

  “That look tells me I’m not going to be happy,” Ms. Abagail said.

  Wyatt held up a finger. “I swear it was not my fault.”

  Ms. Abagail rolled her eyes and opened the first paper. She scanned it quickly. “That’s a lot of As,” she said. Wyatt braced himself. “Except for this lone D.”

  “I got all As,” Lucy said proudly.

  “You’re still in middle school,” Wyatt said. “It’s not the same.”

  “What’d he get a D in?” Athena asked. “Let me guess. Gym?”

  “Hey!” Wyatt exclaimed. “Mr. Andrews just doesn’t understand me.”

  “Says here,” Ms. Abagail said, “Wyatt spends a large portion of each period miming martial arts moves while refusing to participate in assigned activities.”

  Athena and Lucy burst into laughter.

  Wyatt lunged over the center console to slap at his sisters. They fended him off with little effort and forced him back into his seat.

  Wyatt crossed his arms. “I was just practicing. How is basketball going to help with anything?”

  Ms. Abagail rolled her eyes and put away his report card. “We’ll discuss that later. Athena, how’d you do?”

  “I did great, Abby,” Athena said while she smirked at Wyatt. “As always.”

  “Me too,” Lucy added.

  Ms. Abagail unfolded Athena’s card. “You sure about that?”

  Athena’s stare faltered and she bit her lip. “Well…”

  “Ha! You’re not perfect either,” Wyatt said. “What was it?”

  “It’s none of your business,” Athena said. “Can we just talk about it in private, Abby?”

  “Sure,” Ms. Abagail said, stuffing the two cards into her pants pocket.

  “Hey!” Wyatt protested. “She knows my grades.”

  Ms. Abagail shrugged. “She guessed right. And if she doesn’t want to make it public, she doesn’t have to.”

  “But—”

  “Seriously, Wy?” Athena asked. “This is what you want to do right now?”

  Wyatt opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again and shook his head. Sometimes he just couldn’t help himself, but she was right. There were more important things to focus on.

  “So…let’s go,” Athena said.

  Ms. Abagail put the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. “I was thinking,” she said casually. “Maybe this summer we go up to Break Rock Lake and camp for a couple weeks.”

  “What?!” Lucy exclaimed.

  “She’s joking, Lucy,” Athena said. Then, leaning forward, asked, “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be the lake. Maybe we just take a road trip. You know, see the sights and all that.”

  “That’s not even funny,” Athena said. She slumped against her seat and crossed her arms.

  “Just a suggestion,” Ms. Abagail said with a smile.

  * * *

  Ms. Abagail hadn’t even put the car into park before Athena opened her door and darted for their house. Lucy and Wyatt followed close behind, leaving Ms. Abagail to catch up. A locked door halted their progress. Athena bounced up and down.

  “Come on, Abby, come on,” she said.

  “Take it down a notch,” Ms. Abagail said as she thumbed through her key ring. “Don’t wet yourself.”

  Athena stopped bouncing and glared at her. “You are so not funny right now,” she said.

  Ms. Abagail opened the front door and stepped aside as Athena, Lucy, and Wyatt pushed against each other to enter first. Athena won, and bolted for her room. “Two minutes!” she yelled over her shoulder.

  “Make it one!” Ms. Abagail shouted.

  Athena stopped long enough to turn back and dramatically roll her eyes.

  “Wyatt, Lucy, either of you need to check your makeup before we go?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  “Not funny!” Athena shouted from her room at the end of the hall.

  Wyatt ran a hand through his constantly disheveled hair. “Nah, I’m good.”

  “And I don’t need makeup,” Lucy said. “I’m pretty enough.”

  Wyatt groaned, but only to draw a reaction from Lucy. She punched him in the arm and raced off.

  “Grab the box,” Ms. Abagail shouted after her.

  “Kids,” Wyatt said.

  “You should talk,” Athena said, stepping back into the living room, fingers flying through her hair as if she sought to place each individual strand in just the right way.

  Ms. Abagail grabbed her wrist and forced her hands down. “You look beautiful,” she said. “Stop stressing.”

  Athena took a deep breath.

  Lucy darted back into the room, lugging an ornately carved box of lacquered wood. She set it down on the coffee table and promptly fell to her knees. Wyatt, Athena, and Ms. Abagail did the same, each taking a different side.

  “You sure you guys don’t want to go to a water park instead?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  “Not funny!” Wyatt, Lucy, and Athena shouted in unison.

  “Well, I guess we’ll do what we do every summer, then,” Ms. Abagail said with a grin as she pulled on the chain around her neck, drawing an iron key from beneath her shirt.

  The others did the same, producing similar keys. “I go first,” Lucy said.

  “Says who?” Wyatt asked.

  “I’m the youngest. It’s the rules.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Athena said. “Just go.”

  Lucy frowned, but inserted her key into the first of four locks attached to the front of the chest. Wyatt went next, followed by Athena. Ms. Abagail unlocked the final lock and opened the lid.

  A pair of matching pendants sat alone in the chest, nestled atop padded velvet. Though identical in appearance, Wyatt and Lucy knew which one belonged to whom. They grabbed them and slipped them over their heads.

  Wyatt felt the warmth of familiar magic wash over his body like a thick blanket. Lucy shuddered, grinning ear to ear.

  All four joined hands as Wyatt and Lucy turned their minds to their amulets and activated the magic. Green light blossomed in the middle of the coffee table and sent a shower of sparks twirling into the air. They settled like fine snow and grew into root-like tendrils of magic, pulling the family into another world.

  Working together, Wyatt and Lucy had grown skilled at traveling between Earth and the Realms,
rarely straying from their desired goal. This time was no different as they entered into the foyer of Sanctuary, current seat of the Realms’ new ruler.

  Wyatt looked around and pumped his fist. “Nailed it,” he said.

  “You’re lucky,” Athena said. “Because if we had ended up in another snow bank, I was going to bury you in it.”

  “Greetings!” a voice exclaimed from directly behind Wyatt.

  Wyatt nearly fell over at the start. “Darn it, D’orca,” he said, spinning toward the bearded elf chieftain. “You know I hate it when you do that.”

  D’orca grinned and twirled about until he was in front of Ms. Abagail. He bowed deeply, snared her hand, and planted a kiss atop it. “Abagail, my dear, ye are looking lovely as always. A kiss of dew on a warm morn dare not approach your beauty.”

  Ms. Abagail pulled her hand away. “Nice try,” she said. “But my answer is still no.”

  D’orca danced a brief jig and winked. “For now.”

  “Athena!” a shrill voice sang out.

  Athena took off running as Maia leapt from the balcony and glided toward her. The two met in a fierce embrace that lifted the pair airborne for several moments.

  “Get a room,” Lucy called out.

  “Ah, Lucy, dear child,” D’orca said, sliding to her side and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Ye have yet to feel the prick of love’s thorn. Someday ye’ll understand.”

  “Gross,” Lucy said. “Where’s Ezric?”

  D’orca fell away from Lucy, feigning injury. With a dramatic sigh, he waved at the stairs. “Ezric and Ozlodia are tending to Her Majesty, I would imagine.”

  Lucy didn’t need to hear anymore. She raced off toward the stairs and took them two at a time.

  “We haven’t come too late, have we, D’orca?” Ms. Abagail asked as she and Wyatt started for the stairs themselves.

  D’orca fell into lockstep with her. “Not at all, nearly right on time.”

  “For once,” called a voice from the top landing.

  “Hey, I’m usually close,” Wyatt said to Zuel, though he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t his brother, Zendel, who had spoken. He still had trouble telling the Glefans apart without seeing their eye color. With slavery having been abolished the season before, the pair were far more agreeable, though doubly as sarcastic.

  “Here to escort us?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  Wyatt rolled his eyes at the glimmer in Ms. Abagail’s eyes and the rosy hue that lit up her cheeks.

  Both Glefans bowed. “As is our duty,” Zendel said. “We are to gather in the Observatory. And we have hardly a moment to waste.”

  “Did we miss dinner again?” Wyatt asked. “I’m starving.”

  “Afraid so,” D’orca answered. “But I had some vittles squirreled away for ye.”

  As Wyatt entered the Observatory, he was greeted with a hiss. “I know, I know,” he said, fanning his hands at the air. “We missed dinner.”

  “Again,” Rozen said, turning from the balcony. A brilliantly clear night shone at her back, causing her unlit fire-braid to stand out all the more.

  Wyatt walked past the Council table and noticed Rozen’s crown lying on her usual chair. He scooped it up as he joined her on the balcony. “Still not wearing this thing, huh?”

  Rozen scowled and turned to face the night again. “It is a thing of nonsense. I never asked to rule in the first place, but if I must, I will not be clad in frivolous ornaments. Give me steel, not velvet and gold.”

  “Ooh, can I wear it?” Lucy asked, appearing in front of the balcony, hanging from Ezric’s arms, suspended in the cool night air.

  “It’s not yours,” Ms. Abagail said.

  Lucy pouted, but Rozen snatched the crown from Wyatt’s hand and placed it on Lucy’s head. Lucy grinned. “Now, loyal subjects, get me some food!” she said.

  “She’ll never stop as long as you let her wear that,” Athena said from the far end of the balcony.

  Rozen waved a dismissive hand at her. “If she would like my rule, she is welcome to that as well.”

  Lucy cheered.

  “She’s kidding,” Ms. Abagail said.

  “I hope so,” Wyatt added. “I don’t think I could take orders from my younger sister.”

  “And how often do you follow my orders?” Rozen asked, eyeing him.

  “Exactly! Just think of the terror I could raise if Lucy were in charge.”

  “Ah!” D’orca exclaimed, pointing at the night sky. “It is nearly time!”

  “Zendel,” Rozen said. “The light, if you would.”

  A moment later, the mystical light atop the Observatory winked out, plunging the balcony into darkness, illuminated only by the moons.

  One larger than the other, the moons drifted ever nearer each other as they did every night. It brought back memories of the times Wyatt had spent sparring with Rozen, and their moonlit conversations. He had watched the moons dance a dozen times with the Draygan by his side, but now, with the Regency defeated and her on the throne, it felt new.

  No one spoke or dared move as all eyes were glued to the heavens. Further the moons climbed until their edges appeared to intersect. The night exploded with light that would shame a noon day’s sun. Half the group gasped at the wonder of it, while the other half was too stunned to speak. Streaks of color raced across the sky, overtaking the stars, turning the sky into a kaleidoscope of wonder. The moons merged as one, and thunder rippled across the snowy mountains and shook every bone in Wyatt’s body.

  Every summer they came for the Festival of the Moons, and though he had seen the spectacle twice before, it still left him in the same dazed state. The first time, he had asked Rozen what had changed. The moons had never met in the sky before, always spinning off in separate directions at the moment before impact. She didn’t have an answer, which only lent more to the wonder of it. He liked to think he had something to do with it, though Athena and Lucy often claimed the same credit.

  Eventually, the moons danced apart and the spectacle faded. Silence persisted until Rozen called Zendel to relight the magnificent light of Sanctuary.

  “That was even better than last year,” Lucy said.

  No one disagreed with her.

  “All right, so where’s the food?” Wyatt asked.

  He was greeted with groans. Wyatt scowled at any who dared meet his eyes, but didn’t get a chance to offer any retort as a ball of green light formed in the center of the Observatory.

  “What the hell?” Athena asked.

  Everyone turned toward the strange orb, near the table.

  “Are you doing that, Wy?” Athena asked. “Get a grip on your magic. It’s not time to go yet.”

  “Yeah, summer just started!” Lucy complained.

  Wyatt took a step closer to the light. He didn’t think it was his doing. Though far from expertly controlled, Wyatt could at least feel when his magic was…well, being magical. Must be something left over from the magic of the moons, he thought. But then it grew, swelling nearly to Wyatt’s height before popping into a shower of green sparks.

  A young girl stood where the light had been. She looked around the Observatory with wide eyes. She was wearing only a night shirt, clutching a stuffed rabbit, not unlike the bear Lucy still carried.

  “Where am I?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  “This is Sanctuary,” Wyatt said. “How’d you get here?”

  The girl looked around again and pulled on a worn, hempen string from around her neck. A small green gem swung from the end of it, encased in a piece of dark driftwood.

  Wyatt grinned and fell to his knees, bowing until his forehead touched stone. “We had no idea,” he said, unable to stop himself. “Please forgive us, Master. Mother be praised, they have returned.”

  More groans washed over him.

  Rozen pushed past Wyatt. “Ignore this one,” she said. “Welcome to the Realms, young one. What is your name?”

  “Alice,” the girl said quietly.

  Rozen stepped fo
rward and curtsied. “It is my honor to meet you, Alice the Mighty. May you prove more capable than our last Druid.” Rozen shot a look back at Wyatt. He returned it by sticking out his tongue.

  “Wh—what is this p—place…?” Alice stammered, eyes darting around at the odd assortment of creatures packed into the Observatory.

  Wyatt popped to his feet. “Oh, it’s lots of things. Things you won’t believe till you see them, and maybe not even then. The Realms are full of magic and wonder and beautiful power. You’ll see creatures that defy explanation and go to places that should never exist. Nothing will make sense, and you’ll love it for just that reason. But, most importantly, this world is exactly what you need it to be.”

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