Escape From Archon Castle - A Wizard School Novel

Quindalore the Querulous seemed able to read Terry’s thoughts as easily as a newspaper headline. “It’s a good thing for you you’re an intelligent lad, Master Coates. A crime has been committed, and someone must be disciplined for it. That someone can be either you, or Master Stevenson, depending on how the …” he coughed into his fist, “the facts play out.”

“But that’s not fair!”

“Life is not fair. However Ernie the Exemplary and Rowan the Righteous have posited a third scenario, one that you yourself stumbled upon too, just now. One that points the accusatory finger at Miss Abernathy herself.”

Terry waited. One thing he’d learned in his life so far, was the benefits to keeping one’s mouth shut until necessary. That was something he desperately needed to heed right now. He was not going to take the blame for abducting anyone, nor was he going to let a friend be punished for it either. He should have said nothing after saying she’d left freely. He’d already given too much away for no reason.

“In this scenario,” Quindalore the Querulous said, tracing on the desk with his finger, “Miss Katya Abernathy, wishing to evade a perfectly just punishment, manipulated a love-sick boy into helping her escape. She then manipulated another love-sick boy, for whom she perhaps had some genuine affection, into staging a rescue so that you would take the fall for her.”

He had to admit it sounded plausible. No. No, no, no. Katya wasn’t calculating. She was sweet, well-meaning, truthful, confused. For all Terry knew, they’d tortured this out of her. And it was him that Katya felt genuine affection for anyway, not Stevenus.

“Understand this, Master Coates.” Quindalore the Querulous folded his hands on top of the stack of files. “Whenever punishments are meted out for all to see, it isn’t merely about retribution. There is also the matter of deterrence. So that other Neophytes don’t wind up entertaining similar ideas or plots. Hers would have afforded only temporary pain and humiliation, hardly worth risking life and limb by venturing into the dangerous territory beyond these walls.”

Terry was about to scoff and say the lands hadn’t been that dangerous when Quindalore added, “Master Stevenson took great personal risk to assure your safety against the various elements and elementary beings. It is only with his knowledge that all of you survived. Correct?”

“Yes, sir.” Terry hung his head. He was tired, and thirsty and hungry, and his earlier clarity was fading faster than a sunset in the tropics. The only way he’d get out of here was by cooperating. And yet he couldn’t do it if it meant betraying anyone.

“So then. You agree that Katya manipulated you into helping her escape, and she invented this abduction scenario to save her own skin.”

“No!” Terry stamped his feet on the concrete floor. Only his sense of what was right would get him through this. The only time he could think straight was when he spoke his mind regardless of the consequences for himself or anyone else.

“Why not? What’s it to you?” Quindalore the Querulous asked, unruffled. His calm demeanour only made Terry more agitated. “In less than a month you’ll be back in your old life at Rosedale High. Playing video-games in the basement of your parents’ comfortable suburban home. Melissa will be nursing a broken heart from a failed summer romance. You’ll catch her whispering to her friends and then blushing whenever you pass by her in the hallway. She’ll have noticed you filled out over the summer.”

He inhaled through his nose until his lungs could take in no more air. He held his breath in until he began feeling light-headed, and blew out through his mouth. Who cared about that simpering teacher’s pet anyway. “Because,” he said, concentrating on what he felt, and all his adventures with Katya and Stevenus the past few days. “Because I know what’s in my heart. Deep down, I know what’s true and what isn’t. Yes, we escaped so that Katya could avoid being punished. Yes, I had a crush on her. Yes, I had to vie with Stevenus for her attention. But I can’t say it was any one person’s idea, or plan, or anything else. The decision to escape was spontaneous—we just decided, let’s get out of here. No one was manipulated, no one was forced. Each of us made our choices purely on impulse. Together.”

“Master Coates. Part of growing up is the realisation that we’re not infallible. Particularly when it comes to how well we know another person. The pair you trusted were each—”

“I’m good at reading people. I always have been. I went to a lot of different schools as a kid because my parents were always striving to live in a better neighbourhood or climb in their careers. I had to learn fast, sort out the bullies from the decent kids. I’m not good at a lot of things, but I am good at that.”

“Along with sixteen over twenty vision, and a flawless sense of direction, right? A sense of direction that still failed you upon venturing into the witch’s territory.”

Terry narrowed his eyes at his inscrutable face. Where was Quindalore going with this?

“Here.” The Master Adept of the Order of Nine took out a block of foolscap covered in neat, rounded handwriting from the topmost file. Very girlish handwriting written in blue ink. He set it on the table in front of Terry. “Miss Abernathy’s confession.”

His eyes began stinging and his throat tightened as he read the accusatory claims. While he had no idea what Katya’s writing looked like, various sentences were phrased the same way as she spoke. According to her words on the page, Terry had stalked her from the first day of wizard camp. She ignored his advances in favour of Stevenus, and said Terry spied on them and repeatedly tried to break them apart. He even saw mention of Julianne and the words kiss and tell.  

Quindalore the Querulous smirked and arched one of his bushy eyebrows. “She was content to sell you out in less time than it takes to watch an advert on television.”

“I don’t care,” Terry said, shoving the paper back to him. “If you’re convinced that my version of what took place is wrong, so be it. All I can go by is what I saw and heard and witnessed and felt at the time. If she really believes that about me yet gave me no hint of it, that’s her choice. Not mine. I know I’m not a liar and that’s all that I care about. Like you said: in the fall I’ll be back at school where there will be plenty of other girls I can meet. And yeah, maybe with some muscles, they’ll actually like me.”

“Back at school, hm? What makes you so sure?”

“I … Well because you said …” Terry stammered. The Master Adept’s tone hadn’t carried the sort of menace implying Terry was about to face a lengthy sentence in the dungeon, but …

“Congratulations.”

“Sir?”

A grin spread across Quindalore’s face and he no longer looked at all Querulous. He rose to his feet. He held out his hand to Terry. “I said, ‘Congratulations’. I invite you to become an Initiate at Archon Castle.”

Terry’s jaw dropped and he slumped in his seat. Huh? He tried to sit upright, but all the muscles in his body had liquefied.

“You you accept?” Master Adept Quindalore the Querulous of the Order of Nine still held his hand out, his face beaming with the brightness of the sun itself.

“Thankyousir.” He felt as if he’d been turned upside down and shaken, then thrown back into his chair. He felt faint from shock as he shook the man’s firm, calloused hand. Congratulations. He was now a Wizard Initiate.

Quindalore the Querulous walked around the desk and crouched next to Terry. He rested a hand on Terry’s shoulder for balance. “No matter what went on around you, no matter what you were told, you stayed true to what’s in here,” he pointed to Terry’s head, “and in here,” he said, pressing his finger into the middle of Terry’s chest.

“I did,” he said, feeling a sudden rush of elation as the reality of what the Master Adept was saying sunk in. He’d made it!

Quindalore’s knee cracked as he stood again. “And that, my dear young man, is the basis of magic. Your heart and your mind. Along with a few other traits I’ll address presently.” He cleared his throat noisily and called, “Enter!”

This time when the door behind him clicked to open, it sounded like the unveiling of a showpiece at a museum or a new concept car. Ernie the Exemplary, Martin the Magnificent, and the dodgy crystal ball salesman filed in, though he wore a dark red robe now, instead of the black suit. The man he’d thought was a salesman extended his hand to Terry. “Rowan the Righteous. Congratulations, Master Coates, and we would be honoured if you were to join our ranks here at Archon Castle.”

“But you were the …” He was still too stunned to finish his thought. Or start any other thought for that matter.

“Part of the deception, my friend. The minute you showed such an inquisitive bent, we kept a close eye on you!” Rowan the Righteous’s onyx eyes glinted.

“But what about …” Her rosy-cheeked face appeared in his mind’s eye, every detail rendered as accurately as a photograph, yet his brain was unable to form anything as concrete as a person’s name.

“Ah,” Martin the Magnificent said, joining in the handshaking. “A very bright and promising young lady. When her chance came to point the finger at you, she merely said she wished that had been the case—she could only wish that you were so head-over-heels in love with her that you’d contrive to steal her away forever more.”

Terry leaned around to look out into the hall just as more burgundy-robed master adepts shuffled up to the doorway. A dark-haired girl in emerald green squeezed between them, giggling, hand over mouth, her face nearly crimson. She threw her arms around Terry and squeezed him tight, her strawberry-scented hair soft under his chin. Her embrace was that of a boa constrictor and if he died right now he’d be content with his life.

She pulled away again. Holding both his hands in hers, she cocked her head and bit her bottom lip. “We did it! Can you believe it?”

“No,” he said, gazing around stunned at all the grinning faces. No Stevenus. What had happened to him? This had to be all a hallucination and any moment he was going to be roused with a hard kick, and find himself still in that nasty damp cell or lying on those bales of hay in the stables. A slap on his back brought him back to earth. Stevenus bumped Katya aside to give him a hug.

After another round of handshaking, honorifics dispensed and congratulations given, Katya asked about all of the other neophytes, since some of them had worked so hard and followed every request to the letter. “Weren’t they give a chance, too? I can’t believe we were rewarded for going against the rules laid out in—”

“Bah, all of them are mindless sheep!” Quindalore the Querulous said. “The point of magic is to escape the drudgery of ceaseless labour! It isn’t what you endure that builds the character of a true wizard—a true wizard seeks ways to avoid all forms of tedious slogging, finding possibility where others believe it cannot exist. Magic is all about violating what we think of as ‘rules’ while still respecting the Order of Things.”

“Welcome, to Archon Castle,” said a smaller voice from somewhere in the corridor behind everyone. “We’d been watching all three of you closely much longer than you think.”

The crowd of Master Adepts split apart like the red sea to make way for a crystalline sceptre shimmering like live electricity. Pudding Bowl proceeded along the cleared path towards the three new Initiates, looking incredibly regal for a boy of—man? Just how old was he? —about five foot four in height and still with his funny blond haircut beneath a jewelled, golden crown.

Martin the Magnificent said, “Allow me to introduce Randolph the Resplendent, Ascended Wizard Master of the Order of Nine.”

“What!” Stevenus’s eyes almost bugged out of his head.

Terry just laughed, and laughed, his sides aching, his eyes tearing, barely aware of the soft fingers wrapped around his. The image of those peas flying across the dining hall in formation popped into his head and suddenly the thought of Pudding Bowl being the head honcho didn’t seem so implausible. In hindsight it was obvious he was a stooge of some sort—Terry had wondered that when he first met the lad and then quickly forgotten.

“Well I could remove my glamour, I suppose.”

Katya looked at Stevenus, whose stunned face was still pale with shock, and snorted. “Oh, please don’t. Not until the ceremony.”

Terry bolted upright at the sound of jangling keys turning the lock. He’d been half expecting to languish in the cold damp cell for the rest of his life. A stern, rotund Master Adept cleared his throat. He beckoned Terry to get up and approach. Terry vaguely remembered the man from their first day at the castle. He’d been the one to field questions from the neophytes. His name started with a Q. Quinn-something or other …

“Come.”

Terry stumbled up to the cell door. He stopped as the wizard raised a fleshy palm to him. “What’s happening?”

“I am Learned Master Adapt Quindalore the Querulous, of the Order of Nine.” The man’s voice had the gruffness of construction machinery and yet his tone was oddly light. He stood aside for Terry to exit. Gesturing in the direction of the elevator he said, “This way.”

Terry had no idea what to expect. A waiting elf opened the elevator cage and operated the crank to move them lower. They went up down a dark shaft for nearly a minute. The lift shuddered to a stop and the gate rolled open. They stepped out into an oddly modern-looking tunnel that looked more like a sub-basement in some office tower rather than a dungeon. Thick pipes and ventilation shafts ran along the ceiling. The doors along each side were steel, with ordinary round knobs. Only the lighting was the same as the rest of the castle. Whitewashed stone glistened orange under the wall sconces.

Quindalore the Querulous led Terry through the first door on their left, which opened into a concrete box of a room. A scarred oak table and three rickety folding chairs huddled in the far corner out of the way of the swinging door. Quindalore freed Terry’s wrists from the cuffs and Terry felt his arms float up from the sudden weightlessness.

“Sit here,” he said, pulling out the nearest chair. He sat across the table from Terry, facing the door. He withdrew a notebook from his robes.

The room was soundless apart from a quiet whistling sound Quindalore the Querulous made as he inhaled through his nostrils, and a tapping of his foot somewhere beneath a robe the colour of dried blood. After several minutes of dread-filled silence, Terry asked, “Is anyone else joining us?”

Without looking up from his book he said, “Yes.” He turned the page. He furrowed his caterpillar brows in a manner suggesting Terry was best off not saying anything more until he absolutely had to.

The longer he waited, the more frightened he grew. His mouth felt parched. He hadn’t eaten for hours, which made him feel even more stressed. Worst of all, he had no idea what he was in for, or what Stevenus or Katya may have told the Adepts. Dreadful thoughts of every worst-case scenario sped crazily through his mind. He eyed the pages Quindalore was studying. Whatever language the notes were written in, it may as well have been Cyrillic or Sanskrit for all he was able to read any of it.

Terry nearly jumped out of his skin as the door behind him clicked open. A second Master Adept entered. Ernie the Excellent, if he remembered correctly. Neither man met Terry’s gaze. He held his breath in, and felt all the muscles in his body tense.

“I’ve finished questioning Master Stevenson, and spoke to Rowan about Miss Abernathy.”

Miss Abernathy—Katya? Terry realized he’d had no clue what her surname was. Unless they were referring to someone else. He watched Ernie the Excellent hand Quindalore the Querulous two manila files. They looked absurdly mundane, like spying a mobile phone in a sword & sorcery film. Paper files? He hadn’t been expecting stone tablets or shimmering words carried on mist, but still …

“Have you …”

“Not yet,” Quindalore the Querulous said.

Ernie the Excellent left, latching the door behind him with about the same level of noise as a burglar entering an occupied bedroom, and inducing the same level of fear in Terry as he’d feel if he’d just woken up to an intruder breathing into his face and holding a knife at his throat.

“Interesting,” Quindalore the Querulous mumbled, perusing each of the files.

Interesting! What the hell does that mean? Terry was tempted to ask him, just to make something start happening. He’d rather be beaten and whipped than sit around in here with these blank walls imagining even worse punishments. Waiting was possibly the cruellest form of torture, especially waiting when you knew something terrible was going to happen at some point in the future, without having any idea when, or what it may entail.

At last, Quindalore the Querulous said, “And this is why I’m of the Order of Nine rather than a mere Master Adept. My intuition never fails me. Indeed, the notes of these interviews with your fellow escapees serve only to confirm what I’d already long suspected.”

Terry gulped. The way the man had said suspected, and flicked his eyes up at him, was loaded with more suspicion than a spy organisation’s database.

Quindalore the Querulous flipped a page. “It appears you became quite obsessed with Miss Katya Abernathy from the first day of camp. Witnesses not only spied you eyeing her in the courtyard during the introduction ceremony, but also beforehand, on the trail up to the castle from the parking lot. You even went so far as to contrive sleeping arrangements next to her.”

What! Terry was glad he hadn’t said so aloud. He took a deep breath and waited, wishing his chair had armrests he could clench his fingers around them until his knuckles turned white. He gripped the edges of his seat with his thumbs squeezed under this thighs. No matter what, he reminded himself, he had to keep his temper in check. Uncle Pete had drilled that into his head since he was a child. The only way he’d avoid saying or doing something that could get him into even worse trouble was if he could stay calm.

“From what we’ve gleaned from your companions, Miss Abernathy began a romance with Mister Stevenson and you found out about it. Then, in a fit of jealousy, you abducted her.”

Terry’s fingers wrapped even more tightly around the edge of his seat, rage igniting deep inside. He did his best to hold his voice steady, his tone low and slow. “I did not abduct anyone.”

“By the time Master Stevenson caught up with you, a terrified Miss Abernathy had grown so cowed by your violent temper, that she enabled the two of you to evade him for quite some time.” His pale blue eyes bored into Terry. “Are you familiar with the term Stockholm Syndrome, Master Coates?”

Of course he’d heard of it. The anger burning in him flickered out; this was so patently stupid it should be easy for him to talk his way out of this.

“I take it you deny this version of events, then?”

“Of course I do—it’s ridiculous!” Don’t sound too defensive, he reminded himself. Laugh it off. He forced out a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a snort.

“So, either your supposed friends are lying, or esteemed members of Archon Castle are.”

“No …” Terry’s voice wobbled as if trying to learn how to walk on stilts. He sensed anything he said would seal his doom. If only there was a phone somewhere, and he could call Pete for advice.

“I don’t really see any alternative. One can only conclude from their accounts, gained by separate interviews, that such a scenario must be true. You bound Katya and were seen by several witnesses bearing her out through the tunnel between the legs of two guards from our Ogre Regiment. Once in the woods, you attempted—unsuccessfully I might add—to recruit several different beings to assist your cause. These included a water nymph, a salamander, dwarves, and at last, a sylph.”

“How would I know how to do that? I didn’t even know such creatures existed.”

“It was thanks to the witch’s cooperation with Stevenus that the two of them affected a rescue of the poor girl.”

“Bullshit!” Terry hammered his fist on the table, shocked at what had just come out of his own mouth; his brain had had nothing to do with it.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Um,” he stammered, his mind blanking on him. He could picture Uncle Pete doing a face palm next to him in a courtroom.

Quindalore the Querulous’s mouth pursed. The hissing in and out of his nose grew louder. “We do not tolerate such language at Archon Castle.”

“Uh.” That was it, though. Patience hadn’t worked. He didn’t see how cooperating with them possibly could either, which left overt defiance. If he was going down, he wasn’t going to make it easy for them. He’d seen people win the most insane arguments by sticking rigidly to their side even when they were completely in the wrong. He was in the right and he had nothing to lose by standing his ground. With a deliberate calmness he was amazed to find within, he stared Quindalore the Querulous straight in the eye. “Yes, I did say, ‘bullshit’. Because I couldn’t think of any other word so fitting.”

“Well someone abducted Miss Abernathy and later rescued her. Perhaps Master Stevenson was lying and Miss Abernathy, in her confused state, is no longer sure who was who.”

Terry shook his head before the temptation to go along with the lie had even popped into it. He’d stick with the truth no matter what. His phantom Uncle Pete meanwhile slumped down in the chair next to him and let out an aggravated sigh while mouthing, you dumbass. “She wasn’t abducted by anyone.”

“No?”

“She left freely. She wanted to—she was about to whipped! Of course she would—”

“I don’t think you’re quite hearing me, Master Coates.” Quindalore the Querulous steepled his fingers under his chin. He returned Terry’s brazen stare. “I said someone abducted Miss Abernathy.”

Iron chains clanked. A stench of oily grease filled the air. With great effort, Terry shifted upright until he could see over the side of the cart. He didn’t remember dozing off, but he must have. Only minutes seemed to have passed between his being loaded onto the buckboard wagon like a lassoed calf, and the castle drawbridge lowering before them. Katya whimpered from the cart behind him. With a jolt the wagon continued onward.

Terry slumped onto his side again. The gatehouse loomed over him like a fortress. To think he’d last passed under it voluntarily. He stared up at the toothy spikes of the raised gate, the murder holes, and at last, clear open sky. Twinkling stars pierced the inky canvas stretched overhead. If only he could fly up into it and be away from here. All the blue-cloaked neophytes lined each side of the cobbled road while Terry and the others were paraded past. He gulped, feeling sick at the strangely familiar sight. This had been his home the past few weeks.

Through the courtyard they went. They circled twice around the whipping post, hinting at future torment with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Terry slumped down again, exhausted with despair. All that way for nothing. He slid forward and his feet slammed against the wooden slat of the wagon as it halted. A fresh wave of fear flooded into him at the sight of the keep towering over them. This was where they kept the dungeon. It felt like a lifetime ago when he and Stevenus had freed Katya from its dank, stinking bowels.

Two black-cloaked elves leapt into the cart beside him with the lightness of birds. They hooked their arms under his. Two more clambered in, each taking one of his ankles as the chains fell away. The four of them carried him off the wagon and set him on his feet. He fell against them, his knees buckling out from under him. As soon as he could stand properly again, he scanned around the courtyard and surrounding alleyways for Katya or Stevenus. He spotted her reddened face as she was taken around the far side of the keep. Stevenus was nowhere to be seen. Obviously they weren’t taking any chances now.

“This way.” A Master Adept he’d never seen before opened the low wooden door of a building adjoining the keep. The elves escorted Terry into a stone passage lit by torches set into iron sconces. When they stopped by a metal gate Terry expected stairs, but beyond he glimpsed a primitive elevator cage. The Master Adept held his arm with the grip of a bear trap while he slid the gate sideways and hauled Terry inside. One elf came in with them to work the crank handle while another shunted the gate on them. Down they went, slowly, jerkily, for what felt like miles, but was probably about four or five subterranean stories.

They landed with a hard thud, nearly knocking Terry off his feet. Beyond the metal slats in front of him, he peered into an interminably long stone tunnel. In the feeble light coming from the wall sconces he could see arched openings for dungeon cells. On his left a ways down, a pair of hands gripped two of the vertical bars. They were small and pale, Katya’s hands.

As they led him down the tunnel his heart soared for a brief moment, but no. Of course he wouldn’t be kept in the same cell with her. He felt stupid for even entertaining the thought. He felt her eyes on him as he passed, but he didn’t dare look at her in fear of what the Master Adept might do. His own cell was past hers, and on the right. The Adept threw him inside, slammed the door behind him, locked it with an iron key, and left. Terry’s hands were still cuffed together. A least his legs were free. The familiar grassy stench filled his nostrils, along with the damp earth of the cell floor. Hay was piled into one far corner. A rusted metal pail lay on its side in the other.

He lay down in the hay pile, which was at least softer than the bales he’d known as a bed for more than a fortnight. They’d only been trekking in the woods for a few days and yet his time in the stables seemed like some distant dream. As for his own life back home in the suburbs with his parents, he’d need one of his mum’s New Age friends to perform a past-life regression on him at this point.

An oily substance dripped into a puddle in the cell across from him. Fainter, barely discernible, he could hear Katya whimpering. As for Stevenus, he had no idea where the Chosen One had been taken. A chill sank deep into him and it wasn’t because the dungeon was terribly cold. He hadn’t seen Stevenus since the lad had rolled off of him back near that outer wall.

He waited until he was sure the Master Adept was well out of earshot and crept up to the gate for his cell. He gripped the iron bars and peered out into total darkness. “Psst—Katya!” he rasped.

No answer.

“Katya! It’s me, Terry!”

Not even so much as a shuffling sound came from the direction of her cell.

“Katya—where’s Stevenus?”

Terry lay in shock and waited for Stevenus to roll off of him. He pulled himself up onto his hands and knees and stared ahead, stunned. A horse-drawn cart careered towards them hauling a vat of water the size of two troughs put together. The nymph reared up from inside this tub and shook a watery fist at them. The salamander waggled beside the cart. It had grown to nearly six feet in length, the size of roughly a dozen dwarves.

He huddled behind Stevenus and held Katya in his arms. Shivering, she buried her face in his chest and sniffled. There had to be some other way out, there had to be. They were so close! The wall was unscalable, mortared to the smoothness of bathroom tile. Terry scanned uphill for an escape route and before his eyes, thorny brambles spread and snaked around the tree trunks forming a giant spiky net.

“ATTEMPTING TO EVADE US NOW WILL WASTE EVERYONE’S TIME. I SUGGEST YOU DON’T.”

That voice belonged to Martin the Magnificent, but where was he? Something shifted in the air next to the salamander like a mirage above hot asphalt. From somewhere beyond came the sounds of reins jingling and hooves thudding on dirt. Next to his ear Terry heard what sounded like a giant taking in a deep breath, then blowing it out. The air around the salamander rippled. Mottled skin blew away like a sheet caught in the wind revealing a dark, burgundy cloak covered in glistening sigils.

Martin the Magnificent strode up to them. His eyes blazed down at them like the fiery sunset. Stevenus, Katya and Terry locked arms, but with one wave of the Master Adept’s hand, they were thrown apart like the air itself had exploded between them. Before Terry knew it, his wrists and ankles were shackled in iron cuffs. A thick, rusted chain coiled through hoops, hogtying him. He watched helpless as three horse-drawn wagons materialized on the trail behind them. He wondered how long they’d been following for.

The wind died down abruptly, as if someone had tripped over the plug that had been powering it. In the hushed stillness Terry sensed the sylph somewhere close by, listening. He and scrutinized the shadows flitting past the gaps in their lean-to. Branches above mostly, wavering in the remaining breeze. A shadow between them shifted, he was sure of it. They were still too close to the river, too. For all he knew, the salamander and an army of dwarves or elves were right outside their lean to, ready to capture them and haul them back to the castle. The air had the same staticy feel as right before an electrical storm, not that he’d been in very many of those.

Katya’s sharp elbow dug into his ribs. He nodded to indicate she had his attention. She pointed to the upper corner of the map. Tracing her finger along the trail leading from the bridge they’d just crossed, she tapped on the thick lines indicating the outer wall. Even if this map wasn’t at all to scale, they were close. Terry stared at the dotted line slanting through dense forest marked by deep green arrow-shapes aimed upward.

“Psst!” Stevenus jerked his head towards the entrance. Ready? he mouthed, lifting the canvas flap. Terry saw no flood waters or shoulder-high army waiting for them, at least. Me, you, then Terry.

Stevenus crept out first and Katya went next. Terry kept on all fours on the path that led into the grove of pine trees and hopefully the outer wall. Already the wind had picked up again. The arrow sign wobbled and began spinning like a weather vane. Grass and weeds whipped against his cheeks as he crawled after Katya. The mulch under his hands and knees was soft, but sand-like grit blinded his eyes.

When they’d ducked into the lean-to, Terry had thought they were right at the edge of the woods. That one scraggly pine tree above the shelter had tricked his eyes into thinking it was part of the forest while in reality they had a good twenty feet of yellowed grass to get through first. Close enough in ordinary weather conditions, but with the wind pressure sucking the air out of his lungs, and blinding his eyes, it felt like an eternity.

“Not. Much. Farther!” Stevenus sounded as if he were shouting from the far side of a chasm. Just past some new invisible boundary the wind died down again. Terry and Katya watched Stevenus clamber onto his feet and only then felt safe to do likewise. They brushed dirt and debris from their clothes, though they were so filthy it barely made a difference.

“Is she gone?” Katya asked.

She has to be, Terry thought. All of them have to be. Unless this was a trap to lure us into the open and … his skin prickled. Stevenus raised his finger as if testing the wind direction. “For now. If I remember my grandfather’s old texts correctly, only the salamander has power come nightfall. Or there could be some other reason they’re no longer bothering.”

The air temperature returned to normal and a pleasant breeze blew against Terry’s cheek. He looked back at the river glinting gold and copper in the setting sunlight. The sky above was a wash of deep purple and indigo. As much as he wanted to savour this view, they needed to keep going. It would be dark soon. He regretted ditching his lantern as soon as they were out of that tunnel, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember what he’d actually done with it. All he knew was that none of them carried one anymore.

“Before we continue.” Stevenus closed his eyes. He lifted up onto his tiptoes, raised one knee, and spread his arms out by his sides in the form of a human cross. Only when he returned to standing normally did he nod and whisper, “She’s gone for sure. Elemental magic weakens significantly even before the outer wall comes into view; we should be close to it now.”

They traipsed between darkening evergreen trees the size of redwoods, their muscles aching, feet throbbing. The farther along the trail they went, the more unease Terry felt. Something wasn’t right. Throughout their journey his intuition had proven sound, though infuriatingly vague. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of red in the woods. “Stevenus!” he hissed. “I saw something!”

Stevenus peered in the direction Terry pointed. “Never mind—we’re getting close! Let’s just hurry!”

Katya stumbled and Terry caught her arm just as she was about to pitch forward. One look on her face and he could tell she was exhausted. So was he. Even though their trail sloped gently downhill, the further along they went, the more intense their fatigue.

“Keep going. This is just one more trick to keep us from our destination.” Stevenus grasped Terry’s arm and dragged him onward. All Terry wanted to do was collapse where he was and fall asleep, but somehow his legs kept powering him on. “One final run is all we need.” Louder, in a voice reminding Terry of a gym coach, Stevenus called, “Let’s go, we can do it! One final dash and we’ll be home free!”

They sprinted down the path as it narrowed and curved sharply left, then right, and then left again. Finally they were in sight of the outer wall, gleaming white in the gloaming. In Terry’s current state, it was good as seeing his own street again. They were almost out of these cursed lands. The walls were similar to those surrounding the castle, roughly three stories high and crenellated all along the top. They hurried down to the base. At the sight of fallen rocks piled across the tunnel entrance, Terry almost wanted to break down in sobs.

“It looks like they were just put here!” Katya kicked one of the smaller stones, winced, and crouched to rub her toe. Terry eyed the path of flattened grass around their feet. She was right. The cracked stone around the jagged edge of the passage was paler and fresher, like a new bite that had been taken out of a browned apple.

“We should have felt a rumbling, surely.” Stevenus joined their side.

“Unless it was when we were on that bridge,” Terry said.

Stevenus consulted the map. “There’s another way through a couple of miles from here. It should be simple enough to find—we just need to follow this trail next to the wall.”

A narrow path cut through the grass and weeds along the perimeter. They shuffled along single file in near total darkness. Terry shifted the weight of the sack slung over his shoulder and froze. The ground felt oddly liquid beneath his feet. He’d experienced that once before, during an earthquake, along with a low rumbling and his mum’s hanging plant swinging to and fro. He froze just as he’d frozen back then in anticipation of what might come next while for all he knew the roof was about to come crashing down on him.

“Ignore that. We need to hurry,” Stevenus said, digging his fingers into Terry’s arm and forcing him on.

Another tremor. “What was that?” Nodding in the direction of uphill, her sack cradled in her arms, Katya rasped, “It was coming from up there!”

“The faster we go now, the sooner we get to safety!” Stevenus snatched her arm but he may as well have tried to drag a flagpole along.

“There’s something coming!” She stood agape as the ground quaked beneath their feet. Branches rustled and twigs snapped somewhere in the woods above. Terry heard a terrifying creaking that sounded like wagon wheels pulling a heavy load.

Stevenus, trying to balance on one foot, uttered a spell. Gods of the woods and forest sprites, break these chains and send us a-flight!

Through forest and fields they went, the lane flat and even the entire way between gently rolling hills. The clouds had cleared to reveal a flawless blue dome overhead. Terry squinted up at the sun, trying to estimate the current time. Around six or seven in the evening, he figured, which would give them an hour or two more daylight. So far their walk had taken longer than half an hour, closer to two. They were close, though. In the distance he could see a wide lazy river and the gentle arc of a wooden bridge.

“Do you see a troll yet?” Katya’s forehead glistened under the shadow cast by the hand she used to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Just some birds.” Terry watched blackish flecks wheel and dive above the watery expanse. They weren’t ducks, or herons or gulls, nor any other species he was familiar with. On the far side of the river, a furry beast with hooked white tusks lapped by the shore. A wild boar, by the looks of it, and one he hoped would be gone by the time they were crossing the bridge. The thing was nearly the size of a cow.

The land grew swampier. On each side of their trail, reeds and tall grasses grew like a marshy overgrown lawn. Stevenus kept his eyes fixed on the waterlogged terrain for any sign of either the salamander or the nymph, occasionally stumbling or bumping into Terry. They came around a low hill and massive willow trees flanked each side. After the hot afternoon, they relished walking in cool shade.

The breeze from the river strengthened and a stench of rotting vegetables and decaying meat filled the humid air. Blinking as they came out into the sun again, a chest-high figure trundled towards them from the center of the bridge. Terry tried not to stare as the creature grasping the railing on each side.

He, Stevenus and Katya stood stopped before the hulking, reeking troll.

Stevenus wasn’t kidding; the troll was the ugliest sight he’d ever seen. It was as ugly as the odour wafting from its pores and the blubbery folds of its unclothed torso. Tufts of patchy brown hair sprouted at random on pasty, greenish skin that sagged and wrinkled where it wasn’t covered in festering boils. A trail of nicotine-yellow pus oozed out of one of the nostrils of its bulbous, upturned nose. Barely visible on each side were piggy grey eyes that even the most deluded mother would not find endearing to gaze at. Its lipless mouth was toad-wide and full of crooked yellowed teeth in a random variety of sizes and sharpness.

Terry forced a friendly grimace, unsure whether the creature was smiling or snarling.

“Good evening,” said Stevenus.

“Kiss to cross,” the troll said in a voice that sounded like it was burbling out of a cesspit.

“Okay.” Somehow Katya managed to sound as if she was broadcasting from very far away. She squeezed Terry’s fingers in her fist. He clenched his teeth. If she squeezed any harder his knuckles were going to snap. “I suppose I did … promise.”

“Not you. Hate girls.”

“Hate is an awfully strong word,” she said, her voice suddenly closer, louder, clearer. Terry flexed his newly freed fingers. Good, she hadn’t broken any of them. “That’s very misogyn—”

“Girl gross.”

“Gross!” Katya’s mouth hung open in umbrage.

The beast lifted a gnarled hand. It pointed shakily at Stevenus. “You. You more pretty. Me want kiss.”

“More pretty!”

The troll turned its cheek towards Stevenus and waited. Any envy Terry’d ever had for the Chosen One, vanished in this lifetime and the next.

“Of course. It would be my pleasure to oblige you.” Always the gentleman, Stevenus gave a little bow. His voice betrayed no hint of fear or disgust. “One question, if you don’t mind, and please don’t take offence: are you male, or female?”

“It matter?” The troll’s voice grew courser, like rocks being ground against each other.

“Er, I suppose not.”

“Stevie’s homophobic,” Katya sang quietly, then bit her lip, grinning and looking sideways at him. Terry coughed to conceal his snort of laughter, on the slim chance he might be next. Oh, the things that are funny so long as they’re happening to someone else.

The troll hefted the lowest, fleshiest roll of its belly. “Wanna see which?”

“A kiss, you say?” Stevenus gulped. Terry wished he could send a mental picture of this scene back in time to his earlier self. Then he would never have resented the man.

“With tongue.” A slimy purple tongue the size of Stevenus’s head dripped greenish goo as it pressed the tip out between craggy rows of teeth.

“Yes, I’ll … kiss your tongue.”

“No. You kiss. Want tongue.” The troll’s lips puckered like those of an old-fashioned cartoon character. Stevenus sucked in his breath. He pressed his mouth closer, the muscles in his arms and shoulders growing sinewy as he readied himself to recoil the moment they touched. A horrifying thought occurred to Terry; the troll might want a kiss from him next.

I don’t need to cross that badly, he thought, scanning his mental map for an alternative route. Failing that, he could start swimming across and take his chances with the nymph. He watched in horror as Stevenus’s and the troll’s mouths meet. A choking sound, and Stevenus’s eyes went wild, his arms flailed. Terry could see the troll suctioning the Chosen One’s tongue into that wide mouth while embracing the lad with the passion of a lover returning after months at sea.

The monster released him and Stevenus doubled over, wiping his mouth with the bottom of his shirt, and retching.

“Good kiss.” The troll patted Stevenus’s back. It stood aside and bowed for him to pass.

Terry put his shoulder under Stevenus’s left arm to prop him up. Katya took his right, and they helped him across. Stevenus’s feet kept coming loose from under him as if he were skidding across scattered ball bearings. Planks creaked beneath their feet. Terry kept his eyes out for loose or missing boards, along with any disturbance in the murky water sliding past several feet below them like a silty conveyer belt. They were just low enough for the nymph to grab hold of one of their ankles if she happened to swim underneath.

Closer to the middle, the bridge began swaying. The wind picked up. Sensing it might be the Sylph, Terry nudged Stevenus, who nodded and mouthed, “Might be.”

Wind soughed through the balusters of the bridge. The ripples on the water became waves. Clouds roiled overhead. Rain began pelting down. Only now did Terry realized they’d lost their sacks somewhere along the way. He was sure he’d been carrying it when they came to that troll, but couldn’t remember having any sacks with them when they were on that broom.

The gale grew stronger and stronger. Stevenus, Terry and Katya pressed forward single file, grasping the railings as the wind began lashing against them. By the time he’d made it three-quarters of the way across, Terry felt as if he was trying to walk through a wall of marshmallow. He squinted ahead through tearing, stinging eyes,. They still had a good fifty feet of this stupid bridge to go.

“Hurry!” Stevenus’s voice blew off, traces of it barely making its way into Terry’s ears.

Something splashed beside them. Terry turned to look just as the nymph dove over the bridge like a whale at SeaWorld. The railings creaked, but held firm under his grasp. The nymph took another dive, lower, a muddy sail flying up in her wake. The troll still stood at the far end of the bridge, flaccid lips murmuring something to the wind. If Terry’s instincts were right, for now they were safer on the bridge than off. He barrelled forward, barely able to breathe against the relentless gusts.

“Stevenus! Katya! Stay on the bridge!” he yelled, his words disappearing downriver, the wind gouging them out of his mouth as quickly as he could utter them.

Stevenus burst off the bridge first, stumbling onto his hands and knees. The contents of the sack he’d been carrying spilled onto the gravel lane. Katya flew off, crashing on top of him. Terry gripped the end post, but was torn free and sent slamming against the balusters of the railing on the opposite side. He found himself pinned while the wind howled overhead. Okay, so he was wrong about it being safer on the bridge. Now, what.

“Here—take my hand!” Stevenus crawled along the grass next to the trail and reached up to him. Katya wriggled alongside him and held her hand out too. Terry regretting leaving that broomstick behind. There was still nearly a foot between their outstretched fingers. He bent his knees, dug his heels against a sturdy post and used his legs to push himself onward. His ears throbbed from the air pressure. He inched towards them and finally managed to free one of his hands from the wind’s fearsome grip. Soft fingers clasped his with the strength of a steel vise.

“Hold on, you can do it!” Katya’s voice grew louder as Terry felt another hand tugging the collar of his shirt. Hands dug under his arms and hauled him onto the grassy verge. The wind died off and he lay on his back, gulping air into his lungs as if he’d just been rescued from drowning.

“Thank you,” he rasped. He was grateful to be on solid ground again. Exhausted, he got on all fours, recovered his breath a little more, and clambered onto his feet. The wind was so strong it had nearly suffocated him. Now, like being in the eye of a hurricane, the sky above was unnaturally bright and clear, and the air was completely still. The setting sun cast long shadows across the embankment, bathing them in shimmering, honey-coloured light.

Terry shivered as he followed Stevenus and Katya up the last hill before, hopefully, they reached the other wall. The temperature began to drop. The wind picked up again. Keeping low to the ground, the three of them scrambled towards the nearest shelter, a lean-to at the edge of the woods. Just as they reached the entrance, Terry caught sight of a wooden sign shaped like an arrow. Written in faded black paint, To Exit.

“Thank God,” he whispered. “I think we’re close!” Feeling cold, he began rubbing his arms. Katya’s teeth chattered as she snuggled against him.

“I’m freezing! Is that sylph doing this?” she asked.

“Possibly,” Stevenus said. “Though it’s rare, my guess is she and the nymph are teaming up against us. The salamander might be close by as well, sucking all the surrounding heat into its body.”

The wind howled outside. Their shelter creaked like a rusty gate. They huddled together for warmth, mouthing their speculations about the sylph trying to torment them. Exchanging gestures and wide-eyed nods, they moved to sit against what appeared to be the sturdiest wall. Terry had no clue what Stevenus planned as he sat facing each of them.

“Should we try waiting it out?” Katya unknotted the sack, found some dinner rolls wrapped in strips of cloth, and passed them around.

Stevenus used his pocket knife cut up slices of sausage. “We might have to. Unless one of us can think of something before we run out of food. Terry—do you still have that map?”

With the speed of a cannonball they shot out of the hovel and headed upward, soaring high above the woods. Forest and sky pin-wheeled until the thought popped into Terry’s head that the blue half should be on top. By the time the broom righted itself they were soaring into the clouds. He felt dizzy from vertigo. They were going too fast for his brain to process any sense of terror.

“Think to go lower!” Stevenus yelled, his arms hugging Terry’s chest.

The instant an image of grazing treetops flitted through his mind, they torpedoed downward until their feet were brushing the topmost branches. By some miracle none of them fell off.

Up again, up! Terry thought as Katya screamed, “Not so low!”

They shot upward until Terry could force a picture in his head of being in a plane cruising at an even altitude. And slower, he thought, trying to quell the panic in his chest. Much, much slower. The broom slowed. This thing wasn’t so hard to control after all. Easier than riding a bike. He didn’t even need to lean or try to balance; it could be steered with his mind.

Ride smoothly at a height just enough to avoid all obstacles, he thought, shocked at the ease with which the broom kept to a gentle cruise mere feet above the highest trees. This was fantastic! Never in his wildest dreams did he ever think riding a broom would be this easy. Unless … he glanced over his shoulder and Stevenus winked at him. Of course, he was the one controlling it. Terry didn’t care though, he felt safe now, the wind whipping through his hair and fluttering his clothes. Oh, and the view!

From this vantage point, he could see exactly where they were in relation to the map he’d studied. The witch’s territory was all dead and decaying wilderness, bordered all around by forest that grew green and lush. Behind and to his left lay Archon Castle, barely a crenellated mound near the horizon. Several miles ahead of them he’d just glimpsed the outer wall of the enchanted lands when the broom suddenly lowered.

“It’s running out of energy,” Stevenus said. “Let’s try to slow more before landing.”

Terry pictured them all easing down on the wide gravel path they’d been on before getting lost. Moments later, their feet were skidding on the pebbles. The broom fell to the ground beneath them, thoroughly spent.

“Good work!” Stevenus slapped his back, then Katya’s. “With all three of us thinking in concert, that broom was easier than paddling a canoe!”

Terry was happy to be on solid ground again, but hoped he’d one day be able to ride that broom again. His burst of freedom had made him feel omnipotent. It was nothing short of a miracle. Better than any amusement park ride he’d ever been on. Better than driving a car or motorboat.

“Thank you,” Katya said, turning to face Terry. “That was incredibly quick thinking.” Her blue eyes sparkled like a sunlit sea. She smiled shyly, and pecked his lips. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back. This single moment made all their hardships worthwhile.

“Ahem.” Stevenus cleared his throat and tapped Terry’s shoulder. “She can still come after us and now she’s going to be very, very angry, and wanting her broom returned.”

“Is there any way to refuel it?” Katya asked.

“Of course there is. The question is whether I know how to and for that, the answer is no.”

Terry broke reluctantly away from Katya and the three of them huddled around Stevenus’s map. Stevenus said, “If we continue along here a ways, then down this squiggly line towards the river, we should reach the troll bridge within half an hour.”

“You trust this map?” Katya asked what Terry had also been thinking. Half an hour to go after their three-day trek sounded too good to be true.

Terry sighed. “That old crone could still come for us. She must know which way we’d head.”

“Witches aren’t nearly as clever as they like to think,” Stevenus said. “I suspect she was just bragging about her powers here. And the one nice thing about trolls, and believe me, there is only one, is that they hate witches as much as they hate nymphs. The drawback is, they probably despise us, too.”

Terry bent to pick up the broom and Stevenus shook his head, his lips pursed. He’d hoped maybe it would recharge on its own, or after a night of laying under the light of a moon.

“Leave it,” Stevenus said. “She’ll search for this before coming to look for us, and with no charge it’ll take her a long while to find it.”

The witch’s skin was withered and wrinkled, her bones sturdy underneath, her amber eyes wide and penetrating. When she was younger, she would have been devastatingly beautiful, but lines had set around her mouth and forehead from years of ugly expressions on her face, making her ugly too. Her black hair was streaked with grey, and pulled back in a loose bunch. Strands curled down around her hollowed cheeks. “You can make this difficult for me, or you can make it easy. It’s all the same in the end.”

“Witch, we mean no harm,” Stevenus said with the gallantry of a medieval knight. “ I apologise for any trespass, but I request you return our friend to us, and allow us a quick exit from your lands. I am willing to pay you handsomely.”

“More handsomely than Archon Castle?” Her dark eyes glinted, the glint of gold someone else had already promised her. A sheet appeared in her hand, rolled at each end. It unfurled on its own.  Terry was reminded of old Wanted posters from the wild west, minus the grainy photos of bank robbers on the lam. The three of them had been sketched in black ink, down to the very clothes they were wearing. She flicked her hand and the paper vanished. “A nice fat reward, and I plan to collect.”

“So what is your plan for us?” Stevenus asked, sounding tired more than anything else. Terry detected no hint of worry in his voice, which made him feel a little more at ease.

“I shall contact Martin the Magnificent, and hold you in my cage until they fetch you. As you know, these grounds are enchanted and you may not leave without my express permission.” She smiled a wry smile of blackened but remarkably straight teeth. “As I’m sure you are aware, great-great-great-grandson of … who was it again? Oh yes. Sebastian Stevenus Svenborn, Ascended Wizard Master of the Nine Seas, Seven Mountains and the Eleven Realms. He was a lover of mine, once upon a time. A very attentive lover. An adept indeed.”

Stevenus shuddered.

“Come along, now,” she said, beckoning them with a gnarled finger as she shuffled back along the path. Seeing no other choice, they followed. Terry suppressed a malicious chuckle as he pondered what the witch’s intentions were with the great-great-great-grandson of her one-time lover.

“I’ve had you in my sights since you inadvertently summoned my little newt. And surely you didn’t think dwarves leaves maps lying around for strangers to happen upon, do you?” She clapped her gnarled hands together and cackled, sounding like a flock of startled chickens.

“Why didn’t any of them turn us in?” Terry asked.

She let out another cackle that would have put the Wicked Witch of the East to shame. “The wizards never offered a reward to the nymph or the sylph, and the dwarves had no idea they were harbouring fugitives! As quick as the Wizards went around distributing their posters, I snatched them up! All that paper kept the fire under my cauldron burning well into the night.”

“Clever,” Stevenus said, rolling his eyes at Terry.

“I thought so.” She led them downhill between a dense thicket of ivy-strewn trees and thorny bushes. Farther down and around, they came into a clearing where a hovel had been constructed under fallen trees, sticks, burlap, and salvaged timber. Smoke reeking of pungent herbs billowed out of cracks in the roof like dragon’s teeth.

A heavy grey sheet covered the entrance. She held it up and motioned for them to enter. The inside was much larger than it had appeared from outside. The massive, circular chamber was supported by poles set at even distances from each other, the ceiling a network of branches spoking from each pillar. The floor was earth compacted to the hardness of concrete. To their right, a giant iron cauldron simmered inside a cavernous hearth. To their left, worktables were covered with herbs and vials, potions and notebooks, jars full of creepy nasty dead things, and cages full of even creepier, nastier, and very much alive things that chirped and croaked and hissed at them.

For once Terry wished his eyesight wasn’t nearly so keen. Too many tentacles and spindly legs and claws, and fur where there should not be fur. Across from them the witch had built a jail of sorts, made from sticks crisscrossed and secured by knots of rope. Flimsy as it looked, Terry suspected it was probably very strong. Katya crouched in the far corner whimpering, her face buried in her hands.

“You have visitors, girl!” the witch said, her voice like a knife being sharpened on stone.

Katya raised her head. Tears streaked her cheeks. “What are you doing here? You should have gone on without me! Or gone to fetch help!”

While Stevenus ran up to greet her, Terry lingered back. Think! he ordered himself, suspecting the moment they were locked in with her, they’d be done for. So far he’d seen no weapons, or anything that would make a handy projectile, but he’d read enough fairy stories to know that witches liked eating children, certainly more than they cared for gold. In her eyes teenagers probably still counted as children, very large ones that would keep her well-fed for months. Terry tried his best to channel his terror into planning their escape. While the witch’s attention was fixed on Stevenus, he stared around.

Maybe they only existed in stories and cartoons, but if she had a flying broom somewhere, they could use that to get out. So far, he saw nothing that resembled one. A walking stick leaned against one of the tables, and on another table sprays of herbs had been arranged in the general shape of a brush, but … hm. Slung over the back of a chair closer to him, he spotted a black leather handbag. If the witch was at all like his mum or sister, the inside of that purse operated in an entirely different space-time continuum where countless objects could be stashed inside—hairbrushes, makeup, sunglasses, extra shoes, emergency chocolate, compacts, cigarettes, a giant leather wallet, a phone and spare charger and endless crumpled tissues—whose size and mass violated every law of physics in the real world.

Keeping a close eye on the witch escorting Stevenus to the cage, Terry skulked closer to the purse. Katya stood in front of the gate of her cell, her fingers wrapped around the wooden bars. Her teary red eyes glared at Stevenus. “I had a plan of my own. I don’t need either of you. Why didn’t you try to escape? Why do men always have this knight in shining armour complex and assume women are helpless? You’re so stupid!”

“We couldn’t leave you here—we’d never find our way out of the woods without you! We need you far more than you need us.” Stevenus reached through to stroke her cheek. Trust him to lay it on thick while coming across as entirely sincere. Still sniffling, she took his fingers in hers. She pressed his knuckles to her lips. Jealousy surged in Terry and for a moment he forgot was he was doing.

“How sweet, straight out of Shakespeare, that,” the witch sneered. She withdrew a set of iron keys from the folds of her robe. They clinked like wind chimes. “Just give her a kiss, boy, and—”

“No!” Terry yelled. He pitched a vial of white powder at her, partly to distract the witch from casting a spell and partly because a kiss between them was the last thing he wanted to witness. While her keys jingled, he’d seen that her other hand concealed a glass bottle containing a greenish liquid.

Terry felt infinitely more relieved once they were back in the woods again, the trees and fallen leaves muffling their voices. They went single file along the twisting, narrow trail, with Stevenus taking the lead and Katya in the middle. So far none of the other creatures seemed to be following them. With a shudder Terry remembered that first day walking up to Archon Castle and the way that black-robed figure had sped through the woods. Why hadn’t any of those caught up to them yet? But then, Stevenus had said the magic was different here. He was about to ask the Chosen One to clarify where Archon Castle’s rule ended and the lands of the elementals began, when he noticed Katya trying to get his attention too.  

“Stevenus!”

He was about to ask the Chosen One to clarify where Archon Castle’s rule ended and the lands of the elementals began, when he noticed Katya trying to get his attention too.  He was quite a ways ahead and picking up his pace, his walking stick thudding into the earth in time with his footsteps.

“Steve!”

“What?” He only slowed once he’d reached more level terrain. He wheeled around, annoyed. He reluctantly waited for them to catch up, twitching and tapping his feet the entire time.

“How far is it until we get to that troll?” Katya asked in a tone suggesting she hoped it was several hours away.

“Hard to tell. As I said earlier, this map’s not to scale.” They continued along and roughly a hundred yards farther along, the trail opened abruptly onto a gravel path nearly wide enough to be considered a proper road. Stevenus consulted his map and frowned. “Not to scale at all! I wasn’t expecting this for at least another mile or two.”

“I don’t know about you,” Terry said, trying to keep his voice as low as he could, “but I’d rather stay off the beaten path, so to speak.”

 “We’re going on here!” Katya began marching up the road, stopping only when she realized no one was following her. “Come on! I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve twisted my ankle!”

“I’d rather a twisted ankle than the sylph finding us.” Terry eyed the treetops for any unusual wind kicking up.

“Let’s put it to a vote. All in favour of walking on a level surface for once? Raise your hand and say ‘aye’. Aye.” She raised her hand as if she’d been trying to get the teacher’s attention through half a dozen rambling wrong answers by other kids in her class.

“Aye,” Stevenus said, holding his hand about the level of his head. Not quite so certain as Katya, but Terry wasn’t in the mood to argue even if he could sway the Chosen One to his side.

“If we’re caught or something bad happens, it’s not my fault. That’s all. I’ll tell Martin whats-his-name that the pair of you tricked me into coming along.” Terry traipsed after them.

The further along they went, the more his skin prickled and his muscles tensed. He kept turning his head to peer through the trees on each side of the path, convinced he could see shadows flitting alongside in his periphery. Granted, the trail was no different than the hundreds of ones he’d been on in various state parks, since his parents’ version of a gruelling hike was where every incline was braced with railway ties and the weeds were kept neatly trimmed. Yet he couldn’t shake this stubborn cloak of menace that weighed on him more heavily with each step. Even the sky seemed darker and the clouds lower.

Worse, he was suddenly overwhelmed with the sense they were going in the wrong direction. He asked Stevenus, “Can I see that map?”

Stevenus withdrew it from his shorts pocket and unfolded it for Terry. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know yet.” Terry studied the map and found the spot where they’d emerged from the mining tunnel. He traced his finger along the line where they’d scrambled down the hill, followed the narrow trail into the woods. He found the thick dashed line that represented the path were now walking along. Down, and then straight, and then right.

They were heading in a north-easterly direction as they should be, so why did it feel so wrong? He’d long imagined he had a compass in his head and right now, the little needle pointing to magnetic north was spinning wildly. He looked up. The sun was still shrouded behind a ceiling of impenetrable grey cloud.

“Are you okay?” Katya asked, her brow knitted with worry.

“Let’s keep going,” Stevenus said, “According to this map we’re going the right way.” They continued through the woods. Before handing the map back to Stevenus, Terry had checked to make sure this was the only trail in the area. Nor did he now see any smaller trails branching off through the thick undergrowth.

The gentle slope turned more sharply left to what looked like a giant staircase. They eased their way down high steps cut into the hillside, reinforced by timbers and thick slabs of rock. Though Terry’d seen the usual topographical markings indicating hilly terrain, this decline seemed to be way steeper than what had been drawn on the map. He could also hear water rushing somewhere below. He didn’t remember seeing any river or stream marked on that map. All of his inner alarms screamed, sirens flashing red.

“We shouldn’t be having to cross that for a while yet,” Stevenus said, his breath getting ragged.

The trail forked at the bottom of the hill, with one way going across a narrow wooden bridge and the other heading up along a stony crest. They’d been heading in a downward direction for so long, Terry figured they must be below sea level by now. They all stopped to consult the map again.

“There’s no bridge on here!” Katya said, eyes wide, her glistening face flushed pink the colour of grapefruit juice. Stevenus took the sack from Terry, knelt, and rifled through it for the other maps he’d taken. While he sorted through the various sheets of paper and parchment, Terry snacked on some bread and cheese. Katya swiped a shrivelled sausage from inside his sack and began gnawing on it.

“I see the same river and trail we came on, but Terry’s right—somehow we wound up going the wrong direction.” Stevenus traced his finger along the blue squiggly line denoting the rapids some fifty feet downhill from them. Terry blinked; he swore the lines on the map had just shifted.

“What about those other maps?” Katya asked.

Stevenus handed a few to Terry to sort through, though they turned out to be nearly identical. The rest of the maps were of either the dwarf village, or underground mining tunnels. He scanned each of them anyway. “None of these are for around here.”

“So where are we?” she asked.

Stevenus sighed. “We’re lost.”

“Let’s get back uphill,” Terry said, clambering back up the steps. The woods were turning misty, but he could still see quite a ways. He wished he’d been more adamant about not taking that gravel trail. One of his teachers had once scolded him for being too much of a crowd-follower. “I need to find a good lookout.”

For once, neither of them raised any objection. Nor did either of them point out that there were fewer stairs leading up than Terry remembered there being. He could have sworn they’d come down at least thirty of them and now there were only ten or so to climb. A switchback appeared ahead, which he reluctantly followed after seeing no other path anywhere through the woods. It was as if the very terrain was changing around them.

“I don’t remember this stone wall before,” Katya said and just as he heard her say it, Terry saw the embankment of rock cut to the size of cinder blocks, set into the hill on his right.

“Let’s keep going,” Stevenus said. “Once we get to a ridge we should be able to see where we are.”

Higher and higher they climbed. Panic welled in Terry like an over-flowing storm drain. He knew they should’ve never come onto that path—it was too easy!

At last they reached a level area with an outcrop with a view of the entire valley below. A valley of black, barren rock and dead trees. “This isn’t the same place,” Terry said, his voice shaking. This wasn’t any valley they’d crossed, nor was such a valley marked on the map Stevenus had taken. No sign of the mountain with the tower and the red light, either. Yet they should be able to see it from here. “How did we lose that trail?”

“I thought you never got lost,” Stevenus said, a sneer lurking beneath, rising to the surface with each word. “Didn’t you say you practically had a GPS system in your head?”

“A compass,” he said in a tone that hopefully conveyed, go hike off that cliff. A river still snaked far below, and they were still somewhere up high, but he had no idea where. If someone were to offer him a million dollars to point in the vague direction of Archon Castle, or the dwarves’ village, he’d be unable to.

Terry was totally lost. It was a sensation he’d never felt before in his life. It was like trying to get out of bed and finding your feet no longer worked and your legs refused to support your weight, or the floor had disappeared. It was like opening your eyes and not being able to see a thing, even shadows or vague outlines. He began pacing around in a tight circle near the clifftop, feeling so wired he could probably power a city with all his excess anxious energy. They were never going to get out of here! 

Katya hugged her arms to her chest. “I’ve been feeling disoriented too. Almost dizzy the past hour or so. It isn’t just you.”

Stevenus studied the map again, a puzzled frown on his face. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled. “These steps aren’t on here. Nor was that bridge. Which in hindsight, we should have taken.”

“What about that valley?”

“What valley?”

The deep gully of volcanic rock was now ordinary forest. As Terry stared out, a dense fog spread across. He felt the air compress all around him. Fear spiked in him similar to stumbling into a blind alleyway only to turn around and see two armed thugs blocking the only way out. He wanted to run, anywhere, just to get away from where he was standing, but his own feet had taken root in the loamy soil. “Stevenus, I—I—”

“I sense it too!” His voice shook like someone was gripping his neck and pressing their thumbs against his vocal cords. His hands shook as he held up the map to Terry and pointed to a wavering black splotch. “This mark! We’re in an enchanted vortex!”

“Vortex?” Terry held the sheet of parchment steady until he could see the black swirl Stevenus was referring to. It resembled a loose spring or a miniature tornado. It was only visible if the map was held at a particular angle.

“Similar to a whirlpool in a river. Some parts of these woods are more enchanted than others.“ Stevenus closed his eyes, inhaled deeply through his nostrils, and held his breath in for several seconds. He exhaled and said, “I should have known, once we left the dwarves, and especially after we came out through that tunnel. We need to head back down to where we saw that bridge.”

Without waiting for them, Terry began leaping and sliding back down the path. Let Stevenus carry that blasted sack for once. The reinforced steps were gone now, replaced by a delta of trails that twisted between the rocks and bushes like tree roots. Branches rustled next to him and Stevenus leapt ahead of him panting, “Something’s after us. Run!”

Terry scrambled down as fast as he could. A stone rolled underfoot, sending him skidding sideways into the underbrush. He grabbed onto a sapling, the bark scraping his fingers. Before he’d a chance to get back on his feet, Katya’s scream pierced the air.

“Katya!” He clambered back up and caught sight of a tall, shadowy figure speeding between the trees, carrying a squirming Katya under one of its arms. “Let her go!” Branches whipped his face as he raced uphill after her. The being was roughly five feet in height, but strong, and covered in layers of tattered grey robes. Terry dove, trying to grasp the trailing rags, but they slipped out of his fingers as if they’d been slicked with oil. Stevenus leapt over him and continued the chase.

“Give her back—she’s our friend!” Terry’s voice was hoarse. He scrambled after them, skidding on fallen leaves that blanketed the path. A stitch pierced his side. He slowed, pressing his fingers into where it hurt most intensely, though it did nothing to ease the pain. His lungs felt raw. The damp air stank of musty, rotting foliage.

He stared around, baffled. It was as if time had lurched forward into autumn. The trees blazed orange and yellow. Overhead, black branches formed a skeletal canopy of gnarled fingers. Rustling to his left alerted him and he spotted Stevenus, still in pursuit of Katya and her captor. By the time Terry caught up to him, the Chosen One was doubled over, panting heavily, his face red and dripping with sweat. Katya had vanished.

“A witch. Got her. Couldn’t. Run fast enough.”

“Do you know where she took her?”

Stevenus nodded. “Let’s. Catch our breath first.” He and Terry sat on a nearby fallen log to rest. His heart pounded in his chest and his body felt sticky with sweat. He legs ached. He dreaded getting up again but they had to rescue Katya before the witch ... He didn’t dare think about what the old crone had in store for her. He’d read his share of gruesome, unabridged Brothers Grimm tales.

“The witch. Allowed me. To see which way she went,” Stevenus said, still panting. “Presumably to trap us, too. Knowing we’d never. Leave. Without Katya.”

“Just as well if we wait a bit, then. Let her get antsy waiting for us to appear.” It was all Terry could do to stop himself from racing up in the direction he’d seen them heading. Trying to convince himself more than Stevenus he added, “If we sit out here long enough, she might grow impatient and begin searching for us.”

He looked up and the grey clouds had thinned somewhat. The sun dangled in the sky like a chandelier crystal. It didn’t even look spherical, but cut from stone in hexagonal facets. He stood again, growing impatient. “I can’t just sit here doing nothing. Let’s go find her. And search for a good weapon on the way.”

Terry and Katya crept along the stone tunnel that ran between the various stone buildings, listening. All the rooms they passed were empty. They came up to a locked door and called, “Stevenus!” in hushed voices. They waited, called again, and continued. Just beyond a bend was the chamber they’d slept in. Sounds of splashing water came from inside the adjoining water closet. Katya hurried up to the door and rapped loudly. “Stevenus! Are you in there?”

She stared at Terry, blanched, as gurgling sounds came from the other side. Terry pounded on the door and jiggled the handle. “Stevenus!”

The door flew open and Terry leapt out of the way just in time. A red-faced Stevenus burst out, yelling, “We have to get out of here—they’re after us!”

He dashed across the hall into a room filled with writing desks set higgledy-piggledy amongst towering bookshelves. Terry and Katya stared at him from the corridor. Scrolls and parchment were strewn across every surface, creating a sea of yellowed paper. Stevenus began gathering some of them up, seemingly at random. “Grab anything that looks like a map—there’s already several good ones I piled on that writing table—hurry!”

Terry waded between stacks of books and found a sheet the texture of wax paper covered in faded black, blue and green topographical markings. Stevenus snatched it from his fingers and added it to the rolls already bunched in his arms.. “This should be good enough,” he said, his eyes on one of the unfurled sheets as he hurried toward the exit. “One showed a mining tunnel that should enable us to bypass most of the waterways.”

Terry held the bundle of scrolls while Stevenus riffled through some of his other findings. “I have to make sure I grabbed it before we leave here ... should be in here somewhere … I found another with most of the ponds and … Good—I have it—let’s go!”

Terry helped Stevenus stuff the assorted maps and papers in their sacks and hurried outside, letting the door slam shut behind them. The wind had picked up, setting both of them on edge. “Where’s Katya?” Stevenus asked. “I thought she was right behind us.”

Terry hadn’t noticed her absence until now. He spotted her sprinting out of a building on the far side of the circle and yelled, “Where’d you go?”

She ran up to them, hugging a giant sack to her chest. “I went to get more food.” She passed the sack to Terry like she was handing off a relay torch and raced towards the path leading into the woods in a direction none of them had gone before. Stevenus and Terry hurried after her as she called over her shoulder, “That salamander was spying on us! I managed to lock him in a storeroom but that lock won’t hold for long!”

“Thank you,” Stevenus said breathlessly as he took the lead through the woods. Their footsteps sounded hollow as they thudded along the dirt path. Terry checked behind them several times. So far, no one was coming after them. They continued running, leaping over fallen logs and exposed tree roots in their mad dash to get as far away from that salamander as possible. His throat grew sore and raw. Katya skipped past him, obviously in better shape than he was. It helped that she wasn’t carrying anything, while Terry was burdened with two heavy sacks.

They slowed as the trail headed sharply upward. “Guys, wait!” Terry wanted to find a vantage point so he could get his bearings. Since coming into the woods, they’d been running blindly. He was about call for Stevenus to find a lookout when the Chosen One darted right. “Where are you going?”

Instead of answering, he picked up speed. Terry and Katya followed him down a trail that wound sharply between a narrow crevice in the rock and into narrow cavern. “Come,” he rasped! “Get in here!”

Terry and Katya reluctantly ducked inside, following the patter of Stevenus’s feet along the dirt floor. Terry slowed, unable to see a thing in the darkness.  He glanced back in the direction they’d come at what was now a sliver of blinding white light. At least no one appeared to be following them. “Katya,” he whispered as Stevenus’s footsteps faded ahead.

“I’m right here.” She took his hand and he squeezed her soft, warm fingers for reassurance. “Where are we?”

“Someplace that should be safe for now.” A spark erupted and Stevenus’s face was lit by the faint orange glow. A faint gasoline smell filled the small space as he held up the Zippo lighter. They were in some sort of mining tunnel carved out of the rock and supported by thick timbers. Several metal lanterns were hung along the wall from iron hooks. Stevenus lit three, handing one each to Terry and Katya and taking the third one for himself.

“I thought you gave that away,” Katya said as he closed his lighter and returned it to his sack.

“I had. However when I spotted it in a kitchen drawer I figured we’d need it more than they.” He frowned and adjusted the wick on his lantern which has been burning overly bright. The flames in their lanterns guttered.

“Don’t think you can hide from me so easily!” The sylph’s voice blew into the cavern with a cold, intense gust.

“Go—straight ahead!’ Stevenus rasped to them. “I’ll catch up in a minute.” He set down his lantern and turned towards the cavern entrance. He began tracing something in the air with his fingers.

Terry took Katya’s hand and fled up the passage. Stones scattered as their feet dug into gravel.  After a hundred yards or so, he figured they’d gone far enough. He set the sacks by his feet. “Let’s wait here for him. No point getting too far ahead of him.”

“I think I got a stitch from all that running,” Katya said, breathless and pressing her fingers to her side. “I hate when I get these.”

Terry blew out a deep breath. He took a stiff sheet of parchment out of one of the sacks and used it to fan himself. Wherever they were, it was quite hot. He resisted the urge to strip off his sweat-soaked t-shirt. The air was still, and damp, like a basement in summertime after a heavy rain.

Stevenus shuffled up to them, lantern in hand. “Interesting. It’s not so easy for her to find us.” He leaned against the wall near Katya, his eyebrows arched in surprise. “The Sylph can pick up on sound vibrations of speech but is unable to see us any more easily than we can see her. Good to know.”

“Can she follow us in here?” Katya whispered.

“She can create winds to travel along, but if she entered this cavern all she’d do is create more air pressure which would make it even more difficult for her to move farther inside.”

The explanation didn’t sound quite right to Terry, but he let it go for now. He picked up his sack he’d and hugged it in his arms, the wire handle of the lantern digging into his fingers underneath. Let Katya carry her own. “Sounds can carry through rock, though.”

“She can’t get us in here and she won’t know where this passage leads.”

“What now?” Katya held Stevenus’s lamp up while he consulted one of the maps.

“A bend should be coming up soon. If we go left, it’ll lead us back outside and I’m seeing a trail to the outer wall that doesn’t appear to be too circuitous. The only remaining question is how far we still have to go; I’m not sure what the scale is on here.”

Terry watched Stevenus’s finger trace a line that wound between pale blue splotches, which he assumed were either ponds or a spot where the river widened around a cluster of islets, then past greenish crosshatching he guessed was either a marsh or a really dense grove of trees.

“Long way from any entrance, by the looks of it.” Terry studied the black double lines encircling the lands for any similar lines crossing them. He assumed those lines represented the outer wall. Learning about maps had been one of his favourite subjects at school, rendered useless with technology like every other talent of his. Even if he were to pursue becoming a pilot, machines and artificial intelligence would be replacing them by the time he was finished school. Putting that out of his mind for now, he pointed to a river crossing with a red asterisk next to it. “What’s that red mark next to the bridge?”

“A troll!” Stevenus grasped Terry’s arm. “We may be in luck! Guardians of bridges, enemies of nymphs.”

“We have to pay trolls, don’t we?” Terry asked, acutely aware of the way his mind had split into two. He now believed there actually were such creatures as populated children’s books but reckoned as soon as he was back home in his normal life he’d probably chalk this entire experience up to a fugue or a particularly weird and vivid dream. Presently it was his regular life of school and video games that seemed unreal.

“We do.” Stevenus fumbled in his sack. “I stupidly forgot to grab some dwarf geld when I had the chance. A pile of coins was sitting right there next to those scrolls I’d been looking at!”

“I don’t have any money on me,” Katya said.

Terry patted his pockets, which he already knew were empty, just in case a quarter or dime was in one of them. He regretted returning all those coins from the market. “Me neither.”

“Who said anything about money? I remember now!” Stevenus slapped his forehead. He eyed Katya, a sly smile spreading across his lips. “All you have to do is to kiss him.”

Her nose crinkled. “A lip kiss?”

“Yes.”

“No tongue or anything though.”

“Probably not, but do keep in mind trolls are very, very ugly.”

Katya crouched by Terry’s feet and rummaged frantically through her sack. “Er, we should offer gold just in case? I found this velvet pouch in the kitchen that might have some.”

“I said ‘geld’, not ‘gold’. Those are made from iron. I sincerely doubt you found dwarves’ gold—they keep that very well-secured and hidden. You’d have an easier time getting at a dragon’s hoard.” Stevenus gripped her arm just above the elbow and hoisted her back onto her feet. “You probably found painted ingots use to ward off faeries. And it’s only a kiss. Let’s go; we dilly-dally too long in here and we’ll have elementals waiting for us outside of every exit.”

Terry gathered the opening of the sack in his hands. He tied it into a loose knot and slung it over his shoulder. Katya and Stevenus’s sniping at each other was getting on his nerves. The two of them traipsed after him in silence. All he wanted was to get home; he should have never come to Archon Castle to begin with. Okay, so there really were fantastical creatures and he’d witnessed things that defied all logic. Wizard camp was still a scam and he’d blown his chance at becoming an initiate, no matter how remote it may have been. He had his future in the ordinary world to think about now. The mundane world. The boring world full of boring people.

The air was stifling and he tried not to think about the various poisonous gasses he was likely inhaling. All he could smell was dirt and rust, which he hoped meant he didn’t have to worry about methane or any other lethal substance. The tunnel split up ahead. “Which way?”

“Left,” Stevenus said somewhere behind him, sounding as irritable as Terry felt.

The passage sloped steadily upward, twisting and turning sharply every few paces. The walls and ceiling weren’t braced with anything here and going by the uneven stone floor, Terry guessed this was a natural formation rather than a tunnel the dwarves had carved out. They’d probably widened it though; now and then the walls were pockmarked with golf ball-sized holes where pickaxes had struck them.

At last they came to the exit, a sheet of blinding white after the darkness of the tunnels. They stopped well before the mouth of the cave and waited for their eyes to adjust. Stevenus yanked Terry’s sleeve, his finger pressed to his lips. Terry had no clue what he was trying to indicate so he simply nodded in response. He pressed his back against the bumpy wall and waited. He could use a hammock or a nice, soft bed right about now. His legs ached. So did his shoulders. And his feet.

While Stevenus gingerly stepped outside, Katya crept next to Terry and elbowed him. Terry shrugged. Why did she always have to be so impatient? He ignored her and stared out at Stevenus. The Chosen One and leapt up onto a large rock covered in so much lichen it resembled target practice for bird plop. He held his arms straight out from his sides, raised his knee, and balanced on one foot. Seconds later, he hopped off.

“No sign of the nymph for now,” he said, shielding his mouth with his hand so that his voice wouldn’t travel farther than their ears. After briefly consulting his map, he pointed to a dirt path on it, marked by a squiggly brown line.

Terry leaned out and scrutinized the same path below the cave entrance. It wound down the side of the craggy hill, twisted and gnarled like a tree root, widening as it neared the bottom of the scree. Beyond lay a lush, densely wooded valley. A river ran along the bottom. Terry gathered it was the same river where they’d encountered the nymph, only much farther upstream. They were still too far west of where he was wanting to go, if they had any chance of making it to a village before dark.

The dwarf village was deserted by the time Terry, Katya, and Stevenus reached the circle of sand and mulch. The late afternoon sun blazed down, giving Terry a slight headache. The air shimmered from the heat. The heat, and … A hushed, female voice said, “They’ve gone off to the mines.”

Startled, Terry gasped and turned. Good, it wasn’t the sylph. He didn’t trust any being he couldn’t properly see, or whose shape altered like a shadow or mist. A plump dwarf women wearing a grey dress with a white apron bowed meekly at him. Her wiry brown hair was pulled into a braid that was wrapped around the crown of her head. “For how long?” he asked.

“They will return in a quarter moon’s turn—I mean, in a week’s time.”

“A week!” Katya squeezed her eyes shut and clutched the end of her sack in her fists. “The others said they’d help us and they’ve been gone for hours! We didn’t know what else to do!”

“You may stay in the same chamber as before, and may help yourselves to food so long as you fetch more firewood for us and clean up after yourselves,” she said. “I will search for the nymph and the salamander, and return shortly.”

“Sounds fair,” Stevenus sighed. “Thank you.”

She headed up a northerly path, gliding away from them as if she were on wheels. Terry watched the trees flutter along the same path they’d taken to reach this place. If that was the wind moving those branches, it was the most focussed and intelligently directed wind he’d ever seen in his life. Nor had the woman mentioned going to look for the air spirit. For that matter, how did she knew it was the salamander and the nymph they were waiting for? Once the trees were still again, he said in a low voice, “Something is definitely off.”

Stevenus took his arm. They edged along a flagstone path that ran past the front of one of the dwellings. Katya followed close behind. The three of them huddled in the recessed entrance of a thatch-covered hut. Stevenus whispered, “The sylph is an air spirit. With earth and fire you can see where they are and with the nymph you can avoid water. But air? Shh.”

Stevenus picked up the straw WELCOME mat. He gave it a good shake, sending dust billowing up and around. Terry studied the brownish-grey clouds, not discerning any particular figure or shape.

“We’re safe for now.” Stevenus kept his voice to a hoarse whisper as he lay the mat back down. “But my point stands. We need to be careful of what we say to each other for the time being. Let’s get indoors. There, we can speak more freely, as the walls will muffle our voices.”

He led them in through the dining hall, down the narrow passage, and into the same room where they’d spent the previous night. Katya tossed her sack down and claimed the mattress nearest to the door. Stevenus sprawled out on the bed next to hers.

“After we rest up and grab a bite to eat, I think we should try making our way to the highway and that village with the Walgreen’s,” Terry said, his chest and throat feeling tense with anxiety. Stevenus was going to object, but maybe he could convince Katya. “If we start heading there soon, and the sun sets around nine-ish, we should be able to get to it by then.”

“These are magical lands.” Stevenus sat upright again and hugged his knees to his chest. “There’s no leaving them without their cooperation.”

“Now you tell us.”

“I’d thought it was obvious. Sorry.”

Annoyed, Terry left Stevenus and Katya and went back along the passage until he reached the dining hall. Okay, maybe in hindsight it was obvious. When he’d first planned their escape he thought their biggest obstacle would be a deep river they’d have to ford or swim across, or a steep cliff they’d have to find their way around. Worse, he thought they’d be home free by now!

A fire still smouldered in the hearth. He placed a fresh log on top. Watching the embers crackle underneath made him feel a little better. Food, he needed food. While his sack was still half-full, he wanted to preserve as much as he could for later. With a full belly and a clear head,  he should be able to figure out some way of leaving the forest without the help of duplicitous critters. He didn’t trust any of them, even the dwarves. Or Stevenus. Also, nothing was stopping him from going off by himself. Katya had Stevenus to look after her and if she trusted him over Terry, so be it.

He ducked his head to avoid the beams crisscrossing the ceiling and went into the kitchen. The counters came to his hips and the cupboards were the height of his chest. He rummaged in the pantry until he found a wheel of cheese and some leftover bread rolls.

He’d just finished packing when Katya came in. She closed the door behind her and turned the latch. He watched her pick up a kettle from the table, which she checked for water, then placed on the hook dangling from an iron tripod set over the cook fire. She simmered with anger as she went methodically through each cupboard, similar to how Terry’s mother would get after an argument with his dad. Guessing she was searching for tea, he handed her a canister.

“Thank you.” She took a sachet from and dropped it into a glazed earthenware mug.

“Are you okay?” He prayed she wouldn’t answer with a dreaded I’m fine, or nothing while a fearsome hitch in her voice suggested otherwise.

“I think you’re right. We should be getting out of here. Stevenus finally agreed too, but it took me nearly half an hour to drill it into his thick skull! I swear, he is such a know-it-all!”

Terry opened the door and peered down the corridor. The door to the room they’d slept in was open, and he heard no sounds coming from anywhere in that direction. “Where’s he gone?”

“To find a library. At least, that’s what he told me. He thinks he may be able to find some maps in there that can lead us through the castle walls and back to our own world. There’s guardians scattered about that we’d need to get past, and he says those maps might be able to help with all that. Spells or something. I don’t know, he grew really vague when I started asking him more.”

A chill descended on Terry as if he’d just been doused with ice water. He whispered into her ear, “You don’t trust him either, do you.”

She shook her head, her eyes turning pink, which made her irises turn a beautiful, shocking green. “I feel so stupid!”

Two days ago, hearing such a thing would have made him ecstatic, but if Stevenus was telling the truth about magic being an even more impenetrable boundary than the castle wall, they were totally dependent on him. What little writing he’d seen here resembled runes or the etchings on Babylonian tablets. Only Stevenus would be able to decipher any of it. A thought popped into his brain—he and Katya could return to the castle with some story about Stevenus abducting them. He quickly nixed that idea. No, they were in this together. His instincts about people were pretty good. With Stevenus he was letting jealousy and pride cloud his senses. They could trust Stevenus, he was sure of it. That salamander on the other hand ...

Finally he braved asking one thing that had been bothering him lately. “Do you mind telling me what happened between you two? You seemed pretty upset just now. I know it’s none of my business, but I … I can tell when someone is …”

She poured water from the steaming, burbling kettle into the mug. She swirled the sachet of dried leaves with a spoon. She kept her eyes fixed on the surface as if hypnotised. Finally she said, “He wanted to sneak off and do it with me the other night.”

Terry’s heart lurched in his chest. He was about to brace himself against the counter, thought better of it, and leaned against a support timber for balance. The counter and the tables were sturdy, but not so sturdy he should test his full weight against him.

“I told him no,” she said.

He blew out a deep breath of relief. “I didn’t think you …” His mind blanked on what he could say that wouldn’t offend her. The wrong word or inference and he could set off a landmine.

She glared at him. “As if I didn’t already know about him and Julianne.”

“I—he made me swear not to tell anyone! I keep my promises!”

“It’s okay. I wouldn’t have believed you anyway. The next day at supper she couldn’t wait to gloat, and that’s how I found out. She knew I had a crush on him. At the time I didn’t believe her, either, but the other night he confessed. Only after I pried it out of him, of course. After having rejected him.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, doing his best to sound sad, when he wasn’t remotely sad. He was so thrilled he could leap out of skin and soar among the stars. He let her hug him and bury her face in his chest while she sniffled. “What do you think we should do now?”

She was berating Stevenus for being a know-it-all while seeking Terry’s advice. He didn’t think it was possible to be happier. “I think we should go find him and get out of here. And if we don’t find him, we’ll go anyway.”

He followed her outside through the low arched doorway and onto the flagstone path leading to the circle. Nearly blinded by the afternoon sun, he followed Katya’s silhouette around to a spot behind the sprawling building they’d been staying in. A warm breeze blew steadily. Terry wasn’t sure whether that was a bad sign, or a good one.

Stevenus was sitting cross-legged on top of a grassy mound nearly level with the roof. His eyes were closed, his expression similar to that of a Buddha statue. He rose gracefully to his feet, raised one of his knees up, spread his arms straight out, and gently turned. The pose reminded Terry of the elderly Chinese people he used to see doing their exercises in Pacific Mall before opening hours, back when his mum’s real estate agency had an office there.

Stevenus finished whatever he was doing and scampered down to them. “I don’t sense the sylph around; we’re free to talk.”

“Terry and I think we should try escaping anyway,” Katya said. “Did you find any spells at all?”

“I found their library, but thought I should double-check for the sylph, just in case,” he said. “If she was spying on us and caught me in there, it wouldn’t be too hard for her to figure out what we were up to.”

“Enough waffling—let’s go already!” She stormed around the side of the building.

“Wait!” Stevenus ran after her, panting. “The nymph warned us not to. While the sylph could whip up a troublesome storm for us, the nymph could drown us in a flood.”

“So we avoid rivers and lakes and stay on higher ground,” Terry said, chasing after them. How hard was it to avoid running water? They could fill up a few flasks while they were here and that should be enough until they were out of the forest, surely.

Katya stopped at the edge of the path leading to the circle. Terry continued, “For all we know she sent us on this quest to buy time while she assembled some wizards and elves to fetch us. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I don’t like to assume magical creatures can’t lie.”

“Only fae are required to tell the truth,” Stevenus admitted, looking pensive. “And even then, they have as much regard for truth as a lawyer. I fear you’re right—we’ve been deceived by them.”

Katya’s brow furrowed and she chewed pensively on her lower lip. “If Terry’s right with his hunch about the nymph going back to fetch the wizards though, how have they not come for us yet? She and the salamander left hours ago. They should have caught up to us by now.”

“Good question.” Stevenus found a rain barrel to sit on and buried his face in his hands. He was silent for a while, apart from a few deep sighs shuddering out of his chest. “Would you pair forgive me if I admitted I know far less than I’ve been pretending?”

Terry and Katya looked at each other and waited. Neither of them were surprised although Terry did feel a sting of disappointment at the confession. At last, Stevenus raised his head again. He slumped with his back against the stone wall. His eyes were bleary and his cheeks sagged with exhaustion.

“I’ve tried learning as much as I can whenever I could sneak a chance. It’s never enough. I’m forever grasping. My great-great-great-grandfather built such a legacy, one that’s dwindled with each passing generation and if I don’t resurrect it somehow, it will die with me, I know it. My father couldn’t be bothered with magic at all. He quarrelled constantly with his own father—a man I barely knew but desired to emulate and now he’s dead. He died three years ago this coming fall. The only way I’ve managed to glean anything from other adepts and masters is by pretending to know more than I do, in the hopes of getting them to divulge even that little bit extra. In the course of it all, I’ve fooled myself into thinking I may be worthy of becoming an initiate. Worse, I’ve brought others into my folly rather than admit to my delusions.”

“I can’t believe you’d lie to me!” Katya groaned and marched off again. Terry hurried after her as she strode across the gravel circle, heading towards the path that would lead back to Archon Castle. He swore he could even see it in the distance beyond the next ridge. Why was she heading that way?

“Wait,” he called, barely managing to keep her in his sights as she ran into the woods. “What did I ever do to you!”

She stopped and wheeled around. He braced his hands on his knees while he waited for her to come back to him, his lungs raw from sudden exertion.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. Without meaning to, he stiffened. He wasn’t used to girls being affectionate with him. Not that he minded her squeezing him like this, and burying her face in his chest. It felt quite nice, actually. He was afraid to move in case she took that as a signal to let go.

“I know you’re angry with him, and I don’t blame you,” he said, gingerly stroking her hair like she was a purring lion who could chomp his head off he rubbed her the wrong way. Her hair was so soft, so silky. Even after their adventures she still managed to smell nice. Fruity, like fresh strawberries or apples. “We can’t go back to the castle. If they were going to whip you over something minor like that scuffle in the dining hall, imagine what they’d do to us now. You saw that dungeon.”

She sniffled, nodding. As though reassuring a crying child, he cooed in her ear, “We need to stick together. While Stevenus did lie to us, he still knows way more than either of us about these lands, not to mention basic survival. I wouldn’t know which mushrooms are edible and which ones would kill us, and I can barely light a match never mind get a fire started. So let’s the three of us find our way back to the real world, okay?”

“Agreed. I’m not mad at him anyway, I don’t care enough to be, I’m just mad that he lied to us, to both of us. But you’re right, we’re all in this together.” She kissed his cheek. The kiss was slightly longer than a mere peck, and it sent a wonderful shiver up his spine.

They headed back along the trail hand in hand but as they emerged from the forest she released it, whispering she didn’t want Stevenus to think she was doing this to spite him. The sharp sting of disappointment pierced his heart; regardless of what she said she felt, the Chosen One was still on her mind.

They returned to the barrel where he’d been sitting only to find he was gone.

“Stevenus!” Terry stumbled up onto the mound for a better vantage point. He stared around the various stone hovels and the surrounding forest. No sign of him.

Katya joined his side, cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Stevenus!”

Unable to sleep, Terry spent hours listening to Katya, Stevenus and the salamander snuffling and snoring while watching low flames dance around embers in the fire pit. The night stayed warm and humid. Occasionally he’d find more sticks, lay them on top, and watch them catch. If only Katya hadn’t been caught by that nymph and gotten sidetracked by this silly quest. They should have reached a village by now. The longer they stayed here, the more likely elves or Adepts would find them and haul them back to the castle. The forest was huge, but not infinite.  

His back started aching. He lay down and rested his head on top of his sack. The fire made his eyes feel dry, so he closed them. I’ll just rest them a couple of minutes, he thought. I’m not at all sleepy.

Next thing he knew, the sky was glowing to the northeast. Terry woke with a start. Katya’s head was near his own while Stevenus’s was by his feet. He propped himself up on his elbow and watched the salamander’s chest rise and fall as it slumbered beneath an evergreen tree several feet away from them. In spite of its size, it really was cute, as Katya had gushed quietly to him last night. It looked like a dragon drawn by a Japanese cartoonist. Its thick tail was curled around its body and its rounded muzzle was buried in its flabby black and red arms.

“Argh,” Stevenus groaned, knocking his arm against Terry’s foot as he roused and stretched. At the sound of another groan, Katya and the Salamander stirred. They devoured a quick meal of fruit and bread the dwarves had given them, and began making their way back down the mountainside. Every now and then Terry caught a glimpse of a river winding along the floor of the valley below. He figured it would take them roughly an hour and a half to reach it. According to the salamander, this was where they’d summon the water nymph and then, finally, they’d be on their way out of the forest and back in the world of humans.

Tendrils of mist were still rising from the shimmering waters when they reached the shore of the river. Terry tried to estimate how far upstream they were from their first encounter with the nymph. At least ten miles altogether. The river was wider here, and slower moving.

“What now?” Katya asked. “Do you summon it or should we wait for it to appear?”

“I suppose I should try.” Stevenus rummaged in his sack for his spell book.

“Let me see that.” The salamander butted Stevenus’s calf with its head. Stevenus opened his book and riffled through the pages. He then hunkered next to the creature and held the book roughly two feet away from its face. The salamander’s head slowly turned one way and then the other. It appeared to be alternating which eye it used to read with.

“It can read!” Katya rasped in Terry’s ear. He tried not to roll his eyes. The salamander could speak English; reading wasn’t that much of a stretch.

“That’s just a general water spirit summoning. You need to find the one you already spoke to, as calling a different nymph could send the lot of you on an entirely different quest. Stay here. I’ll go look for her.” Water splashed as the salamander dove in and swam off.

They waited. Terry’s legs grew stiff. Still tired, he went to sit on a fallen log. Katya joined his side while Stevenus paced around. At Katya’s scowl, he sat on a rock a few feet from them. All three of them stared at the flowing water, studying each ripple for signs of the nymph approaching.

They waited, and waited.

And waited.

The day grew hot. Katya found a branch of long pine needles and used it to fan herself. Terry rested his hands on his knees, debating whether to voice his concerns about the salamander to Stevenus. Some instinct told him not to trust it, or any elementary being for that matter. He hadn’t even been sure about the dwarves in spite of their hospitality.

“What is keeping them?” Katya let out an aggravated sigh. “Both of them are fast swimmers, I’ve seen them, they should have been back here ages ago.”

Terry grunted. Stevenus said nothing. The sun was now high above the treetops, bathing the river in gold. The was a clear deep blue. Cottony white clouds drifted past. It occurred to Terry that Stevenus should try his summoning spell again, so he asked, “Where’s your spell book?”

Stevenus lurched upright, slapped his hands around all his pockets and fumbled in his sack. “That slimy little bastard! He stole it from me!”

Terry got up and stood at the edge of the river. A few feet from the shore a large rock jutted out of the water. A sapling grew out one side of it. He leapt onto the mini island. Gripping the sapling for balance, he squatted and splashed water on his face. The coldness made him feel more alert. He stood, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled downriver, “Hello! Salamander!”

Birds fluttered up to the trees as his voice reverberated across the water.

“How long should we wait for?” Katya asked.

Stevenus resumed pacing in a tight circle. “It certainly is taking a while.”

Remembering how fast he’d seen that salamander swim, Terry grew worried. The nymph could move even faster in her own element, and the three of them must have been waiting a good two or three hours by now. He crept back to the shore and studied the river in each direction for any shadow, any unusual rippling upstream or down, or any stirring on the surface where the water should be placid. The more Terry let his mind wander, the more ill at ease he grew. He did not trust these creatures.

Katya and Stevenus were restless too. While she occupied herself braiding fern fronds together, Stevenus skipped stones across the river. He was as good at that as he was with everything else. Each rock he flung skimmed along the surface, making at least five or six splashes before sinking. Terry rarely managed more than three.

“I don’t like this,” Stevenus said, voicing everyone’s thoughts aloud. “I hope something hasn’t happened to him.” That wasn’t Terry’s worry.

“Do Salamanders and nymphs not get along?” Katya asked.

“None of the elements do, really, nor can you force them to. That’s why it takes so much mastery with myriad alchemical processes to get them to work in concert.”

“We’re not far from that dwarves’ village,” Terry said. “Maybe they might have some idea.”

“At this point, it’s worth a try. Without my spell book I can’t summon any of the elementals, but they might have some other means. Lead the way back.” Stevenus hurled one more stone into the river, which sank without skipping once, and picked up his walking stick.

“What about just repeating the spell you used yesterday?” Katya asked. “I’m pretty sure I can remember it. You said something like—”

Stevenus raised a hand to shush her. “No, Katya! Every spell must have the precision of a laser beam. ‘Something like’ isn’t good enough. One out of place word could be quite dangerous.”

“But that was just a figure of speech! I can remember the exact words you used!”

He stopped, his steely blue gaze boring into her. “How certain are you? Would you stake your life on it?”

She gulped and shook her head, backing away from him.

“Let’s go, then.”

It was a long march up the mountain. The salamander seemed to have taken a liking to Katya, trundling alongside her some distance ahead of Terry and Stevenus. “I see she’s gotten over her revulsion for rubbery frog-lizards,” he said in Terry’s ear. “Sylphs can be quite temperamental, especially around fire. Let us hope we catch her in a good mood.”

Terry’s legs were beginning to ache again. The trees grew thinner here, and he didn’t like that they were heading in the opposite direction to where they needed to go if they wanted to reach a town or at least a paved road by sunset. The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows that made it harder to see in the distance. At this rate they’d be better off setting up camp. And finding a good spring where they could refill their flasks.

At last they came to a rocky outcrop. Terry took in the stunning view of the darkening valley below. Streaks of clouds blazed orange and gold behind indigo hills. The air was wonderfully cool on his face after the heat of the day. The salamander craned its head over the edge of a cliff and waggled gently from side-to-side. Closing its eyes, it raised its chin, arching its neck up at nearly a right angle. After a minute or so in this pose, it crawled backwards a few paces and turned around to face them.

Mist rose from the ground, swirling and eddying up like a wisp of smoke from a campfire. Terry and Katya instinctively stepped back.

“Hello, newt.”

Even the salamander backed a few steps away from the column of circling air. Only Stevenus stood his ground. A woman’s face coalesced in front of them, looking like ink on smoke. Similar to the water nymph, she was preternaturally beautiful. In a voice like crystal she said, “Allow us to confer privately.”

Terry, Katya and Stevenus retreated into the woods until they were out of earshot of the two beings. Terry watched in awe at the giant amphibian speaking to the roiling dark mist. Both were in silhouette, the sunset like an intense fire burning behind them.

“They appear to be in agreement,” Stevenus rasped. “I should warn you—they don't like each other. See, each of them has an ancestor who pursued the same Greek God and they’ve feuded ever since.” He smiled sheepishly at Terry, then glanced sideways at Katya. Even in the fading light he could see her cheeks turn red.

The swirl of fog dissipated and the salamander ambled down to them. “She’s agreed to grant you permission to leave the grounds of Archon castle. She will assure favourable winds and inclement weather for you.”

“Excellent!” Stevenus clapped his hands together.

“Now what?” Terry asked, glancing around for a level area to set up camp. While it was nice and dry up here, there was little shelter under the scraggly evergreens. He’d also rather spread his blanket on soft ground rather than this hard, uneven rock.

“We’ll find the nymph and tell her you’ve fulfilled the demands of her quest.” The salamander’s tail swayed gently as it led them toward a clump of trees. “Tomorrow.”

Terry wanted to pull Stevenus aside to ask him how much they should trust this creature. If at all. Unfortunately, Katya wanted to stay close to the salamander and Stevenus seemed intent on staying close to Katya. They headed down a different trail than the one they’d climbed, and found a small clearing beneath several large maple trees.

Stevenus began gathering twigs for a campfire. Just like two nights earlier, Katya and Terry set softball-sized rocks in a circle. Stevenus arranged the twigs upright against each other in the shape of a teepee. Once he was done, he patted his pockets. “Damn, I forgot I gave my lighter to Bill. Terry, do you have matches on you?”

Terry shook his head and eyed Katya. She shook her head too.

“Allow me.” The salamander opened its mouth and let out a deep breath. With a whoomf! the twigs were ignited as if they’d been soaked in gasoline. The campfire crackled and blazed.

Terry glanced around for other objects he could ask the salamander to set fire to. He caught Katya’s darting eyes and guilty smile and wondered whether she was having the exact same thought. He’d never been interested in keeping a pet before, but what could be cooler than one that could set things alight!

“Air and fire,” Terry mumbled as they hiked along the path through the woods. Never before in his life had he appreciated a full belly so much. His head swam and he wanted to burst into song. “Those are the other two elements we have to find, right, air and fire?”

“We should find air first, while we have the energy to climb up to the peak,” Katya said. Mountaintops, according to Stevenus, were the best place to summon those elementals.

“I disagree. Air is even more fickle than fire. Indeed, air is what makes fire more volatile than need be. Only when the other three are on our side will we have a chance of convincing her.”

“Where do we find this fire being?”

“Paradoxically, in swampland and marshes.”

Terry followed Stevenus down the winding trail, picturing a woman similar to the nymph, only made from molten lava. Except you didn’t find much lava in swamps. Swamp gas. She’d probably be made from methane. Hopefully she didn’t smell like methane. Assuming it was a she. As a child he’d had a picture book of Native American tales and he vaguely remembered a man-shaped being all aflame.

They reached the bottom of the hill and Stevenus gestured for them to be quiet. All Terry could hear was one squirrel clambering halfway up a nearby tree. It perched, claws buried in the trunk, and stared at them, its tail twitching angrily. The trees along the bottom of the valley were short and gnarled with scraggly leaves tangled among ropey vines. The undergrowth was thick with large, leafy plants. The air was thick and humid. An odd, rotting smell hung all around.

Stevenus crept ahead, using a walking stick to lift up the larger leaves or poke gently at some of the thicker foliage. “What are we looking for?” Katya whispered.

Stevenus spread his hands apart. “A creature about yay big. A salamander.”

“A salamander! Yuck!” Katya pushed past him and bolted back up the trail. When nobody followed she turned around, came back down and stomped her feet. She was a horse chomping at its bit and tired of doing kiddie fair walks and wanting to race.

“What’s wrong with salamanders?” Terry asked.

“We don’t need these rubbery frog-lizards, we just need to get to the outer wall! I want to be back in civilization before we run out of food. I never want to go through a day like yesterday again. Ever.”

“Patience, Katya.” Stevenus retrieved the purloined book from his sack. Terry had forgotten he had it. “First, we have to get to the lowlands, where there'll be more pools and creeks.”

“This looks like lowlands to me.” Katya skipped ahead in the direction of the clearing. Smirking over her shoulder at Terry she said, “Is this the right way, Mr. Compass?”

“It is.” Stevenus stayed put with his nose in his book.

Terry shrugged and followed Katya. He rather liked how the dynamics of their little group was shifting, with Katya valuing his input more than that of the Chosen One. He didn’t dare ask her reasoning behind this sudden change, though.

The narrow dirt path wound and twisted between sprawling ferns, mossy rocks and dark green undergrowth. At the sound of water burbling to their right, both of them stared suspiciously at the tiny stream until they were past it. Footsteps thudded behind them as Stevenus caught up.

“Okay,” he said, his face flushed. “Keep your eyes peeled for anything that resembles a marsh, a bog or a swamp.”

“Aren’t they all the same thing?” Katya asked.

Stevenus ignored her and said to Terry, “Lead us to the valley floor. Anywhere water runs still, or pools without going elsewhere.”

Katya scowled. “Shouldn’t we be avoiding water?”

“I think I see a stream over there that might lead us to one.” Terry turned sharply left, wading through the knee-deep greenery. Beyond a grove of evergreens, he caught the musical trickling of a brook. The ground became mushy under his feet as he squelched closer to it. The brook ended in a long, narrow pool of perfectly clear water with a bed of muck and decaying leaves.

“Perfect!” Stevenus said as he and Katya swished up to him, fern fronds whipping against their legs. The air felt thicker here, heavy with musty earth and decay. The three of them stood on a rocky ledge next to the pond. Stevenus opened the spell book. “Here goes.” He found the page, stiffened his posture and recited:

Fire, water, wind and air,

I intrude not in your lair

Kindly come reveal yourself to us

Salamandra ustrina!

Not exactly poetry, Terry thought. They stood quietly, listening to the wind whispering through the trees and squirrels rustling in the undergrowth. Nothing happened.

“Probably sound asleep at this time. If I remember my lessons correctly salamanders are nocturnal. I suppose we’ll have to find its lair.” With his walking stick, Stevenus began prodding the muck and lifting broad leaves away from the surrounding rocks. Terry found a similarly long twig, while Katya used the toe of her shoe. They fanned out and searched the entire area, looking under and behind rocks, beneath foliage, and all around any fallen logs or branches for an unusually large amphibian. Nothing.

Terry’s stomach rumbled. “Let’s rest and have a snack, and then try summoning it again.”

“Agreed,” Stevenus said.

They found a level area a little ways higher up on dry land. Katya spread out her blanket. It was plain and grey, and softer than it looked. In his sack Terry found a bundle containing sticks of meat resembling pepperoni. He pulled one out and gnawed on the end of it. The meat was tough and salty, but tasty, with hints of fennel and coriander. Stevenus snacked on some cubes of white cheese while Katya took out a loaf of bread roughly the size of half a baguette. She’d just torn off a chunk when something flew across the blanket and snatched it right out of her fingers.

“Hey!” she yelled, scrambling to her feet. She chased after the creature that had stolen her piece of bread, losing it in the underbrush. “That bugger!”

“Was that a salamander?” Terry asked.

“Nah, it was furry,” she said, lifting up on her feet and craning her head in the direction of the rustling ferns. “I think.”

Stevenus said, “A chipmunk, most like. Those creatures can be extremely bold.”

“I thought chipmunks were friendly,” she said, sitting back down again. “Besides that was much too big to be a chipmunk. She frowned as she fumbled in her sack, withdrew another chunk of bread, and crammed it into her mouth before any creature could steal it from her.

Once they were done eating, Stevenus returned to the spot next to the pond. He spread his arms up wide and said,

Fire, water, wind and air,

I intrude not in your lair

Kindly come out and reveal yourself to us

Salamandra ustrina!

He waited, recited the same words again, waited some more, and returned to the blanket.

“We should have tried air first,” she said. “You need air for fire. Everyone knows that. Without oxygen a fire dies off pretty quickly.”

“That’s not how it works,” Stevenus said. “When it comes to alchemical beings, they—”

Water splashed and all three of them whipped their heads towards the sounds. A blaze of red scrabbled along the rock where Stevenus had been standing. The critter like a squishy wet lizard of about eight inches in length. It dove into the water and swam with the speed of a torpedo to the far end of the pond.

“Wait!” Terry gave chase, following the twitching fern leaves and calling, “Please! I just want to ask you something. Are you a salamander?”

To his shock, it stopped. The reddish black creature appeared to grow larger as it turned around and wriggled up to him. By the time it reached Terry, it was nearly two feet in length.

“There you are!” Stevenus said, panting behind Terry. “For the past hour I’ve been trying to summon you.”

“I heard you,” it said in a voice that sounded like a small boy being strangled underwater. “Don’t mean I’m at your beck and call the second ya want me to be. People just expect me to appear whenever they want, and to go away again the second I’m no longer useful. No thanks, even. Just … run along, toodles, off ya go.”

Terry stared in disbelief at its beady, buggy eyes, amazed any sound beyond a froglike croak could come out from its rounded snout.

“I’ve heard it’s risky to thank magical creatures,” Katya whispered in his ear. Terry vaguely remembered his mum’s Nan saying something similar, but she was a bit batty, so he wasn’t sure. Also, she’d been talking about the Fair Folk, not lizards.

“It's faeries who don't like being thanked, not us,” the salamander said. “But people see all us magical beings as the same, unable to tell a brownie from a boggart, they are. One of you from that castle caught me and tried to eat me once.”

Terry grimaced. Even when he’d been half-starved yesterday it wouldn’t have occurred to him to eat this thing. With the crimson speckles along its back it looked decidedly toxic.

“I'm told we taste like chicken.”

“Every reptile and amphibian does … so I’ve heard.” Katya crouched, balancing her sack on her knees. She withdrew a cube of cheese and held it out to the creature. “Would you like some?”

“How kind of you to offer.” It took it gingerly from her fingers and gulped it down.

Stevenus cleared his throat. “Kind salamander, we request your assistance to—”

“To escape the lands controlled by Archon Castle. Yes, I know what happened. We elementals do talk to one another you know.” It caught sight of Terry rummaging in his sack and opened its mouth to him. He tossed a chunk of bread to it, which it caught and swallowed like a seal being fed at an aquarium. “I’ll accompany you up the mountain to see the Sylph and on the way you can fill me in on the rest. I always believe in hearing everyone’s side of a story before I make a decision. I’m not like that stupid water nymph who is forever trying to douse me even down here where we’re surrounded by water. Too dangerous, she says, you could start a forest fire.”

“Hm hm,” Katya said, showing marginally more interest than Terry or Stevenus felt.

“Fires are good for a forest! Everyone knows that! Clears out the dead underbrush and puts nutrients in the soil. Even the dwarves acknowledge they could not live without fire.”

They’d crossed to the far side of the valley and were heading up towards a ridge of jagged peaks. Terry wondered with some trepidation where they were going. So far, no one had thought to ask. Stevenus was just too far ahead for him to try catching up without the salamander noticing. He quickened his pace a little and hissed, “Stevenus!”

Stevenus slowed.

“Where are we going?” Katya whispered.

“To summon the Sylph, the air elemental.”

Terry’s skin prickled. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t trust that creature. “Are you sure it’s safe to follow him?”

Terry slept soundly, cocooned in soft, warm blankets. His sleep was so deep that when he first woke, he thought he was back home in his own bed. Memories of their march through the mountains, the water nymph, camping out overnight, and even the endless drudgery at Archon Castle now felt as fleeting as a dream. He propped himself up on his elbow and looked around the dimly-lit room. Sunlight filtered down on them from shafts in the thatch and twig roof.

“What time is it?” Katya sat upright, rubbing her eyes.

“Half-past six,” Stevenus said sleepily. “Dwarves are early risers.”

Someone was rapping gently on the door so Terry called, “Come in!”

The door creaked open. A much younger dwarf poked his head into the room. Unlike Timm or Bill, his features were boyishly smooth. Terry sat upright and pinched himself, wondering if he was dreaming all this.

“I’m Robb. With two b’s. Time for breakfast,” the dwarf said. He waited outside in the corridor while Stevenus and Katya took turns in the bathroom.

Once they were done, Terry went in to relieve himself and wash up. The water closet was hewn entirely out of rock. Otherwise it was strikingly similar to an ordinary bathroom, complete with flush toilet and hot and cold running water. A pat of soap next to the sink smelled faintly of rosemary or pine needles. He made a good lather out of it and used it to wash his hair. He found a cloth hanging on a hook above the sink and used that to wash his body. Towels hung off another metal hook behind the door. He dried himself, feeling wonderfully clean for the first time in weeks. The dwarves had also laundered his clothes overnight.  

They ate a hot breakfast of fried potatoes, sausages, and something that resembled cornbread. Afterwards Bill led Terry, Katya and Stevenus outside and assigned them some chores. The cool dawn air was misty and damp. They were first taken to the center of the dwarf village at the bottom of a gully. Wooded hills loomed in all directions. Terry was relieved to see no stream or river coursed through.

Bill stopped at the edge of the sand and mulch circle. All Terry could remember of this area from last night were the trails that ran off into the woods in all directions. It had been too dark to see the dozen or so huts that surrounded them. They were made of stone, some with thatched roofs and others with wood shingles, and they appeared to be joined in behind by stone passageways. Stone paths snaked across neat patches of lawn to each doorway. Instead of flowerbeds, the dwarves grew assorted herbs and vegetables, most of which Terry could identify thanks to his labours at Archon Castle.

It was all very quaint. Terry could picture his mum gushing about how they should get one of those little huts for their backyard, and his dad reaching for his back pocket while asking how much it would cost to build one. Ugh. Why did he have to be thinking about them right now? He let out a sigh. Because he actually missed them. He even missed his awful sister.

“Right!” Robb, who had blond hair and a short, reddish beard, emerged from behind one of the tiny houses. He was hauling a wagon containing several buckets of some dark syrupy substance that smelled like pine trees. “’tis not often that we have such tall visitors!”

After a quick demonstration, Terry, Stevenus, and Katya were set to work patching roofs, mending drainpipes, and repairing eavestroughing. They were finished by lunchtime. While Stevenus went off to confer with Bill about the summons from Archon Castle, Terry and Katya joined two other dwarfs in the dining area for a meal of cheese sandwiches and berry pies.

“—reputation for hospitality is well-deserved. Again, I thank you.” Stevenus emerged from the passage with a bulging sack slung over his shoulder. Bill trundled into the dining area after him, carrying a similar sack in each of his hands.

“You earned this.” Bill handed one to Terry and the other Katya. The sacks were made of a soft, brushed cotton the colour of milk chocolate. “These provisions should last you a few days. As we’ve told your friend here, we shall interfere not with your escape. And if the remaining elementals take your side against the wizards, then we shall join too.”

“Thank you!” Terry was too polite to open the sack up right away, but his fingers pressed up against what felt like apples or potatoes, and there was a blanket or soft cloak in there was well. The dwarves seemed to have thought of everything.

Katya gave him a hug. “I hope I can come back to visit some day.”

“Of course. All I ask is you take no pictures, though you may sketch anything that strikes yer fancy.” Bill and Timm escorted them out into the circular courtyard. The sun blazed down from overhead and yet the air was still somewhat cool. “Take care, children.” Bill directed them onto a trail heading north saying, “Keep your eyes and ears sharp. There are grave dangers in these woods and you’ve been lucky not to encounter them so far.”

Terry, Stevenus and Katya came to the clifftop and gazed across the valley at the sharp, rocky peak. The spindly tower he’d been searching for gleamed in the noonday sun. But it wasn’t a cell-phone tower. It wasn’t even metal, but timber since weathered to grey. The top of the tower housed a giant red lantern similar to the rotating light in a lighthouse, currently switched off. Maybe it never came on, and instead of being an array of light bulbs, was some sort of reflective material that caught the sun at certain times of the day.

“Okay,” Stevenus said, catching his breath. “The valley we need to reach should be just beyond. I’m pretty sure there’s a dwarf settlement there.” While his arm was still around Katya, Terry no longer felt like an intruder around them. He wasn’t sure what had changed, only that the tension between them all had dissipated. Or maybe his interest in her was fading. There were too many other demands—hunger, thirst, exhaustion, yearning for a nice hot shower—occupying his attention.

“We’ll need to go around by the left-hand side so we can avoid that river,” Terry said, edging as close to the sheer drop as he dared. A narrow, white water stream wound down and around craggy black rocks some seventy feet below. “While the nymph said she wouldn’t try to stop us, I’d really, really prefer to avoid her.”

“Me too,” Katya said. “I don’t care if it takes us twice as long to get there. I never want to see her again. Ever. I don’t even like walking too near a puddle right now.”

“Lead on, then.” Stevenus gestured at the dirt path continuing down into the woods. “If we’re lucky, they may even offer us food. Some dwarves are very hospitable.”

Food! It had been well over fifteen, maybe eighteen hours since Terry’d had a decent meal. The sooner they got there, the sooner they could eat.

“If we’re lucky,” Stevenus repeated.

Katya gulped. “And if we’re not?”

“We’ll see.”

The trail led down into the valley and the bed of a dried up stream took them around the base of that mountain with the tower. Finding their way up the mountain where the dwarves supposedly lived was much tougher. All afternoon they lumbered up the zigzagging switchbacks until they were aching and exhausted. They were still only about halfway up by sunset and had yet to come across a single cave or any rock formation that looked like a cave.

They stopped to rest at a lookout. Bright streaks of pink and orange were smeared across the sky. Normally Terry would enjoy such a sight, but he was sick with hunger and thirst. Katya collapsed against a fallen boulder. Terry slumped next to her and pressed his back against the warm stony face. “Please tell me we’re near the top.”

“You two wait here,” Stevenus said. “I’ll scout ahead.”

Terry closed his eyes and listened to Stevenus’s trudging footsteps fade. He could easily doze off here, and just sleep for the rest of his life. A breeze tickled his cheeks. Birds twittered as they roosted in the nearby trees. Birds. He imagined the brightly coloured cardinals and jays would be nasty or poisonous similar to tropical fish but perhaps a sparrow … no, he wasn’t nearly that hungry yet.

“I’m really sorry Terry.” Katya rested her head on his shoulder. He didn’t dare move a muscle in case she lifted away from him again. “If I hadn’t been such a coward, this would all be over and we’d be in the dining hall stuffing ourselves right now.”

“It’s okay,” he said, too weak to say anything else. His head dipped down, his chin pressing against his chest. His eyelids felt like concrete. Consciousness began drifting away.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d dozed for, but he bolted upright at the sound of feet tromping towards them. A low gruff voice was saying, “Aye, we’ve heard of ya. A very old name indeed!”

Whatever Stevenus was saying to them was lost in the wind. A slightly less gruff voice answered, “Coasting on old glory, boy.”

“So is the college,” Stevenus said.

“I'll hear none of that!” the first dwarf said.

Terry opened his eyes and gaped up at the pair of men flanking Stevenus. They were old and sturdy, but very short, coming only to the Chosen One’s chest. They wore grey-blue tunics with zigzagged hems and belted at the waist with braided cords. Beneath which they wore thick brown leggings and dark leather boots. Neither of them wore hats. Their hair and beards were long and grey, and the tops of their ears ended in points.

Terry pressed his hands against the boulder to lever himself up onto his feet. Stevenus smiled wryly as Katya woke and rubbed her eyes. “Allow me to introduce my companions—Katya and Terry.”

Terry noticed each of the short men kept their hands clasped behind their backs while they bowed at him. He bowed back. “Hello. I’m Terry.”

“Bill,” said the older dwarf, who had more wrinkles around his eyes and whiter streaks in his beard. Terry and Katya exchanged confused glances. Both of them had been expecting a more exotic name.

“Timm,” said the younger one, who had full, rosy cheeks like you’d see on a honey crisp apple. “Timm with two m’s.”

“Ah,” Katya said, her arm flexing as she resisted holding her hand out for them to shake. “Nice to meet  you.”

Bill stood in front of Terry and stared up at him. One of his greenish eyes bugged out while the other was nearly closed in a squint, as if the dwarf had spend a lifetime peering through a microscope or spyglass. “Stevenus informs us you’ve run away from Archon Castle.”

Figuring it was wise to let Stevenus do the talking, he nodded in response. That had always been his dad’s advice for any scenario involving police officers, border guards, or any other authority figures: speak as little as possible in their presence.

“And that you seek cooperation from all the elementals to ensure your passage to the outer wall.”

“Yes sir,” Terry said.

“And why may that be. In your own words, boy.”

Oh, crap. He eyed Stevenus, who hunched his shoulders and gestured for him to continue. Katya’s face was bowed in intense concentration at the pebbles around her feet. “Um, we spoke to the water nymph who told us that—”

“Yes, yes, we know, but why did you seek to escape?”

“Because of corruption, sir.” Stevenus had already touched on that subject so Terry felt safe there. Remembering his dad’s cautionary advice to keep the most critical details vague, he continued, “During my stay I witnessed more examples of chicanery than I could possibly keep track of.”

“What does a boy so wet behind the ears know about such ways of the world?”

“My dad, sir.” He met Katya’s eyes as he confessed, “My dad is a crook. What they call a white collar criminal. Meaning that he isn’t violent, but the only reason he’s never been in jail is because he’s too smart to get caught.”

“I see. Carry on.”

Stevenus mouthed something Terry didn’t catch. He continued, “When I first observed them selling goods we made at absurdly inflated prices, I got this … well, I’ve been thinking about some day becoming a journalist because if I don’t get accepted into wizard school because my mum said I should always have a career to fall—”

“An example of this corruption, boy, don’t be testing my patience.”

“I’m sorry sir.”

Stevenus was rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Tell the truth, he mouthed.

“I witnessed this man sell substandard crystal balls to Archon castle in exchange for gifts and personal favours. So I decided, when we get out, that I’m going to write an exposé about it.”

“He’s going to pitch his story to Rolling Stone,” Stevenus said. “One of the biggest magazines in the outside world, mostly known for their rock and—”

“Humans produce a publication about rocks?” Both dwarves grinned, eyes gleaming like pyrite.

“Sort of,” Terry mumbled and Stevenus jabbed him with his elbow. Terry nodded, cluing in. “Rock definitely features in the publication, and it’s very popular.”

Timm rubbed his chin, thinking. Bill, the older dwarf, looked like he still needed convincing. He turned his attention to Katya.

“It’s true,” she said. “I helped sell Archon Castle’s wares at the village market, and what prices they were charging! These people were getting robbed blind.”

“So long as we’re not talking literal robbing by bandits, people can spend their money as they please,” Bill said.

“But what about if ordinary people who can't afford such things really, really wanted to visit? There aren’t many villages like that around anymore and it’s really expensive for them.”

"I'd rather nobody knew about this land," Bill said, turning and hobbling away from them.

Terry’s heart sank. They’d been so close, he thought. Desperate with hunger, he racked his brain for a polite way to ask if they’d at least feed the three of them. He could do some chores or maybe they would lend him a net so he could catch some birds or fish. Having never fished or hunted, Terry assumed catching something edible wouldn’t be too difficult.

Bill continued up the trail. "Magic has already been erased from so much of the world. Rich tourists now, poorer ones later, don't matter to me. Next thing a strip mall will open and a suburb with all those big houses on wee yards. But you cannae go back to how things were before no more than winding a clock backwards can turn back time.”

“Why not?” Terry chased after him. For such a little man, he walked incredibly fast. The world outside was cynical enough, he hated to see this last bulwark of ancient ways giving up so easily. Bill continued around the bend, along a trail that was barely a shelf on a wall of granite. For the next hundred yards Terry edged after him. Stevenus and Katya followed, with Timm trailing some distance behind them. Now on the northerly side of the mountain, their surroundings brightened.

They passed across the face of the cliff to a trail that disappeared into the woods. Bill stopped by a scraggly evergreen at the beginning of the trail that clung to the rock, its roots reaching into the cracks and crevices like a hungry spider. A little ways up the path, sat a basket containing several torches.

“Well?” Terry asked, watching Bill stoop to pick up a torch. “I understand your point about not wanting tourists to come, but what about people who want to preserve everything the way it is now? To slow the march of time if at all possible?”

Bill lit the torch with a Zippo lighter. Gas fumes filled the air. He handed the torch to Terry and began lighting a second one. “You're young, boy. The only thing that never changes is change itself.”

Once everyone had a torch, they continued into the woods. Terry didn’t dare ask where they were going. He was just grateful they were being led someplace. He crossed his fingers and prayed they’d be given a meal and a place to sleep for the night, if nothing else. It looked like they were headed somewhere civilized. The gravel path was roughly a yard wide, level, and well-tended.

Several hundred yards farther along, they came upon a wide circle covered with sand, mulch, and bits of tree bark. The circle was surrounded by torches that had been staked into the ground around the entire perimeter. The scene reminded him of a Tiki ceremony he’d once been on. Last winter’s vacation to Hawaii felt like another lifetime now. Narrow gravel lanes went off from the circle in all directions like spokes on a wheel. Beyond, Terry could see what looked like huts with thatch roofs.

“Oh, this is so cute!” Katya winced and clapped her hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I just thought that—”

“I take no offence.” Bill smiled for the first time, orange light dancing across his craggy face. “That’s how it is with offence. It is something taken, not given, and one can always decline.” He turned and shuffled across the circular area. He ambled up a flagstone path towards a cottage set partly into the side of the mountain. Keys jingled as he stopped in front of a low wooden door. On each side was a window with crisscrossed panes of glass. The shutters were wide open for the rising moonlight. “Come inside and rest yer feet.”

“Are you going to help us escape?” Katya asked.

“We won't hinder it,” he said, sticking his cane under his arm while he worked the door open. “You may stay the night and share our meal so long as you do some chores for us.”

Terry wanted to jump up and down for joy, but he was too tired to do anything besides lean against the side of the cottage while the dwarf worked the door open.

“I don’t know about you, but I would do anything to spend a night indoors and eat a cooked meal right about now,” Stevenus said. Katya and Terry nodded vehemently. All three of them ducked their heads as they went in through the doorway.

The indoor space was much larger than it had appeared from outside. Terry followed Stevenus, Katya and Bill into the round chamber, which was nearly thirty feet in diameter. He’d assumed they were going into Bill’s house, but with the neat clusters of wooden tables and chairs, it looked more like a dining hall. His knees ached as he made his way between rough hewn furnishings until they reached a fireplace on the far side. Scents of potatoes, carrots, herbs, and simmering beef filled his starving nostrils. He’d been so sick of stew and now he craved it as if it was his favourite dish in the world.

Timm gestured for them to sit and disappeared into a dark passageway on their right. Terry sat at one end of a long wooden bench. All the seats were built from trees that had been sawn in half. The legs of the tables and chairs were made from either large branches or saplings. Katya sat across from him. To his shock, she smiled, squeezed his fingers, and mouthed, “I’m so happy to be here.”

“You have no idea,” Stevenus whispered in his ear, taking the spot next to him. “Dwarvish hospitality is legendary. Especially if they can recruit anyone long-limbed for certain jobs.”

Terry’s stomach rumbled. Hungry as he was, part of him was tempted to stretch out on the bench behind them and sleep for several hours. He leaned his elbows on the little table, which was good and sturdy, and propped his chin on his fists. More scents came from the kitchen, making his mouth water. His stomach rumbled painfully and his parched throat ached.

Timm emerged from the corridor carrying a stack of bowls. He wore an apron with multiple pockets on it. Handles of various types of wooden cutlery stuck out this way and that. Bill came after him, his arms wrapped around a giant wooden bowl. He set the bowl down on the table and began ladling stew out for everyone.

Hot broth rolling across his tongue, down his throat and into his belly was the most amazing sensation Terry’d ever felt. He hadn’t been merely hungry, he’d been starving. Every cell in his body was stirred into action to welcome sustenance. Another dwarf slipped in, and lay down a basket of bread rolls for them. Terry sniffed, taking in the scents of stew, sourdough buns and melted butter.

“You don’t mind frogs and toads, do ya?” Timm winked and elbowed Katya.

“I’d eat their innards and eyeballs if that’s all you were offering right now,” she said. He looked a little downcast that he hadn’t managed to gross her out.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Terry said after he’d swallowed, “but some of that loose tree bark in the woods was starting to look pretty appetising.” He snorted, picturing how one of those mean girls at the camp would’ve reacted to Timm’s comment. “This is very delicious, by the way. Best meal I’ve ever had in my life.” He meant it with every fibre of his being. Never had he been so grateful for food before, not even after that first day of hauling buckets of water and wagons of coal.

“You’re welcome,” Bill said, from the far side of Stevenus.

After their meal and a desert of wild berry pie, they were led down a stone passage into a warm, cavernous room. A pillowy mattress lay in each corner, with several cushions and wool blankets piled on top. Bill and Timm bade them goodnight and said that they’d wake them at sunrise. As the dwarves closed the door, leaving them in darkness, Terry began drifting off.

“They didn’t say whether they’d actually help us or not,” Katya mumbled.

Terry couldn’t remember where he was when he first woke, only that he was cold, damp, and smelled decaying leaves instead of horse manure. Whatever he lay on top of, a mixture of dirt and rock, it was very hard. He stretched out a crick in his neck and opened his eyes. In the pale grey light, he watched Katya curled up on the far side of the smouldering fire. He was about to look around for Stevenus when he heard feet thudding and branches swishing somewhere behind Katya. Propping himself up on his elbow, he watched the Chosen One leap down from a switchback in the trail above, something bundled in his arms.

“Breakfast,” he said, cradling what looked to Terry like spongy tree bark in the folds of his t-shirt. Beneath were some greyish white puffballs roughly the size of the goat pellets they’d spent the other day shovelling. “Not the best-tasting things, but edible and very nutritious.”

Katya roused, and they ate quietly. Terry could easily think of worse breakfasts than raw mushrooms thanks to his past few weeks at Archon Castle. Cold runny eggs mixed with sandy gruel, for instance. The mist over the river lifted as the sun rose above the trees, but his brain felt foggier than a San Francisco summer. He didn’t want to continue their trek until he was more alert.

Once he’d reached his tolerance level of fungi, he found a flat rock at the river’s edge to kneel on. He alternately drank and washed his face in the ice cold water, which tasted strangely sweet. Then he sat, almost in a trance, watching tiny silvery fish dart among the mossy rocks beneath the surface of the water.

He looked to his right. The water beyond their sheltered little cove was fast-moving, rilling over boulders and rocks, and yet it appeared to be fairly shallow all the way across. The trail they’d been on continued up a slope on the far side. Going by where the trees started growing some three feet above the water’s edge, it was probably one of those rivers that swelled significantly from snow-melt runoff in the spring or after a heavy rain. He studied the route between. Enough large rocks lay along the riverbed that they wouldn’t even have to get their feet wet for most of the way.

“You’re disgusting!”

Terry turned to see Katya facing him, her face twisted in a scowl. She sat with her knees to her chest and was shielding her eyes with her hands on each side of her face. Behind her, Stevenus had unzipped his jeans. Ashes hissed as a steady stream of urine doused the remaining embers. “I did warn you,” he said.

“It’s still gross!”

Terry chuckled, tempted to join Stevenus in what felt like a wonderfully primitive ritual to mark territory, but he didn’t need to go just yet.

After doing up his jeans and straightening his clothes, Stevenus ambled up to Katya. He grasped her shoulder. She refused to look at him as he said, “Never leave a fire burning in the woods—basic safety for any outdoorsman.”

Terry stood and held his hand out to her to help her up.

“Thank you,” she said. The feel of her fingers in his sent a shiver up his spine. Even when she was sulking she was still pretty. He liked whenever she was annoyed with the Chosen One.

“Now what?” she asked, brushing her hands on her jeans. She stumbled to the edge of the river and studied the shore on the far side.

“We cross the river,” Terry and Stevenus said in unison, and then looked at each other.

“Fording, I believe it’s called,” Terry continued hesitantly. Stevenus nodded at him. He’d come across the word in plenty of novels, but wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was what he thought it meant. “It’s where we create a path of large stones for us to step on across the river?”

“No, it just means crossing wherever it appears safest,” Stevenus said. Terry deflated a little when he realized Katya had known better too.

“No need for extra rocks.” Katya leapt with the grace of a deer onto the nearest boulder jutting out of the water, then to the next. The third one wobbled under her sudden weight, but she quickly regained her balance. Terry followed until they reached a channel roughly ten feet in width where they’d have to wade. It wasn’t as deep as he’d originally feared, only two and a half feet or so, but the few rocks that lay on the riverbed inches below the glassy surface of the water were covered in moss and slime. The nearest clean-looking one was more than three feet away—too far to try leaping onto.

“Oh, screw it, it’s only water.” Katya braced her hand on Terry’s shoulder for balance while she took off each of her shoes. Terry held them for her while she rolled up the legs of her jeans. Then, hugging her shoes to her chest, she began wading across.

Terry watched carefully; at its deepest the water rose just above her knees. He took off his sandals, hitched up the legs of his jeans, and took his time making his way across. The cold numbed his feet, making it harder to keep his balance, but eventually he reached the far side without once slipping. Stevenus splashed in behind him. He’d been wearing khaki shorts, the hems of which were quickly soaked. He joined Terry on the flat slab of rock on the far shore and put his shoes back on.

“Yuck!” Katya feet squelched in muck. She stepped around them onto a larger boulder, sat, and began rinsing her feet. Terry shook his own feet dry and put his sandals back on.

“I’m just going to survey ahead a little.” Terry clambered up a narrow trail that cut between two giant slabs of mottled rock that had probably been stuck in that spot since the end of the last ice age. He squeezed through, the smell of damp moss filling his nose. He came out of the narrow passage and came onto a well-trodden path that wound up into the forest. He turned back to fetch the others and slammed straight into Stevenus.

“Where’s Katya?”

“She’s be …” Stevenus scowled and checked over his shoulder at the empty trail leading down to the riverbank. “Katya? She was right behind me! I thought. Katya! This way!”

No answer. “Katya!” He hurried back down through the gap saying, “I could have sworn she was right behind—”

An eardrum-shattering scream pierced the air. They scrambled down to the shore and some fifty feet downstream, Katya was up to her chest in the water, clinging to a rock for dear life. Stevenus stepped into the river and she let out another yelp. The current tore her from the rock and pulled her underwater.

“Katya!” Terry watched her surface and try to stand upright just as a watery rope lashed around her waist. What was happening to her! He stumbled along the riverbank, barely keeping pace as she was dragged downstream. Around a sharp bend the water grew deeper and he dove in, somehow managing to grasp one of her wrists. “Hold onto me, Katya!”

She clutched the sleeve of his t-shirt, dragging him further into the swift current. To his horror, Terry realised something besides the current was pulling them along. He wrapped his legs around her torso so that his hands would be free to grip any branch or rock they passed. They sped through the water as though they’d been caught in a fisherman’s hook and were being reeled in. Terry hugged Katya and kicked against the riverbed. His foot found purchase against a large rock and did his best to stay in one spot while water surged around his face. He twisted Katya free of whatever had been clinging to her, and they scrabbled onto the shore.

“Omigod what was that,” she panted. She rolled up onto the grassy verge and gripped the trunk of a birch tree.

“No idea. I couldn’t see anything,” Terry said, trying to catch his breath. He hoped they were safe now that that they were clear of the water, but felt a strong urge to clamber further uphill to safety. Leaves rustled and they looked up to see Stevenus emerge from the undergrowth along a ridge above.

“Show yourself, nymph!” Stevenus leapt down and stepped onto a stony outcrop jutting out from the pebble beach. He stood erect, twisting and twirling his fingers in the air. A banshee-shriek pierced Terry’s ears. So that hadn’t been Katya screaming earlier.

“I can do this all day!” Stevenus’s voice echoed as if he were shouting along a canyon.

Katya and Terry joined his side. Terry followed Stevenus’s gaze to a shallow pool eddying along the shore of the far side. Tendrils of willow branches trailed in the water. Just beneath, he thought he saw a jellylike formation bulge out of the water. He rubbed his eyes. A liquid mound rose from the surface, turning into a column of water and then taking on a vaguely female shape. It waded towards them.

Terry gasped, unable to believe what he was seeing. A woman, made entirely from water. Sunlight danced off her colourless form, which warped and reflected the surrounding rocks and trees. She looked as though she were made of liquid glass.

“I’ve been sent to fetch you,” she said, her voice burbling musically. “This stream flows into the groundwater beneath Archon Castle. And feeds the surrounding moat. Master Adept Quindalore summoned me from the main well to retrieve you.”

“No,” Katya said, retreating into the underbrush. “I can’t go back.”

“Please,” Stevenus said to the nymph. “This isn’t the Archon Castle of old. They’ve turned corrupt, become nothing more than a commercial enterprise growing rich on slave labour and shady business schemes.”

Terry felt a sudden surge of terror as she advanced to the water’s edge, then relief when he realised she was unable to come onshore. Her face and body shimmered in the rising sun. Now that he could get a good look at her, she was enchantingly beautiful. Full, perfect lips, large, wide set eyes on a heart-shaped face, and a perfect, narrow nose.

“I have been ordered to retrieve you,” she said, her face strikingly placid in spite of the angry tone in her voice.

“Ordered!” Stevenus stamped his foot. “Since when do elementary beings not have their own will to exercise as they wish?”

Without knowing how, Terry could tell she was considering. One thing he’d gleaned from his dad over the years was that a successful pitch involved tailoring to the audience, even going so far as to try to sound like them. Adopting the same arcane speech as Stevenus and the nymph, Terry said, “We were sent to Archon Castle to learn the ancient and traditional ways, and all we’ve done is toil endlessly for material gain. I witnessed the most incredible acts of cruelty and nefariousness.”

“Such as?”

He sucked in his breath, hoping he wasn’t about to screw things up royally for them. The vaguer the better, he figured. “Our friend was about to be whipped for the pettiest, most minor infraction and another friend was sentenced to the dungeon for nothing more than a simple, harmless prank. They spend more time selling potions and souvenirs to tourists than they do to finding heirs for all the knowledge they have accumulated. If they keep this up, their secrets could be lost forever and Archon Castle will be nothing more than a relic, surrounded by strip malls containing fast-food joints and—”

“Enough!” she said, raising her hand. Whenever she moved, Terry heard a loud splashing. Water dripped from her outstretched fingers like melted wax falling from a candle. “I take no side in your dispute. If you can convince the other elementary beings to assist in your plight, I will help too. For now, you are free to go.”

“Thank you,” Stevenus said, bowing his head. Terry and Katya bowed their heads to her too.

“Understand the risk I am taking by ignoring a summons. Deceive not the other elements about my stance. Betray me and so long as you are in these lands, no water will quench your thirst.” With that, she dove sideways into the waters like a seal performing a trick.

Terry let out a deep breath he’d been holding. He felt wobbly with relief and disoriented from the unreal sight of talking water. He stripped off his drenched t-shirt, wrung it out, and put it back on. He was torn between laying his clothes on the rocks to dry, and getting as far away from the river as possible.

“Odds are, they’ve summoned all of the elements to fetch us. Water tends to be the most compliant, which is why we encountered her first.” Stevenus began hiking up through the underbrush into the woods.

Though he’d rather sit out in the sun and dry off, Terry followed Stevenus up the trail. Katya traipsed up behind them, hugging her goose-pimpled arms to her chest. “Wh-what now?”

“We should search for an earth being,” Stevenus said. “They’re not fond of wizards, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to recruit one of them to our side. They tend to live in and around caves. We call them gnomes or dwarves, though they don't refer to themselves as anything as far as I know. Just people.”

“Then what do they call us?” Katya ask.

“I can’t think of a direct translation for any words they use to describe us, only that they are all derogatory.”

Great, Terry thought. Though if anyone could win over a hostile audience, it was Stevenus.

For nearly an hour they climbed, eventually arriving on a rocky outcrop. They still weren’t anywhere near the top, but it was a good place for them to get their bearings. Terry shielded his eyes from the hot sun and surveyed the mountainous vista. The same river where they’d camped next to twisted far below. Beyond was the hill Terry reckoned they’d descended the night before. Archon Castle lay somewhere beyond.

Stevenus joined his side. “Thanks to my grandfather, I’m somewhat familiar with these lands. He kept several maps in his study. If you can tell us where we are in relation to that tower with the red light, I can take us to the cave dwellers from there.”

Terry gazed out, overlaying his mental map with the view before them. His stomach rumbled. It was so much easier to think when he wasn’t hungry. He looked down at the river again, trying to estimate how far along the nymph had taken them, then retracing their journey overnight. Archon Castle lay behind the mound on the far side of the river they’d just crossed. If he was right, the mountain with the tower should be visible once they reached the far side of the ridge they were on. “It should be that way,” he said, pointing uphill.

“So we need to get around this peak,” Stevenus said, sounding tired.

“Hopefully it isn’t far.” They began shuffling up the narrow dirt trail, swatting at flies and mosquitoes that tried to land on them. Terry saw no berries or fruit on any of the surrounding shrubs. He wondered what green things they passed were edible. Probably none.

“Shouldn’t we just try to find that old village?” Katya looked so miserable. Her hair was stringy and water dripped from her clothes.