The Call (The Magnificent 12 1)

Grimluk had no more idea that Gelidberry had what enlightened puissance might be. But he didn’t see why he couldn’t possess it. Lots of it.

By this point Grimluk had swallowed half the tankard of mead.

“I have that,” Grimluk asserted. “I have a bunch of it.”

“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.”