The Call (The Magnificent 12 1)

Grimluk wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what a mummer’s game might be, and millennia would pass slowly by before Google would be created to answer questions such as this.

“Do you not know that all the world stands as if on the edge of a cliff eleven feet tall? And that all we know and hold dearest is in danger?”

“I know of the Pale Queen.”

“You know nothing.”

“I have seen her daughter. The Princess. Or so she called herself.”

The man in the mismatched armor took a step back. “Do you say that you have seen Princess Ereskigal?” He got a shrewd look on his face, or at least as much of his face as was visible beneath the brim of his helmet. “Tell me of her appearance.”

“Very beautiful. With hair the color of a flame. And she ate the head of a terrifying beast like a grasshopper standing on its hind legs.”

“Ereskigal!” the man said, and Grimluk saw that his hands shook. “This is dire news. Follow me. Come! You must go before the gerandon!”

“What’s a gerandon?”

“In the Vargran tongue its meaning is ‘conclave.’ Bumpkin! Do you know nothing?” He set off at a quick walk from the gate of the castle down a winding pathway overshadowed by high stone walls. With each step Grimluk was watched by alert archers who were ready to rain arrows down on him—into him, actually—if he made one false move.

The gerandon held court in the castle’s keep. Grimluk had never been anywhere so grand. It was at least eleven times more magnificent than the baron’s castle. For one thing, there were no farm animals in the room at all. For another thing, the walls were staggeringly tall. They seemed to go up and up forever before culminating in an arched roof that rested on massive buttresses.

At the farthest end of the room was an impressive throne of timber and leather, covered with animal pelts. It was currently unoccupied. It seemed that the king, the usual occupant of the throne, had discovered a pressing need to visit another country. He had discovered this pressing need approximately four seconds after hearing that the Pale Queen was on her way.

In the center of the room was a long, rectangular table. Placed around this table were high-backed chairs, and in the chairs sat a motley assortment of six men and one woman. Grimluk would have guessed even without being told that the men were wizards. All had long beards, varying from wispy and dark to full and gray to patchy and red. The woman did not have a beard, just a slight mustache.

She had to be a witch, Grimluk realized nervously. There weren’t many career paths that could put a woman into a position of power in those days. She was either a witch or a queen, and she didn’t look like a queen.

It was she who spoke.

“What interrupts our deliberations?”

The man in mismatched armor jerked a thumb at Grimluk. “This bumpkin—”

“I’m a fleer and a former horse leader, not a bumpkin,” Grimluk interrupted.

“This fleer, then, claims to have seen Princess Ereskigal.”

Seven sets of eyes, totaling eleven eyes in all (since the woman had but one eye, and one of the men had none), stared at him.

Grimluk gave a brief account of his encounter with the stunning redhead in the forest.

“This is bad, Drupe,” one of the men said to the woman.

“How far distant?” the witch Drupe asked Grimluk.

“Two days’ walk,” Grimluk said.

“Slow and ambling walk?” one of the wizards asked.

“Quick and anxious walking,” Grimluk said.

“Once again,” the eldest of the wizards said, “I renew my call for the creation of a standard

ized set of measurements.”

“Noted,” Drupe said wearily. She took a deep breath and stood up from her chair. She adjusted the patch over her missing eye and stretched a little, like someone who has been sitting too long. “The enemy approaches. Our forces are not ready. We have only eleven of the twelve. Once again we must withdraw, run away from the Dread Foe.”

“Ahem,” the man in the mismatched armor said.