“Of what?” Wick asked cagily, narrowing one narrow eye still further.
“Enlabored pittance,” Grimluk said.
“Is that how you pronounce it?” Wick asked.
“In my country, yes,” Grimluk said quickly.
“Then you must go. Go! Run to the castle and announce yourself, young man, for they await with ever-growing despair for the twelfth of the twelve!”
“Okay.” Then, “What’s twelve?”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Wick said kindly. “I only learned the concept yesterday myself. Here’s what it is: picture eleven. Right? Do you have eleven firmly fixed in your imagination?”
“Yes,” Grimluk said doubtfully.
“Well, twelve is one more than eleven.”
“What will they think of next?” Gelidberry said.
“Haste! Haste if ye truly possess the enlightened puissance.” Wick leaned across the table, blasting them with the smells of stale mead, gruel, sweat, horse, goat, leather, very dirty wool, and stable sweepings. “Haste! For surely if we find not the twelfth of the twelve, the Pale Queen…I mean…the Dread Foe will have us all, pikes or no pikes!”
This put Grimluk in a rather embarrassing situation. He’d opened his big mouth and announced that he had something he’d never seen and wouldn’t recognize if he tripped over it. And every tear-brimmed eye gazed at him now with hope and anticipation.
Gelidberry shrugged. “Go. What’s the worst that can happen? They’ll say no, and you take the pike job.”
What neither she, nor Grimluk could possibly know, was that Grimluk did indeed possess the enlightened puissance. He had it in spades.
And because he had it, he would never grow old with Gelidberry, or watch the nameless baby grow up.
Nine
Mack was somewhat disturbed by the incident of the snakes. If by “somewhat disturbed,” you mean “on the edge of complete meltdown panic.”
“That old dude in green was trying to kill me!” Mack wailed as the last of the snakes went noisily down the disposal.
“Yes. I believe he was,” the golem agreed.
“Why would he be trying to kill me? I just got Stefan and the bullies off my back, and now some guy who looks like he came straight from a Saint Patrick’s Day parade is trying to viper me to death?”
“I don’t understand any of that,” the golem said.
Mack grabbed the golem’s arm and stared hard into the face that was just like his own. “You need to tell me whatever you know.”
The golem shrugged. “I was made to replace you.”
“And I need replacing why, again?”
“Because you are leaving.”
“And where am I going?”
“Everywhere.”
“Aaaarrrgghhh!” Mack yelled in frustration. He had missed his bus. He needed to get to school. He needed to figure out what to do with Clay Boy. He needed to avoid getting bitten to death by snakes. And he was wishing he’d had the Breakfast Pocket because the Toaster Strudel hadn’t really filled him up.
“Okay, look,” Mack said. “I have to go. You stay away from my folks. Go sit in my room. Do not talk to anyone or answer the door. Will you do exactly what I’ve just told you?”
“Would you do what you were told?”
Mack’s expression darkened. “Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
“I am made in your image,” the golem pointed out.
Feeling far less than happy, Mack left and headed for school. He slipped in unnoticed just as the bell rang and kids came pouring out of their homerooms on their way to the next stop on the day-long March of Boredom.
“Yo,” Stefan said.
Mack was still not used to the idea that he was now under Stefan’s wing. His first gut reaction was to run. But that would probably have hurt Stefan’s feelings.
“Hey, Stefan,” Mack said.
“Where you going?”
“Math.”
“Cool. Let’s roll.”
Mack frowned. “You’re not in my math class, Stefan.”
“I am now.”
“But…can you do that?”
“Yes,” Stefan said with absolute confidence. And Mack could see his point. Whatever class he was skipping out on, the teacher would be glad to see him go, while the math teacher was not likely to pick a fight with Stefan.
“Fair enough,” Mack said. “I have to take a leak first.”
“Boys’ room? Or you want to use the teachers’ lounge?”
“The regular boys’ room will be fine,” Mack said, although he was beginning to see that there might be some definite advantages to this new relationship with Stefan.
They went to the boys’ room, which was moderately full of kids.
“Empty,” Stefan said to them, and jerked his chin toward the door.
There was the sound of zippers hastily drawn up and water flushing. In twenty seconds Mack had the boys’ room to himself.
“You don’t have to do that,” Mack said. But the truth was, he kind of enjoyed it. He disliked doing his business in crowds.
Then the light in the boys’ room changed.
“What’s happening?”
Stefan shrugged. “Light got weird. Like the other day, kinda.”
“Uh-oh,” Mack said.
The new light seemed to have a more specific source this time. In fact, it came from the shiny chrome pipe above the urinal.
There was a face in the pipe. The face of the old, old man with the bad smell. It was hard to tell whether he had brought his bad smell with him since this was, after all, the boys’ room and had its own distinctive aromas.
“You!” Mack said, accusing.
“Can you see me?” the ancient man asked.
“Yes, I can see you. Stefan, can you see him?”
Stefan looked over Mack’s shoulder and nodded. He seemed amazingly calm, as if this kind of thing happened all the time. “You want me to smash it?”
“No,” Mack said.
“Have you seen the golem?” the ancient creature asked in his dry-leaves voice.
“Yeah. And the snakes,” Mack snapped.
“I know not of snakes.”
“Yeah, well, I know of them,” Mack shot back. “Some old dude in green stuck ’em in my window. They bit all over the golem.”
The ancient’s eyebrows shot up. The effect was particularly odd since the round chrome surface exaggerated every expression. “This is very bad news.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too,” Mack said.
“The forces of the Dread Foe are already aware of you.”
“Okay. I don’t have any dread foes,” Mack said.
“He’s under my wing,” Stefan added belligerently.
“You have foes of which you dream not,” the old man rasped. “Foes which, if you only knew of them, your blood would freeze like a mountain stream in winter and your hands would tremble and lose their strength.”
Mack found this alarming. “Hey! I don’t have any enemies. I’m not looking for trouble. I have a math test.”
“We choose not our enemies. Your foes are the foes of your blood. For in your veins runs the blood true of the Magnifica.”
“Is that Latin?”
“You are called, young hero. Called! To save the world from the nameless evil.”
“What’s the name of this nameless evil?” Mack asked.
“The Pale Queen! But we name her not.”
“You just did.”
The old man looked irritated at being caught in a contradiction. “I am trying to move things along. I don’t have a lot of time. My magic is weak, nowhere near what it once was. I fail…I weaken…I can scarce hear you or make myself heard in return.”
“Then spit it out, grandpa,” Stefan snarled.
The ancient glanced at Stefan. “This one will be useful. You will have need for a wild dog such as this.”
Mack thought Stefan might take offense at this, but Stefan only swelled a little bit and nodded in agreement.
“I will spit it,” the ancient said. “I am called Grimluk. One of the first great band of heroes called the Magnifica. We it was who first fought the Pale Que—the Dread Foe and bound her tightly within the bowels of the earth never again to trouble poor frightened humanity. We placed spells that would keep the world safe forever!”
“Okay, then we have nothing to worry about, right?” Mack said hopefully.
“Well…,” Grimluk said.
“Uh-oh.”
“You must understand that this all happened a very long time ago. These were the days before most people knew anything of numbers. We had no algebra. Nor did we partake of geometry. Or long division. Or multiplication.”
“So you had…”
“We could add and subtract. In theory. In practice most people could count only to ten. Nine if they’d had an accident with a scythe. Which was very common.”
“And?” Mack urged.
“And in those long-ago days ten was a very big number. A rich man was an elevenaire. Peasants would fantasize about striking it rich in the lottery and having ten of…of anything.”
“I would have been happy then,” Stefan said thoughtfully.
“So, when we were deciding how long to imprison the Dread Foe, we called upon our greatest astrologers, our mathematical prodigies, importing great thinkers from the four corners of the earth. They worked for weeks and weeks. Maybe as many as eleven weeks to conceive of a number so impossibly large that it would be the greatest number ever conceived by human minds!” He sighed, and for a moment the image faded.
“Hey!”
“Sorry.” The face was back. “The number these geniuses conceived was…three thousand!”
“So you tied up this Pale Queen for three thousand years.”
“Exactly. Forever. Or so we thought. It turns out three thousand years is still not forever. And now the three thousand years has all but run its course. In just a few months the Dread Foe will be loosed in all her fury, all her rage, all her sphincter-clenching, heart-clutching, throat-gobbling, spit-drying, blood-freezing, bowel-loosening terror!”
“Dude. No offense, but you guys had what? Swords? Sticks? Pitchforks? We have guns and tanks and jets. So if this Pale Queen pops up, the marines will take care of her.”
“Arrogant young fool!” Grimluk cried, suddenly agitated. “Do you think the Pale Queen slept these long years? Think you that she has no knowledge of your world and its marvels? Ha! All that you possess, she possesses as well. Your knowledge is hers, too. Plus, all the terrible powers of her magic. Your guns will turn to twigs, your deadly craft all obliterated! She comes to kill all she wishes and enslave the rest.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” Mack said.
“Oh? Then how is it that you converse with an image in a mirror?”
Grimluk had him there. Plus there was the golem.
Mack decided against pointing out that it wasn’t so much a mirror as a shiny toilet pipe.
“My time is short, Mack of the Magnifica, in whose veins flows the long-attenuated blood of ancient heroes. You must go. Now! For the enemy has your scent, and although the Dread Foe is still bound within her subterranean lair, her minions run riot. The Skirrit, the giant Gudridan, the treasonous Tong Elves, the Bowands, and her own spawn, the Weramin! And forget not her worldly allies, the devious Nafia. It was surely they who attempted to kill you with snakes.”
“Okay, enough, all right?” Mack said. It was getting to him. He was feeling fear, true fear, begin to form like a ball in his chest.
“Listen, for my time is run out,” Grimluk said. “I will help when I may. You must assemble a new twelve of twelves. Bring the twelve new Magnifica together from the corners of the earth and find a way to bind the Dread Foe again.”
“How am I supposed to do this?” Mack demanded. “I’m missing a math test. I have PE next after that. I’m kind of busy.”
“Find the way of Vargran, young one. Or truly, all the world will die. But first, if you return to your home and hearth, you will draw the enemy like nectar draws the bee, and all those who know you, all who love you, will be destroyed!”
“Vargran?”
“I fade…,” Grimluk said sadly. “Much is left to tell but…power…no longer…” He was flickering now, and the sound of his voice was like a cell phone call breaking up. “You will be…contacted.”
Then he and his weird light were gone.
“Huh,” Stefan said.
“This is nuts,” Mack said. “No way. I mean, seriously, someone slipped some bad peanut butter into our cookies or whatever. We’re hallucinating.”
The bathroom door opened then.
Framed there was the old man in green.
He grinned with surprisingly white teeth. He hefted his walking stick in one hand. He grabbed the knob atop his stick with the other.
And he drew out a very bright, very sharp-looking sword.
Ten
“Have at you!” the green man said.
He lunged at Mack, needle-sharp point thrusting straight toward Mack’s heart.
But the man in green was very old. Very old. Probably not as old as the spectral Grimluk, but way old.
So the sword point didn’t exactly slice through the air. It was more a case of it trembling forward. Mack leaped to one side, and between the time when he leaped aside and the sword reached the place he’d been, he had time to stop and tie his shoe. Understand—he didn’t stop to tie his shoe. But he could have.
The man in green frowned. He stared at the place where Mack had been.
He turned rheumy green eyes left and right and finally located Mack, shrinking up against a stall door.
He began to swing the sword in an arc that would slice Mack right across the throat, if he stood there long enough.
Stefan stepped forward and grabbed the man’s sword arm. “Hey. Stop that, old man.” He took the sword and the walking stick and thrust the sword back into it. “Cool stick,” Stefan observed.
“Unhand me!” the old guy yelled.
“Whatever,” Stefan said, and released the man.
“Why are you trying to skewer me?” Mack demanded, outraged.
The old man started to answer, but then raised one finger indicating he needed a moment. He fumbled inside his green blazer and drew out a clear plastic tube that ended in a clear plastic mouthpiece.
He pressed the mouthpiece against his lips and nose and breathed deeply. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five times.
Six times.
And…seven.
“Oxygen. I can’t take this altitude,” he explained.
“Should I call a doctor?” Mack asked.
“Ha!” the man said. “I’ll see you in your unmarked grave, you young…” He held up his finger again and took several more draws of the oxygen.
“You’ll rue the day you ever heard the name Paddy ‘Nine Iron’ Trout.”
“Actually, this is the first I’ve heard it,” Mack pointed out. “And that thing with the snakes was seriously uncool.”
“Snakes?” Stefan asked.
“This old dude put poisonous snakes in my window. They would have killed me, too, only they went for the golem.”
Stefan nodded as if he understood. He didn’t.
“You can run, but you cannot hide from the fist of the Nafia,” Nine Iron said. He made a fierce face, and Mack could kind of see where back in the day—like sixty, seventy years ago—it would have been a scary look. Now he mostly noticed the way Nine Iron paused between each word to either lick his lips or suck on his oxygen.
“The Mafia?” Mack asked. “Like Tony Soprano?”
“That was a great show,” Stefan said. “Like when Ton’ took out Christopha? Cold, man.”
“Not the Mafia, the Nafia,” Nine Iron said. And some time later he waved a dismissive hand. “The Mafia, ha! They got it all from us. Bunch of copycats. Why, when I was a whelp just coming up—”
The story was interrupted by a kid coming in
. Stefan jerked his chin at the boy, and they were alone again.
“Okay, look, I have classes to get to,” Mack said. “But you have to stop bothering me. I’m not looking for trouble.”
“Well, trouble has found you,” Nine Iron said. “You think the Great Queen is blind and senile? That old fool Grimluk has put the queen’s mark on you, young meddler.”
“Queen’s mark?”
“You and all those who would help you carry the mark upon them. All who worship the Pale One will pursue you unto death! Until you and all you love are dead! Dead!” He held up both shaky hands and lifted his watery eyes to the bathroom ceiling. “She comes, bringing everlasting youth and great power to all those who serve her! And for you?” His ancient, wrinkled face was suddenly hard, and his eyes, despite their unfocused yellow look, were lit from within by a hard glint of hatred.
“You”—he pointed his arthritic claw at Mack—“you shall suffer and die! And I will laugh!”
He then laughed, but Mack decided pretty quickly that Nine Iron’s prediction wasn’t really funny.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mack said.
“Look you, boy,” Nine Iron said, and his voice had grown silky smooth. “I’ll make it quick and painless for you. Better to let me do it now than to see your family go first, and you only at the end, and painfully. More painfully than you can possibly imagine.”
Mack and Stefan left the old man in the boys’ bathroom. A line had formed outside. “Go somewhere else,” Stefan said.
Mack walked quickly down the hall. Stefan fell in beside him.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” Mack said. “But you heard the guy. Anyone around me could be in trouble.”
“You got no worries,” Stefan said. “You are under my wing.”
“Dude. I seriously appreciate that. But you didn’t spend part of your morning grinding up poisonous snakes in a garbage disposal.”
“You scared of that old guy? Paddy Wacky, whatever his name was?”
“Yeah,” Mack said. “Maybe it’s just me, but I start getting kind of nervous when people violate the laws of physics, talking out of toilets and all. Not to mention the whole boy-made-out-of-clay thing. Call me a wuss, but my weird limit has been reached.”