The Call (The Magnificent 12 1)

“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.