Book of Heroes: George of Sedona I - 22. George of Sedona IV: Along the Iron Mountains Gateway

Chapter 22: Gateway

“We’re coming in on this road. Three other roads leave Gateway,” Arthur said. “One goes to Eblis, the country south of the Iron Range. Another goes northeast to Brody; the last is the Southern Mountain Road. It goes east through the foothills of the Iron Range, to the sea.” Arthur had opened one of his maps and spread it out while the horses grazed. The grass had gone to seed with the approach of winter. The horses were busily cropping the seed heads.

“There’s a lot of traffic between Gateway and Eblis. Not all of that traffic is legitimate. There are smugglers and worse. Eblis is not a Good place. We are likely to be in more danger here than we’ve seen before. Keep your guard up.” Gary, George, and Larry nodded.

The boys rode close to one another. Arthur stayed in the rear so that he could keep them all in his sight. George was in the lead. All senses, magical and mundane, were alert as they approached the town.

Their precautions seemed misplaced. The gates of the town were open. The guards barely glanced at them; there was no sembler to test the truth of their story. Inside the town were people both mounted and on foot. The people seemed to go about their business with no concern for whom or what might enter the gate. Arthur elected to proceed on horseback. The street narrowed, and forced them into single file.

Arthur was not reassured when he saw the sign of an inn—inauspiciously named Pirates’ Cove. A careful pulse of magic returned bearing no sign of immediate danger in the form of Evil, but magic could scarcely detect the stealthy fingers of a pickpocket, or the unformed plans of a footpad. Arthur led the boys to the stable. The tween who was sweeping the stable acknowledged that there was room at the inn. With the boy’s grudging help, they groomed and fed the horses.

The inn and the few people in the common room looked clean enough, although the customers were remarkably quiet. No one looked up as Arthur and the boys entered the room. No one but the publican greeted them. Arthur negotiated the price of room and board for them and their horses, and received a heavy iron key. “Room at the end of the hall to the right,” the publican said, briefly.

“They’re not very friendly here,” George said once they were in their room.

“Not very lively, either,” Larry added. “I didn’t see anything out of place, though.” He struggled to gather up their dirty clothes and bedrolls. Rinsing them in a creek or river was good enough when they were on the road, but a little soap and hot water when they reached a town made a big difference.

Gary stepped in to help. “Come on, George, give us a hand,” he said.

George stood at the window, staring over the street that ran in front of the inn. He turned his head slowly from side to side.

“What do you hear?” Arthur asked quietly.

George hesitated before he spoke. “It’s like an orchestra tuning up, but they’re out of tune. They keep trying, though. It’s very faint.”

“That may be spilling over the mountains,” Arthur said. “From Eblis. If the sound gets any louder, let me know. That goes for all of you. If anything seems out of the ordinary, be sure to share it.”

After their bath, Arthur led the boys to the common room for a late lunch. Three tweens, local boys by their banter with the potboy, sat at one table. Two men wearing hooded travel cloaks hunched over another table. The hoods of the cloaks covered their heads; their faces were nearly in their bowls. Arthur and the boys took a table to one side. The potboy brought trenchers, mugs, bread, a large bowl of stew, and a pitcher of ale.

A pair of soldiers entered the room, looked around, and took a table near the door. The soldiers were tweens whose tabards bore the sign of the Viscount of Brody: over each boy’s heart, a silver wolf rampant issued from a black shield. Two younger boys came in and joined the soldiers. The potboy seemed to know the soldiers, and brought them food without being asked. Larry saw the potboy whisper to one of the soldiers, who then looked toward Larry.

“The scullery boy said something to the soldiers about us,” Larry said, scarcely moving his lips. His voice was too low to carry beyond the table.

Arthur nodded. “Thanks.”

The soldiers seemed to be in no hurry, but finished their food before one stood and walked over to Arthur’s table.

“Good day to you,” he said. “You’re new in town.”

“Good day to you,” Arthur replied. “Yes. I’m glad the scullery told you; it saved us the trouble. My name is Arthur. I’m a healer. These boys travel with me. Will you sit?” As he made the invitation, Arthur gestured to the nearly full pitcher of ale on the table.

The soldier looked toward the table where his companions sat. “I…that is…I should get back to…Will you stay long?”

“We travel east,” Arthur said in answer to the soldier’s next question. “What’s the next city along the road?”

“Algoropolis,” the tween replied. “It’s a couple of tendays away—if the weather doesn’t turn. Then it’s longer. There are a couple of farm towns closer, though.”

“Algoropolis. That means cold city,” George said between bites of apple cobbler after the soldiers and their companions had left. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” Arthur replied. “In Old Elvish, it does. It’s also from Latin, meaning cold, and Greek, polis, a city-state like Athens and Sparta.”

“What’s an Athens and a Sparta?” Larry asked. He knew that Latin and Greek were languages from George’s world. With George’s help, Larry was rapidly becoming proficient in the Latinate Old Elvish language.

“And why does a city this far south have an elven name?” Gary added.

“Later,” Arthur said. His eyes narrowed and his lips pressed together.

George was the first to react. Seeing the look on Arthur’s face, the boy reached under the table and loosened his dagger. As if finished with his meal, he casually pushed his trencher away, and picked up a heavy ceramic mug in his left hand.

Gary and Larry sensed something: some of George’s caution seeped into the corners of their minds. Still, Arthur hadn’t done anything, so they sat, quietly. Waiting but alert.

“Heard you say you were headed east,” a voice rasped over George’s shoulder. The boy did not move, even though his insides felt like a river in spate.

The voice continued, “Dangerous road, dangerous towns. Your journey must be important to risk the lives of these boys.”

“Perhaps you did not also hear that I am a healer,” Arthur said. “The most potent herbs are found in the most dangerous places.” He looked down at his plate as if dismissing the speaker.

The voice ignored Arthur’s tactic. “Wouldn’t think any herb was worth that. Perhaps you carry something; perhaps you seek something.” The voice dropped to a whisper. “Zwill, maybe?”

Zwill, Arthur thought with a start. And zwillnick, the name for drug smugglers in…what was that series? The author was Smith…Oh yes, The Lensman. A classic, early space opera. Interesting what words and concepts go from world to world. I’ve heard of zwill. It’s nasty stuff. No healer would have anything to do with it. Aloud, he said, “Not interested.” Once again, he bent his head toward his bowl.

“A little won’t hurt you—” the voice began.

“It’s black!” Larry exclaimed, interrupting whatever else the man might have said.

Arthur’s head snapped up. The man, his face still hidden by his cowl, had pulled a small leather bag from his sleeve, and was about to open it. Larry was pointing to the bag.

Arthur seized the wrist of the hand holding the bag and held it firmly. “Do not open that bag. Not near these boys, and not near me.”

The cowled man drew a dagger from within the folds of his robe, and swung it at Arthur’s arm. This was what George had been waiting for. Sliding sideways from his seat, he stood, drew his dagger, and spun to face the second zwillnick.

No clues from his eyes flashed through the boy’s mind. The cowl hid the man’s face, but did not, apparently, interfere with his vision. The man held his dagger low, and thrust it toward George’s stomach. The boy stepped into, not away from, the blow and caught the man’s dagger on the blade of his own. George swept his arm not wide, just wide enough. Arthur’s instructions echoed in the boy’s head. The guard of George’s dagger caught the guard of his opponent’s dagger. George drove his left fist, still holding the tankard, into the man’s face. The cowl absorbed some of the blow, but the man was sufficiently distracted. George’s dagger plunged into the man’s breast just below the sternum. Gritting his teeth, George twisted the knife, pushing upward. Oh! That’s his heart, George thought as he felt through the blade and haft of the dagger a thud, thud, thud, and then silence.

The man slumped to the floor as George withdrew his dagger. The boy turned toward Arthur’s opponent. That battle, too was finished. The man lay across the table. A pool of blood had formed on the table and was dripping onto the floor.

“George?” Arthur asked.

“He’s dead,” George said. “I heard…I felt his heart stop beating.” The boy shivered briefly, and then began cleaning his dagger.

Arthur looked around the room. He and his companions, the two dead men, and the publican were the only ones in the room. Where’s the potboy? Arthur wondered. The boy in question stuck his head from behind a table where he’d taken refuge.

“You’d best summon the guard,” Arthur sighed, addressing the publican. “Please don’t worry. We will not harm you or the boy.”

The potboy returned with the two soldiers who had earlier eaten their own lunch in the inn. When the trio came in the door, the potboy gestured toward the corner where Arthur, George, Gary, and Larry stood over the two bodies.

When the young soldier rolled the body off the table, the cowl fell off exposing the man’s face. The soldier put his hand over his mouth, turned his head, and hurled the contents of his stomach onto the floor and over the second body.

Gary felt his stomach heave, but he’d seen worse. Aunt Beth and her family, he thought. And Endymion. But what is this? His face…like it’s been eaten by acid! It oozes!

Arthur chose to ignore the soldier’s distress, much to the boy’s relief. “The other one’s probably like that as well,” Arthur said. “It was zwill in the bag. It will do that.”

“Zwill?” The young soldier shuddered. “That’s nasty stuff. You…” He looked around, and suddenly seemed to realize that Arthur and the three boys outnumbered him and his companion, and that they had killed two men.

Arthur sensed the soldier’s consternation. “We mean harm to no one. These men began this battle. One tried to poison us with zwill. The other had drawn his blade and was about to stab this boy in the back. We were right to defend ourselves.”

The soldier seemed relieved. “These men…yes…brought it on themselves…I…I’ve got to bring a sembler, though. If it’s all right with you? It will only take a moment…” Arthur nodded his head, and the soldier spoke to the potboy. The boy darted out the door.

Within minutes, an older soldier, wearing decurion’s flashes on his tunic, arrived. The young soldier hurried to meet him. After a few minutes of whispered conversation, the decurion beckoned to Arthur.

“These men had zwill?” the decurion asked.

“They said they did. When we rejected their offer to buy, they attacked. That one,” Arthur pointed to the man George had killed, “attacked the boy from behind.”

“Zwill is very costly,” the decurion mused. “Do you have any? Were you going to buy from these men?”

“It is costly, but no and no,” Arthur answered.

The decurion nodded. “True. Do you know these men?”

“We had not seen them before we came to supper,” Arthur said. He then added. “They wear travel cloaks, but their boots are neither stout nor dirty. I assume they have horses, tack?”

The publican, who had been hovering close by, nodded. “In the stable.”

“They had money, as well?” Arthur asked. The publican nodded again.

“It’s ours, by right.” Arthur paused to gauge the decurion. “We do not need their horses or tack. Those who must remove the bodies and clean the floor—they should be paid. Would you…this is an imposition…would you see to the proper disposal of their effects? At your discretion…we’d be very obliged.”

Arthur had judged the decurion correctly. A bargain was struck. Arthur and the boys were to leave Gateway, immediately. Nothing would be said about their part in the deaths. The decurion would take the men’s horses and other possessions.

The sun had passed below the western mountains, but there was still ample light as they rode from the town. Arthur made sure the guard was watching as they took the road toward the northeast. George’s puzzled look changed to a smile as Arthur winked at him.

“Looks like we’ll be camping out, tonight,” Arthur said.

“Well, we did get a bath,” George replied.

“And lunch,” Larry added.

*****

“Why did we have to leave?” George asked Arthur. The night had turned cold, and they snuggled deeply into the blankets. “We weren’t in the wrong.”

“What do you know about addiction, George?” Arthur countered.

“Huh?” George said. “What’s that got…Oh. I asked the wrong question, didn’t I?”

“I doubt that even Larry’s former master would have anything to do with zwill,” Arthur said. “Do you know about crystal meth?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so,” George responded.

“Angel dust?” Arthur asked. Again the boy responded in the negative.

“I’ve heard about heroin,” George said.

“Well,” Arthur said, “Crystal meth is 100 times worse than heroin, and zwill is 100 times worse than crystal meth. It gives an incredible high. Afterwards, a person can function normally for about a day before he wants more. And when he wants it, he has to have it. It’s said that if an addict were in shackles, he’d chew his own legs off to get to it. It’s hard to get—well, maybe not this close to Eblis—and expensive.”

“So,” George said, “why was that man offering it to us? Did we look like we could afford it? Was he trying to sell it?”

“I think if Larry hadn’t identified the bag as being evil, and if I hadn’t grabbed his hand, the man would have dusted us with the drug that was in the bag. We’d have been helpless for some time, and instantly addicted,” Arthur said. “The addiction wouldn’t have mattered; we’d have been dead.”

“Then the question is why would he have done that,” George said. “And I have no answer.”

“Nor do I,” Arthur said. “But, I don’t think we’d seen them before. I don’t think they knew us. Moreover, I don’t think what they did was natural. I think they were being manipulated, and I think at least one of our enemies knows where we are—or were—and used them. To control a zwill-user would not take much time or effort.”

“Oh. I see.” George said. “What will we do?”

“Right now?” Arthur asked. He then answered his own question. “Right now, we’re safe, and I want your boy magic.”

Zwillnicks’ Master

A thousand miles away, or more, a creature whose face was only marginally more attractive than the faces of the two zwillnicks shivered in the damp air that forced its way between the stone of the building and the frame of the wooden shutters. Neither the cold nor the stink of rotting fish was the cause of his distress. Failure. Again. The tools were weak, and I had little time to prepare. Will that be justification enough?

*****

In Arcadia, there was a hint of rose in the eastern sky. Overhead, stars still twinkled. George shivered. Arthur’s up already, the boy thought. It was cold even in the bedroll. The crackle of a fire promised warmth. George opened one eye and looked around.

Arthur stood, naked save for his boots, by the fire. George’s breath caught in his throat when he saw Arthur. The boy watched for a moment, fascinated by the play of firelight across the planes and curves of Arthur’s body, then, “Why didn’t you put any clothes on?” he whispered. The unmoving lumps in the second bedroll showed that Larry and Gary were still asleep.

“Didn’t want to disturb you,” Arthur said.

George knew that once awake, Arthur would rarely go back to sleep. And, he thought, remembering the conversation of the night before, he may want to start traveling quickly. Get ahead of whatever’s chasing us. George dug Arthur’s clothes from the saddlebag that had been their pillow. “Here,” he whispered.

Arthur released the spell that had enveloped him in warmth from the fire.

When breakfast was finished, Arthur put another log on the fire, and began to prepare more tea. He did not seem in any hurry to break camp.

“Um, shouldn’t we get going?” Gary asked.

“Would you boys have another cup of tea, and sit by the fire?” Arthur asked. The boys were puzzled, but none more than George. He’s got a reason. What is it?

“Larry, Gary,” Arthur began when the boys were settled. “You know that someone—someone evil, someone using dark magic—has attacked us before. I think those men in the inn yesterday were sent by that someone. I think he knew where we’d be, and planned that encounter. That’s not as bad as it sounds. Those men were poor tools. Thanks to Larry’s warning, we were able to defeat them quickly and with little danger to us.

“This suggests several things. First, our adversary has limited resources. Second, he didn’t have much time to prepare. Third, he isn’t omniscient. He almost certainly does not know where we are, now. He may be able to find out which direction we went when we left the city, but he won’t know how fast we travel or what is our destination.

“In fact, I suspect that he will overestimate our speed, especially if we stay here today. One of the maxims of war is, ‘appear where you are not expected.’ To that I would add, ‘and don’t appear where you are expected.’

“We’re going to spend the day here. Then we’re going to cut through the woods to Algoropolis. We’ll arrive there much later than we would, otherwise.”

“And sooner than we’d be expected in Brody, if we were going there,” George said. He’d been examining Arthur’s maps.

“But, Arthur, you told the guard…the one who came to our table…that we were going east, to Algoropolis,” Gary reminded him.

“And we will,” Arthur said. “But the city guard will be reluctant to talk to anyone about us. I suspect we frightened the two tweens badly. They also know that we bribed their decurion with the zwilnicks’ horses and other possessions. The decurion will have shared at least some of that with them. No, it is unlikely that anyone will learn about us from them.

“Also, I made sure the gate guards saw us take the northeast fork. If anyone questions them, and if they were disposed to speak, that is what they will say. Now, how shall we spend the day?”

“You could tell us what’s an Athens and a Sparta,” Larry suggested.

“Yeah,” Gary said. “You never did get back to that. And why Algoropolis has an elven name.”

*****

A thousand lifetimes ago, Arthur began, the ridgeline of the Iron Mountains was not the dividing line between Eblis and Arcadia. Eblis claimed not only the mountains, but also the lands north of them for perhaps a hundred miles. The city we now call Algoropolis was a city of Eblis. It had, then, a name that has been lost to history.

In those days, there was no special alliance between humans and elves or between Arcadia and Elvenhold. The elves were a pastoral people who did not know or practice the arts and skills of war. Evil was constrained to Eblis, and Arcadia had long served as a buffer between that Evil and the peaceful people of Elvenhold.

However, this was to change.

History does not say why the king of Elvenhold feared that Evil would approach his people. History does tell that the king sent ambassadors to Arcadia seeking to establish an alliance with the humans and Arcadia. The king asked for a cadre to create an elven army and to teach it the skills of war. The king asked for generals to teach his nobles and himself the arts of war. In return, the king offered an alliance with any prince of Arcadia who ruled in the Light.

The alliance was formed, and Arcadia sent soldiers and generals to the elves. The humans were impressed by the elves’ archery; the elves were impressed by the humans’ swordsmanship. Later, others came including mages and clerics, and additional alliances were formed between the temples of the two lands, and between the greatest of the schools of magic in both countries. Human boys and men formed alliances with elven boys and men; men and women of both races pledged troth, and children were born. The two countries became meshed not only by formal treaty, but by bonds of love and family. And, of course, trade. Trade flourished between the two countries. Carter, which lies along their eastern border, and Barbicana, the great elven city in the west, became centers of trade and learning and wealth.

The elven king’s premonition of danger had been correct. Evil from the south began to spread into Arcadia. The Arcadian army and people resisted. True to his word, the elven king sent forces into Arcadia to join with the Arcadian army. He sent food and wool to help feed and clothe refugees. He sent his son, the prince, as ambassador to the prince of Arcadia.

It was an elven Army that captured the city we call Algoropolis, and it was they—so far from their sunny lands—who gave it the name by which we know it. It was the elven prince who convinced the Arcadian prince that Evil should be pushed back over the mountains which would then form a natural barrier to Evil forces.

That Great War against Evil was the beginning of the amity between Arcadia and Elvenhold, an amity that was strengthened aeons later when darkness succeeded in overrunning both countries. But that is another story.

*****

“These foothills hold a lot of magic. They will shield us from scrying,” Arthur said. They’d broken camp at midday, and were walking the horses through the forest.

“Why are we following the stream?” Gary asked. They had been picking their way along a burbling watercourse. “Wouldn’t the game trails have been easier?”

“I know,” George said, remembering his first day on World. “Water will lead to a farmstead or a road, and a road will lead to where we want to go. Right?”

“Mostly right,” Arthur replied. “But there’s also the matter of water for the horses. There are probably a lot of springs and streams around here, but there may not be one nearby when we need it.”

“I never realized it, before,” George said, “but roads always follow water, don’t they? And is that the reason?”

“Again, mostly right,” Arthur said. “Originally, because people customarily farm the flood plains along rivers, and early roads linked farms with villages. But water for horses or the oxen that pull most farm wagons, that’s important.”

“If you two are through ana…analyzing stuff, you can decide if we should take the road,” Gary said.

“And which way,” Larry added. He and Gary had been in the lead. They’d encountered the farm road that George had predicted, and now waited for Arthur and George.

“Hmm,” Arthur said. “What do you think?” The choice of direction was not obvious. The road seemed to run north and south where it crossed the stream.

“South might take us to the Southern Mountain Road, and that’s not where we want to be,” Gary said. “At least, not yet.”

“North might take us back to Brody,” Larry added. “And that’s not where we want to be, either.”

“North,” George said confidently. When the other boys looked at him, he explained. “South doesn’t lead to the main road; it leads straight into the hills, there. A farm road wouldn’t cross the hills. It doesn’t make sense. And, the road to Brody’s too far away. I’ll bet the road will turn east before nightfall.”

“Could be a smuggler’s route to the south,” Gary suggested.

“All the more reason to go north,” Larry said, also siding with George.

George is developing an instinct that is taking him somewhere, Arthur thought as the boys walked their horses toward the north. Is it destiny or something else? There have been some narrow escapes, but so far, destiny seems to have given George the same protection it has given me. Why?

“Looks like you were right,” Gary said to George as the road turned east.

*****

The people along the road, so close to the evil of Eblis south of the Iron Mountains, were not significantly unlike others of Arcadia, save that they seemed less healthy and less…happy, perhaps, thought Arthur. They seem dour yet industrious, like Puritans, or the Roundheads who followed Oliver Cromwell. But why do they seem less healthy? It’s more than the lesser amount of sunlight and their pale complexions, I think.

They found an inn beside the road. A village lay perhaps a hundred yards back from the road. A narrow path led between the inn and the village. The time was late afternoon, and Arthur elected to stop rather than travel another hour or two and sleep in the forest.

After stabling their horses, the boys walked across a courtyard to the inn. “Did you see the stable boy’s eyes?” Gary asked. “There was a yellow…I don’t know … crust … around them.”

“His aura had some dark lines I didn’t recognize,” Larry said, “but he had some for infection, too.”

“Shit!” George said, as he narrowly missed a pile of that substance which lay beside a trench running from the back wall of the inn toward the outer wall of the stable yard.

“The stable boy probably has some sort of infection—little bacterial beasties growing in his eyes. His body has tried to fight the infection with white cells. He secreted lymph fluid and tears. They’ve dried to the crust you saw. That ditch in the courtyard? Open sewer. The boy probably doesn’t wash his hands very often, and likely rubbed his eyes, contaminating them. I don’t have to tell you…wash your hands often, and use plenty of boy magic to get them clean,” Arthur summarized.

“Now,” he continued, “if you’re not too grossed out, how about supper?”

“What’s grossed out?” Larry asked.

The publican and the scullery were significantly cleaner than the stable boy, a situation likely attributable to the publican’s wife, who held court—and the key to the cash box—from a stool in a corner behind the bar. She accepted Arthur’s silver and copper with what probably passed in her mind for a smile. “Table in the corner, right of the fire,” she said, pointing. “Boy will be over with supper. Ale all around?” The last was said with a wry glance at Gary, the smallest and youngest appearing.

Arthur nodded, and gestured the boys to go to the table.

“Mistress,” he began, “please do not think me impudent but, the stable boy, he’s your son?”

“Yes,” the woman said, “not hard to suss. You want him?”

“No thank you, Mistress,” Arthur said, quietly. “I noticed that he has some disease of the eye. I know something of healing. May I examine him?”

“Suit yourself,” the woman said.

After supper, the boys found the stable boy in the bath. The water was cool, and the boy was grateful—and a little surprised—when Gary offered to warm it for him. The boy had the same notion his mother had—that Arthur and his companions were looking for a catamite.

“What is your name?” Larry asked.

“Caleb, an it please you,” the boy said.

“Caleb, how long have you had trouble with your eyes,” Larry asked.

The boy seemed startled. “All my life,” he said. “As long as I can remember, anyway. And everyone else, too,” he added.

Larry’s heart lurched. How can I be so fortunate, and this boy be so…so…more than unfortunate…almost cursed… He looked at Arthur, who nodded for Larry to continue.

“The problem with your eyes comes from a disease. Arthur is a healer. Would you let him help you?”

“You don’t want me?” Caleb asked.

Larry looked desperately at Arthur. “I don’t know what to say!” he whispered.

“Not in that way, Caleb,” Arthur said. “We want you to be healthy and happy, and we don’t think you have much health or happiness. We can’t give you happiness. You will have to find that for yourself. But we can help you be healthy, if you will let us.”

Larry felt Arthur’s approval when Larry correctly identified the cause of Caleb’s trachoma, and twisted magic to help the boy begin to create an antibody. Some salve and a little magic had alleviated the symptoms, and the boy’s eyes were clear and bright. Arthur described the source of the problem; Larry told the boy how to prevent a recurrence.

“The trachoma is not the only disease that can be carried in raw sewage,” Larry cautioned. You must be careful…”

Caleb seemed to understand, somewhat dimly, that Arthur and Larry truly cared about him, and not just as a sexual partner for hire. The boy’s eyes glistened with tears as he returned to his room.

The boys left the next morning before breakfast. Caleb was the only one who saw them depart. He watched from the window of his attic bedroom. There was no miracle. His face was only marginally more alert than the day before. However, he did scrub his hands before breakfast.

*****

A tenday later, they found a cleaner inn by a cleaner village. The malaise that affected the people around them seemed to affect the boys as well, and they went to bed early. Some time during the night, George woke, and shivered. It wasn’t from the cold. He was snuggled beside Gary, and the blankets were thick. He sat up, and realized that Arthur, too, was awake.

“Did you hear it, too?” Arthur whispered.

“Hear what?” George asked. “I just…I just woke up. Was it an ear sound or a magic sound?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “It woke me. But it was over before I knew it. Will you stand watch? I am going to look at the matrix.”

In answer, George eased himself from the bed and found his sword on the chest against the wall. The air of the room was cold on his naked skin. He gestured carefully and slowly, and insulated his bare feet from the stone of the floor and his body from the cold air. “I’m ready,” he whispered.

Arthur lay back and closed his eyes. Careful not to disturb the magical field, he sent his senses along the lines of force. He passed the sparks he knew as George, Gary, and Larry. He sensed the difference between the once living wood of the walls and ceiling of their room, and the stone of the floor and the slate of the roof. He saw sparks in the adjacent room, and recognized them as the two tweens they’d met at supper, soldiers carrying the Royal Mail. There was a third spark. Ah, it’s the pot boy—earning a few pennies, or just having a good time, Arthur thought.

He pushed his perceptions farther. Where is the merchant? He wondered. He had the room next to the bath. He’s not there, now. Arthur pushed farther, passing the innkeeper and his family in their rooms beyond the kitchen. He passed the stables, noting that their horses were all right. And then he stopped. Horses. He counted. Ours and three more—the merchant and the soldiers. The merchant may not be here, but his horse is…

Arthur returned his attention to the merchant’s room. As might a harpist, he plucked a strand of magic, sending a packet of energy along the lines, into the merchant’s room. The echo returned in a microsecond, but the entity that had taken over and then discarded the merchant’s body was faster. Before Arthur could react, an apparition stood beside the bed, waving its arms and gathering power that it slammed into Arthur. Arthur slumped, unconscious.

George gasped as the hominid figure, glowing red, waved its arms again. It’s the devil, he thought when he saw the horns and barbed tail. No! It’s my imagination. In the space of these thoughts, George stepped across the room and swung his sword through the creature’s stomach. The blow did not meet the expected resistance, and George almost lost his balance.

He’s not… George’s inchoate thought was interrupted when the creature waved its arms again. George’s sword had distracted, but not harmed, the apparition.

A memory tugged at George’s mind. Without questioning it, he dropped his sword, limned his hands with boy magic, and gathered power. He spread his fingers. An orange sphere formed around the apparition. The creature batted at the sphere as if to brush it aside, but George’s magic held.

Larry and Gary had, by this time, wakened. They saw George bathed in orange light from a sphere on the other side of the bed. They saw power from his hands streaming into the sphere; they saw Arthur lying motionless.

“Help me,” George gasped. Larry and Gary fumbled, but recovered and began gathering magic. George closed his fingers and clenched his fists, willing the sphere to shrink. The creature within resisted, but the sphere isolated it from magic, and it began to weaken. George squeezed harder. The magic from Larry and Gary grew stronger. A point, George thought. A point has no dimensions, neither height nor depth nor width. Zero radius. Zero circumference. The sphere grew smaller and smaller. A pop and a faint scream echoed through the matrix. The creature was gone.

Within seconds of the creature’s disappearance—or destruction—Arthur woke to find himself surrounded by three very relieved boys who clambered over one another to hug and kiss him. “Are you okay?” “Where were you?” “What happened?” “What was that thing?” “Where did it go?” “Where did it come from?” “What did you do, George?” “Oh! Don’t step on your sword.”

The boys sat in a circle on the bed, wrapped in blankets and with their knees touching. Each held the hand of the boy next to him. George described what he had seen and what he had done. “It was just the heat spell,” he said. “The conduit to move heat, and the one to keep heat close to you. I just closed the conduit at both ends.”

“And you squeezed it to a point, and it disappeared,” Arthur said. “That was brilliant.”

George blushed unseen in the darkness. “Couldn’t have done it without Gary and Larry,” he said. “And it wasn’t my idea. It’s something I read about—in an adventure book by Robert Heinlein, actually.

“Was it the devil?” George added.

“You know better than that,” Arthur said. “There are no supernatural beings.”

“Synesthesia, then,” George said.

“Exactly. You saw something big, Evil, and powerful, and you interpreted it in a way you could understand.”

“But—why didn’t you feel it?” Larry asked. Arthur had described his search and the ping he’d sent.

“Because,” Arthur said, “it wasn’t Evil until I pinged it.”

“But, what was it?” Gary asked.

“What do you know about elementals?” Arthur asked.

“You mean like fire elementals?” “And air and water…” “And earth…” the boys chimed in.

“Um, nothing, really,” they admitted.

“The simplest elemental is a non-sentient creature of magical energy,” Arthur began. “Like magic, itself, it is neither Good nor Evil. Do you remember how the merchant looked yesterday?”

The boys nodded. The man had been…distant…was the word that came to mind. As if he were thinking deep thoughts, or…

“I think the merchant was already dead, and that the elemental was controlling his body…with the help of a powerful mage. I think that the elemental left the body last night, and would have come looking for us. My ping only speeded up what would have happened, perhaps later in the night.”

“Shouldn’t we leave, then?” Gary asked.

“What do you think, George?” Arthur said.

“No,” George said. Without waiting for Arthur’s question, he added, “The mage was in touch with the elemental. When we destroyed it, we probably didn’t destroy the mage—at least, we should assume we didn’t—but I’ll bet we gave him a shock. How far away could he have been?”

“As far as across the world,” Arthur said.

“That’s what I figured,” George said. “But we know he’s not too close, because Arthur would have seen him last night, right?”

Arthur nodded.

“So, he’s probably…well, at least far enough away not to worry about. We shouldn’t stay here another day, though.”

In the morning, the boys were wakened by loud voices from the hallway. With Arthur’s nod, George went to explore. When he came back, he reported. “The merchant was found, dead. The healer suspects a heart attack.” The boys looked at one another. They knew better.