“I don’t mean to be rude,” Mack said. “But it seems like everywhere we go, someone shows up and tries to kill us. So just tell me the quick version.”
“I am the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great—”
“Quicker than that.”
“Great-one-hundred-forty-nine-times-in-all–grandson of Grimluk and Gelidberry.” Dietmar frowned. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but you must. I know it seems incredible.”
“Incredible? Not really,” Mack said. “Last night a giant grasshopper tried to kill me, I was smacked by an elf, attacked by a shape-shifting death princess on the Great Wall of China, and I rode here on the back of a lovesick dragon.”
“I see,” Dietmar said.
“You see?” Mack echoed.
“All of this that seems so strange to you seems less strange to me,” Dietmar said. “I have long known of the enlightened puissance and its uses. When you perhaps spent your time in playing video games, I read ancient texts in forgotten languages.”
“What exactly is the enlightened puissance? That’s something I’d actually love to know,” Mack said, weary and feeling that Dietmar was a bit pedantic. So pedantic, in fact, that he probably knew just what pedantic meant without having to look it up. (Let’s save you the trouble. Some synonyms for pedantic: precise, exact, perfectionistic, punctilious, and quibbling.)
“The enlightened puissance is a sort of capability, a talent, you might say,” Dietmar lectured. “It is like electricity in that it powers other things: language, for example, or sight.”
“Yeah, it’s why we can use Vargran and most people can’t,” Jarrah said.
“Exactly,” Dietmar said. “But it is not an infinite power source. It is like a battery: if you use it too much, it weakens, and then it must be recharged.”
Mack narrowed his eyes. He was trying to decide whether Dietmar really knew a lot or was just acting like he did. “You mean it may suddenly fade out when we need it?”
Dietmar nodded. “Perhaps that is why there must be twelve Magnifica and not three or nine.”
“Or five,” Stefan guessed.
Dietmar said, “I think that’s implied.”
“How about four?” Stefan said.
“The enlightened puissance has a different frequency for each of us. At least that is what I believe, based on my reading.”
“Yeah, the reading you did while we were all playing games,” Mack said.
“Exactly,” Dietmar said, apparently not getting that Mack was being just a wee bit snarky. “We may find we each have specialties, things we can do that others of the twelve cannot.”
“Is your superpower talking a lot?” Stefan grumbled.
“It is a long walk from here to the Externsteine,” Dietmar said, pointedly ignoring Stefan. “Eight kilometers.” So as they walked through the outdoor museum, then out into the immaculate and manicured countryside, Mack heard the long version of Dietmar’s story, which we don’t need to inflict on ourselves right now. Suffice it to say a great deal had happened to Dietmar’s family in the last three thousand years. Lots of moving around, lots of begetting, some Huns, some Tartars, approximately eight hundred ninety-four wars, and finally up to the point where Dietmar began nosing around the sub-sub-subbasements of his family’s schloss and discovered their long, long, long history.
Dietmar was into details—exact details—so mostly Mack zoned out and looked around. There were woods coming up on the right. Dark woods.
“So what made you decide we would be here?” Mack asked.
“I thought you would be at the Externsteine, actually. But when I saw the fog, and saw that it was centered on the old village, I knew you were being guided there. It is not my first vision of the old ones.” Dietmar sighed. “I know that this is the year in which the Pale Queen rises. And I believed—or maybe I only hoped—that I was to be one of the Magnificent Twelve.”
“But why today?”
“I have ridden my bicycle out to the Externsteine every day since I learned that I possessed the enlightened puissance and perhaps was to be part of the Magnificent Twelve. Seventy-two days. Each day I rode my bicycle before school. And then after school I would go back.”
Just then Mack’s phone made a tinkly sound announcing a new message. He looked at the screen.
Camaro says I must dance. (smiley face) Your golem.
Camaro could only be Camaro Angianelli, the official bully of geeks back at Richard Gere Middle School. (Go, Fighting Pupfish!)