The Call (The Magnificent 12 1)

Grimluk found it hard to keep going. For one thing, he and Miladew and the rest spent much of their time only looking for food. And they spent a certain amount of time fighting the evil creatures Ereskigal sent to destroy them, in addition to just random folks who didn’t like strangers and thought it might be fun to stab them with spears.

But it was the death of Gelidberry and the nameless baby that weighed on Grimluk’s soul.

He had been friends with Bruise, and so that death added another layer of grief.

He was sustained by his growing closeness to Miladew. She was as elegant as ever, even though she was now dressed in buttonless yak pelts and was somewhat reduced in toothiness.

From time to time they would stop and find a place to stay for a while to recover. Each of these places felt the effects of the ever-dwindling Magnifica. Eleven times they had created small camps while they tried to find a new clue to the whereabouts of the princess. Each time they left an imprint of the enlightened puissance behind, a mark that would be felt in the mind and soul, though perhaps not seen.

Once they chanced to return to an earlier camp and there found that others had turned the site into a sacred place.

In the end it was just Grimluk and Miladew. All the others had lost their powers, or left discouraged, or died. Just the two of them reached a far, far shore. Rumor told of a great island, the last place on the six-cornered plane of earth that they had not yet visited.

“We must find a boat,” Grimluk said, gazing out at what looked very much like all the other oceans they had crossed.

“Yes,” Miladew said. “One final voyage.”

“Why final?” Grimluk asked her.

Miladew sighed. “Grimluk, we have traveled together for so long a time. We have done all that Drupe asked of us and more.”

“But we have not found the princess, so the Pale Queen cannot be killed.”

“Grimluk, do we not have a right to some measure of our own happiness?”

“Happiness?” Grimluk echoed sadly.

Miladew then did something she had never done before. She touched Grimluk’s now-scarred and sunburned face with her now-calloused fingers.

Her touch moved him deeply, in strange ways. Feelings he had not allowed himself since the death of Gelidberry surged through his liver.

“Um…,” Grimluk said.

“Grimluk, the time has come for you and I to make a new life together. The past is the past. Your beloved Gelidberry is no more.”

It was a thought at once frightening and enticing. Grimluk realized just how tired he was, how much he had aged during this interminable quest.

“Happiness is not my fate,” Grimluk said.

“Forget about fate,” Miladew snapped. “Don’t you get it? I love you, Grimluk.”

Natura

lly this was news to Grimluk. He was a guy, after all, and not always very aware of the finer points of human interactions.

He made a grave decision then. He had told Drupe he would never give up. He had told her he would act as the sentinel, surrender all hope of a life and live in grim and terrible isolation for the rest of his days.

But the truth was, he kind of liked Miladew back.

“We will undertake this last journey, to this island of mystery,” Grimluk said. “And there we shall search for the princess. But…”

“Yes?”

“But if she’s not there, then I kind of have to think we gave it our best shot, and future generations will just have to take care of themselves. After all, the Pale Queen is bound for three thousand years. Whatever that means.”

“It’s a number even larger than eleven or twelve,” Miladew said. “It is forever. Like my love for you.”

Grimluk gulped.