The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

One

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“Let me out of here, you crazy old man!” Mack cried.

“Ye’ll ne’er lea’ ’ere alive. Or at least ye wilnae be alive fur lang. Ha-ha-ha!” Which was Scottish, more or less, for, “You’ll never leave here alive. Or at least you won’t be alive for long. Ha-ha-ha!”

The Scots are known for butchering the English language and for their ingenuity with building things. The first steam engine? Scottish guy invented it. The first raincoat? A Scot invented that, too. The first television, telephone, bicycle—all invented by Scots.

They’re a very handy race.

And the first catapult designed to hurl a twelve-year-old boy from the top of the tallest tower in a castle notable for its tall towers? It turns out that, too, was invented by a Scot, and his name was William Blisterthöng MacGuffin.

The twelve-year-old boy in question was David MacAvoy. All his friends called him Mack, and so did William Blisterthöng MacGuffin, although they were definitely not friends.

“Ye see, Mack, mah wee jimmy, whin ah cut th’ rope, they stones thare, whit we ca’ th’ counterweight, drop ’n’ yank this end doon while at th’ same time ye gang flying thro’ th’ air.”

Mack did see this.

Actually the catapult was surprisingly easy to understand, although Mack had never been good at science. The catapult was shaped a little like a long-handled spoon that balanced on a backyard swing set. A rough-timbered basket full of massive granite rocks was attached to the short handle end of the spoon. The business end of the spoon, where it might have contained chicken noodle soup or minestrone, was filled with Mack.

Mack was tied up. He was a hog-tied little bundle of fear.

The spoon, er, catapult, had been cranked so that the rock end was in the air and the Mack end was down low. A rope held the Mack end down—a rope that twanged with the effort of holding all that weight in check. A rope whose short fibers were already popping out. A rope that looked rather old and frayed to begin with.

William Blisterthöng MacGuffin, a huge, burly, red-haired, red-bearded, red-eyebrowed, red-chest-haired, red-wrist-haired man in a plaid skirt1 held a broadsword that could, with a single sweeping motion, cut the rope. Which would allow the rocks to swiftly drag down the short end of the spoon while hurling Mack through the air.

“Ye invaded mah privacy uninvited, ye annoying besom. And now ye’ve drawn the yak o’ th’ Pale Queen, ye gowk!”

Or in decent, proper English, “You invaded my privacy uninvited, you annoying brat. And now you’ve drawn the eye of the Pale Queen, you ninny.”

How far could the catapult throw Mack? Well, a well-made catapult … actually, you know what? This particular kind of catapult is called a trebuchet. Treh-boo-shay. Let’s use the proper vocabulary out of respect for Mack’s imminent death.

A well-made trebuchet (this one looked pretty well made) can easily hurl 100 kilos (or approximately two Macks) a distance of 1,000 feet.

Let’s picture 1,000 feet, shall we? It’s three football fields. It’s just a little less than if you laid the Empire State Building down flat. It’s long enough that if you started screaming at the moment of launch, you’d have time to scream yourself out, take a deep breath, check your messages, and scream yourself out again.

That would be pretty bad.

Unfortunately it got worse. The castle tower was about 300 feet tall. The castle itself sat perched precariously atop a spur of lichen-crusted rock that shot 400 feet above the surrounding land.

So let’s do the math. Three hundred feet plus 400 feet makes a 700-foot vertical drop. And the horizontal distance was about 1,000 feet.

At the end of all that math was a second ruined castle, which sat beside Loch Ness.

In Loch Ness was the Loch Ness monster. But Mack wouldn’t be hitting the lake; he’d be hitting the stone walls of that second castle, Urquhart Castle. He would hit it so hard, his body would become part of the mortar between the stones of that castle.

“Dae ye huv ony lest words tae say afore ah murdurr ye?”

“Yes! I have last words to say before you murder me! Yes! My last words are: don’t murder me!”

Mack could have used some magical words of Vargran. He was totally capable of speaking it. Totally.

If.

If Mack had taken some time to study what words of Vargran had been given to him and his friends. Sadly, when Mack might have been studying he rode the London Eye Ferris wheel instead. And the next time he could have been studying he downloaded a game on his phone instead and played Mage Gauntlet for six hours. And the next time … Well, you get the idea.2

So instead of whipping out some well-chosen magical words, Mack could only say, “Seriously: please don’t murder me.”

Which is just pathetic.

Look, we all know Mack is the hero of the story. And we all know the hero can’t be killed. So there’s no way he’s just going to be slammed into a ruined castle and—

“Cheerio the nou, ye scunner,” MacGuffin said, and he swung the sword.

The blade parted the frayed rope.

But wait, seriously? Mack’s going to die?

Gravity worked the way it usually does, and the big basket of rocks dropped like a big basket of rocks.

Hey! If Mack dies, the world is doomed and the Pale Queen wins!

“Aaaahhh!” Mack screamed.

He flew like a cannonball toward certain death.

Let’s avert our gazes from the place and moment of impact.

No one wants to see what happens to a kid when he hits a stone wall—it’s just too gruesome and disturbing. So let’s back the story up a little and see how Mack got himself into this mess to begin with.

In fact, let’s do some ellipses to signal that we are going back in time … to the day before …

Before …

“Ahhhhh!” Mack cried, gripping the dashboard. He was seated next to Stefan, who was driving.

“Aieeee!” Xiao cried, gripping the back of Mack’s seat.

“Acchhh!” Dietmar cried, hugging himself and rocking back and forth.

“Yeee hah!” Jarrah shouted, flashing a huge grin as she pumped her fist in the seat behind Stefan.