The Power (The Magnificent 12 4)

Like, say, an eyeball.

In all honesty, the ants were not as creepy as the giraffe-necked beetles that had been exploring Mack’s face just minutes before. But Mack had gotten rid of the beetles using his enlightened puissance—the mystical power possessed by only a few—and some words from the Vargran language—known to even fewer.

All he’d had to do was yell, “Lom-ma fabfor!”4 and the beetles had disappeared. Mack had been studying his Vargran. He was all Vargraned up. He had come to the Punjab ready for trouble. Just one little problem: the enlightened puissance isn’t some endless water faucet with power just flowing out like, well, water. No, it’s more like a drip drip drip of water. It comes, then it stops, then slowly, sloooowly it builds back up until there’s enough to drip. A treasonous Tong Elf had once told him it took a full day, but Tong Elves lied. Still, it took a while, and while you were waiting for it to build back up . . . you’d find that ants had replaced the beetles, and now where were you?

Well, you were staked out by the chulks of Brembles in the Punjab with ants in your eyeballs, that’s where you were.

“Ahhhh!” he gasped because right then an ant bit him. Not the eyeball ant. An ear ant. An ant just inside his ear. The bottom part of the ear canal, if you want to be really specific.

It felt exactly like someone had heated a needle over a fire and then stabbed it into his ear canal. Not good.

“Ahhhh!” Mack cried again, straining for breath. “That hurts!”

“Aha! I see they are biting,” Valin gloated. “That’s very bad news, Mack, my timeless foe, because once one ant starts, they all get into it. Within a minute, a hundred ants will sink their painful stingers into you! You will cry out in pain. Then you will swell up. And of course die. And thus will my family’s honor be avenged!”

“I am not your timeless foe, you lunatic!”

Valin was standing over him but providing no shade from the blazing sun above. He was dressed flamboyantly in puffy zebra-striped pantaloons, black leather boots that rose to his knees, and a purple vest over no shirt. To top it all off, he had an amazing hat that looked like the kind of thing Puss in Boots or maybe a pirate might wear. It had an actual pink feather. From his wide belt hung a dagger and a short sword.

It was an eccentric look.

Beyond Valin stood the terrible Nafia5 assassin Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout. Paddy was an elderly gentleman dressed all in green. Green suede shoes, green slacks, a green-and-yellow waistcoat over a very pale green shirt but beneath a bright-green sport coat. And on top of his shiny, bald head, there was a green bowler hat.

Even in India, which is a diverse and tolerant country known for interesting clothing, Valin and Paddy stood out. It’s not every day you see a pantalooned twelve-year-old with a sword traveling with a green-clad hundred-year-old Nafia assassin.

“Just let me kill . . . ,” Paddy wheezed. He stopped, pulled a clear plastic respirator mask from his inside coat pocket, put it over his mouth and nose, and drew a deep breath. Then another.

And . . . another.

And . . .

. . . one more.

“Him,” Paddy said finally, concluding the sentence which had begun, “Just let me kill.”

Valin shook his head. “You are my mentor, Nine Iron, but this is a matter of family honor. First he must endure a hundred fiery stings!”

“As you . . . ,” Paddy began.

And . . . breathed.

Okay, one more . . .

“Wish,” Paddy concluded.

“Let me go!” Mack cried. He pulled at the chulks, but no, he wasn’t pulling his way out of this one. The Brembles had him. Valin had him.

And the ants had him.

A second ant stung.

A third.

And now the stinging signal went out through all the ants.

Mack was about to die a most terrible death.

Really.